Sunday, February 07, 2010

Save the planet! Kill the camels | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
No, wait - kill only the tame ones
David Gershon: Empowering a Climate Change Movement, Part 3: Instead of Cursing the Dark, Light a Candle
"I became very concerned about the climate crisis in the 1980s, while still the artistic director of the company I founded in 1978, the Underground Railway Theater. If Jim Hansen and the other IPCC scientists were right, and it is becoming clearer and clearer that they are--all other social and political issues are moot: If we don't deal successfully with this one, there will still be a planet, but we won't be on it. My artistic staff of writers, actors, designers, and directors tried to raise the global warming alarm through our plays, developing an art form called the "eco-cabaret," but art turned out to be too indirect for the urgency of this issue. I felt strongly the need for direct action, and had become impatient with symbolic gestures that produced no tangible effects.
UN climate chief raises the temperature with racy novel
The book also weaves in lectures on the environment and the fate of Himalayan glaciers – the issue which has triggered calls for Pachauri’s resignation. Pachauri has refused to step down over an error in which an IPCC report forecast Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. His novel charts the life of Sanjay who, as a young child in India, stuns his parents with the news he was a merchant in a past life and that his wife is still alive.
Twitter / Andy Revkin [Will he be among the very last to figure out that Al Gore Warming is a scam?]
Another biting blogtoon on #glaciergate etc from marc roberts: http://j.mp/co2toonz #agw
Tom Toles Political Cartoons - washingtonpost.com
[He believes in the global warming scam, and he suggests that our electricity is generated by burning oil]
EIA - Figure ES 1. US Electric Power Industry Net Generation, 2008
Climategate: Mad Sunday – Telegraph Blogs
I mean “Mad” in a good way. This was the day when so many wheels came off Al Gore’s AGW gravy train and flew off in so many different directions, it was all but impossible to keep track of them.
The Democratic Climate Revolt Against the EPA's Anti Carbon Crusade - WSJ.com
A bipartisan effort to stop the EPA's anticarbon crusade.
ABC The Drum Unleashed - [If you don't stop your scaremongering, carbon dioxide may kill our grandchildren]
[John Hewson] In terms of the policy imperatives, both sides have squibbed the challenge. A fight as to whose tax is the lesser, to achieve a mere five per cent reduction in emissions, against a policy imperative calling for reductions of more like 25-40 per cent by 2020, is today's equivalent to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, in a world where there are many more icebergs as the polar icecap melts.
...
It is also easy to scaremonger on the possible consequences for economic growth and jobs, although the counter argument that a full and adequate response to climate change should see a technological revolution, spawning new industries and considerably new employment, is certainly worth the fight.
Al's Journal : China in the Lead?
This is why we need the Senate to pass a clean energy, climate and green jobs bill now...
Wait a minute--that's why? I thought we needed the cap and tax swindle because otherwise carbon dioxide would kill our grandchildren.
Voyageurs to Track Moose in 2010
Voyageurs National Park has new plans that will aide in the investigation of the effects of climate change on moose pollution in the park. Up to 14 adult moose will be tagged with state-of-art telemetry collars in February.

The project is a collaborative effort among scientists from the park, the University of Minnesota-Duluth's Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI), and the U.S. Geological Survey. Collars are equipped with GPS receivers that will record each animal's position every 15 minutes. Each collar is also fitted with external temperature and activity sensors, and will be retrieved when animals are recaptured in February 2011.
Discovery News - Unscientific Survey: Global Warming Issue is Waning
It is impossible to keep track of the new information showing that what one wag calls the "grantrepreneurs" of science have finally coming under mainstream scrutiny in the global warming scandals.
...
The cover-ups have been successful in some cases, but not entirely. What is stunning is the failure of the "consensus science" scolds to defend the situation. They are reduced, it seems, to repeating the old mantras that everyone knows, there is "overwhelming evidence," etc. What they do not do is debate
CTV Toronto - 'Snowmageddon' cleanup could take days - CTV News, Shows and Sports -- Canadian Television
...60 centimetres or more were reported in Washington, D.C., Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
...
Saturday's snow comes less than two months after more than 40 centimetres of snow were dumped on Washington in a storm on Dec. 19.

Such heavy snowfalls are rare for the area. The National Weather Service says that since 1870, there have only been 13 storms in Washington in which more than 30 centimetres of snow fell at a time.
Global warming: Climategate's Phil Jones after the fall
This is plausible, if not overwhelming, evidence that Phil Jones broke the law. There is no question that he was trying to evade the requirements to make public data available to any who legitimately requested it. Indeed, he did make the data available to other colleagues who requested it but not to those he considered skeptical. Jones is the one, after all, who wrote "We have 25 years invested in this – why should we let you see the data when your only objective is to find something wrong with it”?
Mary Ellen Harte and John Harte: Addressing Global Warming: Retrain Coal Workers for Green Jobs
Mary Ellen is a biologist; John Harte is an ecologist.
The Clamour Of The Times
As someday it may happen that global warmin’ bites the dust,
I’ve got a little list - I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders whom I’d really love to bust,
And who never would be missed - who never would be missed!
There’s the banker who sells carbon to any who will buy -
All ranters who do lecture but then still go on to fly -
And climate chiefs who drive a mile within their limousine -
An’ politicos with heated pools, and Charles with train of steam -
The marketers of CSC and windmills where they twist -
They’d none of ‘em be missed - they’d none of ‘em be missed!
It is so on : Alarmist Tim Lambert
I will be debating Christopher Monckton this Friday.
C3: Are Liberal "Cheeseheads" Really This Stupid? Wisconsin Democrats Plan To Enact California-Like CO2 Standards
Some day, anthropologists will conduct studies on the popular delusions that 21st century U.S. liberal/leftist/Democrats embraced (were possessed by?). If Wisconsin Democrats were to jam this down the throats of their citizens, the world impact by 2050 will possibly reach 2/1,000's (0.0019) of one degree Celsius reduction in global temperatures - spending billions for nothing, typical of the moronic Left.
Roger L. Simon » Climategate Part II: Help us follow the money
Well, we at Pajamas Media would like to know – and we imagine you would too. And speaking of the tip of that proverbial iceberg, this is not only about Al Gore. There are plenty of high rent dots to be connected here with much pertinent information to be revealed and names to be named. I am writing this post to solicit your help. Just as the blogosphere was so instrumental in dissecting the science, it can also help track the money. If you have knowledge or expertise in this area, please contact us at webmaster@pajamasmedia.com. We will forward this on to Charles Martin – our resident guru on all matters climatic – who will collate and report back. Thanks for your help.
Have green bans killed the dream of a green North? | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
Has green faith destroyed a marvellous chance to grow Australia?
BBC - Podcasts - One Planet
Mike Williams investigates whether the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change is fit for purpose - plus birdwatching One-Planet style.
Why I Am A Global Warming Skeptic | The Resilient Earth
The truth is, climate science uses computer models like a drunk uses a lamppost, not for illumination but for support. Even AGW supporters agree that if the only evidence for global warming were computer models, then skepticism would be entirely justified. But, while models are most definitely a sore point in the global warming debate, they are not the central point. It is the science itself that is uncompelling. Neither current scientific knowledge nor historical data prove the theory of anthropogenic global warming as put forth by the IPCC. If anything, new data and new studies reveal that current climate change dogma has got it very wrong. That is why I remain a global warming skeptic.
WA drought is 'proof of climate change'
[If this is "proof", why so many weasel words?] "This pattern has strengthened in the past 30 years and some of the computer models that reproduce this are showing that it looks like it has happened because of greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide - and also ozone (being depleted).

