Mixed messages from National Geographic: CO2 emissions are evil, and also, why not get in your private fossil-fueled car and take a good long unnecessary Drive! this summer

Drive!

As heat and humidity soar, and air quality declines, our friends at National Geographic suggest we get in our cars and Drive!

2012: Warmist William Chameides sees CO2-induced "bad times" that "might parallel the period when the plague wiped out a third of the world's population"

The annual conference, presented by the Aspen Institute and National Geographic, is titled “Living in the New Normal” this year. The opening discussion carried the same name, but it soon became evident that there is no new normal.

“We're living in a new abnormal, perhaps,” said Dennis Dimick, National Geographic magazine's executive editor for the environment. He showed detailed graphic displays that demonstrate how global temperatures have increased 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1970s...Moderator and National Geographic magazine senior environment editor Rob Kunzig called Trenberth “the go-to guy” for journalists writing about extreme weather events...He gave a sobering assessment that humans are headed toward “bad times.” It might parallel the period when the plague wiped out a third of the world's population, [William Chameides] said

Links

Twitter / BigJoeBastardi: Record cold start some parts ...

Record cold start some parts of Texas this July may be matched by lowest maxes ever in July today some places Oasis of cool in hot summer

GDP Growth and Diminishing Returns | Duke Dean's Blog: The Green Grok

[Warmist Bill Chameides] Tighten your belts. A new paper suggests the optimum gross domestic product (GDP) may be only $7,000 per person.

Twitter / BigJoeBastardi: Could be an historic day at ...

Could be an historic day at DFW.. coldest July high ever if sun cant break through. Tied lowest for day yesterday

Twitter / RogerPielkeJr: I'm testifying before the Senate ...

I'm testifying before the Senate EPW Committee on Thursday. I've been asked to discuss extreme events. http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/310973-climate-change-showdown-takes-shape …

Aussie columnist: Warmists ‘not just a handful of cranky socialists or enviro-nazis’ | JunkScience.com

Apparently their coalition is somewhat broader.

House Hears About Climate | Bill Chameides

My argument with Judy is less of substance than of emphasis. We agree on this as I think almost any climate scientist would: there is still a lot to learn about the climate system and our ability to predict the future course of the climate is limited.

Fourier Analysis reveals six natural cycles driving temperatures, no man-made effect: predicts cooling « JoNova

Lüdecke, Hempelmann, and Weiss found that the temperature variation can be explained with six superimposed natural cycles. With only six cycles they can closely recreate the 240 year central European thermometer record. There is little “non-cyclical” signal left, suggesting that CO2 has a minor or insignificant effect.

April 2013 In Germany Comes In At 0.1°C Colder Than The 1981 – 2010 Longterm Mean

because March was far below normal, the 2013 MAM spring period so far is much cooler than normal.

THE HOCKEY SCHTICK: New paper finds another amplification mechanism by which the Sun controls climate

A paper published today in the Journal of Climate finds tiny variations in solar activity over 11-year solar cycles have greatly amplified effects upon climate via changes in the Arctic Oscillation, North Pacific sea surface temperatures & sea level pressure, and via changes in stratospheric ozone from solar UV. The authors find the Arctic Oscillation evolves from a negative mode a few years before solar maximums to a positive mode at and following solar maximums. The IPCC claims the tiny variations in solar activity during solar cycles cannot affect climate, but this paper and many others demonstrate solar activity has greatly amplified effects upon climate via ocean oscillations, atmospheric oscillations such as the Madden-Julian oscillation and Quasi-biennial oscillation, stratospheric ozone, and sunshine hours/clouds.

Native American Tribal Judge: ‘Keystone XL = Death’; Certain rupture to cause children, grandchildren to die of thirst | JunkScience.com

Written in ignorance or disregard of all the existing pipelines over the Ogallala aquifer.

