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CBS News – New York Times Poll shows the public has mostly given up on global warming and the environment | Watts Up With That?...But what I think is even more telling is the fact that it didn’t even show up on the radar in question 3, which asks:
I’m sure “global warming” was in there somewhere, perhaps in the 14 percent of “other” responses seen near the end, but even with Al Gore’s recent media event to try to bring it to the forefront again, it appears to have had zero effect. Also telling: “Environment” gets less than 1 percent.
It’s jobs and economy which get the lions share of concern, which just goes to show that if people are poor, out of work, and hungry, they don’t have time to worry about elitist causes like Al Gore’s global warming crusade.
Is the environment getting lost in the lagging economy? | Alaska DispatchThe National Journal regularly polls what it calls “Energy and Environment Insiders.”
“Many say that President Obama’s retreat on environmental issues isn't over yet,” the magazine and online news source reported this week. “Over half of Insiders responding said that Obama is likely to delay imposition of other new environmental regulations, with 15 percent calling the prospect 'very likely' and 39 percent deeming it 'somewhat likely.' ”
“The only decision metric that matters for the next 14 months is, ‘Will this help us get reelected?’ ” one Insider told the National Journal. “If a regulatory decision is a liability, we should fully expect the administration to delay until Nov. 7,” of 2012 – the day after the presidential election. Another Insider said that Obama "will likely pick and choose by delaying those rules his advisers believe are too politically damaging to pursue before 2013 and finalizing those that he can survive politically.”
We will remove carbon tax compo: Oppn | News.com.au"Well, we have to," shadow treasurer Joe Hockey told Sky News on Sunday.
"We've committed to removing the carbon tax. I don't think it's hard to introduce legislation to abolish the carbon tax."
Further pressed on whether he thought it might be difficult to unwind the tax once it was legalised, he replied "No, I don't."
Al Gore still denying climate change reality | Herald SunAS IF Al Gore's last apocalyptic PowerPoint presentation wasn't boring and deceptive enough, he had to go and do it all again - for a marathon 24 hours.
A farrago of spurious connections, conspiracy theories and misrepresented facts as outlandish as any doomsday cult's, the former US vice-president's Climate Reality Project finally ended at 10am on Friday.
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It was hate speech posing as reasonableness and sound thinking. Gore essentially incites hatred against those who dissent from his evangelical thesis, which once looked so plausible. Ever since the overhyped 2009 Copenhagen climate summit flopped, opinion polls show the wheels have fallen off the climate alarm bandwagon.
This is what happens to the boy who cries wolf. No one listens any more.
Summer is switched off as cold wave invadesIndeed, around much of the country people are starting to feel downright chilly. There is snow in Colorado, record low temperatures in nine states from Missouri to Michigan and, it should be noted, summer isn't even officially over.
The Reference Frame: Solyndra: a textbook example of green economic insanityI share the hopes that this scandal may make huge American state-organized "investments" into Al-Gore-like fraudulent industries impossible in the future. Europe and other places are learning their lessons, too. The European lessons may look less concentrated (20% unemployment in solar Spain is just a non-story) but they speak the same overall language.
The U.S. taxpayers may have lost half a billion but this loss may have good consequences, too. Tens of millions of people may finally see the light and realize that everyone who talks about the imminent demise of carbon-based energy is a crackpot who can make you completely broke within a year.
The Govt. as Venture Capitalist, Cont. - By Greg Pollowitz - Planet Gore - National Review Online Finally, here’s a question for our valued members of Congress. We’ve been posting on Solyndra since the date of its first loan in 2009. The fact that nobody on any oversight committee, of either party, raised any serious objection until now is a bigger problem than the Solyndra bankruptcy itself.
Dear Congrees: What you’re doing now isn’t oversight, it’s grandstanding. If you can’t find time to notice that a $535 million dollar loan doesn’t make any sense, then maybe the legislative branch of government isn’t for you.
Solyndra Workers Looking for Non-Green Jobs - By Greg Pollowitz - Planet Gore - National Review OnlineAnd if you needed more proof that “green” jobs are a myth, the workers of Solyndra are applying for government assistance to learn a new trade
Google Translate: Times Atlas represents the ice cap is too small"There is no scientific evidence that the area of the Greenland ice sheet since 1999 has shrunk by 15% as the latest edition of the 'Times Atlas shows," says climate researcher Ruth Mottram, DMI.
James Pethokoukis | Solyndra, the logical endpoint of ObamanomicsThe bankruptcy of solar-panel maker Solyndra neatly encapsulates the economic, political and intellectual bankruptcy of Barack Obama’s Big Idea. It was the president’s intention back in 2009 to begin centrally reorganizing the U.S. economy around the supposed climate-change crisis.
To what end? Well, Obama claimed his election would mark “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” But that was just the cover story. At its core, Obamanomics is about the top-down redistribution of wealth and income. Government spending on various “green” subsidies and programs, along with a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions, would enrich key Democrat constituencies: lawyers, public sector unions, academia and non-profits.
Lawrence Solomon: Warmed right over Despite the media’s general reluctance to report dissenting views of global warming, Canadian are slowly becoming informed. Two years ago, 63% of Canadians told Angus Reid that they blamed humans for global warming; last year 60% did so and last week, 52%. Next year, as Canadians continue to better inform themselves, the percentage should be in the 40s. We will then join the civilized peoples of the world in having a healthy skepticism of those selling us pet theories on global warming as if they were established fact.
Atheists are as big a threat as climate change deniers Frank Skinner has claimed that atheists are as big a threat to humanity as climate change deniers.
