One of the more unpleasant characteristics of the adherents of the ‘Global Warming’ religion is their blood lust for heretics and sinners. They seek out with the most vitriolic language those who deny ‘The Faith’, or who fail to obey the minutiae of their daily imprimaturs. They must have witches to hang, to burn, and to drown. In the words of Bruno Latour: “Nous n’avons jamais été modernes”.

I wonder what these heretic hunters would have made of the dreadful year, 1589? The final decades of the 16th century - right at the sump of what we call the ‘Little Ice Age’ - were a climatic horror story in Europe, with mighty storms sinking ships (including, in 1588, a goodly portion of the Spanish Armada) in the Atlantic and on the North Sea. (Global Warming Politics)

The red, red Koyapigaktoruk comes bob, bob, bobbin’ along - One of the most well-known and beloved harbingers of spring is the appearance of our feathered friend, the red-breasted robin. And as is the case with virtually every other cute species, it is the subject of climate change speculation from time to time. But in the robin’s case, it doesn’t surround global warming pushing the robin to extinction. Quite the contrary, global warming is expanding the robin’s range into never-before-seen-territory. (World Climate Report)

A Short Tutorial On Global Warming - Climate Science (and other weblogs) have posted detailed information on the issues associated with different methods to assess global climate system heat changes. Readers can access examples of these posts on Climate Audit, Watts Up With That, Hall of Record, ICECAP and The Blackboard.

This current Climate Science weblog is intended to just summarize the issue as there are still individuals who perpetuate the claim that measuring near surface air temperature at irregularly spaced observation sites around the globe can accurately diagnose global warming. (Climate Science)

Evidence of a Significant Solar Imprint in Annual Globally Averaged Temperature Trends - Part 2 - In Part I, we presented evidence of a noticable periodicity in globally averaged temperatures when filtered with Hodrick-Prescott smoothing.  Using a default value of lamda of 100, we saw a bidecadal pattern in the rate of change in the smoothed temperature series that appears closely related to 22 year Hale solar cycles.  There was also evidence of a longer climate cycle of ~66 years, or three Hale solar cycles, corresponding to slightly higher peaks of cycles 11 to 17 and 17 to 23 shown in Figure 4B. But how much of this is attributable to value of lambda (λ). (Watts Up With That?)

Support for Lack of Volcanic Activity Contributing to Recent Warming from Eclipse Study - Back in November, I posted this blog showing some evidence that a lack of volcanic ash may have contributed to the recent warmth especially in the polar regions. The temperature anomalies were shown in this pair of maps for high and low aerosol content. (Joseph D’Aleo, Icecap)

When ‘Science’ Isn’t Science - In considering the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), i.e. human caused, the discussion has been noticeably one-sided and phenomenally unscientific. (Michael R. Fox, Hawaii Reporter)

Informed Decisions - Al Gore says that those of us who are skeptical that man is warming the planet have a flat-Earth mind-set. But if Gore would open his mind, he’d learn that more than likely the opposite is true. (IBD)

Horse spit! - The entire delta is constantly being built by erosion of the Himalayas deposited by the Ganges and constantly oozing into the Bay of Bengal as a silt plume — as it has for millions of years. It is in fact a flood delta and naturally subsides with compaction and the decay of vegetation trapped in the silt layers. This has exactly nothing to do with anthropogenic global warming or alleged acceleration in sea level rise: Time runs out for islanders on global warming’s front line (The Observer)

Ah yes, unicorns, pixies… … funny thing though, if you start counting after the Maoris landed in New Zealand and decimated the various flightless Moa in the 15th Century it’s difficult to come up with a few hundred critters and most of those were island varieties wiped out by rats and cats introduced (mostly accidentally) during the age of sail. Number wiped out in the 20th Century? There probably were some: New age of climate change (AAP)

British Climate Bill To Clear First Parliament Hurdle - LONDON - Britain’s landmark Climate Change Bill, which for the first time sets a legal requirement on a government to cut carbon emissions, is expected to pass its first parliamentary hurdle on Monday but has a rocky ride ahead. (Reuters)

False alarms and climate change - If warming is not a burning issue, let’s say so as we open debate

Dire predictions about the future of prosperous capitalist living remain trendy, despite decades of well-documented exaggeration. Al Gore claims a consensus in regard to his “planetary emergency” of global climate change from fossil-fuel burning. The science is “settled,” the editorial page of Science magazine claimed last year. And note the title of a recent conference at the Baker Institute at Rice University: “Beyond Science: The Economics and Politics of Responding to Climate Change.” (Houston Chronicle)

Climate negotiators start work on ‘Kyoto II’ - BANGKOK, March 30 - Scientists and officials from across the world meet in Thailand this week for the first formal talks in the long process of drawing up a replacement for the Kyoto climate change pact by the end of 2009. (Reuters)

Can We Trust the Polar Bear? - The polar bear is a candidate for Endangered Species Act listing. But can we trust the polar bear?

Can We Trust the Polar Bear? - Parody ad paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research and Citizens United.

I always get a kick out of these pieces - Cute item from Dr ‘Ieuan Ap Rhyl’ 

    ^{SPECIES EMERGENCY ALERT 01/04/08}

African zebras losing their stripes to global warming

Idiot media don’t see Al & the carbon scammers are trying to buy energy control - Wow! Al is spending some on an ad campaign (along with plenty of his fellow scammers) in an effort to stampede the public and politics into stupid legislation that will mean Al et al will get a slice of mandated energy taxation. Check out the fawning coverage.

They’ve noticed — kind of… - Yes, there are plenty trying to seize control of the world’s energy supplies, ration your water use by restricting storage etc. Funny thing though, it’s greenies, carbon profiteers and Maurice Strong & the UN who are trying to seize control, impose global taxation and destroy sovereignty. Weirdly the Left-dominated media and pink politicians accuse free enterprise and democracies of exactly the evil socialists wish to impose: Those who control oil and water will control the world (The Observer)

Senior Democrats mull Al Gore’s nomination - Plans for Al Gore to take the Democratic presidential nomination as the saviour of a bitterly divided party are being actively discussed by senior figures and aides to the former vice-president. (Sunday Telegraph)

Greens and James Inhofe - It is arguably common for greens to declare someone like Senator James Inhofe a complete “whacko.”  It is also common for greens to accuse someone like Inhofe to be a tool, not even a greenwasher, but a puppet of the worst greenwashers, those who are secretly avowed enemies of everything green.  To Inhofe’s detractors, he is a “denier,” an oil stooge, a war hawk, an immigration hardliner, and if that weren’t bad enough, pro-life.  Wow!  Now here’s the problem - if just one of these positions are positions one might consider “whacko,” it doesn’t mean one or more of Inhofe’s other positions are not whacko at all. (ECOworld)

Will capitalism survive climate change? - There is now a solid consensus in the scientific community that if the change in global mean temperature in the 21st century exceeds 2.4 degrees Celsius, changes in the planet’s climate will be large-scale, irreversible and disastrous. (Bangkok Post)

Pepsi dives into dangerous global warming wars - WASHINGTON - Pepsi is the newest corporation to “go green,” earning media praise while promising to “do well by doing good.” But environmentalism for profit requires the tricky game of lobbying, which makes some PepsiCo investors worried that the corporation is in over its head. (Timothy Carney, Examiner)

A tariff on carbon (even The Star knows it’s a bad idea) - Canadians and the citizens of other Western industrialized countries are growing increasingly worried about the losses of high-paying manufacturing jobs to low-wage developing countries, particularly China and India. Yet, as these jobs go up in smoke in the West, the jobs replacing them in Asia are themselves creating a lot of real smoke with all its attendant pollutants and carbon emissions.

Live Earth founder calls for more cuts to global carbon emissions - One of the driving forces behind the Live Earth concerts has called on business to usher in “a third industrial revolution” if global carbon emissions are to be reduced. (The Times)

Flooding could destroy Norfolk villages - Further plans to abandon parts of the coast of Eastern England to the sea are expected from the Environment Agency this year, following the suggestion that six villages around the Norfolk Broads might have to be given up to flooding within the next 100 years. (Daily Telegraph)

Dark Hour - a Sign of the Times - The Carbon Sense Coalition today came out in support of “lights out” during Earth Hour (Saturday 29th) but claimed the time should be renamed “Dark Hour” and suggested that consumers should also forgo the consumption of gasoline and diesel during this period. (Carbon Sense Coalition)

Earth Hour crashes to Earth - Credit the public with sense. Earth Hour, hysterically promoted by The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, the ABC, SBS, Sky News and the federal and state governments, resulted in no significant fall in power usage. (Andrew Bolt)

The lights are on… but there’s no one at home

Forty lights blaze on the billboard promoting energy efficiency in Downtown Auckland. Photo / Jason Dorday

A billboard that promotes energy efficiency has been lit up by 40 400-watt lamps for about nine hours a night since February. (New Zealand Herald)

Catastrophic carbon constraint (composite of several pieces)

Can’t Say ‘No’ To Canada’s Tar Sands Oil - At a time when saying anything good about fossil fuels is like declaring war on the environment, it may seem like wishful thinking to press for an expansion of U.S. oil refining capacity. Yet it is precisely this sort of thinking that is necessary if we are to make use of a vast, secure and reliable supply of fuel from Canada’s oil sands. (IBD)

Greenland Thaw May Replace Dog Sleds With Oil Drills — In Greenland, locals hunt reindeer for food and use dog sleds to traverse the ice sheet. Soon they may be working on offshore rigs and counting their money. (Bloomberg)

TUC presses for clean coal decision - The government comes under renewed pressure today to step up backing for the use of clean coal as part of future electricity generation.

The call to speed up decision-making comes from the TUC’s clean coal task group, which includes representatives from unions and companies within the coal and power industries. It said delays in backing emerging technologies behind clean coal and carbon capture and storage “are causing uncertainty and delaying vital investment, increasing risks to the UK’s security of electricity supplies”. (The Guardian)

Socialists never figure out why forcing enterprises to waste profits turns out badly - Struggling households to benefit as energy companies are forced to use £3bn profits to help customers lower carbon emissions (The Observer)

More Flimflam on Warming - On April 2, 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Air Act clearly empowered the Environmental Protection Agency to address greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. The ruling instructed the agency to determine whether global warming pollution endangers public health and welfare — an “endangerment finding” — and, if so, to devise emissions standards for motor vehicles. (New York Times)

The EPA frustrates the blame-Bush Democrats - Yesterday, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson announced that the EPA would respond to the Supreme Court global warming case, Massachusetts v. EPA, by issuing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) to solicit public comment on a range of complex issues. The decision (and the consequent delay and eventual public findings) hampers congressional Democrats’ efforts to shift responsibility onto the Bush administration for the future economic pain that CO-reduction regulation and legislation will inevitably cause. (Marlo Lewis, Planet Gore)

Britain seeks loophole in EU green energy targets - Government wants clean power projects abroad to count towards UK quota (The Guardian)

Hitting EU’s energy targets will cost Brits at least £2,000 - It will cost every household in the UK at least £2,000 to comply with the new European Union target of producing 15 per cent of all energy from renewable sources by 2020, according to a report commissioned by the government. (The Observer)

Inoculated Against Facts - Philadelphia - ON March 6, Terry and Jon Poling stood outside a federal courthouse in Atlanta, Ga., with their 9-year-old daughter Hannah and announced that the federal government had admitted that vaccines had contributed to her autism. The news was shocking. Health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at the American Academy of Pediatrics have steadfastly assured the public that vaccines do not cause autism. Now, in a special vaccine claims court, the federal government appeared to have said exactly the opposite. What happened? (New York Times)

Brain cancer fears over heavy mobile phone use - A top Australian neurosurgeon says the world’s heavy reliance on mobile phones could be a greater threat to human health than smoking and even asbestos. (Sydney Morning Herald)

Family Study Associates Pesticide Use With Parkinson’s Risk [No, it didn’t, nor farm work or well water, as the article eventually admits.] (HealthDay News)

Organic food ‘no benefit to health’ - The toil association et al are trying to spin it but the bottom line is that people ate only organic foods until the last few centuries — they also had short, brutish lives: Organic food ‘no benefit to health’ (Observer)

Huge US Shift Away From Corn To Soy Acres - CHICAGO - Record-high soybean prices are expected to lure US farmers to make a huge shift away from corn production in 2008 and if the current cold, soggy weather pattern persists in key corn states, corn plantings may be cut even more dramatically than analysts now expect. (Reuters)

March 28, 2008

Global Smearing - By any standard, atmospheric physicist Dr. S. Fred Singer is a remarkably accomplished scientist. But his outspoken questioning of global warming alarmism has just earned him one of the most outrageous mainstream media smear pieces I’ve ever seen. (Steven Milloy, FoxNews.com)

Gore’s Message To Climate Change Skeptics - Uh-huh… so ‘rare’ are skeptics that wannabe carbon magnates are spending $300,000,000.00 on one ad campaign trying to stampede the public into giving them a guaranteed slice of every energy transaction. No doubt a worthy prize — if you’re greedy enough and care so little for people that you are prepared to steal their standard of living, prevent the impoverished from developing and gaining some improved living standards, health care… They give ‘Peace Prizes’ for this? Nice.

No wonder Andy’s getting worse - Check out the company he keeps: marvelous magical energy man Amory Lovins, the Rocky Mountain Institute (thinks industrialization an ‘aberration’, promotes ‘progress through dedevelopment’ and is alarmingly anti-capitalist — no wonder greenies love him); Van Jones (Rainforest Action Network, Julia Butterfly Hill’s “Circle of Life” organization…); Cathy Zoi (Gore acolyte, she served as Chief of Staff in the White House Office on Environmental Policy in the Clinton-Gore Administration, is currently staffer for Alliance for Climate Protection, on the board of California Clean Energy Fund, formerly of Climate Institute [generally viewed as a front for the (anti-)Australia Institute, itself a camouflage for the watermelon group Australian Conservation Foundation with its rotating door for Greenpeace staffers]) and let’s not forget serial apocalypse prognosticator Lester Brown. I wonder how much of the $1,700.00 ticket price Andy is getting to share the dais with that lot?

Better than I thought… - Far better the misanthropes and gaia-loonies are whining about him than his actually seriously pursuing this nonsense — something the world cannot afford:

McCain under fire over environment record (Elana Schor, guardian.co.uk)

At Last, Some Brave UK Politicians - At last, some brave UK politicians are breaking ranks and are starting to speak out against the nonsense of the Climate Change Bill and emission targets that will never be achieved in a millennia of Sundays. (Global Warming Politics)

To some extent we agree - rent-seekers are a key danger — in fact they are a major driving force in the gorebull warming farce. Where we disagree vehemently is in thinking there is the slightest value in fighting the phantom menace. The major societal danger we face today is the collection of zealots desperate to “do something” about the climate when the only rational response is to do precisely nothing: Garnaut warns of fixers (Paul Kelly, The Australian)

Ah, the rewards and notoriety of screaming ‘Censorship!’ - Post lifted from Icecap

Since when did decadal drought relate to 'climate change'? Scientists say climate change affecting trees and streams in the West - SALT LAKE CITY - Around the same time the American West started heating up five years ago, Colorado started losing its lodgepole pine forests to a beetle infestation.

“The population built up rapidly and exploded. It takes out the mature trees,” said Ingrid Aguayo, an entomologist for the Colorado State Forest Service, which estimates that about 60 percent of the lodgepole pines have turned red and brown.

“Now we’re seeing a new carpet of forest coming up,” she said.

Scientists can’t be certain global warming is to blame, but the evidence is damning. Now, a new calculation of government temperature data shows that over the past five years, average annual temperatures in the Colorado River basin — the heart of the West — have risen by 2.2 degrees, or about twice as fast as the global rate. (Associated Press)

Interesting Weblog On Hall Of Record Entitled “What is Normal” - There is an informative post on the website Hall of Record entitled “What is Normal”.  I recommend Climate Science readers read the contributions on that weblog on this subject. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)

Norwegian PM alarmed after Antarctic visit - Alarm bells are ringing about risks of a quickening thaw of Antarctica that would drive up world sea levels, Norway’s prime minister said yesterday after a visit to the icy continent.

Scientists say there are hard-to-quantify chances that newly detected lakes under Antarctica’s ice sheets might lubricate a slide towards the oceans, or that climate change could warm southern seas and melt floating sea ice holding back glaciers.

“It is alarming. Alarm bells are ringing. It is irresponsible for decision-makers to ignore these signals,” Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said at the end of a two-day visit to Norway’s Troll station in east Antarctica. (Reuters)

Reality Check On Antarctic Sea Ice - The news reports on the breaking off of a portion of floating ice in Antarctica have received wide distribution (i.e. do a google search under news for Antarctic sea ice and hundreds of reports appear on this event). These news reports claim that this breaking is due to global warming. As just one example of the statements in the news, The Guardian wrote 

 ”The collapsing shelf suggests that climate change could be forcing change much more quickly than scientists had predicted.

“The ice shelf is hanging by a thread,” said Professor David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). “We’ll know in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be.”

The Wilkins shelf covers an area of 5,600 square miles (14,500 sq km). It is now protected by just a thin thread of ice between two islands.

Vaughan was a member of the team that predicted in 1993 that global warming could cause the Wilkins shelf to collapse within 30 years.”

This media reporting has become typical of the bias that many journalists have. Not reported in the media (but well reported on ICECAP by Joe D’Aleo)  the media has ignored in their reporting the increase in Antarctic sea ice cover in recent years, with, at present, a coverage that is well 1 million square kilometers above average (see)!

In fact, over the globe, since the Arctic sea ice cover is not far below its average and the Antarctic sea ice coverage is well above average for this time of the year, the global coverage of sea ice is actually above average after being below last year (see). There is no way to know if this is just a short term perturbation, but at the very least the news media should have been honest and balanced in their coverage.

Unfortunately, it appears that most journalists just parrot the perspective of the first news release on these climate issues, without doing any further investigation. If this is inadvertent, they need to be educated in climate science. If deliberate bias, they are clearly advocates and the reporters should be clearly and publically identified as having such a bias. In either case, the public is being misinformed! (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)

Must-Read Global-Warming Book - About a year ago, Canadian environmentalist and journalist Lawrence Solomon began a series of articles in the National Post examining the credentials of and arguments made by scientists and economists labeled “deniers” by various environmentalists, a number of mainstream environmental reporters, and some politicians. Solomon, true to the finest tenets of his profession, sought the truth concerning whether there was in fact a consensus on the headline-grabbing issue of global warming, or whether in fact any “real” scientists actually dissented from the Al Gore/UN line that global warming is happening, is largely caused by humans, and threatens all manner of catastrophies. (Planet Gore)

Gore to throw insults on 60 minutes

There will be a story featuring Al Gore and his climate views on CBS 60 minutes this weekend. Normally I don’t pay much heed to this program, but Gore is publicly calling those who question the science “…almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat…”.

To me, a person who has at one time been fully engaged in the belief that CO2 was indeed the root cause of the global warming problem, I find Gore’s statements insulting. In 1990 after hearing what James Hansen and others had to say, I helped to arrange a national education campaign for TV meteorologists nationwide (ironically with CBS’s help) on the value of planting trees to combat the CO2 issue. I later changed my thinking when I learned more about the science involved and found it to be lacking. (Watts Up With That?)

For a ‘global ambassador’ Albert Gore sure is reluctant to discuss ‘global warming’ - Professor J. Scott Armstrong has been trying to engage the globe’s fevered ambassador for quite some time, unfortunately with no more success than we have enjoyed (in fact this is about as close to a discussion as we have managed despite a personal invitation more than 2 years ago). Here’s the latest in the ongoing saga and a copy of the latest communication sent to Al.

Increased knowledge about global warming leads to apathy, study shows - The more you know the less you care – at least that seems to be the case with global warming. A telephone survey of 1,093 Americans by two Texas A&M University political scientists and a former colleague indicates that trend, as explained in their recent article in the peer-reviewed journal Risk Analysis.

