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Washington: A Carbon Tax Would Wallop Our Economy Today, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) released a study conducted by NERA Economic Consulting that shows a carbon tax would have a devastating impact on manufacturing and jobs. The report, titled Economic Outcomes of a U.S. Carbon Tax, found that levying such a tax would impact millions of jobs and result in higher prices for natural gas, electricity, gasoline and other energy commodities. Manufacturing output in energy-intensive sectors could drop by as much as 15.0 percent and in non-energy-intensive sectors by as much as 7.7 percent.
“The notion that some policymakers have in Washington that an economy-wide tax of this nature is a good idea is flatly wrong,” said NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons. “Our nation’s economy and family budgets can’t take it. As consumers of one-third of our nation’s energy supply, manufacturers and our employees will struggle with higher energy prices. A carbon tax will severely harm our ability to compete with other nations.”
Failed Cap and Trade program to worsen Delaware’s experiment with a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative has been a failure. The effort has had no significant impact on carbon-dioxide emissions, has increased Delaware electricity rates, and the funds raised through the program were largely wasted. The program is being revised to increase electric ratepayer cost from about $6 million a year to as much as $38 million. The primary purpose of the revision is to raise revenue, not to reduce emissions. The added cost will act as a barrier to building much-needed electric generation infrastructure. We encourage the legislature to amend the law to require legislative approval of revisions to RGGI.
China’s carbon tax: not so quick | beyondbricsoes this mean that China, the world’s biggest emitter of carbon, will adopt a serious carbon tax? According to Su Wei, director general of climate change at the powerful economic planning ministry, the answer is: probably not anytime soon.
Abbott: Gillard is a 'tribal chief' | Politics | SBS World NewsOpposition leader Tony Abbott says the Coalition has a plan for western Sydney: "scrap the carbon tax, build WestConnex, stop the boats and stop the guns."
Australia enters 'new climatic territory': Climate Commission - YouTube
[7-minute video] Chief [Climate] Commissioner Tim Flannery joins us to explain the report's findings
Tim Flannery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
He completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in English at La Trobe University[4] in 1977, and then took a change of directionto complete a Master of Science degree in Earth Science at Monash University in 1981. He then left Melbourne for Sydney, enjoying its subtropical climate and species diversity.[5] In 1984, Flannery earned a doctorate at the University of New South Wales in Palaeontology for his
work on the evolution of macropods (kangaroos)...He lives in a house with environmental features at Coba Point on the Hawkesbury River, 40 km north of Sydney, accessible only by boat [Is he a stickler about only rowing or sailing out there, or does he use fossil-fueled motors?]. Critics have suggested it is quite close to the waterline if his predictions of sea level rise are borne out.
U.S. Sea Level Rise Along East Coast To Accelerate With Gulf Stream Slowdown
A worldwide average of 8 inches of sea level rise since 1900 has already put millions of Americans at risk
There is no such thing as climate change denial
[cartoonist John Cook] To deny global warming is to deny the basic fact that our planet is building up heat at an extraordinary rate.
...The onslaught of Australian extreme weather in 2013 has led to a surge in the fallacy “extreme weather events have happened before therefore humans are not having an influence on current extreme weather”. This is the logical equivalent to arguing that people have died from natural causes in the past so no one ever gets murdered now.
Snowquester live blog: Tracking the models, March 3 evening edition - Capital Weather Gang - The Washington Post
Overview: The odds of a high impact storm (we’re calling it Snowquester) have grown today, and we’re closing in on a range where confidence is increasing. As noted earlier, we think there’s a 70-80% chance of at least 1 inch of snow, a 45-60% of at least 5 inches, and lower but plausible odds of at least 10 inches.
Snow kills eight people in Japan | NDTV.com
Tokyo: Heavy snow that fell in northern Japan over the weekend killed eight people on Hokkaido island, including a family whose car became buried.
There's No Such Thing As the Liberal War on Science | English major Chris MooneyBy denying global warming, [Republicans] also jeopardize the planet and the well-being of humanity. In my view, not all wrong beliefs are equally harmful—rather, wrong beliefs are harmful in proportion to their bad consequences.
Chronicles of Ineptitude, Special Energy Edition | Power Line—And while we’re on the subject of breaking wind, don’t miss this Los Angeles Times story from last fall about how solar power installations have become a fiscal burden to local governments in California. Another “green jobs” epic fail
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—Cause of Action, a government accountability watchdog group, is out with an intriguing study that finds a 95 percent correlation between companies that received Department of Energy loan guarantees (think Solyndra) and subsequent campaign contributions. Whodathunkit?
