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A Departing Republican Warns About Climate Change - NYTimes.comMr. Inglis used an analogy comparing the climate to a sick child.
“Your child is sick,” he said. “Ninety-eight doctors say treat him this way. Two say no, this other way is the way to go.”
By taking the minority viewpoint that carbon emissions are not a problem, “you’re taking a big risk with those kids,” he said.
On clean energy development, Mr. Inglis warned his Republican colleagues that China was preparing to “eat our lunch.”
“They plan on innovating around these problems, and selling to us, and the rest of the world, the technology that’ll lead the 21st century,” he said. “We may press the pause button for a few years, but China is pressing the fast-forward button.”
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The departing Mr. Inglis warned climate scientists to prepare for this type of grilling by the new Congress.
“I’d encourage scientists who are listening out there to get ready for the hearings that are coming up in the next Congress,” he said. “Those will be difficult hearings for climate scientists. But I would encourage you to welcome those as fabulous opportunities to teach.”
White House takes a more modest Plan B to Cancun climate [scam] talksThe Republican rout on Nov. 2 swept in dozens of new representatives and senators opposed to using a cap-and-trade scheme to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. By one estimate, almost half of GOP freshman legislators don't even believe there is sound science behind the theory of man-made climate change.
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At the Copenhagen climate talks, at the end of 2009, Obama said the United States would reduce its emissions "in the range of" 17 percent below 2005 levels. The administration says that Obama still stands by that goal.
"We're not going to get there," Stavins said. "But we are going to get somewhere."
Hottest year ever update: 2010 typhoon tally may be lowest on record | The Japan Times OnlineAs of Saturday, 14 typhoons — tropical cyclones generated in the Northwest Pacific or the South China Sea north of the equator with a minimum wind velocity of 61.9 kph — have been spawned this year.
The Meteorological Agency, which has been keeping statistics on typhoons since 1951, said the lowest number — 16 — was in 1998. The average per year between 1971 and 2000 was 26.7, while the most on record is 39 in 1967.
Why the salt miners of Uganda's lakes are dying for a deal on climate change | Environment | The ObserverMany workers improvise as best they can. Men tie plastic bags around their genitals or wear condoms in an effort to avoid the extreme desiccating effects of the brine, while some women put flour inside their vaginas as a barrier to the toxic water. These improvised strategies have little effect and sexual health problems are rife among the Katwe workers.
"It's very dangerous," said Rutura Rwankangi, head porter at Katwe, who describes impotence as a major problem for workers.
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Climate scientists predict that weather patterns in Uganda will shift as a result of global warming, although it is hard to say with absolute certainty whether the unpredictable rains are part of that shift. What is certain is that it is hitting the salt miners hard. Too much rain means not enough evaporation to produce salt.
Climate change is the new global terror, says Al Gore - Hindustan TimesNobel Peace Prize winner and champion climate campaigner Al Gore outlined the doom the world is awaiting because of climate change and expressed disappointment at world leaders failing to clinch a treaty to fight the new global terror. Terming the logjam in climate negotiations as a “startling
paradox”, the man, whose documentary, The Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar said the year 2010 had seen worst of climate change.
“There was severe drought in Russia and extreme flooding in Pakistan. What more evidence is required for action,” he said at HT Leadership Summit.
Braced to weather climate talks[Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa] I was in Indonesia, we were in a meeting and all of a sudden, it started pouring. We were all surprised as it was not the rainy season then. So why would it rain?
Poll on California environmental issues - latimes.com50% of Latinos and 46% of Asians who responded to the poll said they personally worry a great deal about global warming, compared with 27% of whites.
Keying Nigeria into $170b global carbon marketClimate catastrophe has been turned on its head and is fast becoming a goldmine, courtesy of the multi-billion-dollar global carbon trade market. Property & Environment Editor, MICHAEL SIMIRE, examines the phenomenon, saying that Nigeria cannot afford not to be a part of the lucrative industry that seems to have numerous potential
Cancun: a lost battle against climate change? | euronews, agora[10-minute video] What do you get when you put a eurosceptic and climate sceptic in a debate with fully-committed climate change activists? Why, disagreement, of course! Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action, and three members of the European Parliament, Corien Wortmann-Kool of the European People’s Party, Satu Hassi of the Greens and Roger Helmer from the European Conservatives and Reformists gathered for a joint Euronews-EuroparlTV debate (with studio audience) on whether enough was accomplished at last December’s UN climate conference in Copenhagen and what can be done at the upcoming conference in Cancun.
Imperial Valley News - Governor Schwarzenegger Delivers Remarks Highlighting Green Cars at Los Angeles Auto ShowAnd, of course, we are big believers that you don’t have to really make sacrifices. You can prove that you can protect the environment and still have a fast car, have a powerful car, have a beautiful car.
If Californians can have fast, powerful, private electric cars, why can't I have a light bulb that doesn't suck?
The Climate Cash Cow - Investors.comHoaxes: A high-ranking member of the U.N.'s Panel on Climate Change admits the group's primary goal is the redistribution of wealth and not environmental protection or saving the Earth.
Money, they say, is the root of all evil. It's also the motivating force behind what is left of the climate change movement after the devastating Climate-gate and IPCC scandals that saw the deliberate manipulation of scientific data to spur the world into taking draconian regulatory action.
Climate Prognoses “Not Worth The Paper They’re Printed On”Whoa! Germany’s got a new enfant-terrible. Someone has just bolted though the Climate Berlin Wall, big time. Climatologists are dissenting, and it’s even being reported. The normally quite alarmist Austrian online Der Standard published a shocking article yesterday headlined:
Experts: “Prognoses not worth the paper they are printed on”
THE HOCKEY SCHTICK: Paper: 'AGW is erroneous'; 'No climate catastrophe in the making'An invited paper submitted to the International Journal of Energy and the Environment written by two university professors from Portugal states the man-made global warming hypothesis ("AGW") is erroneous, that the current trend of low solar activity will lead to a new "Little Ice Age" by mid-century, and that wasteful, expensive, and unnecessary green fuels/green energy/carbon credits be abandoned in favor of "productive, economically viable and morally acceptable solutions."
Ed Begley Jr. Strikes Out | Real ScienceInteresting article. My first question is – why is JPL employing a “climate change communicator?” Funding, perhaps?
UN Style Empirical Research « NoFrakkingConsensusDoes anyone truly believe there was once a golden era in which humans could count on the weather?
This “empirical research” was a survey of people’s perceptions. Perceptions aren’t the same as reality. Twenty-two percent of Americans say they’ve seen or felt the presence of a ghost. This does not prove that ghosts exist. (Have I mentioned that this workshop was held in the Einstein Room?)
It appears unlikely that this massive study generated any new, reliable insight into climate change. Rather, Warner’s commentary above suggests that if a UN researcher asks enough leading questions even migrant, subsistence farmers try to provide answers they think the researcher wants to hear.
2006: Mulling the World From a Bench on Broadway - New York TimesDr. Schmidt runs a global climate model, called ModelE, out of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a part of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. ModelE is one of about a dozen global models that have been used to project the climate into the future. The results form the basis for international treaties on climate change, including the Kyoto Protocol, and for governmental stances regarding climate change across the world.