Keelings’ half-century of CO2 measurements serves as global warming’s longest yardstick - Oh boy… there’s nothing wrong with Keeling’s work — just the absurd conclusions drawn from it but this piece isn’t featured to have yet another shot at gorebull warming. Check out the snazzy per meg oxygen graphic:

So, how many people do you suppose would glance at the above graphic and assume Oxygen levels are falling precipitously? My guess is, quite a few. What does it really show? That Oxygen levels are greater than 99.95% of what they were (a change significantly less than that usually experienced going indoors or going up a floor or two). While people have been taking any kind of notice Earth’s atmosphere has contained slightly more that 21% Oxygen and now it contains, well, slightly more that 21% Oxygen. What might be of significance is that O₂ levels are slightly higher than expected indicating that the biosphere is capturing Carbon and liberating Oxygen at unanticipated rates.

Earth Hour’s soft fascism - Light, both natural and artificial, has traditionally been associated with The Good. A critical element of civilization has been the development of ever brighter, more flexible, and more reliable forms of illumination, from the tallow candle, through whale oil and kerosene, to Thomas Edison’s marvellous invention of the electric light bulb.

Conversely, the absence of light is associated with primitivism and ignorance. Is it not significant, therefore, that radical environmentalists are seeking to persuade citizens of the world to flick the switch? Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver are among the cities planning to dim their lights this coming Saturday between 8 and 9 p.m. as part of “Earth Hour.” (Peter Foster, Financial Post)

Earth Hour coverage should be grounded - A LOT of hot air is going into tomorrow’s Earth Hour, and I don’t just mean the hot-air balloon sent up last Saturday to promote this hour-long switch-off. But, good God, why did the organisers choose that way to promote a campaign to make us cut our gases? Sending up the 32-metre light globe-shaped billboard burned so much gas - and emitted so much carbon dioxide - that we’ll have to switch off 10,000 lights tomorrow just to make it up. Perfect, then, that it landed in the Peanut Farm Reserve, and equally symbolic that The Age gave this wildly inappropriate stunt fawning coverage. (Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun)

Something Rotten in the NYT

Tuesday’s New York Times ran an op-ed by sociology professor Monica Prasad, “On Carbon, Tax and Don’t Spend,” which singled out Denmark as a model for how the U.S. should proceed on carbon-dioxide regulation. I have watched Denmark’s policies with particular interest — since marrying a Dane, and now having two little half-Danes here and a host of family there — and have been a regular visitor to that country. (Chris Horner, CEI)

Peak oil? Consider it solved - It won’t be easy but we can fix our oil and climate problems at the same time. (Joseph Romm, Salon)

Blue-sky thinking - I am an environmentalist - and earn my living as an airline pilot, based in the UK. Given the woolly thinking prevalent in the media right now, I suspect most would say that is a contradiction in terms. (Martin Chalk, The Guardian)

Calif. Grapples With Auto Emissions Rule - A major revision proposed to the state’s tough auto emissions program would cut the number of battery-powered and hydrogen vehicles that automakers must produce for California and 10 other states. (AP)

Irish State Utility To Halve Carbon Output By 2020 - DUBLIN - Ireland’s Electricity Supply Board (ESB) on Thursday announced an investment programme of 22 billion euros ($34.72 billion), half of which it plans to spend on renewable energy sources such as wind, tidal and biomass.

The state-owned company aims to halve its carbon emissions within 12 years, by which time it will be delivering one-third of its electricity from renewable generation. (Reuters)

Study shows weight bias is as prevalent as racial discrimination - Discrimination against overweight people—particularly women—is as common as racial discrimination, according to a study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University.

“These results show the need to treat weight discrimination as a legitimate form of prejudice, comparable to other characteristics like race or gender that already receive legal protection,” said Rebecca Puhl, research scientist and lead author. (Yale University)

Normal weight obesity: An emerging risk factor for heart and metabolic problems - More than half of American adults considered to have normal body weight in America have high body fat percentages — greater than 20 percent for men and 30 percent for women — as well as heart and metabolic disturbances, new Mayo Clinic research shows. The finding conflicts with the widely held belief that maintaining a normal weight automatically guards against disorders such as high levels of circulating blood fats and a tendency to develop metabolic syndrome, which often leads to type 2 diabetes. (PhysOrg)

Faster koa tree growth without adverse ecosystem effects - U.S. Forest Service scientists with the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry have completed a study on ways to make high-value koa trees grow faster, while increasing biodiversity, carbon sequestration, scenic beauty and recreation opportunities in native Hawaiían forests. (U.S. Forest Service)

Can you rescue a rainforest? The answer may be yes - Half a century after most of Costa Rica’s rainforests were cut down, researchers from the Boyce Thompson Institute took on a project that many thought was impossible - restoring a tropical rainforest ecosystem. (PhysOrg)

Small desert beetle found to engineer ecosystems - The catastrophic action a tiny beetle is wreaking on the deteriorating Chihuahuan desert will be revealed in the April edition of the Royal Entomological Society’s Ecological Entomology journal.

March 27, 2008

Debate heats up over business impact of climate change law - Lieberman-Warner bill would place caps on corporate carbon emissions; reports disagree about costs to companies (Matthew Scott, Financial Week)

The Global Warming Economy: Green Collar Jobs to the Rescue? - It’s the latest. It’s the greatest. Green collar jobs are going to help turn around the economy if Democrats have their way.  Senator Barack Obama last month promised the government would spend $150 billion to create 5 million such jobs. At $30,000 a pop, that’s placing a great deal of faith in federal job training. (Mike Bates, National Ledger)

Dot.bombs redux — capitalizing hot air: JP Morgan buys British carbon offset company - A small British company that pioneered the idea of individuals and companies “offsetting” their climate change emissions has been bought by JP Morgan, one of the world’s largest financial organisations. (John Vidal, The Guardian)

The Climate on the Street: More Banks Smell Money in Carbon - The shape and scope of future climate policy, both in the U.S. and around the world, is still far from certain. But big banks are accelerating their push into the growing market for trading carbon emissions, muscling in on a game that until recently was largely the province of small, specialist players. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)

The hot air of hypocrisy - The European Union summit reveals plenty of hypocrisy over climate-change targets (The Economist)

Andy Revkin makes tacit admission development is good - Unfortunately Andy is certain to revert to his closet Malthusian self virtually immediately — very sad. We can always hope he will mature into an actual person while he has the platform of The Crone and he might yet do some good. A pro-development stance would do so much for the impoverished and consequently for the environment (people who have gainful employment, affordable energy and sufficient food do not need to view their environment in terms of edibles and flammables) and yet Andy cannot see it, lazily content to parrot the anti-capitalist mantra of misanthropic watermelons.

Here’s one of the least generally understood facets of “global warming” - The fact that it is neither global nor even really warming but rather ‘less-colding’. The super-cold, super-dry air masses of the Siberian and Canadian winters are most sensitive to greenhouse enhancement by carbon dioxide simply because they lack the only really significant greenhouse gas — water vapor. It is not true that these masses are significantly heating though, merely that they aren’t getting quite as cold.

Don’t quite follow? Here’s some easy arithmetic as an example: during the winter months region some_name has a historical top temperature of 0 °C and a low of -44 °C, yielding a winter mean of -22 °C (-44 + 0 / 2 = -22 °C). Under enhanced greenhouse winter minimum temperatures rise to -40 °C but maximum temperature remains 0 °C (the other 3 seasons are unchanged). Because winter (1/4^TH of the year)  is 4 °C less-cold annual average minimum temperature increases 1 °C and the mean temperature for the year (max + min / 2) has risen 0.5 °C with no change in maximum temperatures or any temperatures other than how far below zero the winter may be.

That’s basically how enhanced greenhouse works — there’s no significant warming of maximum temperatures just a less-colding of super-cold minimums and there’s no reason that should constitute a problem for anyone. I chose the 4 °C example because that’s the number in article but in the real world the change is much smoother through the seasons rather than a coarse 4 °C jump in winter as in the calculation above. Also the super-cold air masses descend far below -44 °C, I merely used that number for aesthetics.

Russian, Canadian Winter Days Much Milder - UK Study (Reuters)

Buoy Meets Gore - Computer models used by environmentalists predict imminent and disastrous climate change. But actual temperature measurements by high-tech equipment show something completely different. (IBD)

UN climate chief warns of ‘accelerated melting’ of ice caps - The head of the UN intergovernment climate change body on Wednesday voiced strong concern at the accelerated melting of the polar ice caps, calling for international tariffs on carbon emissions. (AFP)

Massive ice shelf collapses, but ice near record high (Gust of Hot Air)

Despite awareness of global warming Americans concerned more about local environment - Last week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared climate change a top international threat, and Al Gore urged politicians to get involved to fight global warming. Results from a recent survey conducted by a University of Missouri professor reveal that the U.S. public, while aware of the deteriorating global environment, is concerned predominantly with local and national environmental issues. (PhysOrg)

A Proposed Test Suite for Atmospheric Model Dynamical Cores - There is an excellent proposal entitled  A Proposed Test Suite for Atmospheric Model Dynamical Cores by Christaine Jablonowski of the University of Michigan which Climate Science was alerted to from a February 3 2008 weblog on Climate Audit. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)

Oh my… Lookit The Crone’s put up - At least they include Claudia Deutsch’s piece on investors actively punishing stocks of companies stupid enough to drink the Kool-Aid. Subsidy farming is not business but rather rent-seeking and there is zero upside in businesses being distracted from the business of business. Society is best served by businesses making profit, paying taxes, providing gainful employment and maximizing returns for the pension funds and Mom & Pop investors who are ultimately the owners and bosses of these entities. Forget the crap and do your job — enrich society so that society can then indulge environmental ‘protection’, afford green space, set aside wildlife habitat, clean the air and do all the touchy-feely stuff that only relatively wealthy societies can support. ‘Green’ isn’t business, it’s the trojan horse of the anti-capitalists and it must be expunged from the currently-corrupted system. The only greens in the boardroom should be on the cheese platter.

Plastic bag threat to sea life ‘exaggerated’ (Greg Roberts, The Advertiser)

Journalists are finally [belatedly] beginning to fact-check activist claims. This could be not exactly the beginning of the end but at least the end of the beginning for environmentalism. The sooner it is expunged from society the better off people and the environment will be.

Global warming prompts new rules for coastal development - Hmm… this sea level rise thing again. A little while back we had claims sea level rises would have been greater than those measured over the last 50 years or so due to increased impoundments — essentially delaying water escape from land to sea via large dam projects and increased storage. I didn’t notice anything in that muse about groundwater extraction but, judging by hand wringing over aquifer depletion and falling water tables I assume human activity has transferred a significant volume of water from natural containments to the water cycle and ultimately to sea. Does anyone have a convenient source for volumes of water so transferred? How does it compare with dam holdings (it would be cumulative in the case of ‘fossil water’ non-recharging aquifers and cyclical like dams in recharging aquifers, depending on recharge rates)? What is the net balance of water contained/transferred to sea? Global warming prompts new rules for coastal development (Peter B. Lord, Providence Journal)

UN climate change scientist: Tariffs on goods from big polluters spell trouble - At least Pachauri realizes such measures would crash his desired new world order virtually overnight — from his perspective he needs to get everyone to meekly destroy their own economies, not vigorously defend them. UN climate change scientist: Tariffs on goods from big polluters spell trouble (Associated Press)

Japan Calls Foul On Kyoto Protocol - The Kyoto Protocol has been doomed for a long time, but the final nail in the coffin was surely driven home this week by, of all countries, Japan, and with eponymous élan too. Takao Kitabata, the Vice-Minister of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, is reported as saying (‘Japan wants easier target for greenhouse gas cuts’, International Herald Tribune, March 24): (Global Warming Politics)

More inconvenient truths about energy efficiency - ENERGY efficiency, policy wonks like to say, is the forgotten fuel. It can get us half-way to stabilising the climate, in the opinion of the International Energy Agency, a think-tank-cum-watchdog for big energy-consuming countries. Better yet, it pays for itself. If you consider the cost not just of buying a lightbulb or refrigerator or house, but also of powering it over its entire lifespan, the most energy-efficient options tend to be the cheapest. (The Economist)

BHP to use half of state’s electricity - BHP Billiton will need nearly half of South Australia’s current electricity supply to power its vastly expanded Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine.

The mining company wrote to potential suppliers this month revealing that power demand for the mine was expected to top 690megawatts when it reaches full production in 10 years.

This 30 per cent increase on previous forecasts for the mine 600km northwest of Adelaide is equivalent to nearly 42 per cent of South Australia’s total electricity consumption and nearly half of Adelaide’s power supply.

An industry insider yesterday described as “staggering” BHP’s new power needs, which exceed previous forecasts by 170mW.

It would require the building of new power stations in the state at a time when incentives for business to invest in traditional power generation are clouded by efforts to combat global warming. (Jeremy Roberts, The Australian)

Another backdoor assault on energy: Ice Seals Candidates for Endangered List — Federal officials say they will consider listing four species of ice seals in Alaska as endangered. (AP)

Windmills that kill birds, bats get a pass - If owners agree to limit harm, state won’t sue (Kevin Mayhood and Spencer Hunt, Columbus Dispatch)

And they wonder people are telling them where to shove their eco-towns? New eco-towns to make it hard going for cars with 15mph limit - Half of all households in eco-towns will have to live without a car and those that have one will find their speed limited to 15mph, according to standards for the wave of new towns unveiled yesterday. (Robert Booth, The Guardian)

Computer games to get cigarette-style health warnings - Video games will be forced to carry cigarette-style health warnings under proposals to protect children from unsuitable digital material.

The report, commissioned by the Prime Minister in response to a growing moral panic about video games, will conclude that they can harm the development of children’s beliefs and value systems and desensitise them to violence. It will also recommend that retailers who sell video games to anyone under the age rating on the box should face a hefty fine or up to five years in prison, The Times has learnt. (The Times)

International Ambulance Chasers - March has been a rough month for the tort bar, and not only because two of its standard-bearers — Dickie Scruggs and Mel Weiss — have both copped to felonies. A judge in California has put a damper on the efforts of plaintiffs lawyers to drum up lawsuits abroad and have them tried in the U.S. (Wall Street Journal)

Once bitten … - The science of nanotechnology is already revolutionising the worlds of medicine and construction. Soon it could be doing the same for our food - but after the backlash against GM foods, says Steve Boggan, will the consumers swallow it? (Steve Boggan, The Guardian)

Lawmakers consider banning dairies from calling milk hormone-free - Shouldn’t be an issue — there’s no such thing as ‘hormone-free’ milk. It isn’t the end product that varies, merely the efficiency of production. Given the fuss over dairy effluent, water use, energy efficiency etc., etc. it should be mandatory for dairies to boost milk productivity by administering rBST anyway, for the sake of the environment, salmon streams, water quality and so on. Do something genuine for the environment, demand rBST-enhanced milk production efficiency!

Lawmakers consider banning dairies from calling milk hormone-free (Associated Press)

March 26, 2008

New stocks have arrived! - Yes! They’re here! Purchase your copy of The Great Global Warming Swindle DVD for immediate dispatch.

Want to place bulk orders for your school district? Want to send copies to your government representatives or maybe just to friends and relatives? No problem, bulk orders are welcomed!

Want to send along copies of Apocalypse? No! too? We’d be happy to supply those as well!

Merchandise sales support JunkScience.com

Don’t need anything from our store? Still want to help? Donations are needed too!

This'll upset the scare industry: Exposure to low levels of radon appears to reduce the risk of lung cancer, new study finds - Exposure to levels of radon gas typically found in 90 percent of American homes appears to reduce the risk of developing lung cancer by as much as 60 percent, according to a study published in the March 2008 issue of the journal Health Physics. The finding differs significantly from the results of previous case-control studies of the effects of low-level radon exposure, which have detected a slightly elevated lung cancer risk (but without statistical significance) or no risk at all. (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)

Uh-huh… everyone ‘knows’ it’s the world’s most pressing problem — it just needs a $300,000,000 campaign to jog your memory - ‘Green’ bandwagon is getting a big push - “The missing ingredient is the force of public opinion.” That’s the line Cathy Zoi recalls from former vice president Al Gore when he urged her to become CEO of the Alliance for Climate Protection. Americans are aware of global warming, “but they don’t get the urgency of it and that this is solvable,” says Zoi, who took the job last year. (Marilyn Elias, USA TODAY)

The Disconnect - What do Americans believe about global warming?

Evidently most don’t believe the globe’s small warming trend is a large problem. A recent Gallup poll said 67% of Americans don’t worry “a great deal” about global warming, less than last year. In fact, there are eight environmental issues that they are more worried about, including the pollution of drinking water, lakes, and reservoirs; loss of natural habitat for wildlife; and damage to the earth’s ozone layer. (Julie Walsh, CEI)

Ecomagination is GE’s commitment to imagine and build innovative solutions that solve today’s environmental challenges and benefit customers and society at … - Report: GE Venture’s Workers Face Toxins — A new report says a Chinese factory that makes light bulbs for General Electric Co. subjects many of its employees to 64-hour work weeks and many are exposed to mercury.

Cleveland-based Policy Matters Ohio accuses Xiamen Topstar Lighting Co. Ltd. of violating China’s labor laws and GE’s own corporate policies.

Xiamen Topstar is a joint venture between Topstar in China and Fairfield, Conn.-based GE.

The plant in Xiamen, Fujian Province, in southern China makes energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs that contain mercury.

The report says exhausted employees do not know they are working with a toxic substance, and it calls on GE to stop abusing workers and maintain a U.S. work force to make energy efficient products.

Kim Freeman, a spokeswoman for GE Consumer & Industrial in Louisville, Ky., says the company cannot comment immediately because officials are reviewing the report. (AP)

Standard hyperbolic fare: - Vast Antarctic Ice Shelf on Verge of Collapse (Andrea Thompson, LiveScience.com)

So, is there anything new, startling, unexpected, whatever about this, um… news? In a word, no. For example there are pictures here of Wilkins breakup 1998, 1993… UCAR communications 1999 (second item) expected the Wilkins to collapse completely within a few years (it’s taking somewhat longer than expected).

Unfortunately, it’s left to publications like The Register to deliver less sensational reports: Global warming cleared on ice shelf collapse rap (Pelle Neroth Taylor, The Register)

Misleading Reports About Antarctica - Last year when Antarctic set a new record for ice extent, it got no media attention. They focused on the north polar regions where the ice set record low levels. This summer when unprecedented anomalous cover continued in the Southern Hemisphere again no coverage. Then this report in the news today. You probably saw it on your favorite network or internet news site (pick one, anyone). (Icecap)

Warming Seen Having Immunological Consequences - PHILADELPHIA - The first two bee sting-related deaths were reported in Fairbanks, Alaska in the summer of 2006, which researchers suspect was a consequence of global warming; and they predict that this is just the beginning.

Honeybees and yellow jackets were rare in the area until the past few years. “The yellow jacket population has increased tenfold and the first two sting-related deaths were reported,” Dr. Jeffrey Demain of the University of Alaska in Anchorage told attendees here this week at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. (Reuters)

Gasp! Yes, Australia's yellow jacket wasp/hornet problem has increased exponentially over the last couple of decades too! Global warming? Nope, the damn things were introduced in shipping containers, just as Alaska's problematic insects likely were (another of the reasons we really dislike the chemophobes' campaign against such useful fumigants as methyl bromide under the totally false premise of 'protecting the ozone layer').