"We wouldn't claim on the strength of this that it is proven in black and white, but it's another piece of evidence.
The Great IPCC Meltdown Continues - Walter Russell Mead's Blog - The American Interest
When the glacier story broke, IPCC apologists returned over and over again to a saving grace. The bogus glacier report appeared in the body of the IPCC document, but not in the much more carefully vetted Synthesis Report, in which the IPCC’s senior leadership made its specific recommendations to world leaders. So it didn’t matter that much, the apologists told us, and we can still trust the rigorously checked and reviewed Synthesis Report.

But that’s where the African rain crisis prediction is found — in the supposedly sacrosanct Synthesis Report.
Audio and Highlights of the Harvard Kennedy School Panel w/ Andrew Revkin on Climate Change, Skeptics, and the Media : Framing Science
Andrew Revkin (13 min mark) noted that he was making his first public remarks since accepting a buy out from his position as chief environmental reporter at the New York Times. A master of using metaphor to convey a complex concept, Revkin compared public opinion on climate change to "waves in a shallow pan" that will tip to either side based on focusing events or news trends leading to "a lot of sloshing but not a lot of depth." Revkin also predicted that in coming years, information about climate change will come less and less from journalists and their news organizations, and instead from other parties, notably either scientists themselves (through their organizations, universities, or own social media strategies) or through advocates including climate skeptics and environmentalists.
Is Revkin still vainly hoping that the public will ever again believe in the global warming hoax as they did in 2007?
[An alleged] Farewell to Ice : Discovery News
"We've grown back ice in the winter, but that ice tends to be thin and that's the problem," [fraudster] Serreze told Reuters. "You set yourself up for a world of hurt in summer. The ice that is there is also thinner than it was before and thinner ice simply takes less energy to melt out the next summer."   [where's the ice thickness data for the last thirty years?]
...
The pace of the melt, and the consequent feedback loop as high-albedo ice yields to low-albedo water, has caused researchers to change their calculations about the Arctic's future. As David Barber of the University of Manitoba pointed out at a press conference on Friday to announce the initial findings of a two-year study involving 370 scientists from 27 countries, until recently, models predicted the Arctic would be sea ice-free in summer by the year 2100. Today, however, most researchers agree that, at present trends, a more likely date is 2030.
March '09: The 'Global Warming Three' are on thin ice - Telegraph
It took the Watts Up With That? science blog to point out that there is little point in measuring ice thickness unless you do it several years running, and that, anyway, Arctic ice is being constantly monitored by US Army buoys. The latest reading given by a typical sensor shows that since last March the ice has thickened by “at least half a metre”.
2007: Al Gore lays blame for Bali stalemate on U.S. | Reuters
"There's no precedent in history, culture for the radically new relationship between humanity and the planet," he said, citing new evidence this week that the North Pole may be ice-free in summer as soon as 2012.
Sceptic rubbishes computer modelling on climate change | The Australian
CLIMATOLOGISTS were downplaying the uncertainty of the long-term computer models used to predict climate change, a leading sceptic said yesterday, as repercussions spread from the mistaken IPCC claim that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.

Climate change sceptic William Kininmonth, a former director of the Bureau of Meteorology's National Climate Centre, questioned the reliability of long-term predictions, given that the limit of accurate forecasts was about 10 days.

"The whole issue about the global warming scenario is that the uncertainty of computer modelling is being downplayed," he said.
New study using satellite data: Alaskan glacier melt overestimated « Watts Up With That?
Glaciologists at the Laboratory for Space Studies in Geophysics and Oceanography (LEGOS – CNRS/CNES/IRD/Université Toulouse 3) and their US and Canadian colleagues (1) have shown that previous studies have largely overestimated mass loss from Alaskan glaciers over the past 40 years.
Tracking the Earth’s orbit: looking for warming signs « Watts Up With That?
CLIMATE-GERMANY: Planting the Forest of the Future
BERLIN, Feb 7, 2010 (Tierramérica) - Exotic tree seedlings grow next to native species in the southeastern German village of Laufen, at a site where researchers are experimenting with ways to restore forests lost to the effects of global warming.
Flashback: Study Finds a Tree Growth Spurt - NYTimes.com
The study centered on trees in mixed hardwood stands on the western edge of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland that are representative of much of the those on the Eastern Seaboard.

All are growing two to four times as fast as normal, according to a study published in Tuesday’s issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Abandoning all journalistic standards, CBS libels Michael Mann based on a YouTube video — while reporting his exoneration! « Climate Progress
Yes, CBS actually shows Mann singing:
Makin’ up data the old hard way
Fudgin the numbers day by day
Truly unbelievable.

I generally do not use the word “libel” for media miscoverage of climate science. But CBS reports in the same story, almost as a throwaway, that an academic panel had just cleared Mann of the exact same “charge” leveled at it by the fact-free video. Thus, the false charge meets the tough legal standard for determining whether a major media outlet has defamed a public figure — that the publisher had “knowledge that the information was false” or that the information was published “with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
CapitalClimate: Seasonal Snow: Rewriting Records
In the seasonal ranks, the 45.1" reported so far displaces the 1921-22 season and its infamous Knickerbocker storm out of the number 3 slot. With more snow expected in the middle of the week, the second place record of 1995-96 is in serious jeopardy.
Poll: Believers in man-made global warming rapidly dwindling - Bill Dupray - American Conservative - True/Slant
What a great story. The Warmers are going the way of the flat-earthers. In our search for the reasons why that might be, we can start with the 24 inches of snow that fell in my backyard in Virginia yesterday.
Twitter / C. Steven Tucker
Al Gore preached his climate change, he wanted us all 2 CARE, but after all was said & done, the evidence wasn't THERE #libpoems #tcot
KEEPER OF THE SNAILS: The Sun Kings by Stuart Clark and an interview with the author
[Clare Dudman, British award-winning novelist] ...a period of greater solar activity will cause the earth to cool.
Twitter / Amanda Carpenter: http://twitpic.com/11w65r ...
http://twitpic.com/11w65r - Seen on Capitol Hill: An igloo with a sign that says "Al Gore's New Home"
Water at core of climate change impacts: "experts" | Reuters
OSLO (Reuters) - The main impact of climate change will be on water supplies and the world needs to learn from past cooperation such as over the Indus or Mekong Rivers to help avert future conflicts, experts said on Sunday.

Desertification, flash floods, melting glaciers, heatwaves, cyclones or water-borne diseases such as cholera are among the impacts of global warming inextricably tied to water.
House of Peers - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online
Like all the poodles of the environmental beat, Margot O'Neill repeats those magic words "peer review" every couple of paragraphs like a talisman to ward off evil deniers. But, in the course of invoking the phrase "peer review", she never bothers to look at whether the IPCC actually does it. By contrast, without benefit of the resources of a national TV news operation plus salary and benefits, lone blogger Donna Laframboise did a couple of text searches on the IPCC report and discovered multiple predictions of doom - on Himalayan glacier melt and much else - resting not on peer-reviewed science but merely on activist groups such as the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace.
A “Small Document” « Climate Audit
And oh yes, Jones’ correspondent, Tom Peterson of NOAA, wrote back:
Hi, Phil,
Yes, Friday-Saturday I noticed that ClimateFraudit had renewed their interest in you. I was thinking about sending an email of sympathy, but I was busy preparing for a quick trip to Hawaii ...
Raingate splashes across the London Times | CLIMATEGATE
But as a devastating twist, we can add a postscript to the plot as reported by that superb blog, eureferendum:
Unlike the glacier claim, which was confined to a section of the technical Working Group II report, this “50 percent by 2020″ claim forms part of the key Synthesis Report, the production of which was the personal responsibility of the chair of the IPCC, Dr R K Pachauri. It has been repeated by him in many public fora. He, therefore, bears a personal responsibility for the error.
Weather and Climate Through the Eyes of Mark Vogan: ONE FOR THE AGES: Flintstone, Allghany County, MD gets 43.0 inches
I am amazed at just how much snow fell from this storm and the stunning meteorology to create such an extreme event.
Indian climate [scam] chief endures attacks at home - Telegraph
Indian environmentalists have joined critics of Dr R.K. Pachauri, the head of the UN's Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change, accusing him of damaging the country's environment and protecting "polluter" corporations who fund his research institute.
...
...environmentalists in his own country have failed to rally around him and have instead launched their own attacks on a man they claim is harming endangered forests, depleting scarce water reserves and promoting power companies which emit the carbon gases that cause global warming.
...
They said his consultancy group, The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri), had built a university on The Ridge, a protected forest threatened by construction in New Delhi, and is a contractor for the Commonwealth Games Village which campaigners say could severely damage the Yamuna river, the capital’s “water lifeline”. Leena Srivastava, Teri's executive director, said the local government had given environmental clearance for the university construction.

