Ambassador at large on climate change: former Vice President Al Gore
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Secretary of Energy: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.)
The team of researchers, including Dr Seymour Laxon and Andy Ridout, used satellites to measure sea ice thickness over the Arctic from 2002 to 2008. Winter sea ice in the Arctic is around two and half metres thick on average. Ice thickness can be calculated from the time it takes a radar pulse to travel from a satellite to the surface of the ice and back again.
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The Envisat satellite that provided the UCL scientists with their data doesn't cover the whole of the North Pole. Because of the satellite's orbit, there's a hole north of 81.5 degrees, which is about 600 miles shy of the North Pole. But a team, including Laxon, at the Centre for Polar Observation & Modelling has designed a satellite - CryoSat-2 - to plug this hole.
The urgency of the current situation cannot be overemphasized [sure it can]: The latest scientific research tells us that global warming is accelerating at a rate beyond previous expectations [no it doesn't], and that the window for a timely response is closing quickly. Despite some political efforts to muddy the waters, there is scientific agreement that greenhouse gas emissions must now be stabilized within seven years or the world will face unpredictable climate-related catastrophes [no there isn't] -- far beyond the serious impacts already in evidence globally.
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Michael Northrop is program director for sustainable development at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. David Sassoon runs SolveClimate.com, a website dedicated to debating and advancing solutions to global warming. Their last story for Yale Environment 360 examined how states are developing sweeping climate and energy policies in the absence of federal action.
...In other words, without an agreement at Copenhagen the Treasury modelling is just horse feathers.
And, in case you missed the point, Ridout reinforced it: "The modelling points to very substantial adjustments ahead for the Australian economy and it serves to highlight the potentially damaging impacts on businesses and employees of moving too fast and too far ahead of the rest of the world''.
Which is exactly Turnbull's argument for delaying any ETS in light of the global financial crisis.
Opposition spokesman Andrew Robb was much more direct than Ridout.
"I suspect the Government is hiding the truth - withholding the real impact of the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression, to help them blunt growing apprehension about their rush to impose their emissions trading scheme,'' Robb said.
The Bureau of Meteorology says high temperatures recorded across the Northern Territory this month may be indicative of global warming.
Average daily temperatures were 1.75 degrees above the mean for October.
Global warming was supposed to be such a dire problem that we would all be able to set aside our differences and figure out a solution. It’s not working out that way. Governments are still behaving like governments.
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Any efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions that do not include China will be pointless. According to calculations by University of California researchers, the growth in China’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2010 will be at least five times greater than any reductions achieved by signatories to the Kyoto Protocol. But even if all the developed countries had signed and complied with Kyoto, it would have produced only a 0.15 C decrease in temperature by the end of the century. So maybe China is the country that is behaving sensibly by choosing not to cripple its economy for the sake of unnoticeable decreases in temperatures.
Very interesting article at NASA Science this morning on how our Earth is connected to the Sun. Could this connection have an impact on our climate? It there a trend, are there less EFTs during a quiet sun, and more during an active sun? The article does not say, but might be worth exploring the climate connection. Read on.
[long-range weather forecaster Haydon Walker] said he held a sceptical view of predictions about climate change at this stage. “Until someone can show me further evidence, I am unconvinced.
“I have (weather) charts from the year dot, back prior to the Industrial Revolution.
“I am disgusted with what we are putting into the atmosphere but I believe the climate change debate is too politically driven.”
On Friday the Prince travelled by helicopter with the Brunei Crown Prince, Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah, to Badas to learn about the Heart of Broneo initiative to preserve 220,000 square kilometres of rainforest.
BRUSSELS: EU member states are ready to grant automakers a three-year delay until 2015 to reduce the CO2 emissions of their new vehicles, in light of the global economic crisis, negotiators said on Saturday.If these people sincerely believed in the CO2 hype, would they have done this?
During a meeting Friday of representatives of the 27 nations, "a consensus was reached" on pushing back the original 2012 deadline to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, one of the negotiators said.
Just in case voters didn’t figure out Barack Obama’s economic instincts towards statism, this interview from 2007 on energy policy should open a few eyes. During the Democratic primaries, Obama had a lot more openness about his desire for top-down control of the economy, especially when it came to energy. In order to change the behavior of consumers, Obama argued, the government had to send “price signals” to deter bad decisionmaking … at least according to the Bureau of Acceptable Consumer Choices...
The ethanol industry built tremendous production and transportation infrastructure. It was a "if we build it, they will come" strategy. Then, the world fell apart. Prices for gas at the pump are back down well below $3 instead of being headed toward $5 as they were in August.
Verasun says it will keep operating, but common shareholders have been crushed to death. The stock was at nearly $18 late last year. Now it is under $.40.
BEIJING, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- Climate change could force pandas to shift their homes, a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) study revealed - and the results on Sichuan's tourism industry could be far-reaching.
PEOPLE living in the east shivered through one of the coldest Octobers in 15 years while Dublin broke a 60-year record on Tuesday, recording the coldest day of the month since 1948, Met Eireann announced yesterday.Florida Town Breaks 1950s Low Temperature Records for 2nd Straight Day in a Row « Aftermath News
Lakeland, FL - Lakeland set a low temperature record Thursday for the second straight day.
A reading of 42 at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport broke the record of 46 for Oct. 30, which had stood since 1952.
WASHINGTON, April 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Forests on certain parts of the planet may actually warm the Earth, according to researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in a study released today.Scientists discover cloud-thickening chemicals in trees that could offer a new weapon in the fight against global warming
According to the study, forests in mid- to high-latitude locations -- such as boreal forests of Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia -- may actually create a net warming. The study concludes that by the year 2100, these mid- and high- latitude forests may make some places up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than would have occurred if the forests did not exist.
Trees could be more important to the Earth's climate than previously thought, according to a new study that reveals forests help to block out the sun.(Via Marc Morano)
Scientists in the UK and Germany have discovered that trees release a chemical that thickens clouds above them, which reflects more sunlight and so cools the Earth. The research suggests that chopping down forests could accelerate global warming more than was thought, and that protecting existing trees could be one of the best ways to tackle the problem.
Dominick Spracklen, of the Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science at Leeds University, said: "We think this could have quite a significant effect. You can think of forests as climate air conditioners."
The scientists looked at chemicals called terpenes that are released from boreal forests across northern regions such as Canada, Scandinavia and Russia. The chemicals give pine forests their distinctive smell, but their function has puzzled experts for years. Some believe the trees release them to communicate, while others say they could offer protection from air pollution.
The European taxpayer is SO generous. They would much rather give huge chunks of money to car manufacturers than spend it on better medical services etc. Hey! Wait a minute: Aren't Greenies suposed to be AGAINST cars?? It sure gets tangled over thereGreenie garbage policies bring rat plague to UK?
Experts claim councils which have stopped weekly bin collections are to blame, along with mild winters and last year's floods..."Just putting extra food scraps on compost heaps means fantastic breeding grounds for rats to spread disease."
