As Climate Changes, Scientists See Irene as a Harbinger - NYTimes.com

The scale of Hurricane Irene, which could cause more extensive damage along the Eastern Seaboard than any storm in decades, is reviving an old question: are hurricanes getting worse because of human-induced climate change?

The short answer from scientists is that they are still trying to figure it out. But many of them do believe that hurricanes will get more intense as the planet warms, and they see large hurricanes like Irene as a harbinger.

Turkey refuses to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions

In 2009 Turkey's total greenhouse gas emissions were 98 percent higher than those of 1990, but according to a recent Bahçeşehir University report, the country has not yet made any commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Cut looms for wind turbines in subsidy switch - Scotland on Sunday

SCOTTISHPOWER is planning to pull the plug on more than 1,000 onshore wind turbines if the Westminster government cuts millions of pounds of subsidy from the industry.

Hurricanes and Climate Change - Warmist Justin Gillis - NYTimes.com

I have a short piece going into Sunday’s paper on the question of whether hurricanes are getting stronger because of climate change. In it, I outline the views of Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who takes the position that they are, and Thomas R. Knutson of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, who believes it would be premature to conclude they are getting stronger over a long stretch of time.

The two scientists’ positions are considerably more complex and nuanced than I was able to convey in a short article.

Study on global plant die-off faces questions - Environment - The Independent

"The Boston University press release - using the term 'alarmist' - speaks of a university trolling for media as distinct from a university seeking to communicate excellence," Andy Pitman, co-director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, said in an email to AFP.

"Those involved in this exchange of views are all well respected and excellent scientists. What is going on here is the scientific method. Zhao and Running publish a paper. Others attack it. Others defend it. Over time we determine who is right. Perfectly legitimate science."

McKibben's army - Global warming - Salon.com

In front of the White House, genteel protests with real results
...
The specter of 50-60 people a day volunteering for arrest has brought a new sense of conviction in the Washington discourse on climate change.

Rowers reach 'impossible' North Pole, thanks to global warming - Home News, UK - The Independent

Mr Wishart said that it was obvious just from looking out of the boat that "a lot of the ice has disappeared" from areas that a few years ago would have been frozen over: "There is more open water. We have demonstrated that there is currently a diminution of the ice sheet," he said.

During the expedition the team, comprising of Mr Wishart, Mark Delstanche, Billy Gammon, Rob Sleep, David Mans and Mark Beaumont, took several scientific measurements to help researchers assess just how quickly the Arctic is breaking up.

Lung disease from carbon dioxide? Stop exhaling | NJ.com

It's hard to believe the Blue Jersey people are this dumb. Alas, they are!

How many people in New Jersey will die of lung disease because of Chris Christie's withdrawal from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative consortium?

Comic Book Analysis from the Leader of the IPCC « NoFrakkingConsensus

I am immensely grateful to be living in this healthier, safer, culturally richer world. I am grateful to my ancestors whose toil and sacrifice made this world possible.

I therefore have little patience with people who want us believe that the only thing that has been going on for the past 150 years is the reckless exploitation of the planet.

That analysis has nothing to do with the real world. It is beyond juvenile. It belongs in a comic book.

Joe Bastardi : 6th Strongest Hurricane On Record For North Carolina | Real Science

The Reference Frame: Charles Monnett returned to work, stripped of political power

I am not too surprised. In fact, I was surprised that any investigation could have begun against him - and I am surprised that he was partly punished for something at all. This is a hint that the AGW-related crooks are no longer untouchable holy cows.

Hospitals greater global warmers: Study | Deccan Chronicle

The seemingly harmless operation theatre is responsible for global warming, with certain anaesthetic gases contributing up to 2,000 times to climate change than the much-maligned carbondioxide. Moreover, much of the anaesthetic gases used in operation theatres are let out into the atmosphere with only five per cent being metabolised by the patient...The team suggested that hospitals adopt methods for reclamation of gases instead of sending them out into the atmosphere.

Sun Causes Climate Change Shock – Telegraph Blogs

If Michael Crichton had lived to write a follow-up to State of Fear, the plotline might well have gone like this: at a top secret, state of the art laboratory in Switzerland, scientists finally discover the true cause of “global warming”. It’s the sun, stupid.

William M. Briggs, Statistician » Hurricane Irene: End Of The World? Obligatory Global Warming Post

But I ask you: If global warming was responsible for the vicious Irene, was it also responsible for the many years of tropical quiescence? For those years when nothing happened? For the falls where the skies were clear, the temperature clement, the waters warm, and life good?

Why, if global warming is real, does it only cause bad things? Why not good ones, too?

UVA goes all in on Climate Gate FOIA coverup | Christopher C. Horner | Op Eds | Washington Examiner

The school has spent approximately $500,000 to date keeping these records from the taxpayer, who paid for their production to begin with.

The university again labored to avoid releasing correspondence directly addressing the now discredited “Hockey Stick” graph produced while former assistant research professor Michael Mann worked there.

At least 126 of those emails were sent to or from Mann at UVa and were central to ClimateGate, which exposed a purported, now disavowed temperature record, as well as the Hockey Stick and related activities by scientists to keep dissenting work from publication. The emails showed scientists circling the wagons to protect their claims, funding and careers.

Each of these 126 UVa ClimateGate emails, as with other related Mann correspondence with third parties of which we are aware, is covered by our VFOI request. Not one of them made it into UVa's releases.
...
A useful example of complying with the Virginia Freedom of Information Act is George Mason University's prompt release to the media of correspondence from Professor Edward Wegman.

Blog: Warmists crank up propaganda machine as Irene bears down on the east coast

Why when catastrophe doesn't strike isn't it proof that warming is not as serious as the hysterics make it out to be, but when the worst happens, it automatically is the fault of global warming?

If we're talking cause and effect - and we are - the lack of storms should carry just as much weight against serious effects of warming as a plethora of storms "proving" warming this year. Warmists conveniently ignore their own criteria for sounding the alarm when the evidence - or lack thereof - goes against them.

A graphical comparison of solar cycles 21, 22, 23 and 24 | Climate Realists

If you think Solar Cycle 24 is weaker and still progressing slower than previous solar cycles? You are correct. This is a comparison of Solar Cycles 21, 22, 23 and 24 so far.

Twitter / @BigJoeBastardi

Global warming did not cause this, but denying that 953 mb hurricane blasting the coast is not a major event is not right either

Colorado Oil and Gas Association President: Fracking safe, CO2 not safe?!

USGS scientist: ‘We’re only starting to learn’ about fracking, fluid injection, earthquakes | The Colorado Independent

Although she was speaking before the Colorado and Virginia quakes and not addressing those specific concerns, Colorado Oil and Gas Association President and CEO Tisha Schuller recently told an energy conference in Aspen that public concern about fracking — blasted by some on the Western Slope for potentially contaminating groundwater supplies — is akin to skepticism by others about climate change.

“In the same way that the climate movement has to deal with this unimaginable conflict about people not believing in science, we have to do that in the conversation about hydraulic fracturing,” Schuller said, according to the Aspen Daily News. “And the nature of the conversation is as important as the information … The public must be willing to hear that it’s safe when it’s demonstrated.”

Breaking: After two more decades of CO2-induced crop failures, food will be so incredibly scarce that only half of Americans will be obese

HALF of U.S. population will be obese by 2030, experts predict | Mail Online

About half of both men and women in the U.S. will be obese by 2030 if current trends continue, health experts warned today.

Before the Deluge, Part 2 | Power Line

...Still, that hasn’t stopped Bill McKibben, the perfect embodiment of Churchill’s definition of a fanatic (“someone who can’t change their mind, and won’t change the subject”), from declaring that “Irene’s got a middle name—and it’s global warming.”

This is all too much even for Andy Revkin at the New York Times. Andy tends toward global warming alarmism, though he has ever so slightly been backing away from this, more or less since the East Anglia “Climategate” scandal broke. But above all Andy reports the issue fairly straight. (That’s one reason why a prominent climate campaigner told Revkin last year that “We can no longer trust you.”) Here’s Revkin’s blog post about this

15 Irrefutable Signs That Climate Change Is Real

Regardless of their causes – whether you believe in anthropogenic drivers, like fossil fuels from power plants and cars or not — the observed changes in climate are scientific facts that have grave implications for the future of natural and human systems.