Several campaigners said Teri had failed to declare conflicts of interests when it had produced favourable reports or given environmental awards to companies that funded its projects. Teri denies the claims.
Tough Times « the Air Vent
I am sorry this cocky arrogant bastard is having such a tough time, but gee doc — all you had to do was share the damned data – and stop lying!

Those who have focused on Phil Climategate Jones, have misplaced their anger. Phil is guilty as hell for sure, but a lot of people around him knew it. They are also guilty. What’s more, I predict they will continue to be guilty over the coming years, having no remorse or punishment whatsoever for that which they fabricate. Instead the international climate business, which has been structured to reward exaggerations, will continue on unabated but perhaps more cautious. All that said, Phil can’t leave the group soon enough though, a few decades away from the stress of collecting and disclosing data would do him some good.
Hot Air » Blog Archive » Even more problems found in IPCC report on AGW
The IPCC doesn’t do science. They do advocacy, mainly for the idea of international control of energy and manufacturing, with a healthy dose of redistribution of wealth. These revelations should put an end to any reliance on IPCC work for American policy, and the UN should be pressured to fire everyone involved in this sham, starting with railroad engineer Rajendra Pachauri.
Pajamas Media » Our Wrong-Headed Approach to Utilizing Alternative Energy Sources
First, do the science to determine if it works. Then support it with public funds if necessary and not the other way around.
Monckton Tour — Sellout with Extra Dates in Perth, Sydney « JoNova
In Noosa, his talk was so popular that 350 people were left in the car-park unfortunately. When he found out, Monckton came outside to apologize personally, and gave them a 15 minute synopsis right there in the car-park.
Flashback: Schoolmate to Pachauri-"go into the Himalayas and reflect upon the mistakes you've made"
Pachauri - I think the likes of Lord Monckton don't count at all.People laugh at him wherever he goes. I mean he can't collect ten people to address an audience anywhere except those who are known adherents..
Die Klimazwiebel: Science magazine confused about who is a “prominent climate scientist”?
Having worked since the early 1980 in climate science (I believe), I have learned that there is no specific climate discipline
C3: Is Melting Tundra & Permafrost The CO2 "Tipping Point" of Runaway Warming? Peer-Research Says No
As with every unsubstantiated, speculative prediction made by alarmists and climate models, there is a grain of truth regarding melting tundra/permafrost releasing stored carbon dioxide. But researchers have discovered that when these melted areas are thawed, the explosion of new growth of vegetation becomes a positive CO2 sink that sequesters carbon dioxide in greater quantities than that released from the thaw. So instead of permafrost melting being a positive warming feedback, it actually becomes a negative feedback - funny how the climate always seems to do that in the end.
Al Gore Snowman Contest - HUMAN EVENTS
HUMAN EVENTS announces its first ever Al Gore Snowman contest. Our friend Amb. Fred Eckert suggested that we award a prize for the best snowman made to look like the chief poobah of global warming baloney, former Vice President Al Gore.

With Washington digging out of a near-record snowfall, it’s only appropriate to (dis)honor the principal perpetrator of biggest fraud since the UN’s Oil for Food scandal. (That one, after all, only cost about $30 billion. The global warming “cap and tax” legislation will cost much more.)
The climate change debate heats up « The Economic Voice
The message both sides should take, is that the science is not settled and it never will be while big money is at stake. Money to fund research is as much an attraction to scientists as bonuses are to bankers. Maybe the big step we could take forward in science is to sort out how we fund research and anything that falls outside of that cannot be used by public bodies in formulating policy and setting tax levels.

I blame George Bush

Apathy to climate change high amongst Bangladeshi businesses
Results from the first stage of the study concluded that only 10% of companies identified climate change as an important factor that may affect future business decisions.
About those solar panels
[From the comment section] "A distinguished professor from the local university (specialty semi conductor materials), asks question of German dude who just presented some info on his solar panel company. 'My calculations have always shown that the energy to manufacture a solar panel is greater than the expected total output from the finished panel up to their predicted mean time to fail. Has new technology changed this fact?' Answer from German dude. 'The Ontario government pays between 70 - 80 cents per KWhr for power from solar installations supplying the grid. The current rate for all power is 12 cents. This is what matters.'"
How about including the energy consumed in transporting the solar panels, and in transporting people (in fossil-fueled vehicles) to install, maintain, design, sell, and discuss the solar panels?

Blows upon a Bruise
This Sunday may prove to be one of the more important in the collapse of the Global Warming Grand Narrative, newspaper after newspaper striking blow upon blow as the already bruised science, economics and politics totter before a near-perfect storm. I thought it might thus be useful to place on record just a few of the main stories of the day
Sarah Palin: queen tea party | Richard Adams | World news | guardian.co.uk
The content still doesn't bear close examination – one moment she was calling for "carbon free energy" and the next demanding more off-shore drilling
[Feb '09]: New Antarctic station is [allegedly] carbon-free - Climate Change- msnbc.com
PRINCESS ELISABETH BASE, Antarctica - The world's first zero-emission polar research station opened in Antarctica and was welcomed by scientists as proof that alternative energy is viable even in the coldest regions.
PRINCESS ELISABETH BASE, Antarctica - Entering the Home Stretch - First zero emission station
* François regularly dons his FAS suit to check the anchoring points for the fuel platform on the ridge.
...
This year has seen more snowfall and sea ice than any time since our expeditions began. Both the Mary Arctica (bound for Atka Bay) and the Shirase (en route to Syowa) had many difficulties with ice. Koen, back from the third cargo traverse, tells us that the sea ice in Crown Bay is still intact. Normally it should have begun to break up by now.
Al Fin: Fools Who Once Were Smart
Now that the religion of carbon hysteria is collapsing of its own fabrications and contradictions, how will these knowledgeless know-it-alls (on that topic at least) explain their complete and utter mistakenness? Will they apologise to all of those they have derided and accused of being in the pockets of the oil industry? Not likely. More likely they will try to find scapegoats to blame for misleading them, like Monbiot -- who is now demanding ClimateGate's Phil Jones' head on a platter.
No winners in fight over climate change
The climate change debate is deadlocked and each side is more obsessed with attacking the other's policy than promoting its own.

With neither policy ever likely to see the light of day, voters are condemned to endure competing theoretical arguments from here on about who is out to shaft them the hardest.
Managing spin cycle can leave a government all washed up
For marginal seats holders the ETS is becoming something of a nightmare. It's one thing to surf along on climate change, as in 2007 when the argument was comfortably vague. It's quite another when you have to answer all sorts of nitty-gritty queries about fuel costs and family compensation, and know your figures to the dollar. One Labor source says: "A number of Labor backbenchers are very concerned about where the government is going on this. They don't think the government is selling it correctly, and they are very concerned about what effect it will have on energy prices."