If climate is a problem then the answer is development, not crippling donor economies - Remote control - While the least developed countries suffer the worst effects of climate change, brought about by the actions of the rich, they have no voice in global warming talks. Now Bangladesh is leading a fightback. (John Vidal, The Guardian)

Enviro-Harassment - Anyone who doesn’t believe global warming activism is aimed at hurting U.S. commerce might take note of the disturbing trend of American companies being hijacked. All for the cause, of course. (IBD)

Challenging ABC News’s Attack on Climate Scientist S. Fred Singer - SWOOPE, Va., March 25 — At the end of 2006, climate scientist S. Fred Singer of the University of Virginia and the Science & Environmental Policy Project and Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute co-authored Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, a New York Times non-fiction bestseller. Yesterday, ABC’s World News Sunday anchor Dan Harris aired a harsh attack on Dr. Singer in a segment titled “Global Warming Denier: Fraud or ‘Realist’?” (Hudson Institute)

Global warming NOT killing frogs (just like we told you) - Declining frog populations have once again made their way into the news, but this time, it is because new research concludes that global climate change IS NOT the reason behind their disappearance.

While this seems to be big news for some, we have been telling you this ever since the stories that attempted to link amphibian declines to global warming first appeared. (World Climate Report)

Virtually: Will maple days move from March to January with global warming? - This year, Maple Weekend is March 29-30 since weather patterns are providing good sap flow in the maple trees of northern New York. But by 2080, sugarhouses in northern New York may be humming as early as Jan. 29-30, according to climate change models that predict warmer winters and more thaws. (Cornell University)

What would it take to get people to stop ‘helping’? - Carbon is the stuff of life and current atmospheric levels are historically at critically low levels. Having humans restore carbon previously lost from the carbon cycle is a major bonus for the biosphere. Why the heck would we want to undo that?

Let rest of world make climate errors - KEVIN Rudd has an unfortunate proclivity for proclaiming Australia should lead the world in its response to global warming.

For a country so richly endowed with carbon-based energy resources, this does not immediately commend itself as the most obvious policy course for us to follow.

And the latest discussion paper on emissions trading from the Garnaut review, released last Thursday, should have set political alarm bells ringing on the potential costs of action to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong is right to describe emissions trading as one of the most far-reaching and complex reforms in Australian history.

Economist Ross Garnaut, who is conducting the review of climate change policies for the state and federal governments, defers to nobody in his alarm at the pace of global warming and his sense of urgency about responding to it.

However, among the “core factors” his terms of reference require him to take into account is this one: “the costs and benefits of Australia taking significant action to mitigate climate change ahead of competitor nations”.

While Garnaut is keen to see Australia play a full part in international efforts on climate change, his interim report suggests we should calibrate our responses so that they mirror “similar adjustment costs to other developed nations”. Just what this will mean in practice is a fascinating question. (Alan Wood, Economics editor, The Australian)

Climate change may raise insurance (actually not, insurance companies might raise premiums on any pretext though) - Climate change may raise insurance (Charles Mandel, Canwest News Service)

Global warming: Just deal with it, some scientists say - If real this is the best response — if it’s not real and I personally don’t think we’ll ever be able to distinguish enhanced greenhouse from background noise, then this is still the best response. There is no excuse for throwing money at the phantom menace.

Seductively reasoned and dead wrong - To begin with CO₂ is not pollution but that is of no real consequence here. The issue is Denmark prospering due to having a carbon tax, which is absolute rubbish. Despite having a [nominal] carbon tax Denmark prospers because it is a major miner and exporter of hydrocarbons (fossil fuels, mainly North Sea gas and oil, along with increasing quantities of Arctic coal). Danes prosper because they mine and export carbon and not because they tax it. For all the posturing and razzle-dazzle, Denmark’s is a carbon economy. Denmark certainly re-injects a lot of CO₂ into the Earth’s crust but that has everything to do with enhancing oil recovery from aging fields and nothing to do with the dreaded gorebull warming. On Carbon, Tax and Don’t Spend (MONICA PRASAD, New York Times)

Why should African farmers suffer because do-gooders are trying to cut carbon emissions? - This organic view is bananas - To all of the ill-effects blamed on man-made global warming, we might add one more. It appears that an obsession with climate change can make sane people warm to mad ideas.

Take the Soil Association proposals to make it harder for produce from Africa to be labelled as organic, in order to cut the amount of fruit and vegetables flown into the UK. The justification is that this will reduce “food miles”, CO2 emissions and man-made global warming, and thus protect the developing world from the impact of climate change. The likely effect will be to put some of the most downtrodden farmers in the world out of work.

So how do we save Africa from a possible future disaster? Apparently, by creating a real disaster in the here and now: making poor Africans even poorer. That sounds like madness - or plain badness - to me. (Mick Hume, The Times)

THE IPCC: ON THE RUN AT LAST - UN climate body in panic mode as satellite temperatures turn down and a hard winter lashes both hemispheres

A soprano thrillingly hits her top-A, sighs with relief at achieving the desired effect, and moves on. But not the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) whose climate alarmism started to crescendo in 2001 in the Third Assessment Report (3AR) with the statement that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely (>66% probable) to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations”.

Recently, in their Fourth Assessment Report (4AR), and faced with their failure to convince the public that the sky is falling, the IPCC delivers even more preposterous advice in ever shriller tones, saying that “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (>90% probable) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations”. The wobble around top-A is clearly discernible. (OnTheWeb: Bob Carter)

From CO₂ Science this week:
Editorial:
Threats to Amazonia: Natural and Otherwise: If people do not directly mess with the tropical forest biome, it should do just fine over the coming decades and centuries.

Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week:
This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from the Permafrost Regions of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click here.

Subject Index Summary:
Roman Warm Period (Europe - Central): How did its warmth compare with that of the Current Warm Period?

Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results (blue background) of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature for: Alfalfa, Barnyardgrass, Phaeocystis, and Spring Wheat.

Journal Reviews:
Six Centuries of Drought in the Uinta Mountains of Utah (USA): What do the data reveal about the impact of 20th-century global warming on droughts of this region?

Tropical Atmospheric Temperature Trends: Simulations vs. Measurements: How do the two compare?

Agricultural Crops, the Herbivorous Pests that Feed on Them, and the Bigger Omnivorous Bugs that Eat the Pests: How do they all fare in a CO2-enriched atmosphere?

Progressive Nitrogen Limitation after Eight Years of CO2 Enrichment of Young Aspen and Birch Trees: How strong has it gradually become?

Global Warming and the Vascular Plant Species Richness of Individual Countries: How is the biological "wealth of nations" impacted by rising temperatures?

New Paper Elevates The Role Of Black Carbon In Global Warming - Climate Science has repeatedly reported that the attribution of the radiative effect of CO2 to global warming is significantly overstated; e.g. see What Fraction of Global Warming is Due to the Radiative Forcing of Increased Atmospheric Concentrations of CO2? (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)

No Time to Declare Independence

By WILLIAM TUCKER

Gusher of Lies
By Robert Bryce
(Public Affairs, 371 pages, $26.95)

When it comes to “energy independence,” American politics has discovered a new spirit of bipartisanship. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain all call for it, in one form or another — in the name of fighting global terrorism, global warming or merely global price spikes at the pump. And of course the phrase is a cliché outside the world of politics, too, showing up in earnest op-eds and green-shaded pronouncements. Well, Robert Bryce is having none of it.

Land Deal Could Open Alaska Wildlife Refuge To Oil - ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A controversial land swap proposal could open portions of an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, dividing Alaska natives and stoking opposition from environmentalists seeking to protect the bears, moose and birds that live there. (Reuters)

Nuclear is UK’s new North Sea oil - minister - Hutton claims expansion could be worth £20bn and bring 100,000 jobs (Andrew Sparrow and Patrick Wintour, The Guardian)

Nuke California - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who once thought nuclear power unworthy of mention, now sees it as a source of nonpolluting energy worth exploring. One California legislator wants to see if he’s serious.

When he ran for governor in 2003, Gov. Schwarzenegger issued a seven-page compilation of his environmental positions that spoke a great deal about alternative energy sources but said absolutely nothing about nuclear power.

Discussing energy issues recently, he now says nuclear power has “a great future” and warrants examination as a way of achieving energy independence and dealing with his favorite crusade — global warming. (IBD)

Carbon tariff trade war? - As world financial markets struggle through credit risks, looming currency crisis and talk of recession/depression, along come an assortment of politicians and economists set to pile on another round of global downers: carbon taxes and a possible carbon trade war. (Terence Corcoran,  Financial Post)

Japan wants easier target for greenhouse gas cuts - TOKYO: Japan will push for an easier target for reducing greenhouse gases in the next international pact on global warming than in the previous one, a top bureaucrat said Monday. (Associated Press)

HOUR OF POWER - “We have to start somewhere,” writes illumination activist Jay Currie. “I am starting with keeping my lights on at 8PM March 29. All of them.”

Yes! Also celebrating Saturday night’s Hour of Power are Jason Soon and Tim Bennett, who emails:

In honour of Earth Hour, my friends and I will be hosting the first annual Carbon Party. To mark this solemn occasion, we will be running the space heaters and air conditioning simultaneously, while putting loads of clothing through the dryer and turning all the incandescent lights on. Dinner will be grain-fed beef cooked over a wood fire (none of that clean LPG barbecue gas), served with imported vegetables shipped in from overseas (whether or not they can be found at the local farmers’ market). Bog rolls for the evening will be of softest five-ply tissue paper.

That’s the spirit! Evil Pundit suggests an investment in 5000 watts of earth-destroying lighthouse bulb, but you can easily join in the fun using common household appliances, as Samantha Burns - “Earth Hour stupidity, and all it represents, must end” - explains:

Possible items you may want to switch ON:

-all household lights
-air conditioner
-heater
-automobiles (your ride)
-automobile headlights
-washer
-dryer
-dishwasher
-stove/oven
-put on oven’s self-cleaning cycle
-microwave
-any/all kitchen appliances
-television
-dvd player
-game system
-stereo

And don’t forget computers, which you may use to track the SMH’s hilarious Earth Hour trickery. Compared to the Hour of Power, that other hour is an absolute crock of dark:

Instead of cooking a soufflé, choke down a couple of raw beaten egg whites.

Instead of taking a hot shower, try dying.

No, no, no! There’ll be no encouragement of death during the Hour of Power, an officially life-affirming event. And, unlike certain other hours, there is no hint of sparky coercion:

Since Malaysians aren’t gonna voluntarily switch off their lights, how about if they’re forced to go without electricity just for that one hour between 2000 and 2100?

How about if you’re forced to shut the hell up? Already indicating support for the Hour of Power are Habib, bovious, DrewB, Huck Foley, Dave S., John Enright, eeniemeenie, Irobot, Mike Laz, Hong Kong, Pogria, SwinishCapitalist, wronwright, MarkL, Jeff S., The Leadster, Tungsten Monk, rinardman, satisfiedmind16 and ProWomanProLife. They’ll join billions of others worldwide whose lights will be on at 8pm on the 29th (all lit houses are considered to be Hour of Power participants). By contrast, Earth Hour is practically friendless:

As of 1pm 26.03.08 only 2 people from Apollo Bay have signed up to Earth Hour.

Hour of Power updates to follow. Commence photographic preparations - Saturday night will be an all-in festival of light. (Tim Blair)

Funny media inquiry - ENVIRONMENT: Confess Your Eco-’Sins’ - For an article I’m writing for a major broadcaster’s news site, I’m seeking sources — regular people, non-experts — who normally do well being “green” but occasionally slip up or fall back on old eco “sins” that are hard to break. For instance, maybe you have a love affair with Ziploc bags in your kitchen, yet never head to the grocery store without your reusable shopping bags. Also, I’m looking for comments from people about the onset of eco-exhaustion. At what point have you said “enough already” to all of the hype from marketers, the media and companies about “going green”? Contact: Sarah Jio, sarah@sarahjio.com

Do you know how your genetic information could be used? You may be surprised! - Despite the seeming lax attitudes of some towards protecting our genetic data and the information obtained from genetic screening, that’s not what the public wants. Two new reports this week on the use of genetic information from human genome research describe ethical and social concerns that you may never have considered. (Junkfood Science)

Potential for bias? - Might the objectivity of the information on the obesity “epidemic” sweeping the world be tainted in green? (Junkfood Science)

Just say “No!”: Feds Are Sued Over Endangered Species — Environmentalists are suing the federal government, claiming promises to whittle down a backlog of plants and animals being considered for endangered species protection amount to “smoke and mirrors.” (AP)

Defining gene’s role may lead to prevention of dangerous corn toxin - Discovery that a specific gene is integral to both fungal invasion of corn and development of a potentially deadly toxin in the kernels may lead to ways to control the pathogen and the poison. (Purdue University)

Scientists unlock mystery of aromatic rice - A researcher has found a way to preserve the aroma of jasmine rice and add the aroma to other rice varieties, the Bangkok Post reported. The newspaper reported that the find was aided by earlier research that deciphered the generic code of jasmine rice. (UPI)

March 25, 2008

Reality Bites: Wachovia on the Cost of Going Green - Being green, it turns out, doesn’t always pay.

Last year, bulge banks like Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, and Deutsche Bank all published huge reports outlining how investors can make money as the business world tries to adapt to climate change. McKinsey, the big consultancy, has created a new corporate gospel in arguing that the U.S. really can substantially and affordably trim greenhouse-gas emissions just by using energy more efficiently. (Keith Johnson ,WSJ)

Enviros promise ‘massive’ litigation over climate rules - “Litigation over [Lieberman-Warner climate] rules will be massive,” said David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel of the Sierra Club told an American Bar Association meeting on March 14, according to Carbon Control News (Mar. 14).

CCN reports: “The pending bill, S. 2191, introduced by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA), is silent on key regulatory issues that EPA will be left to sort out, Bookbinder said. ‘In some cases [the discretion] is warranted and will really require agency expertise,’ he said. But in other areas, the bill punts crucial decisions to EPA because Congress doesn’t ‘want to have to deal with it.’ The bill passed the Senate environment panel late last year and is slated for a Senate floor vote later this year. Bookbinder has compiled a multi-page list of agency rules mandated by the Lieberman-Warner bill that could face legal challenges over their implementation. The list includes rules to be developed within one year of enactment, establishing a greenhouse gas registry, imposing excess emissions penalties, permitting commercial-scale underground injection of carbon dioxide as well as finalizing regulations for distributing various types of greenhouse gas credits, allocations and transitional allowances for adaptation.”

It’s bad enough that Congress would enact the Lieberman-Warner nonsense in the first place, but then to have its implementation shaped by enviros via litigation is even more worrisome…

Vanishing Frogs, Climate, and the Front Page - No Andy, you’re still wrong. Absurd climate panic is nothing at all like house insurance. Houses burn down with monotonous regularity, they suffer flood and storm damage, even get hit by errant vehicles — there are really good reasons to insure houses. We do not, however, insure against invasion by space aliens, zombie attack or being smothered by 200-foot marshmallows. We possibly could but we’d be doing ourselves and society harm by wasting finance and resources on impossibly small risks. So it is especially with squandering vast resources fighting the phantom menace of catastrophic climate change which, even if real is most affordably and effectively dealt with by enriching society and managing any change as it occurs. Crippling the economy is not risk management — it is the risk. The misused insurance analogy is a worst-case example of what is wrong with the precautionary principle since it almost invariably leads to the wrong conclusion.

This Long Cycle Should Portend a Cooling - In an important paper in 1991, Friis-Christensen et.al. compared the average temperature in the northern hemisphere with the average solar activity defined through the interval between successive sunspot maxima. The more active the sun - the shorter the interval: the solar cycle runs more intense and the higher the global temperatures. Even the finer structures in the two curves had similar appearances. (Joseph D’Aleo, CCM)

NY Times scientist (sic) talks on climate change[!] - I’m sure Andy appreciates the promotion but I think even he describes himself as a scribe. Nonetheless a more accurate depiction would be climate activist since he believes with almost religious fervor (note the way he pines for ‘dramatic’ evidence of climate change). Andy suits the Crone by virtue of being an eco-flake, albeit relatively harmless and almost lovable. His least endearing feature would be his population panic and he barely disguises his neo-Malthusian bent. He does, however reluctantly, admit there is no such thing as ’settled climate science’: “There will always be discord between scientists,” said Revkin, “For every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD.”

Hmm… ‘Contrarian’, ‘Conservative Backlash Against Global Warming’, ‘President George W. Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol’. Yeah, this looks like a dispassionate academic exercise… - New Paper on Climate Contrarians by Myanna Lahsen

I’d like to alert readers of this blog to an article of mine just out in this issue of Global Environmental Change. It analyzes a prominent subset of US climate contrarians, providing a more multi-faceted and complex account than generally available of why they chose to join the anti-environmental backlash. One of them, Frederick Seitz, died recently, making this a poignant time to examine him as well as his similarly influential colleagues in historical perspective, as I do in this article. Below is the reference and the abstract of the article:

Lahsen, Myanna. “Experiences of Modernity in the Greenhouse: A Cultural Analysis of a Physicist ‘Trio’ Supporting the Conservative Backlash Against Global Warming.” Global Environmental Change (2008), Vol. 18/1 pp 204-219. (PDF) (Prometheus)

It’s Food Security, Stupid - Last Wednesday, March 19, the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made an important statement in the House of Commons setting out a new ‘National Security Strategy’ for the country. His statement is available for you to read here: ‘In full: Brown security statement’ (BBC Online Politics News, March 19). Two words, however, were remarkable by their virtual absence from Brown’s panoply of imagined threats and risks, namely ‘food security’. This is deeply concerning, and it demonstrates yet again the abject failure of this Government to grasp the future importance of agriculture, of agricultural research, and of the increasingly severe impact of rising food prices on everyone. (Global Warming Politics)

Scientific Consensus on Climate Change? - Abstract: FEAR of anthropogenic “global warming” can adversely affect patients’ well-being. Accordingly, the state of the scientific consensus about climate change was studied by a review of the 539 papers on “global climate change” found on the Web of Science database from January 2004 to mid-February 2007, updating research by Oreskes (2004), who had reported that between 1993 and 2003 none of 928 scientific papers on “global climate change” had rejected the consensus that more than half of the warming of the past 50 years was likely to have been anthropogenic. In the present review, 31 papers (6% of the sample) explicitly or implicitly reject the consensus. Though Oreskes said that 75% of the papers in her sample endorsed the consensus, fewer than half now endorse it. Only 6% do so explicitly. Only one paper refers to “catastrophic” climate change, but without offering evidence. There appears to be little evidence in the learned journals to justify the climate-change alarm that now harms patients.

For the Full Report in PDF Form, please click here. [Illustrations, footnotes and references available in PDF version] (Klaus-Martin Schulte, SPPI)

Heavy summer rains sign of climate change - Um… no. The alleged heating in the Indian Ocean tropical belt most assuredly hasn’t occurred in this La Niña year and the Arabian Sea is a little cooler than ‘normal’. It is to be hoped that Dr. Rajan was misquoted, otherwise Indian climate science and ISMR studies are in serious trouble.

Do Environmentalists Want to Save the Planet or What? - They like their weird analogies at Gristmill. The latest comes from scientist and Green oracle Joseph Romm, in an introduction to a tirade about geo-engineering by guest poster Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project:

Geo-engineering is to mitigation as chemotherapy is to diet and exercise

Weird. Because chemotherapy is rather more useful than diet and exercise when it comes to, say, curing someone of cancer. It’s even weirder for the fact that Gristmill’s last weird analogy, by Romm’s fellow scientist and Green oracle Andrew Dessler, likened the planet to a sick child in need of expert medical advice. Romm, it seems, would rather turn Dessler’s sick child over to some TV nutritionist to get them jogging and eating more broccoli. (Climate Resistance)

Makes me sad, too… … that Australians have put their names to this gibberish.

What has been messing with these people’s heads is greenie mysticism and flawed expectations. Australia has had drought (some part of Australia is always in drought at any given time — it’s a dry continent) but going by the geological record the recent event has been quite trivial compared with the last few thousand years, it has only been noteworthy in the post-European settlement period (precipitation records are virtually non-existent before the 20^th Century).

What has really caused us problems is the infiltration and subversion of government by the watermelons. When we had half the population our water storage was adequate despite the erratic nature of Australian seasonal rainfall but greenie-driven stupidity effectively halted infrastructure development and, surprise, surprise, we are not holding sufficient capacity for dry periods.