In a conversation with the Archbishop of Canterbury last night, the Catholic comedian said: ‘Atheists we might see as people like those who deny global warming. You might defend their choice to believe that as freedom of speech – but if they are wrong and people are taken in, it could be disastrous for millions of people.’
Terence Corcoran: How to enlighten Penelope on green jobs | FP Comment | Financial PostLiberal Premier Dalton McGuinty is campaigning on the green jobs issue, claiming 50,000 will be created by his multi-billion-dollar feed-in tariff subsidy program. There is a way to beat this false claim, but Mr. Hudak has a lot to overcome between now and Oct. 6. Working on behalf of Premier McGuinty are a cast of activists and green industries who are mounting an aggressive anti-Tory campaign.
For example, there’s eight-year-old Penelope, a little girl enlisted by Rick Smith’s Environmental Defence to tour the province promoting green energy and green jobs. Mr. Smith and his associates have been key advisors to the McGuinty Liberals and helped design the green-energy program. But Environment Defence claims that Penelope, the child wonder whose parents have allowed her to be manipulated into Mr. Smith’s political campaign, is merely out there on an innocent non-partisan mission. Penelope’s parents will not allow her last name to be used, perhaps to protect themselves.
Why the president’s in the dumps--Jonah Goldberg - NYPOST.comIf Obama had been able to pass cap-and-trade as the market once foolishly expected, things might have been different. He wanted to make electricity rates “skyrocket,” which could have made Solyndra’s expensive products profitable. As it is, Solyndra was only marginally more legitimate an enterprise than Paul Newman’s bookie parlor in “The Sting.” At least Newman only stung one mobster. With this green con job, we’re all feeling the bite.
Indeed, Vice President Joe Biden was right when he said Solyndra is “exactly what the Recovery Act was all about.” For instance, The Washington Post reported this week that $38.6 billion in loans have netted a “few thousand” jobs rather than the 65,000 Obama promised. So if the program had “succeeded,” that would amount to nearly $600,000 per job in government-backed loans.
Arkansas cities set records for low maximum temperatures days after record highs set | The RepublicLITTLE ROCK, Ark. — More temperature records are being broken in Arkansas.
The National Weather Service in Little Rock reports that a record low maximum temperature was reached in North Little Rock when the mercury only peaked at 64 degrees on Friday. The old record was 71 degrees on Aug. 16, 1984 and again in 1993.
A record low maximum temperature also was set in Harrison on Friday.
The temperature reached 64 degrees, breaking the old record of 66 degrees set in 1949.
Just four days ago, the weather service reported a record of 106 degrees in Texarkana in southwestern Arkansas.
The Real Green Economy Of The Future | Via MeadiaThe real heroes of the environmental movement aren’t celebrity hactivists protesting about pipelines in front of the White House. They are people working to improve video calling technology so fewer businesses will schedule as much travel, people developing software and management practices that make more companies more willing to let more of their workers spend more time telecommuting, and people figuring out how to replace water-cooling with air-cooling when making cement.
Solyndra: The Green Bay Of Pigs?It seems that Uncle Sam’s Mickey Mouse loan deal to the now-bankrupt solar manufacturer Solyndra was not only a bad investment decision, but likely a contributing factor to the company’s implosion.
Simon Kuper: Climate Change Is A Lost CauseNowadays few societies even pretend to be doing anything about climate change. Ordinary people sense the cause is lost. Almost everyone has given up.
When someone offered me a trip to India, I said, "Definitely.” A couple of years ago I’d have fretted about the carbon emissions. But like almost everyone else, I have given up trying to prevent climate change. We in the west have recently made an unspoken bet: we’re going to wing it, run the risk of climatic catastrophe, and hope that it is mostly faraway people in poor countries who will suffer.
Worries about climate probably peaked in 2007. That year I attended a workshop full of northern European policymakers and politicians. The moderator asked who believed climate change was a serious problem. Practically everyone in the room raised their hands. We then spent two days discussing action. I left feeling that if you were running a country like Britain in 2007, you probably thought climate change was the single overriding issue. Terrorism, immigration and even the economy were details by comparison.
Coldest summer in 20 years wipes out two-thirds of the common blue butterfly | Mail Online
World Climate Report » Riding to the Defense of Climate ModelsThe fact of the matter is, that the climate projections offered up thus far, have been, and continue to be, sizeable overestimates of reality.
Consequently, we see no compelling reason why we should bank on scenarios for the future that have been produced from the same set of climate models.
At some point, chivalry becomes chicanery.
Stack of Stuff Quick Hits PageStory #5: Enviro-Wackos Worry That Gore's Hurting Movement
RUSH: You remember our man in Washington, Marc Morano. He's now global warming watchdog, and he's got a website called Climate Depot, and he just sent me an e-mail: "Greens give Gore two thumbs down -- Gore's climate reality show faces strongly negative reviews from his fellow global warming activists." Morano's gone out and found a UK Guardian story, and other scientists around the world are dissociating themselves from Algore and his latest PowerPoint demonstration, and what Morano is doing is good because the rest of the Drive-Bys are not covering it, other than the UK Guardian -- and that was a column. That was not a news story. That was a column from a global warming aficionado who is all worried that Gore is becoming a hindrance to the whole movement, that he's so polarizing, he's become a joke.
Gore’s AGW Marathon | The SPPI BlogHow would Al Gore respond to the winter heat wave of 1249 in England. That ”winter [in England] there was so pleasant, sweet and warm, that people fancied the season was changed. There was no frost or snow the whole winter. Folks threw off their cloaks and went in the thinnest lightest summer dress.” That’s right, 762 years ago the winter in England was so warm that there virtually was no winter at all! If this happened again this year Gore would proclaim that this was irrefutable proof of man made global warming. All it would really prove is that Gore is desparate to reign supreme as the god of global warming wisdom. He needs to be adored by millions of believers who will cling to his every word. He lost his bid to be president of the most powerful nation in the world. Sitting high on his throne as the king of global warming awarness, saving us all from certain doom would be a sutable replacement for his planet sized ego.