ModelE breaks down climate into the basic laws of physics. The equations are written in Fortran, a computer language that is, as Dr. Schmidt puts it, "very old and not very trendy." The computer code is 126,327 lines, to be exact, and when Dr. Schmidt scrolls through it on his computer screen, it looks like nothing so much as an extensive (and incomprehensible) grocery list.
In his office, not long ago, Dr. Schmidt tried to translate a few lines:
QNX=QMO2*BYAM(LMIN+1)
QSATC=QSAT(TNX,LHX,PL(LMIN+1))
DQ=MCLOUD*(QSAT-CQNX)/(1.+SLH*QSATC*DQSATDT(TNX,LHX))
"These lines," he said, "calculate how much water vapor condenses out of air to form a cloud as the temperature decreases."
Realclimate on Climate Hack - NYTimes.comRealclimate, which was launched largely defensively in 2004 (you can read an explanatory note in, you guessed it, the East Anglia e-mails) has matured into a valuable resource for anyone trying to gauge what science has, and has not, revealed about a human influence on the climate system.
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[interesting comment from a reader, “joherz” of Bangor, Me., posted a year ago] Problem is, next time it will be the planet (we are dying, it’s the fault of the climate skeptics, too bad, good-bye!).
Are you all really ready to take THAT risk, especially since a little refresher in high school physics is all you need to understand what is playing itself out in front of our eyes, perhaps in its most extreme manifestations not any more during our own life-time, then surely during the life-time of our children.
Why are we hating our children so much? Or do we simply not care what comes after we are dead and buried (if there is still some around to bury us)?
» Al Gore: Media Didn’t Do Enough on Global Warming - Big GovernmentBut consider also when Gore appeared on 60 Minutes a couple of years ago. After boasting that he was the recipient of a huge bag of money to re-brand as the ‘climate crisis’ what we had just gotten used to calling ‘climate change’ (which had already been rebranded from global cooling, then global warming and before that, I believe, weather), Lesley Stahl asked of his “huge, new $300 million advertising campaign“, “how are you paying for this?”.
Unaccustomed to challenge, this man who keeps the media away from him so he doesn’t have to answer such silly questions trotted out some weasel-wording about passing through profits from his movie to his new endeavor, which stumbling harkened back to his “no controlling legal authority” days (still lacking the dexterity of “I never inhaled” by Bill “Bring More of Those Funny Brownies!” Clinton).
So read his statements yourself in the transcript linked above; I am not aware that his implication that none of it went to him but to an ad campaign (which he ran) has been substantiated, or how much of that money he donated to the new group he heads then paid him for heading it, erasing all difference from any distinction that might exist. All of which is odd for a guy so hell-bent insisting that everyone is motivated by where they get their money. Presumably, like with his lifestyle demands, he means everyone else.
Bitter cold makes its way into Montana | greatfallstribune.com | Great Falls Tribune"There's little to no uncertainty that we're going to see temperatures very cold through Monday or Tuesday," Schott said. "On Wednesday, we might start climbing out of this temperature abyss, but it won't be quick."
Temperatures could stay below freezing until at least next weekend, possibly longer.
Energy Roundup: Key Republican promises bite-sized reforms - The Hill's E2-Wire
“You are never going to see a 1,000 page bill,” Upton said as he departed the Capitol building. “You are never going to see cap-and-trade or a carbon tax.”
He said the country is “ill-prepared” to meet projections of rising electricity demand.
Twitter / Andy RevkinRecap of Republican Bob Inglis trashing denialist Republicans over rejection of human-driven warming: http://j.mp/RepCO2tif
Kimberley Strassel: An Energy Drink for the GOP - WSJ.comThe Republicans have yet to make the billions wasted on job-killing subsidies to green energy projects a top issue.
Twitter / David Roberts@adamwerbach The notable thing about comedies during Green Week is how unfunny they are. That's cause "preachy greens" is boring, cliched.
NBC’s green nagging takes a break for the Prince of Wales documentary ‘Harmony’ | GristFrom what I've seen in the past, NBC's "green week" spots tend to be pretty naggy, all about annoying things you're supposed to do to satisfy the moralistic green police. There's none of the bright green message that a sustainable future can also be sociable, prosperous, and fun. (That's the hope that animates untold young-ish people who see environmental success as inseparable from a more holistic measure of success.)
India can lead in green energy: Al Gore - The Economic TimesWhen pointed out that the US, a major polluter, was still lagging behind in implementing green laws, Gore sought to put the blame on anti-climate lobbies active in his country.
"There are six anti-climate lobbyists for every member of the Senate," he said, adding that such interest groups were making an organised attempt to change the public opinion on climate change by creating false doubts on climate science.
Gore, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize joint award with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the anti-climate lobbies were backed by billions of dollars from the carbon polluting industries in the US.
A climate skeptic speaks out - Washington Post "Deniers" is a derogatory label used by the "settled science" community of alarmists who oversold and sensationalized the impending doom and lost a lot of us in the fury. That group brought us the evolving "global warming," or renamed "climate change," or newly renamed "climate disruption," as a fact. The group also insisted that the warming, change or disruption is caused by humans.
I would venture to say that most skeptics, or even deniers, believe that the planet is evolving, like it has many times before; the debate is whether the warming, change or disruption is strictly caused by humans. I remain skeptical and stay away from both deniers and doomsayers alike. Does that make me a conservative?
Need to speed up process of fighting global warming: Al Gore - Hindustan Times[Gore] We all will have to redouble our efforts. We will have to build strong grass root support to overcome opposition to the climate law by special interest groups. People will have to be made more aware about the dangerous impact of climate change and their voice can bring about the change at the policy level.
... Leaders will have to become political activists and go at the grass root levels to speed up the process of fighting global warming.
The Day - Climate activist seeks recruits for his '350' campaign | News from southeastern ConnecticutHe noted that the 350 campaign involved groups from far-flung parts of the globe, not mainly the "wealthy, white people who've solved their other problems" and who some people assume are the only ones concerned with environmental problems.
"Most of the people were poor and black and brown, and, what do you know - they were just as interested in their futures as we are," he said
Head of UN climate body admits surprise at fury over blunder in report | Environment | guardian.co.uk"Last year we had a tremendous setback because some of the science and some of the numbers were manipulated and that is very damaging because it gives the other side a way in," Schwarzenegger told his summit this week.
Pachauri too suffered damage to his reputation, and faced calls to give up his leadership of the IPCC. However, he won an apology from the Sunday Telegraph for a false report on his business connections.
He also shook off calls for his resignation, and said this week he would stand on as IPCC chief until his term ends in 2014. The science body would be extra vigilant to prevent a repeat of the blunder as it prepares the next report, he said. "We just have to make sure that to the extent humanly possible we don't commit any errors."
The IPCC was already working to restore confidence in its report by issuing new guidelines for how to express uncertainty in scientific reports.
But he said the existing IPCC procedures were already stringent enough to catch future mistakes. He also defended the use of reports by advocacy organisations and official agencies, especially in developing countries which may not have funding for scientific expeditions.