Portrait of a Drowning City | OnEarth Magazine

The fact that gets lost in the squabbling over numbers is that sea level doesn’t have to rise a single millimeter for a Katrina-like disaster to strike New York.

Dirty Oil Sands | Poll suggests Harper Government out of step with Canadians

Over 80 percent of Canadians agree that too much focus on economic growth and consumerism is a root cause of climate change.

Will increased carbon dioxide levels actually benefit planet? - Public Service Europe

Supposed ill effects of more CO2 are from flawed computer models in which water vapour and clouds multiply the modest direct warming by factors of up to 10

Obama Defies Greens | Walter Russell Mead

No significant political force in the United States is as incompetently organized and led as the greens. Republicans should rejoice; green extremism, hysteria and incompetence seriously undercuts Democratic coherence and credibility. That is the point that TPM and its allies need to be making; until the rest of the left knocks some sense into green heads, the environmentalists will continue to serve as one of the Republican Party’s most helpful auxiliaries.

Consensus on this weekend's forecast: Irene will destroy NYC, or cause wind gusts there, or something

Can we really predict the weather 100 years in advance?

"The storm cannot master its own strength." | GPlus.com

The hype over Hurricane Irene is overblown, predicts the CEO of Advanced Forecasting Corporation.

"North of Delaware, most hurricane force winds will very likely be gusts, not sustained winds."

o The demise of Irene has already begun. There is no visible eye. The storm intensity is down to 99 mph. This would be a low-end category 2 or a strong category 1 storm, while 36 hours ago some predicted a catastrophic category 4 storm. Air Force Reserve aircraft have found that Irene's eyewall has collapsed, and the central pressure has risen -- rising pressure means a weakening storm.

o The reduction in storm intensity likely confirms that this storm is not going to be as monstrous as it has been publicly forecast to be.

o Yes, it will be windy. However, north of Delaware most hurricane force winds will very likely be gusts, not sustained winds.

Mission accomplished: Sea levels drop a quarter of an inch

Weather cycles cause a drop in global sea level, scientists find - The Washington Post

The global sea level this summer is a quarter of an inch lower than last summer, according to NASA scientists, in sharp contrast to the gradual rise the ocean has experienced in recent years.

The change stems from two strong weather cycles over the Pacific Ocean — El Niño and La Niña — which shifted precipitation patterns, according to scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The two cycles brought heavy rains to Brazil and Amazon, along with drought to the southern United States.

I wonder where all that meltwater went?

Does this mean that we should all move to lower ground?

Science now settled

CERN, and the Danes, have in all likelihood found the Holy Grail of climate science. But the religion of climate science won't yet permit a celebration of the find.

Why I'm voting Republican | DailyTidings.com

Global warming? The whole Republican pack rejects this squishy liberal idea. If it were true, imagine the hurt it would do to the oil and gas industry! So it cannot be true! And Fox News says it is not true. So let's skip this science stuff, it only hurts the brain and leads to lower GPAs.

Flashback: Al Gore Got a D in Natural Sciences at Harvard | NewsBusters.org

For all of Gore's later fascination with science and technology, he often struggled academically in those subjects. The political champion of the natural world received that sophomore D in Natural Sciences 6 (Man's Place in Nature) and then got a C-plus in Natural Sciences 118 his senior year.

If BP continues its accidental-polar-bear-killing rampage at the rate of one bear every 35 years, will polar bears go extinct sometime soon?

BP in Hot Water After Guard Kills Polar Bear in Alaska - International Business Times

"...Polar bear death is the first time in 35 years of working on the North Slope that a bear has been killed by a security guard working for BP, and we dearly wish it had not happened," the spokesman said.

A few more notes on Al Gore's 8/26/11 climate hoax interview with Alex Bogusky (1 hour video)

FearLess Q&A with Al Gore, Alex Bogusky interviews Al Gore - USTREAM

At the 22:30 mark, Bogusky says "I talk to friends who are really intelligent people, and when we talk about climate, they'll say things to me like 'well you know that the science isn't settled yet'".

31:30 more talk about contrarians. Gore: "This is an organized effort to attack the reputation of the scientific community as a whole."

39:45 Bogusky: "In terms of jobs from coal, aren't there already more jobs in solar than there are in coal?". Gore: "More jobs in wind than in coal..."

42:58 Gore says that "we've" got to win this conversation.   Challenge the "deniers", like when people used to challenge racists...45:30 Bogusky says "I think it 's difficult to talk about, and it's difficult to confront the denial facts that people spew out".

56:00 Gore:  "The big events are becoming more frequent and bigger...we've had ten disasters this year, 2011, in the United States that have cost a billion dollars or more.  We've never experienced anything like that before."

Hurricane Irene: Another Billion-Dollar Disaster?

[Some of the "top ten" events that Al Gore blames on global warming]
Jan. 29-Feb. 3 'Groundhog Day Blizzard'
...
April 8-11 Tornadoes and Severe Storm Damage
...
April 14-16 Tornado Outbreak
...
April 25-30 Tornado Outbreak
...
May 22-27 Tornadoes and Severe Storm Damage

Climate Science: The Mann Act | Richmond Times-Dispatch

...conservatives' pigheaded resistance to scientific consensus looks remarkably like the American left's denial of Soviet atrocities once upon a time: They don't want it to be true, therefore it isn't.

[Yet another massive meeting to heal the planet]

"I am very happy to see these measures to encourage public transit," Tremblay said, after the closing ceremony of the Ecocity World Summit at Montreal's Palais des congrès Friday, where more than 1,500 delegates from 280 cities discussed the role cities can play to fight climate change, protect biodiversity and promote human health.

Belief In Man-Caused Climate Change Hoax Continues To Dry Up : Stop The ACLU

So, an 11% increase in American’s who are “anti-science” or something. It’s actually a pretty dumb question to ask, IMO, as it should be broken out to solely/mostly mankind and a little bit mankind/completely nature. This way, we can see how many people are buying into the most hypocritical issue ever. I’ve said, and continue to maintain, that the current warming trend is primarily natural, with mankind contributing just a bit, mostly through release of methane due to agriculture and landfills, as well as perceived warming due to the Urban Island Heat Affect.

Florida's reefs cannot endure a 'cold snap' - ScienceDaily

"Centuries-old coral colonies were lost in a matter of days."

Cold, wet winter effects local honey production

“In California, this will be an average or below average year,” said Matt Beekman of California Apiaries, located in Hughson. “Honey production (at California Apiaries) was half to two-thirds of what we were last year.”

Beekman attributed most of the disappointing honey production to the unusually cold and wet winter and spring seen in the Central Valley this year.

THE HOCKEY SCHTICK: Greens furious Obama might allow creation of 131,000 new jobs

The Politics of a Pipeline
State Department takes one step forward, but the greens are furious.

NY Times: Sea level at New York expected to "rise by more than two feet" by midcentury

Wading Into New York City's Future - NYTimes.com

By midcentury, city officials say, New York City’s average temperature is projected to increase three to five degrees Fahrenheit and sea levels are expected to rise by more than two feet. By the end of the century, they say, New York City may feel more like North Carolina.

Dragging boat over ice field - "Row" to the "Pole" - YouTube

Articles: Michelle Blames it on the Kids

A "private mother-daughter" trip with 40 "close" friends and a taxpayer-funded security detail of 68 is hardly an intimate family outing. The entourage was so large that the group required 30 rooms in "Spain's most exclusive hotel the Villa Padierna, a golf and spa resort located along the coast from Marbella."
...
Lest we forget, Michelle and her daughters spent time tasting and touring their way through New York City, sightseeing in Los Angeles, barbequing and memorializing on Memorial Day in Chicago, hiking in Maine, bobbing for tar balls on the Florida Gulf Coast, and recovering from a whirlwind of activity on an annual vacation in Chilmark.

Ever family-minded, Michelle also accompanied her husband to Indonesia, South America, Ireland, the UK, and Paris...