VeraSun Energy Corp., the second-largest U.S. ethanol producer, filed for bankruptcy protection after making bad hedging bets on corn, a raw material used to make the fuel.
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The bankruptcy is "a pretty big deal for the industry," Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates in Houston, said before the filing was made public.
A hedge is a financial instrument used to lock in commodity costs.
The company said it locked in corn costs as the price reached almost $8 a bushel after floods threatened crops in the Midwest. By late October, corn had tumbled to $3.64 a bushel, a 21-month low, on concerns that economic weakness could hurt demand for food and livestock feed.
VeraSun joins Greater Ohio Ethanol, a closely held refiner, and Gateway Ethanol in bankruptcy. Other troubled ethanol makers include Biofuel Energy Corp., which said it had $46 million in combined corn, ethanol and natural gas hedge and mark-to-market losses and might restructure.
I appreciate John Allen’s response to my letter on Global Warming and particularly his agreement that "The science of global warming is not settled." Perhaps we can have a rational dialogue, which is more than Al Gore and the alarmists will do. They simply assert that its too late to even talk about the problem and that we must implement their solutions immediately or the planet will be toast in the next 10 years. Gore attacks anyone who does not agree that global warming requires the reordering of human economics and society. He calls them crackpots and "deniers", comparing them to people who deny the Holocaust...The American Spectator : Paul Chesser : Thwarting Energy Exploration in Colorado
Over at my Web site I've posted a long, blow-by-blow account of how Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and his administration repeatedly enlisted the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to pay for his global warming alarmist agenda (a "new energy economy") and for his efforts to keep the federal Bureau of Land Management from leasing for oil and gas exploration on the Roan Plateau. It's sometimes a dry recitation but there are a ton of documents linked that I obtained from the governor's office and from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources.
The quick-'n-dirty summary: Almost immediately after he took office Ritter had a "Climate Action Plan" he wanted to pursue, which included two new positions in his administration: a cabinet-level climate policy adviser to create "a bold and visionary climate action policy," and a liaison to the Public Utilities Commission to "develop a climate-wise utility policy." He asked for, and got, two annual grants from Hewlett for $200,000 ($400,000 total) to fund the positions. Ritter worked through Hewlett's environmental program director Hal Harvey -- a far-left, Obama-supporting (and -contributing) environmental extremist who founded the Energy Foundation and is president of the crackpot enviro/population control-advocating New-Land Foundation -- to pay for his climate people. I guess the state budget process would not come up with the money fast enough for Ritter.
Once the law allows protesters to mount a defence of "lawful excuse" for vandalism justified by "climate change", you are on a very steep, very slippery slope towards anarchy.
Dealing a sharp blow to the Bloomberg administration’s attempt to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, a federal judge on Friday blocked New York City from requiring owners and operators of yellow taxicabs to switch to more fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles that operate on a mixture of gasoline and electricity.Climate Change Bill. Part 3 - ‘Ayes’ Wide Shut — Climate Resistance: Challenging Climate Orthodoxy
70 (out of 646) MPs voted. Only 5 of them (all Conservatives) voted against the ammendments. They were,
Christopher Chope (Christchurch), Philip Davies (Shipley), Peter Lilley (Hitchin & Harpenden), Andrew Tyrie (Chichester), Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone & The Weald). Well done to them. The rest of the MPs have clearly failed to consider what they are creating. They seem to believe that reducing the UK to some kind of peasant society will somehow make the world watch in awe, making them world leaders.
As the rest of the world awakens to the reality that slumping economies can only be devastated by bowing to global warming alarmists’ demands, the question for California is whether the powers that be will wake up before they devastate us with Draconian regulations and taxes that others are rejecting.2007: Unusual description of the IPCC process « It’s Getting Hot In Here
A good summary of some of the world’s awakening is provided here, courtesy Benny Peiser, U.K. social anthropologist who focuses on effects of environmental change and catastrophic events. Peiser is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
It’s very intriguing to me that AEI says that the IPCC report is “poorly supported by analytical work,” as the report is a result of a four day meeting of 500 scientists debating with each other on an issue they have studied collectively for nearly ten years.winterspeak.com: Models cannot replace brains
I liked this article on how the scientific models for cod population were bogus. A friend of mine who studied Earth and Planetary Sciences at a good university left the field because she found the models they used to be totally bogus as well (yes, these are the models used in Global Warming). I developed a computer model looking at proteomics -- it was bogus also. Obviously the risk models used by banks were similarly bogus, although the "Government will bail us out" parameter seems to be working as advertised.
This is not to knock models -- it valuable to make assumptions that are implicit, vague, and inconsistent; explicit, precise, and consistent. But models don't replace brains.
That's the gist of it for me. As a biologist, a lot of my thoughts are about emissions and global climate change. Most scientists agree that the coming ravages of climate change will be the biggest challenge humans have ever faced. When the Republicans let corporations do whatever they want, they exploit and trash. Enough of giving corporations huge tax breaks and free reign.
Anchorage has logged the eighth coldest October on record, the National Weather Service said today.Tibet’s ‘worst snowstorm ever’, 7 killed « Watts Up With That?
With an average temperature of 29.7 degrees, October landed a spot in history as one of the 10 coldest out of the roughly 90 years since records have been kept in Anchorage.
LHASA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) — The death toll has risen to seven, and one person remains missing, as a result of the worst snowstorm on record in Tibet, local authorities said Thursday.Arctic sea ice continues rebound « Watts Up With That?
The seven people killed either frozen to death or were crushed by collapsing buildings. About 144,400 heads of livestock died in the storm, which also knocked out telecommunications and traffic in parts of Shannan prefecture.
Area appears to be within about 200,000 square kilometers of the 1979-2007 monthly average and still climbing.
Mr. Obama received raucous applause for saying the future meant "finally bringing this war to a close" in Iraq, but the loudest cheers erupted when he talked about climate change and railed against genocide.
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For hours before Mr. Obama arrived, attendees listened to live reggae, drank beer and munched on bratwurst and steak sandwiches. Many in the crowd sported black-and-white Obama T-shirts with the slogan, "I want you to stop climate change."
In today’s example (congrats to a Canadian paper for showing balance), John Christy cites the models’ well-known shortcomings as making it impossible to state such a claim with credibility, let alone certainty. In short, they are just reverse engineering, yet again, to reach a desired conclusion: because we can’t explain it we know the human did it. This is what Dick Lindzen calls the alarmists’ tired “lassitude” argument. (An approach that the report's co-author admits on the BBC here. Pat Michael's follow-up assessment explains why the author, I have learned, was very reluctant to appear once she discovered that Pat would be allowed to opine on her work — a trait shared by many alarmists, as I have previously observed).
Here’s a contest: Who can find the most media claims that scientists have proven man-made global warming “for the first time”? Start with coverage of every IPCC report and proceed from there.