Twitter gaffe: US embassy announces 'crazy bad' Beijing air pollution | Jonathan Watts | Environment | guardian.co.ukThe smog will not have been helped by the massive switch-on of northern China's heating supply last week. Public heating – mostly fuelled by coal – begins on 15 November and ends on 15 March regardless of the temperature.
One of my colleagues has taken to wearing a facemask on his commute through the streets. The Guardian's research assistant, Cui Zheng, prefers not to think about the air we all have to breathe. "I had to stop following the @Beijingair tweets. They were too depressing," she explained.
American Thinker: Brave Old WorldThe effort to discredit global warming skeptics is warming up globally. Australian blogger Graham Readfearn reports on Naomi Oreskes' speaking tour of Australia....
The Polar Amplifier Has Blown A Woofer | Real SciencePolar Amplification is the most fundamental precept of global warming, yet temperatures at the South Pole (fastest warming place on Earth) have been far below normal.
And temperatures at the North Pole (fastest warming place on Earth) are also running cold, after the coldest summer on record.
Global warming theory has a terminal cancer, and it is time for a second opinion from some new doctors.
Climate Engage.orgThomas E. Bowman,1 Edward Maibach,2 Michael E. Mann,3 Richard C. J. Somerville,4 Barry J. Seltser,5 Baruch Fischhoff,6 Stephen M. Gardiner,7 Robert J. Gould,8 Anthony Leiserowitz,9 Gary Yohe10
According to broad international agreement, a global warming increase beyond 2°C is unacceptable (1).
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Because the potential consequences of climate change are so high, the science community has an obligation to help people, organizations, and governments make informed decisions. Yet existing institutions are not well-suited to this task.
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Despite the politically contentious nature of climate change policy, the initiative must be strictly nonpartisan. In the face of efforts to undermine public confidence in science, it must become a trusted broker of unbiased information for people on all sides of the issue.
At NATO summit, Obama's ride is talk of the town - CSMonitor.comWhile the Portuguese prime minister and the Portuguese president of the European Union’s executive commission are tooling around the NATO summit here in no-emission electric vehicles, Mr. Obama is fouling the Lisbon skies with his no-efficiency "Beast," the eight-ton, diesel-fueled behemoth of a limousine the president carts around the world with him.
Obama is expected to discuss climate change and a common US-Europe approach to it when he takes part in a US-European Union (EU) summit after the NATO meeting on Saturday. But in the meantime, the Portuguese capital is being treated to a jarring dichotomy: the polluting "leader of the free world," on one hand, lumbering across town in the Beast with a phalanx of black Secret Service vehicles and Portuguese police motorcycles in tow; and the Europeans zipping around in smart electric vehicles, on the other.
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While Obama’s motorcade is accompanied by the 35 Portuguese police motorcycles, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev – who arrives for a three-hour visit Saturday to participate in a NATO-Russia Council meeting – will get no such treatment.
Joan Baez gets injured after a fall from tree houseJoan Baez resides in a tree house that is 20 feet above the ground, nestled inside an oak tree on her property. The tree that has Joan Baez’s wall-less tree house is 200 years old. Joan Baez fell down from the tree on Wednesday while she was disembarking.
Climate Hypocrite Of The Week: Disney And Selena GomezSelena cruises in huge 4WD SUV in green-gospel song video.
Quadrant Online - Call for climate Royal CommissionA Royal Commission into the science of climate change will allow an honest public debate, free of emotion, based on the evidence.
History demonstrates the science is not “settled” and never will be. Only a Royal Commission into the science of climate change will provide the most climate effective and cost effective solutions in this debate.
Our View: Arnold still hot for global warming - Editorials - Colusa Sun-HeraldThe global warming movement's downward spiral accelerated in the past year after thousands of documents from climate researchers were leaked, revealing manipulation, suppression and possible fraudulent rigging of data to show the world approaching meltdown. In fact, it's the global warming movement that's been melting down, as successive embarrassing disclosures revealed the so-called climate consensus to be built in part on non-peer-reviewed research and activist groups' flawed assertions misrepresented as bona fide scientific studies.
LIEBERMAN: The ecological monster who said . . . peep - Washington TimesCall it the Election Day dog that didn't bark - or, possibly, the oiled bird that didn't fly. The BP oil spill had virtually no impact at the polls on Nov. 2. The fact that the biggest ecological scare of the summer was nearly forgotten by fall says a lot about where the American people stand on energy and environmental issues.
Less than five months after President Obama gave a prime-time TV address hyping the Deepwater Horizon spill as "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced," there is scant evidence that the spill affected even a single congressional race. This was not for lack of trying.
Green energy for Africa puts Britain in the redUNDOUBTEDLY two of the most politically correct ways to dispose of public funds are combating poverty in the developing world and tackling climate change.
So sacred are these causes held to be that there is seldom much scrutiny of whether money spent on them yields useful results.
Now International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has brought them together by launching a programme to equip Africa and Asia with solar panels and wind turbines courtesy of the British taxpayer. So-called “green development” projects are achingly trendy and will probably secure Mr Mitchell rave reviews among fashionable metropolitan opinion.
But among the wider public the suspicion will grow that this spending is more about pandering to the vanity of politicians than it is about clean energy or real economic progress in the Third World.
Barbara Boxer resigned to incremental progress for environment - Daily Democrat Online"Obviously the large ... bill that we wanted is not going to happen at this point," Boxer said during a 45-minute question-and-answer session in her Senate office. But "if we focus on energy efficiency, we can achieve a lot of reductions in carbon pollution."
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While opponents of sweeping climate change legislation clearly have the upper hand in Congress, Boxer said she'll continue to highlight what she sees as the serious environmental threat of global warming through committee hearings on the subject. Republicans will be invited to share their views, Boxer said.
"It will be contentious," she said. "But I think it's very healthy for the American people see the debate unfold."
Iowa City Farmers Fair Teaches Students about Healthy Eating | KCRG-TV9Some of the 320 students in kindergarten through sixth grade were already well-informed.
Tobey Epstein, 7, commented on the relationship between food miles – the distance food travels to get to the table – and global warming.
Fellow second-grader, Sebastian Eivins, 8, asked if it was better for the planet when horses and wagons were used instead of gas-powered vehicles.
Chinese climate envoy wants 'progress' at talks - China.org.cn...Todd Stern, the US special climate envoy, thinks differently, saying countries shouldn't get bogged down on a deadline for carbon emission cuts, Reuters reported.
"I don't personally think so," Stern was cited as saying when asked if there should be a deadline for the climate talks. "I think it should get done when it's ripe."
[Junk] Scientists warn of more rain, heat and hurricanesWASHINGTON — Hungry polar bears gathering along the tundra, twice as many record-breaking temperatures and stronger hurricanes are among the latest signs of climate change, scientists say.
And we can expect more rain, more drought and fiercer storms in the future if the world continues on its fossil-fuel gobbling track, they told reporters on a conference call Wednesday to discuss the year in global warming.
