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[Africa: Allegedly warming faster than the global average]
Prof Gordon Conway, the outgoing chief scientist at the British government’s Department for International Development, and former head of the philanthropic Rockefeller Foundation, said in a scientific paper that the continent is already warming faster than the global average
North Pole Heating Faster than anywhere else
Many scientists seem mystified as to why the North Polar region is warming up several times faster than the rest of the planet.
Australia warming faster than rest of globe, climate report says
Kuwait: Alarm as Gulf waters warm three times faster than average
The seawater temperature in Kuwait Bay has been increasing at three times the global average rate since 1985
Antarctic air is warming faster than rest of world - Times Online
AIR temperatures above the entire frozen continent of Antarctica have risen three times faster than the rest of the world during the past 30 years.
Tibet warming up faster than anywhere in the world | Reuters
(Reuters) - Tibet is warming up faster than anywhere else in the world, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.
European temperatures rising faster than world average, report says - The New York Times
Sundarbans water warming faster than global average
In the Sundarbans, surface water temperature has been rising at the rate of 0.5 degree Celsius per decade over the past three decades, eight times the rate of global warming, says a new study.
Climate change heating up China faster than rest of the world - report
In a new report, the China Meteorological Administration now says climate change is heating up the People's Republic faster than the rest of the world
Global warming hits Mars too: study
Global warming could be heating Mars four times faster than Earth due to a mutually reinforcing interplay of wind-swept dust and changes in reflected heat from the Sun, according to a study released Wednesday.
Spain warming faster than rest of northern hemisphere: study
The country has experienced average temperature increases of 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade since 1975, a rate that is "50 percent superior to the average of nations in the northern hemisphere", the study by the Spanish branch of the Clivar research network found.
U.S. West warming faster than rest of world: study
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The U.S. West is heating up at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the world and is likely to face more drought conditions in many of its fast-growing cities, an environmental group said on Thursday.
Global warming is occurring twice as fast in the Arctic as in the rest of the world
Lake Superior is Warming [much stronger than the global average]
The really striking thing here is that the long-term trend in Superior is so much stronger than the global average. Well, we know that the upper midwest is warming more rapidly than the global average, but not this much more rapidly.
Himalayas warming faster than global average
New Delhi, June 4 (IANS) Northwestern Himalayas has become 1.4 degrees Celsius warmer in the last 100 years, a far higher level of warming than the 0.5-1.1 degrees for the rest of the globe, Indian scientists have found.
[Korean Peninsula]: Allegedly warming twice the global average]
According to the Korea Meteorological Administration, the climate has been warming on the Korean Peninsula twice more rapidly than in the rest of the world over the past century.
2007: The World Rots Faster as Global Warming Fuels Fungi | LiveScienceFungi are fruiting and spreading more rapidly thanks to global warming, a new study finds. The result: Things are rotting faster.
From polka-dotted mushrooms that push through cracks to slender tendrils that peak out from beneath tree barks, fungal freaks are flourishing in their balmy environment.
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"Your compost heap would now rot, disappear, at twice the rate than it would have done in the 1950s," Gange said.
Solar plan raided to pay for guzzlersAUSTRALIA’S renewable energy industry was reeling yesterday after discovering a $520million budget cut to low-emissions technology in the fine print of Julia Gillard’s ‘‘cash-for-clunkers’’ announcement.
Daily Kos: NYT editorial: Obama must lead on climate legislationUnless it is revived and passed, the astonishing collapse of energy and climate legislation in the Senate will be remembered as this era's signature political failure. At a time when Democrats control the White House and both Houses of Congress. Paradoxically, this should serve as an even stronger motivation to elect more Democrats to Congress. There still is a chance to get this right, and we can't afford not to.
The tired excuse that we need 60 votes doesn't fly given the success of so many previous administrations and majorities in passing controversial legislation despite their majorities being smaller than those now held by the Democrats. But even if one accepts that excuse, it only underscores the necessity of changing the rules.
Liberal activists say good riddance to Kerry-Lieberman climate bill - TheHill.comCharles Chamberlain, political director of Democracy for America, an advocacy group founded by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, said liberal voters are happy that a climate bill sponsored by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) was shelved.
“The reality is that the base didn’t have a lot at stake in the climate bill,” said Chamberlain.
“After the BP disaster, all we’ve heard from our members, the No. 1 issue is climate change and offshore oil drilling and oil,” he said. “But we polled our members about whether we should be fighting for the bill and it wasn’t even close. The answer was no.”
Bill Scher: "This Thing Is Not Over": There Always Has Been a Plan B For The Climate BillAt Netroots Nation today, Van Jones sought to rally attendees after the Senate leadership put plans for a climate protection bill on the back burner: "This thing is not over."
Flashback: Van Jones on Van Jones“I had a much more colorful life than Ms. Sherrod,” he said. “I mean, let’s be honest: I was distinguishable as a radical leftist in the Bay Area. You’ve got to get up early, you’ve got to work weekends to be distinguishable as a leftist in the Bay Area.”
Ebook to fight climate changeSome of the ideas put forward in the 27-page book are composting garden waste, setting up a worm farm, recruiting a couple of chickens to eat food scraps while fertilising the garden, and installing a tap timer.
Saudi Gazette - Democracy leaves Maldives in miseryNasheed’s cabinet resigned en masse on June 29 saying it could not carry out its work because the opposition-controlled parliament was blocking every initiative.
Since then, Nasheed has reappointed the ministers, but the parliament is refusing to ratify them. Meanwhile, police have arrested several opposition lawmakers, further antagonizing Nasheed’s adversaries.
“The bottom line is Nasheed should go,” joint opposition spokesman Mohamed Shareef said in an interview with AFP in Colombo this week.
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Nasheed has since raised his profile abroad with a series of stunts aimed at attracting attention to global warming and its impact on his low-lying archipelago.
In October, Nasheed and his ministers donned scuba gear to hold an underwater cabinet meeting to highlight the threat posed by rising sea levels.
European Climate Exchange Website hacked | Indymedia AustraliaIn a protest against carbon trading as a method for acting on climate change, on Friday, July 23 at just before midnight, the public website of the European Climate Exchange (ECX), the leading marketplace for trading CO2 emissions in Europe, was targetted by hacktivists of the autonomous tech collective *decocidio* (#?).
In a public act of digital direct action, the ECX website was taken offline and replaced with a message in an effort to try to raise awareness about carbon trading as a dangerous false solution to the climate crisis, in support of the grassroots activists aiming to oppose the power structures and companies profiteering from the dysfunctional Cap & Trade scheme.
Obama tells uneasy liberals and bloggers at Nevada convention to keep pushing for change in DC - latimes.comJust two days after Senate Democrats gave up plans to attempt to pass an energy bill that caps greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, Pelosi said "this is not an issue the Senate can walk away from."
The plan was a priority of Obama, who had hoped to add a climate bill to his list of legislative successes.
"We'll welcome whatever the Senate can pass to reduce our dependence on foreign oil," Pelosi said. "Sooner or later this has to happen."
Liberals press Obama for more action on key issues - Nation AP - MiamiHerald.comHer most forceful pitch involved climate change legislation.
Note that only 1% of US electricity generation comes from petroleum; how, exactly, would a massive new coal tax reduce our dependence on foreign oil?