In an intriguing shift of tactics, the McCain campaign reminds the public that he has historically worked diligently to reduce global warming. By using Barack Obama’s own praise of his past global warming proposals, perhaps McCain is trying to narrow the perceived divide among parties, on this issue.18%
The study — the American Climate Values Survey (ACVS), conducted by the consulting group EcoAmerica — also found that only 18 percent of survey respondents strongly believe that climate change is real, human-caused and harmful. It also found that political party affiliation is the single largest indicator as to whether people see climate change as a threat.
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Jack Tapper of ABC lists all of the goodies promised by Obama in just one stump speech...This may be my favorite, though:"reopen old factories, old plants, to build solar panels, and wind turbines"LOL. Barrack is going to open some of those old GM plants in Flint, Michigan and build solar panels. Seriously, is this a rhetorical flourish or does he really believe that factories are generic production facilities that can make anything, kind of like those little buildings you make in an RTS?
The truth: This article, like so many on “global warming”, is rooted in the naïve fallacy that the fact of warming tells us that the cause is anthropogenic rather than natural. We begin this Scarewatch, therefore, with a few truths about how much warmer the climate was before humankind could possibly have affected it significantly (or at all).Surrey enjoys first October snowfall in 121 years
UP to an inch of snow greeted East Surrey residents today (Wednesday, October 29) following the earliest October snowfall in the county for 121 years.Environmentalist, economist, and climatologist challenge global warming theories at Southeastern forum
Dr. David Legates, a climatologist and a professor of geography at University of Delaware, downplayed human involvement in global warming during his October 10 presentation. The rise in the Earth's atmospheric temperature is due to an increase in the sun's temperature, he said. Dr. Legates presented several charts that supported this theory; one showed a striking correlation between the hot and cooler temperature cycles of the sun and the hot and cold temperature cycles of the Earth's atmosphere.
United Kingdom - A documentary film broadcast on Britain's Channel 4 in March, 2007 entitled "The Great Global Warming Swindle," reports a very different take on global warming than is being widely reported here in the United States. Graphs depicting data gathered by independent research scientists show that in every instance of recorded temperature change, there is a direct corresponding change in the sun's intensity. When solar activity goes up the Earth warms up. When it goes down the Earth cools. Are we being misled as to the true nature of global warming? And cooling? Is this merely a political ploy? These scientists provide evidence that may be the case.
The agency first published the indicator in 2005 as a way of illustrating the pace of climate change to the Dutch. The agency acknowledged that “uncertainties surrounding this indicator are large,” with the lower limit of its calculations suggesting a race could be held once every 7 years and the upper limit suggesting it could take place once every 64 years. Once every 18 years was its best estimate. “Still, the conclusion that the chances are diminishing, over time, is robust,” it said.
There’s plenty of variability in the forecast for coming decades, as well. The agency also made projections for 2050 and concluded that the chances of holding an Elfstedentocht would be between once every 18 years in the most favorable case and once every 180 years, in the most unfavorable case. The first official race took place in 1909 and conditions have been good enough for the event to take place 15 times since then, with the most recent race taking place in 1997.
European member states have proposed amendments to the EU's renewable energy directive that critics claim will water down the legislation and potentially damage investor confidence in the sector. [Via Benny Peiser]Patrick Michaels: Global Warming Fantasies Meet Financial Contraction
Whoever is elected president, global warming legislation is going to be passed in Washington next year.
Legislation proposed by both John McCain and Barack Obama will require that the cost of energy to become so high that people will avoid using it. The serious question is: why would we do this in the current economic environment? Why would we take away capital that people would otherwise use to invest in companies that produce efficient things when that capital is already being destroyed at an alarming rate?
Other nations that embraced the abject environmental failure known as the Kyoto Protocol and imposed higher energy costs are fleeing from climate change policies as their economies implode. Only the U.S. seems eager to commit economic suicide over global warming.
Kyoto did nothing measureable about climate change. Global carbon dioxide emissions rose by the same amount they were supposed to fall because of it. All it cost was money. Germany ‘s Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is probably the woman most responsible for the Protocol itself, now calls drastic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, "ill-advised climate policy". Her foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who last year trotted the globe pronouncing global warming a grave threat to world peace, now says that "this crisis changes priorities" and that "interest in protecting the climate will change because of such a crisis".
[NYTimes] Google has gone to great lengths to conceal how much electricity it uses in its data centers. For instance, Google agreed to build a $600 million data center in Oklahoma only after the State Legislature passed a law exempting public utilities from disclosing the energy use of their largest customers. Google has also vowed to be carbon neutral, but unlike its rival Yahoo, for instance, it has refused to reveal its overall carbon emissions.An estimate of airline emissions in 2025
An unpublished study by the world's leading experts has revealed that airlines are pumping 20 per cent more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than estimates suggest, with total emissions set to reach between 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion tonnes annually by 2025.Could carbon offsets cost $200+ per ton?
The cost of carbon dioxide emissions would need to be at least $200 per tonne – many times today’s levels – to deliver the cuts proposed by scientists to avert the threat of global warming, the International Energy Agency said on Friday.Google reported net income of $1.34 billion last quarter
Google has reported a 26% increase in the third-quarter net income to $1.34 billion compared to $1.07 billion in the year-ago quarter, on revenue up 31% at $5.54 billion.All these future numbers are speculative, but if computer server owners had to pay $200 each for 1 billion tons of emissions annually in 2020, that's a lot of money. It looks to me like insane "climate" legislation could end up costing Google employees and shareholders an absolutely enormous amount of future wealth.
But some in the scientific community disagree, adding to an already splintered array of opinion on the causes of climate change and whether the Antarctic is actually warming.(Via Marc Morano)
John Christy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama, has done studies on climate models and says they are extremely limited tools in trying to mimic what happens in nature.
He said they are unable to reproduce all of the naturally occurring influences and, as a result, give a false picture of what might be causing changes in the environment. Clouds, for example, can dampen warming in the real world, but he said models have been shown to amplify warming.
"They overstate the confidence of what they have in that result because we have too many examples of models that fail," Christy said from Huntsville.
"We have shown that climate models just don't have the variability that nature provides to us."
Christy too disputed whether the bulk of continental Antarctica is warming, saying that it is, in fact, cooling. The report looks largely at the Antarctic peninsula - which makes up two per cent of the continent - and the eastern and western coastal regions, where they have found warming.
The report focuses on temperature changes going back to 1900 and up to the present, but doesn't include earlier periods when areas in the Arctic were actually warmer than they are today and were not affected by man-made greenhouse gases, said Christy.
"Just 1,000 years ago the Arctic was much warmer than it is today so it's interesting that they would use the term conclusively," he said.
"Natural variability can account for warming since the Arctic has been warmer before."
The next government caused multi-trillion dollar mistake is global warming. While anthropogenic global warming theory loses scientific support daily, Bush, Obama and McCain have all embraced it, at least in their platforms and speeches . .Alarmist does an "excellent job" of scaring people for no good reason
All have addressed it, but none have ever addressed the expense to the world . . nor, in all probability, do they have even a clue of that cost. In the name of global warming, fossil fuel exploration and development was severely curtailed resulting in energy DEPENDENCE and $4 a gallon gas and diesel. FOR NO REAL REASON AT ALL.
