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Solyndra emails underscore White House's high hopes - Alex Guillen - POLITICO.comWhite House emails released Friday underscore the high hopes that once surrounded now-defunct Solyndra.
In one email, two Obama administration officials discussed an A-list of political celebrities Solyndra hoped to attract to its 2009 groundbreaking — from former President Jimmy Carter and former Vice President Al Gore to Bishop Desmond Tutu, billionaire Richard Branson and Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
University of Vermont awarded $20M to study lake | Deseret NewsBURLINGTON, Vt. — A science program at the University of Vermont has been awarded a $20 million federal grant, the largest grant in the school's history, to help study the health of the Lake Champlain basin and look at the effects of climate change on it, officials announced Friday.
Obama Fundraiser Pushed Solyndra Deal From Inside - ABC NewsAn elite Obama fundraiser hired to help oversee the administration's energy loan program pushed and prodded career Department of Energy officials to move faster in approving a loan guarantee for Solyndra, even as his wife's law firm was representing the California solar company, according to internal emails made public late Friday.
Chinese sceptics see global warming as US conspiracyBEIJING: It's not only Western leaders like Julia Gillard and Barack Obama who face fierce resistance from climate sceptics as they try to lay out policies to tackle global warming.
In China, where carbon emissions have surged despite tough government constraints and targets, President Hu Jintao is having to stare down claims that human-induced climate change is an elaborate American conspiracy.
''Global warming is a bogus proposition,'' says Zhang Musheng, one of China's most influential intellectuals and a close adviser to a powerful and hawkish general in the People's Liberation Army, Liu Yuan.
White House feels pressure on oil pipeline - Washington Times...Still, it isn’t an easy decision for the Obama administration because it doesn’t want to disappoint its environmental supporters, who are opposed to the project. The president is expected to make a decision by the end of the year.
“This is a no-brainer,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, told a roomful of pipeline supporters this week, “which means in Washington it’s 50-50.”
Tom Friedman on Climate: The Obama Administration “Fundamentally Failed to Speak Out in Favor of the Science” | ThinkProgressIn Greenbuild speech, NY Times columnist slams White House: “There are endangered species I’ve seen more of in the last two years than that climate team speaking out in defense of climate science and scientists.”
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On the hacked emails from East Anglia University:
[Friedman] “That whole email thing, which was totally bogus…. [How many of the emails did Friedman read?]
Perry's carbon-themed attack on Romney - Alexander Burns - POLITICO.comRick Perry’s taking a swing at Mitt Romney on the issue of energy, releasing a messaging video this morning that accuses his opponent of adopting Obama-style policies on carbon emissions.
The video, which landed in Morning Score, says Romney implemented “job-killing carbon caps” in Massachusetts. The closing frame reads: “Romney & Obama: Carbon Copies.”
As climate talks stall, Earth’s ‘carbon sponges’ choke - ENVIRONMENT - FRANCE 24While some scientists say the rising levels of carbon dioxide, upon which all plants feed, have actually spurred a “greening” of the planet, most argue that such positive trends are more than offset by the increase in brush fires and plant diseases linked to climate change.
Poll: EU citizens’ concern for climate grows, most think green jobs can boost economy - The Washington PostThe survey was conducted in June by a consortium called TNS Opinion & Social at the request of the European Commission.
Prominent Climate Change [Junk] Scientist to Speak at Science Museum of MinnesotaWhile some climate change is normal, says Dr. Richard Alley, what's going on now is clearly man-made, since researchers have looked at all possible natural causes and found nothing.
Climate sceptics are today's radical rebels | The AustralianEXPERTS continue to hunt for the psycho-social underpinnings of that alleged mental disorder, climate-change denialism. Unwilling to accept that climate-change scepticism is simply an idea, informed by analysis and ideology, green know-it-alls are always sniffing around for a pseudo-scientific explanation for this apparently unhinged outlook.
UMass to host federal climate centerAMHERST, Mass. - (AP) -- The University of Massachusetts at Amherst has won a $7.5 million federal grant to host the Department of the Interior's Northeast Climate Center.
The center will study the effects of climate change on ecosystems, wildlife, water and other resources in a region west to Minnesota and south to Maryland.
UMass will lead a consortium of five other universities, including Columbia, Wisconsin-Madison, Minnesota, Missouri-Columbia, and the College of Menominee Nation, and the Marine Biological Laboratory on Cape Cod.
It's the eighth climate center established by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
Salazar said the centers will help understand the effects of climate change and how the government can respond.
Global Warming Rocks Our World | Mother JonesThis month, New Scientist takes a closer look at the subject. Their content is behind a pay wall, unfortunately, but the article concludes that there is strong evidence that melting ice and sea level rise will impact the earth's crust, potentially causing earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes.
HaveeruOnline - Virgin boss in Maldives for Six Senses symposiumRichard will be joined by President Mohamed Nasheed's Climate Change Advisor Mark Lynas and Founder of zero2infinity Jose Mariano to explore the breakthroughs being made to a low carbon future in the transport sector.
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Other notable speakers at the symposium include President Mohamed Nasheed, Co-Founder of BLUE Marine Foundation Chris Gorell Barnes, Co-Founder of FairKlima Capital Daniel Foa, Actor and Environmental Activist Daryl Hannah, American filmmaker Edward Norton, Founder of Plant A Fish Fabien Cousteau, Co-Founder of FairKlima Capital Hiu Ng and World Future Council (WFC) Founder Jakob von Uexkull.
