Nothing justifies government editing or withholding of information. The debate over global warming is an excellent example. The Bush administration tried to bend science to its will, yet the amount of skepticism about the whole idea of global warming demonstrates that it didn’t need to.Before we spend $45 trillion on imaginary problems, maybe we should solve the real ones?
Bringing all the evidence out in public is the messier way to resolve an issue, and debate can break down when people refuse to compromise some value. This means no clean, quick decision, but in the end it is the better way because in the end what must be balanced are conflicting values — power plant jobs versus the cost of pollution, money for farmers or more greenhouse gases that must be counterbalanced by sacrifice elsewhere, mass transit versus individual automobiles. Evidence speaks for itself.
As the bitter cold sets in, spare a thought for 57-year-old Nokomanishi Ngam of Nqamakwe, a village in the rural hinterland of the former Transkei.Opinion Line | Opinion Line | Wichita Eagle
An asthmatic, Ngam coughs frequently as she relates her story of life in the Eastern Cape.
Her family is indigent and, for most of the month, goes to sleep without having had a proper nutritious meal, something that affects the matriarch’s health. Ngam said the family only gathered for a decent meal when she drew a child support grant at a bank in the nearby town of Butterworth.
“Life is tough here. We survive on grants from our children,” said Ngam.
“Our village is underdeveloped. There are no toilets, running water or electricity. When it rains, our bridge is broken and we are completely cut off from the rest of the world for weeks.”
Ngam’s is a familiar tale, heard throughout the province — from the dangerous, high-density township of Motherwell in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro to the far-flung rural village of Bizana in Eastern Pondoland.
I am glad we finally have a governor who can see past the global warming hoax being pushed by the Sierra Club and Health and Environment Secretary Rod Bremby.
One of President Obama’s top priorities — energy and climate change legislation — appears to be stalled in the place where it is supposed to begin: Congress.Eco-warriors are slammed for disrupting businesses - Doncaster Today
The Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate energy committees have set a Memorial Day deadline for producing bills that would expand renewable-energy production, overhaul the national electricity grid and — on the House side — cap carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
But neither panel has started marking up those key provisions, in part because there might not be enough votes to move them.
Conservative councillor Jonathan Wood, vice chairman of the council's economy and enterprise overview and scrutiny panel, slammed campaigners for disrupting businesses.Collins urges Unity grads to [swallow the greatest scientific fraud in history] - Bangor Daily News
He said: "They must not be on this planet because to come to Doncaster and protest against coal, it just beggars belief.
"I'm all for freedom of speech and people demonstrating but there is nothing wrong with clean coal and providing the town with hundreds of jobs."
UNITY, Maine — U.S. Sen. Susan Collins preached to an enthusiastic choir Saturday afternoon when she urged the 90 members of the Unity College graduating class to keep on working for the environment.
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“You must be advocates and activists for the causes you believe in,” she said. “Climate change is the most significant environmental challenge facing our planet.”
Cool and wet conditions across much of the Great Plains this spring have seriously delayed planting.Swine flu likely to return to U.S. next winter - USATODAY.com
While all 2009 crops have the potential to be negatively affected, none so as much as wheat currently, with durum and spring wheat planting lagging severely.
As of May 3, 23 percent of the national hard red spring wheat crop has been planted, up 15 percent from April but still well below the five-year average of 59 percent, according to the Crop Progress Report by the North Dakota Wheat Commission. South Dakota leads the way with 61 percent of its crop in the ground, followed by Montana at 35 percent, although both are still well below their respective five-year averages.
In North America, the summer should slow down the spread of swine flu; neither viruses nor bacteria survive well at temperatures above 70 degrees Fahrenheit, explained C. Ed Hsu, an associate professor of public health informatics at the University of Texas School of Health Information Sciences at Houston and associate director of health informatics at the Center for Biosecurity and Public Health Preparedness at the University of Texas School of Public Health.Stay warm, there is a chill in the air - Fiji Times Online
HOME remedies can best help your children in this cold weather which has brought in the seasonal flu, says Health Ministry deputy permanent secretary Doctor Josaia Samuela said.
Children and the elderly are the most likely to succumb to the flu, which brings in coughs, running nose, fever and in some cases wheezing.
"Parents are advised to keep their children warm," Dr Samuela said.
Papers, a key villain in the global-warming saga, have managed to survive through thick and thin. Of course, publishers have been dropping like flies around the world, but the fact that we still see newspapers, magazines and other periodicals in their current forms stacking the news stands is simply a wonder.Commercial space travel: what it might feel like | Stuff.co.nz
Greenpeace NZ's Bunny McDiarmid says space flights are going to happen, so the ideal is that "everything we do has to be seen through a climate-change [hoax] lens". If it's not going to be beneficial, we should seriously look at whether we should do it, she says. Thompson suggests putting into place a monitoring programme to measure space flight emissions.Germany's Greens push climate [swindle] investments in poll manifesto | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 09.05.2009
Germany's opposition Greens have unveiled an ambitious party program ahead of September's general elections to overhaul the economy and create millions of jobs by investing in climate change prevention and education.globeandmail.com: Fickle Gods of Global Warming
They were in a powerless pickle. Solar and sail had failed them and green intentions will not float your boat - they were not so much "carbon neutral" as carbon deprived. Bobbing around the North Atlantic in a gale without motor power of any kind is not the most soothing experience. Fortunately, Providence, in one of its most artful facsimiles, was on hand in the shape of the Overseas Yellowstone - a ship that was, to put it mildly, not relying on solar power or a wind turbine.It's a swine of a thing | theage.com.au
Still, it's hard not to be mildly amused when the cracking up of the Wilkins ice bridge in Antarctica earns worldwide front-page screamers, complete with full-colour pictures from space, while the fact that the extent of Antarctic sea ice has increased at a rate of 100,000 square kilometres a decade since the 1970s gets a column on the inside pages. It is as if we WANT to embrace bad news rather than consider that it is not the whole story.C3: Dear Climate Scientist: When You Hype & Lie To Public, Bad Things Can Happen, To Your 'Cause' & You
Some 2008 N.D. corn remains in fields | Grand Forks Herald | Grand Forks, North Dakota
(If you think this young scientist is unusual in her contempt for the public and scientific truth no matter one's own personal agenda, please review similar comments about global warming from other scientists and prominent individuals.)
Some North Dakota corn farmers are battling last winter’s snow all over again. Tens of millions of dollars for the state’s farm economy rests on the outcome.The snow that prevented farmers from finishing their corn harvest late last year has now melted, and runoff has flooded fields, making them too soggy to support heavy combines. Instead of planting a new crop this spring, farmers such as Terry McMillan are still waiting to cut down standing stalks and finish last year’s harvest.
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About 10 percent of North Dakota’s corn crop — an estimated 20 million bushels — had to be left in the fields over the winter. Lilja estimates more than half of the standing corn has been harvested this spring, but the amount remaining in the field is unprecedented for the month of May.
B.C. should invest at least $100-million a year in bicycle infrastructure such as bike paths, bike lanes and traffic calming to improve cyclist safety, and increase funding for pedestrian infrastructure.US Democrats backing away from cap and trade
The good news is that it is getting cooler, the global climate is well within its normal range, the arctic ice is getting thicker and there is growing recognition that climate alarmists, who base most of their arguments on climate change models rather than actual observations, are being revealed as exaggerators and polemicists. It will be an interesting period between now and the end of the year.Hollywood Biteback: The geeks are taking over - Times Online
And the silliest sci-fi movies ever made? Hilary Swank rebooting the world’s axis with nukes in The Core, followed by An Inconvenient Truth. Not only because it got facts wrong, weakening its own important case, but because it insisted we take Al Gore very, very seriously. It was, after all, a Hollywood movie.Ok, so maybe there IS an urban heat island effect
Big cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow already reach temperatures 2C - 3C above their surroundings in the summer. Scientists fear that difference could grow four to fivefold as hotter weather combines with soaring energy use and population growth, making such temperature gaps more frequent and more extreme.