According to Schurke, another one of the highlights was Dr. Lee Frelich’s presentation, “Our Future Forest: Climate Change and the Winter Woods.” Frelich focused his discussion on how climate change could soon change the face of the northwoods, turning it into something completely unfamiliar to what we know now.
“It was a pretty sobering talk,” said Schurke. “One of the participants asked if we had therapists waiting in the hallways for after the presentation. Dr. Frelich did an excellent job.”
‘America will be at the forefront of combating global warming, and will lead in meeting all challenges to the world’s environment.
So, well done, Ruth. The Commons will rue this vote, perhaps sooner than they might expect, as the British public cool on climate change and the climate itself cools.Alabama cold snap ties low temperature record « Aftermath News
TUSCALOOSA | The big chill that Tuscaloosa experienced Tuesday tied the record for the lowest Oct. 28 temperature ever recorded in the city.A new front in the battle against climate change opens, slowly
In a recent interview, a Jordan-based environmentalist said that Masdar, a planned “carbon-neutral” city in the United Arab Emirates, is more about publicity than about helping the environment. The proposed car-free enclave in Abu Dhabi, slated for completion in 2016, envisions electric vehicles ferrying 40,000 commuters and providing homes for another 50,000 residents in a 2.5-square-mile space, with wind, solar and geothermal energy turning on the lights.
“It’s too much money for too few people. We could spend the same billions to build large solar factories,” said Munqeth Mehyar, the chairman of Friends of the Earth Middle East. “Some good may come from it, but the whole thing is very controversial.”
Ethanol stocks have been getting pounded since their IPOs and the sector has lost its luster. Pacific Ethanol Inc. (NASDAQ:PEIX) was the exception for a while as it has Bill Gates as an investor ahead of the great ethanol boom. But share prices for Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings (NYSE:AVR) and VeraSun Energy Corp. (NYSE:VSE) have fallen so far from their IPO prices that if you looked at a chart without a time period attached you might assume you were looking at any dot-com flame-out from 2000 to 2002. The bloom was off the rose from the beginning.
Recent rumors put VeraSun as potentially being toast, and yesterday's earnings release from Aventine will do nothing but contribute to that endless slide. Aventine reported EPS of $0.06 against analysts' expectations of $0.12, and revenue of $599.5 million against estimates of $716.37 million. Excluding non-cash gains of $18.4 million, the company managed only to break even.
Aventine also noted that it will delay the opening of its Aurora West plant in Nebraska by three months and is considering delaying construction of another new plant. About two-thirds of Aventine's cash, $60 million, resulted from tapping its revolving credit line.
Six weeks ago VeraSun was trading around $5.00/share. Then it announced that it was expecting to report a loss in the third quarter. The stock promptly dropped from $5.22 to $1.41, and it closed yesterday at $0.44/share. Pacific Ethanol is equally awful, falling from a 52-week high of $9.88 to close at just $0.86 yesterday.
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As you will see the chart from BigCharts.com over the last two years, these stocks would have been the best way to burn money that you could come up with.
THE prediction of a prominent marine biologist that climate change could render the Great Barrier Reef extinct within 30 years has been labelled overly pessimistic for failing to account for the adaptive capabilities of coral reefs.1. When some random marine biologist suggests that human CO2 emissions are likely to raise sea temperatures by 2C over the next three decades, why should we believe it?
University of Queensland marine biologist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg said yesterday that sea temperatures were likely to rise 2C over the next three decades, which would undoubtedly kill the reef.
But several of Professor Hoegh-Guldberg's colleagues have taken issue with his prognosis.
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Dr Reichelt said the greatest threat facing the reef was poor water quality in the coastal regions, the result of excess sediment and fertiliser.
"If a reef's going to survive bleaching, you don't want to kill it with a dirty river," he said.
Professor Hoegh-Guldberg, who in 1999 won the prestigious Eureka science prize for his work on coral bleaching, said the view "that reefs somehow have some magical adaptation ability" was unfounded.
"The other thing is, are we willing to take the risk, given we've got a more than 50 per cent likelihood that these scenarios are going to come up?" Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said.
"If I asked (my colleagues) to get into my car and I told them it was more than 50 per cent likely to crash, I don't think they'd be very sensible getting in it."
He told the ABC's Lateline program on Thursday the threat posed by climate change to the Great Barrier Reef should be treated as a "global emergency".
"Why we aren't just panicking at this point and starting to really make some changes? Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said. "It just ... it blows my mind sometimes."
The Great Barrier Reef is around 18 million years of age in the north and 2 million Years old in the south, with the existing reef system being between 10,000 and 6000 years old.
THE Rudd Government has no ambitions to set an example by moving dramatically ahead of other countries with its emissions trading regime, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has indicated.A powerful machine to quickly convert garbage in to gospel out
Senator Wong told The Weekend Australian the Government had "very deliberately" timed the final decisions on the limits or "caps" it would put on Australian greenhouse emissions so they would be taken after a crucial UN meeting in Copenhagen next year.
"We will clearly have strong regard to the outcomes of Copenhagen when we are taking those decisions," she said.
One of the most powerful research supercomputers in the country was unveiled today at Swansea University, at a centre that will use it to model climate change scenarios.
Known as "Blue Ice" the supercomputer, which is supplied by IBM, is capable of running 10,000 "model years" a week as scientists look to evaluate the effect of various complex inputs, including glaciers and ice flows, at once.
East Anglian scientists have dealt a major blow to climate change sceptics by proving for the first time that human activity is responsible for “significant” warming in both polar regions.Northern Ireland | Heating oil supplies running low
Northern Ireland is facing a shortage of heating oil, with many suppliers reporting they have run out.
Oil industry sources say suppliers have been caught out by a surge in demand caused by the recent cold snap at a time when the major terminals are waiting for supplies to arrive by sea.
A cold-weather-loving white fungus associated with huge bat die-offs in the U.S. Northeast has been identified by scientists, but its role in over 100,000 bat deaths in the region is still poorly understood. "Essentially, hibernating bats are getting moldy as they hang from their cave ceiling," said lead author David Blehert. "It's decimating the cave-bat populations."June '08: Batty
In March, the Albany Times-Union ran the headline Bat deaths linked to climate change. The story quoted one state pathologist who said that global warming -- read that as "man-made global warming" -- was causing bats to go into hibernation later, after the number of bugs to fatten up on for the winter had peaked, leaving them to starve to death.June '08: Climate change blamed for bat declines
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A state biologist blames climate change for the sharp decline in a bat common in Missouri.
The number of Indiana bats in Missouri has plummeted as winter temperatures in their hibernation caves have risen. Numbers of the Indiana bat, which is on both the federal and the Missouri endangered list, hold steady elsewhere in Eastern and Midwestern states.