Warmist Bill Chameides on Obama's second-term bad-weather-prevention policy: "I predict more of the same, perhaps with a bit more gusto"

Climate Change Change Gonna Come? | Duke Dean's Blog: The Green Grok

[Warmist Bill Chameides] Rhetoric aside, when it comes to U.S. climate change policy and the next four years, I predict more of the same, perhaps with a bit more gusto. No sweeping federal legislation, no putting a price on carbon — given the current make-up of Congress, it’s just not in the cards.

First major U.S. snowstorm, cold snap may harm some crops

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The first major snowfall of the year and a cold snap set to sweep into the northern Midwest could harm some late-maturing corn and soybeans crops and delay the harvest, an agricultural meteorologist and the National Weather Service said on Thursday.

Seen a Better Headline than This One from Post Carbon Institute? Not Likely | The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media

“Obscure Expert Joins Little Known Think Tank to Battle Issues Most Prefer to Ignore.”

The gem in this case comes from a Santa Rosa, Ca.-based organization known as the Post Carbon Institute. It was announcing the naming of Paul Gilding, an Australian writer and activist and former CEO of Greenpeace International, as a “Climate & Business Fellow.”

‘GreenGrok’ Duke Dean Chameides on ‘Climate Conundrum’ | The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media

People rarely make decisions based on information

Fat polar bears chew on whale bones, chase dog | polarbearscience

A string of remarkable photos of polar bears at the Kaktovik whale carcass dump (leftovers from subsistence whaling) on Barter Island on the north slope of Alaska and a dog having some fun, by Wasilla photographer Bill Hess, posted at this blog here. Go have a look. Note the condition of the bears, nice and fat from the look of it.

U.K. Confirms Gas Role as EON, National Grid Open Heat Pipe - Bloomberg

Natural gas remains “absolutely central” to efforts to curb U.K. emissions, Energy Secretary Ed Davey said, as EON AG and National Grid Plc (NG/) opened a heat pipe to boost efficiency at a gas-fired power station.

Ocean Salinity Change Spurs Expedition | LiveScience

"Climate is changing all the time, and some of that change is due to natural variation," Schmitt said. "The 50-year trend we are talking about, most of us believe is really due to the general trend of global warming."

Twitter / BigJoeBastardi: SO after the hot summer was ...

SO after the hot summer was global warming, if model is right about winter, whats your explanation going to be? pic.twitter.com/YtvnNvvX

Bill Chameides: Not a Hoax: Climate Change Shows Up in a Presidential Acceptance Speech

While it is true that there is still scientific debate about how much warming there will be, how much humans contribute, and how severe the risks will be, those are a second-order or even-third order debate. For example we can't say exactly how much warmer it will be, but the scientific consensus is that it will be significant and will pose significant risks.

Think of it this way: if you are allergic to nuts, all you want to know is if there are nuts in the dish you're thinking of ordering. The fact that there is no consensus among the chefs as to whether the nuts are pecans or almonds is not all that relevant to your decision.

Hot times yield lukewarm climate debate in D.C.

But what about a serious dialogue on the topic on Capitol Hill? “There isn’t one,” Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said Tuesday.

Still, Kerry said, the real-world impact of the warming Earth means the climate’s time in the political spotlight is coming.

“It’s a matter of timing but it’s not going away,” Kerry told POLITICO. “It’s getting bigger, it’s getting more serious. And it will be very much front and center I think over the next months.”
...
Boxer said she had waited to hold Wednesday’s update on climate science until the conclusion of the two-year effort that led to passage of this year’s highway bill. But she said the storms and heat played a part in her decision to call the hearing.