[Again, note that the federal government has been throwing away money since 1977 with the express purpose of ending our dependence on foreign oil. How are they doing so far? If we throw two or ten times as much money at the problem, how much better will the results be?]The Department of Energy was formed after the oil crisis on August 4, 1977 in order to end the United States dependence on foreign oil
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Employees 16,000 federal (2009)
93,094 contract (2008)
Annual budget $24.1 billion (2009)
Cold winter stress hurts fish populations » Naples Daily News MobileIn January 2010, Southwest Florida experienced one of the longest stretches of cold weather on record. Because air temperatures dropped below freezing, water temperatures similarly dropped below many native fishes’ tolerance levels. On January 11, 2010, , the Reserve’s water quality monitoring stations revealed that water temperatures bottomed out at 45 degrees farenheight and stayed below 57 degrees rough January 14. Anecdotal reports of dead fish included snook, tarpon, snappers, catfish, ladyfish, mullet, needlefish and mojarras.
Arctic weather kills Paraguayan homeless A cold front gripping much of South America is taking its toll on the homeless. In Paraguay’s capital city of Asuncion at least 12 people have died of hypothermia as temperatures dropped to minus 10 degrees Celsius.
Money Can’t Buy Green Love « The Daily BayonetAfter Big Green spent a combined $400 million public support is weaker than ever and a major pillar of Obama’s policy agenda is dead in the water. The answer lays in the fact that the warmists overplayed a weak hand. Berating the public for enjoying the comforts of a modern lifestyle and blaming everything bad on the weather inevitably led to concern fatigue. Add the scandal of Climategate, the tarnished reputation of Al Gore and serious questions about what is really going on with global climate and no-one is buying the green’s global warming hoax.
Big Green can spend another $400 million trying to convince people that the sky is falling, but momentum in the great debate is no longer with the radical environmentalists. It’s about time.
The Reference Frame: John Baez became a full-time savior of the EarthWell, this May was 0.08 °C cooler than May 1998 and every other month of 2010 so far has been cooler than the same month of 1998. But even if this were not the case, how would the observation imply that the "politicians sleep" and "they citizens have to wake them up"? Quite on the contrary, most politicians have jumped on an irrational bandwagon and it is up to the citizens to tear them down from the bandwagon.
Op-Ed Columnist - We’re Gonna Be Sorry - NYTimes.comWhen I first heard on Thursday that Senate Democrats were abandoning the effort to pass an energy/climate bill that would begin to cap greenhouse gases that cause global warming and promote renewable energy that could diminish our addiction to oil, I remembered something that Joe Romm, the climateprogress.org blogger, once said: The best thing about improvements in health care is that all the climate-change deniers are now going to live long enough to see how wrong they were.
Alas, so are the rest of us.
...Moscow’s high the other day was 93 degrees. The average temperature in July for the city is 76 degrees. The BBC reported that to keep cool “at lakes and rivers around Moscow, groups of revelers can be seen knocking back vodka and then plunging into the water. The result is predictable — 233 people have drowned in the last week alone.”
Flashback: The Iceman Cometh-Tom Friedman(Remember: the Earth is usually an ice ball; the warm interglacial periods are the exceptions.)
...In an article just published in the journal Science Express, Dahl-Jensen's team wrote about how it had discovered from the ice cores that the atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere over Greenland "changed abruptly" just as the last ice age ended around 11,700 years ago.
It seems to have been driven by a sudden change in monsoons in the tropics. The change was so abrupt that it warmed the Northern Hemisphere over Greenland by 10 degrees Celsius in just 50 years - a dramatic increase.
Die Klimazwiebel: A mistake with consequences ?A new paper in press in Journal of Climate by Jason Smerdon from the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory and collaborators documents surprising, and somewhat inexplicable, errors in some previous pseudo-proxy studies by Mann and collaborators.
Desperate days for the warmists - Telegraph...expert analysis on Watts Up With That, the US science blog, shows that NOAA's claimed warming appears to be strangely concentrated in those parts of the world where it has fewest weather stations. In Greenland, for instance, two of the hottest spots, showing a startling five-degree rise in temperatures, have no weather stations at all.
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Compare the funding received by a handful of think-tanks to the hundreds of billions of dollars lavished on those who speak for the other side by governments, foundations, multinational corporations, even Big Oil, and the warmists are winning hands down. But only financially: they are not winning the argument.
Townhall - Paul Driessen - Mrs. Madoff Exonerates Michael Mann - Full ArticleThe Penn State report is akin to what Mrs. Madoff might issue following her “investigation” of his conduct, “investment” strategies, “standards,” accolades and awards.
United States Department of Energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaEmployees 16,000 federal (2009)
93,094 contract (2008)
Annual budget $24.1 billion (2009)
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The Department of Energy was formed after the oil crisis on August 4, 1977 in order to end the United States dependence on foreign oil by President Jimmy Carter's signing of legislation...
Flashback: Congress Approves Clean Energy Provisions of Stimulus; Consistent With Apollo Economic Recovery Act The investment package approved by the House includes $34 billion to improve energy efficiency over the next two years, $17.7 billion to modernize and expand the transit systems, including the construction of high-speed rail networks and new light rail systems. The House voted to spend $7.9 billion to scale up renewable energy development, $10.9 billion to modernize and expand the electric grid, and $29.14 billion on roads and bridges, much of which state transportation department directors say will be spent on fixing infrastructure rather than building new highways. The measure includes $500 million for green-collar job training. Other details of the $110 billion in clean energy investments in the bill, which are consistent with the comprehensive measures proposed in The New Apollo Program and the Apollo Economic Recovery Act, are below...
* $1.6 billion to DOE for research in the basic energy sciences.
* $400 million is for the Advanced Research Project Agency – Energy (ARPA-E).
* $2.5 billion to DOE for energy efficiency and renewable energy research and development.
Total: $4.5 billion
If not now for climate change, when? - War Room - Salon.comMeanwhile, we’ll continue to go about our business as usual, soothing any occasional discomfort with our reliance on fossil fuels by reassuring ourselves that technology will swoop in and save the day -- that with some modicum of research funding, we’ll discover a miraculous new energy source that will power our lavish lifestyles indefinitely while reducing carbon emissions, creating thousands of new jobs, and making children around the world hold hands and sing.
At this point, though, we’re not even going to allocate any funding towards such research.
University of Wyoming professor draws scrutiny for energy industry-funded analysesA new University of Wyoming professor has been criticized for being the energy industry's go-to academic for highlighting the positives, and not the negatives, of fossil fuel development.
The Breakthrough Institute: Time to Bury Cap and Trade and Plan AnewCap and trade has now died four times in the last seven years (this time, we can hope, for good). There is little evidence that Senate Democrats had substantially more votes for cap and trade this year than they did in 2003 (when it failed with 43 votes), 2005 (failed again with 38 votes) or 2008, when Reid also pulled the bill before it could go down in embarrassing defeat and insiders put the final tally at only 35-40 votes in support of the bill.
Amazon.com: Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth' ClimateSchneider’s chronology is a bit disjointed, and swipes at climate-change naysayers lower the discourse to a level his subject matter does not deserve.