Australian explorers attempting to sail the Northwest PassageAustralian couple Chris Bray and Jess Taunton sailed, with their 29-foot yacht Teleport, the perilous journey from Halifax to Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, through the fabled Northwest Passage. The two encountered massive glaciers and dangerous icebergs along the route, which they often had to fend off with an ice pole.
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Although this year has seen near record-setting low levels of ice formation in the Northwest Passage, Teleport encountered many icebergs along the way, especially along the coast of Greenland.
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After more than two months at sea, Bray and Taunton arrived in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut on Aug. 31, the midway point of the passage.
Surprisingly, the stretch through the first half of the Northwest Passage proved to be "amazingly ice-free," said Bray.
"Good ol' global warming," he said with a chuckle.
Having spent the past two weeks building a cradle to lift the yacht out of the frozen sea, the two are now en route via plane to spend the winter in sunny Australia.
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"We saw plenty of polar bears and seals," Bray described.
- Bishop Hill blog - Case not ProvenProven Energy, the domestic wind turbine manufacturer that had to advise buyers of one of its most popular machines to switch off because of a fault, has gone into receivership.
Is There Anything Which Gore Isn’t Lying About? | Real ScienceSea level is falling at a record rate. Temperatures have been declining since the start of the millennium. Hurricane activity is at an historic low. Sea ice is growing at a record rate.
Marc Morano: Climate Science Now Reduced To “Witch Burning…An Embarrassment”If you haven’t seen the following 2 clips, get the popcorn, go full screen and watch this. Even a couple of NTZ stories are brought up, e.g. at the 5:30 and 8:30 marks.
A Successful Fraud - Investors.comGiaever is not the only scientist to quit the APS for its rigid position on warming. Physicist Hal Lewis, who has since died, resigned in October of last year.
"Global warming," Lewis wrote, "is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life." There, in a mere 17 words, he summed up the climate change scare.
Articles: Don't Bet on GreenLawmakers don't bet on red or black. They bet on green.
"Companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future," reported President Obama in Fremont, California (May 2010).
Articles: The New DeniersAnd so the tables seem to have turned: the climate change deniers are now those who continue to insist that global warming represents an approaching disaster for which man is responsible and which he can and must address.
How ironic. How perfectly just. And how long, do you think, before the new deniers get it?
- Bishop Hill blog - Gorathon - the slideshow[Josh cartoons]
- Bishop Hill blog - Glaciologists condemn Guardian "misinformation"Dear Cryolisters, especially media people 'listening' in: No doubt this 'news' story and Atlas are going to be repeated far any wide. THIS IS NOT WHAT IS HAPPENING. THIS IS NOT SCIENCE. THIS IS NOT WHAT SCIENTISTS ARE SAYING.
Arctic sea ice melts to near-record lows - Sacramento LivingLos Angeles Times
Published: Thursday, Sep. 15, 2011 - 1:00 am
LOS ANGELES -- A blistering summer melted Arctic sea ice to near-record lows, a trajectory that scientists say could reduce ice coverage in the polar region to its lowest since satellite measurements were first taken in 1979.
That's the grim assessment delivered Thursday by the National Climatic Data Center, which also calculated that global temperatures last month made it the eighth-warmest August on record, part of a general warming trend.
The ice melt in August was the second most extensive, and with a few more weeks left of melting, it's possible that the record lows of 2007 could be matched, according to Jake Crouch, a climate scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
IJIS Web Site The latest value : 4,700,000 km2 (September 15, 2011)
Huge Defunct Satellite Will Fall to Earth Around Sept. 24, NASA Says NASA spokeswoman Beth Dickey confirmed with SPACE.com earlier today that the reason UARS is expected to fall early in its re-entry window is because of the sharp uptick in solar activity. Solar effects from the sun can create an extra drag on satellites in space because they can heat the Earth's atmosphere, causing it to expand, agency officials have said.
Winter Arrives Early In MinnesotaDuluth recorded a trace of snow on Wednesday, tying a daily record for early winter snowfall set in September 1984,” says this article on Irish Weather Online.
A climate gadfly’s job - CSMonitor.comA lot has changed in the five years since Al Gore won an Oscar for his documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth” and a Nobel Peace Prize for his dramatic warning about the dangers of climate change.
Back then concerns over climate seemed to be winning hearts and minds. The question was shifting from “Should we do something about climate change?” to “How are we going to do it?”
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Responsible climate scientists won’t insist that any specific climate disaster is the result of climate change. But the general pattern fits with their predictions of a changing climate: hotter, drier than before in some regions, wetter and stormier in others.
As a gadfly, Gore needs to keep biting, until America again pays attention.
If the Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years, how many of those years were not "hotter, drier than before in some regions, wetter and stormier in others"?
Video View: 'Climate Refugees' - NYTimes.comMichael Schlesinger, a climatologist and professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, had his 81 students in his course on Climate and Global Change watch the film
Via email from DB:
Brian Williams announced last night that arctic ice had melted to near record lows, and that 20,000 desperate walruses had pulled themselves on land because there was no ice to rest on or feed from.
Except that walruses spend 2/3 of the time in the ocean where they are most comfortable.
Is Brian Williams dumb, or duped?
Obama administration e-mails: Giving more taxpayer money to Solyndra was risky - The Washington PostA White House official fretted privately that the Obama administration could suffer serious political damage if it gave additional taxpayer support to the beleaguered solar-panel company Solyndra, according to newly released e-mails.
