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It's official: December WAS the chilliest in 120 years | Mail OnlineIf you thought December was the coldest you could remember, you were right... unless you are more than 120 years old.
The benchmark Central England Temperature plunged to an average of -0.6c (30.9f) over the month, making it the second harshest December since records began in 1659.
It was beaten only by the -0.8c (30.5f) average for December 1890, weather historian Philip Eden said last night. It was also the chilliest individual calendar month since February 1986.
Skepticism Is for ‘Rubes’ : The Other McCainReally intelligent people, you see, believe whatever they’re told by the experts:
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Other doomsayers have learned the lesson of Ehrlich’s example. Nowadays, the purveyors of climate-change “consensus” talk about what will happen in 50, 100 or 200 years. The beauty of putting Doomsday in the fairly distant future is that your prediction cannot be falsified any time soon. By the time anyone can determine whether your forecasts were accurate, you’ll be mouldering in the grave.
BBC News - Zoos 'have role' protecting wild polar bearsBut Mr Richardson said: "If you went back 10 plus years ago and asked me should we be maintaining polar bears in captivity, I probably would have said 'no'.
"There wasn't really any conservation need, but now they have become the poster child for climate change."
NDDOT: 18 Drivers Rescued On Closed I-29 Friday Night | WDAY | Fargo, NDThe North Dakota Department of Transportation says 18 drivers were rescued on I-29 from Fargo to Grand Forks overnight. Some were taken to Altru Hospital with frostbite and other cold-weather injuries. The DOT is urging drivers to stay off closed roadways so that they do not become stranded.
BBC News - Ten ships, 600 crew trapped in frozen Sea of OkhotskRescue efforts are under way to evacuate more than 600 crew on 10 ships trapped in ice in the Sea of Okhotsk.
The ice is up to 30cm (12 inches) thick in some places, according to the Russian news agency Itar-Tass.
Question For Monbiot/Romm : How Many People Have Been Killed By Carbon Taxes So Far This Winter? | Real ScienceAccording to Age UK (formerly Help the Aged and Age Concern), more than 30,000 older people die every year from preventable causes over the winter months.
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“Behind these shocking statistics lie deep-seated social issues, such as 3.5 million older people in fuel poverty – a figure that could rise even further under the combined pressure of soaring energy bills and plummeting temperatures.”
Germany Talks Solar, But Goes Coal. | hauntingthelibraryI’m sure you’ve all seen the news articles condemning the energy policies of your country, and comparing them unfavourably to the shining green energy future being built in Germany. According to these articles, Germany is pretty much going solar for its power from now on, in a determined bid to cut its carbon emissions.
The only thing is, that story just isn’t true. Germany is powered by coal and, away from the climate summits and the international Earth Day junkets, is arguing powerfully to maintain subsidies on coal! Let’s take a look at what Germany’s real energy policy is.
Warning Signs: Humans! Get Over Yourself!We are now 11,500 years since the last ice age and the next one is due any day now. The Earth has been in one of its cyclical cooling periods for a decade, the result of less solar activity, also a cyclical event.
Sky News: Chilling out taken to new lowWim Hof known as the 'Ice Man' bared almost everything to stand in container of ice cubes up to his neck.
He set a new record in the New Years stunt enduring one hour and 50 minutes in the deep freeze.
The Dutch daredevil says he hopes to send a message about global warming.
Life in Japan disrupted by BlizzardBlizzard, snow and avalanche crippled normal life in Japan, causing traffic rush during New Year holiday and casualties in some parts of the country. Four men on patrol at a ski resort in the town of Kofu, Tottori Prefecture in western Japan were killed in an avalanche Friday, authorities said.
Twitter / Andy Revkin: @tan123 Untrue. I've alway ...@tan123 Untrue. I've always noted #AGW is long-haul issue; fights over attributing real-time events are distraction. http://j.mp/WarmWaff
As we count the cost of the freeze, Government prepares for global warming - TelegraphThe authorities continue to prepare for 'rising temperatures' despite a succession of unprecedentedly cold winters, says Christopher Booker
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As we emerge, temporarily perhaps, from weeks of the coldest weather since records began – with snow disasters right round the northern hemisphere, from the US and Europe to China and Mongolia – more examples come to light of how the cost of extreme cold is far greater than that of warming. We already have a £9.6 billion backlog to cover repairs to roads damaged in previous winters, and the price of repairing the potholes and crumbling asphalt caused by this winter’s even more intense cold threatens to raise that by billions more (even though Government cuts will trim that budget by 15 per cent).
Hottest Year Ever : Coldest Year In England Since 1986 | Real ScienceThe ninth coldest year in the last century.
Monbiot : Heat Freezes Pipes! | Real ScienceMonbiot studying the Nixon White House playbook. These people can never admit that they were wrong.
What we need in 2011 is an opposition - TelegraphA third hugely important issue on which all our main parties are unanimous is the grotesque hijacking of our energy policy through the obsession of our political class and the EU with global warming. As we shiver through a third freezing winter in a row, heading towards an unprecedented energy crisis, all that matters to them is their infatuation with building thousands more useless and absurdly expensive windmills. Last Thursday night, the amount of electricity supplied to the grid by wind turbines was again a mere one thousandth of the total. Again we were importing 40 times that much power from France, generated by nuclear reactors.
A Snow-Filled Glimpse Of America’s Future -- In These TimesThough no single mega-storm is the fault of climate change, scientists agree that weather—including snow patterns—will become more intense as the planet’s ecosystem is transformed by human-produced pollution. So while New York’s near-record snowstorm may not be the direct result of unbridled carbon emissions, powerful storms like it will undoubtedly be more frequent thanks to our head-in-the-sand attitude toward the environment.
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A real-time counter to demagogues’ more sensational predictions of our doomsday, New York’s winter trouble presents the nation’s gloomy future in more banal — but equally troubling — terms. The blizzard suggests that America’s decline will not look like an Armageddon-ish explosion in Washington. It will look like a traffic-snarling snowdrift in Queens.
The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : 2011 Prediction: Media Hits New "Warming" LowYes, the world changes and, of course, if something happens then you did it and their agenda would change it. Even if after billions of dollars and several decades they cannot make their case and are reduced to doing what they started with. Primitively pointing to the world around them and shrieking that the witch -- now, the SUV -- did it.