Michael Mann, a leading US scientist, said he just returned from a trip to Churchill, Manitoba, the Canadian shore town famous for its polar bears, where the sea ice they depend on for hunting seals has not yet formed because of warm temperatures.
"When you go up there you see the bears all along the coast on the tundra awaiting the sea ice to form and it hasn't formed yet," Mann said.
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Hurricane expert Greg Holland said the fiercest storms are already showing an uptick in frequency, and more powerful hurricanes lie ahead.
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"We now have consensus statements coming out from the scientists and indeed a lot of regional research is pointing all in the same direction. There is nothing going in the other direction," he said.
"And that is the very intense hurricanes, the very intense (Category) fours and fives are going to increase and they could be doubling or tripling."
Holland also predicted more rain and drought in the coming years.
The Night of the Living Congress People - NYTimes.comThey could not find a single newly elected Republican member of the House or Senate who has publicly accepted the scientific view that greenhouse gases are dangerously warming the planet.
Some of the new members believe the Earth is going through a natural warming cycle, or that observed temperature increases could be caused by sunspots. Others say that there is no scientific consensus on warming and therefore the United States should not take drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Still others say climate change is a fraud, a hoax or a scam perpetrated by scientific and economic elites in order to tax fossil fuels out of existence.
AccuWeather.com - Weather News | Travel Center: Extreme Winter Travel Will Hit Many States Next WeekVery dangerous weather will be developing across the Dakotas late this weekend into early next week. Extremely cold weather and occasional snow will occur across those states. People traveling along I-90 and I-94 should be prepared for extreme winter conditions through Wednesday.
Hoppy's Commentary For Friday - West Virginia Headline News and Talk RadioWest Virginia got some good news this week from the state’s newest U.S. Senator. Sen. Joe Manchin told reporters that he had assurances from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that cap-and-trade would not be taken up by the next Congress.
Michael Levi's Blog » Blog Archive » How not to keep climate science separate from politicsThat’s why I find the opening line of the letter absolutely ridiculous:
“According to broad international agreement, a global warming increase beyond 2°C is unacceptable.”
Pardon? This is a purely political statement.
AccuWeather.com - Weather News | Arctic Cold to Reach East during ThanksgivingVery cold air continues to build over western Canada and will make a move on the East Thanksgiving Day, lasting through the long holiday weekend.
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It is possible places in the Appalachians will not climb above freezing for a two-day stretch from Black Friday to Saturday, while high temperatures over much of the I-95 corridor may struggle to surpass 40 degrees.
VOA | Expectations for Climate Change Conference Limited | Environment | EnglishAt Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, Science policy analyst Neal Lane sees China's commitment as a key part of advancing worldwide action on climate change.
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Lane says he himself was skeptical about how bad these effects might be some years back, but he says the science convinced him of the grave threat.
"When I talked to the people who were doing climate science, who were measuring temperature change, sea level rise and doing the climate modeling, those were the people who were most fearful. Those were the people who felt most strongly about the negative consequences of climate change. So that got my attention," said Lane.
Arnold's climate summit: a final hot-air fest? | Greenspace | Los Angeles Times It was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's third and final "Climate Summit," but the annual gabfest went out with more of a whimper than a bang.
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There seemed to be about 15 regional leaders on the stage of a half-empty UC Davis auditorium Tuesday, but it was hard to tell how many governments were actually signing on to Schwarzenegger's plan because the stage was also crowded with corporate executives, environmental activists and government employees in an effort to drum up excitement.
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Schwarzenegger officials had predicted that about 100 government leaders would sign the pact. But even in the U.S. the reception has been tepid. Besides Doyle, only the governors of Michigan, Oregon and Washington have said they would sign on.
Politics: Will Bipartisanship Ever Be Possible on Climate and Energy? - Ecocentric - TIME.comIn fact in retrospect, the experience was a little depressing, as Margot Roosevelt of the Los Angeles Times points out in a post on the summit.
A number of the more prominent speakers that had been advertised for the summit—like Schwarzenegger's chum James Cameron, certainly a convinced enviro—dropped out and sent video messages. There was a lot of time given over to promotional videos from sponsors like BMW and the Aga Khan Development Network, less to substantiative discussions about the real future of climate policy. At one point a video ran on Schwarzenegger's first climate summit two years ago, which featured a message from then President-elect Barack Obama, promising that his Administration would "mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs." All that did was remind us of how far we'd gone—in the wrong direction. (The fact that the video included a glimpse of disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who attended the 2008 summit in full pompadour, only served to remind the audience of how dated it all was.)
...I don't think you can use science to convince wavering Americans that climate change is the dire threat it really is. (Certainly the stack of TIME cover stories warning about the extreme dangers of climate change haven't done much to move the needle, and we're supposed to be mainstream.)
Climategate is Still the IssueWe have to speak out against this fraud now, and more loudly than ever. We must make our voices heard when we assert that science is about honesty, about openness, about the search for the truth, and that those who reject those principles will no longer be heeded by a public that has been stretched long past the point of credulity.
Once again the UN-funded scientists and politicians are telling us that the hour is nigh, and perhaps, for once, they are right. The end is almost here for those who are trying to establish their global governance in the name of a scientific fraud. If we continue to speak out on this issue, perhaps there will be no UNFCCC conference next year after all.
Reviewing the Bidding on the Climate Files - NYTimes.comno one seriously focused on Capitol Hill and climate ever saw a route to 60 votes on a complicated cap-and-trade bill in a polarized Senate under a Democratic president.
Al's Journal : Koch Industry FactsTo help raise awareness of Koch Industries and its leadership in the climate denial movement, Repower America launched a new website last week called KochIndustriesFacts.com.
Terence Kealey: What Does Climategate Say About Science?To conclude, therefore, scientists are not disinterested, they are interested, and as a consequence science is not dispassionate or fully transparent, rather it is human and partially arcane. As I argue elsewhere, science is not the public good of modern myth, it is a collegiate and quasi-private or invisible college good. That means, by the way, that it requires no public subsidies. More relevantly, it means that individual scientist'f pronouncements should be seen more as advertisements than as definitive.
Climategate One Year on - the Curious Missing Police Report by John O'Sullivan, guest post at Climate Realists | Climate RealistsOne year on and still British police do not report on their Climategate investigations. But with private police investigating the crime are we right to suspect a government cover up?
Summer In Antarctica | Real ScienceMeteorological summer starts in two weeks in the Southern Hemisphere, and the Antarctic meltdown is just getting started. Windchill at Vostok forecast at -97F this week.
Taladega Nights | Real ScienceUSHCN is never one to disappoint. They turned a nighttime long term cooling trend in Taladega, into a steep warming trend (blue line below) – through the power of the modern computer loaded with junk cutting-edge software.
Republicans more 'receptive' to oilsands: official - CTV News"I found them very well-informed and their knowledge of energy issues was very good ... they were well-versed, well-briefed," Mar said.
Antarctic Ice ExplosionAntarctic sea ice simply refuses to melt, and stubbornly remains at a very high level. In fact in 2010 it reached its second highest level ever since satellite measurement began over 30 years ago. Normally Antarctic sea ice peaks at about 18.3 million sq km around September 20.
