RAS AL KHAIMAH // Snow covered the Jebel Jais area for only the second time in recorded history yesterday.
So rare was the event that one lifelong resident said the local dialect had no word for it.
The environment and global warming are among the laggards at the bottom, with global warming dead last.
What does this tell me? It confirms that the new green economy has to be about making money and creating jobs and get beyond global warming.
A deeply flawed new report will be cited ad nauseam by everyone from the BBC to Al Gore, says Christopher Booker.Barack Obama inauguration: this Emperor has no clothes, it will all end in tears :: Gerald Warner
Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is like one of those toxic packages traded by bankers: it camouflages many unaffordable gifts to his client state. With a federal deficit already at $1.2 trillion, Obama wants to squander $825 billion (which will undoubtedly mushroom to more than $1 trillion) on creating 600,000 more government jobs and a further 459,000 in "green energy" (useless wind turbines and other Heath-Robinson contraptions favoured by Beltway environmentalists).
Tufts economist Gilbert Metcalf ran the numbers and found that the effective tax rate for wind is minus-163.8%. In other words, every dollar a wind firm spends is subsidized to the tune of 64 cents from the government. The Energy Information Administration estimates that wind receives $23.37 in government benefits per megawatt hour -- compared to, say, 44 cents for coal. Despite these taxpayer crutches, wind only provides a little under 1% of U.S. net electric generation.Cape Wind and Its DIscontents - Edward John Craig - Planet Gore on National Review Online
We'd prefer an energy policy that allows markets to shape the sources that predominate -- which would almost certainly put Cape Wind out of business. But President Obama seems determined to unload even more subsidies on green developers as he seeks to boost renewables to 10% of the U.S. electricity mix by the end of his first term and 25% by 2025; their share today is about 9% (5.8% of which is hydropower).
The lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal today, entitled “Blowhards” and excerpted below, is a heartwarming tale of green hypocrisy and aggrieved NIMBYism. It details the efforts of some of our favorite environmentally holier-than-thou Democrats to prevent a wind farm in Nantucket Sound.
Now, personally, having done some sailing around Nantucket Sound—including Hyanniport, where I witnessed Robert Kennedy tooling around in a fume-and-fuel-spewing powerboat—I would agree that Cape Wind’s massive towers would be horizon-marring eyesores. But all the aggrieved parties sited want these kind of wind towers built—just in someone else’s backyard. So pardon the schadenfreude.
- I will be signing a contract with a big film company in Los Angeles concerning my dive at the South Pole. I can`t say anything more, you will find out everything in time – Croatian diver Kristijan Curavic told the Jutarnji list daily.Don't Mess with My Peanut Butter | Jacksonville.com
His new project `South Pole Abyss-Against Global Warming` is to be realised at the end of year and the rumour is that it includes certain Hollywood legends like Leonardo di Caprio and George Clooney. They should promote his campaign in Croatia as well.
Thus, Kristijan`s girlfriend Nikolika Pisek will move to the States with him for a while, who revealed they will be travelling soon.
- We should travel to America soon. Kristijan is going to Los Angeles on business and I`m tagging along. I`d like to pop down to Hawaii, because I`ve never been there – Nikolina said, otherwise a TV host.
All the debate about global warming, for example, has not in the least disturbed my personal serenity. Some say the earth is getting warmer while others insist it is getting cooler. Who in the world are you to believe? One scientist frantically reported that if we do not do something quickly in 1500 years the earth is going to get 10° warmer than it is right now. One can only hope he was not a Rhodes scholar.Steig's Silence « Climate Audit
Once upon a time, in the mists of time (Feb 2008), long before climate scientists had "moved on", realclimate featured a post entitled Antarctica is Cold? Yeah, We Knew That...They're going to miss it when it's gone: For now, CO2 hysteria is still paying off with expenses-paid trips to exotic locales to "save the world"
'The funding will enable a team from Leicester to visit South Africa in 2009 for a workshop at the Skukuza in the Kruger National Park. The sites in the Kruger Park have been used for decades for controlled burning experiments, and more recently for measuring carbon dioxide exchanges between land and atmosphere. The workshop will include time for networking activities, field techniques training, knowledge exchange and developing plans for research funding bids.'
More recent scientific work has thoroughly debunked the Mann "hockey stick" analysis. It has been shown to rest on "collation errors, unjustified truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, incorrect principal component calculations, geographical mislocations and other serious defects," as well as "incorrect mathematics." There are indications, at least, that some of the errors on the part of Mann and his collaborators were deliberate--an instance of the corruption of science by politics and perverse financial incentives that underlies the entire global warming movement.Twitter / earth_girl
Andrew Bostom provides an excellent short summary of the significance of the hockey stick and its debunking by more rigorous scientists, which is readily understandable by the lay reader.
admits it's a tad chilly, but reminds you that despite the paradox it's actually symptomatic of global warming.Bootleggers and Baptists Tackle (Carbon) Prohibition — MasterResource
The politics of climate change is commonly thought of as a straightforward morality play. In one corner, we have the good guys laboring mightily against all odds to save the planet from rampant consumerism, human short-sightedness, and corporate greed. In the other corner, we have the bad guys, laboring mightily to preserve their profits by stoking materialism, economic selfishness, and fear of big government. Behind the curtains of this morality play, however, is a fascinating dance between the “good guys” (the Baptists) and “bad guys” (the bootleggers) to pass some form of mutually beneficial prohibition.
My second film is “For Whom The Jingle Bells Toll?” (English/29 minutes/2003). It’s a story of my homecoming to Shimla, to find there’s no longer a ‘White Christmas’. Whether you are a Christian or a Hindu, climate change doesn’t discriminate!... Environmentalist, and Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr R K Pachauri, flew from Delhi to Mumbai for the film’s première. ...Recently, the film has been donated to the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh for screening in schools.Follow Gandhi to tackle climate change: Pachauri to Europe
Brussels, March 27 (IANS) Indian environmental scientist Rajendra Pachauri has said that Europe can set an example for the world in tackling climate change if it follows what it preaches. He said that Europe should follow Mahatma Gandhi’s advice to “be the change you want to see in the world”.
A preliminary list of things that have been - or people think should be - banned because of global warming follows. Additions to the list are welcomed in comments...[Via Skeptics Global Warming]The Reference Frame: Microcanonical leftists & cap-and-trade system
If the carbon dioxide emissions are viewed as "finite damages", someone should have at least a vague idea what are the damages caused by one ton of CO2. I believe that they're zero, if not negative, but those people who believe that CO2 hurts should have a positive number in mind and an argument that justifies it.
A panel of experts recently took on these questions in an Oxford-style debate. The motion for the Jan. 13 debate, part of the Intelligence Squared U.S. series, was: "Major Reductions in Carbon Emissions Are Not Worth the Money."More about the above debate
Three experts argued in favor of the motion; three against. Before the debate, the audience at Symphony Space in New York City voted 16 percent in favor of the motion and 49 percent against, with 35 percent undecided. By the end of the debate, those arguing for the motion had changed the most minds: Forty-two percent voted in favor of the proposition "Major Reductions in Carbon Emissions Are Not Worth the Money," while 48 percent voted against it and 10 percent were still undecided.