These people want something to blame? Fine, instead of gorebull warming/catastrophic climate change, put blame where it really lies, squarely at the feet of the green anti-development lunatics who actually caused the problems these people whine about and created the myth of unchanging stasis.

6 Days in 2012: Effect of the CDM on Carbon Emissions - This is a somewhat technical post on a fairly narrow issue. This week in class we had the pleasure of a visit by Wolfgang Sterk from the Wuppertal Institute (in Germany), who provided a really excellent presentation on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol and the European Emissions Trading Scheme.

His presentation discussed, and also raised some further questions about, the effectiveness of the CDM. So out of curiosity I have asked, and answered below, the question: What effect does the CDM have on carbon dioxide emissions to 2012? (Pielke Jr., R., Prometheus)

Carbon Credits Get Cool Reception - Russia’s main goal, like other Kyoto signatories, is to reduce emissions to 1990 levels. As Gavrilov noted, “Russia has completely fulfilled this obligation.”

Yet this is the result of post-Soviet industrial collapse, rather than any attempt to improve the environmental situation in the country. And the revival of heavy industry on the back of an oil-fueled economic boom means that greenhouse gas emissions are only set to grow. (Moscow Times)

Gunfight at CA Corral - There has been an on-going battle between Realclimate and Climate Audit over the past few years. Climate Audit’s Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick of course were of the first to blow the whistle on the now totally debunked hockey stick. Realclimate was formed to try and save face and find a way to breathe life back into the corpse. They continue to post flawed papers that Steve McIntyre quickly dispels. They continue to use the same bad data and methods. They recently enlisted the support of a hired gun known as Tamino, a psuedonym who hosts his own blog and haunts other sites with his insightless alarmist comments. Tamino by the way was a prince who played a magic flute in one of Mozart’s operas. (Joseph D’Aleo, CCM)

Coal’s New Battleground: Business vs. Enviros in the Desert - As Congress quarrels over cap-and-trade legislation, a fight is heating up in Utah that could have major implications for the national global-warming debate. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)

Higher Fuel Taxes Won’t Help Anything - For thoughtful fiscal conservatives, taxing motor fuels and vehicles to pay for the roads they traverse is among the least-objectionable forms of taxation in American government. (IBD)

Public servants clocked up 306m air miles last year, Conservatives say - Britain’s public servants are so committed to air travel that they clocked up 306m miles last year, the equivalent of 1,280 trips to the moon. (The Guardian)

If We Could Drill… - One driver who might join a threatened truckers strike says “there’s no reason for” fuel prices to be so high. Actually, there are many reasons. But they aren’t necessarily good ones. (IBD)

Air board may trim electric car mandate: Regulators could focus more on hybrid vehicles - SACRAMENTO – California’s air-quality regulators may wish to lay to rest the legend of who killed the electric car. But a proposal going before the Air Resources Board on Thursday fails to sway critics convinced that the state continues to retreat from its once-lofty goal of seeing thousands of electric cars on the roadways. “They’re backing down,” said Bill Hammons, president of the Electric Vehicle Association of San Diego. “It’s a total collapse.” (Union-Tribune)

We need more nuclear plants to avoid blackouts, say German power chiefs - Senior German energy executives warned yesterday that Europe’s biggest economy faces growing blackouts unless it follows the Franco-British lead in promoting new nuclear power stations. (The Guardian)

Biofuels: a solution that became part of the problem - Using plant-based materials for fuel in cars and trucks was until recently heralded as the answer to the need to reduce carbon emissions from petrol and diesel fuels. (The Guardian)

Top scientists warn against rush to biofuel - Gordon Brown is preparing for a battle with the European Union over biofuels after one of the government’s leading scientists warned they could exacerbate climate change rather than combat it. (The Guardian)

Turning on their own? Pielke is a believer but that’s no defense. - You Can’t Make This Stuff Up - Now according to Grist Magazine’s Joe Romm I am a “delayer/denier” because I’ve asked what data would be inconsistent with IPCC predictions. Revealed truths are not to be questioned lest we take you to the gallows. And people wonder why some people see the more enthusiastic climate advocates akin to religious zealots.

I am happy to report that it is quite possible to believe in strong action on mitigation and adaptation while at the same time ask probing questions of our scientific understandings. (Pielke Jr., R., Prometheus)

March of the zealots

Puritanism - The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
H L Mencken

Every age has its dominant caste. This is the age of the zealot. Twenty years ago they were dismissed as cranks and fanatics, but now they are licensed to interfere in the every day lives of ordinary people to an unprecedented degree. When Bernard Levin first identified the new phenomenon of the SIFs (Single Issue Fanatics) many of us thought it was a bit of a joke or at most an annoyance. Now the joke is on us. In that short time they have progressed from being an ignorable nuisance to what is effectively a branch of government. They initiate legislation and prescribe taxation. They form a large and amorphous collection of groups of overlapping membership, united and defined by the objects of their hatred (industry, tobacco, alcohol, adiposity, carbon, meat, salt, chemicals in general, radio waves, field sports etc.) Their success in such a short time has been one of the most remarkable phenomena in the whole of human history. (Number Watch)

Sustainababble - Writing in the Guardian this week, John Vidal says,

The government is in danger of losing credibility on climate change because more than half of all its departments are failing to reduce their carbon emissions enough to reach levels that the nation as a whole is expected to meet.

This data is from the Sustainable Development Commission, who are, they tell us,

the Government’s independent watchdog on sustainable development, reporting to the Prime Minister, the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. Through advocacy, advice and appraisal, we help put sustainable development at the heart of Government policy.

The fact that there is a public institution watching over the other public institutions to make sure they are ’sustainable’, might have once implied some kind of economic auditing process in the public interest. But this quango is more worried about the UK Government’s carbon footprint than the uncorrupted delivery of public goods. (Climate Resistance)

No need to worry about gorebull warming and bears coz the chemicals are gonna get ‘em!: Bears face new toxic threat - WESTERN ARCTIC–The iconic polar bear, already a marauding warehouse of toxic substances, is facing a new chemical assault that could trigger serious health problems in the bear population within the decade. The damage may include higher risk of cancers and impaired reproduction, say Danish environmental scientists in a study to be published shortly. (Toronto Star)

One little magic word - A single word can lead us to believe something that isn’t real. Nothing illustrates this better than a study in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. According to the press releases and media stories, this study showed that losing weight and keeping it off is possible. (Junkfood Science)

Tall tale, no meat to Beatle’s roo rant - ENVIRONMENT Minister Peter Garrett’s decision to support the cull of 400 eastern grey kangaroos at the Defence Department’s property at Belconnen in the ACT has earned the ire of Paul McCartney. The former Beatle has urged people to “protect kangaroos from the barbaric industry which slaughters them for red meat and leather”.

As the same colourful description can be applied to the pig, cattle, goat, sheep and numerous other meat-producing industries, McCartney should be aware that the kangaroos will be tranquillised and then put down. There is no nice way to kill an animal, but the method proposed is as humane as possible. (Barry Cohen, The Australian)

Study finds ‘natural’ products have petrochemical in them - By Karen Goldberg Goff - Enjoying your natural vanilla and aloe shampoo? Bathing baby in a garden of honeysuckle? Feeling good about the earth, as well as your skin, when showering with pricey “natural” products?

It turns out that many of those products have the same petrochemical compound found in less-expensive mainstream bath products, according to a recent study. (Washington Times)

March 24, 2008

Guns and Legal Ammo - As shoot-outs go, the Supreme Court had a famous one Tuesday during oral arguments over the constitutionality of Washington D.C.’s handgun ban. The smoke won’t clear until the High Court issues its decision, but the debate this week augurs well for a conclusion that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. (Wall Street Journal)

Here we go again: New Limits to Growth Revive Malthusian Fears (Wall Street Journal) This time the great limiter is supposed to be gorebull warming…

How can politicians see this and still carry on with the gorebull warming farce? Better sanitation has huge economic spin-offs - U.N. (Reuters)

Perhaps The Climate Change Models Are Wrong - They drift along in the worlds’ oceans at a depth of 2,000 metres — more than a mile deep — constantly monitoring the temperature, salinity, pressure and velocity of the upper oceans.

Then, about once every 10 days, a bladder on the outside of these buoys inflates and raises them slowly to the surface gathering data about each strata of seawater they pass through. After an upward journey of nearly six hours, the Argo monitors bob on the waves while an onboard transmitter sends their information to a satellite that in turn retransmits it to several land-based research computers where it may be accessed by anyone who wishes to see it.

These 3,000 yellow sentinels –about the size and shape of a large fence post — free-float the world’s oceans, season in and season out, surfacing between 30 and 40 times a year, disgorging their findings, then submerging again for another fact-finding voyage. (Lorne Gunter, National Post)

Climate change ‘is accelerating’ (The Observer) Really? What warming would that be then?

Global Warming: Who Said What — and When - It turns out Al Gore was hardly the first one to sound the alarm. Looking back nearly three decades, you can find prominent people warning the public about the danger of rising temperatures. But there have also been a number of skeptics.

Here’s a selection of quotes on climate change.

Three preprints on cosmoclimatology - During the last week, there have been three cosmoclimatological preprints by two teams on the arXiv. Rusov et al. (Ukraine) argue that all observed climate changeLearning-to-Love-Global-Warming at the timescale of millenia and millions of years can be explained by two factors, namely the the solar output and the galactic cosmic ray flux that determines the cloudiness. (The Reference frame)

Recognition Of The Importance of Landscape Change - There is effective media recognition of the importance of landscape change on weather and climate. It is in a news article on March 15 2008 by Jim Konkoly in Highlands Today titled “Drained Wetlands Having Dramatic Effect On Our Area”. (Roger Pielke, Climate Science)

2008 Climate Debate - There goes another beautiful theory about to be murdered by a brutal gang of facts.
— Duc de La Rochefoucauld, French writer and moralist (1613-1680)

According to former Vice President Al Gore, “the science is settled” on climate change. “The planet has a fever,” Gore said during testimony before Congress in 2007, and its cause, he averred, is too many cars, power plants, factories, and other human-related sources putting too many emissions into the atmosphere. (The New American)

Our changing sun and colony collapse disorder in bees (Watts Up With That?)

We’ve been here before, and it wasn’t pretty the first time (Andrew Nikiforuk, Globe and Mail) - Whoa! Warm conditions were bad because things were good and people flourished. Says it all about these wackos doesn’t it.

GREGORY MEEKS and MICHAEL SHANK: The Security Council must act preemptively - on climate change - The United Nations tackled the task of troubleshooting climate change last month. Between holding special General Assembly meetings at headquarters in New York, bringing 100 environmental ministers to Monaco in the largest meeting of ministers since Bali, and launching a Climate Neutral Network to highlight best practices in tackling global warming, the UN appears to be doing what it can to ensure that climate change does not fall off the political radar. Yet, it still isn’t enough. A concerted international strategy, on a par with the seriousness and scope of an UN Security Council resolution, is what’s needed to counter this climate crisis. (Christian Science Monitor)

Moralising out, these are the facts (Matthew Warren, The Australian) - Oh no they aren’t! Garnaut has been launched on the false premise there is some kind of value in Australia limiting carbon dioxide emissions, something even the most ardent AGW advocate will not claim. No matter what all the Western countries combined do there will be negligible change in the global temperature, one far too small to measure. Nor do we control the amount emitted annually either — that rests with developing countries who neither will nor should limit their emissions and development. Completely fraudulent exercise that should be scrapped immediately.

From the propaganda ministry: The smoking gun - CAN the world give up this filthy habit? In particular can the US, the world’s most addicted nation, give up its 80 a day? Puff puff puffing away, from every smokestack and exhaust pipe, giving the planet lung cancer? It’s setting such a bad example to teenage economies. (The Australian)

Unfortunately we’re going to get a lot more of this as warmers become increasingly desperate - ABC’s Global Warming Hit Piece “Welcome to ‘The Denial Machine’” (News Busters)

Margo Thorning: Climate-change policies come with a price tag - As Congress considers far-reaching federal climate-change legislation, there has been far too little discussion on the economic costs such policies would impose at the state, local and household levels. Make no mistake: From a financial standpoint, the burdens for Minnesotans would be substantial. (Star Tribune)

Taxpayers ‘deserve carbon revenue’ (The Australian) - Or — and here’s a radical idea — they could leave the dollars in taxpayers’ pockets to start with! As a bonus we’d still have power and an economy too. Taxpayers deserve not to have the economy driven over a cliff in homage to watermelon ecochondria. Lord save us from Leftist governments in thrall of watermelons!

Well that’s alright then — energy prices probably won’t “more than double” in early stages of ETS… Energy prices to rise with carbon costs (AAP)

Curbing soot could blunt global warming: study - Sharply reducing the amount of black carbon — commonly known as soot — in the atmosphere could help slow global warming and buy precious time in the long-term fight against climate change, according to a study released Sunday. (AFP)

Rent-seekers… and we all pay: Ahead of the Pack: GE’s Jeffrey Immelt on why it’s business, not personal (Wall Street Journal)

Carbon tax is far from ‘revenue neutral’ - Energy prices are going up.  Oil has hit record highs, resulting in higher transportation costs.  Food prices are increasing.  It is also becoming more expensive to heat homes and drive the family vehicle.  And Canada doesn’t even have a carbon tax.  Yet, environmentalists are calling for one all the same, saying it will be economically painless.  This is nonsense.  The world is not melting but our standard of living soon will be if global-warming alarmists have their way. (John Williamson, ESR)

Climate changing for pollution pacts - As presidential candidates voice support for fighting global warming with futures contracts, leading exchanges push to take market share from rivals (Chicago Tribune)

McCain sticks to climate-change stance - Since his last try for the presidency in 2000, John McCain has listened closely to the evidence on global warming, agreed with scientists that pollution is much to blame and concluded that the United States must limit its emissions from fossil fuels. (Miami Herald)

Well, at least he’s starting to mention cost. Now all we need to do is get him to realize that a single dollar wasted attempting to ‘address’ the phantom menace is a cost too far.

Beware Commies in Fairtrade jerseys - AND so, the Government has decided that because of the environment, anyone who owns a nice car must pay £1,000 a year in road tax. Soon, you can be assured, there will be similar penalties for those who go on long-haul holidays. (Jeremy Clarkson, The Sun)

Tinsel Town economics: State of Change: Arnold Schwarzenegger on California’s place in the new gold rush (Wall Street Journal)

More incredible stupidity - How on Earth are a pitiful few thousand ‘green’ jobs a plus when they come at the cost of industries decimated by artificially inflated energy costs, some of which is specifically mandated to pretend wind power is competitive. Exchanging millions of real jobs for a few thousand ‘green’ ones strikes these twits as a good deal?

Europe Produces Easter Thistles - For a long time, ‘Global Warming Politics’ has been inveighing against the deeply embarrassing hypocrisy of Europe over ‘global warming’ - “all pious carbon claptrap with no action” would summarise the position neatly*. I am glad to say that others are now starting to see through the religious incense, and are calling the EU bluff, including no less a weighty magazine than The Economist [‘The hot air of hypocrisy: the European Union summit reveals plenty of hypocrisy over climate-change targets’, March 19]. The wonderful cartoon accompanying the piece by ‘Charlemagne’ says it all, but the text is equally excoriating: (Global Warming Politics)

S. Korea establishes first greenhouse gas policy - SEOUL, March 21 — South Korea unveiled its first-ever government scheme on greenhouse gases on Friday, vowing to freeze the ozone-depleting emissions by 2012 to tackle global warming. (Yonhap)

Kansas Governor Vetoes Bill to Allow Coal-Fired Plants - Permit Had Been Rejected on Global-Warming Grounds (Associated Press)

Pentagon searches for oil alternatives to reduce foreign influence - MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, Mont. On a wind-swept air base near the Missouri River, the Air Force has launched an ambitious plan to wean itself from foreign oil by turning to a new and unlikely source: coal. (Associated Press)

How the West Will Be Won: Energy Efficiency for More Power - The utility business is struggling to divine the shape and cost of federal climate legislation headed its way. For those in states in the Northeast, the Midwest, and the West that are planning their own regional greenhouse-gas caps, the day of reckoning could come even sooner. (Wall Street Journal)

Cabinet split over new coal-fired power station - Plans to build Britain’s first coal-fired power station since 1984 have led to a cabinet split amid concerns that the project would undermine efforts to cut carbon emissions. (London Independent)

Vast oil potential in Arctic: data - 400 billion barrels. International struggle looming (Canwest News Service)

[Australia] ‘No carbon payouts for power’ - THE Rudd Government is prepared to stare down a demand to compensate power producers for the effects of the carbon trading scheme foreshadowed in its review of climate change policy.

Power producers say that without that assistance the value of their assets will fall sharply and investors will be reluctant to commit to new plants, causing power shortages. (The Australian)

Britain and France to take nuclear power to the world - Brown and Sarkozy agree joint measures on energy and illegal immigration (The Guardian)

Nuclear in the U.K.: And Then There Were Three - Nuclear power’s nascent revival in the U.S. has so far hinged largely on the question of safety, especially what to do with the waste. Endless haggling over the future of Yucca Mountain’s deep-storage facility, for instance, makes it all but impossible for California to add more nuclear power to its mix. (Wall Street Journal)

Major food source threatened by climate change - Rice is arguably the world’s most important food source and helps feed about half the globe’s people. But yields in many areas will drop as the globe warms in future years, a review of studies on rice and climate change suggests. (NewScientist.com news service)

As Biofuels Catch On, Next Task Is to Deal With Environmental, Economic Impact - The world’s economy is acquiring a new energy addiction: biofuels. (Wall Street Journal)

Biofuel boom threatens food supplies: Nestle - Growing use of such crops wheat and corn to make biofuels is putting world food supplies in peril, the head of Nestle, the world’s biggest food and beverage company, warned Sunday. (AFP)

The power of fears - A sad article by Dale Dougherty at O’Reilly Radar described the emotional pleas made by people in a small California town who have come to fear that something they can’t see or feel is making them sick. Fourteen people went to a City Council meeting, saying they believed that wireless internet service was causing them health problems, and, rather than examine the scientific evidence, the city rescinded a permit to a local internet provider and left the community without wireless service. (Junkfood Science)

These people must really be desperate - A thriving town decimated by watermelons stops hemorrhaging with a few jobs and few crumbs allowed by greenies and environmentalism gives ‘hope’? Sounds more like the survivors are suffering Stockholm Syndrome.