Expect the media to run with this.
The politics of Mind Your Own Damn Business for the New YearGlobal warming is a side show that has taken the public’s eyes off of real environmental problems and the real need to break the oil market – not just reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. If I can give the world one thing in 2011 it will be a far better explanation of what I am trying to get across with that point. We need alternative energy.
- Bishop Hill blog - Slingo on climate modelsThere is an interesting interview with Julia Slingo at Nature's website at the moment. No mention of climate change, but the twin spectres of Pakistan floods and Russian warmth doing service in its place as a means to drum up support for the Met Office's hoped-for new supercomputer. Scaremongering has served the weather/climate community for so long, I guess it's hard to break the habit.
The Nissan Leaf – a perfect use for that unwanted Christmas jumper | Environment | guardian.co.ukDriving the Leaf to Charles Darwin's old home, Down House, in Surrey it began to snow. But switching the heating on has an unfortunate side-effect – the battery-range display plummeted from 77 to 54 miles. You can see why people talk about "range anxiety" with electric cars, even on this one, which officially goes for 110 miles on a full charge. Fortunately, having the lights and Radio 4 on don't have such a dramatic effect.
Year In Review: Science Stories Of 2010 : NPRFLATOW: I noticed on your DotEarth site, speaking of the wacky weather we've had at the end of the year, people have been trying to decide: Is this global warming? Is it not global warming? Is it a sign? How do you get a cold, cold, snowy winter into a global warming scenario?
Mr. REVKIN: Well, you know, God, this gets batted around. I did a piece two or three years ago, when there was snow in Johannesburg, "Can a Climate Campaign Survive a Cooling Test," essentially saying weather - not just weather, climate, has implicit natural variability in it on very - all kinds of time scales: years, months, decades.
And anyone who thinks there's a smooth curve into the future, which is kind of the way science kind of portrays these things with graphs, you kind of get the expectation that warming is just that. But there's a lot of wiggles on the way.
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FLATOW: So you're saying that peer review is going to be a wider audience than just the peer reports.
Mr. REVKIN: Well, I think there's layers. Peer review is becoming a layered process more than it ever was, where it usually was behind closed doors, just happening as an idea was tested, put in a journal.
And now with the Web, it's - there's dynamic, real-time peer review, as well, and more and more, scientists are putting their ideas out in that realm simultaneously. And that, you know, I think in the long run, it's going to be okay.
71 months and counting … | Andrew Simms | Comment is free | guardian.co.ukRoughly, when this blog counts down to zero, the odds of getting "locked-in" to crossing the global warming danger line of temperatures rising by 2C becomes worse than 50/50. Not a number so large that only a savant could imagine it, but something more likely than coming up "heads" on the toss of a coin. With odds like that you might expect a flurry of activity, a rush to save energy, a great crushing of urban 4x4s, a drive to change the nations infrastructure.
Why even skeptics should tackle climate change - CNNI recently returned to Amsterdam from the latest round of U.N. climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, and found this city of canals covered in snow. It was a beautiful sight. Yet rather than filling me with joy, it caused me concern.
Over the past few years, climate-change skeptics have repeatedly used cold snaps as proof that our planet is not heating up.
AD: ‘A Step-Change in Earth’s Climate Outlooks?‘ by Dennis T. Avery , 1/1/11“The key question is,” says British Transport Minister Philip Hammond, “if there was a ‘step change’ in the UK weather, what would it look like? The answer is, of course, it would look like what we have seen in recent years. Hence there is no logical case to say there hasn’t been a step change.”
Little Green Footballs - Fox News Stokes the Climate Change Denial MachineLott is trying to denigrate the reliability of climate science, a typical denier’s tactic; but the real lesson of his list of “botched forecasts” is that climate predictions are becoming increasingly accurate as scientific knowledge increases, and techniques and models are refined.
Ambulance crews hit by freak rise in 999 callouts (From The Northern Echo) A spokesman for NEAS said some of the spike in demand can be attributed to an increase in patients reporting respiratory problems, along with slips, trips and falls due to the recent cold weather.
Croat scientist warns ice age could start in five years - General News - Croatian Times Online News - English NewspaperA leading scientist has revealed that Europe could be just five years away from the start of a new Ice Age.
While climate change campaigners say global warming is the planet's biggest danger, renowned physicist Vladimir Paar says most of central Europe will soon be covered in ice.
Green police cars are too small | Courier Mail QUEENSLAND Police have been left red-faced over its choice of new "green" patrol cars.
The service boasts it is going green, taking delivery of 100 hybrid Toyota Camrys. Shame no one checked the boot size. Frontline officers say the boots of the new patrol cars are too small to carry all their essential equipment, including flak jackets and emergency equipment.
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The police union said the decision showed how far removed top brass were from the frontline that they could approve cars that aren't big enough to be useful.
Extinction Countdown: Another record year for manatee deathsFrigid waters off the coast of Florida have killed a record number of endangered manatees this year, according to state wildlife officials. The manatee—full name, the West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus)—has been protected by the Endangered Species Act since 1974.
As of December 10, 699 manatee deaths had been documented this year in Florida waters, 244 of which were attributed to "cold stress." Most of the year's deaths occurred in January during what the National Weather Service called Florida's coldest 12-day period since 1940.
This year's death toll tops last year's record of 429 deaths, 56 of which were caused by unusually cold weather. That was more than twice the number of cold-related deaths in 2008.
Fish farmers dealing with major lossesPLANT CITY - Fish farmers throughout Florida are wrapping up 2010 with a big loss. They estimate that they will end up losing three quarters of their fish as a result of the freezes we just went through.
"I have been in the business 30 years," said Marty Tanner of Aquatica Tropicals in Plant City. “I have been through the Christmas freeze, the ‘no name storm,’ but this has to be one of the hardest freezes I have ever been through."
To make matter worse, farmers still haven't recovered from the massive 11 day freeze we had back in January. They took a big financial loss then too.