This year, just prior to heading to Martha's Vineyard, Mrs. Obama managed to squeeze in a pre-vacation/official business/vacation to South Africa, accompanied as usual by an entourage of tagalong family and friends. If cost estimates for travel and security are correct, the jaunt cost American taxpayers anywhere from $500,000 to a reported $800,000.

“once-in-a-century hurricane” | Real Science

Every weather event now is a 100 year event or a 500 year event.
...
New York has had five major hurricanes in the last century. Enough mindless alarmism, please.

Fresh projections of possible NYC surge from MIT... - Revkin.net

Up to 3 meters possible

Gore: Eat less meat to fight warming - Robin Bravender - POLITICO.com

Al Gore wants society to ditch meat-heavy diets and go organic to combat global warming.
...
The former vice president also criticized climate change skeptics, urging those who support curbs to greenhouse gases to “win the conversation” when it comes to global warming. He compared the struggle against climate skeptics to the fight against racism during the civil rights movement.

When racist comments would come up in the course of conversations, “There came a time when people said, 'Hey man, why do you talk that way? That's wrong, I don't go for that, so don't talk that way around me. I just don't believe that.'”

That happened in millions of conversations, and slowly the conversation was won,” he said. “And we still have racism, God knows, but it's so different now and so much better. And we have to win the conversation on climate.”

2009: Why Is Al Gore Still Eating Meat? - Glenn Beck - FOXNews.com

DIANE SAWYER, ANCHOR, "GOOD MORNING AMERICA": Here is Glenn Beck giving a challenge to you about cows and methane.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: I'm siding with PETA on this one, once again asking Al Gore: If you really want to save the planet, Al, why don't you put down the cheeseburgers and pick up your veggie burger? Time for maybe soy milk and tofurkey.

FearLess Q&A with Al Gore, Alex Bogusky interviews Al Gore. USTREAM

Recorded live on August 26, 2011 12:59 PM CST

If BP accidentally kills a polar bear, is that bear significantly more dead than ones accidentally killed by researchers, or any of the hundreds deliberately killed every year by hunters?

BP risks another PR disaster as polar bear is killed in Alaskan oilfield | Mail Online

BP has landed itself in a new public relations disaster in the US after accidentally shooting dead a polar bear at one of its Alaskan oil fields.
...
The security guard believed that his gun contained the beanbag devices, but the weapon had instead been loaded with noise-making pyrotechnic ‘cracker’ shells, designed to startle animals without physical contact.

The shooting occurred after the guard saw the bear prowling around near an employee housing area.

2007: Nunavut investigates 2 polar bear deaths - North - CBC News

Nunavut's Environment Department is investigating the deaths of two polar bears near Pangnirtung earlier this month.

Both bears drowned after they were tranquillized by researchers doing an inventory of bears in the Davis Strait.

Polar bear hunting, harvesting and over-harvesting

Polar bears are harvested in Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and parts of eastern Russia (Chukotka area) under provisions set by the International Agreement. The numbers taken are regulated by quota in some areas, however, there are no legal limits to the number taken in some jurisdictions (see PBSG Proceedings for details). Annual harvest is between 500 and 700 bears or 2-3% of the world population of about 25,000 bears and is thought to be sustainable.

Ice retreat worries climate-change scientists

Claude Dicaire, a forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service, told Postmedia News on Friday that while the southern route of the Northwest Passage is essentially clear, the same concentrations of ice in the Victoria Strait that famously doomed the 19th century Franklin expedition can quickly form in adverse weather conditions and menace ships today.

He said that the northern route of the passage, through the Parry Channel between Lancaster Sound in the east and the Beaufort Sea in the west, is still clogged with ice at certain points and may not open this year.

Twitter / @DCdebbie

Make no mistake: a surge of natural disasters is not "a sign from God" or rapture but a "sign from the Earth" about climate change/pollution

Al Gore to Rick Perry: Climate scientists aren't motivated by money - The Hill's E2-Wire

Al Gore on Friday bashed the notion that climate scientists are manipulating data for financial gain, a charge levied by global warming skeptics, including GOP White House hopeful Rick Perry.

“This is an organized effort to attack the reputation of the scientific community as a whole, to attack their integrity, and to slander them with the lie that they are making up the science in order to make money,” Gore said in an online interview.

“These scientists don’t make a lot of money. They are comfortable, as they should be, but they don’t make a lot of money. That is not their motivation for doing what they do,” Gore added.
...
Gore broadly attacked what he called an organized campaign by fossil fuel interests to sow doubt about climate change and climate scientists, calling it based on tobacco industry campaigns of the past about the health effects of smoking.

Flashback: No Frakking Consensus: Al Gore's Tobacco Hypocrisy

Mr. Gore knew, because he had knelt beside his sister's bedside, that tobacco led to bad things. Yet six years later he was still accepting campaign donations from "tobacco industry political action committees."

Ignoring Climate Change, State Department Report Concludes Keystone XL Has ‘No Significant Impacts’ | ThinkProgress

The State Department issued its final environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline today, finding that it would bring “no significant impacts” on the environment – even while substantially increasing greenhouse gas emissions and crossing major aquifers and wetlands across the country.

Analysis: Pheasant decline is real, but birds still plentiful | The Daily Republic | Mitchell, South Dakota

PIERRE — The harsh winter took a horrible toll on South Dakota’s pheasants. The economic question that will be answered this fall is whether hunters will visit in smaller numbers from other states after hearing news of what’s shaping up as a loss of 4.5 million birds.

The state Game, Fish and Parks Department released its annual estimate of pheasant population Thursday. Based on biologists’ roadside sightings of roosters, hens and broods of chicks, the count suggests that pheasant numbers are down 46 percent statewide from a year ago.

Was Hurricane Irene caused by global warming? - Bob King - POLITICO.com

“I think the evidence is fairly compelling that we’re seeing a climate change signal in the Atlantic,” said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Citing other recent trends of extreme weather, including hailstorms and catastrophic tornadoes, “one begins to wonder, if you add all those up, maybe you are seeing a global warming effect.”

Still, Emanuel said, “I would be reluctant myself to say anything about global warming and Irene.” For one thing, he said, Irene hasn’t been an especially unusual hurricane.

Savin' Bundles with the ClimateSmart Home Service - YouTube

The ClimateSmart Home Service is part of the Queensland Government's ClimateSmart Living initiative. It's specifically designed to help Queenslanders fight climate change by reducing your carbon footprint.

Corals can’t handle the heat cold | Watts Up With That?

Scientists detail unprecedented loss of coral reef species during 2010 cold weather event

Svensmark’s Cosmic Theory Confirmed; Explains More Than Solar Role in Climate Change

Proof that cosmic rays provide CN to form clouds in the lower atmosphere is an ugly fact that even the professional scientific spin-doctors cannot avoid. These clouds vary with the intensity of cosmic rays reaching the atmosphere and act like a shade in the global greenhouse to control temperature. We now have proof of the mechanism or cause and effect for what was previously only a correlation. Sunspots are not the cause but a manifestation of changes in the Sun’s magnetic field that in turn modulates the intensity of cosmic rays reaching the Earth. So another ugly fact creates a large cloud that destroys the politically driven AGW hypothesis.

Eight Reasons to Love the Keystone XL Pipeline

I’ve been a Keystone booster for some time, but the fracus at the White House has taught me new reasons to love the pipeline.

Twitter / @JonahNRO [Jonah Goldberg]

Waiter last night explained to me that the DC earthquake was caused by global warming. Nice.

Revkin: "The number of hurricanes striking the United States appears to be dropping as a result of warming"

[The words quoted above are found in the RSS feed for Revkin's post below].

On Warming and U.S. Hurricane Strikes - NYTimes.com

McKibben’s effort to use this United States hurricane landfall as a specter of things to come in a greenhouse-heated world doesn’t mesh with the science, which shows a measurable, though subtle, trend in the opposite direction. That’s why I agree with Keith Kloor’s conclusion that this kind of rhetoric is “undermining the legitimacy” of the call to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

1075 Days Without A Hurricane Strike | Real Science

It looks like the post-civil war record of 1,075 days without a US hurricane strike will end tomorrow. This should be a disaster for climate alarmists, but the propaganda mill is totally corrupt and endemic to the system. They spin all weather events as proof of global warming, and are fully supported by their useful idiots in government and the press.