Speaking for the motion: Peter Huber, Bjorn Lomborg and Philip Stott
Speaking against the motion: WL. Hunter Lovins, Oliver Tickell and Adam Werbach
Moderator: John Donvan
DEBATE TRANSCRIPT
Take that Al Gore, and Barack Obama, and John McCain, and Joe Lieberman, and .....The high costs of climate change policies - OregonLive.com
New Scientist says that the 90 year-old Lovelock has "a trip into space scheduled for later in the year." If this feat gets the expected press attention, it will be interesting to see how the media treats his environmental views, and whether they note the irony of "The Prophet of Climate Change" likely burning large amounts of fossil fuel to power his voyage.
There is no getting around it: both carbon taxes and cap-and-trade programs raise energy prices. If either program is put into effect, households, businesses, and the public sector will have steeper power bills and will pay more to drive their vehicles. To meet the reduction
goals, the costs will have to be very steep. In a recent study I co-authored with Randall Pozdena, we calculated that meeting the goals would mean Oregon's economic growth would be cut almost in half. In turn, state and local governments would collect $4.4 billion less in
revenues.
Numerous businesses are shrinking, closing shop, or exiting the state, leaving Oregon with almost double digit unemployment. Higher energy prices under a carbon tax or cap-and-trade program will only make things worse.
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Eric Fruits, Ph.D. is a Portland-based economist.
John Stossel discusses the question of global warming being caused by humans.
This is why I don’t respond to references from real climate. They will say anything to support their theory of the moment is. Their latest is in direct contradiction to their latest from February, yet they already knew all of it and it is all perfectly consistent with ‘accepted’ global warming.Korea: Cold Snap, Snow Paralyze Homebound Traffic
The journey of millions of Koreans to hometowns across the country to celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday continued Saturday amid heavy snowfall and cold snap disrupting traffic on main roads of major cities.March '08, National Geographic: Global Warming to Affect U.S. Transport
Flooded roads and subways, deformed railroad tracks, and weakened bridges may be the wave of the future with continuing global warming, a new study says.
Climate change will affect every type of transportation through rising sea levels, increased rainfall, and surges from more intense storms, the National Research Council said in a report released Tuesday.
"The whole fashion system will have to change," Beppe Modenese, founder of Milan Fashion Week, told The New York Times last week.Now: "Bitter cold" driving some to buy fur coats
"The fashion system must adapt to the reality that there is no strong difference between summer and winter any more… You can't have everyone showing four times a year to present the same thing. People are not prepared to invest in these clothes that, from one season to the other, use the same fabrics at the same weight."
...But December, 2008, was actually better than December, 2007. The Magders guess that the bitter winter is driving some to fur.
Cold weather encourages the spread of the virus and large swathes of China have been hit by sub-zero temperatures in recent days.Could region be in for harsher weather for next few years? | Jamestown, North Dakota
The cold and snowy winter this season might be attributed to a change in temperature of the Pacific Ocean, said John Wheeler, meteorologist for Forum Communications Co. If that proves true the northern Plains could see several years of harsher weather in the future.
“2008 was the coldest year since 1996,” Wheeler said. “That is a break in a trend of much above average weather and might be attributed to a shift in weather patterns involving sea surface temperatures in the Pacific.”
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation was discovered by fisheries scientists studying cycles in salmon populations in the late 1990s. They found surface temperatures of the eastern Pacific Ocean vary on about a 30-year cycle not only affecting fish populations but the weather inland. By studying historic records they have been able to establish a record of the phenomenon back to the 1880s.
Podcast: Lord Christopher Monckton sharing what he will present at NYC Climate Skeptic Conference sponsored by the Heartland Institute
Podcast: Facts & fiction of global warming
Podcast: Consensus by group-think - it's not science, though
8:25AM on CNN the weather guy just said he's not sold on Global Warming. Look for a new weather guy tommorow on CNN.East Hill Notes: Cornell presents climate change series | theithacajournal.com | The Ithaca Journal
The first in a series of Cornell Climate Change Forums themed "Climate Controversies" is set for 4:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 26, led by Bill Hare from the Potsdam Institute on Climate Impact. This session, free and open to the public, will be in the Goldwin Smith Hall auditorium and is sponsored by the Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future. The Climate Change Forum is led by Cornell faculty in the natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities, who seek "effective and just responses" to the challenge of global warming.Brazil’s National Plan on Climate Change & the Amazon Fund:“This plan does't create carbon credits or right to emissions”
Recently, the government recovered 1.4 million cubic metres of illegal wood and 700 people were put in prison.
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When the presentations were finished, a Greenpeace representative congratulated Brazil. We should celebrate the launch of the fund he said. The targets could be a little faster, but Greenpeace welcomed the fact that the plan will be additional. The plan will not allow carbon credits and will not allow offsets.
Two prominent Ontario cabinet ministers have come out in favour of converting the Courtright facility -- and the province's other coal-fired plants -- to biomass fuel.Burning biomass contributes 70% of brown cloud soot, says research - Economy and Politics - livemint.com
"We have an opportunity to preserve the capital asset and use it for something else that's tremendously sound from an environmental standpoint," Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman said Friday.
In Friday’s issue of Science magazine, researchers from India, Sweden and the Maldives report that biomass combustion contributes 70% of the soot in the brown cloud as against some previous studies that claimed fossil fuels accounted for 50-90% of it.
Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany - German scientists took delivery Saturday of a high-altitude research jet which can be used to study the high atmosphere and climate change. Gulfstream of Savannah, Georgia customized a 19-seat G 550 business jet for Germany so that it can reach an altitude of 15,500 metres to study air pollution.We should be outraged over travel expenses - The Sault Star - Ontario, CA
The Star said its investigation found spending by ministers, political staff and bureaucrats to be far from the frugal image of the Harper government.Don't let fear of gobal warming hinder progress | lancastereaglegazette.com
"Some federal travellers can't seem to get to London, England, for less than $6,000, even though economy seats were available for $1,000 to $2,000," the Star said. "In our analysis of 60,000 travel records over four years, we found $18,000 flights to Australia, $7,000 flights to Paris, $11,000 flights to Indonesia and $8,000 flights to Switzerland.
"By contrast, travel surveys show businesses are reducing costs by choosing more economical flights."
The Star said at least one provincial government has followed suit. The Alberta environment minister and an aide spent $3,200 each to fly to Bali for a United Nations conference on climate change. Former federal environment minister John Baird spent $10,920 for a flight to the same conference. Add in three political aides and two bureaucrats at similar rates and the total airfare cost to the Canadian taxpayer was $61,000.
The Star said it found that Harper's ministers often travel with a large entourage at high cost.
One wonders if we proceed on the assumption that our technology is causing global warming, and pass laws accordingly, how many future technological pacesetters will be stifled by unnecessarily stringent environmental regulations.
Had today's overzealous environmentalist been around at the inception of the automobile, would the model "T" ever have existed at all? To its credit, the "T" had a very clean-burning power plant, with its long-stroke and low compression ratio, and manual spark advance control.
Do we really want regulations based on unproven assumptions that might do serious damage to technological progress in our future?