Declining Snow Cover Has Been Increasing For 25 Years | Real ScienceActually, snow cover has been increasing ever since CO2 hit 350 ppm in 1988.
Exclusive: Dysfunctional, Lop-Sided Geoengineering Panel Tries to Launch Greenwashing Euphemism, “Climate Remediation” | ThinkProgressWhat lessons from history's climate shifts? by Richard Black, BBC News | Climate RealistsMore doom and gloom about the world warming from Man Made Climate Change by Richard Black at the BBC, this time a history lesson of what what humans did during the Little Ice Age, but without any mention about what took place during the Medieval Warm Period prior to that time. You would have thought Richard would have been more interested as to what humans did in the MWP rather then the LIA, but then why inform the BBC readers how well things were when the world was warm, this is more "scary". GR
House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans Press Release :: Upton, Stearns Comment on Resignation of DOE Loan Guarantee ChiefUpton and Stearns made the following statement:
“Mr. Silver’s resignation does not solve the problem. We are in the midst of the Solyndra investigation and just days removed from Mr. Silver’s mad rush to finalize the last $4.7 billion in loans before the statutory deadline. Just this past Monday, the President declared the loan guarantee program sound and said that it was to be expected that one company like Solyndra could fail. But today the President changed his tune, stating, ‘The nature of these programs are going to be ones in which, you know, for every success there may be one that does not work out as well.’ Does the Obama Administration now expect that half of these companies will fail? American taxpayers are already on the hook for the half billion dollar Solyndra bust - what other shoes does this Administration expect to drop?”
The Poverty of Diagrams » Climate ResistanceThis picture of the Key Components of the Climate Change Denial Machine is not drawn to scale. But worse than that, it does not put this monster in his environment, nor in perspective against the other beasts inhabiting the landscape of the climate change debate. I don’t beleive that this bogeyman really exists. And I don’t beleive he is powerful. As I’ve argued previously, it’s no good environmental activists posing as academics, pretending that the process of creating climate change policies and bureacracies has failed because of denial… It failed because the agenda was so confused. There is no need for Big Oil to hire expensive PR and lobbying firms or fund ‘conservative think tanks’, because the environmental movement and politicians do all their own negative PR for them. Nobody embarassed Al Gore as much as Al Gore did. Nobody is better able to paraody the environmental movement as well as the environmental movement…
The Economist gets carried away with CAGW enthusiasm | JunkScience SidebarWhat utter rubbish! Tide gauge data shows no particular trend for sea levels at Tuvalu but does register the state of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
The Nazis were Greenie elitists tooThe Nazi and Greenie ideals of a romanticized rural past and a "controlled" population are of course identical. And so is the elitism. Most active Greenies are well-off people. Gore's wealth is legendary and even a humble NASA scientist like James Hansen, pulled in $1.2 million last year. Greenie protesters in England tend to be graduates or students from private schools.
So the further parallel that the European elite in the Nazi era was heavily pro-Nazi should be no surprise. It all fits: The Nazis were socialists/Leftists and so are the Greens. Environmentalism is not the same as Nazism but it is also aggressive and is working towards the selfsame goal. While there is environmentalism, Nazism will not be dead. Excerpt from a book review below
AB 32 Five Years Later | Fox & Hounds DailyThe California Air Resources Board still claims on its Web site: “The plan generates jobs, promotes a growing, clean-energy economy and a healthy environment for California at the same time.”
But where are those jobs? Five years later, the state’s economy suffers 12.1 percent unemployment, 3 percentage points higher than the U.S. economy.
And the Solyndra scandal reminded us that most “green” jobs exist only because of government subsidies and tax breaks. Solyndra got a $535 million federal loan and $35 million in California tax breaks.
Peter Lynch, a New York-based solar energy analyst, told ABC News: “It’s very difficult to perceive a company with a model that says, well, I can build something for six dollars and sell it for three dollars. Those numbers don’t generally work. You don’t want to lose three dollars for every unit you make.”
No kidding. But that’s what the whole “green jobs” scam is based on — especially AB 32.
Who funds the Climate Alarmists? – Telegraph BlogsA few days ago, none of you will have noticed, the New York Times's tragically well-meaning environmental columnist Andy Revkin ran a flow chart on his blog – produced by two US academics with evidently an awful lot of time on their hands – showing the mechanisms of the EVIL CLIMATE DENIAL MACHINE (TM).
I personally was very disappointed in it. For one thing, it did not show the $10 million per day the Koch Brothers funnel directly into my account for the deliberate lies I tell on their behalf about Man Made Global Warming. For another, it did not include a picture of the splendid hooded purple velvet cloaks, nor the elaborate Blood-Diamond-encrusted cod pieces which we Deniers sport at our orgiastic convocations where we ritually sacrifice at least one polar bear cub, one snail darter and one California Delta Smelt to our God whose name (Long may he reign!) is Evil Selfish Greedor.
Strange claim of ‘new’ information on UV | JunkScience SidebarThe claim that stratospheric ozone creates some sort of “life shield” around planet earth is and always has been utter twaddle – simply an excuse for the Montreal Protocol and the assassination of useful chemical compounds.