GE responds to charges of crony capitalism | Campaign 2012"We are not receiving special treatment"
Arctic ice hits near-record low, threatening wildlife | WBEZMark Serreze, who heads the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, says this year's low is not far off that 2007 record.
"What it's telling us is that the long-term decline in Arctic sea ice is continuing, and even appears to be accelerating at this point," he says.
University of Minnesota geologist on climate change study: "It's a warning" - Minneapolis News - The BlotterAbout 11,500 years ago, at the tail end of the Pleistocene era, the Earth began to warm up. The planet's climate has fluctuated since time immemorial. But this period of climate change came less like a stone warming in the sun, and more like a marshmallow in a microwave.
In Greenland, the average annual temperature shot up 61 degrees Fahrenheit -- in less than 10 years.
Larry Edwards, director of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Minnesota, has studied this and other rapid shifts in Earth's climate
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Research proving that natural climate change has occurred in history seems to support the view of opponents of man-made climate change, who say the current period of warming is just a natural swing. Edwards says that's wrong, and that, against the best records of the last 1,000 years, modern warming is "an anomaly."
"You can say, 'yeah, there's been changes to climate in the past,'" Edwards said. "But when you compare the climate to what it's been in the past 1,000 years -- when the things that effect climate have not changed that much -- what's happening today is different."
Edwards is not an alarmist, and says man-made climate change causing an abrupt shift, one that would almost certainly end human life on Earth, has a "small chance of happening." No one living today will face the "train-wreck," says Edwards, who thinks man-made causes won't add up until the next couple hundred years.
Wind-Caused Catastrophes in the United StatesWhereas climate alarmists contend that storms with extremely destructive winds become more frequent as the world warms, this impressive set of real-world data indicates that such is not the case in the United States.
That's One Tough Protist!Bernhard et al. report that the protist they studied "is able to survive 10-14-day exposure to elevated CO2 as high as 200,000 ppm." In fact, they say that "both ATP [Adenosine Triphosphate, an indicator of cellular energy] data and microscopic examination indicate that considerable populations of A. laticollaris survived exposure to all experimental treatments of elevated CO2, even both replicates of the 200,000-ppm CO2 experiments." And they found that "at least three specimens reproduced during exposure to either 90,000 ppm or 200,000 ppm CO2," while "such reproduction was observed only once in an atmospheric [375-ppm CO2] treatment."
Shock News : A Warmer World Is A More Livable World | Real ScienceWe can tell all those Hawaiian climate refugees who migrated to Winnipeg that it is safe to go back.
DJ Spooky Defrosts Book of Ice at Ground Zero | Underwire | Wired.comSpooky brings his Antarctica-inspired thoughtronica to the top of The New York Academy of Sciences alongside Ground Zero on Friday, when he’ll perform with a string quartet ahead of a moderated panel about global warming.
Also on the panel: The New York Times‘ chief environmental correspondent, Andrew Revkin, and Envisioning Climate Change author and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies climatologist Gavin Schmidt.
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The globe-hopping Spooky, who was recently inducted into the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, is taking his Antarctica remix on tour all year. After that, he’s considering a complementary exploration of the North Pole and perhaps the South Pacific, where he recently founded a carbon-negative art retreat with tribal members on the island of Vanuatu.
The Art of Climate Science: Antarctica | The New York Academy of SciencesIn this special event, coinciding with Climate Week NYC 2011, Science & the City is bringing Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky, together with top environmental scientists and Andrew Revkin of The New York Times, to present an artist's view of the scientific story behind climate change and Antarctica.
State asks people to go car-free from Sept. 18-24 - Brockton, MA - The EnterpriseThe governor is asking residents to leave their cars in the driveway and try bicycling, walking, public transit, carpooling, or vanpooling, for Massachusetts Car-Free Week, Sept. 18-24. Massachusetts will join more than 1,000 cities in 40 countries to show the benefits of reducing the number of vehicles on the road.
“Massachusetts Car-Free Week enhances the GreenDOT mission by raising awareness about the environmental benefits of reducing vehicle emissions in our communities,” said Massachusetts Department of Transportation Secretary and CEO Richard Davey.
GreenDOT, a state program runn by the state DOT, aims to reduce greehouse gas emissions under Gov. Deval Patrick's 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act...no other state in the nation has proclaimed a statewide Car-Free Day celebration. This year, Massachusetts will be celebrating an entire week of going Car-Free.
SOLARGATE: Obama’s Big Green Scandal That Won’t Go Away « 21st Century WireWith Enron it, was pure hubris and greed, combined with opportunity. With Solyndra, it is green hubris and green greed, combined with opportunity. When you get right down to it, they are no different.
Gore Takes Climate Change Slide Show Around the World in 24 Hours - NYTimes.com "The Vatican has the goal of being the world's first carbon-neutral country," said Gore. "They have two advantages: They are very small, and God is on their side."
The slide-show marathon did draw some criticism, both for the method and the message. Tom Harris, executive director of the International Climate Science Coalition, said the program was largely a wasted effort. "I think it's sad to see them spend so much time and energy on something on something that's not true," said Harris, who described his group as offering a "climate-realist perspective." "This extreme weather thing is not a function of temperature," he said.
The Blackboard » Reflections on climate reality: what people are saying. The website’s counter indicated 8.5 million people viewed the site while the presentations were streamed live.
The counter did seem to indicate that. But it’s worth noting possible evidence the number of views may have been closer to 1/2 million.
Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » Owning SolyndraKevin Drum makes a pleas for liberals to, in effect, rally around Solyndra and be proud of the investment. I am sure Republicans would give the same advice to liberals. I want to look at a few of his arguments.