Obama hinted at what he intends do about embryonic stem cell research and possibly "global warming," saying he wants to "restore science to its rightful place." What place would that be? Above morality and common sense? Above other scientists who disagree?Cold Snap Strikes Again | News Talk 650
There is no consensus about global warming. In fact, there are growing numbers of scientists and growing amounts of scientific evidence questioning whether this is indeed a dangerously warming planet. Will Obama rely only on those scientists who agree with his political positions?
Saskatchewan has been plunged right back into the deep freeze, with extreme windchills in the mid minus 40s.Green stays easy at the Maui Four Seasons
It's a good thing Air Canada didn't play any of the movies making their debut at the Maui Film Festival during my flight to this heavenly Hawaiian island.Global warming based on phony science | Green Bay Press-Gazette
The featured films, with titles like Spotlight Earth, A Beginner's Guide to Giving a Damn about Climate Change and Penguin in a Pickle, made me feel G.U.I.L.T.Y. about my dependence on oil products for personal pleasure.
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This resort franchise owned by Michael Dell of Dell Computers makes it extremely easy for you to stay put.
Where's Al Gore? He needs to warm our globe.
Science is built on fact. If man-made warming were true, all scientists would agree. Many scientists call it a hoax.
A policy colleague from Washington state just left me a message to let me know a state official there just publicly insisted that Europe had actually suffered no costs from its failed experiment with cap-and-trade. Let's leave it to the natives to have some fun with it, but while keeping an eye peeled for the fallout, because that's a . . . what's the word I'm look- . . . oh, right, a lie.Letter: Don't blame CO2
I have taken note that of late the editor of The Daily Astorian is pushing this hoax, "global warming." He makes a statement to the effect that global warming is almost universally accepted, and well it should be, with every media outlet singing its praises, and an endless number of shills with respected names in science and other fields lending their names to it.Cold snap could cause more flooding: official - Peterborough Examiner - Ontario, CA
Let me be blunt. I am tired of the editor, and others, bashing and vilifying my favorite gas, carbon dioxide. It can put out fires, keep things really cold, it is the breath of life to my chlorophyllic friends and it is the bubbles in my beer.
The weather forecast calls for the relatively warm period over the last couple of days to be replaced by -12 C to -22 C temperatures this weekend, which could create frazil ice and cause more flooding, said David Johnston, a flood forecasting and warning duty officer with the conservation authority.Fish farms reel from cold | 10connects.com | Tampa
Lakeland, Florida - Tropical fish farmers are reeling from the recent freeze.
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Despite their efforts, a lot of fish died as a result of the recent freeze.
"My son is estimating maybe a 20 to 30 percent loss right now," said Drawdy.
Global warmongers have been hectoring the public for years about the dangers of Earth overheating due to man's emissions of carbon dioxide. Through it all, the public has evaluated the warnings — and found them wanting.Investor's Business Daily -- Building A Renewable Bridge To Nowhere
In a recent speech at George Mason University, then-President-elect Obama said he wanted to build a "smart" electric grid that would deliver "clean, alternative forms of energy to every corner of our nation." Government appropriations by themselves, however, will not get us there.Australian Climate Madness: If Michael Mann had been a corporate accountant . . .
... he would have been in jail by now.What will you do when you finally realize that you've focused your organization and your life on a ridiculous scam?
Carl Pope, the longtime executive director of the Sierra Club, is stepping down from that role, the club announced on Friday.
Mr. Pope will take on a new role, becoming chairman of the organization with a focus on climate change.
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Climate change seems already to have become Mr. Pope’s primary focus. Last fall, he explained to Green Inc. how the Sierra Club had gotten a clear message in 2005 from its members: “Do climate. Climate, climate, climate.”
From cows to pine needles in the search for alternative energy! President Obama has set a goal of producing 60 billion barrels of ethanol by year 2030. The State of Georgia, with its vast pine forests, hopes to capitalize on that by creating non-corn ethanol from pine needles and wood chips. Pine needles and wood chips are accessible materials that can be converted to fuel for cars and electric grids.DISCUSSION: Is global warming caused by men? Thoughts? - Mahalo Answers
My opinion:I find it hard to believe that global warming is a big problem to humans, because I don't see the temperature elevating so fast in the next years. And I am not sure if it is caused by men, but I have seen graphs showing that from 1950 to 1970, CO2 increased like no other 20 years, but the medium temperature on the Earth has not. I also think that there is a huge industry behind "clean" products and carbon credit sales. I don't know, but I try not to pollute and I separate my trash :) What about you? What do you thinkWildBird on the Fly: Global warming due to planetary trends?
A new risk listed by the forum, meanwhile, is what it sees as a gap in global governance.Ground vs Sat Covariance Plot « The Air Vent
From my last post on temperature trend, I showed that there is a short term signal in the satellite data which has a higher rate of change than the ground data while the ground data 30 year trend is higher than the satellite data. Both are substantially different in trend yet models predict the UAH satellite trend should be 1.2 time GISS.Global Warming Realism over Alarmism: Is the Public Leading? — MasterResource
On the other hand, 6 in 10 rated energy as a top priority, which means making sure that motorists do not have a repeat of $4 gasoline.Volcanoes and Antarctic Warming - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.com
Wow, what a victory for energy and climate realism in regard to an issue that future historians might consider to be the Malthusians’ last stand (am I too optimistic?).
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What might such poll results mean at some of America’s top private foundations that have spent so much time and money hyping the climate issue, including the Pew Foundation itself? I must wonder when the Pew Center on Global Climate Change does not even mention the poll on its home page (is it buried somewhere on their site?).
In addition to coming up with my own answer, I did ask the study’s authors. Eric Steig of the University of Washington replied:But we're talking about volcanoes under the water, not alleged volcanoes under two miles of ice.
Wow. Strange question.
Volcanoes under the ice can’t affect climate on the surface, 2 miles above!
To amplify that a little bit: The ice sheet covering West Antarctica, including its volcanoes, is about two miles thick. Also, Antarctica’s volcanoes do not appear particularly active at present.
Global warming is real and it doesn't take much. A one degree increase is enough to start killing the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest.British government trying to water down European emissions law
The UK government is lobbying to water down proposed EU legislation to impose tough new emission limits on power plants in order to guarantee Britain's energy security and keep down electricity prices. Whitehall is warning, according a briefing document leaked to green campaigners and seen by the Guardian, that electricity prices would increase by 20% if the proposed legislation isn't changed. It is also concerned that the new rules would threaten the security of the UK's electricity supply.Clear Conservative Thought » Blog Archive » Global Warming… By dummies, for Dummies.
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GERMANY MAY ABANDON CO2-CAP AS ECONOMIC CRISIS WORSENS
Economy Minister Michael Glos continuous to have serious misgivings about the EU decisions on emissions trading to combat climate change from 2013. On Thursday, the CSU-politician joined the call by his scientific advisory board to radically transform the emissions trading system. In its report, the scientific advisory board urged to repeal strict limits for CO2 emissions.
SOURCE. [transl. BJP]
Elizabeth May plans on giving Stephen Harper a late Christmas present (surprising, considering he stole her Christmas gift; a nice senate seat). She’s planning on giving him a copy of her book “Global Warming for Dummies”.Clear Conservative Thought » Blog Archive » Forget the dog’s mess… clean up your own.