But this year, Antarctic sea ice reached that value already on about August 9 or so – over 5 weeks early! I’m using the graphic below to draw up these statements.
Hansen : Humans Have More Effect On The Climate Than Ice Ages | Real ScienceWatch out for Sabre Toothed Cats in the garden.
Hansen : South Pole Losing Ice At -40C | Real ScienceThey have a special kind of ice there.
NASA Ice Mass Data : The Smoking Gun | Real ScienceHansen’s map above shows ice loss right at the South Pole.
In the real world, there has actually been a large increase in the amount of ice. The photograph below shows multi-storied buildings at the South Pole, which have become buried in ice and snow since they were built in the mid-1970s.
Extreme cold expected during the next week | Watts Up With That?The Al Gore effect as well as the testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday has caused a massive chunk of Arctic air to descend from Western Canada into the United States. How do temperatures 6o-70F degrees below average sound to folks along the Canadian border? During the next 10-days (or more!), a hemispheric realignment of the large-scale atmospheric circulation will cause a significant decrease in temperatures over North America and Europe. If this regime reinforces itself during the next few weeks, and a negative Arctic Oscillation phase strengthens, the brutally cold temperatures will provide a dramatic reminder that winter is cold regardless of “global warming”. I anticipate plenty of fossil fuel use coming up.
Republicans Poised to Accelerate Climate Change Armageddon | Fog City JournalThe danger to our planet is real. The combination of flooding, heat waves and droughts this past summer were taken by most researchers trained in climate analysis to show that weather extremes are getting worse. And the long-term warming trend over the last century has been well-established. Scientists who study climate are projecting substantial disruptions in water supplies, agriculture, ecosystems and coastal communities.
Is there a scientific consensus on global warming? In the scientific field of climate studies, which includes many disciplines, a consensus can be demonstrated by the number of scientists who have stopped arguing about what is causing climate change. So a consensus in science is different from a political one. There is no vote. Scientists just give up arguing because the sheer weight of consistent evidence is too compelling, the tide too strong to swim against any longer.
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We can expect a continued heads-in-the-sand, do-nothing Congress on global warming for the next two years and possibly beyond. Congress will fiddle while the earth burns.
The public is now so sceptical about global warmingIT SEEMS hard to believe now but until this time last year, declaring yourself a “climate change sceptic” was a bit like admitting to being a banker or the kind of person who puts cats in dustbins for fun.
As a long-time “denier” I remember it well: the heated rows; the sneery put-downs; the whispers that I’d joined the ranks of creation- ists, 9/11 “truthers” and David Icke-style conspiracy theorists who believe the world is secretly controlled by a lizard-headed master race.
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What our political class hasn’t yet realised is that Climategate was just the beginning. Each day new evidence emerges of the junk science of the global warming lobby; and with each new opinion poll, public scepticism rises.
One day, hard questions are going to be asked about the taxpayers’ money which has been squandered in the name of combating a non-existent problem. And when that day comes it won’t just be corrupt scientists’ heads that roll but those of naive politicians also.
Analysts champion US carbon markets despite exchange closure - 19 Nov 2010 - News from BusinessGreenBut in Europe, analysts have insisted the US carbon market can continue to develop, arguing that the closure of the CCX will have little impact on either US or European markets.
"[There are] no implications for the EU and UK," Emilie Mazzacurati, head of carbon research for North America at Point Carbon, told BusinessGreen in an email.
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Mazzacurati also observed that CCX credits had recently traded for "pennies" and that the exchange was coming to its natural end, as it had only ever been set up as a pilot project.
Peter Foster: Canada dodges carbon suicide | FP Comment | Financial PostNo matter what the state of the science, however, anybody who supports unilateral action such as Bill C-311 could only be an economic masochist or a political numbskull. To reiterate: the prospect of international agreement to slash emissions has collapsed; any measures to hobble Canada unilaterally would thus be both economically suicidal and climatologically pointless.
Mr. Harper is to be congratulated. The measure of his success will be the volume of “dinosaur” or “fossil” awards given to Canada at Cancun. Canadian representatives should accept them with pride.
Reuters AlertNet - INTERVIEW-EU not ready to move on climate before US, ChinaLONDON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - The European Union will not harden its existing, carbon emissions pledge into a binding, U.N. decision unless the United States and China do likewise, an unlikely prospect, its chief negotiator said.
Wait a minute--don't they want the vast riches that allegedly await first-movers? And don't they want to save their own children from CO2-induced fiery dry floods?
Minister Carr wants more like “100 metres” Williams | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog If William’s warning - 100 metres in 100 years - is right, and the rise is steady, we might expect to seas to have risen 3 metres already. Could someone check of the Sydney Opera House is taking water?
Let's Deal in Science and Facts - WSJ.comWe published a peer-reviewed paper showing that the forecasting procedures used by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change violated 72 of 89 relevant principles (e.g., "provide full disclosure of methods"). The IPCC has been unable to explain why it violated such principles. In response, we developed a model that follows the principles. Because the climate is complex and poorly understood, our model predicts that global average temperatures will not change.
In testing the models on global temperature data since 1850, we found that the long-range (91-to-100-years ahead) forecast errors from the IPCC's projection were 12 times larger than the errors from our simple model.
Ask a climate scientist: what’s a prominent example of non-anthropogenic global warming? – Rooted The least-well understood non-anthropogenic factor in recent climate change is solar variability.
On Global Warming: He, She or It Is on Our Side | EcoSalon | Conscious Culture and FashionWho knows? Maybe, just maybe, alternative energy technology is a gift from, well, just ask the folks at the Evangelical Climate Initiative.
AFP: Obama pointman dismisses climate change skeptics"I don't think the climate (change) deniers represent anything like a majority or even a very large minority," Stern insisted to reporters in a suburban Virginia hotel at the conclusion of a Major Economies Forum focused on energy policy and climate change.
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Stern however insisted in the United States there is "a significant basis of support and belief among the public for the proposition that climate change and global warming are significant threats, and that action needs to be taken."
After quoting the famous saying in US politics that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts," Stern said: "people who want to look at the facts and pretend they're not there are not in the long run going to do us any good."
Scientific American editors slam science deniers Patrick Michaels and George Gilder for misusing their unscientific online poll « Climate ProgressI asked SciAm editor-in-chief, Mariette DiChristina, to comment on what Michaels did. She replied:
The testimony of Patrick J. Michaels demonstrates the climate-skeptic strategy of systematically selecting portions of a number of actual scientific studies, not just this poll, to make an argument that is counter to the prevailing body of scientific evidence about climate change. The use of an Internet poll that was clearly not scientifically conducted—and made no claims to be—is in keeping with that deceptive practice. The portrayal of graphs and other scientific-looking images are known to improve receptivity to arguments by listeners/viewers. I personally deplore such misrepresentations of science and was dismayed to see Scientific American’s good name put to that purpose.
More broadly, if this country invested more uniformly in quality science education starting in the youngest grades, its citizens would be better equipped to grapple with complex topics in the face of such obfuscation.