First, for libertarians like myself, the argument that Republicans did it too, or the Republicans started it, are a non-starter. In particular, I actually thought the Obama Administration’s attempt to blame Bush for Solyndra was an Onion article, since its almost a caricature of this administrations refusal to take responsibility for anything. Unlike Republicans, I don’t see this so much as an Obama failure as a government failure, and I don’t really care if it is of the red or blue flavor.
Solyndra Lobbied White House for Solar Panels - BloombergSolyndra executives sought to “increase U.S. government installation deployment of U.S.-made solar panels,” according to the e-mail from Fish.
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$187,000 for Lobbying
The Fremont, California-based solar-panel maker paid McAllister & Quinn more than $187,000 in 2010 and 2011 to lobby on its behalf, according to Senate records.
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On July 6, a report in Greenwire, an online news outlet that covers the environment, said the company was hemorrhaging cash.
Solyndra spokesman David Miller called the report “total crap,” in a July 6 e-mail to Gregory Nelson, deputy director of the White House office of public engagement, according to the batch of documents, which the White House also released to the press.
Nature News Blog: Invited guests weigh in on Al Gore's Climate Reality ProjectBarry W. Brook, director of climate science, Environment Institute, University of Adelaide, Australia
Overall, I don't think this initiative will do much good. For one thing, Al Gore is now as much a hindrance as a help on climate change advocacy, as he's been characterized (probably unfairly) as a highly partisan figure, and so immediately gets about half of all folks offside.
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Judith Curry, chair, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
If the intent of Al Gore's telethon is to garner broad support for climate and energy policies such as proposed by the UNFCCC (e.g. the Kyoto protocol), I anticipate that this effort will backfire and energize the opposition to such policies. As a scientist I find the mantra "remove the doubt, reveal the deniers" to be objectionable
Climate change needs a Gandhi not a Gore | Under The BanyanI actually avoided the Goreathon, and I guess that says something in itself.
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If he wants to change the way the world thinks about climate change he needs to be out there every day, visible and among the people who will be affected most or whom he says will need to change most – not on a pedestal performing periodic stunts and charging large sums for speaking engagements, books and DVDs.
One journalist I know in London went to a screening of the new Al Gore presentation tonight and sent me a text that said: “Gore gets gold for most boring and least galvanizing talk on climate, ever… That, and possibly damaging.”
Climate change needs a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King or a Mandela, and Al Gore is none of those.
Frost Has Ended The Corn Growing Season For Many - KFGO“Corn in many areas had not reached physiological maturity, which could lead to storage problems if it isn’t dried and ensiled properly,” cautions J.W. Schroeder, North Dakota State University Extension Service dairy specialist.
William M. Briggs, Statistician » Interview With A Climatologist But aren’t there literally hundreds of knobs and dials that you need to tweak to “tune” the models so that they first produce those simulations? Do you have independent evidence that these models predicted new data better than predictions based on the assumption that your theory is wrong?
Watching a glacier die at Imja Lake | Suzanne Goldenberg | Environment | guardian.co.ukIt's an odd sensation to watch a glacier die... The glaciers are melting – although some undoubtedly will remain solid blocks of ice for hundreds more years – and they are spattering the high altitudes with glacier lakes like Imja.
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There's been ice outside the tents some mornings.
Energy: How will mankind keep the lights on and the temperature down? | The EconomistStopping the increase at 450 parts per million—when the climate is generally expected to be no more than two degrees warmer than in pre-industrial times—is the world’s ambition. How likely is this?
Not remotely, Mr Yergin suggests. Fossil fuels supply 80% of the world’s energy needs and, as the main driver of China’s and India’s growth, they will remain pre-eminent for decades.
Corn, Soybeans, Wheat May Open Higher as Adverse U.S. Weather Hurts Crops - Bloomberg-- Corn futures are called to open 3 cents to 5 cents a bushel higher on the Chicago Board of Trade on speculation that frost and freezing temperatures in the past three days has hurt crops in the northwestern U.S. Midwest, Chad Henderson, a market analyst at Prime Agricultural Consultants Inc. in Brookfield, Wisconsin, said in a telephone interview.
More Hypocrisy from the Team « Climate AuditTrenberth wildly overstates Dessler 2011 as well by saying that it “quantifies the magnitude and role of clouds and shows that cloud effects are small”. “Quantifying the magnitude and role of clouds” is an enormous undertaking and would take hundreds of pages of analysis. Dessler 2011 is a short little article addressing a narrow issue. It did not pretend to “quantify the magnitude and role of clouds” nor did it do so.
Al Gore's '24 Hours' On Climate Change : NPR [gives fraudster Al Gore 22 minutes to sell his tired climate hoax]"If 98 doctors told you you had a heart condition that required you to make some changes and two doctors say, 'Don't worry about it,' ... hopefully you'd go with the 98," Gore tells NPR's Neal Conan. "That's the condition we're in now."
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The former vice president is also hopeful that there will come a time when what he considers the sheer evidence of climate change, like extreme weather events, will help penetrate resistance. "I saw this as a child growing up ... in the American South during the civil rights revolution," he says, "where individuals who were so resistant [to] eliminating the laws justifying discrimination did actually change when they really looked deeply into their own hearts and confronted the reality of the situation."
Al Gore's '24 Hours' On Climate Change : NPR TranscriptWe need charismatic scientists to carefully explain what's happening. We do not need to exaggerate the effects of the global warming. On doing so, only empowers skepticism. This is where your guest Al Gore has made painful mistakes, according to Milner.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
GORE: Well, there are two points, and I heard them both clearly. I reject the idea that the effects have been exaggerated. Indeed, there have been those who have said I've underplayed them, and the actual results in the real world have actually been worse in the last few years than were predicted...20 percent of what we put up there today will still be there 20,000 years from now.