It is also becoming increasingly hard to explain to people why Australia should be moving when things look bleak internationally. The latest blow came from the US where last week President Barack Obama flagged the US legislation was unlikely to get through this year.
India seeks clarity on equity of climate change [swindle] | CalcuttaTube
EU Referendum: The beauties of blogging
...it takes bloggers to bring this to the fore, and more bloggers to expand and develop the theme, backed up by their readers with their invaluable input on comments sections, forums and e-mails.

In the free (and rapid) exchange of information and ideas (and mutual criticism), it is us working as a loose community who most closely approach the scientific ideal. This is, of course, why we are winning the intellectual argument. The political battle, though, has yet to come.
150 to run a non-existent scheme on a non-existent problem | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
If this is how many people Kevin Rudd needs to run nothing, how many thousands will it take to run his colossal emissions trading scheme when it actually exists?
RFK, Jr. 15 months ago: Global warming means no snow or cold in DC | Washington Examiner
Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don't own a sled.
Climate policy backlash takes shine off Rudd
SUPPORT for Kevin Rudd and his flagship policy, the emissions trading scheme, has fallen sharply following the failure of the Copenhagen climate change conference and Tony Abbott's ascension to the opposition leadership.
Abbott's flailing fists sting Rudd like a bee
TONY ABBOTT'S first big punch was aimed at Kevin Rudd's climate change policy, and it has hit hard.

By proposing an alternative to Rudd's emissions trading system, Abbott has applied the first serious pressure to the policy. Public support crumpled immediately.
...
One of the reasons that public support for the Rudd policy is weak is that the government decided to play what Paul Keating would call "tricky-poo" politics on the matter. Rather than campaigning hard to explain the policy and carry public opinion, Rudd decided to step back. He fell silent for most of last year. Why?
Rudd missed opportunity to dump failed emissions scheme
Cap and trade emission plans are fundamentally flawed.

KEVIN Rudd is not showing much political or environmental nous by sticking with his Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme to reduce carbon emissions.

Its big initial political virtue - its diabolical complexity - became a huge political liability when the federal opposition switched from principled support for the CPRS under Malcolm Turnbull to unprincipled opposition under Tony Abbott.
The IPCC scandals: yet another coverup | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
They falsely claim it’s never been hotter - but won’t let you check their reasoning why. They demand we change the entire way we run the economy - but refuse to divulge how they came to that conclusion.

And this is the document on which Kevin Rudd relies most for his great green tax on everything.
Journalist versus the sceptics. Listen if you have no pity | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
The global warming debate in Brisbane between Lord Monckton and Professor Ian Plimer on the one hand and warmists Professor Barry Brook and green journalist Graham Readfearn on the other can now be heard here.

I’m not surprised Readfearn has not commented on his blog about the debate or his extraordinary contribution to it, so rich in abuse and so utterly devoid of argument. Nor am I surprised that he’s since quit the Courier Mail.

This is another proof of the maxim that journalists sound most authoritative when they are protected from debate. Take David Marr, who sounded like the Prophet Elijah when allowed to preach unchallenged at Media Watch, but is surprisingly ineffectual in debate on the panel on Insiders. That Readfearn could have dared to write for the Courier Mail for so long as its expert on global warming seems farcical when he’s put on a stage with people who actually know a little of the subject themselves.
Abbott leads poll revival
TONY Abbott's ascension to leadership has boosted the Coalition vote, and backing for the government's emissions trading scheme has taken a knock, in an Age/Nielsen poll showing people are confused on the climate change alternatives.
Coal-to-gas switch 'would lift power prices 20%'
ELECTRICITY prices would rise 20 per cent if power suppliers switched from brown coal to cleaner gas-fired generators, says TRUenergy.
OfficialWire: Businesses Down Due To Snow
Left out in the cold, thousands of commuters are forced in Washington DC and the surrounding area to stay at home, as the worst blizzard in ninety years grips America.
Brendan O'Connor: Don't knock the very lifeblood of Irish economy - Analysis, Opinion - Independent.ie
About half of businesses surveyed by county and city enterprise boards around the country now say they are being treated worse by their banks than they were last summer. Most of these guys aren't looking for much. They are not looking for the kinds of huge loans developers got. They are not looking for huge injections of capital to expand. Most of them are looking for an overdraft to get through the next month. Lots of them have had a tough January. Lots of them saw business down by up to 90 per cent in the recent cold weather.
Green Left - Behind the lies of climate deniers
...no climate denier has published a peer-reviewed article in a scientific journal in the past 15 years.
Flashback: 500 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming
The following papers support skepticism of "man-made" global warming or the environmental or economic effects of.
Obama has tough job in closing ‘green’ jobs gap : Business : The Buffalo News
NEW YORK — President Obama is spending $2.1 million to help Suntech Power Holdings build a solar-panel plant in Arizona. It will hire 70 Americans to assemble components made by Suntech’s 11,000 Chinese workers.

That gap shows the challenge Obama faces as he works to create “green” jobs.
Flashback: Obama promised 5 million new green collar jobs, Duke shows us the way | TG Daily
Obama proposed creating 5 million new jobs in the environmental industries.
70 down; 4,999,930 to go!
Seal of disapproval - Telegraph
The mighty bandwagon of global warming, groaning under its burden of the great and the good, has already produced its share of vanities and ironies to raise a wry smile. For instance, the discovery that Dr Rajendra Pachauri, egregious chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is very much an idol with feet of clay – or rather with enormous footprints of carbon.

But the gathering of G7 finance ministers in Iqaluit, a city of scarce 7,000 souls in the frozen Canadian province of Nunavut, brings a new level of comedy to the struggle to save the planet. The image of an appalled Alastair Darling being served a slice of fine raw seal, in the best tradition of Arctic hospitality, is priceless. Or would have been, had he not uninvited himself from this honorary dinner. The Inuit name of Iqaluit means a place of much fish, apparently. Much chickens, more like.
Global warming con artists
The global warming cult lied about tree ring data, lied about the Himalayan glaciers melting, lied about declining polar bear populations, lied about the Netherlands being half under sea level, lied about global temperatures declining, and lied about the threat and cause of climate change.

Yet Obama clings to this global warming fantasy. He doesn't even question it. He insists on spending billions immediately and trillions in the future to handle this "crisis".

Sarah Palin was criticized when she "questioned" global warming, its causes and its consequences. The media made her sound stupid. A stupid person is someone who doesn't question things. Obama accepts whatever he is told as fact. The trillions of dollars he is spending on this fraud is costing America money, jobs, industries and lives.
Use Religious Leaders for Climate Change Awareness: Nobel Laureate
New Delhi, Feb 7 – Countries should take help from religious leaders to create mass understanding about global warming and thus help curb it, according to Wangari Maathai, Nobel laureate from Kenya.

‘We should solicit the support of religious groups,’ Maathai, a 2004 Nobel peace prize winner said late Saturday at the Delhi Sustainable and Development Summit here.

‘The religious groups and leaders can play a major role (in persuading people). The approach should be bottom up to tackle the climate threat,’ she said.
Cold took heavy toll on wildlife, but most will recover - South Florida - MiamiHerald.com
Despite four decades of slogging through Everglades marshes and mangroves, wildlife ecologist Frank Mazzotti had never experienced anything like the aftermath of frigid January. The confirmed casualty count so far:

• At least 70 dead crocodiles.

• More than 60 manatee carcasses.

• A bright-side observance of multiple frozen-stiff Burmese pythons, the scourge of the Everglades.

And also, perhaps the biggest fish kill in modern Florida history.

``What we witnessed was a major ecological disturbance event equal to a fire or a hurricane,'' said Mazzotti, a University of Florida associate professor. ``A lot of things have happened that nobody has seen before in Florida.''