On Eve of New Climate Regs, A Primer on the Federal Greenhouse Gas Regime: Part I - ScienceInsider The more divisive efforts are for regulating power plants, refineries, and big factories which emit greenhouse gases. Starting Sunday, new facilities require a permit if they are expected to emit 100,000 tons of CO2 (or equivalent greenhouse gas) a year. Existing plants that emit 100,000 or more tons will need a permit in July; starting Sunday existing plants will need permits if they plan to add 75,000 tons of new capacity.
On Eve of New Climate Regs, A Primer, Part II: Lawsuits - ScienceInsiderEPA's efforts rest on three pillars. Last year the agency finalized an official "endangerment finding" declaring that greenhouse gasses endanger public health or welfare. Then they set up rules to regulate those emissions from cars. Following that they proposed rules to define which sizes of existing or new industrial facilities required regulation, and when.
All three elements are at issue in one mega-case being litigated in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Hypocrisy? George Monbiot Criticizes Astroturfed Campaigns Whilst Leading Astroturfed Campaign. | hauntingthelibraryMonbiot is the “honorary president” of an internet organisation called The Campaign Against Climate Change [CCC] - http://www.campaigncc.org/whoweare . What does the CCC do? Well . . . it scans the internet for articles on global warming and directs its army of supporters to the comments sections in the hope of influencing the debate.
“We are trying to create an online army” the website of the CCC proudly declares.
New York Times 2000: “sledding and snowball fights are as out-of-date as hoop-rolling” | hauntingthelibraryOppenheimer even had a tear-jerking personal angle on the ‘absence of snow’ in modern winters. The New York Times writer mournfully announced that snow-balls fights are now as outdated as hoop-rolling, and quoted Oppenheimer on the pathetic spectacle of the unused sled in his stairwell, symbol of a warming world:
But it does not take a scientist to size up the effects of snowless winters on the children too young to remember the record-setting blizzards of 1996. For them, the pleasures of sledding and snowball fights are as out-of-date as hoop-rolling, and the delight of a snow day off from school is unknown.
It is really cold in slumsIslamabad
The current wave of cold is affecting almost everyone, but its real harshness can be seen in slums of the capital where families are living without any proper shelter to keep themselves safe from vagaries of harsh weather conditions.
During cold nights when all of us sit close to heaters munching dry fruits, the gypsy families shiver in their makeshift huts where cold air makes its way from all sides.
Winter, coupled with rain, brings misery for those living in slums of sectors I-10 and I-11 every year. They have no health facilities and their children suffer from various diseases caused by freezing cold weather.
Believe it or not, climate debate heats up THE climate scientist Neville Nichols has long believed his role was research, not advocacy. But when he woke on the morning following the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, turned on his TV and caught his breath after witnessing the shocking aerial footage of what was once Marysville, he instinctively blamed himself.
''My initial thought was 'Is this my fault? Has this happened because I haven't been out there saying that this stuff is going to have catastrophic consequences for us?'''
''It is the first time I have ever been shaken from my belief that I shouldn't be an advocate on climate change.''
Dutch weather may spoil New Year’s dips | Radio Netherlands WorldwideThe unseasonably cold weather in the Netherlands has led to some New Year’s dips being cancelled. There were meant to be 81 places in the Netherlands where those hardy enough, or just foolhardy, would be able to take a cold plunge in the water outdoors.
So far, Dutch food brand Unox, which sponsors the dips, has announced 17 cancellations.
gulftoday.ae | Aquino abolishes 10 top agenciesMANILA: President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino has issued an executive order formalising the abolition of at least 10 special agencies under his office in line with the government’s rationalisation and austerity programme, a Malacanang official disclosed on Friday.
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Aside from the PAGC, the other agencies abolished, Ochoa said, are: the Mindanao Development Council, Minerals Development Council, Luzon Urban Beltway Super Region, Office of the North Luzon Quadrangle, Presidential Adviser on New Government Center, Bicol River Basin Watershed Management Project, Office of External Affairs and Office of the Presidential Adviser on Global Warning and Climate Change.
Science, People and the Planet in 2010 - NYTimes.comWhatever you think of global warming, it’s clear that humanity doesn’t have the energy menu it needs to have a smooth ride in this century.
Speaking of global warming, this was the year in which the recent burst of coverage of global warming — which, despite its significance to some was a tiny blip in the flow of news — ebbed to a dribble.
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As I’ve said before, the last few years of public discourse on climate has been akin to water sloshing in a shallow pan. The public has never been deeply engaged on this issue, and almost surely won’t be, with or without sustained media coverage, in time to be the factor that drives shifts in energy norms that are needed in the next few decades for many reasons.
How Global Warming Denial Aids Terrorists - Yahoo! NewsCOMMENTARY | In the United States there is vocal opposition to any suggestion that the chemicals we pump into air through the burning of fossil fuels could have any effect on global climate. These global warming deniers claim that the over-whelming scientific evidence to the contrary is either purposely faked by money-hungry scientists, or was conducted in complete error by incompetent scientists. They say there is no need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Is their position actually weakening America's security while strengthening terrorists?
Extreme patterns speak of climate change - People's Daily OnlineThe past 12 months saw the most instances of extreme weather in a decade, China's meteorological authority said on Thursday.
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The number of extreme weather events in China has been increasing since 2000. These include extremely high and low temperatures, rainstorms and typhoons.
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"In the past 12 months, we experienced extreme weather more often than in any other year in the past decade. And global warming was largely to blame," said Chen Zhenlin, director of the emergency response, disaster mitigation and public services department under the CMA.
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From Jan 1 to 3, a cold wave will sweep across most regions in Northwest China and will move down to the southeast, bringing snowfalls to areas including the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the whole of North China as well as some areas in Southwest China and East China.
In some regions in north Xinjiang, the temperature is likely to drop by 6 to 10 degrees. And from Jan 1 to 10 it will remain 1 to 2 degrees lower in East China and 3 to 5 degrees lower in the northwest than in the same period in 2010.
"Although the winter temperature is turning cold, it is part of the alternating cycle of global heating and cooling, and the climate is indeed turning warm," said Zhou Bing, a CMA researcher.