Cuccinelli says EPA report supports his assertions | JunkScience Sidebar
Rich states accused of blocking UN climate talks over finance - AlertNetLONDON (AlertNet) - African and least-developed countries have accused the United States and Japan of blocking progress on finance to help vulnerable states address climate change at U.N. talks in Panama this week, a tactic that threatens the outcome of the climate summit in Durban at the end of the year, they said.
“Energy and Society” Course: Professor Desrochers’s Model for the Academy — MasterResourceI recently encountered Professor Desrochers syllabus for his Energy and Society course that he is currently teaching at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Wow! Lucky are his students; this course is a model for its subject for North American and far beyond.
'Settled Science' and CO2 - NYTimes.com6:42 p.m. | Postscript | I belatedly just caught up with a highly relevant 2009 Real Climate post in which Gavin Schmidt wrote:
Unusually, I’m in complete agreement with a recent headline on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page:
“The Climate Science Isn’t Settled”
Hot the new normal!!! | Climate NonconformistNotice the phrase “soaring temperatures”. One could only use the adjective “soaring” if they had not looked at the temperature record over the past century. On what planet is 0.7°C over a century (that’s 0.007°C/year) considered “soaring”?
Now let’s look at things from the perspective of geological time. The temperature of the Holocene interglacial peaked around 8000 years ago, where it was significantly warmer than today. Todays wildlife have obviously made it through this time. That being said, how does one define “extreme” temperatures? Animals have obviously experienced more extreme temperatures before (relative to today). What reference point do you use to define the average?
Documentary director puts face to climate change - Education - News - Inner West CourierThe only one of 13 siblings to leave the island, Ms Tiimon now lives in Sydney, where she works for a non-government organisation raising awareness of climate change issues in the Pacific.
Solyndra: A bad bet Obama should regret - The Washington PostWhen a profit-making venture blows half a billion taxpayer dollars, the president should be more upset about it. Much of the criticism Mr. Obama is taking over Solyndra is political. But not all of it.
The important lesson is that the government “is a crappy vc” — venture capitalist — as then-White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers put it in an internal e-mail.
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The Obama administration has noted that private-sector biggies such as Richard Branson also bet on Solyndra. We concede that government officials are no less susceptible to irrational exuberance than capitalists. The problem is that bureaucrats are more likely to bet wrong because they are generally not full-time investment experts and have no skin in the game themselves.
Solyndra was risky in the sense that all solar-energy ventures are risky. Fossil fuel technologies are more cost-effective for the vast majority of uses.
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Savvy market players saw it coming. The silicon glut — compounded by a global credit crunch — explains why Solyndra was finding private capital harder to raise before the Energy Department stepped in.
...The lost $527 million, as well as the private capital drawn to the firm by the federal seal of approval, is money that now cannot be used for any good objective. Instead, the country just has a bigger pile of debt to pay back, with interest.
Activist urges students to act - The News Desk“That’s when I started to come out of my denial on global warming—that this is going to affect me, my then-4-year-old son. I realized, holy cow, we are all New Orleanians. Because of climate change, this is happening worldwide.”
He started working on climate change, beginning with his home in Takoma Park, Md., installing solar panels, a native-plant garden and a corn-burning stove.
The federal government's carbon tax will cost every Australian $40,000 in the period to 2050 and a cost-benefit analysis should be conducted before it passes into law, an opposition-dominated Senate committee says
The Reference Frame: Herman Cain to Wall Street commies: blame yourselfFor some time, I didn't know whether Herman Cain, an ex-boss of Godfather's Pizza, was a viable presidential candidate but he obviously is one which means that people who think he's sensible shouldn't be afraid to say so! I am just saying so. ;-)
Hey, Let’s Loan Solyndra Some More Money! - By Greg Pollowitz - Planet Gore - National Review OnlineThat last line begs the question, what do the OMB people think about the rest of the portfolio? Why not release all the e-mails?
Pipeline? We don’t need no stinkin’ pipeline | GristAn analysis by Professor Michael McElroy at Harvard indicates that running a car on wind-generated electricity could cost less than the equivalent of 80-cent-a-gallon gasoline.
Bill McKibben on tar sands, Obama, geoengineering and population growth | Leo Hickman | Environment | guardian.co.ukWe'll all be carrying signs from the president's last election campaign. No attacks on him, just his own words. "It's time to end the tyranny of oil"; "In my administration, the rise of the oceans will begin to slow and the planet will begin to heal". The tag line will be something like: "If you didn't mean it, you shouldn't have said it. Stop the pipeline".
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BM: I just spent a day with the guy in China running their CCS programme and after a day of him explaining it all to me I asked him what percentage of China's coal plant emissions will be captured and buried by 2030. He said 2%. I realised then that I probably didn't need to have spent a day talking to him.
The Race to Grow the One-Ton Pumpkin - NYTimes.comThis fall’s pumpkin contests have begun, and as many as 14 amateur growers have won regional weigh-offs with entries tipping the scales at more than 1,500 pounds. The contests are far from over — they continue in force over the next two weekends — but already one pumpkin, raised by Dave Stelts of Edinburg, Pa., has come within three pounds of beating the 1,810-pound record set last year. Rumor has it that a record-breaker may emerge in California.