The research is linked to a wider project aimed at helping scientists predict the impact rising temperatures will have on different parts of the country. The full results will be released next month by Hilary Benn, the environment secretary.
Vicky Pope, the head of climate change advice at the Met Office, said: “As the climate gets warmer, sweltering summer temperatures will combine with rising energy use, the heat-retaining properties of buildings, and the sheer volume of people, to push temperatures higher and higher.
“It may sometimes make life in the metropolis intolerable. Imagine the scorching conditions that commuters will face on London’s Tube network.”
In Oregon, one of the newest wine regions, winemakers try to view climate change with a mix of caution and “giddy excitement,” says Kevin Chambers, owner of Resonance Vineyard, a biodynamic vineyard in the Willamette Valley. “Climate changes have improved our consistency, but we do need to think ahead. What should I plant now that will sustain warmer temperatures for the next 50 years?” Like Thompson, Chambers recognizes that global warming has contributed to his personal success even as it marginalizes wine quality in warmer areas.CO2 - Love It: The Myth of Global Warming and Melting Icebergs
[John Brandt] My six months charting icebergs and ice fields in the north atlantic aboard the USCG cutter Mojave (I was radio opr) in 1945 is also important. I saw perhaps 50+ icebergs ranging in size from 25 feet to a half mile in diameter! The ice fields were sometimes 3 miles in diameter and consisted of pieces of ice with 2 to 4 feet sticking above the surface and all bunched together.Commentary: Is wind the next ethanol? | McClatchy
We would sail through the ice fields at 2 knots with the constant banging of the ice against the bow and sides of the cutter. The longitude/lattitude was passed to me in the radio shack, and I would send the locations of all by CW morse code to Navy in Argentia, Newfoundland. They in turn would broadcast the info to all commercial ships at sea from NY to England, etc.
All those ice fields and icebergs broke off the polar ice shelf. I was told by the old timers aboard ship, it happens every year.
Listening to Al Gore, one would believe it just happened for the first time ever!
I believe the story of global warming drummed up by Al Gore is plain “Manure".
There's also reason to expect that wind's green status will evaporate. For one thing, the pending proposals would require tens of millions of acres of new wind farms, much of it on land currently in its natural state. Environmentalists already object to certain wind farm sites and transmission line routes, and their complaints would greatly multiply if wind power expands. Its claimed global-warming benefits could also come under attack.Dana Perino on Obama's hatred of polar bears
As with ethanol, familiarity is likely to breed contempt for wind – and contempt for a government that foisted this predictable mistake on the American public.
Where are the breathless and indignant above-the-fold, page one newspaper stories?
Frosted light bulbs are to be phased out under new EU plans to force people to use more energy-efficient bulbs.New Zealand winemakers drink deeply of the climate fraud Kool-Aid
In these environmentally sensitive times, wineries wishing to cleanse themselves of their carbon footprint have to calculate their total climate-damaging carbon emissions, reduce them where possible, then balance any remaining emissions, often through purchasing a carbon offset. Then if they want to claim they're carbon neutral, this must be verified through an official organisation, such as carboNZero.Climate Change Fraud - Because the debate is not over - Are We Being Told The Truth About Global Warming?
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Organics is another option, with some in this camp critical of carbon neutrality. "Organics is the single biggest thing that a farmer can do to help combat global warming", says Colin Ross, estate manager at organic winery, Seresin, pointing out that the increased soil biology at the heart of organics can give an organic farm up to three times the amount of carbon found in a hardwood forest. "It's quicker than planting trees, and better than buying carbon credits."
This is a short segment of a class on global warming taught by Dr. Michael Coffman, of Environmental Perspectives, Inc.Twitter / gigglehead
Gore and suzuki? Bring your shovels! We have a truck load of Global Warming for you! Not unusual for Winnipeg? grrr pissed of bunch of CDN?
An international team of scientists has used the latest electro-magnetic induction equipment to discover that the Arctic ice is in fact "twice as thick" as they had expected, says Christopher Booker.Dissident Voice : Ecosocialism: For a Society of Good Ancestors (Part Two)
As the clock ticks down towards December's historic UN Copenhagen conference on climate change, the frenzied efforts of the warmists to panic us over all that vanishing Arctic and Antarctic ice are degenerating into farce.
One of the greatest weaknesses of the mainstream environmental movement has been its failure or refusal to identify capitalism as the root problem. Indeed, many of the world’s Green Parties, including the one in Canada where I live, openly describe themselves as eco-capitalist, committed to maintaining the profit system.Heliogenic Climate Change: Same in Durango
Of course this puts them in a contradictory position when they face the reality of capitalist ecocide.
For two years, the city of Durango, Colo., bought electricity for all its government buildings from wind farms. The City Council ended that program this year, reverting to electricity derived from coal-burning plants and saving the cash-strapped city about $45,000.The “precarious state of the U.S. polar bear population” « Watts Up With That?
"It's very hard for us to lay off an employee to justify green power," City Manager Ron LeBlanc said. "Those are the tradeoffs you have to face."
Polar bear populations may in fact may be larger than they were decades ago.
The elephant in the room (ha, ha) is that the movie is supposed to make you more aware of global warming. And, I guess if you're young enough, you might make a connection between the narrator telling us over and over that because of global warming, elephants have to travel longer to watering holes (and get eaten by lions on the way) and that because of global warming, the ice floes break earlier in the Spring, preventing polar bears from having firm ground on which to hunt seals (so they starve to death). So, the movie is really more like Scared Straight: if we would stop global warming, then elephants wouldn't get separated from their moms in duststorms and get eaten by lions. If we would stop global warming, then polar bears could eat seals and not starve to death. Good news for elephants and polar bears, but maybe not for lions and seals.Arctic Ice Flux « the Air Vent
One would expect if the ice melt was created by temperature change alone, we might see a uniform reduction in ice levels. Instead there is a top to bottom shift as the general trend is generally pushing ice toward the Bearing Strait. I makes me wonder now how much shrinkage of sea ice can be attributed to a weather pattern change rather than global temperature change.SF Environmental Policy Examiner: Climate change and the fierce urgency of now
Either way, the thirty year trend is toward a heavier ice flow out the bearing straight (bottom of figures) and lessened out-flow on the opposite side (top of figures) of the icecap.
The people trumpeting this last point really have a habit of sounding like someone on a home shopping channel--Act now! This offer expires soon! This does not mean they are wrong. Let me repeat that. They can be annoying as telephone marketing calls--and some are--and they may still be right. But they sure don't sound convincing.
In one sense, in the U.S. at least, they may be right for non-scientific reasons. This may be their last opportunity to get legislation passed to severely limit CO2 emissions. If temperatures continue to decline (and they may do so for reasons unrelated to humanly caused climate change, such as a lack of sunspots or a series of volcanic eruptions), and the economy doesn't pick up, most of the impetus for combatting climate change will disappear. Many skeptics feel that this explains the almost panicky tone of those fighting for emission controls.
However, I have yet to see a compelling or even coherent case made that we cannot wait for the data to prove either side wrong. If someone would like to point me to one, please do so.