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"Science As A Contact Sport unfolds the incredible true story of the struggle to understand the science and focus the world’s attention on the climate crisis. I have worked with Steve Schneider on the scientific and policy aspects of climate change for decades, and find him adept at bringing scientific clarity to this critical issue--explaining its many facets to concerned policymakers and the public." -Al Gore
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"Stephen Schneider is masterful at translating enormously complex scientific principles into a language that we can all comprehend."—Robert Redford
"Give Stephen Schneider points for prescience...The ominous warnings that he and other climatologists sounded...are coming true sooner.... –Newsweek.com
...He persuasively outlines a plan to avert the building threat and develop a positive, practical policy that will bring climate change back under our control, help the economy with a new generation of green energy jobs and productivity, and reduce the dependence on unreliable exporters of oil—and thus ensure a future for ourselves and our planet that’s as rich with promise as our past.
Latest Senate energy bill - Pickens Plan is in, climate change is out Reid's move insures that Pickens is a step closer to getting a return on his enormous investment ($60M and counting) in promoting natural gas as a transportation fuel.
Harry Reid's Energy Fiasco - HUMAN EVENTS“They didn’t have anywhere close to 60 votes for Obama’s cap-and-trade tax,” said a Senate Republican aide. “But they are still saying they want to debate it in September. We can’t wait for that debate.”
Dorgan gives push to electric carsElectric cars could be to Dorgan as the Internet is to Al Gore. He may not have invented it, but in a couple of decades, he may well be saying “You’re welcome, America.”
A Brief History Of the Electric Car - TIMEThere was indeed a time when electric cars were useful and relatively popular. Back when cars were used mostly for short jaunts around town or for deliveries between two nearby points, the charging of an electric car posed very little problem. In the 1830s, when Dutch inventor Sibrandus Stratingh created an electromagnetic cart, the vehicles have always stood out as a cleaner, cost-effective option to the steam or internal combustion engine. From Stratingh's invention evolved actual cars in the late 1800s that could move at low speeds using rechargeable batteries. Quieter and less noxious than their gas-powered counterparts, these electric cars surpassed them in popularity in the early part of the 20th century. One of the best-selling vehicles of that time was the Columbia Runabout, which could go 40 miles on a single charge and run at speeds up to 15 m.p.h.
Later incarnations of the electric car, such as the Detroit Electric, were more attractive than gas-powered versions because they didn't backfire. Before her husband Henry's mass production of gas-powered cars crushed the electric industry, Clara Ford drove a 1914 Detroit Electric, which could last 80 miles without a charge.
The electric-car industry peetered out during the Roaring 20s when owning a car became more of a convenience and less of a luxury.
BBC News - Peru declares emergency over cold weatherThe Peruvian government has declared a state of emergency in more than half the country due to cold weather.
Most of the areas affected are in the south, where temperatures regularly drop below zero centigrade at this time of year.
However, this time temperatures have dropped to as low as -24C.
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This week Peru's capital, Lima, recorded its lowest temperatures in 46 years at 8C, and the emergency measures apply to several of its outlying districts.
In Peru's hot and humid Amazon region, temperatures dropped as low as 9C. The jungle region has recorded five cold spells this year.
Hundreds of people - nearly half of them very young children - have died of cold-related diseases, such as pneumonia, in Peru's mountainous south where temperatures can plummet at night to -20C.
Temps bring climate concerns back to forefrontA cold snap complete with historically low winter temperatures has blanketed countries such as Bolivia, Uruguay and Chile. More than 40 deaths have been reported as temperatures that normally hover in the 20 Celsius range have plunged to freezing.
Weather extremes were named by climate change scientists several years ago as one consequence of the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Even without scientific warnings, the rash of natural disasters and unusual weather patterns we've seen over the last few years would strike me as eerie.
SEX CASE COPS GRILL AL GORE - National EnquirerIn a bombshell new development in the AL GORE SEX SCANDAL, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that the former vice president has finally been interviewed by police in the Molly Hagerty case.
Sources close to the investigation reveal that detectives from the Portland, Oregon, Police Bureau traveled quietly to San Francisco on Thursday for the secret meeting with the 62-year-old Nobel Prize winner.
"Al Gore has finally been interviewed face to face by detectives in the Molly Hagerty case," a close source told The ENQUIRER. "Details of what was disclosed in the police interview by Gore --and exactly how long the meeting lasted -- remain secret at this time."
Gloom Awaits U.S. Climate Diplomacy - Council on Foreign RelationsThe second U.S. promise in Copenhagen was more pivotal. On the next-to-last day of the summit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised that the United States would help raise up to $100 billion annually by 2020 to aid developing countries in dealing with climate change.
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The U.S. share of that $100 billion figure also came from Waxman-Markey. Raising it without cap-and-trade will almost certainly be impossible. If others conclude from the current debacle that cap-and-trade is permanently dead in the United States, Washington will be in for a rough ride at the climate talks in Cancun in December and in other (almost certainly more important) efforts that follow.
...International observers have watched the U.S. political debate with growing skepticism over whether Washington could ever deliver cap-and-trade, but they have still held out hope. The sharp setback to the Senate's cap-and-trade efforts on July 22 means that the honeymoon for U.S. climate diplomacy is over.
US Senate deals blow to global climate talks"This is going to change the mood dramatically in terms of what countries are willing to put on the table in Cancun," said Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which backs action to curb global warming.
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Obama's climate negotiators enjoyed rousing welcomes when they arrived on the scene -- especially from the European Union, Kyoto's most enthusiastic champion.
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"We're still facing a very weak economy and we're still facing questions on the cost of any meaningful reduction," said Ben Lieberman, an energy expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think-tank.
"It's pretty clear that no post-Kyoto treaty is in the making -- certainly not in Cancun, and maybe not ever."
He's then taken to the hospital by the security officer trailing him in a car. Afterwards, he claims that he likes to bike in L.A.L.A. mayor climbs on bike, gets hit by taxi, gets hit by bike-bloggers | GristAfter taking heat for lack of bike-infrastructure support -- what mayor doesn't get flack for this? -- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villariagosa climbed on a bike for the first time in years last Saturday for a ride to the beach. Within 30 minutes a taxi driver pulled out in front of him on Venice Boulevard, knocking the mayor to the pavement. He hit his head -- he was wearing a helmet -- and broke his right elbow.
The security officer trailing him in a car took the mayor to a hospital, where the broken elbow required surgery.
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Then he let the taxi driver off by declining to press charges: "He was very concerned when he realized it was me," the mayor said.
Antonio Villaraigosa: Bikes Belong On LA's StreetsIf there's one thing everyone now knows after my recent accident, it's that I like to bike in Los Angeles.
Flashback: Mayor Villaraigosa Comes Out Swinging Against AB 32 Repeal"We are currently in the midst of a global climate change crisis that is not only a threat to our environment, but our economic and job markets as well,” Mayor Villaraigosa said.
Flashback: Antonio Villaraigosa: Al Gore Endorses Carbon Reduction SurchargeThis afternoon, former Vice President Al Gore endorsed Los Angeles' green energy plan, the Carbon Reduction Surcharge, calling it "one of the most forward-thinking clean energy plans" he has ever seen.
To have someone of his stature endorse this plan means a great deal.
Veto likely on bills blocking EPA regs - Darren Samuelsohn - POLITICO.comProspects of any bill stripping EPA of its authority are uncertain in the current political climate, but a GOP takeover of either chamber in 2011 makes the threat much more real.