...they speed photosynthesis by spraying their plants’ leaves with carbon dioxide.
Why This Prominent UK Enviro Caused a National Security Freakout | Mother JonesGlass is a UK-based activist known for acts of civil disobedience as part of the environmental group Plane Stupid, which targets aviation emissions with colorful protests. He received international attention in July 2008 when he attempted to super-glue his hand to the jacket of then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, an action meant to push Brown to pull his support for the Heathrow expansion. At the time, Brown was giving Glass an award for his environmental campaigning. The following year, Glass was one of nine climate campaigners arrested for occupying the tarmac at the Aberdeen, Scotland, airport in protest of a proposal to expand the airport to accommodate visitors to Donald Trump's planned golf resort.
Flashback: Campaigner 'glues himself to PM'Speaking afterwards, Mr Glass said: "My left hand was covered in superglue and I stuck it to his sleeve.
"I just glued myself to him and after 20 seconds he tore my hand off - it really hurt. He had to give it a couple of tugs before it came away.
"He was just grinning about it. He didn't seem to take me seriously."
After the incident Mr Glass was allowed to stay Number 10 for 40 minutes.
When he left the building he tried to glue himself to the gates of Downing Street but was prevented from doing so by a police officer.
"I didn't have much glue left by that point," he said.
Insurance Against the Future - NYTimes.comErratic and severe weather events, which are expected to increase in frequency as climate change advances, challenge traditional insurance practices that analyze historical patterns to understand the probability of future risk.
Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, Oct. 6th 2011 « The Daily BayonetRolling Stone gets it wrong, Cate Blanchett doesn’t get it at all and the WWF takes a swift kick to the daddy-bags from an otherwise very polite Canadian.
The New Hockey Stick? | Power LineThere’s a lot more here to ponder, such as the essentially hollow and meaningless nature of modern peer review, and the increasingly tribal and ideological drift of much of the academic scientific establishment.
1930s Climate Refugees | Real ScienceOkies had already fled to California to escape the drought which covered 80% of the US.
Mosquitoes Ignore Global Warming Predictions - ForbesGlobal warming is often predicted to cause a devastating increase in the range and frequency of malaria, but somebody forgot to tell the malarial mosquitoes. The World Health Organization reports global malaria deaths have declined by nearly 40% during the past decade, even as the earth experienced its “hottest decade on record.”
Rejecting pipeline would be huge 'policy blunder': U.S. senatorWASHINGTON — A senior U.S. senator came out swinging Wednesday in favour of TransCanada's Keystone XL oilsands pipeline, telling Americans that rejection of the project would be "the biggest energy policy blunder in our history."
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, warned that a decision by President Barack Obama to deny a permit for the pipeline would cost the U.S. thousands of jobs and immediately turn Keystone XL into a "defining issue" in the 2012 presidential election.
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He argued Canadian oilsands crude, far from being the 'dirty oil' opponents claim, has only slightly higher life-cycle carbon emissions than light crude.
It's not significant enough to outweigh the economic and national security benefits, Graham said, of boosting imports of oil from a friendly, reliable ally.
"It's buying from your cousin."
Flashback: Lindsey Graham suggests that air containing tiny amounts of CO2 isn't "clean"
The rise of a right-wing polemicistBolt is credited with being an important factor in the collapse of the political consensus for action on climate change that existed in 2007. Just five years ago, a Lowy Institute poll found 68 per cent of respondents agreed that global warming was a serious and pressing problem, and that ''we should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs''. This year, that number had fallen to 41 per cent.
''The strange distortion of the climate change debate is down to a few people and he's one of them,'' Jonathan Green says. Bolt gives no quarter, dismissing ''warmists'', the scientific consensus on climate change and, in 2008 quoting Christopher Monckton, one of his preferred sources: ''The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.''
You would never guess Bolt used to write for the ''Environs'' column in The Age. Or that his younger brother, Richard, helped develop Australia's first comprehensive national cap-and-trade scheme.
Rethinking climate change as a security threat - AlertNetBut while the notion that climate change could lead to conflict is widespread, it is based on very little evidence and questionable sources.
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The truth is that there are, as yet, no concrete examples of violent conflicts induced by climate change, and a limited understanding of what the future holds.
CO2 is good for you – Telegraph BlogsImagine a world where CO2 was not a deadly poison in need of urgent regulation by the European Union and the Environmental Protection Agency but a hugely beneficial trace gas which helped plants to thrive…
If you've read Watermelons – or indeed hung around this column for any length of time – you'll know that that world already exists. What you might not know, as I certainly didn't until a few months back, is that CO2 can also make you healthier. I learned this from reader Christopher Drake wrote in to ask whether I'd heard of the Buteyko Method.
Attention climate wonks: you can’t take the politics out of politics | Grist For the most part, those who strongly support climate action do not do so because they've been rationally persuaded; in fact, they tend to be quite ignorant of the scientific details. People who reject climate science tend to know the most about it, because they're motivated to learn about it in order to reject it...It is not the opinions of the reasonable nonpartisan masses but intensity and money that win in politics. That's why a relatively small group of hardcore anti-clean energy climate skeptics in the right-wing base has exercised effective veto power over American climate policy: they have the intensity and they're backed by money.