Obama is turning off the heat, and our energy supply, in precisely the nick of time. Phenomenal timing, Obama! How many lives will it cost. Obama prepares in reverse for the historically obvious, and inevitable climate cataclysm. What an exquisite irony. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. By halting development of energy resources, including carbon-dioxide free nuclear sources (why?) we will ehance our enjoyment (please read: human suffering) to the max.Local Oil Industry Could Take Big [Climate Fraud] Hit
"It could have significant cost impact on how we do our business to the point where in one year alone we could have either fees or taxes that equal five years of income that we've had at Country Mark," he said.Climate Progress » Blog Archive » The Alliance for Climate Education begins ambitious campaign to [brainwash] America’s youth about Climate Change [Swindle]
This isn't just about a carbon footprint. This is about the footprint Country Mark has made in Mt. Vernon. The refinery employees 325 people.
That makes it one of Posey County's biggest employers.
But, Smorch said not for long if the bill passes.
The Alliance for Climate Education (ACE)—an Oakland-based non-profit—announced this week the start of its grassroots initiative “aimed at educating and empowering students to address global climate change.” These are noble goals, to say the least. It is hard to overstate the importance of informing the public about the realities of global warming and the consequences of not changing our energy consumption habits. ACE’s campaign will target high school-age youths—a smart strategy considering younger generations will inherit the climate that their parents leave behind.
“For Salazar to adopt Bush’s polar bear extinction plan is confirming the worst fears of his tenure as Secretary of the Interior,” Center for Biological Diversity biodiversity program director Noah Greenwald said in an quickly released statement. “Secretary Salazar would apparently prefer to please Sarah Palin than to protect polar bears.”David Rothschild's Climate Change Spoon on Nickelodeon Propaganda | Global ELite
Mr. Rothschild again demonstrates that it is his family, along with Al Gore, perpetrating this myth, for the purpose of global carbon taxation. As usual, he is using the Nazi tactic of appealing to children with dumbed-down messages of propaganda.Let's Act Now - Vegetarian Diet is the Most Effective Way to Stop Global Warming
Which do you think is more responsible for global warming:
a gas-guzzling SUV, or a hamburger?
Surprise! It’s the burger!
Terry McCrann says Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme should not be postponed. It should instead be scrappedA licence to tell warming lies | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
Harvard University PhD candidate Monika Kopacz insists global warming scientists have a duty to lie:Climate change conference delegation flew in by plane - TelegraphIt is no secret that a lot of climate-change research is subject to opinion, that climate models sometimes disagree even on the signs of the future changes (e.g. drier vs. wetter future climate). The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’ — and readers’ — attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty.
The Government sent 47 delegates to a climate change conference causing the same amount of pollution as would be produced by powering 2,810 homes in a day, figures show.Twitter / Calvin Jones: Changing the laws to inclu ...
Changing the laws to include climate change, actual climate criminals? Report from Climate Legacy Initiative http://tinyurl.com/o9j4zm
As 2,600 delegates flew greenhouse-gas-spewing jetliners to Bonn for another five-star-hotel UN climate change confab, envoy Todd Stern announced that the White House is "seized with the urgency" of tackling runaway global warming. Looming on the horizon is a hulking 648-page House climate change bill. Equally monstrous Senate and EPA versions wait in the wings.Obama keeps Bush policy on polar bears: Endangered Species Act won't be used on global warming - TwinCities.com
President Obama wants energy prices to "skyrocket," to coerce Americans to slash carbon dioxide emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 - to levels last seen in 1905! He says cap-and-trade will "raise" $656 billion between 2012 and 2019, to fund green energy, green job and other government programs. The National Economic Council and other analysts put the tax bite at $1.3 to $3.0 trillion.
This is not monetary manna. It is a massive wealth transfer - extracted from every hydrocarbon-using business, motorist and family, and doled out by Congress and bureaucrats to politically favored constituencies. These all-intrusive energy taxes will hit poorest households hardest.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has decided to keep a Bush-era policy on polar bears — declining to crack down on greenhouse-gas polluters on the grounds that their emissions are helping shrink the bears' habitat on Arctic sea ice, officials announced Friday.I love this job title
The reason, officials said: The problem of climate change is so big, and so complicated, that it would overwhelm the bureaucracy created to protect threatened and endangered species.
FORT COLLINS — Gov. Bill Ritter’s climate change coordinator will talk to residents about how they, companies and governments can help battle climate change in Colorado.
Alice Madden, the former House majority leader for the Colorado Legislature and a senior fellow on climate change for the Center for American Progress, will offer a free talk in Fort Collins on Wednesday.
The suggestion that the puny human addition of a few ppm (a portion of which come from fossil fuel consumption) to annual natural CO2 emissions is sufficient to dramatically alter climate is unsustainable by either science, observed reality, historic geologic evidence, or common sense.Obama sticks it to polar bears and the global warming crowd | Midwest Voices
Wasting hundreds of billions or trillions of tax dollars on climate change schemes that will have absolutely no impact on climate is pure folly. No nation can afford to commit one penny to insane policy even when economic conditions are robust; it is unconscionable folly that politicians should be contemplating such insanity during a time of economic recession.
It's time to get real about climate change and move on to issues that are of real significance to humanity.
Bob Webster
The Obama administration has just slapped down environmentalists and others intent on saving polar bears.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has decided to keep a Bush administration policy that spits in the eye of the global warming believers.
A 61-year-old oil industry consultant, [Wilf] Hanni practices a unique brand of right-wing rural populism: he chides Bennett for not being a real conservative, then attacks "big business" for stealing our rivers; he demands the minimum wage be raised to $10 dollars, and in the next breath mocks the Liberals for "buying into the whole climate change theory."Wesco's Annual Shareholder Meeting (WSC) -- GuruFocus.com
Munger spoke at length about global energy. In past meetings, he has said that he is not concerned about global warming and that society would learn to deal. A few years ago, he said that if water levels rose in Florida, people would merely move inland.
According to Munger, ethanol is one of the "stupidest" ideas ever. It causes a rise in food costs, which hurts the poor. Cap & trade is "insane". The Chinese "spew" out more hydrocarbons and won't stop. He is afraid we will use hydrocarbons too quickly. They are also important in the use of fertilizers.
What he is bullish on is solar and wind energy. According to Munger, Iowa gets 20% of its energy from wind. He said that people should listen to Freeman Dyson and not Al Gore. Freeman Dyson is a famous physicist who is skeptical of man's affect on global warming. (For more, see Go Green With Socially Responsible Investing.)
ANCHORAGE — Alaska's state legislature is looking to hire a few good polar bear scientists. The conclusions have already been agreed upon — researchers just have to fill in the science part.The “Little Ice Age” and the Fraud of Global Warming « MN Prager Discussion Group
A $2 million program funded with little debate by the legislature last month calls for using state money to fund an "academic based" conference that highlights contrarian scientific research on global warming. Legislators hope to undermine the public perception of a widespread consensus among polar bear researchers that warming global temperatures and melting Arctic ice threaten the polar bears' survival.
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Legislative leaders said they are frustrated that researchers skeptical of the doomsday scenario get marginalized as crackpots or industry shills by the media and scientific agencies. Critics say it's a waste of state money because all the hard scientific research points in the other direction.