Up close and personal with environmentalist Jonathon Espie PorrittTHE difference between scepticism about evidence and “denialism” is this: The former may question the credibility of a claim, but it doesn’t stop at that. Sceptics will put theories to rigorous tests to expose their reliability, whereas “denialists” will simply ignore whatever evidence presented to them [like what, specifically?] and stubbornly maintain their disposition.
And Jonathon Espie Porritt, an influential English environmentalist and writer, has a problem with that.
He thinks denialism is more problematic than scepticism, especially when it comes to issues related to global warming, because denialists “make it harder for us to implement solutions to arrive at a better world”.
“This is no conspiracy. It’s not possible to stitch up something like that,” Porritt tells StarBizWeek about the threat of global climate change.
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Porritt travels a lot because of his mission of campaigning for solutions for a better global environment.
Message to environmentalists: ‘Humankind needs energy!’ - The MétropolitainCarbon taxation or cap-and-trade makes us less efficient as a civilization. It’s a tax on a boogeyman and nothing more. CO2 emission is not only the engine of a modern economy; it’s also the engine of the planet. It’s time for the airlines to get a backbone and for environmentalists to stop fear-mongering.
Al Fin: Even Carbon Hysterics Can Learn to Be at Peace with CO2If humans develop the ability to control the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere through technological means, there would be little reason for the widespread hysteria which is seen in the UN, the EU, and in the Obama Pelosi regime.
Cooler Heads Digest 23 July 2010 | GlobalWarming.org[Myron Ebell] Passing the blame for the demise of cap-and-trade has already begun. The White House suggested that environmental pressure groups didn’t do enough. Environmental pressure groups suggested that President Obama and his Administration hadn’t done enough. Reid and Kerry blamed the Republicans. And so on. My own view is that reality got in the way. Cap-and-trade has been dead in the Senate since the House passed the Waxman-Markey bill July [actually June] 26, 2009. Several Democratic and Republican Senators decided they couldn’t vote for it after they saw the overwhelmingly negative public response. The Senate turned to healthcare reform last July instead of taking up Waxman-Markey because healthcare reform had much more public support.
Anatomy of a Botched Ambush: ABC Fails to Score Global Warming Point on InhofeNetwork's senior congressional correspondent tries to conflate weather with climate, which alarmists cried foul over during this year's winter weather.
The 7 Things That Killed the Climate Bill : TreeHuggerThe news that reverberated around the web yesterday was hardly unexpected -- the climate bill, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid finally announced was officially dead, was on its way out for a long time. But that doesn't make its final departure any less devastating. In light of its passage let's look at what it is, exactly, that killed it. Here the 7 primary factors that contributed to its demise, plain and simple.
Forget global-warming denial; Al's trying global-groping denial | NJ.comAnd that brings up a crucial question about his judgment: How is this guy going to solve global warming when he can't even tell a legit masseuse from one who likes to give customers a happy ending? The dumbest guy I know could figure out how to hire the right woman for the job. Why can't the former vice-president?
That's the real story here. And it is a hilarious one.
FOXNews.com - Senate Energy Debate is Still all About Cap-and-TradeThe best, surest way to derail the lame duck strategy is to prevent the Senate from passing any energy bill before the election that could get them into conference.
That’s why the energy debate in the Senate next week is so high stakes. It’s really all about cap-and-trade, and senators who vote yes will have to explain to angry constituents why they voted to advance cap-and-trade and cause energy prices to skyrocket.
[Investment strategist Jeremy Grantham still believes in the greatest scientific fraud in history]: Everything You Need to Know About Global Warming in 5 Minutes | The Big PictureDo we believe the whole elite of science is in a conspiracy? At some point in the development of a scientific truth, contrarians risk becoming flat earthers.
10) Conspiracy theorists claim to believe that global warming is a carefully constructed hoax driven by scientists desperate for … what? Being needled by nonscientific newspaper reports, by blogs, and by right-wing politicians and think tanks? Most hard scientists hate themselves or their colleagues for being in the news. Being a climate scientist spokesman has already become a hindrance to an academic career, including tenure. I have a much simpler but plausible “conspiracy theory”: that fossil energy companies, driven by the need to protect hundreds of billions of dollars of profits, encourage obfuscation of the inconvenient scientific results.
Money makes the activists go round - On Line Opinion - 28/6/2010Despite clear evidence that the funds are going to the global warming side and the amounts going to sceptic organisations of various sorts being derisory by comparison, activists continue to scream about how the debate is loaded against them. The reality is that sceptics remain mostly unpaid part timers but those dedicated volunteers have managed to score impressive victories against full-time climate scientists backed by massive resources. Having the truth on your side does help, sometimes.
Data Stonewalling Resumes « Climate Audit...Ammann demonstrated the new Team openness by simply not acknowledging or replying to Ryan’s request.
Masdar And The Dicey Science Of Carbon Credits | Green ProphetIt makes some sense that Masdar City, a carbon neutral city being built in Abu Dhabi, should receive carbon credits. But rewarding large oil companies such as Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC even though they continue to emit carbon into our choking atmosphere, is a much tougher sell.
According to The National, the UN-administered carbon credit scheme will reward Masdar with $1.45 million in carbon credits each year.
[Computer model BS: If the Earth warms to 62 F, maybe apes will go extinct?]: Apes running 'out of time' due to global warmingGlobal warming may change ape behaviour, which in turn could cause them to run 'out of time', reveals a study.
The study states that rising temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns have strong effects on ape behaviour, distribution and survival, pushing them even further to the brink of extinction.
The researchers, from Roehampton University, Bournemouth University and the University of Oxford used data from 20 natural populations to model the effects of climate change on ape behaviour and distribution.
Warning Signs: The Union of Concerned PropagandistsSo the UCS is essentially a leftist propagandist organization that is anti-war, anti-nuclear and missile defense, and totally political in its opposition to any Republican administration. Of the signers of a document, “Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making”, decrying the Bush administration, “more than half were financial contributors to the Democratic Party, Democratic candidates, or a variety of leftist causes.”
The UCS continues to cling to the view that “Global warming is one of the most serious challenges facing us today..."
[Taking a break at last]WASHINGTON -- A White House official says President Obama and his family will vacation on Florida's Gulf Coast next month.
The Obamas are scheduled to travel to the coast on Aug. 14 and stay the weekend.
[Going green: John Kerry's 76-foot, fossil-fueled, $7 million, imported-from-New-Zealand yacht] - BostonHerald.comIsabel - Kerry’s luxe, 76-foot New Zealand-built Friendship sloop with an Edwardian-style, glossy varnished teak interior, two VIP main cabins and a pilothouse fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage - was designed by Rhode Island boat designer Ted Fontaine.
...Sources say Isabel sold for something in the neighborhood of $7 million, meaning Kerry saved approximately $437,500 in sales tax and an annual excise tax of about $70,000.