As CO2 has increased, US hurricane strikes have decreased.

Warning Signs: GE Stabs the US in the Back

In 2011, Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE and the chairman of President Obama’s “Jobs Council” is eliminating jobs for American employees of GE at a furious pace. To add insult to injury, in 2010 GE paid no federal taxes at all despite worldwide profits of $14.2 billion. GE claimed a tax benefit of $2.3 billion.

From an America corporate icon to an American disgrace, GE epitomizes how federal policies, cronyism, and rent seeking is destroying America from within by avoiding taxes and shipping jobs overseas. Keep in mind, none of this is illegal. It is, however, unconscionable.

You Are Not Rowing And It Is Not The North Pole | Real Science

What a complete load of crap. The magnetic pole is at 81N. In 1922, people sailed to 81N in ice-free water.

German Reaction To CERN Project: Stubbornness And Dismissiveness – To The Bitter End

AGW is now fatally embedded in all German institutions

Ice-Free Arctic Defined | Real Science

Julienne gave her definition of an ice-free Arctic today.

I do believe the Arctic will likely be ice-free (less than 1 million sq-km) during my lifetime.

1,000,000 km² is about 17,200 (pre-2008) Manhattans.

The Reference Frame: Al Gore: donate your online accounts to my spam network

I wonder whether it's really impossible in the U.S. to get Al Gore in the prison given this evidence that he is building a spam network that will steal the identity of thousands of vulnerable, psychologically ill people (the "supporters") to mislead millions of their contacts.

The CLOUD is clearing - Prof. Nir J. Shaviv - ScienceBits

The first point was essentially pointed above. The results unequivocally demonstrate that atmospheric ionization can very easily affect the formation of condensation nuclei (CNs). Since many regions of earth are devoid of natural sources for CCNs (e.g., dust), the CCNs have to grow from the smaller CNs, hence, the CCN density will naturally be affected by the ionization, and therefore, the cosmic ray flux. This implies that ion induced nucleation is the most natural explanation linking between observed cosmic ray flux variations and climate. It has both empirical and beautify experimental results to support it.

Second, given that the cosmic ray flux climate link can naturally be explained, the often heard "no proven mechanism and therefore it should be dismissed" argument should be tucked safely away. In fact, given the laboratory evidence, it should have been considered strange if there were no empirical CRF/climate links!

Last, given that the CRF/climate link is alive and kicking, it naturally explains the large solar/climate links. As a consequence, anyone trying to understand past (and future) climate change must consider the whole effect that the sun has on climate, not just the relatively small variations in the total irradiance (which is the only solar influence most modelers consider). This in turn implies (and I will write about it in the near future), that some of the 20th century warming should be attributed to the sun, and that the climate sensitivity is on the low side (around 1 deg increase per CO2 doubling).

Pachauri’s Squishy Timeline « NoFrakkingConsensus

If Pachauri had really believed what he was saying back then, if those words had been sincere, shouldn’t he be throwing in the towel about now? Shouldn’t he be making a big public show of resigning from his post – of declaring that we’re all doomed? I mean, according to the climate activists, the alleged negative effects of human-caused climate change are worse than anyone predicted, and have been happening faster than expected.

Perhaps Pachauri would care to explain what, exactly, is the point of yet another UN-sponsored climate summit in Durban, South Africa in late November of this year? How much unnecessary CO2 is going to be spewed into the atmosphere by the thousands of delegates jetting to that out-of-the-way destination? What purpose will all that additional harm to Mother Nature serve given that humanity’s defining moment has come and gone?

Twitter / @ArcticSurvey

Icebreaker Polarstern measured sea ice is avg 1.1m thinner across Arctic Ocean than in 2001 - with record total area minimum likely Oct '11.

El Nino incites wars and the Post Office controls temperature - Wry Heat

This post shows the length to which some researchers go to get on the climate change bandwagon. It also shows that statistics can be invented and manipulated, and that correlation does not prove causation.

Speech signals that Baillieu will dump emissions target

THE Baillieu government has given a strong signal it will abandon the state's legislated target of a 20 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions this decade.

Another Climate Forecast Paper Masquerading As A Robust Scientific Result | Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr.

Readers of my weblog know I have been very critical of peer-reviewed papers and research projects that present multi-decadal global climate model predictions as robust science

Inhofe calls out Romney on climate - Washington Times

Mr. Inhofe, who says he knows Mr. Romney personally and likes him “very much,” speculated that Mr. Romney was trying to “broaden himself to capture part of the other side.”

“I think it’s not a good political move,” Mr. Inhofe said. “It doesn’t show a lot of strength when you don’t have a firm opinion on an issue that’s been around for 10 years.”

Telegraph geography FAIL | Watts Up With That?

No mention of the fact that they aren’t even close. The actual North pole is 790 miles away

New York Had Five Major Hurricanes Below 350 PPM | Real Science

No one is forecasting that Irene will be a major hurricane when it hits New York. It is barely a major hurricane now. McKibben is completely FOS.

First 100 days of Government - Cogeneration & On-Site Power Production

80 new jobs pledged at the Edinburgh Centre on Climate Change following a £1.6 million injection from the Scottish Government.

Waiting for Irene and Remembering Katrina | Gina Solomon's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

Climate change is projected to significantly increase the intensity of hurricanes and other storms.
...
Our climate is already changing right before our eyes, and it’s not a pretty sight. As a health professional, I am pleading with politicians in Washington DC to take practical steps to deal with climate change…. Before it deals with us.

There’s oil in them thar tar sands. | The Science Friday Blog

We can choose power sources that don’t run out and don’t heat our planet, or we can stay with sources that will run out and will eventually make our planet unlivable.

Irene is coming; planet not healed: Is Gaia enraged that Obama failed to put solar panels on the White House?

Tropical Weather and Storms - Hurricane Updates from weather.com

Hurricane Irene poses an extraordinary threat and is one that no one has yet experienced from North Carolina to the mid_Atlantic to the Northeast to New England.

- Hurricane Irene is a high end category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale; however, Irene is expected to re-strengthen into a category 3 storm.

The Chevy Volt’s Dying? What Took It So Long?

“There’s trouble on the horizon for the Chevrolet Volt, the electric wonder car,” USA Today reported. “Interest in buying the $39,995 plug-in car is starting to taper off, not only among ‘early adopters’ but among lots of other buyers, as well, reports CNW Marketing Research, which tracks such things.”

It’s not hard to see why it’s dying: There probably hasn’t been a less competitively-priced, oversold and underdelivering car for a target market in recent memory.

“The car is far too expensive and not practical for the lion’s share of drivers—not to mention the replacement cost for the battery when it goes. The high price tag makes it questionable that you’d ever recover the cost in savings,” writes sldl04 in the comments on the USA Today piece. Groingo is more pithy: “Volt just a FAT overpriced American built Prius.”

Australia May Make Additional Exclusions to Eligible CO2 Offsets

Credits from so-called HFC-23 gas projects have made up more than half of supply in the United Nations' main offset program, the world's largest. The EU has banned them for use in its cap-and-trade program starting May 2013.

[Warmist ex-anchorman] Don Shelby Talks Basketball, Haircuts and New Book - Oakdale, MN Patch

Shelby: Well I’m writing for MinnPost. I’ve written 29,000 words for MinnPost now on energy and the environment, and I hope someday to be able to write a serious non-fiction book, and I would like to think that I would examine whether journalism has failed to adequately tell the story of global climate change. I’m working very closely with a planet scientist right now, and the overwhelming scientific evidence is that there is a clear fingerprint for human-caused global warming but the population of the United States is about divided half and half on whether or not that’s true. Well how can science be 98% certain while the public is half-certain? Is that the failure of journalism or is that the power of the public relations agencies who are working for the fossil-fuel agencies, who are trying to stand in the way of any kind of serious change. So I’d like to do a serious examination, a journalistic examination, so not a book of stories but an actual investigative report on whether journalism is doing its job on this critical issue.