The Faithful Being Tested | Real ScienceHadCrut acknowledges that temperatures have declined this millennium. NASA acknowledges that sea level has declined for the past two years. NSIDC acknowledges that multi-year Arctic sea ice has been increasing since 2008. Cryosphere Today acknowledges that Antarctic sea ice has been increasing for 30 years. Rutgers Global Snow Lab acknowledges that winter snow is increasing. Trenberth can’t find the missing heat. ENSO has gone negative. US hurricane strikes are at historically low levels. ACE is at historically low levels. Severe tornadoes are on the decline.
The global warming religion has nothing legitimate to hold on to, so the high priests are now trying to convince people that bad weather never used to happen. The old white males who run this religion complain that old white males are against them.
The True Cause Of Global Warming | Real SciencePrior to the year 2000, Hansen showed US temperatures cooling since the 1930s. This obviously wasn’t going to bring funding in, so the temperature record was altered to create a hockey stick.
MUST LISTEN: Vicki Kerrigan from ABC Darwin, talks to Bob Carter | Climate Realists Click source for MUST listen interview with Vicki Kerrigan from ABC Darwin and Bob Carter
President Jagdeo Acknowledged for his role in Global Sustainable Energy Development“If there were more world leaders, even half a dozen around the world who realize the importance of climate change to the future of society, to every living species on planet then perhaps we would get agreement. We would get some action which the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has labeled as the defining challenge or our time” Dr. Pachauri said.
Thank goodness: the federal government is there for those of us who can't afford our own evil, paranoid, stupid nanny.Peas, corn and other starchy veggies at center of furor over USDA school lunch guidelines - TwinCities.comThe federal government wants to restrict schools from serving peas and corn to America's schoolchildren. But that idea isn't producing many ho-ho-hos in Minnesota, the No. 1 grower of the green peas and sweet corn that schools serve.
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What raised eyebrows were the strict limits proposed for "starchy vegetables" - potatoes, peas, lima beans and corn.
Under USDA's plan, a high school would be limited to serving one cup of "starchy vegetables" a week. That's one meal's worth.
"That's just an outrageously low number," said Nick George, president of the Midwest Food Processors Association, whose members include vegetable canning companies. "We're trying to get kids to eat vegetables, so why limit them?"
Australia’s carbon tax battle: where it fits into the global war | RootedMichael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus write: As two Americans watching from the sidelines as Australia tears itself apart over a carbon tax, it is impossible not to be reminded of our own country’s self-destructive battle over cap and trade in 2009 and 2010. And little wonder why: the Left and Right partiesin Australia have adopted virtually wholesale the positions taken by Left and Right parties in America.
The Labor Party has borrowed from American Democrats the strategy of giving out money to win over consumers, powerful industries, and unions. The Liberal Party has borrowed from American Republicans the strategy of attacking climate scientists and mobilising a populist backlash.
Hunt hard and hope for luck | Hunting | Idaho StatesmanThe winter was tough on big game, especially mule deer fawns.
Airlines set for loss over EU emissions trading - US news - Environment - msnbc.comThe emissions trading scheme is the EU's main tool in its fight against climate change. The EU has argued that it planned to include all airlines into its scheme since most other major states and regions do not have a similar system. Forcing only European airlines to buy permits would have put them at a competitive disadvantage [Wait a minute here: If forcing people to go "green" really saves them money, shouldn't the European airlines get a competitive *advantage" from European-only climate hoax regulations?] compared to their foreign competitors and undermined the effectiveness of the scheme.
Building boom causes China's carbon emissions to tripleThey found that emissions almost tripled between 1992 and 2007, growing by about four billion tonnes, with 70% of this growth happening between 2002 and 2007. The average annual CO2 emission growth alone in this period was similar in size to the total CO2 emissions in the UK. While exports showed the fastest CO2 emission growth at one point, capital investments and the construction industry then overtook.
timestranscript.com - For those unconcerned by climate change: just you wait[Warmist Heidi Cullen] "It is not an exaggeration when I say that no place on the planet will look the same 40 years down the road if climate change continues
Is White House "Flunking Science"? : Discovery NewsDuring a panel discussion this week at the National Press Club, one aspect that was repeatedly raised as being particularly irksome was a widespread inability to speak directly to scientists who conduct government-funded research without first going through PR contacts at the relevant governmental agency - contacts who, all too often, don't respond in time or at all.
Nancy Shute, president of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW), observed that "this has been an issue for decades. It seems with every new administration we have to begin over again. Some of us naively hoped the Obama administration, with its emphasis on openness, would make life easier. But you call a scientist, he or she says you have to go through [the relevant agency]. Days, weeks go by [and you hear nothing]. We're not talking about controversial stuff here, but good science funded by taxpayer dollars."
So what, specifically, would be controversial stuff or bad science?
Scientists seek to document later fall colors William Ostrofsky, forest pathologist with the Maine Forest Service, is skeptical about whether there's a proven link between fall foliage and climate change.
"I just don't know that there's any evidence to indicate there's a trend one way or the other," said Ostrofsky, who points out that year-to-year fluctuations make it difficult to discern long-term trends. "I really don't think we've seen any long-term trend, as far as I can tell."