Observations: Do 80 percent of Scientific American subscribers deny global warming? Hardly - "Scientific" AmericanRather, the big problem was that the poll was skewed by visitors who clicked over from the well-known climate denier site, Watts Up With That? Run by Anthony Watts, the site created a web page urging users to take the poll.
It sure worked. Our traffic statistics from October 25, when the poll went live, to November 1 (the latest for which we have data on referrals) indicate that 30.5 percent of page views (about 4,000) of the poll came from Watts Up. The next highest referrer at 16 percent was a Canadian blog site smalldeadanimals.com; it consists of an eclectic mix of posts and comments, and if I had to guess, I would say its users leaned toward the climate denier side based on a few comments I saw. Meanwhile, on the other side of the climate debate, Joe Romm's Climate Progress drove just 2.9 percent and was the third highest referrer.
So we were horrified alright---by the co-opting of the poll by Watts Up users, who probably voted along the denier plank. In fact, having just two sites drive nearly half the traffic to the poll assuredly means that the numbers do not reflect the attitudes of Scientific American readers.
Harry Reid’s new chief of staff is top campaign donorKrone also worked as a lobbyist for Duke Energy in the early 2000s while that company was lobbying Reid on energy measures concerning geothermal projects in Nevada and establishing a national commission on energy and climate change — though a spokesman for Krone told the Center for Public Integrity that he never lobbied on energy issues.
Climate Skepticism in U.S. Bewilders Other Nations, Negotiator Stern Says - BloombergSkepticism in the U.S. about climate change bewilders other nations after midterm congressional elections in which opposition to global warming became an issue, Obama administration climate negotiator Todd Stern said.
“People from around the world look at some of the things that people who were running for the Senate or the House said, and some of the positions that were taken,” and “there is puzzlement,” Stern said yesterday at a news briefing in Arlington, Virginia.
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Still, Americans need to be educated about global warming, he said.
“The message needs to be disseminated,” Stern said. While “climate deniers” represent a minority, “there’s no question it is something that needs to be addressed and dealt with in this country,” he said.
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“The process can’t continually stalemate and remain the locus of activity,” Stern said. If the Cancun talks and meetings in South Africa next year fall short, it will become clear at some point that “it’s not going to work,” he said.
Lawrence Solomon: On climate, Senate reflects Will of the People | FP Comment | Financial PostAs in other western democracies, the Canadian public has become increasingly sceptical over the years over claims that human activity leads to dangerous global warming. According to this year’s Climate Confidence Monitor survey, just 29% of Canadians consider global warming to be among their chief concerns, down from 34% in 2008. Ex-Liberal Leader Stephan Dion learned that the hard way, when he ran a federal election campaign on a platform highlighting a carbon tax. The Liberals then suffered its worst electoral defeat since Confederation.
Thank you, Senate, for fulfilling your role under the Canadian constitutional system.
Google Translate - The Danes did not address firms trading CO2 allowances and was defrauded of 38 billion. In two year, scammers from around the world free rein to commit fraud with quotas for 38 billion Danish kroner by the Danish emissions trading registry.
...It was while the EU's current climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, the climate and energy that registered dropped the requirement for documentation from them that would sell permits.
...It is inconceivable that Connie Hedegaard not even have demanded an investigation of the case long ago, "he said.
Disarmament In America's Energy Security Battles - Forbes.comCurrent Obama administration battle strategies directed toward futile wars to control climate change and free America from fossil dependence are hindering, not advancing, progress toward lasting energy security. Development of abundant power and fuel sources--which we will continue to rely on--is being restrained by regulatory headlocks in favor of much higher-cost "renewable" and "green" alternatives with relatively scant capacity prospects.
Proponents of such policies would have us imagine an autonomous nation powered and fueled by limitless sunbeams, friendly breezes and amber waves of grain-producing-alcohol that sever reliance upon dirty coal mines, oil rigs and smokestacks (those ugly industries that presently heat our homes, fuel our cars and power our computers). How can we possibly resist such a vision? Well maybe it's a bit easier to do so after we observe European experiences.
Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser won’t have kids for green reasons [VIDEO] | GristActor Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Pete Campbell on Mad Men, tells MSNBC, "I've been a vegetarian for four years and I have chosen not to have children also, which are both green choices in my life."
News of cap and trade’s demise may have been exaggerated | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment“They don’t have the numbers, but the administration is working hard on imposing cap and trade through regulation,” Republican Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe told The Daily Caller.
The senator predicts Carol Browner, President Obama’s climate change czar, will circumvent Congress and use executive branch regulatory power to implement cap and trade.
Poor nations say rich fail on climate aid pledge | Energy & Oil | ReutersPoor nations suspect that rich nations, facing budget cuts at home, are simply relabelling many old projects as new.
CBC News - Consumer Life - Consumerism causes climate change: pollSeventy per cent of those polled said military spending should be redirected toward reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. And 80 per cent said the federal government should create "green" jobs — employment for workers no longer engaged in mining fossil fuels.
The survey also indicated 77 per cent of Canadians believe a tribunal should be established to penalize countries whose economic actions damage or threaten the environment.
Homeless Shelters Prepare for Cold Snap | KEZIEUGENE, Ore. -- A group of dedicated volunteers doesn't want another homeless person to die from sleeping in the cold. Egan Warming Center organizers say they're preparing for when the thermostat drops to 28 degrees.
The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media » A Yale Forum Two-Part Special Feature:Scientists and Journalists on ‘Lessons Learned’ (Pt. 1)Malcolm K Hughes...
A number of climate scientists have learned that simply trying to do a good, responsible, and honest job of climate research according to established standards of professional conduct can lead to their becoming objects of suspicion, derision, disdain, and even hate. Some have already been subject to this for several years.
Many climate scientists are also learning that this surging assault on their integrity and that of their field is not a coincidence, but is the consequence of organized campaigns of disinformation. These have been originated by ideological, political and economic interests, and amplified by the technique of inciting what can only be described as mob behavior on the Internet and over the airwaves.
As a clearly intended consequence of the organized campaigns of disinformation, this “climate science is a hoax” propaganda has spread widely in the political arena.
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Richard C. J. Somerville
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The climate science community has learned that it is in the cross-hairs of a ruthless disinformation campaign. The campaign is run by economic, political, and ideological interests opposed to many proposed policies that might deal meaningfully with the threat of climate disruption. This disinformation campaign is professional, well-funded, and highly effective. Its purpose is to destroy the credibility of mainstream climate science.
Polling data show that this campaign has already been successful in many ways.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: my future as a green activist | Environment | The GuardianFilm star turned California governor prepares to leave office and become a global champion in war against climate change
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In what is likely his last performance on a world stage as governor, Schwarzenegger this week launched the R20 climate network, an alliance of regional leaders who have pledged to work together to fight climate change. Schwarzenegger is the "founding father" of the new venture, a self-appointed global champion in the war against climate change.
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But don't expect to see Schwarzenegger touring an Al Gore-style scientific slideshow. The governator's version of environmental leadership hinges on avoiding mention of the words climate change or greenhouse gas emissions, which he thinks are a turn-off for some people. "People get stuck and fall in love with their slogans and with their little agendas," he said. "You've got to make it hip. You've got to make it sexy to be part of this movement."