A Look at Electric Cars from Chevy and Tesla — A blog on Environmental Happenings by Dean Bill Chameides

Debuting at the turn of the 20th century and rivaling gas- and steam-powered engines, the electric car fizzled out by the 1920s, elbowed out by advances in the internal combustion engine (namely electric starters) and newly discovered oil in Texas. It had a brief resurgence in the mid-1990s with GM’s EV1

India blackout, on second day, leaves 600 million without power - The Washington Post

The blackout, the largest in global history by the number of people affected, dramatically underlined the concerns industry leaders have raised for years – that the nation’s horribly inefficient power sector is dragging on the economy and could undermine its longer-term ambitions...“India’s basic energy shortage is compounded by the policy of selling electricity to consumers at politically correct prices,” the Hindustan Times wrote in an editorial. “The government-owned distribution monopolies in the states have all but lost their ability to buy power because their political bosses force them to sell it cheap, sometimes free, to voters.”

The Pacific Ocean is becoming caffeinated | Grist

Caffeine levels off the potentially polluted areas were below the detectable limit, about 9 nanograms per liter. The wilder coastlines were comparatively highly caffeinated, at about 45 nanograms per liter….

“Caffeine is pretty darn ubiquitous, and there is growing evidence that this and other understudied contaminants are out there,” said [hydrologist Dana] Kolpin, of the USGS’s Toxic Substances Hydrology Program in Iowa City, Iowa.

Who’s laughing now, huh? These concentrations aren’t exactly espresso-level, writes Bill Chameides, dean of Duke’s Nicholas School for the Environment:

Even the highest concentrations of caffeine observed by Rodriguez del Rey et al are much, much smaller than the concentrations in a typical cup of coffee (500,000,000 nanograms per liter). Is that too low to have an effect?

Twitter / PaulREhrlich: Wise words from Mike Mann on ...

Wise words from Mike Mann on the social-suicidal pipeline to exploit filthy Canadian fuel and wreck #climate http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/Hockey-stick-climate-scientist-challenges-Keystone/7013429/story.html …

Warmist Bill Chameides: "Could be that we either lower our global warming emissions or the climate will force us to do it anyway — and that forcing may be unpleasant, to say the least"

Climate Change: The Human Factor Factored In — A blog on Environmental Happenings by Dean Bill Chameides

...Their conclusions are daunting. Using the value of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference, they estimate that “society will have to become ~ 50 times more responsive to global mean temperature change than it has been since 1990.” (The responsiveness from 1990 to the present was estimated on the basis of the global proliferation of renewable energy sources over that period.)...

We live in the natural world and in some respects are at the mercy of the weather and therefore the climate. And so the climate-human system can have some pretty serious “self-corrections” built into it. Could be that we either lower our global warming emissions or the climate will force us to do it anyway — and that forcing may be unpleasant, to say the least. When it comes to global warming and greenhouse gas emissions, it may turn out to be a pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later kind of thing.

The Skinny on Environmental Links to Obesity — A blog on Environmental Happenings by Dean Bill Chameides

New study shows pregnant mice exposed to diesel exhaust are more likely to have obese offspring.
...What if the root cause of obesity is not diet or exercise but something that’s happening inside our bodies caused by something beyond our control — like an environmental insult or pollutant? Sound far-fetched? Actually, it's not.

A climate of inaction - The Yorker

[Alfie van den Bos] It is up to those of us with the knowledge and willpower to question these sceptics and reveal the fallacies behind their work.

Alfie van den Bos (AlfievandenBos) on Twitter

University of York Green Party secretary and punmaster

Was Gergis et al “Withdrawn”? « Climate Audit

I guess Karoly has been taking lessons on honesty in climate communications from Phil Jones.

Question: If it's really .5 degrees F. warmer now than it was in the 1971 to 2000 period, does that actually constitute a "new normal"?

Talking Green in Aspen — A blog on Environmental Happenings by Dean Bill Chameides

The forum's theme — “Living in the New Normal” — was inspired by last year’s updated U.S. climatological averages for the years 1981–2010 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. These “new normals” depict a nation with a climate under flux, including average temperatures about 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the previous normal from 1971 to 2000.

...In the “Climate and Conflict“ discussion, moderated by ABC News correspondent Bill Blakemore, the consensus was that climate change per se will not cause conflict, armed or otherwise, but will exacerbate existing conflicts and instabilities.