What Will It Take To Save The Salmon? - Check out the gorebull warming claims about ocean upwelling and then then think about the timing — the change occurred in the midst of a period when there is no apparent ocean warming. these guys sure have strange ideas about cause and effect relationships. (San Francisco Chronicle)

‘Your children are too fat. Either they lose weight or we’ll take them away’ - A COUPLE have been told their children must lose weight – or they could be taken into care. (The Scotsman)

New! College degrees in fighting fat - Future healthcare professionals can now get a college degree in “fighting fat.” The new program offered by the University of Guelph, collaborating with Humber College, is not to foster the science of obesity and disseminate factual information, but to teach students interested in careers capitalizing off the war on obesity “how to prescribe exercise and diet to an unhealthy population.” According to its press release, the program will focus on such things as lifestyle modification and the benefits of wholegrain foods and fiber and dangers of saturated fats, says the University. (Junkfood Science)

Poor programmed little robots… and their kids are even worse! Managing your little eco-warrior (Associated Press)

How the myth of food miles hurts the planet - Ethical shopping just got more complicated. The idea that only local produce is good is under attack. There is growing evidence to suggest that some air-freighted food is greener than food produced in the UK. Robin McKie and Caroline Davies report on how the concept of food miles became oversimplified - and is damaging the planet in the process (Robin McKie, The Observer)

March 21, 2008

The Global Warming Bubble - You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist in the 1990s to figure that speculative investment in dot-coms with no revenues would be disastrous. The same goes for lenders giving mortgages to borrowers with no job, no income and no assets. So after surviving the tech bubble and while trying to extricate the economy from the housing bubble, why are we bent on heading into the global warming bubble? (Steven Milloy, FoxNews.com)

Reposting Of An August 8 2006 Weblog titled “Big Time Gambling With Multi-Decadal Global Climate Model Predictions by Roger A. Pielke Sr. and Roger A. Pielke Jr. - With the recent evidence of significant disagreement between the IPCC model projections and reality, as diagnosed by surface air and tropospheric temperatures (e.g. see, see and see) and upper ocean heat content (i.e. see), Climate Science is reposting a weblog from 2006 titled “Big Time Gambling With Multi-Decadal Global Climate Model Predictions by Roger A. Pielke Sr. and Roger A. Pielke Jr.” (Climate Science)

Back to 1988 on CO2, Says NASA’s Hansen - I wonder what it would take, what fact these guys would recognize that would cause them to actually look at and really think about the alleged relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide and climate. How can Hansen look at his own GISTEMP record with carbon dioxide levels and figure CO₂ drives temperature? Atmospheric carbon dioxide has measurably increased so why haven’t either or both the oceans or atmosphere warmed since 2002? We most assuredly have not been in La Niña conditions for the last 5 years. If more CO₂ = warming then where did the warming go? Back to 1988 on CO2, Says NASA’s Hansen (Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times)

The Sloppy Science of Global Warming - While a politician might be faulted for pushing a particular agenda that serves his own purposes, who can fault the impartial scientist who warns us of an imminent global-warming Armageddon? After all, the practice of science is an unbiased search for the truth, right? The scientists have spoken on global warming. There is no more debate. But let me play devil’s advocate. Just how good is the science underpinning the theory of manmade global warming? (Roy W. Spencer, Energy Tribune)

John Coleman ICCC Talk and Series of Global Warming Videos - John Coleman posted a story here on Icecap in November about the global warming SCAM that got the media’s attention. I was fortunate to be on the panel at the Heartland Institute’s ICCC with John Coleman and Art Horn, another TV meteorologist.  For me it was a trip back in time. I worked with John Coleman on Good Morning America and as the First Director of Meteorology at The Weather Channel and Art was one of my early students when I was a professor of Meteorolpgy at Lyndon State College back when the world thought the ice age was coming. (Joseph D’Aleo, CCM)

Comments On The News Article by Seth Borenstein entitled “Global Warming Rushes Timing of Spring” - On March 20 2008, the Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein published a news report titled “Global Warming Rushes Timing of Spring“. This article, unfortunately perpetuates the inaccurately narrow perspective that only “global warming” can produce an earlier greening up in the spring. Indeed, even though some areas are greening up later, the article has the audacity to write “In much of Florida and southern Texas and Louisiana, the satellites show spring coming a tad later, and bizarrely, in a complicated way, global warming can explain that too, the scientists said.” Thus, everything is attributable to “global warming”. (Climate Science)

New solar cycle 24 goalpost established - As I mentioned a few days ago, there was a panel that NASA convened to look at solar cycle 23/24 predictions. (Watts Up With That?)

Proposed budget has an increase in funding for NOAA - I love the honesty: “What this really does for us is allow us to cry wolf less…" Proposed budget has an increase in funding for NOAA (Union-Tribune)

US election boosts prospects for climate deal: bank - SINGAPORE, Mar 20, 2008 A global agreement on tackling climate change will be much more likely under a new US president, top US investment bank Lehman Brothers said here Thursday. US leadership is key to reaching a deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions, it said, noting that all White House challengers are talking up the need to tackle the issue. (AFP)

Is Carbon Capture a False Hope for Coal Power? - Dirty coal power plants could be made environmentally friendly by capturing the CO2 they emit. The technology is currently being tested on a small scale. But will the cost of the new technology make coal power unprofitable? (Holger Dambeck, Der Spiegel)

Not By Energy Efficiency Alone - That increased energy efficiency will save us has become an article of faith. Last year, Congress passed “The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.” The text of the new law covers 310 pages. The word “efficiency” appears 331 times, and “efficient” appears 111 times. It mandates higher mileage standards for cars sold in the U.S., and will eventually outlaw the use of incandescent light bulbs in favor of more efficient compact fluorescent ones. (Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune)

New horizon: what we can expect as nature changes - Artificial life forms, robots that mimic natural processes, and even people who spend all day in front of the computer and rarely experience the real outdoors, may all fundamentally affect the quality of nature in Britain over the next 45 years.

According to 35 environmental scientists, drawn from the government as well as colleges and charities, a host of new threats and opportunities for UK biodiversity is gathering pace as technologies develop, social habits alter and the possibility of large-scale responses to phenomena like climate change grows. (The Guardian)

Chemists find important contributor to smog - Chemists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered that a chemical reaction in the atmosphere above major cities long assumed to be unimportant in urban air pollution is in fact a significant contributor to urban ozone—the main component of smog. (PhysOrg)

Obamanomics: Target Big Oil, Too - In the race to coin ever-more damning narcoleptic references for the Bush administration, Barack Obama’s energy adviser Jason Grumet told Reuters today that the current tenants “are asleep at the switch,” and vowed his candidate would stick it to Big Oil. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)

Setting Sun? The “End of the Beginning” for Solar Bonanza - Many players in the solar power industry are optimistic that the silicon shortages hamstringing their growth and crimping their profits will end soon, leading to happier times and happier shareholders. Not so fast, says a new report out today by Lux Research, a New York-based technology research firm. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)

Reinventing the wheel - In the month the Chancellor raised excise duty on the country’s gas guzzlers to almost £1,000, and petrol topped $111 a barrel, what is the motor industry’s response? Cars powered by corn, hydrogen and even air. Michael Odell visits the Geneva International Motor Show to find out if it’s all too little too late (Michael Odell, The Observer)

Reichstag to run solely on renewable power - The German Reichstag is expected to become the greenest parliament building in the world, thanks to a decision to rely solely on renewable energy. (The Guardian)

Slow melt of heavy snow better for the environment - Water is on the minds of many Canadians at the moment, and not just because this Saturday is World Water Day. The record level accumulation of snow laden with imported moisture brought up from the Gulf of Mexico has resulted in snow packed with water: This kind of snow takes longer to melt than the usual lake effect, dry, fluffy snow typically seen around southern Ontario. (PhysOrg)

Warming scenario sees flooded airport - By Tom Ramstack - The Bush administration has set aside its skepticism about global warming to begin planning for the possibility that major Washington-area infrastructure, including Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, could be inundated by rising seawaters. (Washington Times)

Global warming: South Asia to feel the heat - FIVE BILLION people and large-scale vegetation in the South Asian region face major threat of climatic changes and global warming. Scientists have warned that 80 per cent of bio-diversity is going to be at an increased risk and people in the region are going to be affected directly or indirectly in the coming years. The general temperature is likely to increase by 2.5 degree Celsius in next 50 years and India might face situations like more droughts or floods. (Sanjay M Johri, MeriNews)

Green hot air comics fluff it - SOMETHING’S missing from this year’s Melbourne Comedy Festival — something huge, with a "Kick Me" sign on its great green backside. And the result is a festival so stuffed with grim comics wailing that the world is doomed that you won’t know whether to clap or boo-hoo. (Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun)

Public Health Risk Seen as Parents Reject Vaccines - SAN DIEGO — In a highly unusual outbreak of measles here last month, 12 children fell ill; nine of them had not been inoculated against the virus because their parents objected, and the other three were too young to receive vaccines. (New York Times)March 20, 2008

British PM: Climate change a top threat - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday that climate change and pandemic disease threaten international security as much as terrorism and that Britain must radically improve its defenses. (Associated Press)

Climatologist says global warming not alarming, carbon fuels not to blame - The Earth is getting warmer, but Alabama’s state climatologist says carbon fuels aren’t to blame. John Christy, who heads the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama- Huntsville, told a group of civic and business leaders Tuesday that the Earth’s warming is well within historical ranges. (Cosby Woodruff, Montgomery Advertiser)

The Mystery of Global Warming’s Missing Heat (comments by Roger Pielke Sr follow) - Morning Edition, March 19, 2008 · Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren’t quite understanding what their robots are telling them.

This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record. But Josh Willis at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.

In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.

"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. "Global warming doesn’t mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming."

In recent years, heat has actually been flowing out of the ocean and into the air. This is a feature of the weather phenomenon known as El Nino. So it is indeed possible the air has warmed but the ocean has not. But it’s also possible that something more mysterious is going on. (Richard Harris, NPR)

Comments On The NPR Story By Richard Harris Entitled “The Mystery of Global Warming’s Missing Heat” -

There is a news story by Richard Harris of NPR entitled “The Mystery of Global Warming’s Missing Heat“.  The media have finally recognized that the upper oceans have not been warming for the last 4 years which indicates that if global warming is still continuing, the heat is being transferred deeper into the ocean that is being measured (or it could be radiated out into space). If so, it is not readily available to heat the atmosphere, and thus have a major effect on our weather patterns.

The importance of the oceans as a diagnostic for global warming and cooling is reported in the paper

 Pielke Sr., R.A., 2003: Heat storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335.

The NPR article, however, concludes with the odd claim that

 ”Trenberth and Willis agree that a few mild years have no effect on the long-term trend of global warming. But they say there are still things to learn about how our planet copes with the heat.”

This is denial of the obvious. The observed absence of heat accumulation (of Joules) in the upper ocean (and in the troposphere) for the last four years means that there has been NO global warming in these climate metrics during this time period. It is unknown whether this is a short term aberration but, regardless, it is clear that the IPCC models have failed to skillfully predict this absence of warming. That should have been the conclusion stated at the end of the NPR story. (Climate Science)

Another Global Disaster Awaits (Vicki Crawford, The Observation Post) - Why not? Apparently most everything is due to gorebull warming.

Icy Start, But 2008 May Be In Top 10 Warmest Years - OSLO - After the coldest start to a year in more than a decade, spring will bring relief to the northern hemisphere from Thursday. Bucking the trend of global warming, the start of 2008 saw icy weather around the world from China to Greece. But despite its chilly start, 2008 is expected to end up among the top 10 warmest years since records began in the 1860s. (Reuters)

NZ Antarctic voyagers return with scientific treasure trove - The 26 scientists and 18 crew endured the worst ice conditions documented in the Ross Sea in 30 years to complete 35 days of sampling Antarctic marine biodiversity and habitats. (NZPA)

Bristlecone Pines: Treemometers or rain gauges ? - Over on Climate Audit, Steve McIntyre has been making a series of posts that have been putting the final nails in the coffin for Michael Mann’s MBH98 paper which was responsible for the famous hockey stick graph which is based on tree ring data from Bristlecone Pine trees. Mann’s work implies them to be excellent proxy indicators of temperature, and due to their age, a profound record of temperature. Problem is,  it looks like most of the results is Mann’s paper have been thoroughly discredited by the work of McKittrick and McIntyre in 2005, plus McIntyre’s more recent work. (Watts Up With That?)

Arctic pollution’s surprising history - We really have to wonder about the romantic misconceptions of most people and especially these scientists. Ice cores show evidence of Roman (and earlier) smelting operations, aerial combustion products including all the range of heavy metals, mercury, dioxins often claimed to be symptoms of the ‘dirty’ industrial era but actually naturally sourced from forest fires through the ages and so on. As long as the tropics are warmer than the poles the wind system is going to continue carting particulates and ‘pollutants’ to polar regions — as it has been doing for millions of years.

At sea over sea levels? - Today, I present a simple primer on world sea-level change through geological time [for the full copyright details of the graphs reproduced or hyper-linked, see the Footnote*]. How we need such a perspective: (Global Warming Politics)

Gravity Waves Make Tornados

Did you know that there’s a new breakfast food that helps meteorologists predict severe storms? Down South they call it "GrITs."

GrITs stands for Gravity wave Interactions with Tornadoes. "It’s a computer model I developed to study how atmospheric gravity waves interact with severe storms," says research meteorologist Tim Coleman of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

According to Coleman, wave-storm interactions are very important. If a gravity wave hits a rotating thunderstorm, it can sometimes spin that storm up into a tornado. (Science@NASA)

Way past the broken window fallacy, now we have the broken economy fallacy - Making energy massively more expensive will reduce your costs. Are you convinced yet? No? Perhaps you just don’t believe hard enough in the magical new cost-free energy source development that will somehow occur if we just make hydrocarbons too expensive to use. Oh, and don’t forget to factor in the astronomical avoided cost of pretend maladies that would have occurred had we not be saved by the anti-capitalist, anti-technology puritans — they’re like mega-ginormous-ultra-huge-bazillions, making a few paltry trillions in lost GDP insignificant, which proves the benefits of economic suicide. Simple, isn’t it?

GLOBAL WARMING: Bill delayed by Md. senators amid economic worries - ANNAPOLIS — A bill to slash Maryland’s carbon emissions as a way to address global warming was delayed Wednesday by senators who feared the bill could hike energy prices and put factories out of business. (Associated Press)

Experts disagree on benefits of global warming bill (Associated Press) - That’s the problem with this nonsense — if there’s no problem then diversion of a single dollar to ‘address’ said non-problem is too expensive. At this time there is exactly zero evidence atmospheric carbon dioxide constitutes any form of problem so any expenditure to ‘fix’ what ain’t broke is a cost too far.

Americans Cool to Global Warming Action, New Poll Finds - Washington, D.C.: Forty-eight percent of Americans are unwilling to spend even a penny more in gasoline taxes to help reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new nationwide survey released today by the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Connecticut, Nine Other States Holding First Auction Of Emissions ‘Allowances’ - For the first time in the U.S., carbon dioxide goes on sale in September — and the bidding will start at $1.86 a ton. A consortium of 10 states, including Connecticut, said Monday it will hold the first auction of carbon emissions "allowances" on Sept. 10, part of a plan to curb greenhouse gases from the region’s power plants and slow global warming. (Hartford Courant)

EPA seeks inquiry transcripts - WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency, peppered with requests from lawmakers for documents, is returning fire with an unusual request for confidential papers. EPA Associate Administrator Christopher Bliley recently asked for transcripts of closed-door interviews with seven senior EPA staffers concerning the agency’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. A key House investigations committee chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, (D- Beverly Hills), had conducted the interviews. (Associated Press)

In Kyoto’s Home, Japan Tallies the Costs - While the U.S. tries to figure out how to fight climate change, and how much it will cost, Japan is crunching the numbers on what it will cost to meet the commitments it’s already made. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)

Garnaut talks up emissions trading - AUSTRALIA should establish an emissions trading scheme to tackle climate change before the emergence of a comprehensive global agreement, the Government’s climate change adviser Ross Garnaut said today. (Christian Kerr, The Australian)

Carbon Offset Schemes "Confusing" - LONDON - Carbon offsetting Web sites are inconsistent and confusing, with costs varying by up to 540 percent, according to a report. (Reuters)

What a Bright Idea! - Three cheers for Representative Michele Bachman, who this past week introduced the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act (H.R. 5616), which would repeal the mandated phase-out of the incandescent light bulb. (William Yeatman, GlobalWarming.org)

The Bay Of Rigs - Cuba invites bids to develop oil reserves 45 miles off the coast of South Florida that are as large as those in ANWR. So why are the United States and its Navy buying oil from a state sponsor of terror? (IBD)

Shell’s Hofmeister: Still Fighting for “Pragmatic” Energy Policy - Why is one of Big Oil’s biggest cheerleaders still so optimistic when his industry is increasingly under fire thanks to high oil and gasoline prices, even higher oil profits, and rabid consumers? (Keith Johnson, WSJ)

Green Ink: Peak Oil (Demand) - The Fed rate cut left big funds with nowhere else to go but oil, reports the WSJ (sub reqd), driving prices higher just before market close yesterday. But on second thought, another rate cut means recession risk is real, notes Bloomberg. That’s easing oil prices early Wednesday. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)

States’ Battles Over Energy Grow Fiercer With U.S. in a Policy Gridlock (New York Times)

All this nonsense over liberation of an essential trace gas — imagine the fuss if there was pollution involved. Complete with quotes from UCS (pronounced ‘yuks’ around here).

Greenpeace goes prehistoric to protest coal-fired plant in Germany (AFP) - And naturally greenpeas grew the steel to make the dinosaur organically, which they then welded using only the rays of the sun focused with a really big magnifying glass… Any bets on whether the media will notice the extraordinary hypocrisy in the peas’ bizarre stunt?

Coalbed Methane Wells are Cheap, but Permeability Can Be Expensive! - The good news: the world has huge coalbed methane reserves. The bad news: it’s not that easy to get them. (Energy Tribune)

Buildings Crack Up as Black Forest Town Subsides (Der Spiegel) - The cause? Um… carbon hysteria, apparently.

Salt Could Shake Up World Energy Supply - TOFTE, Norway - Only up to powering light bulbs so far, "salt power" is a tantalising if distant prospect as high oil prices make alternative energy sources look more economical. (Reuters)

Dutch Opt For Coal With Carbon Capture, Not Nuclear - THE HAGUE - The Netherlands will focus on developing cleaner coal plants and raising renewable energy output to cut carbon emissions rather than expanding its nuclear energy industry at present, the environment minister said. (Reuters)

Dutch Minister Sees No Need For Biofuels Moratorium - THE HAGUE - A national moratorium on the use of biofuels would not stop other countries producing unsustainably and a better strategy would be to develop industry standards, the Dutch environment minister said on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Superbugs May Save Biofuels - A lot of people I talk to are giddy over the prospect of biofuels. I call them "biofools." Anyone who has analyzed the economics and environmental consequences of ethanol production closely will tell you that corn ethanol just doesn’t make sense in its current state. It costs us a bundle and actually increases greenhouse gases. If you don’t believe me, just check the most recent issue of Science or read a convincing analysis of the current biofuels on www.Zfacts.com called "Carbonomics." (Josh Wolfe, Forbes)

Government’s funding framework breeds scientific conformity - Here is a list of beliefs in the biomedical and climate sciences that must not be questioned if you’re applying for a government grant: (Bruce Ramsey, Seattle Times)

A possible explanation for… - ... the execrable reporting on gorebull warming, climate change, chemicals (egad!) and other matters environmental by WaPo, the Old Crone, et. al. can be found in this brief blog posting at BNET, by Jonathan Haeber, called Why Modern Journalism Makes PR Easy.

Read it.

Maybe even forward it to Andrew Revkin, Juliet Eilperin, et. al.? (Johnny Lucid)

More stupider all the time… - … and shameless is what the gorebull warmists are. The Think Green - An Inconvenient Truth scholarship, no less:

About the Think Green Scholarship - An Inconvenient Truth - CKSF’s Think Green Scholarships build awareness about environmental issues and reward students for demonstrating what they know about our environment and conservation. The contest for An Inconvenient Truth Scholarship encourages students to watch the movie An Inconvenient Truth and review the associated website, www.theclimateproject.org, and then quizzes them on the information they learned.

The kicker is that it’s for a piddling $250 bucks.  For those of you who are familiar with the ~$40 grand per year costs of a private college that’s all of .626%. That’ll buy maybe 1.5 copies of your basic engineering text book. (Johnny Lucid)

An Alphabet Soup of Chemical Myths
Review by Jay Lehr, Ph.D.
Published by: The Heartland Institute
Published in: Environment News
Publication date: April 2008

Do you fear sugar might cause cancer? - According to media headlines last week, a new study linked white bread and sugary foods to cancers and disease. Another study, which didn’t make headlines, reported that such foods were not associated with cancers. The data in both studies actually showed the same thing. Which conclusions do we believe? (Junkfood Science)

I’ve had my doubts about… - … what’s earnestly and ardently touted as "corporate social responsibility." This letter, appearing on today’s WSJ letters page, puts to rest any doubt that those doing the touting are mostly advocates of enlarging governmental power and further interference with private property rights, economic liberty and political freedom.  See for yourself: Cheering Spitzer’s Fall? They Should Be Ashamed (Johnny Lucid)

UK bans ‘sustainable’ cotton adverts - LONDON – [19.03.08] The UK‘s Advertising Standards has banned a series of adverts by Cotton Council International for claiming that its cotton is produced in an environmentally sustainable way. (Ecotextile News)

Climate change experts target cow flatulence (London Telegraph)

What a pity livestock feed conversion efficiency work has to pretend to address the dreaded gorebull warming to attract funding. The work is critically important in its own right but hitching it to a mythical problem may be the wrong strategy in the end. Regardless of what temperature is doing and, as we have so often said, globally averaged temperatures are only of interest if you happen to reside in the mythical realm "Globally Averaged," otherwise they are merely an artificially contrived curiosity, atmospheric methane appears to have reached equilibrium and is no longer rising.