PlayStation® climatology produces absurd alarmist claims? Who saw that coming? | JunkScience Sidebar

Zhao and Running’s predictions of trends and year-to-year variability were largely based on simulated changes in the productivity of tropical forests, especially the Amazonian rainforests. However, according to the new study, their model failed miserably when tested against comparable ground measurements collected in these forests.

Cosmic rays, CO2 and clouds. | ScottishSceptic

But what happens when the moist air has to move considerable distances before it condenses. A typical cyclone is 600 miles across, the inner zone is cloudy, whilst the outer zone is the “heating zone”, so the distance between the two is around 150miles. I’m going to guess (as I can’t find a figure), that the average wind speed is 10-20mph. This means that the time for air to go from heating zone to cooling zone is around 7-15hours.

This effectively means that the cooling/heating effects of CO2 and cosmic rays would be reversed compared to the “summer days” clouds, because the heat is lost when the sun is in the opposite condition. So rather than more cloud cooling, more cloud would actually form a cloud blanket reducing heat loss. So, more cosmic rays would lead to warming and more CO2 (cloud dispersant) would lead to cooling.

Rally to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline! | The Sierra Club - Facebook

President Barack Obama will decide as early as this fall whether to open our nation up to the environmental and economic destruction of the Keystone XL pipeline. This 2,000 mile-long pipeline would transport highly corrosive, toxic crude oil from Canada straight through America's Heartland, threatening drinking water for millions, American farmlands and our economy.

Keystone XL must be stopped.

America doesn't need dirty oil for the benefit of foreign oil companies and we don't want another oil spill.   [Why isn't the global warming hoax even mentioned?]

[Wonkette knows CO2]:  Mitt Romney Rejects Climate Change In Desperate Attempt To Be Cool

It was a close one for a while, but in the violent, ongoing sporting match between The Fightin’ Vacant Skulls and their boring opponent, The Scientists, there has been a breakthrough, as The Vacant Skulls have just acquired a brand new star QB, Mitt “Mittens” Romney! It took a while for Mitt Romney to come around and choose a side, but he has now, and his side is “So, you say you don’t like science? Okay then! I also do not like science!” Mitt Romney finally realized that none of his potential fans care about whether or not climate change is a real thing, because facts are for losers, so time to join the winning team!

The Reference Frame: House GOP may finally remove U.S. funding for AGW freeloaders

The idea is that they will look for the "climate change" keyword and ax any line items with this keyword.

I think it's a simple yet good idea except that there should be additional keywords, including "global warming", "IPCC", and maybe even things like "carbon emissions" or "carbon dioxide emissions", if not "green energy" etc.

That Australian sense of humour: not the Tea Party, the G.R.O.G. Party « JoNova: Science, carbon, climate and tax

G.R.O.G. = Get Rid Of Gillard

News from UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources

There are plenty of freshman science classes on campus, but it’s safe to say that Introduction to Environmental Studies (ESPM C12, English C77) is the only one in which students are introduced to the scientific method through studying a surrealist painting.
...
In the 12 years since it began, the class has also changed based on scientific advances. They used to spend a lot of time on the concept of global warming, Hass says, assigning multiple articles on issues such as measuring ice core samples to demonstrate what was happening to the planet.

sposito_130.jpg“The Al Gore movie changed all that,” says Sposito, referring to "An Inconvenient Truth," which won Gore an Oscar and a share in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. After the movie’s release, students started to arrive with some core understanding of issues related to global climate change.

Hayhoe : Your Energy Choice Will Cause A Permanent Drought In Texas | Real Science

What total bullshit.

Gallup: "the threat Americans feel from global warming has dissipated"; in China, "slightly fewer than one in three (32%) respondents see [global warming] as a serious personal threat"

World's Top-Emitters No More Aware of Climate Change in 2010

Although the U.S. never signed on to the Kyoto protocol, like the Japanese, most Americans (96%) are aware of global warming and climate change. While their knowledge level has not changed in the past few years, the threat Americans feel from global warming has dissipated. Fifty-five percent of Americans who are aware of climate change view it as a serious personal threat, down from 64% in 2007 and 2008. They are also now less likely to attribute global warming to human causes, but half (50%) still at least partly blame humans.
...
China rivals the U.S. for the top spot on the greenhouse gas emitters list, but fewer residents (65%) say they are aware of climate change. Chinese residents who are aware of climate change are significantly more likely than Americans to blame humans for global warming. While Chinese see humans as the culprits, the country stands out among all top emitters with slightly fewer than one in three (32%) respondents seeing it as a serious personal threat.

McKibben, et. al., unperturbed by arrests, wet weather

McKibben sees the unprecedented weather as further evidence that the environment is in trouble.

“I imagine a couple days will be upset from the hurricane coming through,” McKibben said. “It’s just raining now, but the hurricane will underscore our point. Everybody’s tough here, we got no problem with the weather.”

Climate activist McKibben bizarrely blames Hurricane Irene on global warming | Watts Up With That?

McKibben begins: “Irene’s got a middle name, and it’s Global Warming.”

I doubt there is a tropical cyclone scientist that would go on record and make such a foolish statement, but who knows.

[Climate realist] Rebecca Miller on Global Warming, Global Cooling and "Global Staying the Same" - Dallas News - Unfair Park

Gore Asks Supporters To Donate Twitter & Facebook Accounts to Climate Campaign | Age of Engagement | Big Think

On September 14, starting at 7 p.m. Central Time, we will broadcast the reality of the climate crisis from around the globe for 24 hours straight. And to make sure this event gets the attention of the world, we need you to lend your voice to the cause. Specifically, we would like to share your Twitter and Facebook influence.

We have created an innovative tool that allows you to donate your accounts to the cause. If you choose to donate, we'll be able to access your account to help you post information about the event to your friends and followers. Your donation starts on Sept. 13 and ends on Sept. 15 when the event is over. Click below and authorize us to share our updates through your accounts.

President Rick Perry? - NYTimes.com

He does very well with the alternative-reality right — those who don’t believe in global warming, evolution or that Obama was born in the U.S.
...it’s time to take Perry seriously. He could be our next president.

Energy Tribune- Oil Sands Anxiety Is Overblown

Trying to control the emissions from oil sands by blocking this pipeline is a perfect illustration of the difficulty of attempting to tackle a complex global environmental problem by focusing on isolated measures that only bear indirectly on the outcomes that matter. The weakness of the Times' argument is reflected in the following sentence, referring to Canada's policies: "The United States can't do much about that, but it can stop the Keystone XL pipeline." The implication seems to be that we would be better off if Canada exported its oil sands to developing Asia, their next best market, relieving us of any associated guilt, even if it made no actual difference in global emissions. I hope that when the State Department decides this matter, it gives appropriate weight to the fact that, other than fuel economy improvements in the US car fleet, our energy ties with Canada represent the single most effective energy security measure undertaken by this country since the oil crises of the 1970s.

Shock News : Most Of The World’s Wars Occurred Below 350 PPM CO2 | Real Science

Now that we know that war is caused by global warming, I was very surprised to discover that the vast majority of wars occurred before 1988 – including the War of 1812.

Game seeks to promote climate-change understanding | Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming

Climate change is child’s play. At least, that is what the grade seven students from Ensingweni Primary Eco-School, near Mtunzini, in KwaZulu-Natal, think after helping to develop a climate change game.

The Puzzling Climate Change card game reportedly encourages debate around climate change and explores actions to help mitigate climate change. The intended outcome is for students to draw up a personal plan on how to combat climate change in their schools, homes and communities.

Aussie to tackle Channel after near-death

Australian marathon swimmer Chloe McCardel was about halfway through her record-attempt at a triple crossing of the English Channel when the cold snap hit.
...
By the time her crew pulled her semi-conscious from the freezing water, McCardel had been swimming for more than 12 hours and was suffering severe hypothermia

Snowy peaks

Climate change is happening. Although it is late August, I can still see snow in the mountains from my house in Calgary. I remember the snow being melted by now in the last few years. If the snow does not melt, and gets deeper next year, will a glacier start forming? How long before it gets to Bragg Creek?