Warmist William Chameides sees CO2-induced "bad times" that "might parallel the period when the plague wiped out a third of the world's population"

Living in the new abnormal because of climate change | AspenTimes.com

A panel Saturday morning at the opening session of the Aspen Environment Forum painted an often bleak picture of how climate change is altering the world and how humans are dealing with the challenges.

The annual conference, presented by the Aspen Institute and National Geographic, is titled “Living in the New Normal” this year. The opening discussion carried the same name, but it soon became evident that there is no new normal.

“We're living in a new abnormal, perhaps,” said Dennis Dimick, National Geographic magazine's executive editor for the environment. He showed detailed graphic displays that demonstrate how global temperatures have increased 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1970s. Projections indicate that summers in 2040 to 2060 will be “warmer than the warmest on record,” he said.

Go ahead and throw weather records out the window, agreed Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The atmospheric conditions are changing to the point where “every weather event is different than it would have been,” Trenberth said. “We keep changing the climate so there is no new normal.”

Moderator and National Geographic magazine senior environment editor Rob Kunzig called Trenberth “the go-to guy” for journalists writing about extreme weather events...
He gave a sobering assessment that humans are headed toward “bad times.” It might parallel the period when the plague wiped out a third of the world's population, [William Chameides] said....Humans across the planet burn a million years' worth of “ancient plant goo” in the form of fossil fuels every year, Dimick said.

If the carbon production grows unchecked, that spells trouble for the planet. By the time the general public realizes that something must be done because of direct consequences on the way they live, it will be “too late,” Trenberth said. “Fifty years from now, ecosystems won't be viable where they are now.”

David Orr, chairman of the environmental studies program at Oberlin College, said, “We're talking about the end of what we love and value,” yet too few people grasp it. The problems revolving around climate change won't be dealt with until people start waking up at 2 a.m. and realities are slapping them in the face, he said.
[David Orr] sees the potential to create a “green tea party movement.”

Bill Clinton's glamorous fundraiser called "worst party ever" by angry guests - Telegraph

Glamorous photographs of the event document Clinton’s short speech addressing the issue of climate change

Twitter / ClimateReality: Hey @HeartlandInst maybe i

Hey @HeartlandInst maybe if you switch to more efficient light bulbs you can keep your lights on http://s.tt/1cC5H

Flashback: Has Al Gore already blown his mysteriously-obtained $300 million climate fraud promotion slush fund?

Death By A Thousand Regulations: The New Energy Bill

An earlier Oxford Energy Comment (Electricity Liberalisation in the UK – the end is nigh from February 2009) forecast that the liberalised UK electricity industry was likely to die not with a bang (renationalisation) but with a whimper, suffocated by an increasingly complex network of regulation. With the government’s new Energy Bill, which was published as a consultation draft on 22 May, we seem already to have reached that point.

Twitter / @sarapeach: This is not a joke: N.C. l ...

This is not a joke: N.C. legislators try to outlaw sea-level rise. #climate #obx huffingtonpost.com/bill-chameides…

Global Warming and Severe Weather: Is There a Link? — A blog on Environmental Happenings by Dean Bill Chameides

If you require rigorous scientific evidence, the answer, at least today, is that we just don’t know.

Labour Union Quits Alliance With Green 'Job Killers'

The Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) left the BlueGreen Alliance on Friday, citing a disagreement with the group’s members over the Keystone XL pipeline. “We’re repulsed by some of our supposed brothers and sisters lining up with job killers like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council to destroy the lives of working men and women.”

William Tucker: Environmentalism And The Leisure Class

Environmentalism's main appeal is that it promises to slow the progress of industrial progress. People who are already comfortable with the present state of affairs are happy to go along with this.

Greenpeace's forest policy is unsustainable – Telegraph Blogs

Here is a guest post from one of my environmental heroes, Patrick Moore. The reason he's an environmental hero is because, unlike so many campaigners in the green movement, he doesn't believe that in order to save the world its necessary to destroy Western industrial civilisation.