New Film Takes an Inside Look at Fearless Climate Activist Feats | Environment | Change.orgThe documentary is unique in a lot of ways. To start, the title and the basic subject of the film: Just Do It: Get Off Your Arse and Change the World! It is a story about three organizations (Climate Camp, Climate Rush, and Plane Stupid), two "loose affiliations" (World Association of Carbon Traders , The Bike Bloc), and one "domestic extremist" (Marina Pepper). It covers a wide range of climate activism efforts, from rushing the British Parliament to "swooping on power stations" to locking onto airplanes.
Climate PR effort heats up - POLITICO.com Print View"Folks are enraged about this, rightly so, and are looking for ways to educate," said Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
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Despite mounting evidence that the greenhouse gas buildup in the Earth's atmosphere is causing runaway changes to the climate – NASA this month declared 2010 the hottest year on record – several pollsters say the American public isn't listening.
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Enter the next phase of the climate education campaign.
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Expecting a surge next year in Republican-led House hearings on global warming science, the Union of Concerned Scientists sent experts out earlier this month to Washington and New York for meetings with reporters from 60 Minutes, Time, USA Today, Reuters, Bloomberg, MSNBC and other news organizations. Frumhoff said the journalists “were keenly interested in understanding how casting doubt about mainstream scientific findings that upset powerful financial interests, from the health risks of tobacco to the reality and risks of global warming, is a tactic that has been used time and again to delay or avoid regulation.”
UCS has also been leading [orchestrated, well-funded?] behind-the-scenes efforts to get its scientists on television, radio and in print stories, as well as in front of Rotary clubs and editorial boards.
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Lieberman said he thinks there's a need for more TV and radio commercials that capture the most eye-catching images. “Just show people what's happening," he said. "Show them satellite pictures of the ice caps.”
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"No matter what they do, whether it means being more articulate or anything else, they're fighting a losing battle because the science is cooked," Inhofe told POLITICO. "The trouble is they're not trying to educate the public. They're trying to influence the public."
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"The problem is that we now have people create their own set of realities and then debate that," said Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.). "If I said the world is round, and there's substantial evidence to believe that, and someone else said the world is flat, the report is there's a dispute on the shape of the world. Well, there's not a dispute at all."
"It's easier to discredit something than it is to build the case for it too often," added Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). "That's why these guys are so good about lying about stuff."
A bike means freedom, at any time of year | Commentary | Minnesota Public Radio NewsWinter is here, the snow covers our land, the temperatures hover around 20 degrees and, yes, that's me, commuting on my bike.
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If I believe that global warming is real (I do) and that burning fossil fuels are part of the problem, then it's time to drive less.
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Ann Reed, Minneapolis, is a singer/songwriter and a source in MPR's Public Insight Network.
Frigid temps, frost advisories in parts of SoCal - San Jose Mercury NewsLOS ANGELES—Winds have eased over much of Southern California but frigid temperatures remain, prompting frost advisories over parts of the region.
Bitterly cold for bitterns - The StarTHIS kind of weather is no good for man nor beast - and birds don't like it much either.
And as the cold snap continues, it is not only garden birds desperate for our help.
Should all 6.7 billion of us fly as much as warmist David Roberts does?Tomorrow's New Year's Eve, so I'm taking a 6 hour, completely full flight, with 2 kids, sitting in 4 non-contiguous seats. Gonna be great!
Global cooling is on the way! The 300-year warming from ‘quiet Sun’ of the Maunder Minimum to ‘hyperactive Sun’ of the Modern Grand Maximum is over. Strong solar cycles are punctual – averaging only 362 spotless days between cycles during the MGM. In 2004, NASA predicted Solar Cycle 24 would begin in early 2006, peak in 2010, and be extra strong.
I promise I am not making this up: there are now an amazing 813 days without sunspots since 2004, when Cycle 23 began to weaken - including 7-10 October 2010. Late cycles are weak; and indeed, Cycle 24 is very late. Embarrassing for NASA, I know; but will it now tell the world’s policy-makers? A big test for Dr James Hansen!
Florida agriculture loses $273M in December freeze | ajc.comAccording to the Florida Department of Agriculture, the state lost $273 million from the December freezes alone — including nearly 9,000 acres of crops. The statistics are compiled only through Dec. 20, which means they don't even account for the problems caused by this week's cold.
2010 dealt a one-two punch for the state's farms. An 11-day spell in January was one of the area's coldest periods on record, and December has had an unprecedented trio of cold fronts.
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Farmers pay about $2,500 an hour to fly a helicopter back and forth over the crops, pushing warm air 50 feet above the plants onto the cold ground. The warmer air prevents cold and frost from settling on the plants.
‘Unprecedented’ cold weather costs Welsh Water more than £3m - Wales News - News - WalesOnlineTHOUSANDS of homes across Wales were still affected by the water crisis last night as Welsh Water revealed the cold snap had cost it at least £3m.
Washington Post - Indian tea tastes different due to climate changeGAUHATI, India -- Tea growers in northeastern India say climate change has hurt the country's tea crop, leading not just to a drop in production but also subtly altering the flavor of their brew.
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"Days with sunshine were far fewer during the (monsoon) rains this year, leading to a shortfall in production and damp weather unfavorable for tea," Kakaty said.
New Regulation of Greenhouse Gases Carries Risks - NYTimes.comWhile only the first phase of regulation takes effect on Sunday, the administration is on notice that if it moves too far and too fast in trying to curtail the ubiquitous gases that are heating the planet it risks a Congressional backlash that could set back the effort for years.
But the newly muscular Republicans in Congress could also stumble by moving too aggressively to handcuff the Environmental Protection Agency, provoking a popular outcry that they are endangering public health in the service of their well-heeled patrons in industry.
Thousands of livestock die in blizzard-hit north China county - People's Daily OnlineAt least 2,290 livestock are dead with many others facing starvation after a blizzard brought heavy snow to a county in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Wednesday night.
Roads to Wulate Back Banner bordering the Republic of Mongolia are still blocked by one-meter deep snow, according to the county government.
Wednesday's blizzard was the worst of seven snow storms to have hit the county since November.
Pickup Trucks Across Antarctica: One More Penguin Peril? | TakePart - Inspiration to Action“Sea World is very much about conservation and these penguins are ambassadors for climate change and conservation of that Antarctic and sub-Antarctic environment,” said the park’s director of marine services. As the ice along the Antarctic Peninsula disappears—in large part due to fossil-fuel burning in the rest of the world, from driving cars, making fake snow and burning electric lights—penguins will serve as global warming’s canaries in the coal mine.