What a pity livestock feed conversion efficiency work has to pretend to address the dreaded gorebull warming to attract funding. The work is critically important in its own right but hitching it to a mythical problem may be the wrong strategy in the end. Regardless of what temperature is doing and, as we have so often said, globally averaged temperatures are only of interest if you happen to reside in the mythical realm "Globally Averaged," otherwise they are merely an artificially contrived curiosity, atmospheric methane appears to have reached equilibrium and is no longer rising. In fact, it may even be falling.

GM food wins backing from Country Life - The campaign for genetically modified food will receive a significant boost when Country Life, the influential countryside and property magazine, calls for its widespread introduction to help feed the world’s starving. In a hard-hitting editorial, the magazine argues that for the Government to ignore GM crops is "immoral" and "criminal". (London Telegraph)

Mexico approves rules to begin planting GM corn - MEXICO CITY - Mexico, widely thought to be the birthplace of corn, said on Wednesday it will begin allowing experimental planting of genetically modified crops, despite resistance from some farmers who question their safety. (Reuters)

A built-in strategy for transgene containment - A method of creating selective terminable transgenic rice was reported by the scientists of Zhejiang University in this week’s PLoS ONE. Unintended spreading of transgenic rice by pollen and seed dispersal is a major concern for planting transgenic rice, especially transgenic rice expressing pharmaceutical or industrial proteins. (Public Library of Science)

March 19, 2008

At stake in the gun case - By Robert A. Levy - Does the Constitution grant individuals the right to bear arms, or is that right reserved exclusively for members of a "well-regulated militia"? After 69 years of silence on the Second Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court took up that question yesterday in the historic case of District of Columbia v. Heller, a challenge to the District’s ban on all functional firearms. (Washington Times)

Regulations Are at the Root of U.S. Housing Mess: Kevin Hassett - The smell of fear permeates Washington. With the U.S. economy on the ropes and esteemed financial institutions such as Bear Stearns Cos. and the Carlyle Group suffering major losses, policy makers are outdoing one another in the search for creative intensive care. (Bloomberg)

Deja Vu all over again: climate worries of today also happened in the 20’s and 30’s - Two days ago I highlighted a news story from the Washington Post Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt dated from November 2nd 1922. That brought a flood of interest and some other interesting finds along with it as other readers contributed what they found on the story. One of the most interesting finds was a study published in the Monthly Weather Review in September 1933 Titled:  IS OUR CLIMATE CHANGING? (Watts Up With That?)

Arctic Sea Ice Builds, But Vulnerable - Critical Arctic sea ice this winter made a tenuous partial recovery from last summer’s record melt, federal scientists said Tuesday. But that’s an illusion, like a Hollywood movie set, scientist Walter Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center said. (Associated Press)

Impressive Increases in Sea Ice Extent Both Hemispheres - After diminishing to the lowest levels of the satellite era (since 1979) this past September, the arctic ice has recovered dramatically and coverage is about 1 million square km greater than last year at this time and within 500,000 square km of the longer term average. (Joseph D’Aleo, CCM with data from The Cryosphere Today, NSIDC)

Chris de Freitas: Tuvalu floods, but it’s not sinking - The Monday Reuters agency report in the Herald on changing sea levels in the Pacific island group of Tuvalu, "Sinking Culture Snapped", is misleading. Since instrumentation was installed in 1993 on Tuvalu’s main island Funafuti, sea level has shown no discernible trend. (New Zealand Herald)

Govt study finds warming to increase risk of floods - Rivers will become 50 to 75 percent more liable to flood by the end of the century due to an increase in torrential rains caused by global warming, according to a provisional calculation by the Construction and Transport Ministry. (The Yomiuri Shimbun)

Already forecasting for next winter… - … "’The users of those forecasts will take a peek at it but I don’t think many users make million-dollar decisions based on that – at least they shouldn’t,’ said senior climatologist David Phillips" (Canadian Press). Right and governments are making multi-trillion-dollar decisions based on multi-decadal forecasts of considerably less value.

Steady eddy spares bathers big chill - IT IS 150 kilometres wide, rotating, and lies just off Sydney. Scientists say a giant ocean eddy swirling in the Tasman Sea is compelling evidence that the ocean is not the constant, unchanging water mass it has long appeared. (Sydney Morning Herald)

Pseudoscientific elements in climate change research - This paper appeared originally in the Dutch Journal, Spil, in February, 2008 (Written by Arthur Rörsch)

Correlation Last Decade and This Century Between CO2 and Global Temperatures Not There - This is the latest decadal plot from February 1998 to February 2008 of global temperatures from Satellite (UAH MSU lower troposphere) (blue) and land and ocean variance adjusted surface (Hadley CRU T3v) (rose) plotted with Scripps monthly CO2 from Mauna Loa (green). (Joseph D’Aleo, CCM)

Canadians in fog over causes of global warming: poll - Actually these Canadians seem well informed, specifically resisting the media nonsense insisting industrial emissions control climate at rates roughly equivalent to Canadian earth scientists and engineers. So what’s De Souza’s problem? Canadians in fog over causes of global warming: poll. (Mike De Souza, Canwest News Service)

From CO₂ Science this week:
Editorial:
The Gospel According to Sir John: Chapter 4: We discuss yet another important reason why biofuels are not the answer to reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week:
This issue’s Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Estanya Gran Lake, Pre-Pyrenees, Spain. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project’s database, click here.

Subject Index Summary:
Nitrogen Fixation (Aquatic Plants): How significant is it? And how is it likely being impacted by the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content?

Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results (blue background) of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature for: Alfalfa, Deciduous Shrub of Semi-arid Northern China, Rice, and White Potato.

Journal Reviews:
The Turn-of-the-20th-Century North American Drought: What caused it?

Non-Greenhouse-Gas Anthropogenic Influences on Near-Surface Air Temperatures: Have they been properly removed from global climate databases?

A Five-Century Borehole Record of Australian Temperatures: What important evidence does it present?

Peatland Carbon and Global Warming: Is there a tendency for peatlands to sequester ever less carbon — or lose increasingly more of it to the atmosphere — as the planet warms?

Forest Fires in the Western United States: Are they increasing in response to CO2-induced global warming? (co2science.org)

Once SciAm was worth reading - but now it appears the popsci rag is allowing (encouraging?) activist scribes David Biello and John Pavlus to do a grubby little hit job on those failing to toe the global warming crisis line (note how they portray a Distinguished Research Professor at George Mason University and professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia. S. Fred Singer’s previous government and academic positions include Chief Scientist, U.S. Department of Transportation (1987- 89); Deputy Assistant Administrator for Policy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1970-71); Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water Quality and Research, U.S. Department of the Interior (1967- 70); founding Dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences, University of Miami (1964-67); first Director of the National Weather Satellite Service (1962-64); and Director of the Center for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Maryland (1953-62)): Even Skeptics Admit Global Warming is Real [Video] (SciAm)

University of Melbourne - considering the need for an alternative world system because of dangers posed by global warming - Looks like anti-capitalist Hans Baer has organized himself a little propaganda niche — see below course blurt. (JunkScience.com)

Finally, a report on climate change that doesn’t strive to scare us silly - Environmental worrywarts fretting about irresponsible humans burning up the planet have succeeded in fomenting needless hysteria over global warming. It’s time someone knocked these self-appointed doom-mongers off their shaky soapbox. And now it’s happened. (Alan Ferguson, The Province)

More eco-hallucination…: Poor are sidelined on climate change solutions - NEW YORK: The mantra from businesses and politicians in the developed world is that technology will provide a solution to rising global emissions. Indeed, they say, fighting global warming can be good for business. (Elisabeth Rosenthal, IHT)

CO2 emissions grew 3% last year in U.S. - WASHINGTON — The amount of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, released by the nation’s power plants grew by nearly 3 percent last year, the largest annual increase in nearly a decade, an environmental group said Tuesday. (Associated Press)

Analysis: China’s CO2 burden falls on U.S. - THE DALLES, Ore., March 17 — Any solution to the world’s energy woes hinges on two pivotal players, the United States and China, and most of the heavy lifting may fall on the wealthier of the two, experts said at an energy summit Thursday. (UPI)

Voluntary carbon standards compared - Amid ongoing criticism of the voluntary carbon market, WWF and the Stockholm Environment Institute have released the first detailed comparison of the different emerging accreditation schemes for voluntary offsets. (Carbon Positive)

Fast-track for seabed storage of emissions - Wasting 30-40% of generated power to rebury carbon we expended energy mining in the first place has to be one of the stupidest side-issues in this whole gorebull warming farce: Fast-track for seabed storage of emissions (Marian Wilkinson, Sydney Morning Herald)

Neo-Malthusians to the left of us, neo-Malthusians to the… even further left of us - Still planning world domination, we see, presumably with themselves as rulers of the world. If they get control of energy supplies via the ridiculous construct of "global warming" they’ll be quite well advanced in their global coup.

Rudd faces China showdown - Gosh! Don’t suppose this could have anything to do with the strong Chinese backing of labor in the last election, do you? Rudd faces China showdown (Dennis Shanahan, The Australian)

An Export in Solid Supply - These days, people really are taking coals to Newcastle. That flow is part of a vast reorganization of the global coal trade that is making the United States a major exporter for the first time in years — and helping to drive up domestic prices of the one fossil fuel the nation has in abundance. (New York Times)

Old King Coal Makes Comeback In Britain - LONDON - Coal mining is making a comeback in Britain as the quest for secure energy supplies chips away at environmental objections and record high prices for the raw material make pits economically viable. (Reuters)

Shell will dig deeper for oil in tar sands - THE HAGUE, Netherlands, March 18 — Anglo-Dutch giant Royal Dutch Shell said it plans to quintuple tar sands production. The company announced it will significantly increase its oil production in the controversial Canadian tar sands in an attempt to stop falling production, the Independent reported. (UPI)

Fear and flying - Flying has become a modern middle-class hypocrisy, a source of guilt and pleasure all at the same time. Everyone is confused. Was yesterday’s arrival at Heathrow of flight SQ308 from Singapore, the first scheduled visit to Britain of a giant A380 aircraft, something to celebrate or mourn? It was certainly a triumph for European engineering, and for the 100,000 British workers whose jobs have been supported by it. (The Guardian)

New cars’ CO2 emissions down 13% in 10 years, says trade body - Average carbon-dioxide emissions from new cars in Britain have fallen by more than 13% since 1997, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. (The Guardian)

Mexican Oil Standoff - Energy: Mexico has likely shut the door on new oil development just as its biggest fields approach depletion. Pay heed: That’s our third-biggest supplier. Now we’ll have to find and develop new oil — or else. (IBD)

EPA Leadership: Too Many Questions, Too Few Answers - Hmm… CAP seems to want to drive the economy over a cliff for, well, no real reason. What kind of ‘progress’ is that? Here’s Sussman carrying on about the lack of draconian EPA regulation of an essential trace gas (note he misunderstands, or pretends to, the Supreme’s decision that the EPA could regulate, not that it must regulate): EPA Leadership: Too Many Questions, Too Few Answers (Robert M. Sussman, CAP)

Greenhouse emissions and forestry policy - Ever wondered about perverse policies on leaving forests in increasingly fire-vulnerable states, failing to harvest timber resources and panicking about carbon emissions? Ever wondered whether harvesting fire-killed trees might limit carbon emissions by diverting lumber to use rather than leaving it to rot? Whether tree thinning might be a win-win situation? Then you’ll probably want to read Bonnicksen:

Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Four California Wildfires: Opportunities To Prevent And Reverse Environmental And Climate Impacts - Executive Summary:
Forests and forestry are playing an increasingly important role in sequestering carbon and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, especially during a period of rising concerns about global warming.

The Forest Carbon and Emissions Model (FCEM) used in this study estimates forest carbon storage, sequestration, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions using equations from recognized scientific sources.

The purpose of this report is to provide estimates that illustrate the impact of wildfires on greenhouse gas emissions and the importance of thinning forests to protect forests and communities, and to prevent emissions from combustion and decay. It also focuses on the significance of removing dead trees and replanting to restore forests and recover greenhouse gases released by wildfire.

Source: Bonnicksen, T.M. 2008. Greenhouse gas emissions from four California wildfires: opportunities to prevent and reverse environmental and climate impacts. FCEM Report 2. The Forest Foundation, Auburn, California. 19 p. Download 157Kb .pdf

Dams: Deep trouble - Are vast dams around the world masking the full extent of sea-level rises? Steve Connor reveals why soon we may all be in… (London Independent)

Damned to bucket back by Labor’s green folly - HERE’S a new study to make you even more cross, as you slop buckets of bath water out to your parched garden. You know these city bans that make putting sprinklers on your roses a crime? You know these restrictions that have you toting water like a Third World coolie? Completely unnecessary. (Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun)

Blogging disease - Do you suffer from IAD? If you’re a blogger, you could soon find yourself labeled with the newest mental disorder: Internet Addiction Disorder. (Junkfood Science)

March 18, 2008

Varied MSM views on Heller v. District of Columbia

Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Heller v. District of Columbia, a suit brought by several D.C. citizens contending that the ban on the possession of operable firearms inside one’s home violates the Second Amendment. The Circuit Court of Appeals for D.C. agreed and held the ban to be unconstitutional. However it is decided, Heller is already historic.

Gun Ownership Becoming a Capital Idea

For years, Shelly Parker faced intimidation and harassment from the drug dealers and gang-bangers who roamed her neighborhood.  Already frustrated because the police never did enough to make her feel truly safe, she was further dismayed by the fact that she could not own a gun to protect herself.

Parker is a resident of Washington, D.C., where gun ownership has been a crime.

Guess it depends on your definition of ‘much’

$2.9 trillion for 25ppm?

EPA Says Carbon Caps Won’t Harm Economy Much

WASHINGTON — The leading congressional proposal to control greenhouse-gas emissions could be implemented without significantly harming the nation’s economic growth over the next two decades, according to an analysis published Friday by the Bush administration.

Professor Plimer hits carbon dioxide doomsayers at Paydirt confab

One of Australia’s most outspoken critics of the global warming theorists – particularly scientists who jumped on the political bandwagon – told a conference in Australia that carbon dioxide has not influenced global climate change.

Carbon Claptrap

We are in desperate need in the UK of some brave politicians who will begin to admit to the public that pretty well everything they - but above all the British government - say with respect to carbon dioxide emissions is little more than carbon claptrap. Our ‘leaders’ blithely talk of building “zero-carbon houses”, when no such thing exists. You wonder if they have they ever heard of the concept of ‘embedded carbon’, or of full carbon audits from cradle-to-grave, or cradle-to-cradle?

Another one who cannot distinguish between ‘essential trace gas’ and ‘pollution’

Apparently Tobis believes this to be a case of science versus Evangelical Christians and/or Republicans. If he’s really that stupid then he’s irredeemable.

Is it really possible they believe that which they espouse?

Bloody idiots! There is no upside to expending resources and societal capital for no benefit. The biosphere is fueled by atmospheric carbon, a resource in desperately short supply over the last few million years because it is a lossy system — biological sequestration and slow return from deep ocean reservoirs constantly deplete the resource — and human mining of previously sequestered carbon is our one huge gift to the biosphere.

Legislative-led group sees costly climate outcomes

Really? Any more costly than this?

SEC Allows Shareholder Effort to Ask Banks About ‘Green-washing’; Citigroup and Bank of America Must Put ‘Equator Principles’ Proposal to Shareholder Vote

Washington DC, March 17, 2008 - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has decided that shareholders have the right to know whether Citigroup and Bank of America are engaging in “green-washing” in the context of the banks’ lending practices, the Free Enterprise Action Fund, a public-traded mutual fund, announced today.

Industrial CEOs support cap on global warming pollution

Chief executives from top American manufacturing companies are taking to the airwaves in an unprecedented national advertising campaign that calls on Congress to drive economic growth with a cap on global warming pollution.

Corporate America strives for effective green PR

Executing strategic public relations programs that are designed to call attention to corporate benevolence in regards to climate change may seem like the “thing to do” this year, but be careful. The corporate image you are trying to improve could easily get trampled by a cynical media core looking to poke holes in the corporate global warming story.

Ooh! Bad timing…

… just as the EU resort to giving their industries a free pass, again.

All the Presidents’ Men (Discuss Climate Change)

I had to make a rare foray outside the Beltway to find out where the presidential candidates stand on global warming and energy rationing legislation. Top advisers for the Clinton, McCain, and Obama campaigns appeared together Thursday night at a conference at a fancy resort in Santa Barbara hosted by the Wall Street Journal.

Another Moonbat rant

Actually George is partly right, albeit by accident — carbon capture is an expensive scam with zero application for a better environment. Worse, coal-fired power plants capturing and sequesting exhaust CO₂ are squandering 30-40% output just to pretend they are "doing something" about "global warming".

Government ‘missing its own carbon targets’

The government is in danger of losing credibility on climate change because more than half of all its departments are failing to reduce their carbon emissions enough to reach levels that the nation as a whole is expected to meet.

An Interview With Christopher Booker

Christopher Booker, former editor of Private Eye, Fleet Street journalist and co-author of Scared To Death, in conversation with Pan Pantziarka of LondonBookReview.com.

Hedge fund managers, past and present, should butt out

That’s my first thought upon viewing the Ad Council gorebull warming spots, which you can view here and here, on YouTube. The first one, "Train," reminds me of the 1964 "Daisy" spot from a Presidential campaign during my youth. Coincidence? I think not!

This drivel was underwritten by the Robertson Foundation.  In case you are wondering what the Robertson Foundation is, its web page is a platitude-rich zone, many of them being, ahem, "progressive."

For the basics about the foundation’s founder, Julian Robertson, see the Forbes 400.

Icebergs Melting, Seals Disappearing, Arctic Warming

This just in from the Washington Post:

The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.

Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone.

How not to measure temperature, part 53: Find the NOAA thermometer in this picture

One of the things learned from the www.surfacestations.org project is how the conversion of standard mercury thermometers in Stevenson Screens to the newer MMTS type electronic thermometers has resulted in many USHCN stations being placed closer to buildings. This is a result of cable trenching issues and NWS COOP managers general lack of equipment and time to do effective cable laying. The spec for the MMTS thermometers allows for cables up to 1/4 mile in length between the sensor and the display.

Climate change confuses migrating birds

The swallows’ return to British shores each year symbolises the passing of winter and the approach of summer. But in a sign of the blurring of the seasons brought on by climate change, one of the birds has this year shunned migration to Africa and instead spent all winter in Britain.

The indoctrination is everywhere

BAHRAIN is stepping up efforts to ensure that it doesn’t lose its coastlines to climate change, it emerged yesterday.

2008 International Conference on Climate Change: An Intellectual Feast

As an attendee and speaker at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York City, I found it to be a profound experience and the best scientific meeting I had ever attended. From the President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus to John Stossel for luncheon speaker, to hundreds of scientists, economists, and world class statisticians in between, it was an intellectual feast.