Little Ice Age Coldest Period In The Last 7000 Years In Greenland « NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

UBC researchers provide recommendations for $100 billion in annual climate change aid « UBC Public Affairs

The climate change funding, which amounts to more than twice the annual lending by the World Bank, is expected to flow through various channels, including a new Green Climate Fund (GCF) being discussed at the upcoming Durban climate summit.

The Empty Chamber | Watts Up With That?

Of a total of 48 members, only Ranking Member Edward Markey attended, along with Representative Harry Waxman (who is not a member of the Committee). Two years ago, both were powerful congressmen who were well known for their environmental advocacy. That day, the other 19 Democrats (there is a vacancy) and all of the 27 Republican members of the Committee had other business. There were no announced regrets.
...After a few minutes into the Chameides talk, I decided to leave to beat the traffic, almost feeling sorry for the staffers who had to sit through the remainder of briefing – a rehash of dubious science from a bygone era presented on the behalf of two once powerful Congressmen in the empty chamber.

Crossing the Ice - Day 18 is hell frozen over for Aussie adventurers James Castrission and Justin Jones | thetelegraph.com.au

Meteorologists monitoring Antarctic conditions say it is the highest snowfall in the region in years.

IPCC Extreme Weather Report Is Another Blown Chance to Explain the Catastrophes Coming If We Keep Doing Nothing | ThinkProgress

UPDATE: Andy Revkin’s comment (here) may be the single most head-exploding and revisionist thing he has ever written. I reply.

Very bad day for warmist Bill Chameides: Only two Congressmen (Waxman and Markey) show up for their global warming hoax hearing; he also discovers that Muller is a skeptic on the role of humans in global warming

A Changing Climate About Climate Change in D.C.?

[Warmist Bill Chameides] During the Q&A session that followed the presentations, talk turned to the role of humans in global warming, and it became pretty clear that Muller remains a skeptic on that front. Here again I was somewhat rankled when he brought forth red herrings like sunspots even though data clearly show that they cannot have been the cause. This time the rankling got the better of me and I challenged his red herrings, perhaps sounding a short, discordant note in the scientific trio.

I'm skeptical that the briefing lived up to its name -- "An End of Climate Change Skepticism" -- but I'd have to say in the end the event was rather anticlimactic. Perhaps the writing was on the wall from the outset. As we filed into the Longworth House Office Building, we entered a meeting room that looks like what you've seen on TV -- seats for members of Congress arranged in a U-shape around the elevated dais, the lowly speakers' table facing our representatives, and behind us ample seating for the 40 or so attendees who watched, including legislative aides, people from non-governmental organizations, and members of the media with cameras a-flashing.

Yes, all the trappings of a high-powered Congressional event with one glaring exception: Seated in the 25 or so chairs along the dais dedicated for our esteemed leaders in Congress were just two representatives, Waxman and Markey. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a Congressional resolution marking the end of climate skepticism -- or the beginning of major climate legislation -- any time soon.

UN chief urges world leaders to start climate fund | Sci-tech | DAWN.COM

DHAKA: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is urging world leaders to create a multibillion-dollar fund to fight the effects of climate change.

He says governments must create a $100 billion ”Green Climate Fund” at UN-sponsored climate change talks that start November 28 in Durban, South Africa.

2009: Hillary Clinton Pledges $100B for Developing Countries - NYTimes.com

COPENHAGEN -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has promised the United States will help raise $100 billion annually by 2020 to assist poor countries in coping with climate change as long as America's demands for a global warming pledge are met.

When things don't add up: statistics, maths and scientific fraud

From time to time, the scientific community is rocked by cases of scientific fraud. Needless to say, such incidents do little to instill confidence in a public that’s already predisposed to be skeptical of inconvenient scientific findings, including biological evolution and human-induced global warming.