Global warming temperature rise may be lower than predictedPhysicist and Arctic research expert Syun-Ichi Akasofu of the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the US predicts that the temperature in 2100 will be 0.5C ± 0.2C higher than today, rather than the 4.0C± 2.0C predicted by the IPCC.
Pakistan - Severe cold wave likely from today: Met officeSevere cold wave is likely to grip different areas of the country including twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad from today (Friday) after the current spell of rain subsides.
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The temperature would continuously drop down particularly at night and people would face severe cold weather, he added.
Snow costs US businesses $1bn but jobs pressure eases - Business News, Business - The IndependentUS businesses have been counting the cost of the snowstorm that swept through the north-east on Boxing Day, making roads impassable and grounding thousands of flights.
Retailers suffered an estimated $1bn in lost or delayed sales, as blizzard conditions deterred people from hitting stores to take advantage of post-Christmas sales and, with air travel still getting back to normal yesterday, airlines may have to swallow $150m in losses from the disruption.
Crisis meeting in N.Ireland over water supplies - Yahoo! NewsDoctors warned the continued shortages could spark a public health crisis as engineers struggled to repair thousands of pipes which sprang leaks following some of the coldest weather in the province for decades.
Global Warming Wrecked My CarWith the wisdom of Al Gore guiding my mouse, I offhandedly watch the results of a massive snowstorm on traffic cams. Vehicles spin out of control, sliding into one another, wreaking havoc and further snarling traffic.
Support cap and trade? That’s not very liberal. | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment even under the IPCC’s worst-case scenario, by 2085 climate change is expected to account for just 10 percent of the cumulative death toll from starvation, vector-borne diseases and flooding.
[Climate hoax promoter] Peter H. Gleick: The 2010 Climate B.S.* of the Year Award2010 saw widespread and growing evidence of rapidly warming global climate and strengthening scientific understanding of how humans are contributing to climate change... These physical impacts will lead to sharply increased disease, military and economic instabilities, food and water shortages, and extreme weather events, among other things. Without appropriate risk management action, the United States will be hit hard. There is no safe haven. Yet confusion and uncertainty about climate change remain high in the minds of too many members of the public and Congress.
Why? In large part because of a concerted, coordinated, aggressive campaign by a small group of well-funded climate change deniers and contrarians [Coordinated by who, Peter? Funded by who? How, specifically, is this alleged funding being spent?] focused on intentionally misleading the public and policymakers with bad science about climate change...The recent and ongoing warming of the Earth is unprecedented in magnitude, speed, and cause.
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The 2010 Climate Bad Science (B.S.) Detection and Correction Team
Peter Gleick, Kevin Trenberth, Tenney Naumer, Michael Ashley, Lou Grinzo, Gareth Renowden, Paul Douglas, Jan W. Dash, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Brian Angliss, Joe Romm, Peter Sinclair, Michael Tobis, Gavin Schmidt, plus several anonymous nominators, reviewers, and voters.
An Evangelical Backlash Against Environmentalism - NYTimes.comMr. Beisner wrote that he had so far not met a single evangelical “who has been able to rehearse the most basic arguments pro and con regarding the most important physical issue” in the global warming debate, “which is climate sensitivity.”
He added, “That suggests to me that most are embracing conclusions without understanding the arguments.”
Polar Amplification? ROFLMAO | Real SciencePolar temperatures are in total collapse. Look at today’s maps. Isn’t the Antarctic Peninsula supposed to be the fastest warming place on the planet?
Arctic To Be Ice Free By The Year 2000 | Real ScienceJun 8, 1972
Arctic specialist Bernt Balchen says a general warming trend over the North Pole is melting the polar ice cap and may produce an ice-free Arctic Ocean by the year 2000.
Opinion | King coal: The future looks a lot like the past | George WillA climate scientist told Fallows that stabilizing the carbon-dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would require the world to reduce its emissions to Kenya's level — for America, a 96 percent reduction. Nations with hundreds of millions of people in poverty would, Fallows says, have to "forgo the energy-intensive path toward wealth that the United States has traveled for so many years."
In his new political science treatise ("Don't Vote — It Just Encourages the Bastards"), P.J. O'Rourke says, "There are 1.3 billion people in China, and they all want a Buick." So "go tell 1.3 billion Chinese they can never have a Buick." If the future belongs to electric cars, those in China may run on energy currently stored beneath Wyoming and Montana.
Botched predictions of the past « the Air VentFox news has an interesting post on extremist environmental claims of the past two decades. It’s fun because they contacted some of the scientists for their responses. Who knew bikes could be pedaled backwards with such vigor.
Gillard "faces backlash on clean power" | Australian Climate MadnessMore trouble at mill for Labor's green crusade
Lawrence Solomon: 75 climate scientists think humans contribute to global warmingThis number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2009 online survey of 10,257 earth scientists, conducted by two researchers at the University of Illinois. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers – in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout.
Facing The Prospect Of Extinction, Polar Bears Deserve More From SalazarFrom the Center for Biological Diversity's Kassie Siegel:
The future of the mighty polar bear, the world's largest bear and one of the planet's most remarkable and iconic creatures, will be decided by what we do in the coming years. Climate change is pushing it ever closer to extinction as warming temperatures rapidly melt the sea ice it needs to survive.
FT.com / Travel - Plight of the huntersNext morning word spreads through the village that a hunter has shot a polar bear, 40km out on the sea ice. A few hours later, he returns and, by the time I arrive, a large crowd has gathered to meet him. Though the bear is a familiar sight, it’s still an honoured kill and everyone is excited to see it. The skin and joints are already in buckets ready to be loaded and taken home. The local police car offers its services to ferry the meat back to his house. “We’ll eat some of it for my youngest son’s birthday,” the hunter tells me as the crowd disperses. “It tastes very, very good.”