If Huhne doesn't go soon – which he won't – our economy is doomed – Telegraph Blogswe are not led by a Prime Minister who lives in the real world. Instead, we are led by one who lives in Notting Hill fairy land world, where all one’s mates and – more significantly, perhaps – one’s wife’s mates believe fervently and passionately in the mythical beast ManBearPig whose ravenings, they imagine, can only be satisfied by the destruction of the British countryside with wind farms, the desecration of church roofs with shiny, pointless solar panels and the massive sacrifice of huge piles of taxpayers’ money. This is fine when you’ve got money to burn; or when, say, your landed father-in-law stands to make a mint from all the subsidies one gets from the taxpayer from covering one’s land with wind towers. But economically speaking it’s suicide, because in order to run effectively, economies need to be powered on real power rather than imaginary, Teletubby fairy power.
Gillard finally finds a use for Rudd’s 2020 Summit | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt BlogJulia Gillard’s idea to pluck 150 people randomly off the streets to decide on the future of a huge tax on our emissions is so bizarre that you wonder from what mad place she borrowed it.
Gillard feels the greenshirts’ lash | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt BlogWhat is it with the Left and the distinctive inability of so many to have a respectful, adult debate? Why the totalitarian instinct to shout down others, to threaten violence and to harass ideological enemies in their daily business?
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Imagine how a society run by greenshirts would deal with dissenters.
BBC - Richard Black's Earth Watch: UN climate talks in the mire?As I've mentioned before, the mood and tone within the UN process has shifted a vast distance since the run-up to December's Copenhagen summit.
You could say it's now much more in tune with the political realities than the ebullient trumpeting of seismic global optimism that characterised the arrival of delegates into the snowy Danish capital.
C3: 13,000 Year Study Reveals Severe Weather Associated With Natural Solar & Ocean Oscillations, Not CO2Researchers using lake sediment cores determine that severe weather for the northeastern United States has followed a cyclical pattern with a 3,000 year gap between each peak. The latest severe weather period began some 600 years ago with onset of the Little Ice Age. The major forces driving this natural cycle are thought to be solar changes, along with changes in the Atlantic Oscillation (AO).
Atmospheric CO2 levels are not even considered to be an influence on this natural cycle of storminess.
[See, since it's warm in this spot right now, the Earth couldn't be cooling?]: Amid Heat Wave, Senator Talks "Global Cooling" - ABC NewsInhofe was still not deterred when ABC's Jon Karl invited the Oklahoma Republican to talk about the issue outside the Capitol building, in 95-degree, humid July heat.
Renewable energy: Not all it’s cracked up to be? | Energy“Used sensibly, in locations where the fickle nature of wind is no drawback, it is a valuable local resource, but Europe’s massive use of wind as a supplement to baseload electricity will probably be remembered as one of the great follies of the twenty-first century … ,” he writes.
Lovelock argues the only clean energy sources that make sense for society are nuclear and solar thermal energy. All the rest aren’t viable without heavy injections of government subsidies and green cheerleading, he says.
Lovelock acknowledges he sometimes takes a bit of hyperbolic licence to make his points — as when he warned that global warming will lead to a die-off of billions of humans this century, resulting in only a “few breeding pairs of people” left in the Arctic.
Told You So - Planet Gore - National Review OnlineThe situation leaves poor, suckered Europe facing calls for a one- or two-year extension of the failed, expiring pact. Which, given the politics they created, leaves them “BTU’d,” too, and deservedly so.
Of course, in the eyes of the Left, these failures offer further proof that both democracy and the Constitution are broken. In fact, they reveal quite the opposite.
Global cooling could be killing penguins | Energy ProbeThe Antarctic has been in the throes of a long term cooling period that has seen the southern polar cap get progressively colder for decades. In 2002, scientists Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon at Harvard warned that the cooling that was then occurring in the Antarctic was leading to the starvation of penguin chicks. The Antarctic cooling with a resulting growth in sea ice -- a cooling that proved wrong the warming predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - was disrupting penguin populations, forcing them to migrate to more hospitable surroundings.
How Does a Heat Wave Affect the Human Body?: Scientific AmericanExtreme heat is only blamed for an average of 688 deaths each year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)...I think it's always been a problem. There's history over hundreds of years of people dying of heat. Philadelphia in 1776 had a major heat wave that caused deaths.
2007: Economists: extreme cold weather costly, deadlyBERKELEY -- Fatalities in the continental United States tend to climb for several weeks after severe cold spells, ultimately numbering 360 per chilly day and 14,380 per year, according to a new study co-authored by a University of California, Berkeley, economist.
Deaths linked to extreme cold account for 0.8 percent of the nation's annual death rate and outnumber those attributed to leukemia, murder and chronic liver disease combined, the study reports. Cold-related deaths also reduce the average life expectancy of Americans by at least a decade, it says. [Huh?]
The numbers are "remarkably large," said Enrico Moretti, a UC Berkeley associate professor of economics, and Oliver Deschenes, an associate professor of economics at UC Santa Barbara, in a December 2007 working paper, "Extreme Weather Events, Mortality and Migration."
The study also says that demographic shifts from colder climes to warmer ones -- for reasons such as better jobs, cheaper housing and sunshine - appear to delay an estimated 4,600 deaths a year. The researchers also said that over the past 30 years, longevity gains associated with geographic mobility accounted for between 4 and 7 percent of the increases in life expectancy in the United States.
On top secrets and climate change | Journalist Profile |A small sidelight of Schneider’s career was that he played himself in the 1993 CBS miniseries Fire Next Time — nothing to do with the great James Baldwin book. The show depicted a United States reduced to ruins by global warming. Plus, survivors were in constant danger of exposure to bad dialogue! Set in the year 2017, the miniseries was classic Hollywood galimatias, showing a post-apocalyptic landscape unlike anything projected even by worst-case analysis. In the miniseries, Schneider appears as an aging scientist, lamenting that nothing was done while there was time. I wish he had been given the chance to live until 2017 and see that the world will be mostly fine.
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Also diluting belief in climate change is high-and-mighty behavior of some – surely not all — in the science community. Recently the environmental radio show Earthbeat ran a segment in which Susan Hassol, who’s in the instant-doomsday camp, claimed that scientists researching global warming are subject to “McCarthyism.” McCarthyism? Most climate scientists enjoy academic tenure, while being darlings of the P.C. cocktail-party circuit.
Last year the federal government awarded $7 billion in climate change research grants, making life cushy for climate scientists. I don’t recall Joe McCarthy giving billions of dollars to State Department China hands! One climate pessimist, Michael Mann of Penn State, has indeed received unfair treatment from the far right, but then again Mann is a holier-than-thou type who is quick to denounce those who disagree with him, and one reaps what one sows.
Senate Dems Abandon Cap and Trade Global Warming Tax?No matter how you cut it, a cap and trade global warming tax is a loser proposition. It means job loss, financial loss, and freedom loss–all based on an environmental hoax.
Let’s hold these socialist scheisters accountable, my fellow Americans, before the election, and most especially IN the election.
[So, is greenpeace.org powered solely by wind power?]: Greenpeace Attacks Facebook’s Power Supply | ConceivablyTechGreenpeace questions the massive amounts of energy Facebook needs to power its datacenters. “The last thing we need for them to be doing is building them in places where they are increasing demand for dirty coal fired power. If your Facebook page is being powered by coal, then it’s contributing to climate change,” said Cook.
Reasons to Worry - Planet Gore - National Review OnlineSo I start from a different position: why not guard against/worry about/seek to avoid the (however troubled, but possible) plans the Left openly proclaims as the Obama Window closes? We have a congressional majority that’s ready to die (politically) for its wants.