Australia to have carbon trading scheme by 2010: minister

Of greater interest to Australians is finding out why China provides so much support to Australian socialists and just what they are getting in return. How much advantage to China would be crashing the economy of their major coal, natural gas and ore exporter? How much cheaper would it be for cash-rich China to ‘rescue’ supplier enterprises with Australia stupidly blundering on with Kyoto and absurd carbon constraint schemes from which our newly-wealthy benefactor is exempt?

Toyota Prius proves a gas guzzler in a race with the BMW 520d

The Toyota hybrid is hailed as an eco-paragon, so how does it fare against a big BMW? To find out our correspondents go on a run to Geneva

British company to build world’s largest tidal power scheme

A British firm has agreed to build a giant tidal power scheme - the world’s largest - in South Korea, using underwater turbines that experts say could make the proposed £15 billion Severn Barrage obsolete.

BP To Join Canada’s Irving In Big Refinery Project

CALGARY, Alberta - BP Plc will join Canada’s Irving Oil in designing Irving’s planned $7 billion Eider Rock refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, the closely held Irving said on Monday, as the British oil major looks to further expand in Canada.

Gee, what a good idea!

Ben Newell, an intern for the Examiner, has written about a good idea in "A burning need for power."

In sum, Warrenton, Va. "Mayor George Fitch has proposed that the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors build a power plant that burns the town’s garbage and produces energy using a process known as gasification, which uses most of what is sitting in the nearest trash receptacle and turns it into energy and biofuel."

But one just knows in his heart of hearts, the professional environmental activists will come out unalterably opposed, citing this or that deleterious effect of constructing and operating the plant, while simultaneously whipping up a froth of protest and NIMBY among the populace.

Europe’s Next Green Thing

Ireland’s OpenHydro and Germany’s RWE are spending millions to try to turn the power of waves into electricity.

How to solve India’s power crisis

Power on, India on! This catch line may have got the fancy of investors who pumped in huge money into power sector. But, given the scenario India is in, it should be ‘Power on, India off’. If you want any proof for this, ask the Union Ministry of Power. It admits that at peak hours, India’s power deficit is over 14 per cent from an average energy shortfall of 9 per cent during non-peak hours.

Toward the next generation of high-efficiency plastic solar cells

Researchers in the United States and Austria report an advance toward the next generation of plastic solar cells, which are widely heralded as a low cost, environmentally-friendly alternative to inorganic solar cells for meeting rising energy demands. Their study is scheduled for the March 19 issue of ACS’ Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Coal reemerges as important raw material in chemical manufacturing industry

With oil prices hovering around $100 per barrel, coal is reemerging as a key raw material in the manufacture of the basic chemical materials used to make plastics, fertilizers, and hundreds of other products, according to an article scheduled for the March 17 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS’ weekly news magazine.

Biodiesel: Running on beans

The Missouri Legislature is considering requiring that biodiesel, a fuel usually made from soybean oil, make up 5 percent of diesel fuel sold in the state. But trucks and buses won’t be running on soybeans any time soon.

Obesity Paradox # 14 — Serious illness

Do fat people have a survival edge over thinner people when faced with a critical illness or do they fare worse? A study published in the January issue of Critical Care Medicine sought to find the answer to this question.

New Method Finds Networks Of Genes Behind Obesity

WASHINGTON - Overeating disrupts entire networks of genes in the body, causing not only obesity, but diabetes and heart disease, in ways that may be possible to predict, researchers reported on Sunday.

In a Warmer Yellowstone Park, a Shifting Environmental Balance

And as the marshes flood again following the drought? Then the thistle won’t have a preferred habitat advantage and will be less abundant, no? But the bears will be OK because then the white pine nut abundance will increase again. Meanwhile, we’re all sitting here being happy the bears have found another resource to exploit.

Eco-Friendly Pyrotechnics

No doubt it’s very important to blow things up in an environmentally-friendly manner…

From Green Luddite to Techspressive: The ideology of consumer technology

When people line up to buy a new iPhone, what is it that they are really buying? A fascinating new paper in the April issue of the Journal of Consumer Research outlines the four main ideologies governing our consumption of technology, revealing that conceptions of technological use introduced hundreds of years ago still influence our adoption of new products and services today.

Early Warning of an Anti-Green Backlash

Australian marketers are being advised to stop making vague claims about a product’s environmental benefits. New guidelines from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission warns companies about claiming products are “green,” “environmentally friendly,” “environmentally safe," “energy efficient,” “recyclable” or “carbon neutral."

EPA: $2.9 trillion for 25ppm

EPA’s analysis of the Lieberman-Warner (LW) global warming bill is out — and it ain’t pretty.

EPA estimates that LW may reduce GDP by $2.9 trillion in 2050 while reducing atmospheric CO2 by around 25 ppm by 2095.

What a bargain — reduce GDP by an estimated 6.9 percent for no meaningful change in atmospheric CO2!

Money for nothing… and the chicks ain’t free (just ask Eliot Spitzer!)

Get the analysis…

Biofuels forcing world to ration food aid

The World Food Program is preparing to ration food aid for the world’s hungriest poor.  Why?  Primarily because we’re burning food in our automobiles.  The rich-country mandates for biofuels have doubled and tripled world food prices in less than three years. 

Cancer treatment: The chickens that lay golden eggs

With a few genetic alterations, hens could soon be ‘pharmed’ to produce cancer-fighting drugs. Roger Highfield reports

No breach of GM trees at Scion, says MAF

Claims that Rotorua’s Scion may be allowing the spread of genetically modified pollen are unfounded, say government officials.

Your Burger on Biotech

Scientists serve up leaner beef, tastier cheddar and healthier ketchup

GM grain test stopped, Government blamed

WA’s first broadacre trial of genetically modified canola has been abandoned, with project proponents blaming the State Government’s hardline stance against commercial use of the technology for its failure.

Brinjals commit suicide for Greenpeace cause

Mumbai: If you are the curious kind and have always pondered over questions like ‘Who are we and why are we here?’, here’s another one for you — Just why did Mr Brinjal commit suicide?

Thousand brinjals were found hanging from electricity poles, street lamp posts and trees across Mumbai with suicide notes attached — attracting curious onlookers.

The stunt was a part of Greenpeace’s unique protest against genetically modified vegetables that could soon find their way into your neighbourhood vegetable market.

Biotechnology needs 21st century patent system: Expert

Biotechnology discoveries – like the method for creating synthetic life forms – are at risk of being unduly hindered or taken hostage by private corporations unless patent systems are brought into the 21st century, an expert from The Australian National University argues.

March 17, 2008

The Global Governance Project

Democracies (and republics) just keep getting in the way of these self-selected authoritarians, don’t they? Even the planet seems against them as it inconveniently fails to warm and cause people to hand over control of the energy supply to the [self-]chosen ones.

Climate protection

On the tortuous road to saving the planet from climate change, one traffic rule stands out. Drivers who speed risk paying a price.

For the European Union to venture out of the slow lane with a pledge to adopt by 2009 binding targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions is therefore a bigger achievement than it sounds.

The agreement by 27 nations at last week’s EU summit could go on to shape a wider international deal.

Labour’s carbon claims too low

BRITAIN’S greenhouse gas emissions are 12% higher than claimed by Labour, according to an investigation by the National Audit Office (NAO). The report could undermine Gordon Brown’s claims to be creating a low-carbon economy.

Rich, poor nations clash at climate talks

MAKUHARI, Japan (AFP) — Disagreements between rich and developing countries came into the open Sunday as the world’s top 20 greenhouse gas emitters worked to lay the groundwork for a new deal on climate change.

Barroso warns EU leaders against backing off emissions cuts

BRUSSELS: The European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, warned European Union leaders Thursday that the bloc would be left with "zero credibility" if they yielded to pressure to water down commitments made last year to combat global warming.

Europe Stepping Back

BRUSSELS, Mar 14 (IPS) - A year after the European Union’s governments promised to take the lead in fighting climate change, they appeared to back-pedal on that pledge at a summit in Brussels Mar. 13-14.

INTERVIEW-Japan seeks CO2 goals from developing nations

TOKYO, March 14 (Reuters) - Japan is calling on developing countries to come up with mid-term national goals to curb greenhouse gas emissions by improving energy efficiency of industries, a trade ministry official said on Friday.

Japan climate plan questioned by poorer nations: NGOs

MAKUHARI, Japan (AFP) — Japan proposed Saturday at a meeting on global warming to set energy efficiency targets for each industry, but activists said the idea was met with suspicion by poorer countries.

"Major emitters" tag upsets poor nations at G20 talks

MAKUHARI, Japan, March 15 (Reuters) - Developing countries urged rich states on Saturday to be clear about funds to fight global warming and said the label "major emitters" for nations like India and Brazil was unfair.

China reiterates developed nations’ obligation in anti-global warming efforts

CHIBA, Japan, March 16 (Xinhua) — Governments of developed countries should play major roles in leading technology transfer and enterprises’ financing in global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a Chinese official said at an international forum here on Sunday.

Blair urges binding gas cuts by all countries

MAKUHARI, Japan (AFP) — Tony Blair on Saturday urged the world’s heaviest polluters including the United States and China to agree to binding emissions cuts, saying failure to act on global warming would be "unforgivably irresponsible."

‘It has to be politically doable’

Wrong question — it actually has to be both societally and environmentally useful, which means it’s not even worth talking about. Stupid game…

EU delays again — but very positively

BRUSSELS, Belgium: European Union leaders warned the United States, China and other major polluters Friday that their industries could face EU sanctions if they don’t sign up to an international agreement on fighting global warming by next year.

Same time, next year

The EU has just decamped from its most recent summit at which it was to finally agree to those individual country quotas to arrive at their post-2012 promise to reduce GHG emissions, as a group of nations, to 20% below 1990 levels.

Greenhouse funds gloom hangs over G20 climate talks

But, does anyone really care what professional ecochondriac Jennifer Morgan thinks?

Climate Politics: For Once, No Hot Air

The conventional wisdom among the boys on the bus – including us – has been that there’s essentially no difference among the three presidential contenders on climate-change policy. It turns out there is.

Want to Buy Some Pollution?

Except CO₂ is not atmospheric pollution but an essential trace gas…

Ad Council Uses Children in Horrific Global Warming Commercials

Since 1942, the Ad Council has been creating important public service announcements that have ranged from Smokey Bear’s "Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires," The Crash Test Dummies, McGruff the Crime Dog, "A Mind is a Terrible Thing To Waste," and "Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk."

Sadly, this non-profit organization has not only decided to take on the most recent liberal bogeyman known as anthropogenic global warming, but do so by using young children.

$1m prize for climate change professor

A British scientist has won a $1m (£500,000) international award for his work on using chemical fossils to understand past climatic change. Prof Geoffrey Eglinton of Bristol University will be awarded the Dan David prize on May 19 at Tel Aviv University in Israel, at a ceremony attended by the country’s president Shimon Peres.

UN: World’s Glaciers Melting Faster

Uh-huh… from preliminary data from 30 glaciers, more than half of which are located in Scandinavia or the Alps (i.e., in one patch between 10 - 20 E and 50 - 70 N), a region which has just been through a period of below average snowfall. Translation: some glaciers in Western Europe are receding slightly faster at present. There is no indication this is particularly unusual.

Climate Change Could Turn Ireland’s Green To Brown

WASHINGTON - The wearin’ of the brown?

Forty shades of beige? - Climate change could turn Ireland’s legendary emerald landscape a dusty tan, with profound effects on its society and culture, a new study released in time for St. Patrick’s Day reported.

Support for Labour hits 25-year low

There was widespread scepticism about Darling’s individual tax rises. Three out of four or 74% agreed that so-called “green” taxation on polluting cars and flights were a “con”

EU leaders promise to act against China and US in carbon crusade

European leaders have pledged to lead a world crusade for a "low-carbon" economy but promised that energy-hungry industries would not be sacrificed on the altar of climate change.

Concessions to Merkel threaten climate change plan

Europe’s chances of spearheading a global post-Kyoto climate change accord were jeopardised yesterday when Germany secured pledges that several of its heavy industries could be protected from international competition and exempted from the EU’s plan to combat global warming.

Reality Check On This Year’s Cold and Snowy Weather - Implications For Global Warming

There has been considerable discussion with respect to whether the large number of cold waves and snow this winter in the Northern Hemisphere and last winter in the Southern Hemisphere  (e.g. see Dot Earth and the several excellent posts on this subject at Watts Up With That, Climate Audit and ICECAP). They have accurately described this very unusual weather over vast areas of the Earth including the recent sharp cooling in the troposphere. This is clearly climate variability that has not been accurately captured by even the seasonal weather prediction models, much less the longer term global climate models.

You ask, I provide. November 2nd, 1922. Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.

Roger Carr recently wrote in comments:

Anthony Watts could use a little assistance

So, whether you are interested in weather displays or not there’s nothing to prevent you using his SurfaceStations.org tip jar, is there?

To Tell The Truth: Will the Real Global Average Temperature Trend Please Rise?

Part III: A guest post by Basil Copeland

K7RA on solar cycle “pessimists” and “optimists”

An interesting overview on the two competing theories within NASA on Solar Cycle 24 from amateur solar watcher Tad Cook, also known under his radio ham designation K7RA:

The Debate Resumes

Editor’s Note: We have been publishing more material than ever on the subject of climate change, for a very simple reason: The debate is not over as to the cause, the eventual severity, nor the remedies for climate change.

Kyoto Protocol cooperation: Does government corruption facilitate environmental lobbying?

Abstract: Does environmental lobbying affect the probability of environmental treaty ratification? Does the level of government corruption play a role for the success of such lobbying? In this paper, we propose that a more corruptible government may be more responsive to the demands of the environmental lobby. We use several stratified hazard models and panel data from 170 countries on the timing of Kyoto Protocol ratification to test this hypothesis.

Brace for policy car crash

WHEN it came it was one of the best questions asked in a while in politics. And it nearly blew Rudd Government wunderkind and 33-year-old Assistant Treasurer, Chris Bowen, off the road.

US Requires Trains, Ships To Cut Engine Pollution

WASHINGTON - The US Environmental Protection Agency on Friday issued tough standards to significantly cut polluting emissions spewed from new diesel engines that will power trains and ships.

Peak Oil? Industry Numbers Disagree

The supply of oil, one of the most crucial elements for all energy choices—renewable or otherwise—is a subject of dispute even among the denizens of the industry.

Alaska’s Real Bridge

Energy: With oil now $111 a barrel, Alaska’s senators are trying again to persuade Congress to let their state’s massive untapped resources help bring prices down. How high do these prices have to go?

Dominic Lawson: This is a Government which doesn’t really believe in the threat of climate change

It’s a brave reporter who challenges Arnold Schwarzenegger face to face. Who knows what physical retribution the former Terminator might wreak? Yet one man was brave enough to trade (verbal) blows with the Governor of California last week.

Schwarzenegger: Nukes Are Great

Most of the candidates running for office may not care much for nukes, but the Governator sure does.

Nuclear plans at a crossroads

Worried about the potential backlash from environmentalists, the Ontario government has been lowballing the need for new nuclear power in the province. When the government’s 20-year power plan was unveiled in 2006, we were told just 1,000 new megawatts of nuclear capacity would have to be built (compared with the 14,000 megawatts in place today).

Khosla, Cavaney In Ethanol Food Fight

Vinod Khosla, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist turned ethanol evangelist, likes to suggest that Big Oil is ripe for the treatment that Silicon Valley’s digital upstarts meted out to the Old Phone Monopoly during the last decade. But Big Oil looks to be a tougher customer than Ma Bell.

Ethanol craze raises concerns

Corn-derived biofuel already has dramatically altered the economic reality of the American heartland and promises boom times for Ontario farmers. But how can we possibly keep up with demand? And what about the spiralling cost of food?

The incredible expanding popcorn price

You think the movie tickets are high? At the ShoWest convention in Vegas, the talk is of global warming fueling a rate hike for cineplex popcorn.

Virgin’s biofuel is a PR stunt says BA boss

Richard Branson’s promotion of biofuels is a PR stunt and green taxes on aviation are pure opportunism according to the chief executive of British Airways.

US told to go green on carbon emissions or lose EU flights

US airlines must pay for their carbon dioxide emissions or face a curb on flights to the European Union, the EU transport commissioner warned yesterday.

D.C.’s Gun Ban Gets Day in Court

Justices’ Decision May Set Precedent In Interpreting the 2nd Amendment

More Testing for Drugs in Water Sought

(AP) — Test it, study it, figure out how to clean it but still drink it.

The Crone thinks environmentalism is ’science’

Sadly, enviro-law is quite deliberately a zone almost science-free, it’s founded on and driven by emotion — do it ForTheChildren™

Grouse threatens West

By Valerie Richardson - DENVER — The most fearsome creature in the Rocky Mountain West these days isn’t the grizzly bear, mountain lion or even the gray wolf.

It’s a plump, ground-dwelling bird with a homely name — sage grouse — that has the potential to bring the mineral and agriculture industries of the rural West to their knees.

EU Carcass Laws Starve Europe’s Scavengers

An EU regulation designed to stop the spread of BSE has had the unintended effect of starving scavengers, many of which are protected species. Around Europe, vultures, eagles and bears are going hungry due to a lack of carrion. Now animal activists are demanding action.

Demographic and Ecological Perspectives on the Status of Polar Bears

Abstract: Although two polar bear subpopulations (Western Hudson Bay and Southern Beaufort Sea) no longer appear to be viable due to reduction in sea ice habitat, polar bears as a species do not appear to be threatened by extinction in the foreseeable future from either a demographic or an ecological perspective.

Shaking the tree: flora and fauna v humans

ONE balmy Sunday evening last month, when the Queen Victoria and QE2 cruise ships came to Sydney Harbour, Neutral Bay mother Phionna Tomaszewski gathered with friends in a park at Cremorne Point to watch.

Her six-year-old daughter was climbing trees and swinging off branches with other children when an "irate, elderly woman" berated her for "damaging" a coral tree and threatened to call council rangers.

Toddlers and bunnies

Programs capitalizing on fears about childhood obesity and health have been targeting growing numbers of parents of babies and toddlers. While perhaps well-intentioned, the information parents hear about the need to prevent baby fat and puppy fat on their little ones, as well as advice on nutrition and ‘healthy’ eating, could risk the lives, well-being and health of their children.

Easy money and cheap advice

“Not sure what is hype and what is real?”

So asks a new website, which says it was created in response to “growing public confusion, hype and controversy surrounding nutrition and dietary supplements.” According to the site, its team of “scientists, physiologists, nutritionists and other health professionals dedicated to educating people about the pros and cons of dietary supplementation…

Soaring Corn Prices Test Japanese Distaste For GMO

JAPAN: March 17, 2008 - TOKYO - Japan, the last major importer in Asia still holding out against genetically-modified corn for food use, could soon be buying more GMO material from US farmers as record prices force it to turn to cheaper modified grains.

March 14, 2008

How Much Green Do Shareholders Want?

Are big-company CEOs that change their businesses to deal with climate change trailblazers, or are are they rubes hijacked by green activists?

It’s not an academic question. Steve Milloy, head of the $11 million Free Enterprise Action Fund, spends his time as a self-described “headache” to corporate chieftains like Jeff Immelt of GE. His fund regularly sues companies for shirking what he calls their duty to shareholders by getting greener, even if it costs money. His nemesis, Mindy Lubber, runs a $5 trillion coalition of investors pushing companies to come clean on what climate change means for them—and how they plan to deal with it in the future.

Bottom Line for Green Initiatives: Good or Bad?

Panelists at the ECO:nomics conference in Santa Barbara argue about whether climate-change activities benefit the bottom line.

The greening of Wall Street

The hijacking of the engines of wealth creation by the anti-capitalists… amply aided and abetted by rent-seekers.

Carbon Fiat

Combine the Bush White House, global warming, and a policy conclusion that environmentalists don’t like, and the dudgeon is bound to be high. Even so, it’s been stratospheric since the Environmental Protection Agency denied California special permission to regulate greenhouse gases. Senator Barbara Boxer draws parallels to Watergate, "the most infamous cover-up in history," while Senator Bernie Sanders so savaged EPA chief Stephen Johnson during a recent hearing that he was reduced to pleading, "I consider myself to be a human being."