On Warming, Antarctica, Clouds and Peer Review - NYTimes.comI’m glad [McIntyre] decided to take the plunge. Still, he finds much to gripe about, spending much of his initial post on the Journal of Climate paper alleging that the journal had recruited reviewers whose goal was “to suppress the article.” Using an exclamation point to reinforce his pique, he described the 88 pages of reviews and responses and chided me for criticizing him for not, until now, “running such gauntlets.”
These complaints somehow ring hollow from a man whose Web site sometimes seems to be a celebration of verbiage, numbers and contestation.
Climate-change scientist, Oppenheimer, proud to be within 65% margin of error | RedStateOkay…there’s almost no way to take these guys seriously anymore. Check out Item #4 at the following FoxNews link:”Eight Botched Environmental Forecasts.” Oft-quoted Princeton scientist and climate-change advocate Michael Oppenheimer speaks of a 65% margin of error in their temperature predictions. If that’s the standard these guys are using, then everything they say is completely meaningless. I could probably make 20 climate predictions while singing “Ring My Bell” and pruning my azaleas and be within the margin of error!
The climate change wake-up call | Global development | guardian.co.ukthe Maldives has committed itself to becoming carbon neutral in 10 years and Bangladesh has committed $200m from its national budget to implement its national climate change strategy and action plan.
The Japan That Says No; Rejects Carbon Trading – “Major Setback”Japan has decided to back out of carbon trading, likely from intense pressure from industry. This will no doubt disappoint many in organized crime
Inuit lives and diets change as ice shifts - CNN.comBarry Smit, a professor at the University of Guelph, Canada, has spent five years leading research projects into how melting ice and changes in wildlife habits are impacting the lives and livelihoods of far northern communities.
Among his most striking findings was that increasing difficulty in hunting for traditional food was leading to much more junk food in the Inuit diet.
"People looking at the health of the Inuit have demonstrated that the traditional diet, which is almost exclusively raw meat, is in fact very healthy for them," Smit said. "But because of the new difficulties hunting, people are adapting their diets to what's available in the stores.
The young people are increasingly eating highly processed junk food.
...
The difficulties in hunting are caused by shifting ice and changing migratory patterns among animals such as seals, walrus, types of whales and polar bears, which form a large part of the traditional diet, Smit said.
Tinley Park man dies of hypothermia, fourth such death in Cook — ChicagoThe medical examiner’s office said this is the fourth cold-related death in Cook County this season.
Power Line - Paint It BlackWhat's funny about this is that during the 1970s global cooling scare, environmental activists--in some cases, the same people who are now global warming alarmists--insisted that governments (ours, in particular) should paint the ice caps black in order to absorb more of the sun's radiation and thereby warm the Earth. At that time, activists thought it outrageous that politicians were too timid to take such an obvious step to save the planet. In both cases, what mostly seems to be involved is the will to power: "I think you should regulate," Chu says, which is really the whole point.
Freak weather could have been predicted : Nature NewsUK Met Office is being held back by a lack of computing power, says its chief scientist Julia Slingo.
...
[Q] The UK has had big snowstorms both this year and last. Will this kind of weather be more common in future?
We don't know. That's exactly the sort of thing we need more computing power for. We probably have the models. We'll launch a project in the next few months to look at this question.
International Conference: Communicating Disaster (Spreading Climate Propaganda)Now I’m not saying that there should not be conferences on how to communicate in the event of disasters, and that some of the content of this conference won’t be useful. But I am concerned that this conference also has the primary function of teaching how to propagandize weather events so that they “do become understood as having negative social impact” and are due to our current social prosperity.
American Thinker Blog: Freezing Brits steamed over new green boilersFive years ago the global warming crowd and their comrades in the Labour Party mandated the use of new green technology boilers in Great Britain. Government and environmental experts said that the ‘condensing boilers’ would not only greatly reduce the consumer’s carbon footprint, but would also lower their heating bills. Saving money and saving the planet, what could be better?
The UK Daily Mail reports that during the recent record cold spell in Great Britain, tens of thousands of people were without heat due to a serious flaw in the new boiler’s design.
- Bishop Hill blog - A hundred years of freezingProfessor Mike Lockwood says that even in a warming world we could have one or two centuries of frigid winters to come here in the UK. He even says it with a straight face.
World Wildlife Fund Infiltrates UK Government « NoFrakkingConsensusThe British public is surely entitled to wonder why a government body would hire an environmental activist to serve as its chairman.
Editorial: If it gets cold, it’s warmingThe one thing that is certain is that global warming is used to get more money from people, either in taxes or prices.
Winter may be coldest in 1000 yearsBRITAIN’S winter is the coldest since 1683 and close to being the chilliest in nearly 1,000 years.
Latest figures reveal that the average temperature since December 1 has been a perishing -1C.
That makes it the second coldest since records began in 1659.
Close encounter with ice-free polar bears shocks Coca-Cola execA close encounter with polar bears in northern Manitoba on a recent trip has left a trio of corporate partners shocked about the extent of global warming and renewing commitments to reduce their environmental footprint in partnership with customers.
"It's such a heart-wrenching way to learn a very hard lesson about climate change," said David Moran, director of public affairs and communications for Coca-Cola in Canada. "We've used the polar bear in our marketing material for over 80 years. So for us, the polar bear has a particularly warm place in our hearts."
Maybe he should sequester even more deadly global warming pollution in Coke cans, and then encourage us to drink only tap water?
President and family on multi-million dollar Christmas vacation in Hawaii | Washington ExaminerJust consider these estimates on part of the costs of the latest Obama Hawaii trip:
* Mrs. Obama’s early flight to Hawaii: $63,000 (White House Dossier)
* Obama’s round trip flight to Hawaii: $1 million (GAO estimates)
...
But Obama and friends opted instead to secure use of three luxury beachfront places, including the “Winter White House” – or Kailua home that the president rents two weeks a year.
That facility, Hawaii Reporter, noted, normally rents for an estimated $3,500 a day or $75,000 a month, according to the web site Gadling.com.
The latter describes the place as a “7,000 square foot home [that] features 5 bedrooms, 5 ½ bathrooms, a media room with surround sound, a kitchen suited for a master chef, a dining room and great room, a secluded lagoon-style pool with tropical waterfalls and a lavish island spa. The ocean lanai and garden lanai showcase ornate landscaping and stunning views of Kailua Bay and Mount Olomana.”