If the mass media folks were more honest and professional than the devoted left wing bigots they were programmed to become while they were in college, student body president, Barrack Obama, would not be student body president. Trillions of dollars would not be transfered from the world’s economy into the fraud of “Global Warming”, the cultural effect of which would be headline news today.Carbon action cohesion crumbles - National News - National - General - The Canberra Times
It was a week of mixed messages from the Rudd Government on climate change. On one hand, a further $2.2billion was allocated to big polluters to help them adjust to emissions trading while weathering the global downturn. On the other, a successful climate change research agency was dumped to save $13million.
On Monday, the Prime Minister announced changes to the Government's emissions trading scheme. The start will be delayed by a year, the upper limit of the conditional 2020 emissions reduction target has been upped to 25 per cent, polluters got more free permits and a carbon price was fixed at $10 a tonne.
There was swaggering talk of climate policy as ''big stuff'' and the need to get the balance right.
The next day, the Government axed Land and Water Australia, the nation's peak climate change research agency for farms, rural industries and Aboriginal land management groups. More than 200 agricultural and environmental science jobs will be lost, almost all relating to some aspect of climate change research.
Continuing his efforts to ensure sweeping climate change legislation currently being debated in the U.S. Congress does not have a detrimental impact on the U.S. economy and coal industry in Kentucky, U.S. Representative Ed Whitfield (KY-01) joined fellow Members of Congress for a press conference today outside the U.S. Capitol to discuss the importance of coal both as an energy source and as a vital part of local and regional economies.Why Does President Obama Hate the Polar Bears? » The Foundry
"The reality is, implementing a cap and trade program before carbon capture and storage technologies are available would have a devastating impact on the U.S. economy," Whitfield said. "In my home state of Kentucky, coal not only provides 92 percent of our electricity, but creates tens of thousands of jobs and generates billions of dollars in revenue. It is essential that as we move forward to produce cleaner energy we balance the need for cleaner fuel sources versus the need for protecting jobs in the U.S. and keeping our country competitive in the global market place."
In other words, every action funded by the federal government has the potential to be shut down by the ESA. All that billions of infrastructure funding in Obama’s $787 stimulus bill? It all would increase carbon emissions, so the ESA could kill it all.
No wonder Obama threw the polar bears under the bus.
WoodFest 2009 will take place on August 14th-16th at The Washita Hideaway in Davis, Oklahoma. Get ready for 3 days of peace, music, environmental awareness, and butterflies. Although there is no official confirmation, President Obama and Al Gore has been asked to speak at the festival.Ken Tapping: One year on into the minimum » Blog Post » Solar Science
Our radio telescopes have detected no sign of the new cycle yet. However a statistical study of indices that I have been doing suggests the Sun did show a significant change in behaviour over the last few years, but that things are starting to slip back towards the normal situation, which could suggest the Sun is at least showing signs of waking up again. It’s deciding to take an additional lie-in cannot be ruled out.Duke Energy to Leave Trade Group Over Climate [Hoax] Policy (Update1) - Bloomberg.com
Activity is certainly very low. [Via Climate Depot]
May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Duke Energy Corp., the owner of utilities in the U.S. Southeast and Midwest, won’t renew its membership in the National Association of Manufacturers partly because of differences over climate policy.
“We are not renewing our membership in the NAM because in tough times, we want to invest in associations that are pulling in the same direction we are,” Duke Chief Executive Officer Jim Rogers said last month in an interview. The association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republicans “ought to roll up their sleeves and get to work on a climate bill, but quite frankly, I don’t see them changing.”
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Duke is also dropping the membership because of budget cuts as the company seeks to reduce costs by about $100 million, said Thomas Williams, a company spokesman, in an e-mail.
By comparing the data to climate models that correct for naturally occurring salinity variations in the ocean, Stott has found that man-made global warming -- over and above any possible natural sources of global warming, such as carbon dioxide given off by volcanoes or increases in the heat output of the sun -- may be responsible for making parts of the North Atlantic Ocean more salty.
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In the last half-century or so, the subtropical Atlantic has been getting gradually saltier -- a less than 1 percent increase in real terms, but an effect that is nevertheless significant. “It might sound like quite a small change,” says Stott, “but the overall salinity of our oceans is naturally relatively steady, so it’s actually a lot of freshwater being factored out of the ocean.”
Without fully understanding how or why the earth is warming or cooling, do we really want to embark on a policy that will extract trillions from our economy to reduce the earth’s temperature too small to ever notice?Canadian Blue Lemons: Proof That Al Gore Doesn't Even Believe Himself . . .
Want proof that Gore isn't too worried about his 20 foot sea level increase promise?Wait a minute: Polar bears naturally emit the evil pollutant CO2, the stuff that causes tsunamis, kitten population explosions, kidney stones, etc?!
His building is in one of the areas he expects to be claimed by the sea.
One analysis estimates how much of the carbon in the exhaled carbon dioxide is actually carbon-thirteen (13C). This is a stable isotope of carbon; unlike a radioactive isotope, it does not readily break down (thus the term “stable” isotope). 13C is slightly heavier than regular carbon and is present in small amounts in most things. The carbon in exhaled carbon dioxide comes from digested food – and, the amount of 13C in carbon dioxide will be slightly different if a polar bear is breaking down its own fat stores for energy than if a polar bear is digesting a seal it has killed. Once our collection bag is full of exhaled breath, we take a small sample of the breath and inject it into an airtight container for stable isotope analysis back at the University of Wyoming.
"I think it's the wrong time for a cap and trade," said Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), the co-chairman of the centrist House New Democrat Coalition. "I think health care is achievable. It's doable. And when I move around my district, and my state, and people ask me what is Congress going to do to fix health care. They don't frankly ask me what Congress is going to do to fix climate change."SF Environmental Policy Examiner: If global warming is catastrophic, why do Greens act the way they do?
Davis, who is running for governor in 2010, said he could count on about 40 to 50 House Democrats who would vote against the climate proposal despite President Obama's request earlier this week to push ahead on the issue.
"It's not my role to stop anybody," Davis said. "I'm just saying there's a significant body of members who are not going to vote for a cap-and-trade regime. And you can dress it up in a lot of different ways, but if it's still a cap-and-trade regime at the end of the day, it's still going to be hard to sell to a lot of members."
A certain subset of environmental advocates claim that global warming will produce a catastrophe on this planet. And yet they oppose measures that would help, and they don't act as if that were the case when it comes to personal decisions in their life.BBC - Climate Change: The Blog of Bloom: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust: theory that Atlantic Ocean is warming due to climate change laid to rest
If global warming is going to destroy human civilization, why does the movement's self-appointed spokesperson, Al Gore, use so much energy in his personal life? If the seas are going to rise 20 somethings (sometimes he says feet, sometimes meters), why did he buy oceanfront property here in San Francisco?
If global warming is such a dire threat, why do activists convene in such remote locations to discuss it, guaranteeing the expenditure of a large amount of fuel and the creation of very large amounts of CO2? Why not teleconference?
The North Atlantic is hotting up fast but it's not because of climate change, say scientists in the most recent edition of the journal Science. No, it's because there's less dust around to keep the water cool.Desperate Demographic Drill-Down - Chris Horner - Planet Gore on National Review Online
Over the past 30 years, the North Atlantic has been warming up at a rate of a quarter of a degree Celsius per decade. (That's pretty fast for a tropical ocean basin, apparently.)
Like the left-handed man in a Sherlock Holmes novel who limps, smokes Indian cigars and carries a blunt pen-knife in his pocket, suspicion immediately fell upon climate change. But the real culprit, it now emerges, is a drop in the amount of dust and sulphate in the skies above the Atlantic.