Climate Change Committee Wants “£50 Billion And More” Subsidies For Nuclear Industry | The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)The government should extend state-backed guarantees to all nuclear new build projects, according to a report out by the Energy and Climate Change Committee today. It said the government should offer UK Guarantees to “all nuclear new build projects”, even if this required “increasing the amount of available assistance to more than £50 billion”.
Treasury Kills Off Environment Study | The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)The Treasury has thwarted an attempt by senior economists across Whitehall to set up a review of resource depletion, climate change and growth to address the concerns of both industry and environmentalists.
Lord Monckton challenges Greens to a debate at Wagga school - Press releease.Now therefore I challenge the nine Federal Senators of the Traffic-Light Tendency (the Greens too Yellow to admit they’re Reds) to elect one of them defend the New Religion against my contention that it is pietistic, illogical and exaggerated
ABC News Watch: Lies of the Climate Commission: Part 14 - Climate on steriods!Let's compare the portents of climate doom of 2010 with another random year, lets take 1953, before modern warming-surely things were much calmer back then.
Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup | Watts Up With That?Fred Singer suggested three questions for staffers to ask global warming / climate change / extreme weather event advocates. One, Please explain to me why there has been no warming for more than a decade, even though atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to rise. The question was supported by graphic evidence. The follow-up was a quote from Phil Jones of HadCRU admitting there has been no statistically significant surface warming for at least 15 years.
The second question was: Can you explain why the Antarctic has been getting colder and GAINING ice? (2.1 trillion tons/yr for past 150 yrs)? The scientific articles supporting the question were cited.
And the third question was: Could the Sun (or cosmic rays) be responsible for the major warming of 20th century? A graph by E Friis-Christensen and K Lassen, published in Science, shows a strong relationship between the temperature anomaly (departure from the normal) and the sunspot cycle length while the relationship between temperature anomaly and CO2 concentration is much weaker. The follow-up is an admission by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) appearing in the Second Order Draft of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) that cosmic ray changes can affect earth’s clouds and climate.
Nobel Prize Winner : Arctic To Be Ice Free Next year | Real Science[2009] New computer modeling suggests the Arctic Ocean may be nearly ice-free in the summertime as early as 2014, Al Gore said Monday at the U.N. climate conference
The Coldest Journey Gets Colder | Watts Up With That? if you plan to burn huge quantities of fossil fuels doing something totally un-necessary just because it’s there, then don’t lecture me about climate change!
Politics: The Real Manmade Climate Crisis (Secretary Kerry, take note) — MasterResource“Our real manmade climate crisis takes four closely related forms…. Influence peddling…. Politicized science, markets, and ethics… Climate eco-imperialism that impoverishes and kills…. Ready-made excuse for incompetence.”
- Bishop Hill blog - Mann says "McIntyre"Mann's response features a lot of huffing and puffing and conjuring up of unidentified "falsehoods", but through all the verbiage he seems to admit the point about the data stopping at 2005...although he is silent on the use of a land-only dataset to compare to land-ocean predictions.
Blog Memo to Lead Authors of NCADAC Climate Assessment Report | Bob Tisdale – Climate ObservationsIt’s likely there are portions of your report that are very good. I’ve only read a few sections, and I obviously found them lacking. Consider a few new tacks. End the alarmism. It detracts from your message. With the internet, we, in effect, have very long memories and can find evidence to refute the unfounded claims you insist on making. Also, you need to end the unsupported allegations that emissions of greenhouse gases are responsible for the warming we’ve experienced. It’s computer-based speculation—nothing more, nothing less—and it’s based on climate models that cannot properly simulate natural variability. And to counter those allegations of human-induced global warming, satellite-era sea surface temperature data and ocean heat content data indicate the oceans warmed naturally. Unfortunately you’d need to present to those funding your research the reasons for your change in tack—that climate science is still in its infancy, that climate models still cannot be used for attribution purposes. It’s quite likely those parties won’t be happy to learn that the instrument temperature record contradicts what you’ve been telling them for so long.
ABC News Watch: Lies of the Climate Commission: Part 15 - The disgruntled summerSome stats of extreme temperatures from the BOM listed below. Odd that in a year the climate was on"steriods" and the "Summer was Angry" (....my friend ...perhaps "like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli") that 2012 and 2013 seem to be MIA. Perhaps not that angry after all. Just a little disgruntled perhaps?