There has been a lot of talk lately about taxing plastic bags at grocery stores. The idea is one of these “tax the hell out of anything that potentially sort of make a difference on an environment that might be at risk” thoughts. Frankly, such a tax is little more than an ill-conceived money grab by the level of government implementing it.
Clearly, if the climate crisis is not addressed, there will be no economy as we know it.Lord Monckton: Global Warming Science and Public Policy - Global Cooling Under-reported, Says SPPI
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE) -- The Earth has shown an under-reported cooling trend for eight straight years, raising serious questions about the accuracy of the UN’s climate projections, since not one of the computer models on which it relies had predicted so long and steep a cooling, says a new review paper -- Temperature Change and CO2 Change – A Scientific Briefing --from the Science and Public Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank.The Political Octagon » Global Warming Ranked Dead Last as Policy Priority
The paper posits that “The chief reason for scepticism at the official position on “global warming” is the overwhelming weight of evidence that the UN’s climate panel, the IPCC, prodigiously exaggerates both the supposed causes and the imagined consequences of anthropogenic “global warming”; that too many of the exaggerations can be demonstrated to have been deliberate; and that the IPCC and other official sources have continued to rely even upon those exaggerations that have been definitively demonstrated in the literature to have been deliberate.
“In short,” writes Monckton, “science is being artfully manipulated to the point of what are in essence political and not scientific conclusions – a conclusion that is congenial to powerful factions whose ambition is not to identify scientific truth but rather to advance the special vested interests with which they identify themselves.
Al Gore & Co. had better start yelling even louder. Despite recent assurances that the planet is doomed if totalitarian measures aren’t employed to suppress harmless CO2 emissions within the next 4 years, the global warming farce has been ranked dead last in a list of the public’s priorities, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center.More climate idiocy from alarmist Bryan Walsh and Time
The Goracle and his environmentalist Kool-Aid brigade can take heart that global warming is considered a more serious concern than the threat of disco coming back.
Others would argue there's value in getting giant corporations on board with carbon caps, even if it means offering them a watered-down proposal. But even that may be onerous: As difficult as it was convincing the public that climate change was a clear and present danger — and a majority of conservatives are still doubtful — the political fight to really cut carbon emissions will be knottier. Although Obama has surrounded himself with scientists who believe that global warming is our biggest threat — including Nobel Prize-winner Steven Chu as Energy Secretary, and Harvard's John Holdren as White House science adviser — members of the President-elect's economic team reportedly remain doubtful that cutting carbon is worth the money. And even though Obama has pledged to listen to his scientists "even when it's inconvenient — especially when it's inconvenient," it's the economy that remains front and center in the public realm.
Meanwhile the science on climate change grows more dire...
...what we should all remember is that humans have a natural ability to adapt to environmental change. Throughout the ages, human societies have shown a strong capacity for adapting to different climates and environmental changes as evidenced by the widespread and climatically diverse location of human settlements throughout the world. Humans have learned how to thrive in a wide variety of climate regimes, ranging from cold to hot and from humid to dry. The flexibility exhibited in the patterns of human settlements evidence an inherent desire and some measure of capacity to adapt.American Thinker Blog: More Global Warming Tomfoolery
This is the same old statistical nonsense shamefully perpetuated by AGW'ers. When you don't have data... just make it up! And then you can make up some outlandish conclusions to go with it.Australia: Turnbull takes on the climate-change deniers
"We have to invest in industrial-scale carbon capture and storage, industrial-scale solar, industrial-scale geothermal energy," he said.New Hampshire: Chairmen of Wind Energy Association attempts to cash in on the global warming scam
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Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the speech was designed to distract attention from the Liberal Party's own internal divisions over the issue.
"This is the speech you make when you're a leader who can't control your own party and climate-change deniers stand behind you," she said.
Retiring the Merrimack [coal] plant would foster clean electricity development from New Hampshire's abundant renewable energy resources. In less than a decade, 250 large wind turbines could be generating 2.3 billion kilowatt hours each year.
Wind power can provide electricity to thousands of New Hampshire homes and businesses with no carbon emissions and no pollution fouling our air, our water and our health.
Closing the Merrimack plant would jumpstart the creation of thousands of green jobs and hundreds of green business opportunities in the Granite State.
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Farrell S. Seiler
Chairman
New Hampshire Wind Energy Association
Anyway, Nurture have the traditional Inuit-imperilled-by-climate-change stuff, only its a bit more interesting because they link to a paper that actually tries to quantify the effects. Or it would be interesting, if not hidden behind a money wall.Archibald makes an Ap Index prediction « Watts Up With That?
But I have my traditional response: when you're obliged to say things like But financial constraints are hindering the community. Insurance for expensive equipment, such as the snowmobiles the hunters need to use on the increasingly circuitous routes to the hunting grounds, is difficult to obtain. Governmental compensation schemes are reported to be inadequate. And record oil prices in 2008 drained family resources then you should recognise the obvious: the indirect impacts of modern society on the Inuit via climate change are trivial compared to the massive direct impacts from guns, snowmobiles, drink, finance, oil and simple contact with outside societies.
David Archibald thinks it may not yet have hit bottom. Here is his most recent take on it.
The indigenous people in the Arctic are closely tuned to the weather and the climate. I was told that the Sami have about 300 words for snow, each with a very precise meaning.
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The big challenge facing reindeer herding peoples in the Arctic is the ability to adapt to a climate change, according to a recent EALÁT workshop that was held in Guovdageaidnu (Kautokeino), with representatives from the US, Russia, Sweden, Finland as well as Norway.
In Russia, however, climate change was not perceived as the major concern, according to the reports from the work shop, but rather industrial development constraining their use of land. Climate change should nevertheless be a concern.
Four years ago, G.E. bought Enron's wind-turbine unit, and it is now a $2 billion business, heading rapidly toward $4 billion. In five years, G.E. expects that alternative energy products will account for more than a quarter of energy equipment revenue.
The cold weather has frozen lakes over, making it difficult for eagles to catch their dinner.Australian Climate Madness: Turnbull - more of a Greenie than Rudd
Manthey says, "We had a pretty early fall, early freeze up. Not much for them to fish in."
They're food source is also limited in our area.
DNR Fisheries Biologist Dave Heath says, "One of their primary food is gizzard shards which is a fish that live in Wisconsin rivers. It's really low right now."
The gizzard shad's population is low because last winter's harsh weather left fewer ones to reproduce.
Heath says, "Last winter the winter of 2007- 2008 was bad like this one. There was heavy snowfall, there was thick ice, and it doesn't do well for this and when the weather gets really cold the shad starts to go because oxygen starts to go because of ice and snow back on the rivers and they die."
This is a very disappointing day for climate change policy in Australia. We are now in a position where only one (small) party, the Nationals, has the guts to oppose Rudd's pointless ETS (and despite Turnbull officially reserving his position on it, we know full well he won't oppose it outright).AFP: Obama calls UN chief to discuss world issues
A White House statement meanwhile said Obama "underscored his commitment to a strong US-UN relationship and an effective UN working with us to fight climate change, poverty and terrorism."