A Sussex politician has been attacked as a “flat earther” after he was one of just three MPs to vote against landmark legislation to tackle global warming.
Andrew Tyrie, Tory MP for Chichester, joined two of his party colleagues in opposing the Climate Change Bill as it passed its final Commons stage by an overwhelming 463 votes to 3.
Mr Tyrie has questioned the science behind concerns that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are increasing the earth’s temperature, threatening devastating floods and droughts.
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Brighton Kemptown Labour MP Des Turner welcomed the vote result and dismissed Mr Tyrie’s opposition as marginal.
He said: “He’s one of the last of the flat earthers. He doesn’t believe in man-made climate change – and he’s wrong, in the same way people who believed the earth was flat were wrong.”
Dr Turner said the vote was “one of the most important” in his 11 years as an MP.
He added: “We are literally talking about the future of the human race.”
Mr Tyrie was unavailable for comment.
Here is an exchange between Peter Lilley MP, and other members of the House of Commons on Tuesday’s reading of the Climate Change Bill.Norway: Ice can cost you your license
Notice how Elliot Morley cites Stern and Lord Turner as authorities.
It is as if Stern had no critics. The entire house of commons appears to be in his thrall. One man, who now is Vice Chairman of a group of companies with a commercial interest in climate change legislation, is being cited in lieu of democratic debate.
Lord Turner, who is also cited, has written no more than a letter to Ed Milliband. And Lord Turner, as a former Trustee of the World Wildlife Fund, and a former member of the board of advisors at Climate Change Capital, cannot be said to be politically impatial, nor without financial interests.
The house voted hugely in favour of the ammendments to the Bill, which means that shipping and aviation will now be included in the 80% target. If the bill is passed, then it will mean big fat profits for Stern, Turner, and their associates as shipping and aviation companies seek their services.
Meanwhile, people in the UK will be unable to afford to travel, facing rising costs, and face job losses.
If you drive with ice on the windscreen, it may cost you dearly. In the worst instance, you will end up a pedestrian for three months.
While sharing a taxi cab with Al Gore, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman asked the former vice president - who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for drawing the world's attention to the problem of global warming - for a written apology.
"I wanted him to write a column in which he apologized for underestimating climate change," Friedman told a crowd of about 250 people Thursday at Corte Madera's Book Passage, his only Bay Area appearance.
Friedman was only partially joking. Although he's written extensively about terrorism, globalization and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Friedman believes climate change may be the greatest threat the United States - and the world - has ever faced.
"Climate change is bringing about 'global weirding,'" said Friedman, the author of "Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution And How It Can Renew America."
"Hot weather will get hotter, wet weather will get wetter, droughts will last longer and violent hurricanes will become more frequent."
The world's weather patterns are changing, Friedman said, because more nations are developing lifestyles similar to those of Americans - particularly in their reliance on petroleum. That newfound addiction is propping up the governments of "petrodictatorships" like Iran, Russia and Venezuela, Friedman said, and is responsible for the extinction of about one of the world's species every 20 minutes.
"We are the first generation of humans who will have to think like Noah, coming up with strategies to save the last pair of more and more species," Friedman said.
...
"Whichever country creates this energy technology will have the most energy security, national security, economic security and global respect," Friedman said. "If it's not the United States, the likelihood that our kids will enjoy the same standard of living that we do is zero."
Following are 12 pages of sampling of news reports from the US and around the world for October 2008, via Marc Morano in Washington, providing some anecdotal evidence that global warming has perhaps stalled...
Mr Turnbull says the Government's proposed start date of 2010 does not allow enough time to get such an important scheme right.
But Senator Wong says Mr Turnbull is just bowing to pressure from climate change sceptics within the Liberal Party.
"Malcolm Turnbull is keen for us to know that he was one of the people arguing for the ratification of Kyoto," he said.
"He wants us to know that he did believe that we should ratify Kyoto.
"But he got rolled by the climate change deniers in the Liberal Party, and the fact is he appears to be unable to stand up to the climate change deniers in his party."
"The Obama-Biden cap-and-trade policy will require all pollution credits to be auctioned, and proceeds will go to investments in a clean energy future, habitat protections, and rebates and other transition relief for families." it said.Philadelphia Church of God: Global Warming Farce | theTrumpet.com
Analyst Book said the government could raise $600 billion over 10 years by taxing carbon at $10 a tonne and raising it by 5 percent a year.
"That $600 billion will go a long way for buying stuff and it's four times as much stuff as Obama has talked about buying. So I don't know how much they are going to focus on the green economy but I do know they are going to look at environmentalism as a driver to taxation, because they have to."
Talk about farcical.
There they were, the sad lot charged with administering government in the nation that once ruled the greatest empire in history, debating a hugely complex and costly system ensconced in a bill designed to deal with a fictitious global warming threat, while, unseasonably, the snow tumbled down on London town!
Perhaps it was poetic justice that while this global warming foolishness was being given over to such sanctimoniously serious debate in the mother of all parliaments that London had its first snow recorded at this time of the year since way back in the cooler interwar year of 1922.
But the men and women with the minds of children (Isaiah 3:2) plowed stoically on, ignoring the evidence of the unseasonable blanket of white covering the city—and the 60 percent of the British public who don’t want the legislation enacted by the Climate Change Bill—to vote in the bill’s onerous provisions with only five members of Parliament voting against it.
In fact, as British parliamentarians voted in a bill that will add huge encumbrances to their constituents’ daily living and business, temperatures tumbled to record lows in several counties in Britain and spread their effects westward to create record low temperatures across the Atlantic in America.
An email from Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139 USAEU EMISSIONS TRADING MAY FORCE CEMENT PLANTS TO RELOCATE TO CHINA (where they will emit MORE CO2)
The developing world early realized that carbon control was a ploy to constrain their development into meaningful competitors. Now they are matching the cynicism of the developed world.
Rajendra Pachauri simultaneously helped prepare a climate report for the Government of India that argues that climate change will not be a problem for India, while, as head of the IPCC, he preaches that climate change will bring doom and disaster to the rest of the world, and urges the west to become vegetarian. Somehow, the cynicism seems remarkably clear to many - even if the Nobel Peace Prize Committee fails to notice it.
HeidelbergCement, which has 36 cement plants in the EU, 12 of which are in Germany, said that in the worst case scenario the scheme could add € 920 million to its annual costs from 2013. "If we were forced to close the German plants, for example, we could offset this with the construction of two new high-performance production facilities in China with an investment volume of € 300 million", said Dr Bernd Scheifele, chairman of the company's Management Board.
The company employs 8200 people in Europe, 1500 of whom are based in Germany.
Dr Scheifele continued, "The cost advantages of China would almost double as a result of the CO2 expense, making competitive domestic production in Europe no longer an option. It would be feasible to supply European markets from locations outside the EU via an efficient trading network."
Shocking statistics have shown that - even in this 21st Century - old people in Northern Ireland still die from the effects of cold weather.