Michael Mann | Facebook[Michael Mann] As professional climate change deniers become increasingly irrelevant and desperate, so do their distraction and smear efforts. These are mostly just noise in the background these days, as the media increasingly appears to be recognizing the intellectual bankruptcy of the industry-funded climate change denial effort and those who do its bidding. Occasionally, though, I will debunk the most egregious of the smears and falsehoods, both to set the record straight, and to arm readers w/ the information necessary to evaluate the credibility of the various actors in the climate change denial campaign...At that point I will be updating my lecture slides, many of which are indeed somewhat out of date.
Mike’s AGU Trick « Climate Audit The staleness of Mann’s temperature data in his AGU presentation was really quite remarkable: the temperature data in Mann’s presentation (December 2012) ended in 2005! Obviously, in the past (notably MBH98 and MBH99), Mann used the most recent (even monthly data) when it was to his advantage. So the failure to use up-to-date data in his AGU presentation is really quite conspicuous.
Drop Some Climate Reality Into the Web of Denial Myths | DeSmogBlog...the climate denial communications machine is very well funded, and has plenty of shadowy channels [like what, specifically?] to help funnel this disinformation into comments sections and Facebook feeds and Twitter and everything else.
Twitter / mattwridleyAstonishing: leave out the oceans and truncate by 7 years -- how to distort data till it fits the models -
Aussie Commission: ‘Climate on Steroids’ | JunkScience.com“While it was difficult to predict whether next summer would see more records broken, he said over the next two decades there would be some “really frightening” temperatures in store for the country.“
Solar Report Stunner: Unsubsidized 'Grid Parity Has Been Reached In India', Italy--With More Countries Coming in 2014 | ThinkProgressDeutsche Bank just released new analyses concluding that global solar market will become sustainable on its own terms by the end of 2014, no longer needing subsidies to continue performing.
Sun Ignores Scientists' Predictions | The Resilient EarthAgain, the fluctuation in solar activity correlates well with known historical periods of both warm and cold climate conditions. This shows that the major driver of earthly climate is the Sun. That's the good news. The bad news is that, as was seen at the start of this article, scientists are not able to accurately predict the Sun's activity, whether on a decadal scale or longer. Sadly, because of uncertainly in the Sun's activity global warming fearmongers can continue to play the “we are all doomed” game every time a warm spell strikes somewhere on Earth. But sooner or later that will catch up with them, because we cannot predict what the Sun is going to do, and we certainly cannot control it.
Refereed Journals: Do They Insure Quality or Enforce Orthodoxy? The present system, if continued, may seriously impede, if not stop, the advance of scienceMy own experience reinforces everything he [Tipler] says. With just one highly technical exception NONE of my papers appeared in "mainstream" (APA) journals. And the reason is glaringly obvious. I have always been unwaveringly critical of Leftist ideas, which are the orthodoxy in academe. So nearly all of my 200+ published papers were published in just three journals with sympathetic editors. Amusingly, however two of those journals are very widely circulated and cited. So my papers still got good exposure and appeared in journals that were highly creditable. As soon as the editors changed, however, my papers ceased to be accepted!
All Time Temperature Records In South Australia | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THATIt is amply apparent that the top temperatures set this summer are not as high as those set in 1960. It also seems highly likely that even higher ones were set in 1939, as was the case in NSW. It is a pity the Bureau did not point this out.
- Bishop Hill blog - Dave Summers on everythingBH reader Dave Summers, a Professor emeritus of mining engineering, is interviewed by CNBC on just about everything to do with energy and climate. There's caution on shale, pessimism on the economy and a healthy dose of scepticism on climate...
The New Nostradamus of the North: Germany's "official" warmists as comic heroesThe "official" warmists in Germany must be desparate. As the general public in Germany, as well as elsewhere, shows less and less interest in global warming, a taxpayer funded government advisory body of warmists calling itself "Wissenschaftlichen Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen (WBGU)" has decided to waste money and energy on a series of comic books in the (vain) hope of attracting young people for their lost cause.
The bright idea behind the "scientific project" is that members of the WBGU - people like the superwarmists Stefan Rahmstorf and Hans-Joachim Schnellhuber from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research - are acting as "comic heroes" fighting the evil forces of global warming (and presumably global warming "deniers").
CU-Boulder researcher links volcanic activity to recent dip in global warming A study led by researchers at the University of Colorado has determined that the pace of planet warming in the first decade of this century was slowed by volcanic activity, and not by industrial activity in Asia, as was previously believed.
Previous research in 2009 had suggested that an increase in stratospheric aerosols tied to a 60 percent increase in sulfur dioxide emissions over China and India had negated about 25 percent of the global warming that scientists attribute to greenhouse gas emissions.