Where is all this hot air all the tree huggers and carbon tax barons talk about? Not in southern Alberta.

Karmin McKay, Calgary

House Republicans Seek to Remove U.S. Funding for UN Climate Efforts | SolveClimate News

Their primary targets are the IPCC and UNFCCC, key programs designed to educate policymakers about climate science and slow warming worldwide
---
WASHINGTON—House Republicans are applying a search and destroy tactic to international funding for global warming this budget season. It goes like this: Ax any line items with the words "climate change."

Their primary targets are a pair of crucial United Nations initiatives designed to slow warming worldwide and educate policymakers about the evolving science of climate change.

Warmists unable to "Row" to the "Pole": About 458 miles short of today's North Magnetic Pole, they encounter a fortress of ice

British explorers row 450 miles to North Pole in world first voyage - Telegraph

Mr Wishart, who is in his late 50s described how pulling over ice and rubble in the last miles of the journey was a “hard reminder that we are mere mortal”.

He said the local terrain looked similar to that of a “giant car scrap heap” that was completely white.

Latest news — Row to the Pole

The final 50 mile leg of the expedition was a tale of two halves, beginning with a 48 mile forward surge by sea, and followed by an on-ice struggle to traverse a two mile ice field. Conditions were excellent as the crew began and made great progress as they rowed 40 miles through the Arctic night. With 10 miles to go, the ice grew denser and became progressively more difficult to navigate. The crew began celebrating the completion of their journey prematurely when, with two miles to go, a wall of ice blocked their passage and presented the crew with their final extreme polar challenge. ...the two mile trek was an epic task for the exhausted crew as they dragged her over huge ice hillocks, through ice rubble and crumbling ice leads. The boat was heaved in-and-out of small ice breaks which provided brief respite until they encountered more ice rubble that once again blocked their path. Billy Gammon, a crew member and veteran ocean rower, referred to this stretch as...

The most arduous difficulty I have ever faced.”
...
Having overcome a fortress of ice, the OLD PULTENEY ROW TO THE POLE crew have reached their destination, utterly exhausted and feeling they had given everything to do it

The “Row to the Pole” publicity stunt looks doomed to failure by a sea ice block | Watts Up With That?

The destination they chose for “Row to the Pole” hasn’t been the location of the North Magnetic Pole for 15 years, as I illustrated below, they’ll fall about 738 km/458 miles short of the North Magnetic Pole due to a drift of about 41km/year

Obama Doesn't Need to Be Superman - NYTimes.com

And the leading Republicans who want to take Obama’s place deny the existence of basic science, scoffing at everything from evolution to the global consensus on climate change. Is gravity next?

Twitter / @OProwtothepole

Hit wall of ice. 9 hours to cover 2 miles through ice fields, dragging a 1.3 ton boat. As of 18h30 there is a row boat at the ’96 MNP

New Zealand - Council Staffer on [Fossil-fueled] Climate [Hoax] Trip to Kansas

Wellington City Council Infrastructure Planning Engineer Nicci Wood has been selected to represent New Zealand on an exchange fellowship to the United States on climate change and community sustainability.

The fellowship involves a four-week exchange, starting in September, to the city of Mission - within the metropolitan area of Kansas City.

Iron Range energy project low on money | StarTribune.com

Excelsior Energy, once hailed as an innovative project that would bring jobs to Minnesota's Iron Range while cleanly tapping America's abundant coal supply, is in danger of running out of cash if it can't attract more investments from the public or private sector.

The Duluth News Tribune reported in a two-part series this week that the unbuilt project morphed from a $2.1 billion clean-coal technology power plant when proposed in 2001 into a conventional natural gas-fired plant. The paper said Excelsior has burned through nearly $20 million of funds from Minnesota sources, and will soon exhaust more than $22 million in federal money.

"At the end of the day, this is a project that has not hired one full-time worker on the Iron Range. Only lawyers, lobbyists and professional meeting attenders have gotten jobs," said Rep. Tom Anzelc, D-Balsam Township, the only Iron Range legislator to oppose the project.

Symptoms of the Bush-Obama presidency - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Carol Browner
A leading environmentalist in the Clinton administration, Browner was given a second shot by Obama as director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy. She found her efforts thwarted within the administration as well as in Congress: in mid-2010 Obama decided that - as a way to deal with global warming - cap-and-trade legislation was a loser for the midterm elections.

Pressure on Obama from the US Chamber of Commerce to heed business interests served as a strong incitement in forcing Browner's resignation after the Democratic "shellacking" in midterm elections, a result that his quiet abandonment of cap-and-trade had failed to prevent. The White House had no backup plan for addressing the disaster of global warming. After Browner's resignation in March 2011, her position was abolished. Since then, Obama has seldom spoken of global warming or climate change.

'Polarbeargate' Scientist To Head Back To Work : NPR

The polar bear scientist who has spent more than a month suspended from his government job has now been told that he should report back to work on Friday — although NPR has learned that his job is changing and he will no longer manage federal contracts.

What’s That Smell? « The Enterprise Blog

The climate-control people don’t fear that Perry will win any given election, nor do they fear what his policy initiatives might be: those things can be mitigated or waited out by bureaucracy, democrat opposition, etc.

No, what they fear is what a Perry victory (or even a good showing) would mean for the entire greenhouse gas control agenda: If Perry’s flat-out stand that the entire issue is a hoax isn’t an obstacle to his winning votes in a presidential race, it’s an unambiguous signal that the climate issue is well-and-truly, staked-and-decapitated vampire-style dead. Opinion polls can be spun this way and that, but the results of presidential races, well, not so much.*

Desmogblog's denier database is seriously out of date: For example, where's Joe Bastardi? Lubos Motl? Steven Goddard? Warren Meyer? Donna Laframboise? Andrew Bolt? Pierre Gosselin?

Global Warming Disinformation Database

An extensive database of individuals involved in the global warming denial industry.

DeSmogBlog thoroughly investigates the academic and industry backgrounds of those involved in the PR spin campaigns that are confusing the public and stalling action on global warming. If there's anyone or any organization, ( i.e. scientist, self-professed "expert," think tank, industry association, company) that you would like to see researched and reported on DeSmogBlog, please contact us here.

Prepare for better weather: Ontario to blow $80 million on charging stations for electric cars

Message to McGuinty: Most green-job schemes have been miserable failures - The Globe and Mail

Dalton McGuinty has hit the campaign trail, and he’s paving it green. Earlier this month he announced that Ontario will pump $80-million into building charging stations for electric cars. “They are peppy, they are quiet, and the thing that I like best as a father, and ultimately a grandfather, I would hope, is that they’re clean,” he said. By 2020, he hopes, one out of 20 cars in Ontario will be electrically powered.

Meantime, Costco, the giant retailer, has pulled the plug on its electric car-charging stations, which it had installed in its California parking lots. The reason is that nobody uses them. Even China – which promised it would leapfrog the world in electric-car development – is backing off.
...
The moral of the story is as clear as a row of giant wind turbines on the horizon. Governments that invest in risky, expensive and unproven technologies will probably lose big. The only way they are able to lure private investment is with generous subsidies and long-term contracts. And even then, the failure rate is high. Ontario has already attracted its share of “suitcase” companies that are here so long as the money flows, and not a moment longer. And when they go belly-up, guess who’s stuck with the bills?

“The Science is Settled” but the parties roll on

The global warming bureaucracy is planning a tax-funded jaunt to balmy Durban in South Africa for yet another of their periodic talkfests.
...
Thus the Kyoto deal is dead and there is nothing there to discuss in Durban.
Almost every western government is guilty of massive overspending. Australia and New Zealand should reduce government waste by sending NO ONE to the pointless party in Durban.

Nature: climate change leads to 67-84 percent intraspecific biodiversity loss by 2080 – Holocene Mass Extinction within this century | Bits Of Science

Oh yeah, one final note: the new study’s model outcome range depends on IPCC SRES scenarios. Just like we saw yesterday bad things [the upper range: 84% biodiversity loss] happen under the business as usual A2 scenario [ecologically ‘friendly’ B2 gives us 67% damage]. Worse things happen in reality though.