Just under 10 old age pensioners are killed by the cold in Northern Ireland every year and another 35 elderly people end up in hospital annually because of the effects of freezing weather.
The figures come as temperatures plummeted below zero in an early cold snap this week, raising fears that more vulnerable people will be left to shiver in their own homes as the winter comes early and the credit crunch bites.
While many pensioners and low-income families are already struggling with vastly increased heating bills because of the massive jump in energy prices and the economic downturn - this week has seen prolonged power cuts in the east of Belfast causing great hardship, mainly to older people.
According to local MLA Robin Newton, the power cuts left many pensioners with no heat over the past two days.
"These electricity supply failures have occurred in the Hillsborough Drive/Gardens, Loopland areas and power has been on/off for the past two days.
One thing does seem very clear, however; science is only beginning to get a handle on the big picture of global warming. Findings like these tell us it's too early to know for sure if man's impact is affecting things at the political cry of "alarming rates." We may simply be going through another natural cycle of warmer and colder times - one that's been observed through a scientific analysis of the Earth to be naturally occuring for hundreds of thousands of years.
The Malthusians are at it again. Now that the sub-prime science behind Global Warming is proving to be junk and the “Environmental” movement is proving to be political and not scientific, the focus is shifting to a new topic.OK now kiss, make up, and solve climate change | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist
Last night on The Daily Show, John Stewart asked Barack Obama what issues he could envision working on with rival John McCain after the election, regardless of who wins next week. Obama noted global warming as a distinct problem they should address together.1. Could a President Obama really bring everybody onboard the CO2 Hysteria Ship?
"I hope that after the election we can work together, because some of the problems that we're talking about are not ones we're going to be able to solve with just one party trying to dictate a solution tot he problems," said Obama. "You look at something like global warming. That's really an all-hands-on-deck kind of situation."
"If we don't get everybody on board -- conservative hawks that are worried about us buying oil from the Middle East, treehuggers and environmentalists who are worried about, you know, the polar bears ..." he continued. "Bring all those folks together and saying everybody's got a legitimate point of view, let's figure out how to solve the problem. I think that's the kind of attitude we're going to need going forward."
If you are a climatologist and you want to survive as a climatologist, perhaps even increasing your reputation, all you have to do is provide the exact diagnosis and prognosis that people expect.
To the question “Is the climate changing?“, by all means, never, ever reply “No, everything’s normal“, or “It’s just fakery pumped up by newspapers and on television“: because people would unanimously conclude that you understand nothing about metereology, and nothing about climate.
It would be the end of your career.
The only sensible answer is: “Of course it is changing! It’s a well-known fact, scientifically confirmed and one that none cannot argue against“. You can then launch yourself in forecasting for the next hundred years a climate identical to the current one, amplifying the latest phenomena to extreme consequences.
If it is cold you’ll therefore predict “ice ages“, if it’s warm a “torrid period“, and if there are signs of strong variability “short-term climatic extremes” and more-or-less the same climate in the long term.
You may be wondering, how can a serious climatologist provide impossible, mutually-excluding forecasts without looking silly? Fear not: science will provide all the support needed.
Because climatology has already thought of everything and will supply the right solution in every circumstance, even in the most hopeless cases.
One could be forgiven to think the following:
* there isn’t much of a polar ice cover “shrinking trend”, but rather a lot of expansions and contractions, plus a freakish small configuration in 2007
* the 2008 cover is very simiar to 2000’s, apart from an ice-free area East of Novaya Zemlja
* one can almost sea the warm water flowing in through the Bering Strait, sometimes reaching East as far as Banks Island (1987, 1998)
* the “losses” in sea ice in the Baltic and northwestern Siberia may or may not relate to a change in data processing between 2003 and 2005
The real world sunspot data remaining quiet month after month are mocking the curved red predictions of NOAA and about to slide underneath. Time for a rethink I reckon NOAA !!
Here is my clearer chart showing the misfit between NOAA / NASA prediction and real-world data.
One weekly aspect of life at United Nations is the arrival of reports thick enough to stun an ox, all crammed with statistics.1. Is the UN wasting paper?
...
–Beijing is considered the most equitable city in the world, while Western Europe boasts the greatest concentration of cities where everyone lives at basically the same economic level. In the United States, on the other hand, the levels of inequality between the richest and the poorest in its largest cities like New York, Miami, Atlanta and Washington, D.C., are of the same levels as that found in cities like Abidjan, Nairobi and Buenos Aires.
...
–All coastal cities are likely to be affected by climate change. In the 20th century, sea levels rose by an estimated 17 centimeters, and the mean estimated rise over the next nearly 80 years ranges up to 34 centimeters.
This is one for The Daily Show with John Stewart. Bangladesh cities are described as "equitable" presumably because all of its residents are starving together while "unequitable" cities are ones where some of the citizens have opportunities for a better life. Such is the logic and wisdom of the UN committee. Well, all the Maoists had to go somewhere after China fell.The Most Equitable City, and Other Fun Facts - Readers' Comments - The New York Times
My wife grew up in an extremely equitable city in the USSR. Everyone had to wait in line three hours a day to get food at the store, and nobody had hot water in the winter.
The report may go some way towards silencing climate skeptics who point to evidence that most of Antarctica has been cooling for some time.
"There is strong warming in the Antarctic peninsula," Karpechko said. "But for several decades there has been a slight cooling of the rest of the continent. This slight cooling is due to circulation changes which are partly caused by ozone depletion.
"This is why there has been a bit of confusion as to what is happening in Antarctica. But we expect a recovery of the ozone layer in the future. We may also expect that the Antarctic warming trends will emerge more clearly."
Commenting on the study conducted by the UEA, Professor David Vaughan, a Glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey told CNN: "This is exactly the sort of study we need. The poles are extremely important in the climate change debate and the rapid warming in the Arctic is one of the icons."
Professor Vaughan, who is studying the patches of warming happening in Antarctica, concedes that the cooling that's occurred in the past 30 to 50 years is "a little perplexing". But he agrees with Dr Karpechko over the effects of the ozone hole.
"The likelihood is that over the next century the ozone hole will be substantially reduced," Professor Vaughan said, "And it may mean that the Antarctic warming becomes much more apparent in that period."
In Parliament in May 2005, I heard John Key say, "The impact of the Kyoto Protocol, even if one believes in global warming—and I am somewhat suspicious of it—is that we will see billions and billions of dollars poured into fixing something that we are not even sure is a problem."Rush Limbaugh: The man who's always Right - Telegraph
In November 2006 I heard John Key say, "I firmly believe in climate change and always have."
In May 2007 I heard John Key say, "I’m going to speak about the biggest environmental challenge of our time: global climate change. The National Party will ensure that New Zealand acts decisively to confront this challenge. The scientific consensus is clear: human-induced climate change is real and it’s threatening the planet. There are some armchair sceptics out there, but I’m not one of them."