The ecological footprint of environment reporting | Adam Vaughan | Environment | guardian.co.ukWhile we try to minimise the carbon impact of our reports from the frontlines of ecological battlefields, our reporters' dispatches are simply too important to ignore
- Bishop Hill blog - Trenberth et al in Remote SensingKevin Trenberth has his own response to Spencer and Braswell in Remote Sensing. It's billed as a commentary rather than a proper paper.
The first thing you notice is this:
Received: 8 September 2011 / Accepted: 8 September 2011 / Published: 16 September 2011
so presumably it's fair to say that this is not a peer-reviewed contribution to the literature.
» Blinding (And Muting) Us With “Science” - Big GovernmentLet’s face it – there are few things more annoying than Science. We conservatives need to take a firm stand against Science in all its forms. In fact, Science sucks.
But let’s not confuse “Science” with “science.” The regular, boring, old lower-case “science” has to do with applying the scientific method to observed phenomena in order to expand our knowledge of the universe. It requires a rigorous analysis of empirical evidence and the testing of hypotheses without preconceived, concrete, politicized notions of what the truth must be. In contrast, “Science” is a ration of pseudo-plausible horseshit asserted by liberals who try to occupy the intellectual high ground and then shut you up by basically saying you are too dumb to express an opinion.
Heather Taylor-Miesle: Should Candidates Who Don't Believe in Science Be Disqualified From Serving as President?If Representative Michele Bachman doubts the existence of climate change, she should travel to the Arctic in the company of researchers. If Governor Perry doubts that the globe is warming, he should walk the scarred plains of Texas with those who have studied the links between climate change, more frequent droughts, and intensified wildfires.
The fact that they don't journey to find the answers tells me they aren't skeptics at all: they are just closed-minded. They don't want to pursue new information or collect the facts on the ground.
Carbon Pricing Would Cut the Deficit and Create Jobs | ThinkProgressAs Congress takes a hard look at deficit reduction, we should put all of our options on the table. A price on carbon is one of these options. It could raise upward of $846 billion over a 10-year period, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. It’s no magic bullet for our nation’s deficit issues, but it is certainly a practical way to raise revenues while also creating jobs, fighting climate change, and saving programs for struggling communities. And you might not realize it today, but the policy does have support from across the political spectrum.
World's largest firms 'acting on climate change', analysis shows | Environment | guardian.co.ukClimate is central to business strategy of 68% of the world's 500 largest companies, compared with 48% last year
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David North, global climate change champion at Tesco, said: "We have been cutting emissions for years, and as a result have reduced our energy costs by more than £200m annually - a win-win for business and the environment."
The report found that the vast majority (93%) of companies who responded with information have senior executives or board members responsible for climate change.
And almost two-thirds (65%) offer financial rewards to staff for taking action on climate change.
Hour 24: New York, Presented by Al Gore[From the 13:28 mark, a narrator says: "In reality, there is no remaining reasonable doubt about man's influence on climate change. This time, it is not the lives of millions at stake, but billions."]
Warmer summers mean better French bubbly, but the future is uncertain.HAUTVILLERS, France — Climate change may be one of the greatest perils of our time, contributing to droughts, floods, deadly heat waves and super-charged hurricanes.
But for the moment, France’s Champagne makers are raising their glasses to it.
They say the climatic shift has made their lives easier and their Champagne better, allowing producers to harvest earlier than before.
“[Europe’s warmer summers] are a good thing for us,” said Pierre Cheval, independent producer of the Gatinois Champagne. “They mean the grapes mature when the days are longer and it reduces the risks of diseases linked to humidity. Also, it’s much nicer for us to harvest at the end of August than in late September. I remember harvesting once under the early snows of October. That was not fun!”
Al Gore's New Climate Campaign Faces Uphill Battle
From the 9-minute video at the bottom of the page above:
At the 3-minute mark, Gore is asked about his mansions and jet-setting around the globe. Gore says: "100% of the electricity that I use comes from solar and wind...I don't OWN a private jet."
At the 4:38 mark: Gore says: "Are we going to listen to the global scientific community, nearly unanimous, or to Rush Limbaugh, the Koch brothers, Exxon Mobil, Glenn Beck..."
The CLIMATE SCEPTICS Blog: New Paper: Tropical Cyclone activity unrelated to Warmer Temperatures...it would appear that the long-held climate-alarmist contention that global warming increases the frequency and intensity of tropical storms is simply not true.
2011 Record Arctic Ice Melt? Not Even Close!When it’s the 2nd coldest year of this century, sea levels are dropping and you’re a warmist desperate for headlines, what do you do? You resort to using outlier and obscure data sources – like the warmist University of Bremen – and claim Arctic ice is “dramatically shrinking” and has reached “a record low” (since satellite measurement began 30 years ago).
Too bad all other datasets show the opposite is true. Using the other well-known sources, the NOAA IMS, NSIDC, JAXA, NORSEX, DMI, or AMSR-E, 2011 was not even close to 2007.
By most accounts, 2011 fell about 300,000 sq km short of 2007. That’s more than 8000 Manhattans.
The CLIMATE SCEPTICS Blog: Deniers and Pushers - stop denying and push off.Who are the pushers? The pushers are those people - scientists, politicians, journalists and bankers - who are for various reasons pushing and continue to push the falsified hypothesis that man made carbon dioxide emissions are causing runaway global warming.
Who are the deniers? Well, although they say that the realists and sceptics are the deniers, these same pushers - scientists, politicians, journalists and bankers - are in fact the deniers.