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- Researchers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and at Seoul National University in South Korea used satellites to show the end of the growing season was delayed by 6 1/2 days from 1982 to 2008 in the Northern Hemisphere.
Kill carbon dioxide regulations | Tom Harris | Financial PostIn his Senate testimony, Kent supported the fantasy that humanity could limit the Earth’s temperature rise to “meet the two-degree target set out in the Cancun Agreement,” adding: “In the case of climate change, our goal remains to have a new international regime that includes all major emitters and which will take concrete actions to limit global warming.”
Instead of such unrealistic pronouncements, Kent needs to tell the truth at the UN COP meeting in December: Carbon dioxide is not pollution and an unbiased assessment of the science indicates that the climatic impact of our greenhouse-gas emissions is simply unknown. Canada can no longer afford to waste billions simply to appease irrational campaigners at international climate conferences.
Brendan DeMelle | Hillary Clinton's Keystone XL Crony Lobbyists ProblemWEB OF TAR SANDS LOBBYISTS TIED TO CLINTON/OBAMA
Below is a description of the influence peddling firms and lobbyists that DeSmogBlog has identified as having close connections to Hillary Clinton and President Obama that are working to convince the State Department to approve Keystone XL.
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It appears that Secretary Clinton is too compromised by this web of polluter influence peddlers from her past to say no to Keystone XL.
Behind the ‘Green Jobs’ Curtain: Economic Fallacies and Counterfacts — MasterResourceClean jobs have a dirty secret: They will not put Americans back to work. And they leave Americans as consumers and taxpayers poorer. Timeless economics and current facts (think Solyndra) reach the same verdict.
Articles: Warren Buffett, the Keystone Pipeline, and Crony CapitalismShould the pipeline fail, the oil will still be extracted, but it will then be transported by rail, and Mr. Buffett, thanks to the efforts of his friend Mr. Holland, will be uniquely situated to derive a fortune from that business, as well as enhance the value of his holdings in Conoco-Phillips petroleum. Is it possible that Warren Buffett's assistance to Obama in both policy and public relations lately may be his way of trying to tip the regulatory scales in his favor? After all, nothing says "I love you" to a Democrat better than a public plea for more taxes.
In any case, the opposition to the pipeline is not only tainted, but intellectually and scientifically bankrupt. BOLD Nebraska are correct when they screech that there is an agenda being served here, but it is not big oil, environmentalism, or even green energy; it appears to be garden-variety crony capitalism, an Obama administration specialty.
The Only Choice Is Where It Gets Burned | Watts Up With That?First, it’s not like we’re not getting any “dirty oil” from Canada right now. The existing Keystone pipeline is currently delivering about 160,000,000 (160 million) barrels per year of the allegedly nasty stuff. So why are the AGW folks screaming as if they were “dirty oil” virgins? They’ve been burning it in their cars for the last few years, they have no plans to stop burning it in their cars, and now they’re bitching about it? Spare me.
Organic food no guarantee against foodborne illness | iWatch News“We don’t purport that organic is healthier than conventional food,” said USDA spokeswoman Soo Kim.
Time For A Hockey Team Timeout | Real ScienceThey need to discuss strategy. NASA says that sea level is falling due to too much rain. Hansen says that sea level is rising at a record rate and will drown Manhattan by 2008. Hadley says that we are headed for a permanent drought. These clowns need a huddle to get their story straight, because they sound like a bunch of total buffoons right now.
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Oh what a tangled web we weave. When first we practice to deceive.
- Sir Walter Scott
Integrity issue follows fired [chronic fatigue syndrome] researcher : Nature News...some samples labelled as 'normal' in the Science paper were given patient numbers in the presentation, and the patient sample numbers differed between the two figures.
Commenters on the blog also pointed out that the cropped figure used in the presentation can be expanded to show more of the gel, including the original handwritten labelling. The labels on that original image differed from how the slide was described in the paper and the presentation.
Such discrepancies are difficult to cast as unintentional errors, says Jonathan Stoye, head of virology at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research in London. "There is no consistency in the way these things are labelled," he says.
How Did Steve Jobs Do It without Obama? - By Henry Payne - Planet Gore - National Review OnlineHow did Steve Jobs create so many outstanding products without Barack Obama’s investment?
In barely three decades, Jobs helped create a tech revolution — from product to infrastructure — without a dollar of federal help.While snake-oil salesmen Obama claims to know the future and blow taxpayer dollars on it, Jobs and his peers hatched ideas that attracted billions of dollars of private capital. The result is a digital infrastructure that spans the globe totally independent of government subsidy.
Notes on the Brune talk on Mann-Climategate in Boulder | Watts Up With That?I left the room with the impression that nobody had asked the “elephant” question. Had the money that Mann brought to Penn State from Federal sources caused him to bend his research to fit the requirements of his Federal funders? To ask such a question on the grounds of a Federal research facility might have been a bit too brash.
The American Spectator : Time and Cultish EnvironmentalismIt's not as if one expects actual journalism from the left-wing propagandists at Time magazine anymore, but today's article entitled "Who's Bankrolling the Climate-Change Deniers?" is particularly egregious.
Almost everything that columnist Bryan Walsh writes in his cult-like piece is wrong, but a few areas stand out in particular.
First, while Walsh repeatedly refers to a climate change denial "machine", that description implies coordination and unity -- such as actually exists in the alarmist camp.