Biden: 'The heavy lifting is over' - The Hill's Blog Briefing RoomThe "heavy lifting is over" when it comes to the Obama administration's legislative priorities this year, Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday evening.
Whitebark Pine: Functionally Gone in much of the Greater Yellowstone | Louisa Willcox's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDCOver half of the whitebark pine ecosystem, by sub-watershed, has been killed or largely killed by mountain pine beetle in less than a decade in the Greater Yellowstone.
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12:15 p.m.: While getting lunch at my local favorite restaurant, Mustang Catering, co-owner and friend Dan Sullivan asks me what I’m up to. I tell him the results of our report. To my surprise, Dan, with an apron full of food stains, takes off his glasses and bursts into tears. Dan has logged many miles in grizzly country with his friend, bear expert Doug Peacock. “I remember the most beautiful bear scats were the blond ones, those filled with pine seeds.”
Al Gore Scandal – Shocking Details Emerge The incident in California is said to have occurred in 2007, when the 62-year-old Gore was in Hollywood to attend the Oscars for his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”
“Al Gore booked a massage with a female therapist at the rooftop spa of the hotel,” a source revealed. “The therapist claimed that when they were alone, Gore shrugged off a towel and stood naked in front of her. He pointed at his erect penis and ordered here, ‘Take care of this.’ The shocked woman ran out of the room and reported Gore’s behavior to the spa manager. He was ordered to leave the bar and not come back. Hotel management hushed up the incident. Staff was ordered not to talk about it.”
The Enquirer also contacted a former executive at the hotel who confirmed the story.
“Yes, something happened between Al Gore and a massage therapist at the hotel,” said the former exec. “The woman claimed he exposed himself to her and demanded sex But it was all hushed up. Everyone was warned that if they talked about it, they’d be fired.”
The next incident that the Enquirer covers is alleged to have occured on November 18, 2009, in Tokyo, Japan.
“Gore spoke earlier that day at Keio University in Tokyo,” a source said. “He asked hotel staff if it would be possible to have a massage therapist come to his room. But when the woman arrived, it did not take long before she had to get out. According to the woman, Gore had been ‘sexually inappropriate’ with her when she began to massage him. She complained to the hotel staff and told them she was going to the police. However, hotel staff managed to convince her not to. The alleged incident soon became know among some Tokyo journalists.”
Editorial - Climate Bill Out With a Whimper - NYTimes.comThere are, however, as many as a dozen Senate Democrats, mainly from the South, Appalachia and the Midwest, who share the blame.
...despite the opportunity offered by the oil spill to press for a bold energy policy, the president essentially disappeared.
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Can the country hope for better in the months ahead? It must. The danger of global warming is not going away just because Washington’s politicians don’t want to deal with it.
Even a scaled-down bill would be an important start. There is no secret about what it must include: a cap on power plant emissions, minimum standards for renewable energy, strong efficiency standards, new incentives for more fuel-efficient cars, investments and loan guarantees for next-generation technologies.
Van Jones on Sherrod: A Teachable Moment - Washington Wire - WSJJones, however, was quick to note that there was a difference between his situation and Sherrod’s—namely that his personal politics were considerably more radical and thus easier to malign.
“I had a much more colorful life than Ms. Sherrod,” he said. “I mean, let’s be honest: I was distinguishable as a radical leftist in the Bay Area. You’ve got to get up early, you’ve got to work weekends to be distinguishable as a leftist in the Bay Area.”
Sea Level Shenanigans | The Resilient EarthPart of sea level change may, indeed, be caused by human activity, but not because of anthropogenic global warming. Damming and rerouting rivers diminishes water flowing to the sea; over-pumping buried aquifers and draining oil fields can cause subsidence. At the same time uplift and subduction, changing wind and currents, erosion and the deposit of sediments all play a larger, natural part. So when climate change alarmists start ranting about the inexorable rise of the world's oceans, realize that it is just another scare tactic being used to frighten the uninformed public—sea level shenanigans meant to promote the warmist agenda.
Senate Democrats Kill Ambitious Climate [Hoax] Legislation - Ecocentric - TIME.comThe headline has been written countless times, but this time it is true: carbon cap-and-trade of any sort will not come out of this Congress—and perhaps it never will.
...The truth is there weren't enough Democrats willing to support a carbon cap, let along Republicans. Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute—a think tank that is highly skeptical of cap and trade—told me that his group spoke to environmental lobbyists back in 2008 who were working on a cap-and-trade bill in the Senate then, the Warner-Lieberman bill. Though it never went to a full vote, Shellenberger believes that a carbon cap bill in 2008 would have received no more than 35 votes.
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"It's hard to see cap-and-trade coming back anytime within the next decade," Shellenberger told me.
Odes to a Dead Climate Bill -- in 140 Characters or Less - NYTimes.com"Obama should heat up the debate to about 95F/35C by switching off the air conditioning in the Senate," tweeted a man named Wallyhalla, who in his profile says that he lives in Alkmaar, the Netherlands.
Year In Review With [the late] Daniel Schorr : NPRSIMON: Global climate change conference in Copenhagen. Was this conference different than all the others?
SCHORR: Yes, I thought it was different at least in one respect. They weren't getting anywhere and then the president flew over to Copenhagen, he busted into a meeting that he hadn't been invited to with the Brazilians and Chinese and talked them into it. And they finally got not what they had hoped for, which was a bonding agreement, but they did at least make sure that it didn't go further back from where they were.
Daniel Schorr, Journalist, Dies at 93 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.comDaniel Schorr, whose aggressive reporting over 70 years as a respected broadcast and print journalist brought him into conflict with censors, the Nixon administration and network superiors, died Friday in Washington. He was 93.
Senate Abandons Climate Effort, Dealing Blow to President - NYTimes.comOne Democrat who opposed capping emissions, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, indicated that ripening EPA regulations would not be the deciding factor on his future vote on climate policies. "I have such a view of the balance of power between the three branches of government that I don't feel like the EPA's in any position to threaten us," he said after leaving yesterday's caucus meeting.
...Several sources in the Senate and in the environmental community have privately complained that the administration failed to take a leadership role.
Browner and Reid both insisted that was wrong.
"President Obama personally has talked to me many times about energy legislation and moving forward," Reid said. "So for anyone to think the president hasn't been involved in this simply is mistaken."
PostPartisan - Democrats surrendering on climate change? [updated]Update, 2:45 p.m.: Reid, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and White House energy chief Carol Browner just finished speaking at the Capitol. They all repeatedly insisted that they weren’t giving up on a comprehensive climate bill. Quite the opposite, they said. But through all the protesting-too-much, it sure sounded like they were surrendering, for now. They said that they just don’t have the votes. They didn’t give much hope that anyone could be swayed. And, tellingly, Reid somberly thanked everyone for their effort. Environment fail.
It looks more and more like President Obama won’t be able to make the oceans stop rising this year.
Al Gore's March of the MasseusesThis week's Enquirer, which began hitting newsstands Wednesday, says one "purported incident" took place at the rooftop spa of a hotel while Gore was in Hollywood for the Oscars for "An Inconvenient Truth." According to this Enquirer tipster, "the therapist claimed that when they were alone, Gore shrugged off a towel and stood naked in front of her. He pointed at his erect penis and ordered her, "Take care of this." The woman allegedly fled the spa and complained to a superior. She is now said to have moved to San Francisco.