Klain wades into climate fight | POLITICO 44

Ron Klain, Vice President Biden's former chief of staff, went to bat for the Obama administration Thursday afternoon as he swatted away suggestions from Rick Perry and Mitt Romney that global warming isn't caused by people.

"They're playing to their base," Klain said on MSNBC. "It’s primary politics."

In defense of global warming being a man-made problem, Klain cited "hurricanes" and "a record year for tornadoes," also claiming that Republicans are citing information from "scientists and researchers sponsored by the oil industry."

Climate Capitalism and Merchants of Doubt Book Review

Perhaps those who have participated in creating current weather instability and damage should be sentenced by native hunters in the melting Arctic to live out their remaining years in the company of polar bears on melting ice floes...

Summer's almost over, and still no solar panels on White House roof - Wire - Lifestyle - bellinghamherald.com

WASHINGTON — In October, Energy Secretary Steven Chu pledged that solar panels and a solar hot water heater would be installed on the White House roof before the start of summer.

Now, summer is almost over, the 2012 election campaign is well under way, and there are still no solar panels on the White House roof.

Bill Keller Asks Candidates About Religion - NYTimes.com

For Senator Rick Santorum:

1. Some voters — you have probably encountered them — worry that religious zeal can lead to a rejection of scientific evidence, resulting in policy proposals that are essentially faith-based. In an interview with Rush Limbaugh, you described global warming as “junk science” and “patently absurd,” and accused proponents of being part of a plot to expand government control over our lives. Among scientists who specialize in climate, there is now a strong consensus that earth is experiencing a pronounced warming trend, and that human behavior contributes to it. How did you decide that on this issue you agreed with the scientific outliers? Was this an example of faith-based policy judgment?

Al's Journal : Tune In

This week, I'll be appearing in an online interview with Alex Bogusky to discuss the climate crisis and our upcoming 24 Hours of Reality event. You can tune in, live, on Friday, August 26th at 12PM mountain time.

Warmist Stephen Stromberg: Not blowing money on the climate hoax is like not buying "flood insurance unless you know — for sure — that you are going to have a flood"

Mitt Romney softens his position on climate change - PostPartisan - The Washington Post

“I don't know if it's mostly caused by humans,” Romney continued. “What I'm not willing to do is spend trillions of dollars on something I don't know the answer to.”
...
Regardless, just because a negative outcome is uncertain doesn’t mean you ignore the possibility. Especially when the experts insist that negative outcome is both preventable and extremely likely to happen if nothing is done. Businesses and households hedge against risks, for example by spending money on insurance.

Romney’s statement is like saying that you don’t need flood insurance unless you know — for sure — that you are going to have a flood. Actually, it’s even worse. It’s like saying that when thousands of specialists have told you that you are very likely to have a flood.

Savor local flavors - Gates, NY - Gates-Chili Post

“Food miles have more to do with global climate change and carbon footprint than everything else combined,” Kone said.

Romney sticks with strategy despite Perry's surge - Forbes.com

He took a non-committal stand on climate change at a forum in Lebanon, N.H. Humans probably contribute to global warming, he said, but "I don't know by how much." He noted he's not a scientist and said he didn't want to spend trillions of dollars on carbon-reduction programs for "something we don't know the answer to."

University Turns Over Some Material on Climategate - ScienceInsider

Paul Chesser, ATI's executive director, said ATI staff members had not had a chance to review the contents. "We think we got a third" of the documents requested, Chesser said.
...
"U.Va has not turned over emails related to discussions of research, unpublished manuscripts, private discussions between scientists about science, etc.,--i.e., any of the materials that are exempt from release by state law," Mann wrote in an e-mail message. "U.Va has simply turned over the non-exempt emails, and many of these were turned over to ATI months ago." The university did not respond to ScienceInsider's request for comment.
...
Asked what ATI plans to do with the documents, Chesser said that depends on what's in them. The institute may decide to post them on its Web site, he said. "We'll have to see what we've got first."

NY Times writer suggests that global warming is a "boutique issue" that matters "far more to media-intelligentsia types than to most American voters"

The Huntsman Gambit - Ross Douthat - NYTimes.com

I agree, but with this big caveat: When Paul feuded with Giuliani over foreign policy four years ago, he was separating himself from the pack on an issue that actually mattered, both to the Republican electorate and to the country as a whole. Whereas by casting himself as the candidate of capital-S Science, touting his belief in evolution and global warming, Huntsman is staking out maverick-y positions on issues that matter far more to media-intelligentsia types than to most American voters. Given that this is a recession election, not a culture war election, a candidate trying to successfully brand himself as a “different kind of Republican” would be far better off breaking with conservative orthodoxy on an economic issue — by calling for looser money, maybe, or attacking the totally unpersuasive right-wing conceit that we need to raise taxes on the American working class. Instead, Huntsman is toeing the party line on pocketbook matters, and picking fights on boutique issues that are at best tangentially related to the major controversies of the Great Recession.

Twitter / @MarcGunther: What century are we living ...

What century are we living in as Republicans debate evolution and climate science? Ronald Brownstein reports bit.ly/n7Ylzw

The New Nostradamus of the North: Seif el-Gaddafi - once lauded by the NYT for his views on global warming

Seif is still on the run, but if he is captured alive, he will not become the eco-conscious liberal leader of Libya that New York Times expected him to become. He will have to address some more serious questions than dubious climate change when facing the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Al Gore and the IPCC warmists have lost a leading supporter in Africa.

Twitter / @OProwtothepole

There is ice ahead. Might have to pull her over the pack ice for the last mile. The boat is design for this...

Dozens More Arrested in Tar Sands Pipeline Protests: Gulf Coast Residents Speak Out | ThinkProgress

Bill Watson, a professor at University of Southern Mississippi, was relatively pleased with the media coverage. With a number of German media outlets present, he remarked that “we’ve done pretty well in European media. Certainly we’re all over the web; Huff-Po is on this, New York Times editorials are speaking to this. I think we’re getting about as much as we can hope, and it has only just started. I think that the media attention will improve as becomes clear that these crazy folks are here every day.”

William M. Briggs, Statistician » Your Belief In God Is Causing Your Denial Of AGW

Donner’s main problem is to fail to acknowledge the complexity behind “belief” or “denial” in man-made global warming. Admitting that mankind influences climate is far different than agreeing that the effects of a changed climate are known with high certainty, that these effects will be universally deleterious, and that only the solutions offered by the left to “save the planet” are viable.

When a citizen is asked if he “believes” in AGW, it’s safer to say no, since it’s not clear what the question means, and since he won’t be certain the person who’s asking him isn’t using the question as an excuse to latch onto his wallet.

President Obama Explains the Science Behind Climate Change and Extreme Weather | ThinkProgress

this is from February 2010

Al Fin: Planet Earth at the Mercy of Mysterious Cosmic Forces

The multi-billion dollar climate orthodoxy has relied on poorly conceived computer models of climate, GIGO trash compactors. The orthodoxy has compounded its mistakes by pressuring science journals, and climate scientists, not to publish research which could be seen as contradicting the orthodox carbon hysteric point of view. Eventually, the facts behind the unsavoury and unscientific behind-the-scenes maneuvers of powerful insiders such as Phil Jones, Michael Mann, Kevin Trenberth, etc., will come to light -- despite the large scale politically correct attempts to cover up.

In the mean time, we can only hope that genuine scientific work will continue, against the groupthink currents of political groups such as the IPCC etc.

Greens: Approval of oil pipeline could hurt Obama in 2012 - The Hill's E2-Wire

“It will be increasingly difficult to mobilize the environmental base and in particular to mobilize young people” if Obama approves the pipeline, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said Thursday.
...
Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica said Thursday the final decision on the Keystone XL pipeline is a “bellwether” for President Obama’s commitment to addressing climate change and weaning the country off its dependence on oil.
...
“Clearly, President Obama ran his election campaign on ending Americans’ addiction to oil as well as addressing climate change,” he said. “If he approves this pipeline, I think it’s frankly open season on the president’s record in fulfilling this open promise that he made to the American people.”