The cold was simply brutal on many tropical plants and animals.
If a *heat* wave killed this many animals and plants, how would the mainstream media react?
Snow Accumulation Causes Roof Collapse At Dulles Jet Center
February 7, 2010 - On Saturday morning about 8 AM, the Fairfax County Fire Rescue of Virginia was called out to Dulles International Airport on a roof collapses at Dulles Jet Center. The hanger roof at Dulles had fully collapsed destroying several business jets.
Joshua Temple Church collapses under snow, downed tree limb - washingtonpost.com
"All of our equipment, the Hammond organ, the pulpit, everything is gone," Rowe said.

Rowe said emergency officials told her that the 100-year-old church could not sustain the weight of the snow and a tree limb that fell on it during the weekend blizzard.
Fairfield mom, daughter escape Va. ice rink collapse - StamfordAdvocate
Just hours after arriving for the competition, the rink they were to compete in was in ruins. It was not the only building to collapse under the weight of snow dumped in the Mid-Atlantic states by a huge storm.
One thousand pigs survive barn roof collapse - The Local
And it wasn’t enough that human beings had to brave transport delays, icy highways and collapsed roofs. The fact is: even pigs suffered.

Around 1,000 pigs survived on a farm in Brålanda in western Sweden on Saturday after a barn roof collapsed because of the heavy snow load.
...
Pigs are not the only animals that have faced hazards during the deep freeze. Wildlife such as reindeer, distressed by huge snow drifts, have ventured onto Swedish highways, and at their peril. Reindeer fatalities are not immediately available.
At the home of a prominent warmist | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
Somewhere behind this wall of snow outside the White House windows is Barack Obama, working on his plan to stop the planet from getting so warm.
BBCW: Climate Crook Phil Jones Thought About Suicide: Having Problems Coping after Hadley CRU E-Mails
Hey Mr. Jones, many of us in the United States want our grandchildren, children, nieces, and nephews to grow up as well. We want a free world for them to grow up in--not a world manipulated by lying scientists who lesson the quality of life by pushing bad science all so the government can justify a tax on the air while the United Nations gains more control through foolish treaties that may have been signed had you not been caught.

I really don't feel bad for you at all Mr. Jones.
EU Referendum: In the money
...laughably, the Independent on Sunday resurrects the tired old story about oil money funding "deniers". The authors of that piece are Jonathan Owen and Paul Bignell and I had a lengthy telephone conversation with Owen earlier this week when he called me to discuss "Amazongate".

The man had swallowed the line completely about a "powerful, well-funded conspiracy", and was absolutely convinced that I was part of it.
Biased BBC: AFRICAN HOT AIR
Thus, the BBC is hard at work with your cash, hell bent on a political mission to persuade millions of Africans that a series of cobbled together lies are the truth. Its co-conspirators are the EU and the government.
Liberty News Central: Africagate score
Africagate in Google search - 22,800 results
"Africagate"(in quotes)- 12,800 results
Africagate in Google news - 1 result(but not related to Africagate)
Liberty News Central: Pachauri stereotypes himself
[cartoon] This is just like the stereotypical swindling guru of Bollywood films who claims that he would never take a penny but that the devotees are encouraged to contribute generously to the charity box.The money would of course be used for doing good, nod-nod-wink-wink.

Isn’t that just like Pachauri?
Leading article: Sceptics have their uses - Leading Articles, Opinion - The Independent
The climate change sceptics have done us all a favour. This may seem a curious view for a newspaper so committed to the cause of environmental sustainability. But, by challenging the consensus view of global warming, the sceptics have tested the flabbier assumptions of that consensus and forced the proponents of the majority view to sharpen their arguments.
Why The Observer is Wrong
Part of the visceral anger of people like Robin McKie is that their goose has been shot. For some 20 years now, there has been a ruthless, and at times disgraceful, attempt to make ‘global warming’ a zero in any cost-benefit analysis with regards to political and economic actions relating to climate change, which would mean that there is no balancing of risks at all, but simply the one risk of ‘global warming’.
Nigel Lawson: If climate change is real, we must adapt, not fight nature
His basic stance is this: the climate change argument is forever being bundled up as one huge great issue, when in fact it boils down to four entirely separate questions. First, is the world warming up? Second, is the warming being caused by man? Third, even if it is warming, is this necessarily a bad thing for humankind? And fourth, what should we be doing about it? Even if the climate scientists can tell us what is happening, and why they think it is happening, they cannot tell us what governments should be doing about it.”
Met Office blocked role of leading scientist in climate change row - Telegraph
David Holland, an electrical engineer who made the FOI requests asking for the climate scientist’s correspondence, was initially told by the Met Office that Prof Mitchell’s records had been “deleted” from its computers.

Officials later admitted that the records did exist, but could not be disclosed because they were “personal”, and were not relevant to the the professor’s Met Office job.
EU Referendum: Phil Jones interviewed
He gets a very rough ride in the comments. Several make this point: "Anyone tempted to feel sorry for Jones should bear in mind what he wrote when the skeptic John Daly died: "'In an odd way, this is cheering news!'". This one too betrays a certain lack of sympathy: "In this era of 'victimhood', another perpetrator seeks to pass himself off as a victim."
[Not so smart]: Xcel "smart" grid costs blow up, PUC orders more transparency - Boulder Daily Camera
Xcel Energy has begun charging customers across the state to recoup some of the skyrocketing costs the company has incurred building its smart grid project in Boulder.
...
When Boulder was chosen for the smart grid project in March 2008, Xcel Energy projected that capital expenditures for the SmartGridCity would be about $15.3 million. By May 2009, Xcel had changed its projected cost to $27.9 million, and now the company believes the total bill will reach $42.1 million, not including the costs of operating and maintaining the new grid.
Laughable: RealClimate's page of global warming resources claims: 'You can’t do better than the IPCC reports themselves' | GORE LIED
Um, it might be time for the Hockey Team to edit that page a bit.
Flashback: what Gore's useful idiot Ed Begley Jr doesn't get about the 'peer review' process – Telegraph Blogs
Anyway, the reason I show you that first footage from Fox News – apart from the fact that it’s funny – is to show you an example of how obsessed Warmists are with the notion of “Peer review.” Note how Ed repeats it, mantra-like, to ward off any possible suggestion that the scientists supporting his bomb-the-global-economy-back-to-the-stone-age cause might be wrong. How can they be? They’re peer-reviewed-peer-reviewed-peer-reviewed.  [or not]
Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers - Climate Change, Environment - The Independent
ExxonMobil cash supported concerted campaign to undermine case for man-made warming
...
An orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment experts claimed last night.
On my site's blogroll, which of the blogs are run by people funded by ExxonMobil?
How Met Office blocked questions on its own man's [John Mitchell's] role in 'hockey stick' climate row | Mail Online
Last night Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, said the affair further undermined the credibility of the IPCC and those associated with it. He said:

‘It’s of critical importance that data such as this should be open. More importantly, the questions being raised about the hockey stick mean that we may have to reassess the climate history of the past 2,000 years.

‘The attempt to make the medieval warm period disappear is being seriously weakened, and the claim that now is the warmest time for 1,300 years is no longer based on reliable evidence.’

Despite repeated requests, the MoD and Met Office failed to comment.
Rose on Fortress Met Office « Climate Audit
The issue is by no means over. Despite its claims to be an “open and transparent” organization, the IPCC does not attorn to any international FOI legislation. Its cadres in the U.S. and U.K. have used the interference with international organization to immunize the actions of national IPCC cadres from national FOI.