However, there is a much wider range of views on the side of those who are skeptical about man-made climate change than on the side of those who say the human race it at risk.
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Time's article reminds me of more than anything are the ramblings of a cult leader, trying to herd some drifting followers back into the fold. Proclaim doomsday, demonize those who disagree, and pose your cult as the only way to salvation, facts be damned.
Dept of Labor IG: Obama’s green-jobs training program a flop « Hot AirSo how many workers has this program actually placed? As of June 30th … 8,035, or about a tenth of what was projected after burning through 40% of the funding. That actually comes to a surprisingly modest $25,000 per job placement. However, that total includes temp jobs; only 1,336 people found jobs lasting longer than 6 months.
In other words, this is just like Obamanomics in general. It provides a short-term gimmicky gain at incredible expense that is designed to do nothing except give politicians a headline and a photo op. It would be cheaper in the long run to buy politicians a camera and get them a blog.
Does this treatment sound familiar? | Watts Up With That?Yeah, consensus science never fails.
Reply to article: Martin Hertzberg: Response to Michael Mann | Climate RealistsHere is the much earlier opinion of a distinguished Australian scientist, John Daly:
“The evidence is overwhelming from all corners of the world, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age clearly show up in a variety of proxy indicators, proxies more representative of temperature than inadequate tree ring data.
“What is disquieting about the hockey stick is not its original publication. As with any paper, it would sink into oblivion if found to be flawed. Rather it was the reaction of the greenhouse industry to it - the chorus of approval, the complete lack of critical evaluation of the theory, the blind acceptance of evidence that was so flimsy. The industry embraced the theory for one reason and one reason only - it told them exactly what they wanted to hear.”
Not long after those comments were written, John Daly died. In one of the climategate e-mails, his death is mentioned as a kind of fortunate occurrence, some “cheering news” that removed one of their adversaries.
So much for scientific integrity!
Dr. Martin Hertzberg
Climate talks eye revenue from shipping - The Times of IndiaPANAMA CITY: With nations facing gaping shortfalls meeting pledges on climate change, several governments and activist groups are pushing to put a price on shipping emissions to fund aid to poor countries.
Solyndra: House seeks more Obama White House emails, as revelations continue - The Washington PostThe Obama administration’s Department of Energy was poised last summer to give Solyndra a second major taxpayer loan of $469 million, even as the company’s financial situation was growing more dire.
The Energy Department was actively pushing to provide the second loan guarantee to the troubled solar-panel manufacturer in April and May 2010, when Solyndra’s auditors warned the company was in danger of closing due to its rapidly mounting debts and expenses, according to complete e-mails just released by a House committee investigating the original loan.
Cold Water Tossed on 'Snowball Earth' Theory | LiveScience...So by comparing the ratios from the two sources, the scientists could get an idea of what the concentration of carbon dioxide was in the ocean, and hence the atmosphere, at the time.
They found it was much lower than expected. While previous estimates had put the carbon dioxide concentration at as much as 90,000 parts per million, this new analysis put it lower than 3,200 ppm, possibly as low as it is today, about 400 ppm.
"Since we record a very low carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere it seems to be there was never a high concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which means it cannot have been a Snowball Earth, otherwise it would still be frozen," said Magali Ader, a study researcher and assistant professor at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris,.
Long-Lost Lake Agassiz Offers Clues to Climate ChangeAlthough Lake Agassiz is gone, questions about its origin and disappearance remain. Answers to those questions may provide clues to our future climate. One question involves Lake Agassiz’ role in a thousand-year cold snap known as the Younger Dryas.
As the last ice age ended, thousands of years of warming temperatures were interrupted by an abrupt shift to cold. Tundra conditions expanded southward, to cover the land exposed as the forests retreated. This colder climate is marked in the fossil record by a flowering plant known as Dryas, which gives the period its name.
“My work focuses on abrupt or rapid climate change,” Lowell said. “The Younger Dryas offers an opportunity to study such change. The climate then went from warming to cooling very rapidly, in less than 30 years or so.”
Scientists noted that the Younger Dryas cold spell seemed to coincide with lower water levels in Lake Agassiz. Had the lake drained? And, if so, had the fresh water of the lake caused this climate change by disrupting ocean currents? This is the view of many scientists, Lowell said.
Global Warming Supporters May Use Death and Disease Probability Inaccurately to Gain Support for Warming Theorgy | TheBlaze.comAre man-made global warming supporters using cult-like doomsday messages to gain support for their theories? Ross Kaminsky, a Heartland Institute fellow, seems to think so.
Tories Sound The Death Knell For Green AgendaCameron and Osborne sound death knell for “greenest government ever” pledge with complete sidelining of low carbon economy. The political consensus that defined action to curb carbon emissions and tackle climate change is drawing to a close.
Green campaigners condemn Thomson Airways' biofuels flight | Environment | guardian.co.ukService to the Canary Islands that will be powered partly by waste from cooking oil is criticised as 'hollow PR stunt'
Cameron adds green insult to Osborne's low-carbon injury | Damian Carrington | Environment | guardian.co.ukSo here's a green keyword count for the prime minister's speech today at the Conservative party conference: Green: 2. Climate: 0. Environment: 0. Carbon: 0.