Might I suggest a strategy on how to reach out to this new, key demographic? Dust off and update an old favorite: "World to End: Asian-Americans to Be Hardest Hit."
Another day, another blow-up from Toyota Motors (TM) - this time for the entire 2009-2010 period. Call me bitter because I mulled, but still missed, buying Toyota at $60, but an auto company so self-consciously “green” would seem to be wasting paper and ink by warning every month. Far easier and earth-friendly (for those of you who buy into global warming, the longitudinal version of swine flu), would be for Toyota to simply issue one warning: “We’re going to miss forecasts until further notice. Get over it.”Inhofe: Interior Makes Right Call on Polar Bear: ESA not a Climate Law
“I applaud the Secretary of Interior for making the right call and applying a common-sense approach to the Endangered Species Act,” Senator Inhofe said. “Secretary Salazar is absolutely correct: ‘The Endangered Species Act is not the proper mechanism for controlling our nation’s carbon emissions.’ The same is also true of the Clean Air Act or any other federal law.”
As our legions of dedicated USA TODAY commenters enjoy pointing out, every year since 1998 — when the Earth's temperature peaked at a record high — has been cooler than that year. 2008, for example, was the planet's coolest year since 2000. Could this be evidence against global warming?Hope and Change: Decision On Polar Bears Infuriates Environmental Groups | Political Hotsheet - CBS News
No, say two scientists in this week's issue of Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. The scientists, David Easterling of the National Climatic Data Center and Michael Wehner of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, say that up-and-down temperatures year-to-year don't undermine the overwhelming evidence for global warming.
"Today's announcement shows a clear willingness to compromise when it comes to global warming science and policy." said Melanie Duchin, a global warming campaigner for Greenpeace based in Anchorage, Alaska. "I expected more from the Obama administration."Obama Retains Bush-Era Regulation Gutting Protections for Polar Bear | CommonDreams.org
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"We need the change that Obama promised, not more Friday announcements from the interior department that they're going to sacrifice the polar bear and the environment to polluters," said Kassie Siegel, a spokesperson for the Center for Biological Diversity. "This is incredibly disappointing for the Obama administration to adopt Bush's polar bear extinction program as its own. Salazar's announcement is the worst kind of doublespeak."
WASHINGTON - May 8 - "Secretary Salazar's failure to rescind this regulation only serves to cement the Bush administration's legacy of ignoring global warming science, thus putting the polar bear at further risk of extinction," said Melanie Duchin, Greenpeace's global warming campaigner in Alaska. "Regrettably, it seems to reflect an emerging willingness by the Obama administration to ignore clear scientific imperatives on global warming in the face of industry pressure." Statement by Melanie Duchin, Greenpeace USA, on the Department of Interior's Retention of Bush Administration Regulation Weakening the Endangered Species Act
On this year’s theme, he underlined it as a ‘noble one’ and aptly chosen for worldwide campaign as our survival depends on a healthy relationship and environment between the living and non-living things. He said, “If climate change or changes in ecology is the consequence of human behaviour and greed, it should also be the duty of man to contribute towards a positive change and mitigate the threat.”San Francisco Approves "Major" Solar Project - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com
Describing the Red Cross Movement as an acknowledgeable and unstoppable force, he also said, “It is only befitting that the Red Cross take up such a challenge and launch a worldwide campaign before it is too late.” Lauding the Nagaland Branch for their benevolent services to the deprived section of people, the Minister further urged its members to rededicate themselves and take solemn oath to carry forward the campaign aggressively in combating “senseless degradation of nature”’ and to bring about a positive climate change.
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has approved a plan to build what would be the largest solar photovoltaic array in California. With 5 megawatts of capability spread over 25,000 panels, it will, if completed, also be the largest municipal solar project in the United States.To do: Put up another 67,000 plants like the one above, and lots of associated transmission lines, and invent wonderful new battery technology, etc etc?: Existing U.S. Coal Plants - SourceWatch
In 2005, the Energy Information Administration's inventory of coal plants - which includes virtually all coal plants over 5 MW, and many below that size - listed 614 coal-fired power plants in the U.S. These coal plants had a total of 1,522 coal-fired generating units (many plants have multiple units), and a total of 335,831 MW (Megawatts) of production capacity.
May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Spain has turned itself into the world’s biggest builder of solar-energy plants, attracting developers from the U.S. and France by guaranteeing prices that weigh down Spanish consumers.Millions making big sacrifices to pay utilities bills, new research confirms
The government promotes clean fuels by letting generators charge as much as 10 times more for power from the sun or wind than from burning coal. The premium, added to bills of homes and businesses, has spawned a solar-investment boom by utilities, from Florida’s FPL Group Inc. to Electricite de France SA.
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“Who wouldn’t want to enter a business that’s paid many times more than the market rate, and where the customer is guaranteed for life?” said Gabriel Calzada, an economist and professor at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid.
Warnings of pensioners going hungry in order to heat their homes weren't over-the-top, after all, new research showsObama Administration Won’t Save Polar Bear from Bush’s Rule Change : Planetsave
A new report has served to confirm the fears of many consumer groups and charities – that millions of UK households are having to cut back on their food bills and other essential simply to pay for their gas and electricity.
The Obama administration’s Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, announced today that he won’t be changing George W. Bush’s rule that global factors, such as climate change, cannot be considered in analyzing the polar bear’s survival.
The president says he's willing to do 'whatever is necessary' to get a bill passed, including making major concessions to Republicans.U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Publishes $10.5 billion 2010 Budget
The EPA's FY 2010 budget requests $10.5 billion in discretionary budget authority andWhy green leaders backed the carbon plan | The Australian
just over 17,000 full-time positions.
The FY 2010 Budget provides a substantial increase from FY 2009, reflecting an enhanced focus in addressing public health and environmental challenges. Approved by Congress in April 2009, the increased funding will be targeted at vital areas including investing in water infrastructure, protecting freshwater resources, creating a foundation to address climate change, identifying research gaps, and chemical management.
Rudd turned up at a crucial point in the meeting and remained for 30 minutes. He told those present he became convinced at the recent G20 summit that a deal would be sealed at Copenhagen this year for a substantial cut in global emissions.
The Prime Minister insisted the key factor to force change would be a commitment from US President Barack Obama to back proposals for big emission cuts. With a deal at the UN climate change meeting in Copenhagen in December as good as settled, Australia's 25 per cent cut would be a reality, Rudd said.
Users of leading cheap flight site Skyscanner have voted warm and sunny weather as the most important factor when choosing their holiday location, outranking the desire for a low cost destination in the poll.Going out on a limb: "Scientist: Harsh winter not from global warming - Bangor Daily News"
ORONO, Maine — Yes, a state record was set this winter when a temperature of 50 degrees below zero was recorded Jan. 16 in Aroostook County.Manatee CSI | South Florida
That doesn’t mean the phenomenon of global warming has slowed or stopped, said Martin Hoerling, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., as has been suggested in popular books and by politicians.
"This year we had a really cold winter so we had a quite significant amount of cold stress related deaths." said Martine deWit.YouTube - Paul Chesser of Climate Strategies Watch discusses the global warming debate
Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute correspondent and director of Climate Strategies Watch, offers an update on the climate change debate.