Charlie Crist Extends Weather Emergency Period to Protect Agriculture | Sunshine State NewsOn Wednesday, Gov. Charlie Crist extended an executive order issued earlier in the month declaring a state of emergency in the Sunshine State due to the continued cold weather. Crist extended the order, which eliminates all weight restrictions on trucks carrying agricultural products, until January 7.
“As the danger posed by freezing temperatures continues in Florida, I am issuing this executive order to extend for an additional seven days a state of emergency to ensure timely precautions are taken to protect Florida’s agricultural interests,” noted Crist. “As governor, I am responsible to meet the dangers presented to this state and its people by this emergency.”
Most Buildings Don’t Work Properly, Who Cares? « Climate ProgressBy Auden Schendler, author of “Getting Green Done.”
On Christmas Eve 2009, the peak of the ski season in Aspen Snowmass, all was not quiet at the resort’s new flagship restaurant, Sam’s Smokehouse. At 10,600 feet in the Colorado Rockies, the weather can be extreme. On that night, things got brutal. It was minus 8 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and the wind was howling.
Unfortunately, heating equipment failed, so it wasn’t much warmer inside the restaurant (27 degrees), and as a result, two pipes froze solid and burst.
It was a calamity, because managers planned to serve barbecue to 300 people the next day, with thousands more expected for snacks, toe warming, and bathroom breaks.
The Reference Frame: Burt Rutan on global warming “The Alarmist (scientist, journalist, politician etc.) chooses to huddle with other alarmists inside an echo chamber, attacking messengers who arrive, but spends no time to carefully inspect the data that forms his opinions, nor to notice the reporting of fraud”
Burt Rutan, 2009
- Bishop Hill blog - Ross Clark on winter resilienceYet planning for cold winters has been woefully deficient. An official report into transport failures last winter concluded that, beyond building a bigger stockpile of grit, we didn’t really need to do much to cope with cold winters because they would become much rarer in future. It has taken just five months to expose the folly of basing transport policy on predictions for climate change.
John Holdren’s Big Science, One Science Directive (so what has this smartest-guy-in-the-room said in the past?) — MasterResource“As University of California physicist John Holdren has said, it is possible that carbon-dioxide climate-induced famines could kill as many as a billion people before the year 2020.”
- Paul Ehrlich, The Machinery of Nature (1986), p. 274
American Thinker: Bloomberg's Snow JobLook, Mr. Mayor. When you're done at City Hall, go back to being a tycoon in your eponymous skyscraper uptown, and all will be forgiven. But if you're even thinking of trading in Gracie Mansion for the White House and hopscotching yourself to Washington -- where you dream the crowds'll go crazy embracing you as the Fiscal Savior of New York -- well, not so much. Your path will be about as clear as the streets of Brooklyn, whose residents still couldn't move three days after the snowstorm. And your travel outlook is the same as theirs: fuhgeddaboutit. You ain't goin' nowhere.
December cold – unprecedented? | Watts Up With That?The article goes on to point out that December is rarely the coldest month in the UK and a continued cold spell could beat the record set in 1683-84 of -1.17C.
Craven Attention: The Sequel | Watts Up With That?He has now posted a transcript of a different presentation he gave earlier in the day. Huh? Strangely the audio that produced that transcript is still not available. The problem is my piece covered a different episode.
Bloomberg's Snow Job And so last winter, instead of planning for the next winter, Bloomy began planning for the apocalyptic New York City of 2080, where everyone has to live on melted ice floes and battle for parking spots with marauding polar bears.
Bloomberg's incompetence highlights the danger of decision makers falling under the influence of the Global Warming scam. And now a woman is dead and many more are injured because municipal resources were diverted from preparing for an entirely predictable snowstorm, to preparing for an imaginary disaster toward the end of the century.
December may be coldest ever | floridatoday.com | FLORIDA TODAYA second straight record low temperature set Wednesday contributed to what is shaping up to be Melbourne's coldest December on record.
DailyTech - Dust Study May Invalidate Most Warming Modeling Work Done to DateModels underestimate the amount of large dust particles, which increase the sun's influence on global temperatures
Burma to Ring in Unusually Cold New YearBurma will ring in the New Year with unusually cold weather, which is expected to get even colder at the beginning of February 2011 and last through the first week of March.
Parties lure voters with warm woollies - The Times of IndiaSharp-thinking campaign managers are cashing in on the biting cold and showering voters with sweaters, blankets, caps, socks and shawls. Many of the goodies are targeted at the poor, who are easily lured to escape the harsh winter. These trendy woollens are also imprinted with the candidates' symbols.
Obama weathers backlash on climate | My SinchewThe world's temperature has been steadily rising and many scientists point to rising disasters -- including devastating floods in Pakistan and, counter-intuitively, intense blizzards -- as evidence of climate change.
The Reference Frame: Arsenic bacteria and climate disruption: a comparisonThose people don't care about their moral image - primarily because there are almost no powerful mechanisms in the society that would force them to care. In many corners, it is almost politically incorrect to insist that people such as Michael Mann who have fraudulently obtained the taxpayer money should return them, and/or be arrested. Scientific integrity should have much higher standards than the conventional human honesty - but in the context of climate science, even ordinary old-fashioned fraud involving stealing millions by producing untrue claims is not prosecuted in any way - so far. So the immoral waste of the human society numerically dominates in the field of climate science.
Indeed, the main lesson of the arsenic fiasco is that the scientists and sponsors may be expected to have an inherent bias, trying to look for sensationally new claims that will make them famous. This is true both in the case of Ms Felisa Wolfe-Simon as well as in the case of the climate crusaders.
2010 Award for Political Incorrectness: Global warming lands into the deep freeze « » Print The Daily Caller – Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and EntertainmentBut Sen. Inhofe didn’t slay the well-financed Climategate monster alone. Inhofe was aided immeasurably by one Marc Marano, former communications director of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. While Inhofe brought raw political muscle and unflinching determination to the table, Morano, possessed of a rapier-like wit, is the master of parody and satire.