In May 2007 I also heard him say, "Right now the only way farmers can significantly reduce their emissions is by selling their stock. Farmers all over the world are going to need a better way than that to be ‘climate-friendly’, so New Zealand should get ahead of the curve by pushing along research and development in this area."
In 2008 I heard John Key say, "The definition of environment is too broad, which allows costly and time-consuming arguments over irrelevant issues…National will simplify the [Resource Management] Act by limiting the definition of environment to natural and physical resources, and prohibiting objections with respect to trade competition.
Then in October 2008 I heard him say National would scrap the $700 million Fast Forward science and agricultural research scheme, and drop the 15 % tax credit for business research and development.
Limbaugh thinks there is a war going on between people like him who want small, efficient government and people who want a powerful state that decides who gets what. 'And they use hoaxes like global warming to advance their agenda of higher taxation and bigger government.'
Oh dear. You don't have to agree with his red-meat views to find them insightful. They represent, after all, the authentic voice of conservative, and neo-conservative, America. But there is one issue about which I think he is dangerously wrong. Global warming. After all, I point out, 98 per cent of the world's leading scientists in this area don't think global warming is a hoax.
He stares at me. 'Nigel, man-made global warming is a 100 per cent, full-fledged, undeniable hoax.'
That's his opinion. 'No, it's not even arguable in terms of science.'
Of course it is, I say, and he's being deliberately provocative to say it isn't. 'We don't have the power to make cold weather warm. We can't make warm weather cold. We can't produce rain clouds. We can't steer hurricanes, we can't produce diddly squat and the idea that only advanced democracies are doing this with their automobiles is absurd.
Global warming is a religion. It has what all religions have which is faith, because no one can prove their religion. It has a Garden of Eden element, destruction brought by humanity then redemption for our sins by paying higher taxes and getting rid of our cars and planes.'
Does part of him go after a subject like that just to wind people up?
'No, I believe it. I hate people who feel rather than think. Most people feel they don't matter. When they are told they can save the planet, well, that gives their lives meaning. These stupid ribbons – breast cancer, Aids awareness, they say – "I care more than you." ' He drums his fingers on the table again.
...Thus, despite the high expectation of quality articles from the Economist, with respect to the topic area of climate change, they are clearly biased and misleading in their coverage.(Via Marc Morano)
This is the depth to which scientific research into climate change has sunk, like a kind of prehistoric civilisation that blames thunderstorms, earthquakes and volcanoes on humanity somehow having "upset the gods". A Canadian study has concluded that we must be causing climate change because nothing else can explain it.
Under the triumphant headline "Study confirms human impact on climate change", The Age reports all this without any discrimination...
By Rick C. Hodgin at TG Daily
Boston (MA) - Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas. It takes about one full year for gases generated in the highly industrial northern hemisphere to cycle through and reach the southern hemisphere. However, since all worldwide levels rose simultaneously throughout the same year, it is now believed this may be part of a natural cycle in mother nature - and not the direct result of man’s contributions.
Energy is a burning issue in this year's election, but it's not fear of climate change that's driving the debate.Tony Blair converts CO2 hysteria into some cash
As a senior adviser to US banker JP Morgan Chase, Blair is also thought to earn up to Pnds 2 million a year, while his salary from Zurich Financial Services to work as an adviser on international politics and climate change is put at Pnds 500,000.
Tajiks across the country say one of their top priorities is storing up wood, coal, and essential foodstuffs for the upcoming winter.
They have reason to be concerned. Last year, Tajikistan experienced one of its coldest winters on record. Temperatures dropped below minus 20 degrees Celsius. Ice and snow blocked roads for weeks, isolating villages.
Compounding the problem was the near total lack of natural gas and severe shortages of electricity. At the same time, food prices soared, leaving residents of the impoverished country to subsist on the bare minimum.
Dozens, including some children, perished as a result of the cold. Rumors spread that newborn babies never made it out of maternity wards left without electricity.
The government has never revealed the exact number of people who died as a result of last year’s cold snap. But it appears eager to reassure people they won’t face a similar energy crisis this winter.
And with the 2009 Series scheduled to bleed into November, baseball has only two hopes:Parallel universe costed | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
Participants from tropical cities.
More global warming.
...It won’t be a $1 and it won’t save the planet.
The Treasury costings it’s talking about - which claim Rudd’s emissions trading scheme won’t cost much at all - makes even more assumptions. Here’s a short list: it assumes untested alternative low-carbon technologies (like carbon capture) will be easily invented and installed; it assumes India and China were kidding when they said they won’t slash their emissions, too; it assumes we haven’t just gone through a financial crisis; it assumes that cutting emissions will actually lower the temperature; it assumes global warming hasn’t stopped and will hurt; it assumes that offsets bought overseas make a genuine difference.
That’s an impressive list.
I find the -25 below in Alaska interesting, since it bested the old record by 4 degrees.
Then the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) was brought up.
ACT's Mr Fraser said he totally opposed it and that the jury was still out on climate change.
Mr Parker said it was clear climate change was happening and reminded the audience he was the climate change minister. But the sceptics just laughed.
Global Warming is not a fact, it is a fad, a religion of sorts, if you will, because our intellectual society has grown tired of religion and is in need of something else to believe in. We chose our planet. It’s really not a bad idea, considering the fact that we live and breathe our own filth, and wanting the air to be cleaner is a legitimate desire. However, when we dismiss those who don’t agree with us because of such sacrilege we are again discriminating and censoring voices that should be heard. Why?Md. records 2 cold weather deaths in October -- baltimoresun.com
Think about how many jobs depend on Global Warming being a reality. It has been called the “defining moral and political cause of our age” but concerts like Live Earth invite people en masse to a stadium where energy is pumped out in decibels and garbage is strewn about—including those “forever-in-a-landfill” waterbottles. It actually takes about 450 years for them to decompose by the way. If you believe Global Warming is the biggest threat to our world, you are sadly mistaken. The last 8 years have seen an explosion in environmental literature, advocacy groups and an overall worldwide cult following behind grossly skewed and exaggerated facts that add up to nothing more than an ideology, or religion. There is little more factual correlation to reality in Global Warming theory than there is in the Bible or the Qur’an. Any outspoken opposition to these beliefs are taken personally and offensively, much like in religion. However, the intent and meaning behind the idea is much the same as any faith system—to inspire moral action. Before that, some facts.
The Maryland Medical Examiner's office is reporting the state's first two cold weather deaths of the season.
Hypothermia tied to the cold weather was blamed for the death of a man in Prince George's County last Saturday and the death of a man in Anne Arundel County on Sunday.
The Medical Examiner's office says 38 Marylanders died during the last cold weather season. Nearly 600 people die nationwide each year from hypothermia.
HAVANA, Cuba, Oct 30 (acn) A cold snap set the lowest temperatures for October on Wednesday in several sites of the interior of western Cuba.Researchers tie warming poles to human activity
An international team says it has proven humans are driving up temperatures in both the Arctic and Antarctic.