WASHINGTON - The Interior Department is letting stand a Bush administration regulation that limits protection of polar bears from global warming, three people familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.The Associated Press: Blair: US-China deal key to climate change [hoax] accord
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will announce on Friday that he will not rescind the Bush rule, although Congress gave him authority to do so. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to pre-empt the secretary's announcement.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The key to a new global climate change agreement will be a deal between the United States and China, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday.U.S. spring vegetable acreage declines
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After leaving office two years ago, Blair launched what he called his Breaking the Climate Deadlock Initiative, meant to bring together policy makers and businessmen in support of an agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Due to supply gaps caused by earlier freeze damage, sweet corn prices exceeded 60 cents per pound in March, double the average for that month over the previous three years. With recovery in supplies expected in late April, prices should begin to ease.Jesusita Wildfire Rages On; At Least 75 Homes Burned | NBC Los Angeles
"I'm from the East Coast and at this point I'd rather put up with this than the winter," said evacuee Jim Hatch, 40, an illustrator who returned home to pick up clothes Thursday and motored up Jesusita Road on a baby blue Piaggio scooter to see the fire.
Because of a climate disaster, global warming skeptic Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) has been forced to cancel her attendance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The Wall Street Journal reports that an “unusually warm spring thaw in Alaska is causing some of the state’s worst flooding in decades, with rising rivers wiping out an entire village and bombarding another town with ice chunks as big as houses”
WASHINGTON – U.S. Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Greg Walden, R-Ore., ranking member of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, today asked Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff for confirmation about recent comments attributed to him about the need for new baseload power in the United States.Tarantula Invasion Overblown, but More, Bigger Spiders May Be in Store
The sensationalized “invasion” of “bird-eating” spiders in an Australian town may someday be a reality for other towns, as scientists say that global warming may produce more, larger spiders.Note: CO2 undoubtedly has personalized effects--ie, if you don't like spiders, CO2 will make spiders bigger, more numerous, and far more dangerous; if you LIKE spiders, CO2 will kill them all.
ByDavid Limbaugh -- Lately, MSNBC's Chris Matthews has been on a childish tear, taunting Republicans to admit their belief in the biblical account of the Creation. Someone ought to ask this paragon of smug self-satisfaction why, if he's so brilliant, he unquestioningly echoes the demagogic hyperbole of global warming fanatics hellbent on destroying the economic system responsible for producing unprecedented prosperity in the advanced industrialized world.The politics of climate change: from economic crisis to business revolution
This conference, organised by Policy Network in association with the LSE’s Centre for the Study of Global Governance, will bring together leaders of the highest rank from the worlds of politics, academia and business.John Podesta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The aim of the event is to discuss how the present economic crisis can lead to a business revolution in low-carbon industries and how the state can best play an active, incentivising and facilitating role in this process. Combining interactive plenary and roundtable discussions, the conference will also address how in the global recession policymakers and business stakeholders can build long-term political support for a low-carbon transition, mitigate serious energy security concerns, and ensure that a low-carbon society does not precipitate and entrench new inequalities.
Confirmed keynote speakers to date include:
Peter Mandelson, the UK secretary of state for business
Ed Miliband, the UK secretary of state for energy and climate change
Jonas Gahr Støre, the Norwegian foreign minister
John Podesta, former chief of staff to President Clinton
Podesta was co-chairman of the Obama-Biden Transition Project.[1]The Climate [Hoax] Project, Phase Two
NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 5 /PRNewswire/ -- The Climate Project (TCP), an international non-profit organization founded by Nobel Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore, will host its North American Summit at the newly opened Hutton Hotel May 14 - 16, 2009.Jan '08: - [Huckster] Gore cites political will, claims scriptural mandate on environmental issues
The Summit marks the beginning of The Climate Project's "Phase Two," which signals the transition from its original mission of increasing public awareness of the climate crisis to its expanded objective of "advocacy and activism." The Climate Project now seeks to educate people on how to get involved and take action to persuade elected officials and community leaders to urgently confront climate change concerns.
"The Hutton Hotel's commitment to sustainability and conservation made it the natural choice for us in terms of locations for our North American Summit. We are excited to be hosting our event at the Hutton, Nashville's newest hotel in Al Gore's hometown, and to be bringing more than 500 committed TCP climate change ambassadors from across the U.S. and Canada to the area for this significant event," said Jenny Clad, Executive Director of The Climate Project.
ATLANTA (BP)--Protecting the earth from global warming is a mandatory part of following Jesus, former Vice President Al Gore said at a "Stewardship of the Earth" luncheon Jan. 31 during the New Baptist Covenant Celebration in Atlanta.
"This is not a political issue," Gore told a crowd of approximately 2,500 paying attendees. "It is a moral issue. It is an ethical issue. It is a spiritual issue."
There is an interesting dispute over the role of scientists in politics that has been simmering for a while up in Alaska that was chronicled this week by Inside HigherEd. The controversy involves Rick Steiner of the University of Alaska and the National Sea Grant Program, run by the federal government. Steiner openly advocates certain political positions, at times in opposition to his employer.Flushin’ Dollars « the Air Vent
It is not his advocacy that is at issue, however. Steiner openly admits to being an advocate and his university supports his advocacy as a matter of academic freedom. The issue is his advocacy work in the context of being financially supported by the Sea Grant program, which stipulates that its funding should not be used to support advocacy.
I found a spot where Obama can take a teaspoon out of the 5 gallon bucket of sewage that is our 2010 US budget. Despite the completely obvious scientific evidence to the contrary, Chairman Chu (the US energy secretary) is backing Obama’s new program for renewable fuels spending two billion dollars on expansion of a wasted industry. Like all socialist governments the programs are touted to help the poor and create jobs while in the end all they do is give additional cost hurting the least wealthy while giving additional government control. I say control because now the lobbyists are required to work with congress to get the subsidies they need to support the non-profitable business they are creating. I wish the public would learn to think about incentives every time govt. makes a law but that’s as much a waste of time as wishing to be younger.CNBC Contributor Howard Dean: 'I Think We Had Quite Enough Capitalism' | NewsBusters.org
"I think we had quite enough capitalism in the last eight years and I think we need some regulation now," Dean said.Democrats Try to Haggle Together a Cap and Trade Bill - TIME - [Can't we just structure a deal where EVERYBODY ends up pocketing billions of dollars in extra cash?]
Aside from attacking what went on during the Bush administration, as his colleague CNBC colleague Keith Boykin did before him, Dean also praised President Barack Obama's paltry $17 billion in cuts from his $3.6 trillion budget. But, he also said more cuts and revenues would be needed and admitted supporting a carbon tax.
"It's a good start," Dean said. "It's not a lot of money by federal budget standards. It's a great deal of money by most of our standards. It's a decent start and oddly enough, it's almost exactly what George Bush tried to cut and was turned down by his own Republican Congress. Getting Congress to cut stuff is tough. And let's not full around here. You've got to make bigger cuts. You're also going to have to have some revenue increases to pay for all this stuff. There's no question about that. And my favorite is a carbon tax."
Representatives of energy-intensive industries that have global competition — steel, aluminum, concrete, chemical and pulp and paper — are seeking credits if they produce less carbon dioxide per ton of output than the international average for each industry.
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The task for Waxman is to grant the concessions he needs to form a majority for a bill without diluting its environmental benefits. His current focus, he said, is to assure that no part of the country bears a disproportionate share of costs. But, regardless of concessions, he added, the emissions cap will guarantee that "environmental integrity" is preserved.