The CLIMATE SCEPTICS Blog: 1.6 million green jobs created means over 3.5 million normal jobs destroyedMay I explain Julia Gillard's Carbon tax.
Our PM claims 1.6 million green jobs will be created by it by 2020.
If so, then according to the Spanish and UK experience (where 2.2 and 3.7 normal jobs respectively were destroyed per each green job created), the figures of 3.5 million and 5.9 million jobs would evaporate via the new green economy.
THE HOCKEY SCHTICK: RealClimate FAIL: Cosmic ray counts support Svensmark's theoryThe "real climate scientists" at RealClimate, however, fail to plot a trend line to back up their claim. Plotting a polynomial fit to the same Oulu Neutron Monitor monthly data shows that cosmic ray counts did in fact show a long term declining trend from 1964 to 1997/1998, and a rising trend since, in accordance with the trend in global temperatures which rose to a peak in 1998 and have declined since.
The ongoing Solyndra scandal | JunkScience Sidebar[roundup]
The Reference Frame: Al Gore has depleted all of his political capitalA vast majority of the world population has heard about "global warming" and has heard about the nonsensical claims that "CO2 is the cause of every weather event". More importantly, the people who are actively interested in these matters know that most of those claims are self-evidently absurd (even the alarmists, except for the most ignorant ones, know so) and even if you could find an example where the influence is worth your thinking, you must be careful about hundreds of disclaimers. And the viewers' knowledge is generally orders of magnitude more advanced and more detailed than Al Gore's knowledge.
Al Gore could have affected the world population when it was completely uninformed about climatology 5 years ago or so. But we live in 2011...
Die Klimazwiebel: Climate Reality Project II There was only one message, an apocalyptic one, with the respective promise of salvation; sometimes the discourse almost switched into a religious sermon: once we behave climate friendly, there won’t be any storms or other natural disasters anymore.
New Zealand Looks To Slow Down Its Emissions Trading SchemeThe current ETS legislation has the energy, transport and industrial sectors stepping up to a full obligation in 2013. The Report’s recommendation to slow this by phasing it in three steps in 2013, 2014 and 2015 would ease the price impact on households and businesses.
#153) Let’s Kickstart “Sizzle: The Play” in Chicago | The BenshiIt’s been over a year in the making, but the time is now rapidly approaching for the opening of the stage version of my movie, “Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy.” The New Suit Theater Company in Chicago is putting on the production. They could use YOUR help in their Kickstarter fundraising drive. I just gave them a substantial donation.
New Suit Theatre Company | SizzleNew Suit Theatre Co. is proud to present its third show "Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy" - an adaptation of the documentary film of the same name. It follows Dr. Randy Olson, a scientist turned filmmaker, who is convinced that he can make a movie that will end the global warming debate just by interviewing scientists and placing their ideas side by side. When things don’t go as planned, it’s up to his sensible production assistant, his crazy producer, and his skeptical cameraman to help him maintain his faith in humanity.
Glacier fraud from "National Geographic" magazine"When science is not on your side, photo fakery will do." - Nat. Geo's new motto?
Global warming will not be disaster for Europe's fish stock | Bristol24-7Global warming will not mean the end for Atlantic fish stocks, new research from Bristol University suggests – rather, different breeds will thrive as the ocean heats up.
Obama Delays CO2 Regulations IndefinitelyThe Environmental Protection Agency is again delaying a plan to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, saying it needs more time to propose the rule. The move comes amid intense pushback from business groups and Republican lawmakers who complain a recent slate of EPA proposals are chilling business investment and hindering the economic recovery. Late last month, the White House forced the EPA to abandon an air-pollution rule that business groups said would kill millions of jobs.
Steve Horn | Vitter-Johnson FARE Act: "Shock Doctrine" Attacks On Renewable Energy"Not later than 60 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the head of each Federal agency shall submit to Congress an accounting for all financial support (including grants, loans, loan guarantees,and direct payments) made by the agency during fiscal years 2009 through 2011 to promote the production or use of renewable energy."
SA's take on Climate Reality | ITWebJeunesse Park, founder and CEO of local NGO Food and Trees for Africa, was chosen as one of the 24 presenters globally to deliver the presentation, and spoke from the Durban Botanical Gardens. The city will host the 17th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December.
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"Around the world, we are still subjected to polluter-financed misinformation and propaganda designed to mislead people about the dangers we face from the unfolding climate crisis," Gore said in a statement.
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“Has this kind of weather become the new normal?” Park asked in her address. ”Have we no compassion for the millions, soon to be billions of climate change refugees?”
24 Hours of Climate Reality: Gore-a-thon – Hour 23 | Watts Up With That?For the record, Mr. Gore, both of my parents died of smoking related illnesses. As a result, I abhor everything about tobacco. Therefore Mr. Gore, you can take that comparison and forcefully insert it into the bodily orifice of your choice.
“It’s An Honor To Be Attacked On Climate Change.” ~ Al Gore | Sheril KirshenbaumHe also makes a fair comparison between climate change denial and the tobacco industry’s attempt to fight the Surgeon General’s report linking smoking to cancer.
“They hired actors and dressed them up as doctors and gave them scripts” saying that smoking isn’t harmful. Today, said Gore, “carbon polluters” are paying for climate change doubters to say similar things.
Sounds a lot like the Marc Moranos out there.
Sheril KirshenbaumSheril is the author of The Science of Kissing, which explores one of humanity's fondest pastimes. She also co-authored Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future with Chris Mooney, chosen by Library Journal as one of the Best Sci-Tech Books of 2009 and named by President Obama's science advisor John Holdren as his top recommended read.
Al Gore: Tobacco HypocriteSo it seems that the Al Gore and his family were quite content to profit from tobacco users for more than 20 years after the January 1964 publication of the first Surgeon General report on smoking and health.