Both mentions of "green" were in passing. One was part of a wide-ranging blast by David Cameron at Labour's failings. The other - "green engineering" - also came as part of a list of technologies a new economy would be built on.
It was quite simply an atrocious speech for the environment
2008: Obama energy policy: 'Inflate your tires'"There are things you can do individually, though, to save energy," Obama said. "Making sure your tires are properly inflated – simple thing. But we could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling – if everybody was just inflating their tires? And getting regular tune-ups? You'd actually save just as much!"
That's his energy plan? Inflate your tires? Get more tune-ups?
Al Gore slams investor short-sightedness - SouthAfrica.info[Sept 22, 2011] "I think we really do need to work for change in capital markets and not be so focused on the short term," he told a Discovery leadership summit in Johannesburg.
Al Gore welcomed to Scotland[Sept 28, 2011] Renowned climate change campaigner, Nobel Laureate and was today welcomed to Scotland by First Minister Alex Salmond.
Final AsiaD Speakers: Apple's Schiller and Former VP Al Gore - Kara Swisher - News - AllThingsDTaking place from Oct. 19 to 21 in Hong Kong, the lineup is already impressive...Gore, who had a memorable interview at the fourth D: All Things Digital conference in 2006, needs little introduction.
Flashback: where's_al_gore_nowObviously, Al Gore's personal "carbon footprint" is massive. As I dug deeper into Gore's own energy use, even I was surprised at the extent of the absolutely cartoonish gap between his words and his actions.
Al Gore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaAlthough he was an avid reader who fell in love with scientific and mathematical theories,[23] he did not do well in science classes in college, and avoided taking math.[22] His grades during his first two years put him in the lower one-fifth of the class. During his sophomore year, he reportedly spent much of his time watching television, shooting pool, and occasionally smoking marijuana
Revkin’s False Equivalence on Climate Message Machines | John RennieTheir illustration then shows interplay among the fossil fuel industry, corporate America, conservative foundations and think tanks, the media, astroturf groups and so on for promoting various denialist messages.
...Dunlap and McCright made the point that they were showing the workings of a disinformation propaganda machine, one that misrepresented science with a fixed goal of preventing policies contrary to corporate and rightwing interests. Was Andy implying that those on the climate activism side were an equivalent kind of propaganda machine, even though the case for the reality and gravity of climate change is much better validated by the scientific literature? It seemed unlikely, but he seemed to let his readers think so. (And, goodness, where is the equally important caveat that not everyone on the climate activism side is part of that machine?)
John Rennie | RetortJohn Rennie served as editor in chief of Scientific American between 1994 and 2009
Andrew Tyrie (MP): UK Government Should Re-Examine Climate Change PolicyClimate change policy now threatens to reduce competitiveness by forcing up business costs. The Coalition should reexamine measures, such as the carbon floor price, that are more rigorous than those undertaken by other EU countries.
Developing world fights against new eco barriers - Hindustan TimesThe developing world is fighting a new global environmental war in the name of green economy, meaning economic growth by lesser consumption of natural resources. The rich nations wants to get UN ratification to impose a series of trade barriers for sustainable growth but the Indian environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan had opposed any such move saying "green economy should not lead to green protectionism".
William M. Briggs, Statistician » The Implications Of Yesterday’s Global Warming PostThere was nothing in the world wrong with my scientific paper “Global Warming Increases Disastrous Music: A Scientific Paper.” Nothing, that is, that isn’t wrong with any paper which seeks, via statistical proof, to show a connection between global warming and some ill effect.
The voice of science: let's agree to disagree : Daniel Sarewitz - Nature NewsConsensus reports are the bedrock of science-based policy-making. But disagreement and arguments are more useful, says Daniel Sarewitz.
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When scientists wish to speak with one voice, they typically do so in a most unscientific way: the consensus report.
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The very idea that science best expresses its authority through consensus statements is at odds with a vibrant scientific enterprise. Consensus is for textbooks; real science depends for its progress on continual challenges to the current state of always-imperfect knowledge. Science would provide better value to politics if it articulated the broadest set of plausible interpretations, options and perspectives, imagined by the best experts, rather than forcing convergence to an allegedly unified voice.
Yet, as anyone who has served on a consensus committee knows, much of what is most interesting about a subject gets left out of the final report. For months, our geoengineering group argued about almost every issue conceivably related to establishing a research programme. Many ideas failed to make the report — not because they were wrong or unimportant, but because they didn't attract a political constituency in the group that was strong enough to keep them in. The commitment to consensus therefore comes at a high price: the elimination of proposals and alternatives that might be valuable for decision-makers dealing with complex problems.
Some consensus reports do include dissenting views, but these are usually relegated to a section at the back of the report, as if regretfully announcing the marginalized views of one or two malcontents. Science might instead borrow a lesson from the legal system. When the US Supreme Court issues a split decision, it presents dissenting opinions with as much force and rigour as the majority position. Judges vote openly and sign their opinions, so it is clear who believes what, and why — a transparency absent from expert consensus documents. Unlike a pallid consensus, a vigorous disagreement between experts would provide decision-makers with well-reasoned alternatives that inform and enrich discussions as a controversy evolves, keeping ideas in play and options open. That is something on which we should all agree.
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