This paper informs us that i) natural variations in climate metrics are quite large and ii) the non-temporal homogeneity of the climate data can result in the misinterpretation of statistical results.Obama’s [Socialist] Climate [Scam] Chief to Talk ‘Cap and Trade’ With CEOs Today - Bloomberg.com
May 8 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s [socialist] climate “czar,” Carol Browner, will meet with executives from companies such as Duke Energy Corp. who are seeking business- friendly rules to cap global warming pollution, officials said.Editorial - The Climate Debate Heats Up - NYTimes.com
Representatives from the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, or USCAP, a coalition of companies including Duke and General Electric Co., will meet with Browner at the White House today to talk about a proposed bill in Congress to create a market for trading permits to release carbon dioxide emissions, people familiar with the matter said.
Fix it, but get on with it, in the certain knowledge that failure to act would almost certainly doom comprehensive climate change legislation for this year and, probably, for this Congress.Electric cars should make a noise: How about looping the words "I actually think I'm saving polar bears right now"?
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...if the scientists are right, we know that the costs of doing nothing will dwarf the costs of acting now.
Sound generators will make electric and hybrid cars safer
WHEN cars run on electric power they not only save fuel and cut emissions but also run more quietly. Ordinarily, people might welcome quieter cars on the roads. However, as the use of hybrid and electric vehicles grows, a new concern is growing too: pedestrians and cyclists find it hard to hear them coming, especially when the cars are moving slowly through a busy town or manoeuvring in a car park. Some drivers say that when their cars are in electric mode people are more likely to step out in front of them. The solution, many now believe, is to fit electric and hybrid cars with external sound systems.
A bill going through the American Congress wants to establish a minimum level of sound for vehicles that are not using an internal-combustion engine, so that blind people and other pedestrians can hear them coming. The bill’s proponents also want that audible alert to be one that will help people judge the direction and speed of the vehicle. A similar idea is being explored by the European Commission.
Trying to play both sides on an emissions trading scheme, the Federal Government again looks like coming up empty-handed, at least before the Copenhagen summit, reports Marian Wilkinson.Do Carbon Offsets Cause Emissions to Rise? - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com
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Labor insiders, meanwhile, told the Herald they believed there was little prospect of an ambitious deal at Copenhagen, rendering the target a dead duck.
By week's end Wong's hopes of a Senate win were rapidly evaporating and Australia's national climate change policy again appeared on the brink of collapse. Despite scientific warnings that Australia should support a strong 2020 target and aim for an ambitious global climate deal in Copenhagen, politicians, business and the environment movement remain deeply divided on how to achieve this.
The divisions were on stark display on Thursday morning when Wong addressed the 10th annual national emissions trading summit. Insisting she would get the new climate deal through the Senate, Wong hit out at Turnbull again, calling on him to challenge climate sceptics among Coalition MPs and "rise to the challenge" of passing the legislation.
But whether offsets work in practice is a heated debate. Environmentalists have harshly criticized many offset programs for failing to deliver genuine carbon reductions, and for making claims about reductions that are difficult to verify.Waxman-Markey [swindle] deal-making update: 14% cut by 2020, about half the allowances given away at first, phased out to full auction in 10 to 15 years
Mr. Wara said those lessons should be reflected in any cap-and-trade program in the United States, so that polluters could only use offsets of the highest quality. Mr. Wara warned that “if the offsets are bogus, we will have lots of monitoring, lots of trading, but no change in the growth of atmospheric concentrations of” greenhouse gases.
While the final details remain to be worked out, Waxman acknowledged that he is comfortable with distributing credits for free as a way to help industries transition into a low-carbon economy and during the period when an international climate agreement takes shape. “We’re not using allocations just because people would like some revenue,” Waxman said. “We’re doing it for very legitimate purposes within the integrity of the bill.”Guest Blogger: Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) » The Foundry
Special interest groups around the country are scheming to sue the EPA to prosecute hospitals, farms, nursing homes, commercial buildings and any other small emitter of greenhouse gasses. These regulations are a dangerous loose cannon in the wrong hands.
NEW YORK -- Developed countries must be able to deliver new and innovative financing alternatives for adaptation and greenhouse gas mitigation to the developing world if there's any hope that the conclusion of international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen this year will succeed, Denmark's climate and energy minister said yesterday.Because it's been warming so much lately? - The Times of India
Having been responsible for bringing the planet to the brink of a calamity because of their economic prosperity, the developed countries ought to help the emerging and developing economies to curtail their future emissions by assisting them with technology and funds.Cap And Trade Bill Hitting Snags In The House | TPMDC
It's always been an intractable political issue, but the number of reports indicating that new cap-and-trade legislation is hitting a lot of snags is remarkable for a couple reasons. The first is that the bill in question--the American Clean Energy and Security Act--has been introduced in the House, where legislation can be fast tracked much more easily than it can in the Senate. The second is that it's lead sponsor, Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA), is an extremely talented legislator, who has put a tremendous number of professional resources into making sure the government addresses climate change.Ed Miliband's global warming [hoax] law 'could cost £20,000 per family' | Mail Online
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And that's all before there's been a single vote on it. We'll keep tracking the bill's progress. Climate change legislation reportedly remains President Obama's and Speaker Pelosi's chief legislative priority.
Laws aimed at tackling global warming could cost every family in Britain a staggering £20,000 - double the original forecast.
Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband admitted the bill for introducing legislation to cut greenhouse gases had soared from £205billion to £404billion between now and 2050.
But in figures quietly released to Parliament, the Cabinet minister claimed the benefits to the UK would be more than £1trillion - a tenfold increase on the £110billion predicted last year.
The Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina had much to do with transforming 'climate change' from a greenie sideshow to a mainstream concern.MediaPost Publications Mag Bag: 'Green' Issues Don't Sell More 05/08/2009
The losers were those magazines that approached environmental topics from a general, purely informational perspective -- perhaps indicating that American readers are experiencing "issue fatigue," resulting from over-saturation by negative information. For example, in 2008 Elle and Vanity Fair issues with a general "green" theme both stumbled. MRI senior vice president for marketing and strategic planning Anne Marie Kelly remarked: "General stories about the environment and global warming just don't seem to resonate that well with the general public."Spain's Dreamy Solar Plans Are Not For The U.S.
Spain is the biggest solar energy plant builder in the world now, Bloomberg reports. To become the global leader, Spain provides crazy subsidies which hose the general public at large.CNN Poll: 44% allegedly support cap and trade scam
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Anyone that would want to advocate a plan like this in the U.S. would advocate a widespread resentment of solar power. The public is already leery of the solar subsidies given out in the U.S. Making them greater and increasing the price of electricty would only infuriate people further.
The poll also suggests that a slight majority oppose a proposal called "cap and trade," which would allow the federal government to limit the emissions from industrial facilities such as power plants and factories that some people believe cause global warming. Companies that exceed the limit could avoid fines or higher taxes by paying money to other companies that produced fewer emissions than allowed. Forty-four percent support "cap and trade," which is backed by the Obama administration.
About 1,000 people packed into a warehouse at Maidstone Studios on Thursday evening to hear Maidstone council’s planning committee come to a decision on proposals for a giant road-rail freight interchange.George Monbiot [promotes the greatest scientific fraud in history]
After listening to residents, officers and MPs slam the plans for a 285-acre depot on open countryside between Bearsted and Hollingbourne during a heated five-hour meeting, the councillors voted unanimously against KIG on all grounds.
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Therefore the council felt the applicant’s main argument that KIG would help stop climate change by reducing road freight did not stand up to close scrutiny.
The first evacuation of an entire community due to manmade global warming is happening on the Carteret IslandsClimate change [allegedly] cuts RP’s mango production -- may8_2009
Mango farmers are expecting a 13-percent decline in production this year to 650,000 metric tons from 750,000 MT last year due to climate change, major producer Hi-Las Marketing Corp. said yesterday.Remember the good old days, when the weather was the same every day?