The Enquirer reports that the Tokyo masseuse complained to hotel management and threatened to call police about "sexually inappropriate" conduct that allegedly occurred after Gore spoke at Keio University. No details were provided, although the source is quoted as saying "the alleged incident soon became known among some Tokyo journalists."
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The latest edition of the Enquirer says Hagerty had a "secret July 7 meeting" with Portland Police Bureau investigators, who also interviewed "several others."
Another Oil SmearOn 19 July, the Times published a frontpage lead story about a number of U.S. American think tanks that have received funding from Exxon Mobile. Some of these organisations were co-sponsors of the March 2009 International Conference on Climate Change in New York.
In its article, the Times gave the false impression that the GWPF was represented at the March 2009 New York conference and that the GWPF may have received Exxon Mobil funding too. In fact, the Foundation did not exist at the time. The GWPF was only founded in November 2009.
Gillards non-plan for the Climate « JoNovaABOUT 150 ordinary Australians would be randomly chosen to develop the nation’s response to climate change under a re-elected Gillard Government.
Quadrant Online - The price of carbonWhat is of greater interest is the use of the phrase “carbon price”. We already have carbon prices - quite a few of them. As with any commodity the price varies according to the form and quality of the product but carbon is unique in the range of prices which it commands. The diamond industry begins with carbon obtained from volcanic pipes and either transforms this carbon into industrial diamonds which are used for cutting and abrasive purposes or into cut diamonds for the jewellery trade where they fetch large sums of money. A tonne of cut diamonds, ready for the international diamond trade, would be worth billions.
Meltdown at Scienceblogs.com – bloggers jumping ship | Watts Up With That?I find the whole Sb revolt thing hilarious. It’s a tempest in a pop can. Of course, PepsiCo could have defused this whole thing simply by making an announcement to stop putting deadly earth killing CO2 in their sodas, and instead sequestering it out back, underground. Then they’d be heroes, right?
Extreme cold kills hundreds of cattle; thousands at risk in Paraguay and Chile — MercoPressMeantime in Chile, Marcos Peede, president of the Austral Breeders and Farmers Organization warned that 100.000 cattle in the south could starve or die of hypothermia because of the persistent extreme cold weather.
“We have 100.000 head of cattle, which includes bovines, sheep and horses exposed to vital risk. There are areas that can’t be reached with fodder and we have reports of deaths of animals”, said Peede.
Freezing temperatures, polar gusts and the greatest snow fall in three decades are threatening the Aysen area which the Chilean government had declared under agriculture emergency.
Peruvians shiver through record cold winter | Earth Times NewsLima - Peruvians are enduring the coldest winter in nearly five decades.
Lima, typically blessed with a semitropical climate, recorded a chilly 8.8 degrees Celsius, the La Republica newspaper reported Thursday after the capital hit the record low a day earlier.
The average temperature for the winter months in Lima is 18.2 degrees Celsius.
Senator Kerry Says Democrats May Take Up Broad Climate Plan (Transcript) - BloombergHUNT: - wasn’t it your own party that cut the legs out from Kerry/Lieberman?
KERRY: We have several Republicans who have indicated the possibility. Look, are we supposed to do this all alone?
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But I have to tell you, this is not dead. We are going to continue to work. It may well be that after the election - if that is what happens - I mean we will continue to try over the next weeks, but if it is after the election, it may well be that some members are free and liberated and feeling that they can take a risk or do something. Or, you know, the whole political landscape may have changed in some way. I don’t know.
Unexpected consquence of climate change: animals getting horny | GristThat's right. A hotter planet means hotter marmot sex. But these rodents won't be the only ones having all the fun. Other delightful creatures who may see their sex lives improving include jellyfish (swarms of them!) and ticks (swarms of them and all the diseases they carry).
A future of sexy jellies and succsexfully tick-transferred diseases -- we can hardly wait!
US Senate drops bill to cap carbon emissions | Environment | guardian.co.ukThe failure to pass sweeping energy legislation is likely to weaken the US negotiating position heading into the international climate negotiations in Mexico at the end of the year.
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"This is not going to take close to that long," [Kerry] said. "I am absolutely confident that as the American people make their voices heard, and as our colleagues go home and listen to them we're going to grow in our ability to be able to pass this."
Eco warriors should use eco etiquetteEarlier this year, Ipsos-Descarie conducted an online poll of more than 1,000 Canadians on behalf of Cascades Tissue Group. They found that 58 per cent of respondents claim the environment is the new religion, and 54 per cent were tired of being lectured by environmentalists.
Australia shirks setting a price on carbon | Earth Times NewsSydney - Australia will not bring in carbon trading until other major polluters do and even then only if there is popular support within the country for putting a price on carbon.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in remarks Friday, reiterated the policy of Kevin Rudd, the party leader she deposed last month.
On the death of the climate bill | David "Climate Nuremberg" Roberts - GristAs Jon noted, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has officially announced that there will be no climate bill this year. But Jon's post doesn't fully convey the extent of the capitulation. What's happened is total and complete surrender. There's no silver lining in this cloud.
Not only will the bill not contain any restrictions on greenhouse gases -- not even a watered-down utility-only cap -- it won't even contain the two other key policies that would have moved clean energy forward: the Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) and the energy efficiency standards.
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Blame where it is due: I'm frustrated with Obama's passivity on this issue. I'm frustrated with Reid. I'm frustrated with the environmental movement. But we should be clear about where the bulk of the responsibility for this farce ultimately lies: the Republican Party and a handful of "centrist" Democrats in the Senate. They are the ones who refused to vote for a bill, no matter how many compromises were made, no matter how clear the urgency of the problem. They are moral cowards, condemning their own children and grandchildren to suffering to serve their own narrow electoral interests. There isn't enough contempt in the world for them.
Twitter / David RobertsNow I'm in the #NN10 panel on international climate negotiations. Because I was only 98% depressed and needed to get to 100%.
Twitter / bradplumerHm, maybe if @drgrist and I had been able to convince Journolist to give a f*ck about climate, we'd have a bill by now.
Climate bill tabled, blame game begins - POLITICO.com Print ViewOne exasperated administration official on Thursday lambasted the environmentalists – led by the Environmental Defense Fund – for failing to effectively lobby GOP senators.
“They didn’t deliver a single Republican,” the official told POLITICO. “They spent like $100 million and they weren’t able to get a single Republican convert on the bill.”
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“The absence of direct, intense presidential leadership doomed this process,” said Eric Pooley, author of “Climate War,” a just-published book that chronicles the past three years of debate on global warming. “We did have a window there, and now the window is shut. It’s more about prying it back open than anything else.”
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Several other swing vote Democrats never came close to playing ball. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill avoided climate bill advocates and journalists who cover the issue. And when she was cornered, she warned of the political consequences to moderates — and the Democratic majority -- if they were pressed to vote for a carbon cap. West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller argued the legislation had little resonance on Capitol Hill or back home.