The team, led by Environment Canada climatologist Nathan Gillett, says greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere by cars, factories and human activities are a key factor fuelling the change.
"Our results demonstrate that human activities have already caused significant warming in both polar regions, with likely impacts on polar biology, indigenous communities, ice-sheet mass balance and global sea level," the researchers reported Thursday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
There’s something a little creepy about historical figures being brought back to life to promote climate change alarmism, but the over-the-top environmentalists at Greenpeace have no qualms with using it as a tactic.EcoWorld - Climate Science: Is It Currently Designed To Answer Questions?
A video posted on Greenpeace’s YouTube site portrays former President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, making a plea for environmental activism to save the planet from the perils of global warming.
Climate Science: Is It Currently Designed To Answer Questions?
by Richard Lindzen, October 30, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to cast himself in a new role: an international leader on global warming. ... He is planning the conference for November, a month before the United Nations holds its next round of international climate talks in Poland. Governors from all 50 states also will be invited. ... Schwarzenegger's office said the summit will be scheduled Nov. 18-19 in Los Angeles but said it did not yet have a list of leaders who would be invited.Oct '08: November calendar is filling up
He announced Wednesday that he will convene a first-ever Governor's Conference on Small Business and Entrepreneurship in Los Angeles on Nov. 18 and 19. Incidentally, those are the same days the governor will hold his Global Climate Summit in Beverly Hills with U.S. governors and representatives from foreign nations.April '08: Yale "Conference of Governors" on global warming is a massive flop
Apparently, the governor can multitask.
Only a lonely quartet of governors showed up (and even Arnold Schwarzenegger was late)
Welcome to the Halloween edition of the weekly round-up, wherein I will scare you with the awfulness of my puns as well as your usual doses of global warming alarmists, scaremongers and bogeymen.
[Jerry Taylor] is probably the craftiest debater that the delayer/inactivist side has. But since, like all delayers, his positions are frozen in stone by his ideology, those positions inevitably become farther and farther disengaged from the reality of a (climate) changing world and hence less and less compelling....For the rest of us, the choice is between catastrophic climate impacts and intelligent government-led investments in clean energy...Act now, or face very harsh consequences. The global warming situation is, however, much worse than the peak oil situation, since when the climate changes, it does so irreversibly on a timescale of millennia.
...Likewise, Swan yesterday sold the Government's planned tax on coal-fired power and all things gassy, from steel to burping cows, as something to help, not hurt, the economy.
And, of course, the Government is spending $164,000 a day on ads to persuade us that this recent cooling should be called "climate change" - and proof of warming instead.
Weird, yet it works. Cooling is warming, and not even snow can persuade politicians they're not frying.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Levels of climate-warming methane -- a greenhouse gas 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide -- rose abruptly in Earth's atmosphere last year, and scientists who reported the change don't know why it occurred.1. Why don't I remember a decade of stories about the supposed stability of methane in the atmosphere?
Methane, the primary component of natural gas, has more than doubled in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times, but stayed largely stable over the last decade or so before rising in 2007, researchers said on Wednesday.
This stability led scientists to believe that the emissions of methane, from natural sources like cows, sheep and wetlands, as well as from human activities like coal and gas production, were balanced by the destruction of methane in the atmosphere.
But that balance was upset starting early last year, releasing millions of metric tonnes more methane into the air, the scientists wrote in the Geophysical Research Letters.
"The thing that's really surprising is that it's coming after this period of very level emissions," said Matthew Rigby of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The worry is that we just don't understand the methane cycle very well."
...
The rise in 2007 was about 10 parts per billion over the course of a year, a real jump for such a short period of time.
[by Hamish Johnston, editor of physicsworld.com] What do sunspots and the Paraná river in South America have in common? The answer, say physicists in Argentina, is that when the number of sunspots goes up, so does the river's level. Indeed, the correlation between the two is so strong that the physicists believe that solar activity could be used to predict when the Rio Paraná will flood.
Washington, D.C., October 29, 2008—A new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute reveals massive food and land costs stemming from government rules mandating use of corn ethanol for fuel.
An initial CEI report released two years ago predicted that the United States did not have enough cropland to replace gasoline use with corn-based ethanol without dire consequences. The data since then have proven those findings correct, with radically higher food prices and a massive loss of forests and grasslands as a result.
According to MeteoNews, the Swiss lowlands received the most snow for any October since records began. Zurich received 20cm, beating a record of 14cm set in 1939.
Broken watermains are flooding the city with trouble Thursday morning as crews scramble to shut off water feeds and fix the leaks.
More watermain breaks are expected as the temperature fluctuate and old pipes crack.
"With the occasional exception - like 'An Inconvenient Truth,' which had the weight of the media and the government establishment pushing for its untrue idea of global warming - no one particular film is going to make large numbers of people change their minds," [Politically conservative novelist and screenwriter Andrew Klavan] says. "So they end up preaching to the choir."
This year has started like ‘93, but will it end like it?
...That means that tomorrow, if things do not change, the House will discuss a measure not knowing to the nearest £70 billion what it will cost, or the corresponding change in benefits. I believe that that is an insult to the House and to our tax-paying constituents.
"The Rudd Government seems prepared to rush into this most momentous of decisions based purely upon ideology and a desire to reap new tax revenue,” Mr Truss said.
Much to my dismay, the publication of the Committee report was followed by a massive publicity campaign. Al Gore came over to Holland a month ago, and gave a $300,000 speech blasting the energy industry. James Hansen, advisor to Gore and well-known forecaster of catastrophic sea-level rise, will address a meeting in Rotterdam next month. Kabat and Vellinga will speak there too. The Urgenda Foundation, not so subtly named for its promotion of an Urgent Agenda for Climate Change, has published a manifesto full of hell and damnation in a leading newspaper. After several years of floating scary stories about possible inundation of Amsterdam Airport, Professor Vellinga now advocates a massive dam in front of our entire coast, wide enough for urban development.
What is the purpose of hyped-up forecasts of sea-level rise? Why don’t the Dutch participants in IPCC speak up? Why doesn’t the IPCC brass? Whose interests are served by ridiculous climate alarms? The problems surrounding climate change are tough enough as is. We desperately need moderation, not propaganda.
Energy: The gap between the presidential candidates' policies is as wide as the chasm between their parties. McCain prefers proven sources while Obama supports the fantasies pushed by environmentalists.Recent cold weather creates crisis among homeless
The record-breaking cold snap in Gainesville this week has been uncomfortable for many while creating a crisis for some of society's most vulnerable, the homeless.Ireland: Early snowfalls causing chaos in coldest October for 74 years
THESE are the dramatic snow scenes from the Sallygap in Wicklow yesterday as the heavy snow caused a car to veer off the road.
Tour buses ferrying sightseeing tourists across the mountain also got stuck in snow in our coldest October in over 70 years.
Snow fell heavily in parts of the country as temperatures dropped to four degrees, the lowest daytime temperature in October since 1934.
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