“We have a very irregular weather, intermittent rains and typhoons,” said company president Roberto Amores.
The UK Ops team are also in constant dialogue with Kenn Borek Air. It will, after all, be the pilots’ decision as to when exactly the team will be extracted. When the time comes (quite possibly within the next 7-10 days), KBA will on this occasion use two Twin Otter aircraft, instead of the usual one. Of these two planes, one will be carrying nothing but fuel, allowing the aircraft to venture far out onto the ocean.They're not going to make it to the North Pole
Total distance travelled 411.14 km
Average daily distance 6.04 km
Estimated distance to North Pole 484.48 km
Time on ICE 68 days
Climate economist Ross Garnaut says the Federal Government should not get caught up negotiating political solutions to its emissions trading scheme.American Thinker: Ancient Greece's 'global warming'
It wasn't Plato's Hummer, after all.American Thinker: A Worm Bin? For Me? You Shouldn't Have!
The Holocene Warming a (11,600-8,500bp). The Egyptian Cooling (8,500-8,000bp). The Holocene Warming b (8,000-5,600bp). The Akkadian Cooling (5,600-3,500AD). The Minoan Warming (3,500-3,200bp). The Bronze Age Cooling (3,200-2,500bp). The Roman Warming (500BC-535AD). The Dark Ages (535-900AD). The Medieval Warming (900AD-1300 AD). The Little Ice Age (1300AD-1850AD). Recall that the Greeks survived the warmings without air-conditioners. "History," writes Plimer, "cannot be rewritten just because it does not fit a computer model with a pre-ordained conclusion."
We‘re not the "special generation," and we don't have special powers to control the earth's temperature through special one-world government plans and cap-and-trade tax scams. Indeed, the ancients, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, these "enlightened pagans," as I call them, were far level-headed than today's tree-first Democrats.
...in this season of eco-obsession, I face long odds on scoring any gift that will excite the gift-receptor gland.Green patsies pasted | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
You either believe man is heating the world to hell, and we can’t delay cutting our gases, or you do not. So the ACF’s craven decision to back Kevin Rudd’s postponement of his emissions trading scheme should be unforgivable to members who are true global warming believersStocks in Green Inc fall | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
Is it because greens won’t put their money where their mouths are, or is it that they’re too economically illiterate to have money themselves?THE bad news keeps coming for Australian international environmental equity funds and their investors. The latest is that DWS Investments has closed its Global Climate Change Fund.
Australian international environmental funds are a new sector of the fund management industry that have tried hard to get off the ground. But after two years and the global financial crisis they are still struggling… All the six retail funds that began (in 2007) have faced difficulties and three have now closed.
Kathmandu (PTI) The Eco Everest Expedition team led by ace climber Appa Sherpa was hit by an avalanche, officials have said.The Stage / Reviews / The Contingency Plan: On the Beach/Resilience
A high altitude climber Lapka Nuru Sherpa (32), one of the members of the team, has gone missing after being hit by the avalanche at Khumbu icefall, located at 5,800 meters above the sea level on Thursday afternoon, Kaju Baral, a staff member of Asian Trekking Pvt Ltd, who organised the expedition said.
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Through this expedition, Appa aims to spread the message of peace in the world and create awareness about global warming, Mr. Baral said.
What if the worst-case scenario actually happens? Set in the near future, Steve Waters’s gripping double bill - On the Beach and Resilience - sees Britain as threatened by catastrophic flooding due to accelerating climate change.Gore fumbles on earnings from cap-and-trade legislation (OneNewsNow.com)
The purpose of the hearing was to see whether imposing a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions was worth it, Blackburn says.Steamed up by power station - Ealing Gazette
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee)"And what we've learned is that over 100 years, the steps they want to go through would lower the temperature of the earth about one-quarter of one degree," she points out. "And we know that this will come at the expense of three-to-six million U.S. jobs -- that's the estimation from the National Association of Manufacturers -- and we know that it will also cost each household somewhere between $1,600 and $3,600 a year in taxes."
Blackburn also notes that some energy state Democrats are starting to back away from cap-and-trade because of the cost.
A MASS campaign has been mobilised against a proposed "eco-friendly" power station for Southall.
More than 1,000 signatures of people who oppose the scheme planned on the site of the old gasworks in The Straight were handed to Ealing Council last Friday.
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Resident Aneaka Kelley, 24, who lives in Longford Avenue, Southall, said: "I think it is an outrage that this plant might be built on my doorstep.
"The power plant will burn pure, unrecycled vegetable oil, which will lead to more air pollution here in Southall and more climate change globally.
"It's a myth that these fuels combat climate change. They make it worse and release more greenhouse gases."
A decision involving the iconic polar bear could determine whether protecting endangered species might also help save the earth from global warming.hmmmm: 'Age of Stupid' Finally, BOLDLY, Shows Fate of Earth (at SFIFF)
The Obama administration is approaching a weekend deadline to decide whether it should allow government agencies to cite the federal Endangered Species Act, which protects the bear, for imposing limits on greenhouse gases from power plants, factories and automobiles even if the pollution occurs thousands of miles from where the polar bear lives.
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On Thursday, Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington, the ranking Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee, urged Salazar to keep the Bush rule in place.
Along with the recent ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency that carbon dioxide is a health hazard, "withdrawing this rule would give the federal government vast new climate change power to regulate any federal or federally permitted activity in our country that emits greenhouse gases," said Hastings. "This reaches far beyond the scope of polar bears in the Arctic and could put jobs and economic activity across the entire nation at risk."
Last night 'Age of Stupid' had its North American premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and after watching I feel more called to action than I have in my 23 years on earth.PANIC FACT | Daily Telegraph Tim Blair Blog
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The San Francisco Film Society is right in saying, "Armstrong delivers a cautionary, pre-apocalyptic documentary that succeeds in piercing our complacency to a degree matched only, perhaps, by An Inconvenient Truth."
Swine flu has killed more people than have been killed by global warming. Which is to say, more than none.
While acknowledging alternative energies will eventually play a key part in meeting U.S. energy needs, O’Reilly strongly warned that those wishing to cut out conventional fuels would set the country “on a straight path to a pre-industrial standard of living.” Though not mentioning him by name, O’Reilly clearly takes umbrage at Congressman and Energy and Commerce head Henry Waxman. ”We have all heard the people running for office say they will reduce carbon 20% by 2020 - sounds nice, doesn’t it, 20 by ‘20? - but they overstate how easy that is and understate the cost it will take.”Skeptic's Corner: Robbing from Peter to pay ...uh Peter
O’Reilly also took President Obama to task, again not by name, by ridiculing a carbon cap-and-trade system being proposed to help the nation reduce greenhouse gases. “If you liked credit derivative swaps, you’ll love cap and trade. This is smoke and mirrors.”
The Dublin-born and -trained engineer, who ascended to the top spots of Chevron in 2000, made his case that oil and gas are indispensable to the country’s energy security and to the noble goal of raising the developing world out of poverty. [Via Climate Depot]
The absurdity is in the first paragraph. It is sort of like build it and they will come, but the they (taxpayers) are being asked to pay to build it, pay more to use it and pay more to get less than they already have. No wonder the promoters of these schemes have a problem with the free market system-they want everything given to them -for free.4-Block World tackles Al Gore: Who Says Green Jobs Don’t Pay Well | GORE LIED
FROM-Medill Reports
Wind power companies want federal renewable standards
Via one of my favorite sites:
Tom McMahon’s 4-Block World
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