SCHERR: One of the most interesting tidbits of knowledge that I learned in the past year is that if you take a cow and a calf in beef production in one of our intensive feedlot systems here in the U.S., that that pair of animals actually emits more in a year than a midsized car in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.Cold weather hurts some tropical fish farms
CURWOOD: So, you could either drive an electric car or quit eating meat. Is that what you're telling me?
SCHERR: Well quit eating meat or make sure that you eat meat from kind of a sustainable live stock production system.
In addition to the citrus and strawberry damage, there's word that the cold temperatures killed tropical fish raised in ponds outside Tampa as well as damaged vegetables on farms near Immokalee.Frustrated alarmist Ryan Avent » One Reason We’re Allegedly Doomed
This is the stuff that drives scientists mad. The science on the issue has only gotten clearer over time, and the outlook, in terms of likely temperature rise, has grown worse. I can’t believe that 41% of Democrats think humans aren’t causing warming. It’s hard enough to make the case for carbon taxes assuming voters understand the issue; if they don’t even realize the danger, then we are really and truly doomed.The Bellows » About
Our political leaders have to see themselves as having the responsibility to educate voters on this. They have to make warming an issue. And this is why its so damaging for newspapers to believe that it’s ok to run “contrarian” takes on climate change, or to use “fake balance” — finding some wingnut denialist to counter the opinion of an actual climate scientist in the name of fairness. Opinions on the shape of the earth differ, it’s true, but we can say definitively that some are right and others wrong. If the stewards of the press can’t tell the story like it is, then I don’t know how we can hope to educate voters on the topic.
And obviously, the smart Republicans who know better but abuse this topic for political gain should be roundly pilloried. Denialism at this point is like racialism or communism — a debunked and dangerous pseudo-theory that deserve to be pushed to the fringes of the responsible political debate.
Ryan Avent is an economist, consultant, and writer living in Washington, D.C. In addition to this site, he is a regular contributor to The Economist’s Free Exchange, and a (somewhat less regular) contributor to Gristmill.
The group met with Andre Bradford, secretary of the presidency of the Regional Government, and discussed the establishment of a center in the Azores to study climate change.Bravo, John Piscopo
In addition to UMass Dartmouth and the University Azores, two other European and a New Jersey universities are interested in taking part in the project, said Rep. Rodrigues.
"We have this vision of a location where scientists around the world studying global warming and climate change can convene meetings once or twice a year to come together to discuss their scientific research," he said. "We'd like that to be located somewhere in the Azores because it makes the most sense. It's half way between North America and Europe."
Thanks to Hartford Courant columnist Rick Green's blog, I see that the state representative whose district includes Burlington, Republican John Piscopo, has introduced a measure "to repeal global warming legislation that was passed based on the assumption that global warming is caused by human action."
Just a week after Minnesota's PUC approved a major power transmission line in southwestern Minnesota as part of the Big Stone II coal-burning power plant proposal in South Dakota, the federal EPA has overturned South Dakota's approval of the project, reports the Sierra Club and Clean Water Action, two groups that oppose the project.Arctic Directory: Adventurers on thick ice - January 25, 2009 - Petroleum News
The change came just three days into the Obama administration. No news on the project has been posted yet on the EPA Web site.
The data indicate a temperate climate in Antarctica’s past, with forests and animals, including dinosaurs.Don't Fall For The Old Banana In The Tailpipe Trick - Greg Pollowitz - Planet Gore on National Review Online
Vehicle Rationing – To comply with CARB’s regulation, every automaker must sell the “right” mix of vehicles – some vehicles above the standard and some vehicles below the standard. If consumers do not buy the right mix of vehicles, the only realistic way for an automaker to comply will be to ration sales of certain models, or deeply discount other models. Both options distort the market and hurt dealers.
The Climate Project has already trained 1,000+ volunteers from every corner of the United States to present a version of the slide show on which the Academy Award-winning film, "An Inconvenient Truth" is based. Each volunteer commits to give 10 or more presentations a year to a wide range of audiences across the country. The Climate Project presentations will reach over one million Americans this year with the inconvenient truth about global warming.If these presenters lived up to their commitments, you'd think there might be 1,000 or more Climate Project presentations in an average month.
I suggest writing your U.S. Senator or Representative discouraging the use of our tax funds to fund scientific pipe dreams of a few progressive globalists. I tried my best to keep on point with this post, but global warming hysteria has a far reaching affect on many different issues in America today. Its a cancer that has spread to all limbs of our government and can only be eradicated with a proper dose of "traditional" thinking and rational thought.Richard Littlemore | Exxon's Lickspittles: the big lies and greater frauds of the global warming denial movement
It got me thinking about the flatterers and courtiers in the denial movement and about the selfish and thin-skinned captains of industry who pay for their counsel. We have a situation in which Exxon executives employ "intellectual" lackies to come up with clever arguments as to why oil companies should go on doing exactly what they want.Land cruiser - The National Newspaper
...Jenkins has already made unsuccessful attempts at the land speed record, most recently in Australia in September, a bid that was scuppered by unseasonably wet weather – an irony bearing in mind that climate change had potentially derailed such a green project.
“It’s difficult to say for definite that it’s the fault of climate change but, yes, I see the irony,” he said. “What we do know is the weather there is a lot more unpredictable than it was even three years ago..."
...a statement from the Florida Department of Agriculture said that "tens of thousands of acres of fresh fruits and vegetables were in regions where temperatures remained below 30 degrees for several hours."Memo to EPA Employees | Administrator-Designate Lisa Jackson | US EPA
Hundley estimated that his farm alone lost 100 percent of its crop of beans and 90 percent of its sweet corn, losses he pegs in the millions of dollars.
By 7:30 a.m., daylight made damage apparent. Veteran helicopter pilot Jetson Morgan Jr. of Belle Glade knelt beside a young corn plant less than a foot high in a field north of Belle Glade. He spotted the first sign of frost damage - and the plant's eventual demise.
"It's already beginning to turn black," Morgan said as helicopters continued to fly above the field.
Many vital tasks lie before us in every aspect of EPA’s programs. As I develop my agenda, I will be seeking your guidance on the tasks that are most urgent in protecting public health and the environment and on the strategies that EPA can adopt to maximize our effectiveness and the expertise of our talented employees. At the outset, I would like to highlight five priorities that will receive my personal attention:California: Ailing brown pelicans may be victims of frostbiteReducing greenhouse gas emissions. The President has pledged to make responding to the threat of climate change a high priority of his administration. He is confident that we can transition to a low-carbon economy while creating jobs and making the investment we need to emerge from the current recession and create a strong foundation for future growth. I share this vision. EPA will stand ready to help Congress craft strong, science-based climate legislation that fulfills the vision of the President. As Congress does its work, we will move ahead to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision recognizing EPA’s obligation to address climate change under the Clean Air Act.
Though they appear to be suffering from a variety of ailments, 60 percent to 65 percent of the pelicans have dead and blackened skin on their feet and feeding pouches. Such tissue damage is consistent with frostbite, Bellizzi said.
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Jaques, a UC Davis graduate, said the pelicans got caught in a storm that arrived Dec. 14. It was the worst coastal freeze in 40 years, she said, dropping temperatures to as low as 2 degrees and covering beaches in snow.