Mason City breaks record for coldest temp for date: 27 degrees Mason City broke its record low for the date when the mercury dropped to 27 degrees after 6 a.m. The National Weather Service had Mason City at 30 degrees two hours earlier.
One of the warmest spots in the state appeared to be Des Moines, which was reporting 41 degrees at the airport at 7 a.m.
“That doesn’t really represent the temperature of the surrounding area,” said Rod Donavon, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, when the temperature was two degrees warmer earlier in the morning. “Warm air blowing off the city is keeping temperatures up at the airport.”
To Drive Positive Change, Tree Huggers Have To Hybridize With Tea Partiers & Break Political Taboos : TreeHugger I'm not talking about a simple fusion of Greens and Tea Party types because their combined numbers would only represent a small slice of all likely American voters.
David Mitchell's Soapbox: climate change doubters - video | Comment is free | guardian.co.ukLast week David Mitchell solved the environment - and he's a bit miffed that didn't make more of a stir. So this week he thought he'd tackle climate change doubters. These disbelievers must concede that climate change is a 'possibility'. In which case, why take the risk – and continue ruining the planet, in the meantime?
Pro snow riders bumming out over GOP’s assault on the EPA and climate science | The Colorado IndependentMore and more, winter sports athletes are speaking out about climate change and how they need the planet to stay cold and snowy enough to protect their livelihoods. [big-mountain ripper Jeremy Jones ] is said to have even forsaken helicopters and chairlifts when he goes snowboarding to demonstrate his commitment to the planet.
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Although this year’s La Niña unleashed plenty of powder in the northern Rockies, and left the southern Rockies thirsty, the “gains are only a small blip on a century-long snowpack decline,” the USGS said.
Stopping bad things and starting good ones | Bill McKibbenIn poor countries, bikes have been stigmatized and cars glamorized. Before everyone else follows us down the same blind path to climate ruin (and suburban sprawl), we need to peel some of that glamour off the car and stick it on the bike...Bikes are fun
How is Obama’s overall record on the environment? | GristObama didn't do a heck of a lot to educate the public about the need for climate action or pressure Congress to make it happen.
Letters: How greens can connect with the political mainstream | Politics | The GuardianFirst, dump the confusing language – biodiversity, globalisation, sustainability, localisation etc – which doesn't mean anything outside the tribe. Talk instead about the the richness of nature, the benefits for all of a stable, diverse and productive planet. Second, keep the doom and gloom scenarios in perspective. Bang on about the successes. Tell the stories of how environmental and social action by individuals, communities, companies large and small, and politicians has made life better, economies stronger, and society more prosperous.
Al Gore's Presentation Concludes Climate Reality Project's '24 Hours Of Reality' (VIDEO)According to HuffPost's Bonnie Christian and James Gerken, when Gore walked on stage, a ballroom full of people greeted him with a standing ovation. Reiterating his message of "reality," Gore calmly explained the dramatic and frequent weather events currently affecting our planet, and how these are linked to climate change.
View three powerful videos from the event below.
Climate change skeptics say fund unfairly singled out | Calgary | News | Calgary SunOn Thursday, Leahey and Cooper defended their work.
“Part of the job of an academic is to promote public debate,” said Cooper.
“What I find so bizarre is the amount of money put into producing this one DVD is absolutely minute compared to the publicity and propaganda published by various alarmists.”
Seeking Reality on Climate - NYTimes.comWill this effort silence or sideline professional naysayers/deniers/skeptics and the many people who, for all kinds of reasons unrelated to money, reject calls to make cutting greenhouses a prime priority?
I doubt it. [So do I]
Revkin: The Gore-a-thon Was Good, Actually It Was Bad « The Unbearable Nakedness of CLIMATE CHANGEApologies for being even slower than usual Andy but…could you please explain exactly what “usefulness” these soon-to-be-forgotten 24 hours have had?
I can see you criticize the Gore-athon’s polarizing stance, oversimplification, mix-up of science and policy, and finally silence about “fossil fuels”. Unless of course the first few praising paragraphs are there simply to make your life simpler, by making sure nobody can accuse you of Gore-bashing.
Climate Quitters: Sorry You Lose : Discovery NewsUnfortunately, the evidence [like what, specifically?] that human activities are changing the climate is voluminous and compelling. Wishful thinking and excited headlines may sow confusion, but they can't change the facts.
C3: New Research: Human CO2 Emissions Not Causing Ocean Acidification HotspotsSince atmospheric CO2 is considered a well-mixed greenhouse gas, it's hard to fathom how it could then cause specific "hotspots" of acidification in coastal waters.
Climate Common Sense: Poison Pills in Carbon Tax With one of the most disgusting and cynical acts by any Government in this country Labor has inserted in the Carbon Tax poison pill clauses to make sure that once we have this economy-destroying tax it will be almost impossible to remove. Labor and their Green cohorts have been crowing about how much it will cost for Abbott to undo the damage but only now can we see the new depths to which this worst government in Australian history has sunk.
Lucky you’re not a climate “scientist” eh? Worse, you could be a skeptic. « JoNova: Science, carbon, climate and taxGiven airtime and column inches? Are you kidding? The people pushing against the evidence don’t just get air-time and inches, they get $79 billion dollars and yearly trips to two-week-long junkets so they can pat each other on the back. What other field of science do you get to visit Cancun, Copenhagen and Bali year after year, so you can swap the latest “tricks” to hide the fact that your models don’t match any important observations?
Climate science is a special place to be.
On torturing data | Climate Etc.although very few researchers will go as far as to make up their own data, many will “torture the data until they confess”, and forget to mention that the results were obtained by torture….
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