Earlier this week, Morano appeared on Fox News to comment on the recent blizzard that enveloped the Northeast. Here’s Morano at his finest: “There is no way anyone can falsify the global warming theory now because any weather event that happens ‘proves’ their case…Man-made global warming has ceased to be a science, it is now the level of your daily horoscope.”
Pay a visit to Morano’s website — www.climatedepot.com — and you’ll surely be rewarded with a politically incorrect belly-laugh, all at the expense of the hapless warming evangelists.
Massachusetts Sets Targets to Cut Greenhouse Gases - NYTimes.comMassachusetts officials on Wednesday announced a plan to curb heat-trapping gases emitted by homes, cars and businesses in the state by 25 percent below 1990 levels over the next decade.
...
In announcing the new measure, Ian A. Bowles, the state’s secretary of energy and environmental affairs, said most of the planned emissions cuts would result in net gains in jobs statewide.
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“People who have studied this find you can get your first 20-30 percent of greenhouse-gas cuts without making significant economic trade-offs,” he said.
NASA - NASA's Terra Satellite Sees a Snow-Covered Ireland Significant accumulations anywhere in the country are rare.
The winter of 2009-2010 was unusually cold and snowy. Called “The Big Freeze” by the British media, it brought widespread transportation problems, school closings, power failures and twenty five deaths. A low of -22.3°C (-8.1°F) was recorded on January 8, 2010, making it the coldest winter since 1978/79.
Although it has just begun, the winter of 2010-2011 threatens to be just as challenging. The earliest widespread snowfall since 1993 occurred on November 24, primarily affecting Great Britain and Scotland. Two days later snow began to cover Ireland, and the continuing severe weather has taken a toll. It has disrupted air, road and rail travel, closed schools and businesses, and caused power outages. Livestock and horses have had difficulty finding grass to eat, some relying on volunteer feeding efforts for survival. Local temperature records were broken, including a new record low for Northern Ireland of -18.7°C (-2°F) at Castlederg on December 23. As of that date, 20 deaths had been attributed to the winter weather and associated hazards.
News Wrap: Florida Cold Snap Damages $115 Million in Crops | PBS NewsHour | Dec. 29, 2010 | PBSHARI SREENIVASAN: The cold wave stretching all the way to Florida has done at least $115 million in crop damage there. The state Agriculture Department confirmed that figure today. The deep freeze has affected fruits, vegetables, citrus, and foliage.
As far south as Miami, people were bundled up today against the record-breaking cold.
Car Dealership Roof Collapses Under Snow - Portland News Story - KPTV PortlandBURNS, Ore. -- Heavy snow has caused a roof to collapse at a Ford dealership in eastern Oregon, burying antique cars, ATVs and snowmobiles.
If the evidence were so strong, there’d be no need for such untruths | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog However a headline of ”0.73% of climate scientists think that humans are affecting the climate” doesn’t quite have the same ring as 97% does it?
Mexico gov't warns of freezing temperatures - GlobalTimesLast week, nine Mexican states were hit by subzero temperatures.
Last January, Mexico's Health Ministry reported four hypothermia deaths in one week due to cold weather. That month, Durango, Hidalgo, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi closed schools to protect children from exposure to the freezing cold.
Berlin sees most snow in December since 1900sBERLIN, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- German capital Berlin has experienced more snow this month than any other December of past 110 years, as more bitter cold is expected in the country's east, the German Weather Service (DWD) said Tuesday.
Climatologist Ben Santer on the attribution of extreme weather events to climate change « Climate Progress “When you warm up the planet, you experience that through changes in weather that makes up the climate,” says Dr. Benjamin Santer at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab.
East Anglia Confirmed Emails from the Climate Research Unit - Searchable[Oct '09] From: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
...
I'm really sorry that you have to go through all this stuff, Phil. Next
time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I'll be tempted to beat
the crap out of him. Very tempted.
I'll help you to deal with Michaels and the CEI in any way that I can.
American Thinker Blog: Snow BlindThe New York Times is self-destructing on Global Warming. Once again, Climate Change alarmists blame winter weather on Global Warming.
What is interesting in this New York Times op-ed is that the author (Judah Cohen) knocks the underpinning of climate change alarmism right out from under the whole movement:
EPA Green Priest Jackson: Regulation a ‘Moral Obligation’ - By Henry Payne - Planet Gore - National Review OnlineFrom crèches on government property to Christian greetings in the workplace, Americans go to great lengths this religious season to separate Christmas from our public life. Not so the Obama administration and its campaign to tear down the wall separating the Green Church and the state.
In an extraordinary speech before The National Council of Churches in New Orleans this November, Environmental Protection Agency Chief Lisa Jackson — a committed Green and Christian — urged that the U.S. government and religious leaders unite in their “moral obligation” to heal the planet and “build on the religious and moral reasons for being good stewards of our environment.”
RealClimate: Science is self-correcting: Lessons from the arsenic controversyLesson two: Most everyone would be thrilled to overturn the consensus. Doing so successfully can be a career-making result. Journals such as Science and Nature are more than willing to publish results that overturn scientific consensus, even if data are preliminary – and funding agencies are willing to promote these results.
Time for global warming lobby to admit they could be wrong, says meteorologist – Telegraph BlogsHere’s something you’ll never hear from the Met Office. Joe Bastardi, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, has laid into the the global warming lobby for making absurd claims, especially their assertion that the cold weather is caused by global warming.
First he told Fox Business Network last week that: “These folks claiming that global warming is causing severe cold – that’s like the kid on the playground who doesn’t get his way and takes his ball home”. In fact, the cold weather “is predictable if you study cycles, if you study climatology… and don’t just say everything is global warming”.
Every time it snows, a climate change skeptic gets his wings | theCLogClimate change skeptics are some of the most amusing, annoying folks around. For example, every time it’s not hot outside they prance around going, “See?! See?! It’s not hot!” Morons. Way to display your utter lack of understanding.
Conn. woman found dead in snow died of hypothermiaWESTPORT, Conn. - (AP) — Police say an autopsy has concluded that a woman whose body was found in a snowy parking lot in Westport died of hypothermia.
[Now we'll all get kidney stones?]: Native American group sues to block California’s big solar projects | GristIf 2010 was the year of big solar projects, 2011 is shaping up to be the year of big solar litigation.
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