Then Al Gore spoke with the group about global warming, which was new to me because I have not followed that. I learned a lot.Ken Livingstone: He spends a lot of time flying around trying to convince people that flying around will kill us all
On top of that, he is often abroad, usually to address other cities on climate change.
"I spent a week in Hong Kong looking at their waste sites and methane collection. My life is so full," he says wryly.
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"Labour's record is abysmal. The Tories are making some right noises but literally nobody who wants to build a new airport is green. All the lies you get from British Airports Authority, which have gone on for generations, they'd lead you to believe soon a new aircraft is coming that is somehow environmentally sustainable.
"Use a bit less fuel, A bit more efficient, a little bit quieter, a little bit less polluted so you are getting 5%, 10, or perhaps 15% better but there is no way you can lift an aircraft off the ground without kerosene explosions."
The American stock car racing sanctioning body NASCAR has appointed Mike Lynch to the newly created position of managing director for green innovation.Google Answers: nascar fuel consumption
Speaking during the recent 2009 NASCAR Media Tour the sanctioning body’s chairman Brian France said, “We want to do our part to be a better partner with the environment. That's not only important to NASCAR, but it's really important to our fans, and they've told us that not only are they concerned about preserving the environment for the outdoors, but they're also concerned about high fuel costs, global warming, and energy independence.
“We recognize this must be one of our priorities moving forward, so last June I chaired an internal committee meeting with former vice president Al Gore, who's an authority on this subject, in conjunction with the event at Infineon Raceway. In that meeting we discussed ideas for what we can do as an industry to become greener and smarter.
Most sources estimate the fuel consumption of a typical NASCAR car at approximately 4 to 6 miles per gallon.
I suppose this is why Ford has come up with a new dashboard that literally shows you how earth-safe your driving is. Part of it has to do with measuring your fuel efficiency, which is not gauged by a meter or a number, but a picture of a vine.
Apparently, if your driving is fuel-efficient, the vine will start budding and blooming until it is healthy. However, if you are wasting gas, you will be forced to watch that vine shrivel up and die. Yes, it is odd to have a visual cue instead of an exact scientific reading, but I guess we consumers have been trained to react to pictures instead of raw data.
Shares in "green" power companies have risen in anticipation of America spending more on fighting climate change following the inauguration of President Barack Obama.NPR on how CO2 hysteria can give your life meaning: Mark Bittman: Eating Right Can Save The Planet
Morning Edition, January 22, 2009 · If you're one of those people hoping to change the world in 2009, writer Mark Bittman says you can start by changing what you eat.E.U. Appeals to U.S. to Join Common Carbon Trading Market
Some of the businesses that regard climate regulation favorably because it could promote new investment opportunities welcomed the initiative.
Adam Nathan, a spokesman for the Carbon Markets and Investors Association, a trade association, praised “the central role for the carbon market set out by the Commission.
Al Gore yesterday launched a drive to mobilise 10 million volunteers to force politicians to act on climate change - twice as many as the number who marched against the Vietnam war or in support of civil rights during the heyday of US activism in the 1960s.Note how the recent web traffic for "wecansolveit.org" is LESS than the traffic for climate realist site wattsupwiththat.com
During the next three years, his Alliance for Climate Protection plans to spend $300m (about £150m) on television advertising and online organising to make global warming among the most urgent issues for elected American leaders.
The wecansolveit.org initiative aims to build up pressure on the next US president to support stringent mandatory emissions controls when they come before Congress, and take a leadership role at the renegotiation of the Kyoto treaty.
(As far as I know, wattsupwiththat has a $0.0 budget for television advertising and online organising.)
But there’s another debate taking place that might have even bigger long-term ramifications: How do you make not producing electricity a money-spinning proposition for power companies?epa.gov advice: Drive a car that suggests you're susceptible to obvious scams?
PHILADELPHIA (January 23, 2009) - - Driving a vehicle that is fuel efficient produces fewer greenhouse gases and can save you money. Driving a fuel efficient vehicle also reflects well on its owner - - especially these days with growing concerns about climate change.Examining Climate Change On The Air : NPR
Audio for this story will be available at approx. 6:00 p.m. ETWhy should Revkin be trying to shape my opinion? If they're claiming to be unbiased, shouldn't reporters "report" the facts and let people form their own opinions?
Talk of the Nation, January 23, 2009 · What is the media's role in shaping public opinion on global warming and the environment? New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin talks with Ira Flatow about the changing climate of science reporting, and why local meteorologists may be delivering more than just the forecast.
Once the darling topic of leading dailies, the highly charged and highlighted climate change debate which pits economic development versus mitigation of its environmental impact has proved to have a very short shelf life.Disney's Hypocrisy | Gather
Climate change’s advocates have vanished, for now.
...The tale begins with pictures of man in his hunter-gatherer state where he was one with nature and only took what he needed from the earth. Then they settled down and built cities and soon multiplied like locusts and spread across the plant like a plague, destroying the earth as they went. Of course there were the obligatory pictures of smokestacks, burning oil wells, traffic jams, sewage and oils spills with shiny, black birds. Timor and Pumba are horrified and swear they will never be like that. They knock down the dam, which was causing an environmental catastrophe downstream, and vow to help the poor stupid humans clean up their act.Shocked, Shocked at the New York Times - Chris Horner - Planet Gore on National Review Online
Does anyone other than me see the problem here? We were watching this environmental lecture in one of several resorts run by Disney. Resorts that created the scar in central Florida that is Orlando. Timor and Pumba dammed a stream, Disney dammed up the Everglades. How much water and energy does Disney and the the surrounding resorts use in their pursuits? And the bit about the oil companies-if it wasn't for the oil companies making gas to put in all the cars that clog up Interstate 4 and bring tourists to fill up parking lots, Disney wouldn't be able to charge each of those cars twelve dollars to park and seventy five for the privileged of being lectured.
Well this one caused a quick double-take this morning. NYT writer and Dot Earth blogger Andy Revkin complains in the paper today, just like Sens. Olympia Snowe (R., ME) and Jay Rockefeller (D., WV) before him, that people speaking out are getting in the way of efforts to impose a particular agenda on you...
All good points, but how far can Obama realistically nudge the public? Revkin's interlocutors suggest the answer is "moderately far." Is that far enough?We Still Need More Energy Supply in America » The Foundry
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What makes this all politically dicey, of course, is that climate change is a problem that needs to be tackled long before the worst starts happening. Carbon lingers in the air for centuries, which means that by the time global temperatures have spiked a couple of degrees above pre-industrial levels, it's too late for remedies (unless someone devises a way to pull carbon out of the air). But right now, the problem's difficult to visualize: It's hard to finger a culprit for drought in the Southwest or intense hurricane seasons in the Gulf of Mexico as cleanly as you can point to a terrorist group responsible for a bombing attack. Arctic sea ice is melting at a record pace, sure—but who's really been affected? It's the same, tired old story: Climate change is an abstract problem, and easy to put out of mind. The IPCC head may be insisting that, "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late," but hey, we've got a million other issues—the economy, health care, Gaza, Afghanistan—that are concretely urgent right now. And whether Obama or U.S. environmental groups have a workable strategy for shifting that political terrain is as unclear as ever.