Snow doesn't keep Occupy Missoula protesters down | KAJ18.com | Kalispell, Montana

Protesters said the weather presents challenges and they're using heaters and wind barriers to block out the cold.

The Reference Frame: Best case yet for the end of climate skepticism

Two U.S. lawmakers, Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), have invited three people to the U.S. Congress to terminate the global warming skepticism tomorrow, on Monday. The three people are Dr Richard Muller who wasn't a skeptic before he decided he was a former skeptic but he had never been a former skeptic, Dr Ben Santer who will beat crap out of a climate skeptic during the next conference according to his most famous publication, namely a ClimateGate e-mail, and Dr William Chameides, a relatively unknown career alarmist affiliated with several institutions.

Which is it, Bob? | Climate Nonconformist

When the carbon tax passed the lower house, the sun was shining in Canberra which Bob Brown said was indicative of our bright future. When the tax passed the senate, it was raining, he said that the “heavens were clapping”. Any weather will suit the alarmists cause, rain, hail or shine, it is all the result of warming.

BBC Reveals How Blair’s 'Multi-Billion-Pound Gaffe’ May Triple Electricity Bills

BBC programme reveals that Tony Blair made “a multi-billion-pound gaffe” when he mistakenly signed up to a target that 20 per cent of Britain's energy should come from renewable sources.

Twitter / @RL_Miller: Observe parallels between ...

Observe parallels between GOP's denial of sexual harassment as an issue and denial of climate science. They make their own reality

Congressional Climate Briefing to Push “End of Climate Change Skepticism” - The House Committee on National Resources - Democrats

WASHINGTON - Three prominent scientists will present the best case yet for the end of climate skepticism in Washington and the world over the fact that the world is warming at a congressional briefing held by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.).

The briefing will feature the first appearance on Capitol Hill by Dr. Richard Muller since the release of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project results. Dr. Muller was previously skeptical about many aspects of climate science, but the massive two-year study he led has validated the fact that the world is warming. His work also debunked many talking points repeated by climate science deniers that have been repeated by lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Dr. Ben Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will discuss new research on recent warming. Dr. William Chameides, dean of Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and vice-chair of the National Academies' Committee on America's Climate Choices, will discuss the findings of the National Academies' America's Climate Choices reports.

Climate hoax promoter Bill Chameides: Continuing to add trace amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere may cause the climate to "snap"

Bill Chameides: Global Warming: Fox News Separates Fact From Fiction

And there's another important aspect of this. If you keep on stretching that rubber band, it will eventually break. And if that happens, the rubber band will never return to its original shape.

Could the same snap happen to the climate if we keep adding CO2? Probably. When will it snap? We're not sure; we'll have to wait and see. But there's one loud snap that has already been heard: Joe Bastardi has stretched his scientific credibility beyond the breaking point.

How would Rep. John Boehner keep the House? - Erika Lovley - POLITICO.com

Boehner, who remains skeptical whether global warming is man-made, has long been at odds with several parts of Pelosi’s environmental push, calling them “a waste of money.”

“It reminds me of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, when we had indulgences,” Boehner said of Pelosi’s initial plan to buy carbon offsets to atone for the House’s energy use.

And when the cafeterias started offering more exotic, healthful fare, Boehner had a laugh.

Radio New Zealand : News : Rural : Not a good weekend for fruitgrowers

Some southern fruitgrowers also experienced a one-in-40 year event at the weekend.

The storm which saw snow down to low levels and bitterly cold conditions, also produced one of the longest frosts on orchards, especially in Central Otago.

Summerfruit New Zealand chair, Roxburgh orchardist Gary Bennetts, says most growers in the area had sprinklers on for 12 hours overnight on Saturday to protect fruit blossoms on their trees.

Bill Chameides: All's Not Quiet on the U.S. Climate Change Front

What happens next? Who knows. Just get into your bunker [do we need to wear tin foil hats?] and stayed tuned. That might be a good idea anyway. If the climate catastrophes come, you'll be right where you need to be.