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Schwarzenegger managed to rustle up some big names. David Cameron joined in a video satellite conversation. Prince Charles sent a video talking about harmony. The primatologist Jane Goodall sent a rendition of a chimpanzee greeting. Harrison Ford and Deepak Chopra came in person, as did a couple of governors.
But those governors, like Schwarzenegger, will soon be leaving office. Officials from China, the world's largest emitter, were at the meeting, but did not sign on. By lunchtime, a Dutch official, who did sign on, was telling his dining companions he thought it was another empty promise.
Alternative Energy Research Highlighted at Vancouver Engineering Conference « Roy Spencer, Ph. D.Other than one lady in the audience who interpreted my message as part of a right-wing conspiracy to thwart saving the Earth from evil corporations bent on destroying it (OK, so I’m exaggerating), the audience was largely sympathetic to the outrageous minority view that climate might be able to (gasp!) change all by itself.
U.S. Department of Energy - 600 New Lights Bulbs to Improve Energy Efficiency at DOE | DOE BlogStarting in September, the Department of Energy has been steadily replacing all 600 light fixtures [What was the total cost of doing this?] under our Washington, D.C., Forrestal North Building canopy with state of the art Light Emitting Diode (LED) fixtures. Every new bulb now uses just 23 watts instead of 205 watts. That translates into almost half a million kilowatts hours saved every year. and will cut annual energy consumption at the Department of Energy Headquarters by about 1%.
Michael Levi's Blog » Blog Archive » Is Gas Just as Bad as Coal?In particular, some commenters (responding to a reprint of the piece over at Mother Jones) have raised the question of whether, once you include emissions not only from power generation but also from production and distribution, gas might actually be just as bad as coal. They point to an analysis (just updated earlier this week) by Cornell professor Robert Howarth claiming that when you account for the whole “lifecycle” of natural gas – particularly the release of methane into the atmosphere – it’s actually worse than coal.
An Inconvenient Mind - NYTimes.comOf course another interpretation would simply be to posit that those rejecting the alarming visions of a human-unraveled climate are illustrating another solid human trait — skepticism about overwrought claims in the absence of hard evidence ( don’t expect that any time soon) or direct experience ( same deal, at least in prosperous places).
Airports A Tarmac Tale « Musings from the ChiefioWant to cure “Global Warming”? Move the thermometer from the airport to the city park…
johnosullivan - Global Warming Biologist Suspected of Fraud in Suspicious Study Australian biologist, Roslyn Gleadow of Monash University, Melbourne raised eyebrows recently in her much trumpeted alarmist paper, 'Growth and nutritive value of cassava are reduced when grown in elevated CO2'. Now she deepens suspicions of wrongdoing by storming out of a media interview.
THE HOCKEY SCHTICK: Dr. Patrick Michaels: IPCC Forecasts are Incorrect...An additional and important discrepancy between the models and reality extends into the lower atmosphere as well. In the lower atmosphere, climate models expectations are that the degree of warming with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations should be greater than that experienced at the surface, with the lower atmosphere warming about 1.4 times faster than the average surface temperature. Despite claims that observations and models are in agreement (Santer et al., 2008), new analyses incorporating a large number of both observational datasets as well as climate model projections, clearly and strongly demonstrate that the surface warming (which itself is below the model mean) is significantly outpacing the warming in the lower atmosphere—contrary to climate model expectations. Instead of exhibiting 40% more warming than the surface, the lower atmosphere is warming 25% less—a statistically significant difference (Christy et al., 2010).
Professor Richard Lindzen’s Congressional Testimony | Watts Up With That?You now have some idea of why I think that there won’t be much warming due to CO2, and without significant global warming, it is impossible to tie catastrophes to such warming. Even with significant warming it would have been extremely difficult to make this connection.
Perhaps we should stop accepting the term, ‘skeptic.’ Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. Twenty years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible. Quite the contrary, the failure to improve the case over 20 years makes the case even less plausible as does the evidence from climategate and other instances of overt cheating.
In the meantime, while I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age.
Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, Nov 18th 2010 « The Daily BayonetAl Gore, once the big man in the global warming world, is shrinking faster than the wicked witch of the west in a cold shower.
Why climate science isn't science, Part Whatever | NJ.comThe climate-change establishment has tried to eliminate any who dare question the science. This was made very clear in the Climategate Letters, which reveal the blacklisting of research that strays from the party line with the aid of hostile peer reviewers and helpful editors, and threats to any journal that did not cooperate – in some cases leading to the removal of editors.
Climate change science needs a "team B." This happens in many other areas, for example, weapons systems for DoD, or intelligence assessments at CIA. Both of these organizations, and many others, routinely establish robust team B's, that is, groups of experts who work full time, sometimes for several years, to challenge the establishment position.
This has given us much better weapons systems and intelligence. The team-B concept has not been embraced by the climate change establishment. Indeed, we read testimony by Dr. James Hanson in the Congressional Record, that climate skeptics are guilty of "high crimes against humanity and nature." There are many similarly intimidating statements made by establishment climate scientists and by like-thinking policy-makers – you are either with us or you are a traitor.
Buh-Bye: Outgoing Rep. Inglis Blasts GOP Skepticism on Global Warming - NYTimes.comOutgoing Republican Rep. Bob Inglis (S.C.) broke with his party today and publicly vented his frustration about the apparent turn toward climate skepticism in the next Congress, when Republicans will take control of the House.
Inglis, who has served six terms in the House, was soundly defeated by a more conservative opponent in a Republican primary this year and has blamed the loss in part on his belief in climate science, which hurt him with voters. Inglis made his frustration clear this morning at a House Science subcommittee hearing on the science of climate change.
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Inglis, ranking member of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee, also took aim at "people who make a lot of money on talk radio and talk TV saying a lot of things. They slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and they're experts on climate change. They substitute their judgment for people who have Ph.D.s and work tirelessly" on climate change.
Oprah Winfrey goes house-hunting along the Hudson, including at the $68 million mansion on the grounds of the former Frick estate - NYPOST.com Among the homes on her must-see list: a $68 million manse on the sprawling grounds of the old Frick estate in Alpine, NJ, the sources said.
Oprah's three-car caravan, including two black SUVs and a van, pulled into the ritzy enclave before noon yesterday, a source said.
The billionaire then toured the 30,300-square-foot, English-manor-style mansion, which is part of the lavish "Estates at Alpine."
Workers and others on the grounds were asked to make themselves scarce while Oprah checked out the five-story, 19-bedroom and 12-bathroom spread, according to one source.
Flashback: "Living with less" the Oprah Winfrey wayLeonardo DiCaprio and Oprah Winfrey are the greenest celebrities in the world, according to a new poll to unearth the most popular eco-friendly stars.
NPR.org » Foreign Policy: GOP Know-Nothings And SnookiismBe afraid. Be very afraid. Mainstream, rock-ribbed, you-can't-make-me-flinch Republicans are. One former leader of the party I spoke with the other night said, "We've never seen anything like them. The Gingrich 'Contract with America' revolution was mild by comparison." Representative Bob Inglis (R-SC), attacking the play to the lowest-common I.Q. of the base, said, "We're getting what we deserve."