...GOP lawmakers who are poised to assume leadership positions if they win the House or Senate this November include well-known skeptics on climate science, most notably Joe Barton on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Jim Inhofe in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
[Ding Dong the Bill is Dead]: Did Obama Kill the Climate Bill? | Mother JonesThe Senate's climate bill is officially dead. And given that Democrats will almost certainly hold fewer seats in Congress next year, major action on the climate is unlikely to be revived anytime soon.
YouTube - Fame "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead"Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: The US Punts on Climate LegislationThe reality is that the next Congress is going to be no more friendly to comprehensive climate legislation that the current Congress, as both chambers are going to see large swings toward the Republican party. This means that the chances for comprehensive climate legislation are probably less in the next Congress.
Lack of votes for Senate Democrats' [climate hoax] bill may mean the endConceding that they can't find enough votes for the legislation, Senate Democrats on Thursday abandoned efforts to put together a comprehensive energy bill that would seek to curb greenhouse gas emissions, delivering a potentially fatal blow to a proposal the party has long touted and President Obama campaigned on.
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But despite weeks of meetings to reach a compromise, Democrats themselves were deeply divided. Republicans took delight in the dispute. Robert Dillon, GOP communications director for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said in an e-mail: "Reid can hardly blame Republicans for opposing legislation that would raise energy prices on Americans, when his own party doesn't even support the idea."
Senate Energy Package: Wait, It Gets Worse! | Mother JonesIn a nutshell, this is going to be a very tiny package, with little in the way of energy measures. I'm not even sure you can call it an energy package at this point.
Election 2010: Gillard's desperate "citizens' assembly" on climate | Australian Climate MadnessAnd we can all imagine who will be on the scientists committee - usual suspect alarmists like David "Asteroid" Karoly and Will Steffen, maybe headed up by someone independent like Penny Wong, perhaps? Hang on a minute, I wonder if they'll ask Ian Plimer or Bob Carter? Yeah, right. If they did, this author would fall off his perch. And we can guess the "volunteers" will all be paid up Labor/Green warmists who have all been brainwashed by government propaganda and a compliant media to give the answers the government want to hear.
ELECTION 2010: Gillard commits to two-year sell-job on emissions trading schemePrime Minister Julia Gillard has committed to building "community consensus" on the need for Australia to introduce an emissions trading scheme by establishing a "citizens assembly" of everyday taxpayers to debate the climate change issue.
Gillard, who announced her climate change policy in Brisbane this morning, acknowledged that many Australians have doubts about global warming, but said she had to "respectfully disagree".
Climate and energy bill delayed as political support withers - KansasCity.comThe decision could doom the measure's long-term chances as well.
In the US, green must be framed as ‘red, white and blue’ | FeaturedWhat’s most scary about Fox News is that it gives no more standing or authority to science (as in the pursuit of evidence for or against any particular hypothesis) than to political opinion or “received wisdom.” Whether Fox News is simply reflecting a growing denialist trend, or actively fashioning it, the implications for policy-makers are grim. And it’s not just businesses that find this very perplexing indeed.
Editor’s note: This article was written by Jonathon Porritt
Senate Democrats Give Up On Bill To Cap Carbon Emissions - Capital - Portfolio.comDavid Hawkins, director of climate programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Reid “delivered very bad news to the American people.”
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“It is time for all of us to make our voices heard. Over the recess we must deliver a message to senators: Do your job! We face a triple threat of a stagnant economy, ballooning energy insecurity, and a climate that is coming apart. Don’t fail us. Don’t fail our children. Don’t come home again without having tackled these real and present dangers.”
The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, however, said the decision by Senate Democrats to stop pursuing a cap on carbon emissions “was probably one of their best moves of 2010.”
[But does God believe in the greatest scientific fraud in human history?] While the world burns | Michael Tomasky | Comment is free | guardian.co.ukWhen you stop and really wonder what has to happen to make conservatives take this seriously, it's actually pretty frightening, because they won't take it seriously until some massive catastrophe happens. Sometimes you just wish God, if he-she-it exists, would just come down from the sky and say, uh, you people are nuts, and you're not on my side. Get it together.
Gore on climate: 'Inconvenient as ever' - Ben Smith - POLITICO.comAt a very low moment for his cause, with Democrats giving up on a climate bill for now, Al Gore puts out a statement:
...Our national security, our economic recovery and the future of the United States of America — and indeed the future of human civilization on this Earth — depends on our country taking leadership. And that, in turn, depends on the United States Senate acting. The truth about the climate crisis — inconvenient as ever — must be faced.
Twitter / Brad JohnsonWhat's unfortunate is this movement has been framed around climate and there isn't enough of a movement around climate.
Key environmentalists ok with delay on climate bill until fall
- The Hill's E2-WireSenate Democrats will discuss the topic at a policy lunch on Thursday. Kerry also said there may be other meetings Thursday — including with White House officials — that would be key in determining the path forward.
Kerry said President Obama is not expected be personally involved in these meetings.
Republicans on the wrong side of history by opposing energy reform (Sen. Harry Reid) - The Hill's Congress BlogThey can join with us to pass these simple, straight forward bipartisan measures to hold BP accountable, lessen our dependence on oil and create jobs, or they can continue to protect big oil companies and kill job growth in America. [again, where's the part about saving our grandchildren from CO2-induced hellfire?]
INHOFE LOOKS FORWARD TO SEPTEMBER DEBATE ON NATIONAL ENERGY TAX"I am pleased that Sen. Reid decided against resurrecting cap-and-trade legislation before the August recess, owing to the fact that several members of his own party have rightly indicated their opposition to it," Sen. Inhofe said. "Instead, he and other cap-and-trade supporters have signaled a desire to possibly consider such legislation when Congress returns in September. I very much look forward to having yet another debate in the Senate on jobs, consumers, the economy, and the serious damage that a national energy tax would inflict on all three."
Hippie heads exploded when uber-skeptic Marc Morano was given an award, if global warming doesn't get you the super marmots will, and the most important thing ever caused by global warming, revealed.
Democrats Abandon Sweeping Energy Plan - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.comAt a news conference, the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, blamed Republicans for refusing to cooperate. “We don’t have a single Republican to work with us,” Mr. Reid said.
...Senate Democrats had said they would seek a cap on carbon emissions only for power plants. But even that proved overly ambitious.
“We know where we are,” Mr. Reid said. “We don’t have the votes.”
Partial list of CRU funders | The SPPI BlogBelow is a partial list of funders for the Climatic Research Unit of climategate fame. These organizations and companies funded Phil Jones and the CRU division of the “hockey stick team.” Notice all the major international oil companies, leftist NGOs and self-interested governments — none of which climate alarmists mention when questioning funding of climate realists.
Disquiet grows over performance of Ban Ki-moon, UN's 'invisible man' | World news | The GuardianAsked to list his achievements, he said modesty required it to be left to others to make that judgement, before going on to list what he regarded as three successes: climate change, UN administrative reform and the championing of human rights.
Denying the December Copenhagen summit on climate change had been a failure, Ban said: "No, I don't think Copenhagen was a failure. There was room for improvement in procedure, in how we can make it more inclusive or transparent, but when it comes to substantive elements, I think it was quite a success."
Blatant Misrepresentation by Muir Russell Panel « Climate AuditThe Muir Russell panel blatantly misrepresented the facts surrounding Jones’ notorious request to “delete all emails”, a misrepresentation that, in my opinion, was done, at a minimum, either recklessly or out of gross negligence.
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