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Each run required about a week of computer time, utilizing 192 processors, enabling the team to isolate coal-burning pollution in Asia from aerosol contributions tied to volcanic eruptions.
Twitter / PeterGleickI keep reading the sequester will hurt things GOP doesn't seem to care about: the poor, environment, health care... What's their incentive?
Twitter / PhelimMcAleer@PeterGleick hope they find Enuf money to prosecute forgers and identity thieves
So Much for Hot Climate News: New York Times Shuts Down 'Green' Blog | NewsBusters The reality must be that people don't read it, and people simply don't find global warming a scintillating subject. So much for the notion it's the "story of the century."
EPA’s Climate Change Adaptation Plan | William M. BriggsThere is no reason to ask for advice on what to do about the climate because nobody knows what the ideal climate is. By “nobody” I mean no body, no person, no living or dead soul, no individual no matter his, or even her, “degree” or credential or experience. The very concerned, the activists, the nerve-racked environmentalists, the emotionally and financially committed, the mindful, the most deeply vexed greens; none of these have any idea what the climate should be.
If you don’t have a target it is futile to take aim. It is worse to shoot. It is insane to ask strangers to pay for your arrows.
A note about temperatures | Watts Up With That?[John Coleman] I conclude the temperature data does not prove global warming. The alarmists are wrong. But the temperature data is so unreliable and garbled that neither alarmists or skeptics can use it to conclusively prove they are right.
No Wind, No Sun, No Power | NoFrakkingConsensusWindmills and solar panels sound wonderful. Except that the UK wind isn’t blowing and the German sun isn’t shining.
Global Edmonton | Canada’s inaction on environment hurts its reputation: former PM“Canada kind of dragged its heels on climate change as long as the (former president George W.) Bush administration wasn’t doing much,” [Kim Campbell] said in an interview on the Global News program The West Block with Tom Clark. “The Obama administration is moving in a different direction and in the last state of the union address the president really started tackling this.”
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Campbell said the global opinion about the urgency of addressing climate change has changed -- and Canada needs to catch up.
Twitter / CHedegaardEUWrapped up US visit w keynote @europeanconf @Harvard stressing how int #climate action could benefit from us jointly pulling things forward
Obama's War On Drilling: Oil Surplus, Not Scarcity, Is The New Regulatory Excuse - ForbesLarry Bell: Dan, it wasn’t so very long ago, back in June 2010, when President Obama said: “With only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices…Not when we consume 20% of the world’s oil.” Yet according to government data compiled by the Institute for Energy Research, North America’s land areas contain twice the combined proved oil reserves of all OPEC nations, and enough natural gas to provide for our electricity needs at current usage rates for more than 500 years.
Planetary Thermostat Broken! | Real ScienceThe thermostat is broken! Temperatures have declined as CO2 has increased more than 5%. Someone call the repairman, before we all freeze to death.
Payback Time From Gaia | Real ScienceLast March was beautiful on the East Coast of the US. Temperatures were well above normal – almost as warm as they were in March of 1910. NOAA declared these mild temperatures to be proof of global warming and listed them as being the most extreme weather in US history.
This year, March is setting up to be near record cold on the East Coast of the US.
Twitter / billmckibben: Study: ending global poverty, ...Study: ending global poverty, stopping global warming is the same fight, needs the same actions.
Extreme weather makeover: Has abnormal become the new normal? - KansasCity.comthe surreal mounds of snow now hiding shrubs that barely survived summer’s heat? Get used to that, too.
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Now 20 to 25 inches of snow heaped on Kansas City in the most dramatic, back-to-back smacking delivered by any winter week that many of us can recall.
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“A warmer atmosphere draws more moisture to fall out of the sky,” said University of Kansas researcher Johannes Feddema.
Bakken Drilling Times And Costs Are Dropping | The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)The revolutionary extraction technologies keep getting better, faster, and cheaper, and will continue to do so in the future.
Drivers Stranded In Snow Storm to Sarnia, Ontario - YouTubeIncredible footage shot close to Sarnia, Ontario, taken after the area was battered with a snow storm.
UK Explorer: Green Campaigning Has Failed - YouTubeAhead of his latest expedition to Antarctica, Robert Swan says people are switching off to climate change warnings.
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He said: "People are really sick and tired of seeing pictures of another glacier melting, another forest dying..."
Breaking the logjam - The Washington PostWHAT IF THERE were a policy that could cut future deficits, slash taxes, eliminate wasteful government spending and reduce climate change? As sequestration kicks in, you’d think every politician in Washington would be desperate to embrace such a win-win-win-win.