In one of the Climategate Letters, Phil Jones planned to ask IPCC to seek even greater immunization of national cadres from FOI legislation. In my opinion, exactly the opposite needs to be done: in UK and US legislation regarding the relations with international organizations exemption, exclude relations with IPCC
'Snowmageddon' paralyses US east coast, two dead | News.com.au
Police in the state had responded to some 3167 calls for help, more than two-thirds of which were due to car accidents or stranded vehicles.
Gates of Vienna: The Blizzard of ’10
This is the worst pre-storm panic I’ve ever experienced. I would have thought I was in D.C. — it was that bad.

Now we are stranded yet again. Powdered climate change is falling steadily, and the satellite dish is now partially covered, but we’ve still got an internet connection for the moment.

Can I trade in my carbon credits now?
Twitter / Eye Opener
Can you image the MSM attempts to get an interview with a Conservative who predicted Global Warming & disaster. Al Gore is protected
Twitter / Eye Opener
The Al Gore Storm should be the name of the biggest snow storm of the century for Washington DC. Most appropriate.
Climate scepticism grows among Tories | Politics | The Observer
Most Conservative MPs, including at least six members of the shadow cabinet, are sceptical about their party's continued focus on climate change policies, it has been claimed.

The recent furore around "Climategate" has hardened the views of Tory MPs, many of whom were already unconvinced by the scientific consensus, and has led to increasing calls for the issue to be pushed down the priority list.

Tim Montgomerie, founder and editor of the ConservativeHome website, said climate change had the potential to be as divisive for the party as Europe once was. "You have got 80% or 90% of the party just not signed up to this. No one minded at the beginning, but people are starting to realise this could be quite expensive, so opinion is hardening."
The storm over climate change: Goldstein | Lorrie Goldstein | Columnists | Comment | Toronto Sun
...there’s a growing public perception the IPCC has abandoned its proper role as a dispassionate presenter of scientific research to policy makers, to become just another environmental group preaching warmist hysteria.
...
Why have Canadian media largely ignored this growing controversy? Perhaps the best answer is embarrassment. Having shilled for warmist hysteria for so long, having dismissed any questioning of man-made climate change orthodoxy as equivalent to Holocaust denial, they don’t know how to climb down, or cope with the tidal wave (pardon the pun) of controversy now hitting climate science all over the world.

Thus they remain paralyzed, desperately, frantically, pretending no controversy exists.

Except it does. And it’s growing.
McEntee: Is global warming a plot? Mm, nah - Salt Lake Tribune
The show really got started when [Rep. Mike Noel] took the microphone, saying that more Utahns than not doubt that global warming is real and that the "media" takes a "one-sided slant."

Express your doubts, he said, and "you'll be attacked personally, you'll be maligned personally. It's happened to me."

But Noel really got heated when Joe Andrade, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Utah, calmly said that he worried that passage of the resolution would slow down the movement to find new, clean energy sources such as nuclear, solar and wind.

Noel asked Andrade: "Are you stating on record that CO2 is a pollutant?

Andrade: "I'm saying that CO2 has a unique molecular structure which absorbs infrared radiation, and that that is in part responsible for the effects you're concerned with, Rep. Gibson is concerned with...."

Noel: "I want to get this on the record: Are you saying we have to rid the planet of carbon dioxide?"

Andrade: "Of course not!"

Noel: "It's not a pollutant, then it's not going to kill you. It's not going to kill plants. Is that correct? I have a degree too, Professor."
Phony Climate Change Agenda Used In Australia to Force Expensive Home Inspections
All Australian homes will have to undergo a mandatory energy-efficiency assessment – costing up to $1500 per property – before they can be sold or rented under new laws to tackle carbon emissions.

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Another storm for climate "expert" -- Page 1 -- Times Union - Albany NY
NASA researcher [Jim Hansen] says he is the next target of global climate change critics
...
...recent polls show more Americans think that climate change is not real, something Hansen said showed the climate change contrarians, whose efforts are sometimes funded by and mirror the interests of fossil fuel companies that would lose billions in profits under greenhouse gas limits, are swaying public opinion.

"It is surrealistic. As the science gets clearer and clearer, the public gets more and more misinformed," he said.
...
Hansen said cap-and-trade won't work, as major polluters like China and India will not agree to join.
KUAR: Ark. GOP congressman announces bid for Senate seat (2010-02-06)
UALR Public Radio) - Republican congressman John Boozman announced Saturday that he is seeking the GOP nomination to challenge Sen. Blanche Lincoln, criticizing Democratic-led efforts on climate change and health reform as hurting the state's businesses.
MALKIN: We're paying tab for the super-size census boondoggle
Taxpayers are also footing the bill for the Mother of all Government Junkets — a three-month road trip by lucky-ducky Census Bureau flacks traveling in 13 buses and cargo vans with trailers. They’ll be partying in New Orleans for Mardi Gras and at parades across the country. In case you were wondering about the anticipated Census Road Show carbon footprint, it’s an estimated 223 metric tons.

But not to worry: The eco-teers of an Al Gore-endorsed carbon offset firm called “Carbonfund.org” have become official government “partners” with the Census to offset all the vehicle emissions — and surf off the free publicity to garner more business.
Tonedeaf: SEC requires Climate Change Warning Label on Stock › 2.0: The Blogmocracy
What I find especially weird about this is the timing. Right at the time when Toto pulls the curtain back and exposes the little humbug at the controls, they require companies to disclose their “Wizard of Oz” risk. That alone, in my mind, would be good reason to simply tell the stockholders that there’s no credible risk, either physically, or in terms of regulation.
Winter Weather - Yahoo! News Photos
The snow is piled up in front of the West Wing of the White House in Washington Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010. Mid-Atlantic residents were buried by a blizzard that the president jokingly called 'Snowmageddon.'
July '09: Obama Considering Solar Panels For White House | NEWS JUNKIE POST
At a press conference on Thursday, President Barack Obama was asked by a reporter if he was considering adding a “wind turbine” or solar panels to the White House. The president had been meeting with CEO’s from energy companies during the afternoon to discuss their projects for building clean technology.

“I was just talking to Secretary Chu about how he is going to consult with these outstanding folks to figure out how we can improve energy efficiency here,” Obama answered.

The reporter pressed on and asked when such a plan would happen. “I just told you — we’re moving. Come on, guys…I don’t have a date certain,” Obama replied as he left the podium. [He's been in office for a year now--is he or is he not going to do this?]
Express.co.uk - £8bn BBC eco-bias
STRIKING parallels between the BBC’s coverage of the global warming debate and the activities of its pension fund can be revealed today.
How on earth can Rudd bet our economy on this? | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
What a fiasco. And for this we must have a huge green tax on everything, and shut down our sources of cheap power. To risk so much on such disintegrating evidence is grotesquely irresponsible.
Slattsnews » More bunkum
Viewing Insiders this morning, you had to marvel at how much the political debate on manmade global warming has changed in a couple of months.
Bolta demanded, and got, his say, Cassidy took the middle road and the Fairfax hack steered clear of climate discussion. Only The Australian’s resident warmenista, Lenore Taylor, held the increasingly discredited faith. However, at times Taylor looked ready to burst into tears as the true believers copped the mockery they so richly deserve.
Climate Resistance » Africagate – Worse than Previously Thought
Africagate shows how the poor in less industrial countries are used for political ends. The emergence of this “gate”, lilke “Glaciergate” should not be used simply to win the political war with those attaching themselves to climate institutions, such as the IPCC. Instead, the collapsing credibility of climate alarmism, and rank, anti-human pessimism should be used to make a positive case for development, in the third world, in the emerging economies, and here in the “developed” West. There needs to be a real discussion about why poverty exists in the world, and how it can be abolished. Sceptics need to replace the climate story with a much, much better one.
The Dog Ate my Data: BBC on Australia's shifting Climate Politics
I see this amongst my own "associates". Twelve months ago non belief in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) resulted in barely concealed sneers. Such strong opinions on science from people who couldn't plot a simple regression line if their lives depended upon it I must admit surprised me at first. Now a skeptical position receives either open support in the majority of cases or at least a considered hearing. Interestingly the most vocal supporter of climate change that I personally know (who has gone strangely quiet in recent months) also strongly believes the moon landings were faked by NASA and yet has no difficulty in basing their own belief in CAGW on "the science" - none of which they have actually read.