Sarah Palin is not the VP of the United States but we can still drill, baby, drill. Although President Obama and some Democrats have hinted at reinstating the ban on offshore drilling and implementing restrictions on oil shale development in the West, nine Republican members of Georgia’s congressional delegation are on the offensive - emphasizing the need for more domestic energy supply. Yesterday, they wrote a letter to President Obama asking him to reconsider any plans to halt energy production in AmericaKeeping U.S. solvent must be Obama's top security goal - UPI.com
Voters may decry the fact that eight gigatons of carbon are being spewed into the atmosphere from human sources each year, but when the economy falters, they pray that some of that carbon will keep coming out of smokestacks at the factories where they work.
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What the new administration needs are climate-change initiatives that don't require much money to pursue. Northrop Grumman Chief Executive Officer Ronald Sugar, himself a scientist, has one such idea. Sugar says the government should network together the climate-change data being collected by dozens of satellites and other sensors scattered around the world. The information would be integrated and analyzed, then disseminated to regional centers for specific applications.
The virtue of this idea is that it adds value through better utilization of existing assets, rather than demanding vast new outlays. Sugar's idea won't solve global warming, but it will help policymakers and scientists get a better understanding of the problem -- an essential first step in framing climate-change initiatives that are affordable.
Author: C-SPANLots of short videos of this interview here - hugglinton horner
Mon, January 12, 2009
Chris Horner, "Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed," interviewed by Jed Babbin, Editor, Human Events. [Podcast here, 50.4 MB]
The latest in an annual series of polls from the Pew Research Center on people’s top priorities for their elected leaders shows that America and President Obama are completely out of sync on human-caused global warming.Environmental Issues Slide in Poll of Public’s Concerns - NYTimes.com
A new poll suggests that Americans, preoccupied with the economy, are less worried about rising global temperatures than they were a year ago but remain concerned with solving the nation’s energy problems.
The findings are somewhat at odds with President Obama...
Perhaps this question is answered somewhere in the unreported details, but my first reaction was to want to ask “Dendroclimatologists like Michael Mann reconstruct history from tree rings based on the assumption that increasing temperatures correlates linearly and positively with tree growth and therefore tree ring width. Your study seems to indicate the correlation between tree growth and temperature is negative and probably non-linear. Can you reconcile these claims?’ Seriously, there may be an explanation (different kinds of trees?) but after plastering the hockey stick all over the media for 10 years, no one even thinks to ask?Year End Trend Comparison: Multi-Model Means 2001-2008 | The Blackboard
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Again, I need to see the actual study, but this would not be the first time a climate study said “well, we investigated every cause we could think of, and none of them seemed to fit, so it must be global warming.” It’s a weird way to conduct science, assuming Co2 and warming are the default cause for every complex natural process. No direct causal relationship is needed with warming, all that is required is to eliminate any other possible causes. This means that the less well we understand any complex system, the more likely we are to determine changes in the system are somehow anthropogenic.
Things are looking grim for the models– at least based on 2001-2008. But bear in mind..Climate Progress » Blog Archive » Science: Global warming is killing U.S. trees, a dangerous carbon-cycle feedback
Contrary to the popular notion that increases in carbon dioxide emissions increase vegetation, a “stunningly important paper,” in Science finds the reverse has been true.Who's Afraid of CO2?
CO2 is essential to photosynthesis, the process by which plants use sunlight to produce carbohydrates - the material of which their roots and body consist. Increasing CO2 levels speeds the time in which plants mature and improves their growth efficiency and water use. Botanists have long realized that CO2 enhances plant growth, which is why they pump CO2 into greenhouses.
After eight years of inaction on climate change by the federal government, we can now look forward to the Obama administration tackling global warming head on. With not a minute to lose, Lisa Jackson, the soon-to-be new head of the EPA, should move quickly to capitalize on the momentum of states that have so far been the leaders in fighting global warming. There is no better place to start than by establishing a national greenhouse gas emission standard for automobiles based on California’s landmark clean car law.
at CUSEC in Montréal. my estimate now is that *every* climate change model is 100% speculationClimate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know
By Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling, Jr.Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : General Electric: Thank Heaven for the Energy Business
An in-depth look at consistent, solid science on the other side of the gloom-and-doom global warming story that is rarely reported and pushed aside: that global warming is likely to be modest, and there is no apocalypse on the horizon.
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Publication Date: January 2009
Broken record alert: Once again the only real bright spot in GE’s business was energy infrastructure. GE chief executive Jeff Immelt figures the world’s infrastructure binge will keep that business—GE’s “sweet spot”—rolling in a diffcult 2009.
The energy unit was basically the only division that kept its head above water in the fourth quarter, with sales up 21% to $11.4 billion and profit up 11% to $2 billion. For the year, energy sales were up 26% to $38.5 billion, and profit rose 26% to $6 billion.
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...GE’s been clamoring for government action to tackle climate change and support a shift to more clean energy, which, of course, is a big part of GE’s energy portfolio. Thanks to President Obama’s victory, and Congress’ plans to tackle the energy crunch this year, GE can probably find at least one glimmer of sunshine in an otherwise dark sky.
Biodiesel congeals at low temperatures, as John Jones, the transit director for the Summit Stage bus service in the Colorado mountains told me. He stopped using biodiesel in the winter after one of his buses filled with drunken revelers — and fueled by a biodiesel blend — stalled on the interstate in the middle of a frigid winter night.Wind Watch: Wind power advocates play loose with the facts
Now a similar problem has hit Minnesota school buses, which also run on a biodiesel blend.
According to The Minneapolis Star Tribune, some school buses stalled in last week’s bitterly cold weather. Children got stuck in stalled buses or had a long wait in the freezing weather at their bus stops.
A few school districts were closed as a result of the problem.
A recent letter writer states that “The U. S. Department of Energy estimates that wind can safely provide 20 percent of our nation’s energy needs by 2030.”British explorers to measure allegedly melting icecap - Taiwan News Online
The Department of Energy has made no such estimate. This popular misconception was mined from a May 2008 study heavily influenced by the wind power industry. The report was by no means an estimate or projection, but a study to determine if the 20 percent scenario is technically feasible, and it concluded that it is. It is also technically feasible that we could colonize the moon with millions of Americans by 2030, but that isn’t going to happen either.
They intend to clamber over ice fields and swim through open water to reach the pole, taking measurements on ice and snow levels in the Arctic as they go.
The data will be fed into supercomputers at the U.S. Postgraduate Naval School in Monterey, California.
The team hopes to have results ready for an international conference on climate change being held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.
But the real challenge is: How can pollsters accurately communicate their questions to potential respondents so that there is a common and precise understanding on everyone’s part regarding the question posed. Without this, one is condemned to obtain meaningless poll results. And the rest of the world is subjected to reading (and reading about) one more poorly designed study.Voodoo Economists 4: The idiocy of crowds or, rather, the idiocy of (crowded) debates
MY FINAL PLEA: If you aren’t prepared to defend both the science and the solutions/cost side of the issue, please, do us all a favor and turn down any debates you are offered. You aren’t helping the cause of preserving a livable climate. Quite the reverse. And if you are going to debate professional debaters and make-stuff-uppers like Lomborg, Huber, and Stott, please do some homework. Review their core, repeated arguments and be prepared to rebut them very hard. Or stay home.World Climate Report » Glacier Slowdown in Greenland: How Inconvenient
Maybe Gore will go back and remove the 12 pages worth of picture and maps from his book showing what high profile places of the world will look like with a 20-foot sea level rise (“The site of the World Trade Center Memorial would be underwater”). But then again, probably not—after all the point is not to be truthful in the sense of reflecting a likely possibility, but to scare you into a particular course of action.