America's first know-nothings were a mid-19th century collection of nativists who dreaded "foreign" influences on the American way of life. Reactionary as they were, we may someday see them as a collection of Rhodes Scholars and Nobel Prize Winners compared to their lineal political descendents who make up the current crew of Republican extremists now flexing their recently pumped up muscles in the Congress. Knowing nothing would be an improvement for this group which defiantly embraces the wrong, the indefensible, the illogical and the absurd with their only apparent criteria for taking a position being that it feels good for their adrenaline-stoked base. Facts, science, knowledge, and reality are all seen as the tools of elites, weapons against common folks who have gotten along just fine believing in foolish ideas for all these years.
The roots for the current movement could be found in the arguments of creationists against teaching the science of evolution in the schools. But today we have a new generation of fundamentalists ... climate creationists, foreign policy creationists, deficit creationists ... for whom arithmetic and history are simply the tools of the devil.
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2. The battle for the House Energy and Commerce chairmanship has illustrated well how truly demented this debate has become. In order to promote his own candidacy to be chairman, Texas Representative Joe Barton has circulated a Rush Limbaugh authored commentary on the front runner for the position, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), in which an attempt is made to discredit Upton due to the fact that he actually appears to believe in (at least some of) the science surrounding climate change. The implication: you can't be a true Republican and believe in science.
...those on the other side are actually immune to rational argument, by definition allergic to it.
It now falls to the mainstream Republican leadership, especially to presumptive Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), to control this group and limit its worst traits. And all spirited Americans who can read and write ought to be pulling for him. Because if he fails, America will face the threat of the spread of a strain of reckless demagoguery unprecedented in our history, a Snookidemic that threatens to effectively lobotomize the body politic.
Flashback: American Thinker: How Public Is NPR's Funding?This brings our total of taxpayer support for the entire NPR budget to around 23%.
IPCC Official: “Climate Policy Is Redistributing The World's Wealth”Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world's resources will be negotiated.
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[Edenhofer] First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.
Feeding Back Nonsense | Real ScienceHansen says that ice ages are driven by very small changes in Earth’s orbit, which get massively multiplied by changes in greenhouse gases (i.e H2O and CO2.)
However, when talking about solar “forcings” the story is different. Hansen says that changes in the sun’s output are “too small” to have much effect on the climate.
So why doesn’t he believe in the same massive solar feedback as he claims for orbital cycles and small increases in CO2? Is feedback somehow prejudiced against the Sun?
C3: A Failed Climate Prediction Twofer: Global Warming Alarmists Get Both Droughts and Floods WrongAnother example is the prediction that global warming will cause contemporaneously drought and flood conditions. Because skeptics possess objective analysis characteristics, combined with rational common sense traits that favor actual empirical science, the predictions of simultaneous drought and flood conditions seemed to be obviously bogus scare-predictions. As it so commonly happens, a new peer-reviewed study determines the skeptics' hard-wired bogus B.S. detectors were correct and the 'crooks & liars' alarmists were wrong, again.
EU Referendum: Winter Weather Awareness WeekIn an almost perfect parody of themselves, the warmists are seriously telling us that colder winters could be a sign of global warming. This is just as well because the Scots are being warned that this winter could be worse than last year's record-breaking cold snap.
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Fortunately, the warmists are so closeted in their towers of unreality that they have not the first idea quite how stupid they look, or how their pronouncements are treated by ordinary mortals – mostly with derision.
Andrew Revkin [takes yet another fossil-fueled trip, this time to Colorado] His reporting on the politic struggles over climate policy consistently led all competitors. In 2005 and 2006, he exclusively exposed efforts by political operatives to rewrite government climate reports in the White House and prevent NASA scientists from conveying their views on warming. His stories were quickly followed by the resignations of two presidential appointees.
Flashback: Physician, heal thyself: Amusing revelations from left-wing planet healer Andy RevkinAfter lecturing us for decades about global warming and the evils of fossil fuel, he reveals that since 1996, he's been living in a house with substandard insulation, heated by an unmaintained oil burner.
American Thinker: The Left and Energy PolicyEven if the left's actions are reversed following 2012 with the election of a Republican president and Senate, America will be years behind its global competition for new energy. Once China, India, and Brazil have secured rights to the world's energy resources, these resources will be off-limits to American companies. It is as if Obama were sitting in the White House thinking night and day about how to destroy America's energy industry while forcing Americans everywhere to pay more for fuel. That may seem unlikely to some readers, but for a president whose closest supporters believe that gas prices of $10 a gallon would not be a bad thing, it sounds about right to me.
Climate Lessons: Do Climate Know-It-Alls make good teachers or preachers? - a musical offering.I’m very good at scariness and all degrees of fearfulness
I know how children get those nightmares quite horribilis
In short, in matters terrible, fearful and excitable
I am the very model of a modern Climate-KnowItAll.
I know our media’s trickery, in Nature and the NYT
I dish out press releases and they headline anything from me
I quote in elegiacs all the flaws of Homo Sapiens
With polemics I can dazzle almost any leftwing audience.
Climate Change Champion [Hoax] Sebastian Giraud What a couple of months it's been! There's been the launch of my project to reduce the carbon footprint of my school, the launch of the Welsh Assembly Government's Climate Change Strategy, HRH Prince Charles' Start Festival, a TV Interview and gosh, much much more!
New Climate Change Thriller “Melting Down” to Launch in Spring 2011 on Environmental ExpertLOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Harvey Stone, environmental consultant for corporations, municipalities, and government agencies, penned an environmental thriller about a terrorist plot to exploit the global consequences of climate change and seize control of the world’s energy sector. Published by independent press The Way Things Are Publications, Melting Down’s use of political intrigue, suspense, and action that span the globe dramatically demonstrates both the science and the impact of climate change.
Amid the climate gloom life goes on and nature thrivesThe alarmist claims of eco-warriors such as Al Gore have suggested melting polar ice caps will cause sea levels to rise by seven metres over the next century, with catastrophic results for coastal cities globally. The best guess of the United Nations climate panel says that sea levels will not rise more than half a metre in that period. The climate economist Richard Tol has shown that rising temperatures would actually deliver a range of benefits to the planet and to mankind, including reduced energy costs for many. For most of earth's 4.5 billion year history, life has developed most quickly, with the greatest diversity, in periods without ice caps.
Getting genetic leg up on climate change | Harvard Gazette A Harvard botanist is citing climate change lessons learned at Walden Pond and urging evolutionary biologists into the global warming fray, where their knowledge of species’ genetic relationships can inform climate change predictions and guide mitigation efforts.
Rutgers Prof: Having Lots of Kids is Like Littering | Blogs | NCRegister.com Rutgers University Professor Helen Fisher, of the Center for Human Evolution Studies has written for Oprah Magazine and today was on the Joy Behar show talking about women making the choice to be childless. She described having lots of children as littering. But truly that barely rises to the surface as the most offensive thing in this panel discussion from hell.
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