Healing the planet: Greenpeace to spend five weeks ramming through "fragile/critical" Arctic ice with a 163-foot diesel-powered steel luxury yacht

Into thin ice and heading back to the Arctic | Greenpeace UK

It’s been two weeks since our icebreaker the Arctic Sunrise left a busy Amsterdam for the Arctic Ocean.
...
At Greenpeace, one of the reasons we use the phrase 'climate change' and try to stay away from 'global warming' is that the changes are not happening in unison across the world. Climate change can mean colder winters in parts of Europe
...The ship and its crew will spend five weeks in the Arctic, and we will spend most of that time inside the Arctic sea ice

The 49.62m Motor Yacht ARCTIC SUNRISE by Vaagen Verft A/S - Charter World Luxury Yacht Charters on Superyachts

The motor yacht ARCTIC SUNRISE is a 50 metre 163 (foot) large steel ship which was created by Vaagen Verft A/S and devised by Vaagen Verft. A generous research boat ARCTIC SUNRISE is a particularily well designed Norway built superyacht which was launched to accolade in 1975.
...The motor yacht superstructure is made mostly from steel. With a width of 11.49 m / 37.7 feet ARCTIC SUNRISE has spacious room.
...
Installed with one MAK diesel-electric engines, ARCTIC SUNRISE is able to reach a maximum speed of 14 knots. She is driven by a single screw propeller. Her total HP is 2495 HP and her total Kilowatts are 1836. Concerning bow thruster maneuverability she was fitted with / Stern.
... Number of Crew Members: 30

Her Engine(s) is one 2495 Horse Power or 1836 Kilowatts Mak. Engine Model: 9M452AK diesel-electric. - Overall output: 2495 HP /1836 KW. - Approximate Cruise Speed is 13 nautical miles per hour. - Her top Speed is around 14 knots. - Fuel Capacity: 508000 L.

Guardian: "The impacts of a warming world are rarely seen in the US, which may help fuel climate scepticism"

How to talk to a climate sceptic | Environment | guardian.co.uk

[Caption] Drought-hit northern Kenya. The impacts of a warming world are rarely seen in the US, which may help fuel climate scepticism. Photograph: Stephen Morrison/EPA

The Real Price of Inaction on Climate Change | Radha Adhar's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

After running an independent analysis E3, a network of over 200 economists, published a report that found one ton of CO2 in the atmosphere did up to $893 in economic damage in 2010. That is more than 42 times the government's higher range estimate!

“In our worst case, it could be almost $900 in 2010, rising to $1,500 in 2050,” states the E3 report. What is even more alarming is that government’s calculation “omits many of the biggest risks associated with climate change, and downplays the impact of our current emissions on future generations.”

Higher used car prices? Thanks, Nancy - By Henry Payne - Planet Gore - National Review Online

“The ‘cash for clunkers’ program of two years ago sent 677,000 older vehicles to the junkyards, as their owners cashed in on a federal subsidy for buying more fuel-efficient cars,” reminds the St. Louis Post –Dispatch.

That’s because they were evil. Pelosi & Co. declared them enemies of the planet that had to be destroyed on the altar of global warming.

So obsessive were Democrats that NHTSA actually advised car dealers to replace clunkers’ motor oil with a sodium silicate solution — then run it through the engine to ruin it so that scrap dealers couldn’t resell parts. This further penalized the used parts industry during an economic recession.

Your tax dollars at work.

Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » WTF? This is What They Mean by Oil and Gas Subsidies?

Seriously, nearly half the “subsidy” number is the ability of a company to use LIFO accounting on inventory for their taxes? Since the proposition is to eliminate these only for oil and gas, what is the logic that somehow LIFO accounting is wrong in Oil and Gas but OK in every other industry?

REDNECK WISDOM VS THE GREEN THING « Gonzotown's Blog

(Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a clever young follower of the Green Church)

'Reef becoming coal and gas highway' - National News - National - Environment - Casey Weekly

“The Reef supports a $6 billion tourism industry which employs 67,000 people. Yet this great employer and money spinner for Queensland, this ancient natural wonder, is under threat from climate change and is being turned into a coal and gas highway,” she said.

Senator Waters, a former environmental lawyer, also took the opportunity to reflect on the legacy she hopes to leave behind when she eventually departs the Senate.
...
‘‘If I leave this place having been part of putting a price on pollution to protect the Great Barrier Reef, the mother in me will be happy.

"A tremendous recovery in world wheat production" - warmists wrong again

No doubt the Stanford, Columbia and NBER researchers will declare that this years bumper wheat harvest is just an aberration - soon global warming will seriously decrease harvests...
Warmists will always have an easy explanation when reality disproves their models. Fortunately they have lost their credibility long ago.

Early reduction of melon and watermelon supply in Ukraine

Farmers report of the melon and watermelon yields having turned out to be lower than average in recent years due to cold weather during blossoming period. As a result, the size and yields of melons and watermelons are lower than average. It should also be noted that harvesting of late watermelons is starting later than usual (approximately in a week).

Michelle Malkin » Romney: On Second Thought, Maybe Humans Aren’t the Cause of Climate Change… Mostly

It’s not an official anthropomorphic flip-flop yet because Romney’s still of the opinion that humans are causing the climate to change — it’s just a question of how much (or little). One thing’s for sure: Whether or not at some point Romney flat-out says humans aren’t the cause of climate change — or even declares himself a proud global warming denier — will directly correlate with his standing in the polls. That science is settled.

Romney Flips on CO2 - Revkin.net

Republican candidate displays soft cartilage in his spine by reversing on need to limit CO2 - a retreat rightfully criticized by Keith Kloor, and claimed as a scalp by Marc Morano to hang on his wall of recantations.

C3: Jon Huntsman To Denounce CERN Cloud Experiments As "Anti-Science" - Claims 8,000 CERN Scientists Are Wrong

CERN is the world's premier home of some 8,000 top-notch scientists and they are the ones who made this critically acclaimed cosmic/cloud experiment possible. As their results clearly show, the climate science is far from being "settled" and the "consensus" on AGW is non-existent.

Did CLOUD Just Rain on the Global Warming Parade? - Forbes

One of the hot topics, so to speak, in the global warming debate is allocating responsibility for 20th century warming between natural and man-made effects. This is harder than one might imagine — after all, no one’s thermometer has two readings, one for “natural” and one for “man-made.” This week, from CERN in Geneva, comes an important new study in this debate.

Global warming skeptics argue that only a portion, possibly a small portion, of recent warming is due to man-made CO2 and greenhouse gasses.

UN chief: Because of the carbon dioxide hoax, we all need to make major changes to our lifestyles

UN chief Ban Ki-moon calls for a global clean-energy revolution > Opinion > Opinion | Click Green

[Mr. Ban] “Climate change is showing that the old model is more than obsolete, it is dangerous. We need a revolution in thinking and in action. Making this happen will take major changes – in our lifestyles, our economic models and our social and political life.

Weasel Zippers » Blog Archive » Not To Be Outdone By Barack, Joe Biden Spotted Golfing In Hawaii…

Obama daughters visit Nantucket | CapeCodOnline.com

President Obama's daughters arrived at noon in a private, 40-foot boat, which was escorted into the harbor by a Coast Guard cutter, according to a source with knowledge of the girls' trip to the island.

2007: Ban Ki Moon clocks up air miles to see Korean concert - Times Online

After leaving the climate talks in Bali, Ban Ki Moon will make a trip around the world to attend half a concert in New York.

The UN Secretary-General is due to stop in East Timor and Japan before Monday's meeting of the Middle East Quartet in Paris. He plans to travel the wrong way around the world in a jumbo jet to put in a brief appearance at a Korean concert at Carnegie Hall.

Aides say that Mr Ban will fly from Tokyo to New York to attend the $1,000-a-seat benefit for the South Korean Sejong Centre for the Performing Arts. Mr Ban, the guest of honour, will arrive in time for the reception but will have to leave at the interval for his flight to Paris.