I still find it amazing just how quickly public opinion is shifting.
...
...why would you compensate people when the whole point is to change behaviour by placing a price signal on carbon for heaven’s sake. Compensating consumers distorts the very signal one is trying to produce!
Climate [scam] team stays even with ETS defeat
The federal Department of Climate Change will continue to have more than 150 staff work on introducing an emissions trading scheme even if the Senate stops it happening, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner says.

The Australian Climate Change Regulation Authority was established in June 2009 and given $81.9 million for this financial year to implement an ETS, The Canberra Times reports.
Senator Jim Inhofe's Photos - Inhofe Family Pokes Fun at Al Gore, Global Warming During DC Feb Blizzard | Facebook
Senator Inhofe and his family were in Washington DC this weekend as the blizzard hit the DC area. The Inhofe family had a little fun at the expense of Al Gore and global warming.
PM's stand on Copenhagen a snub to UN climate change secretariat - India - The Times of India
Speaking at an event where UNFCCC executive secretary Evo De Boer, many foreign dignitaries and international climate negotiators were in audience, the PM called the accord merely a catalogue of voluntary commitments.
...
In the dying moments of the Copenhagen meet, the Indian and Chinese negotiators had made it clear that they did not want their names inscribed in the chapeau (opening and over-arching paragraph of the accord).
Twitter / Fred Thompson
DHS cites global warming as security threat. Um... worry less about temp of planet, more about temp of terrorist undies
Global warming: IPCC's 'Pic and Pac' techniques lead them to another disastrous error
It's very clear what is happening. The IPCC decides on a political point they wish to make. They search for an iconic illustration and decide that that will be the example the world sees. They then search for data to show the icon in danger. If the data doesn't suffice, it is laundered through successive paraphrasing with more distant sourcing until it is in effect sanitised. They pick the subject and pack the data. And it just doesn't matter what quality of data is used or if the claim is even true.
...
These can no longer be considered as coincidental mistakes of differing gravity. It is now clear that these are the considered outputs of an institutional framework. In other words, the IPCC set up their reporting system to yield these statements, and the statements were far more important than the science that yielded them or the data that was meant to back them up. They needed the headline quotes, the soundbites. They hoped the data held up, or at least was hidden well enough to escape detection.

Rajendra Pachauri must resign. The IPCC must be reconstituted along more accountable and responsible lines. This must happen now.
Peer Review? Soo Last Milenium – WUWT Public Review Rules! « Musings from the Chiefio
Were it not for his site, none of what I do here would exist. I started this effort entirely as a place to put things that I found out when I was reading his blog....it is a gold mine of rational thought and clear analysis.
- Bishop Hill blog - Flipping bizarre
Because of the way it works, the algorithm is unable to detect the orientation of the proxy series in a dataset and in the case of Mann 2008, this failing had some unfortunate consequences, namely that some of the series ended up upside-down, with what would normally have been read as declining temperatures flipped over so that they looked like warming.
Robin McKie v Benny Peiser | Comment is free | The Observer
[Peiser] The problem with climate science and climate policy in the UK is that it is completely controlled by a group of individuals who are convinced that they are right. As a result, conflicting data and evidence, even if published in peer-reviewed journals, are regularly ignored, while exaggerated claims, even if contentious or not peer-reviewed, are often highlighted in order to scare the public into submission for costly policies.
[Now that the climate change scam has imploded, how about all those *other* allegedly urgent reasons to stop using fossil fuels before we have viable alternatives to them]? | Editorial | Comment is free | The Observer
There are many excellent reasons to effect the transition to a low-carbon economy: cleaner air, economic independence from oil-exporting states, cheaper energy and, of course, combating global warming. None of these factors has changed. The case for urgent action is undiminished.
[UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner: Now that the climate change scam has imploded, how about all those *other* allegedly urgent reasons to stop using fossil fuels before we have viable alternatives to them]?
“The overwhelming evidence [like what, specifically?] now indicates that greenhouse-gas emissions need to peak within the next decade if we are to have any reasonable chance of keeping the global rise in temperature down to manageable levels,” he said.

“Any delay may generate environmental and economic risks of a magnitude that proves impossible to handle.”

Mr. Steiner warned that even without climate change the fact remains that a global transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient future is necessary, given the world's population is rise from 6 billion to 9 billion in the next 50 years.

“We need to improve management of our atmosphere, air, lands, soils, and oceans anyway,” he said. “What is needed is an urgent international response to the multiple challenges of energy security, air pollution, natural-resource management, and climate change.”
CapitalClimate: New All-Time Snowfall Records at Washington Dulles, Baltimore
The National Weather Service announced this evening that new all-time snowstorm records have been set at Washington Dulles and Baltimore BWI:

AT 5:10 PM EST THIS AFTERNOON...32.4 INCHES OF TWO-DAY STORM TOTAL
SNOWFALL
WAS RECORDED AT THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WEATHER
FORECAST OFFICE IN STERLING VA. THIS OBSERVATION RECORDED AT THE
STERLING WEATHER FORECAST OFFICE IS DEEMED CLIMATOLOGICALLY
REPRESENTATIVE OF DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT DUE TO ITS PROXIMITY
TO THE AIRPORT.

PRELIMINARY INDICATIONS ARE THAT THIS 32.4 INCH TWO-DAY STORM TOTAL
SNOWFALL BREAKS THE PREVIOUS TWO-DAY STORM RECORD OF 23.2" ON 7-8
JANUARY 1996...AND THE PREVIOUS THREE-DAY STORM RECORD OF 24.6" ON
6-8 JANUARY 1996.
Snow causes multiple roof collapses around region - wtop.com
WASHINGTON - At least four buildings have suffered roof collapses in the D.C. area because of the snow.
Washington, D.C. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
...winter brings sustained cool temperatures and annual snowfall averaging 16.6 inches
[Question: If the federal government ever seriously tried to impose a $175-per-cow global warming fee, how would farmers react?] - Salt Lake Tribune
THUMB DOWN: Cows are culprits » Utah Farm Bureau President Randy Parker believes the Environmental Protection Agency has something against cows and pigs and the farmers and ranchers who raise them. While an EPA-proposed $175-per-cow fee seems steep, the need to control global warming is critical. Methane from livestock accounts for 18 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, and it is 23 times more potent than CO2 as a heat-trapping gas. Since agriculture will be among the industries hardest hit by effects of global warming -- drought, for example -- farmers have a responsibility to help mitigate those impacts.
Gordon Brown's buildings come bottom of energy efficiency league. | News Of The World
GORDON Brown's global warming battle was branded a sham yesterday after his own buildings came BOTTOM of the energy efficiency league.
Another blow for the climate change lobby | The Spectator
This has been an appalling couple of months for the climate change lobby and now there’s been another, sickening, blow – which some of you, undecided in the debate, may well feel is the clincher. Prince Charles has waded into the issue, eviscerating climate change sceptics. “Please be in no doubt that the evidence of long term and potentially irreversible changes to our world is utterly overwhelming,” he said. Hell, you could almost see them, at the IPCC and UEA, cringing, banging their heads against their computers upon which they were, at that very moment, making things up. Just what you need, the support of Prince Charles. It came on the same day that he said he didn’t agree with The Enlightenment.
US President Barack Obama addresses the Democratic National Committee... - Yahoo! News Photos
US President Barack Obama addresses the Democratic National Committee (DNC) at their annual Winter Meeting in Washington, DC. Obama vowed Saturday to salvage his health reform drive and crusade for change despite a "blizzard" of opposition, as he left a snow-buried White House to rally wavering Democrats.
Iraq: Missile discovered in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib suburb | Mail Online
They have been searching in Iraq for the past nine years, 10 months and 15 days.