Last week the Brookings Institution’s Adele Morris laid out what an intelligent tax on carbon emissions could accomplish, and the results will astonish anyone — seemingly much of Congress — who hasn’t given the idea the consideration it deserves. Ms. Morris proposed starting with a $16-per-ton charge on carbon dioxide, setting it to rise by 4 percent annually and using most of the money to cut corporate taxes and the deficit...The plan would eliminate lots of central planning going on in Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department, and it would be easy to administer.
5 "Reasons" Why the Keystone Pipeline is Bad for the EconomyBurning the recoverable tar sands oil will increase the earth’s temperature by a minimum of 2 degree Celsius, which NYU Law School’s Environmental Law Center estimates could permanently cut the US GDP by 2.5%. At the same time state and local economies are already buckling under the real-time economic effects of our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.
Twitter / sierraclub: If Pres. Obama is committed ...If Pres. Obama is committed to fighting #climate, he should throw the State Department’s report away and reject Keystone XL pipeline. #nokxl
Week after week, Sen. Whitehouse sounds the alarm on climate change
If Congress doesn't act quickly, Whitehouse warns, global warming will lead to more air pollution, rising oceans, disease-carrying ticks and mosquitoes, Sandy-like storms and a wave of floods, heat waves, wildfires and droughts.
Whitehouse, a Democrat, says global warming is the top issue facing the country today, ahead of the economy, gun control and health care.
In case you missed it: Warmist Kim Cobb refers to climate change legislation as "a dead horse"
Reflecting on the experience, I am reminded how important it is to keep beating a dead horse when it comes to climate change, respectfully and consistently, and from a diversity of mouths.
Twitter / NoTricksZone: We're in only if we know we'll ...
The Blackboard » SkS’s Online Tool to ‘Disappear’ Global Warming!Look guys! SkS’s says RSS shows no statistically significant warming since 1987! How Kewl is that?!
Climate is a hot topic in the Kansas LegislatureRep. Dennis Hedke, a Republican from Wichita, is a geophysicist who counts at least 18 energy companies as clients. He also leads the House Energy and Environment Committee. As chairman, he can control what bills are heard and which ones get a vote.
Hedke is a decided nonbeliever of man-made global warming. He thinks those claims have been used to impose strict environmental regulations, such as renewable-energy standards, that ultimately dig into consumers’ wallets.
“This is costly,” Hedke said. “It’s already hurt people around the world.”
The notion that carbon dioxide should be regulated as a dangerous gas that’s wreaking havoc on the environment, he said, is a “flat-out lie.”
UCD conference looks at climate change and its effect on agriculture - Daily Democrat OnlineScientists and policymakers from around the world will gather [via unnecessary long-haul fossil-fueled travel?] March 20 through 22 at UC Davis to grapple with the threats of climate change for global agriculture and recommend science-based actions to slow its effects while meeting the world's need for food, livelihood and sustainability.
Wanted: A Bob Geldof for climate change - opinion - 03 March 2013 - New ScientistWe need a new hero. Is there a climate change Bob Geldof out there?
Denis Hayes: 5 things Obama should do to tackle climate changeBold climate policy could lead to an ultra-efficient planet powered mostly by the sun and living in a productive state of ecological harmony.
Environmental Racism: Blacks Should Care About Climate ChangeAfrican Americans living in Los Angeles are more than twice as likely to die during a heat wave as other residents of the city. That's because cities develop "heat islands," which are created by an abundance of concrete and asphalt. People of color more densely populate urban areas that are prone to the heat-island effect. And folks living in these areas also tend to have limited access to cars and air conditioning.
Top candidate for EPA head tough on CO2[Gina McCarthy] "If you take a look at what's recently happened with Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative ... you will realize that there are tremendous opportunities to address climate change in ways that build the economy, that grow jobs, that you can articulate that make sense to every individual who works in those communities."
Climate change a key factor in extreme weather, experts sayA few years ago, talking about weather and climate change in the same breath was a cardinal sin for scientists.
Now it has become impossible to have a conversation about the weather without discussing wider climate trends, according to researchers who prepared the Australian Climate Commission's latest report.
The report, The Angry Summer, says behind the litany of broken heat and rainfall records this year, a clear pattern has now emerged.
''Statistically, there is a one in 500 chance that we are talking about natural variation causing all these new records,'' said Will Steffen, the report's lead author and director of the Australian National University's Climate Change Institute. ''Not too many people would want to put their life savings on a 500-1 horse.''
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