What part of Americans' confusion regarding anthropogenic climate change is hard to understand? Even the concept of the scientific method is understood by only a fraction of our society. This all is why Joe Romm is running a pool on the nature of the near-term catastrophes required to turn Americans' climate change doubts into certainty.Are 41% of Democrats skeptical only because of their strong tendency to blindly believe whatever the Bush administration said?
And, tellingly, the partisan split is huge, with 59% of Democrats saying climate change is caused by humans, while only 21% of Republican agree. And why should they? Climate skepticism has been a cornerstone of Bush Republicanism for eight years -- and so far it looks like many in the GOP will continue to use it as a rallying cry.
The U.N. climate chief criticized Obama's targets for carbon reduction as too weak, given the magnitude of the problem.South Africa: Eskom willing to re-engage miners on rationing in interests of growth
The utility also hinted to a willingness to re-engage with those companies currently being rationed to 95% of their traditional offtake, particularly in those instances where a relaxation could boost economic output and support national growth objectives.
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But given the degree of “catch-up” still required, the new demand outlook was not severe enough to force a review of the current project suite.
Therefore, the two coal-fired stations, Medupi and Kusile, which would together add nearly 9 600 MW to the Eskom system by 2017; the remaining return-to-service projects (3 645 MW); the three peaking projects (the Ingula pumped-storage scheme, the doubling-up of the open-cycle gas-turbines in the Western Cape, and the Sere wind project) that would add 5 032 MW; and the new capacity associated with the Arnot upgrade (300 MW), would continue as initially planned.
One way to assess the strength of public resolve on the issue is to see where global warming or the environment sits in the classic open-ended question asking the public to name the most important problem facing the nation, or alternatively what the President and Congress should focus on. As I noted a few weeks ago, global warming and the environment surfaces as a top of mind priority among just 1% of respondents compared to more than 40% who say the economy.Australia: Turnbull will sell his new climate change scam strategy as "founded on optimism and confidence, ingenuity and enterprise"
A consequence of Obama's success is that Australian politicians want to emulate the 44th US president.To weak minds, a great appeal of the global warming scam - By flicking a switch or scheduling a conference, you can allegedly be a hero!
They have twigged that his message of hope and optimism is what people want to hear - especially when times are tough - and suddenly they're all at it.
True, in typically cautious style, Rudd qualified the message at an Australia Day lunch , promising only "realistic hope, realistic optimism".
But Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull is going the whole hog.
A speech he will deliver to a Young Liberals convention today is all about hope in a crucial area -- climate change.
Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File) - Los Angeles, Calif.July '07 | Buenos Aires sees rare snowfall
Author: GEORGE ALEXANDER
Date: Dec 26, 1978
Abstract (Document Summary)
The forecast is for continued cool weather all over the earth through the mid 1980s, with a global warming trend setting in thereafter for the rest of the century--followed by a severe cold snap after 2000, a cold snap that might well last throughout the first half of the 21st Century.
Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, has seen snow for the first time in 89 years, as a cold snap continues to grip several South American nations.Global Warming, Ulcers, and Gas Pains « Roy Spencer, Ph. D.
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But thousands of people cheered in the streets of Buenos Aires at the sight of the capital's first snowfall since 1918.
"Despite all my years, this is the first time I've ever seen snow in Buenos Aires," 82-year-old Juana Benitez was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.
A couple of blogs I’ve visited this morning show considerable fretting over this situation, with calls for reframing the global warming issue in terms that hit home with people, or reducing the alarmist rhetoric, etc. In other words, the public just isn’t getting it, and the problem lies with the communicators of the global warming message.Norway and the environment | Binge and purge | The Economist
Well, maybe the problem doesn’t lie with the communicators…but instead with the long tradition science has of overselling issues that the scientific community knows relatively little about. The public already knows that science has a history of being spectacularly wrong with long-term predictions of doom. Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb bombed, and yet many people still fret over the Earth being overpopulated. (In my view, the only thing we are overpopulated with is stupidity).
Home to a green-minded people and government, Norway exports the dirty stuff to the rest of the world. The result is a contradiction
The enthusiasm of homeowners in those states for views of transmission towers is limited, to say the least.The Week's Best Late-Night Jokes
Michael Morris, CEO of American Electric Power, recently told an audience in New York that to supply 20% of the nation’s electricity needs with wind by 2030 will require the construction of 19,000 circuit miles of extra-high-voltage transmission.
Unless the Obama team is willing to use the right of eminent domain to over-ride all objections from local environmental groups, in the process antagonizing millions of voters, those transmission lines will never get built. Or built only after a 6-year long permitting process, the current average according to Morris.
So, back to coal and nuclear. I would like to be a fly on the wall when Larry Summers explains these ugly facts of energy-sector life to Ms. Browner and her colleagues.
"And it was cold. It was so cold in Washington, it felt like Hillary's inauguration. It was so cold, Al Gore led a prayer for global warming. In fact, by the end of the inauguration, everybody's face looked like Nancy Pelosi." --Jay Leno
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"I tell you, it's cold all over the East Coast. And did you see those blizzards all over the place? The whole country was so white the Republicans thought they were back in charge again." --Jay Leno
Environmental regulations increase costs. That may not be a bad thing, if the benefits of decreasing the environmental impact exceed those costs. But many of those benefits are nonmarketed benefits: that is, nonrevenue generating. Doesn't that undermine the more immediate goal of fiscal solvency for the state? Or am I missing something obvious?Wind Watch: Parachute centre claims wind mast could force it to close
A parachuting centre is campaigning for protected status to help fight off a 150ft high mast application that could see it close down.Wind Watch: 'Rewetting' could spell end for windmills
Scientists say that peatlands are the nation’s single largest carbon stores but following decades of air pollution and overgrazing, the bogs have been ‘significantly degraded’. If the moors can be rewetted or revegetated, they can act as a natural carbon storage device, which could forgo the need for controversial windmills.Blue Energy Wonder Fuel Hoaxer Found Guilty
A man who tricked President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono into thinking that he could make fuel from water in the infamous “Blue Energy” hoax has been jailed for three and a half years.
In something the president could readily testify to, the Bantul District Court in Yogyakarta found that Joko Suprapto, 47, had been found guilty of “convincingly” committing a deception in breach of the Criminal Code.
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The case drew nationwide interest after Yudhoyono openly endorsed the fuel, with one of his close aids heading a team for the development of Blue Energy.
Several cars that were said to have been modified to run on the energy even made a convoy from the residence of the president to Bali, some 1,200 kilometers east, where Yudhoyono was attending an international conference on climate change in December, 2007. Yudhoyono was pictured waving flags as the convoy left.
The president later said that the fuel did not fail as critics have said but was merely encountering technical problems and urged people to give it more time.
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