Today, the hard work finally paid off as soldiers found one of those elusive ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that Saddam Hussein was supposed to have been hiding.
MUST SEE: BBC Newsnight: Climate change scepticism hotting up in Australia | Australian Climate Madness
BBC's flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight, has an extended section on the changing political climate in Australia
U.S. State Department, ECU partner for new climate change [hoax] course
East Carolina University is working with the U.S. Department of State to promote a course on climate change that will be viewed across the globe.

Intended to foster cross-cultural understanding of global climate change, the first-of-its-kind partnership kicked off Feb. 3 with a presentation by President Obama’s top science adviser, John P. Holdren, on “Science and the Impact of Climate Change.”
New errors in IPCC climate change report - Telegraph
The United Nations panel on climate change is facing fresh criticism today as The Sunday Telegraph reveals new factual errors and poor sources of evidence in its influential report to government leaders.

...a diagram used to demonstrate the potential for generating electricity from wave power has been found to contain numerous errors.

The source of information for the diagram was cited as the website of UK-based wave-energy company Wavegen. Yet the diagram on Wavegen’s website contains dramatically different figures for energy potential off Britain and Alaska and in the Bering Sea.


When contacted by The Sunday Telegraph, Wavegen insisted that the diagram on its website had not been changed. It added that it was not the original source of the data and had simply reproduced it on its website.

The diagram is widely cited in other literature as having come from a paper on wave energy produced by the Institute of Mechanical Engineering in 1991 along with data from the European Directory of Renewable Energy.

Experts claim that, had the IPCC checked the citation properly, it would have spotted the discrepancies.
Climate change research bungle - Telegraph
The research institute run by the head of the UN’s climate body has handed out a series of environmental awards to companies that have given it financial support, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri), of which Dr Rajendra Pachauri is the director-general, has given corporate awards to companies such as Pepsi and Honda, as well as Indian businesses.

Those same companies have given financial backing to Teri through grants or paid-for consultancy work.
...
It has also emerged that Teri’s biggest single sponsor, BP India, which has provided £6 million, paid for dinner and drinks at an event publicising Dr Pachauri’s debut novel. A BP spokesman said it was entirely legitimate to fund the dinner, the company having enjoyed a “long association with Dr Pachauri”.

He confirmed that the firm gave Teri $9.5 million (£6.1 million) between 2006 and 2009 for planting 8,000 hectares of jatropha, a type of bush, as part of a bio-diesel research project.
...
A former employee who spent two years at Teri said Dr Pachauri was continually concerned about funding.

“At every single meeting I attended in two years, the only topic was funding,” she said.

The ex-employee gave a fascinating insight into the workings of the institute. When Dr Pachauri, who is described on his personal website as “an international statesman promoting climate change awareness”, marked his birthday a few years ago, the staff were shown a homemade video of their boss’s life story.

“I was appalled when they showed a 10-minute film on Pachauri,” said the ex-employee. “It showed Pachauri as an infant, Pachauri as a toddler, Pachauri at school, Pachauri playing cricket, Pachauri getting married. It was all about ‘Pachauri the Great’ and his achievements.”
...
Last Monday he first gave an interview to The Economist where he declared he had no idea the size of his salary but later that day he told The Guardian he earned £30,000 a year. He lives in an inherited house reported to be worth millions in Delhi’s most expensive neighbourhood.
[By how many degrees?]: Kolkata's Green Mall aims to reverse global warming - Oneindia News
Aspiring to play a role in the fight against climate change, Rawat decided to turn to Mother Nature herself.

"I started working on this problem when people in India were not aware of what is global warming. I was concerned about it," Rawat said.
EPA: ethanol harms air quality but we’re mandating it anyway at Heliogenic Climate Change
the EPA’s own data shows that using more ethanol-blended gasoline will make air quality worse.
[Maybe it would attract a lot of people who fear that nice weather will give them kidney stones?]: Goodell says NY Super Bowl would be 'interesting'
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says the prospect of a potentially cold-weather Super Bowl at the new Giants Stadium in 2014 is "interesting" to him.
RealClimate: Good news for the earth’s climate system?
The authors found that in 98.5% of their regressions, CO2 lagged temperature.
Hot Air » Blog Archive » AGW belief takes a big hit in the UK
When the public support for AGW was at 41%, the AGW activists had a chance of getting their agenda passed into law. At 26%, they don’t have a prayer, and the rising level of skepticism and cynicism will likely result in less money and less attention for their programs.
The Reference Frame: Chinese media impressed by Fred Singer
The Chinese journalist used some old Chinese wisdom to predict that the number and depth of recent scandals we have seen is enough for the IPCC to perish.
EPA abandons science yet again at Heliogenic Climate Change
For example, Cornell agricultural ecologist David Pimental and colleagues in a paper last year concluded that no crop produced more fuel than the energy used to grow it and convert it to ethanol or biodiesel. They found a negative energy return of 46 percent for corn ethanol, 50 percent for switchgrass, 63 percent for soybean biodiesel and 58 percent for rapeseed. Even the most promising palm oil production results in a minus 8 percent net energy return.”
Lawrence Solomon: IPCC: Beyond the Himalayas - FP Comment
Two years ago, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was the world’s most celebrated organization, guardian of the world against the peril of climate change and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for “its outstanding scientific work!”

Today, the IPCC stands among the world’s most infamous organizations, its reputation in tatters, unable to respond to a growing chorus of critics because the critics now include many of its once-fiercest champions, among them its own scientists, and because its chairman and chief spokesman, India’s Rajendra Pachauri, is himself thoroughly disgraced. “The IPCC needs to regain credibility. Is that going to happen with Pachauri?,” asks John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK, “I don’t think so.”
There is No Frakking "Scientific Consensus" on Global Warming: Systemic Failure: Invasion of the Drama Queens
You have to be a bit of a drama queen to interpret a few degrees increase in temperature over the span of a century as a catastrophe. The fact that this mindset has been adopted by so many people means the failure has been systemic.
Amazing how old certainties can melt once debate is allowed | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
Peter van Onselen is wrong to claims sceptics didn’t like discussing climate change. In fact, what they demanded was more discussion, not censorship and media shut-ups, to achieve just what now so bemuses Peter
Pielke Debate Online « Climate Audit
Maurizio Morabito’s twitter notes here. Audio here.
EU Referendum: Money makes the climate [industry] go round
My "favourite", if that is the right word, is £10,000 spent by DFID on a "workshop on women as 'sacred custodians' of the Earth", to "explore the spiritual, religious and philosophical views concerning women and ecology and the policy implications of these belief systems".
[To offset this news, how many solar panels should I install on my roof?]: BBC News - Australia signs huge China coal deal
An Australian firm has signed a $60bn (AUS$69bn; £38bn) deal to supply coal to Chinese power stations.

Clive Palmer, chairman of the company, Resourcehouse, said it was Australia's "biggest ever export contract".

Under the deal, the firm will build a new mining complex to give China Power International Development (CPI) 30m tonnes of coal a year for 20 years.
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The plan involves building a huge new mining complex in the Australian state of Queensland, and laying 500km (311 miles) of railway line to move the coal to the coast.

Resourcehouse's executive director, Phil McNamara, said the "once-in-a-century project" would include open-cast and underground mines, with construction likely to begin later this year.