Not to spoil the party, but this is the outrage of sore winners.

Business Books: Is Carbon Control Energy Relief Or Delusion?

Actually it’s economic suicide so naturally Krupp loves it:

China emissions to swamp Kyoto reductions by 2010

Within two years, Chinese emissions of greenhouse gases will have vastly outstripped the reductions achieved by all the countries that have signed up to the Kyoto protocol combined.

The problem with breathing

The unintended consequences of zeal

Our Thorny Oil Patch

When America’s biggest oil refiner contemplates putting almost a third of its refineries on the market, Congress should sit up and take notice. The business climate it has created is hurting our economy.

China promotes new era of coal-fired energy, despite pollution

VANCOUVER - Despite global alarm about the threat that fossil fuel combustion poses to Earth’s climate, coal appears poised to recover its 19th-century prominence as the world’s top energy source, delegates at the Globe 2008 conference heard on Wednesday.

Duke’s Rogers: A Bridge Too Far?

Jim Rogers is watching out for your ox. Or maybe it’s his. Either way, the head of the third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the U.S. has set out to “minimize the oxes that are gored.”

The new road to serfdom

Criticisms of Environment Minister John Baird for the vagueness of the moves announced this week to force oilsands to sequester CO2, and prevent construction of "dirty" coal plants reflects the Alice in Wonderland quality of the climate-change non-debate. Opposition parties brayed that he had not been "tough" enough.

EU aims to set the pace in fighting climate change

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU leaders agreed on a timetable for action on Thursday to tackle climate change that they hope will enable them to set the pace in global talks next year, but some voiced unease about the methods.

EU ETS – Saddle up for lower emissions

Phase three of Europe’s emissions trading scheme promises to be the toughest yet for companies

Climate change – Consumers to foot the low-carbon bill

European householders should brace themselves for years of rising energy bills

UK To Introduce Domestic Carbon Emissions Trading

LONDON - Energy-intensive businesses in Britain including supermarkets, banks and hotel chains will have to buy pollution permits from 2010 under a new government emissions trading scheme, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said on Thursday.

Merkel urges EU leaders to act on ‘carbon leakage’

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will press EU leaders meeting in Brussels today and tomorrow to back urgent measures to prevent heavy industries such as cement and steel from fleeing the continent, as the bloc debates tighter limits on CO2 emissions after 2012.

EU signals retreat over green pledges

Brussels EU leaders clashed last night over how to cut greenhouse gases a year after making climate change their top priority with a series of tough targets.

The first signs of a retreat from the much-trumpeted green pledges came from Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, who called for concessions for German car-makers and heavy industry.

The Global Warming Gorilla: Getting the Developing World Aboard

European politicians at a carbon conference today in Copenhagen had an 800-pound gorilla on stage with them.

1.8 Million Jobs May Be Lost By 2020, New Study Says

Meanwhile Democrats Vow to Fight Any Attempt to Lessen the Blow of Lieberman-Warner Job Killing Bill

LONDON — The planet is getting warmer. Richard Sandor, a 66-year-old economist, is getting wealthier.

Another clueless wonder

So, is it worth leaving your Grandkids a prosperous world where they can adopt whatever defensive posture is required of some future time or should we bankrupt them and leave them defenseless now? That’s the question this idiot does not understand. Driving the economy over a cliff now denies future societal members the wealth they will require while maximizing wealth generation is protective of all members, both current and future.

FEATURE - Climate Refugees In Political Pass-The-Parcel

This nonsense — again! There is zero indication of any enhanced sea level rise and while Tuvalu certainly has problems they have nothing to do with global temperature.

Blair leading team charged with securing climate change deal

Former British premier Tony Blair is leading a team of international environment experts backed by the United States and the United Nations and charged with securing a global climate change deal, he told The Guardian on Friday.

Global Conflicts

Yesterday, running between flights, I briefly noted how Al “Gore is traveling to Poland and India this week to meet with government officials to continue his efforts to achieve a global climate treaty”, revealing his status as self-appointed roving Climate-treaty Ambassador.

Selling us all out for the money? Nah…

The chief executive of General Electric has emerged as one of the most outspoken advocates of government caps on carbon emissions. But it’s not that visions of saving the planet are filling his “Ecomagination,” nor has he given up on Hayek. In transforming one of the world’s biggest companies into a clean-tech juggernaut, he just smells the chance to make a lot of money—if the U.S.

Americans Less Worried

Gallup has just issued the remarkable results of its 2008 Environment Survey, based on telephone interviews, conducted between March 6-9 with 1,012 adults in America, aged 18 and over: ‘Polluted Drinking Water Was No. 1 Concern Before AP Report: Global Warming Way Down The List’ (March 12)*.
 
Well, well, well! In this poll, “The ‘Greenhouse Effect’ or Global Warming” comes a lamentable 9th out of the 12 listed concerns. But, what is even more interesting is the fact that, for the ten environmental items that were raised in both Gallup’s 2007 and 2008 Environment Surveys, the percentage who report worrying “a great deal” about a problem is down in 2008 on 2007 for all ten issues.

Climate panel on the hot seat

By H. Sterling Burnett - More than 20 years ago, climate scientists began to raise alarms over the possibility global temperatures were rising due to human activities, such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels.

A Really Inconvenient Truth

The most inconvenient truth for climate alarmists is the burgeoning number of influential scientists with dissenting opinions on global warming.

To Tell the Truth:  Will the Real Global Average Temperature Trend Please Rise? Part II

A guest post by Basil Copeland

Before proceeding, I want to thank Anthony for allowing me to guest blog at Watt’s Up With That?  Anthony is doing some remarkable work in trying to insure the integrity and quality of the surface record, and it is an honor to be able to use his blog for my modest contribution to the debate over climate change and global warming.

NOAA: Coolest December-February Since 2001 for U.S., Globe

The average temperature across both the contiguous U.S. and the globe during December 2007-February 2008 (climatological boreal winter) was the coolest since 2001, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. In terms of winter precipitation, Pacific storms bringing heavy precipitation to large parts of the West produced high snowpack that will provide welcome runoff this spring.

La Niña and Climate Chaos

SANTIAGO, Mar 13 (IPS) - It is still difficult to predict the local impacts of the cyclic climate phenomenon known as La Niña, which has been responsible for catastrophic floods in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Argentina, and — on the other extreme — severe drought in Chile.

Fast-Growing Corals Key To Caribbean Reef – Study

More virtual world nonsense — we have zero reason to anticipate acceleration in sea level rise.

EU’s biofuels target could be amended amid concerns

The European Union’s ambitious target on using biofuels in cars could be amended in the face of concerns over rising food prices, the EU’s Slovenian presidency said Thursday.

Archer Daniels on the Hotseat

As chairman, president and CEO of agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland, Patricia Woertz is used to some controversy.

But the audience she faced today at The Wall Street Journal’s “ECO: nomics” conference in California was probably tougher than she had expected.

ANALYSIS - Ethanol Industry In Sunset? Not So Fast

Not too sure about the science but certainly ethanol has a potent lobby.

Australia: Rudd government rejects emission targets in official climate change report

View from the extremosphere:

Norway recently moved to decrease short-term natural gas shipments to Europe, an indication it will use its extensive hydrocarbon reserves to maximize revenue. And that revenue maximization will come primarily at the expense of the U.K.

Carbon Capture in the U.S. Faces Hard Realities

Although carbon capture seems like a good idea on paper, few projects get beyond the drawing board.

When the Department of Energy announced in January that it would cancel funding for the vaunted FutureGen project (to build the world’s first coal-fired power plant with zero carbon dioxide emissions), the decision was widely viewed as the biggest setback to date for carbon capture and storage (C.C.S.) technologies.

Dutch Body Advises Government To Reconsider Nuclear

AMSTERDAM - A Dutch advisory body is recommending the government keep the option of nuclear power open and review it along with all possible future sources of energy, according to a report released on Thursday.

Man-Blubber: A Biofuels Bonanza!

For those of us who are fond of parodying idiocy, one of the great hazards of life is the high rate of self-parody by idiots. An excellent example is a recent report out of the United Kingdom of an important first in human history.

John Doerr: From Google to… Hog Poop?

Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers is famous for having backed high-tech stars including Sun Microsystems, Amazon.com and Google. At the Wall Street Journal’s “ECO:nomics” conference in California, Kleiner partner John Doerr dropped a tantalizing hint on a potential new investment: making power from animal waste.

Guess Who Hopes to Help Power New Hybrid Cars

Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest gasoline refiner, wants a piece of the hybrid-car market.

Lutz Redux: So What If Warming Is a Crock

Bob Lutz wouldn’t take the bait. Asked about his now-infamous “global warming is a crock” comment, General Motors’ cigar-chomping, fast-car-loving vice-chairman reiterated that, whatever his “degree of personal skepticism” about the causes of global warming, GM is still working to make cleaner cars, like his pet project the Volt.

Inhofe Statement on EPA’s Revised Ozone Standard 

WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment & Public Works Committee, today commented on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) revision of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ozone to .075 ppm (parts per million).   

Arsenic in rice milk exceeds EU and US drinking water standards

Commercial rice milk contains levels of arsenic – a chronic human carcinogen – up to three times higher than EU and US drinking water standards, say researchers in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Journal of Environmental Monitoring.

Fears over wheat prices after disease spreads

A disease that could destroy most of the world’s wheat crops has spread from Africa to Iran and could put up food prices in Britain, scientists said.

March 13, 2008

The Washington Post-er Child for Climate Bias

Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin leads the pack in this year’s contest for biased climate journalism.

Sins of Emission

EU leaders will gather today and tomorrow in Brussels to sign off on the European Commission’s proposals to cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 — with the added bait of a 30% reduction if the U.S. and other countries make meaningful commitments. For the U.S., it appears that the question is no longer about whether it will adopt targets, but rather about how and what.

EU threatens to punish climate deal rebels

America and China face trade protection measures from Europe if they fail to join a global climate deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, EU leaders will caution at their summit in Brussels today.

Cloud over CDM as EU talks tough

The future of the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the burgeoning trade in CER carbon credits is under a cloud. The European Union, the biggest source of CDM investment, has signalled a decreasing emphasis on carbon offsetting to drive more direct action on greenhouse emissions by developing countries.

ANALYSIS - Carbon Market Risks Rise In Uncertain Climate Talks

COPENHAGEN - The risks of investing in global carbon markets are soaring as the trade in emissions rights between rich and poor countries becomes a pawn in talks to agree a new global climate change deal by 2009.

EU Carbon Market Lagging In Climate Fight - Analysts

COPENHAGEN - Evidence is slim that the European Union’s four-year old carbon market is sufficiently penalising emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, in the fight against climate change, analysts said on Tuesday.

No action on climate change could lead to war, British High Commissioner says

If the world cannot deal with climate change, it will be faced with war and bloodshed, Britain’s High Commissioner to Canada warned today at the Globe 2008 conference in Vancouver.

British Budget Dismissed As Pale Shade Of Green

LONDON - The government billed it as the greenest budget ever, but on Wednesday British finance minister Alistair Darling failed to deliver on most counts, climate campaigners said.

Man the Lifeboats - Global Warming Alarmism Is Swamping Debate

Media ignore opposition, call scientists ‘flat Earthers’ to sink climate change dispute.

Verbatim: Vaclav Klaus On Climate Alarmism

Following is the speech delivered by the president of the Czech Republic at the Heartland Institute’s International Conference on Climate Change in New York, March 4, 2008.

Cooling it on Warming

Global warming may be happening. But the extent of the potential danger is such that doing nothing is the best strategy of all.

One Cooler Head

Climate Change: When new facts emerge, the open-minded tend to alter their views. This is what has happened to a Hungarian environmental scholar whose position on global warming has been transformed.

Until his Damascus moment, Miklos Zagoni, a physicist and environmental researcher, had been touted as his nation’s "most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol." But then this activist saw the work of a fellow Hungarian scientist.

A peek at Al Gore’s fortune

He must be good at scaring people — $175,000.00 a time!

New TV Ad Addresses Dangers of Al Gore’s Global Warming Policies

The heck with 3:00 AM ads cautioning Americans about who’s more qualified to be in the White House answering fictitious emergency phone calls.

New AMS draft policy statement links Hurricane Katrina and climate

In the first paragraph they start with:

The United States faces growing environmental challenges stemming from weather and climate impacts. Hurricane Katrina, the current East coast drought, the 2007 California wildfires, this winter’s storms, and other recent events are shaping nearly every aspect of American life.

My first reaction was that they’ve been listening to too much op-ed from Al Gore regarding hurricanes and climate, particularly since any link between hurricane frequency, hurricane damage, and climate change has been unproven.

More slurs from realclimate.org

Once again Nir Shaviv is having to defend himself and science from the RealKlimat hit squad

Climate models forecast increasing temperatures on earth because of increasing levels of atmospheric CO2, but observational data appears to contradict this claim.

All we need are a few good trees, er, sticks…
Watts Up With That?

I’ll have to hand it to Steve McIntyre over at Climate Audit, he’s relentless in the pursuit of pointing out the problems with the famous Michael Mann paper that created the infamous  “hockey stick” graph that became an icon for climate change.

McIntyre just posted his most recent discovery of the previously unnoticed Mannian technique used in the paper that apparently allows just a few trees in the in the USA to define the climate for the rest of the world, or as I call it “climate divining”.

Atlantic’s Gulf Stream has huge influence on atmosphere

Hopefully it’s only the reporter who stuck in the completely false Western European warmth bit since that is a matter of topography — mountain ranges deflecting windstreams making polar airmass breakouts comparatively rare over WE. Lower the Rockies, for example and no strength of Gulf Stream will save WE from Newfoundland-style winters.

In Chicago, a secret garden cools a concrete jungle

Reducing UHIE is a cool move…

Sprawl & Climate Change

If you read EcoWorld at all, you’ll know where we stand.  Today we continued to post on the listserve of www.treelink.org, an excellent resource for urban foresters to exchange tactical information on how to plant and maintain healthy urban treescapes.  When their dialogue moves from tactics to strategy and theory, a few realities emerge.  First of all, most of these urban foresters work for government agencies, and secondly, nearly all of them subscribe to “smart growth” principles.  And over the past few days we’ve indulged in a flurry of posts on that listserve to hopefully convince some of them to think twice about all the conventional “smart growth” wisdom that has become almost impossible to challenge.

Adelaide is so hot right now

How different. Europe had a bit of a heat wave a few years back and managed to kill off several thousand of their vulnerable population while in Adelaide a hot spell causes about 50, mainly elderly people to seek treatment for heat-related ailments. Why the huge mortality difference? Actually there are a few reasons. Adelaide does not shut down and abandon its elderly and infirm in hot little apartments while everyone else goes on summer vacation.

Importantly, Australia has relatively cheap coal-fired electricity, so pensioners need not choose between climate control and eating. Finally, Aussies know that summer has a tendency to get hot, so great-aunt Mable tends to find a lot of people want to take her shopping/browsing in air-conditioned malls during extreme weather events. It’s not hot weather that kills, just uncaring societies and unaffordable energy.

Guns and fists as "snow rage" erupts

Although Canada is one of the snowiest countries in the world, a series of violent "snow rage" incidents reveal that even the locals have their limits.

Nationwide Ban on New Power Plants Without CO2 Controls Proposed

WASHINGTON, DC, March 12, 2008 (ENS) - Two powerful House Democrats Tuesday introduced legislation that would require new coal-fired electric generating plants to use state-of-the-art control technology to capture and sequester emissions of carbon dioxide, CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change.

NGC: Climate change bill could raise gas demand

WASHINGTON, DC, Mar. 12 — Climate change legislation currently before Congress could dramatically increase natural gas demand, warned a coalition of four trade association executives. Consumption could climb 20% over the next decade if S. 280 co-sponsored by US Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) becomes law, the Natural Gas Council said on Mar. 11.

Aviation industry must act fast on climate change: Airbus chief

The aviation industry must act quickly to lower its own carbon emissions or face government regulation, the chief executive of European plane company Airbus wrote in a comment piece Thursday.

Nazi Landmines Block Egypt’s Access to Oil and Gas

Not a problem you normally associate with resource extraction…

Govt using climate change to push N-deal?

NEW DELHI: The appointment of former foreign secretary Shyam Saran as the PM’s special envoy on climate change is a signal of a government looking ahead to a new administration in the US that might seek to renegotiate the nuclear deal with India. India is increasingly using the climate change argument to push forward its nuclear deal.

High Winds Lower Europe Wholesale Electricity Prices

FRANKFURT - Powerful winter storms sweeping across Europe have boosted wind power, oversupplying the wholesale market for electricity and driving down prices for day ahead delivered power by some 12 percent since Friday.

Ten questions driving the geological and planetary sciences were identified today in a new report by the National Research Council. Aimed at reflecting the major scientific issues facing earth science at the start of the 21st century, the questions represent where the field stands, how it arrived at this point, and where it may be headed.

Vitamin Whiplash

Will taking vitamins help lower our risks for cancers or raise our risks? The very same vitamins have been implicated with both abilities, depending on the day and the news source, leaving consumers suffering vitamin whiplash.

Moving from skinny Santas to skinny kids

This week, the country’s new Surgeon General kicked off his latest childhood obesity initiative with a nationwide tour that began in Charleston, West Virginia. “Healthy Youth for a Healthy Future” is the name of this new U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ campaign to recognize obesity prevention programs that promote ‘healthy’ eating habits and active lifestyles.

Honor student suspended for Skittles

A top academic achiever and eighth grade class Vice President in a New Haven school was suspended for buying a bag of Skittles. Candy violates the school’s “wellness” policy. Is this evidence of a “healthy” school environment or of “unhealthy” food paranoia surrounding school children today?

From the Food for Thought file: Can you be fired for eating a cookie or a steak or enjoying a glass of wine after work?

Reporter Eric Ruth of the Delaware News Journal investigates the growing number of employers who feel it is their role to dictate private behaviors outside of the workplace. He’s found that bad habits might even cost people their jobs, and calls upon readers to look at what is happening before it’s too late for everyone.

Amber Waves of Green

When it comes to picking taxpayer pockets, no one — not the trial lawyers or even AARP — has it over the farm lobby. How’s this for clout? Though last year was one of the best ever for farm incomes — up 44% to $87.5 billion — farmers are about to score the most lavish subsidies in American history.

US Organic Food Industry Fears GMO Contamination

Given that organics is merely a scare-driven scam I can’t really claim to give a damn whether the scammers and their victims are catered for or not.

March 12, 2008

Making Us All Poorer

On Wednesday we will be treated to the sight of an assortment of scholars and activists telling Congress that economic growth isn’t relevant. Well, we’d like to see them live without it.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Position on Global Climate Change

Most Americans have decided that climate change is happening and that human activity is a contributing factor. Today, the real debate is over what to do about it. Policymakers and the public have a range of views about how we should respond to climate change–and so does the business community.

NGO’s and the IPCC

On Wednesday this week the Australian National University College of Law hosts a public lecture by an IPCC lead author:  http://law.anu.edu.au/cclp/events.asp

Events: Public Lecture: Dr Bill Hare, Wednesday 12 March 2008, 1pm Manning Clarke Centre, Theatre 5, ANU Campus.

The subject is: On the meaning of ‘dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’.

Bill Hare is described as an Australian scientist and IPCC Fourth Assessment Report lead author. So what, you may say, this is just another seemingly routine presentation by yet another IPCC scientist, on the dangers of anthropogenic influence on the climate.

Not so, this is a salutary example of how NGO’s have become embedded into the IPCC process.

Climate change targets are achievable

Here’s another one trying to tell us punitive energy pricing isn’t really a cost. And driving the economy off a cliff to avoid a phantom menace is really good for us.

EU to mull whether climate policy will just export problem

EU leaders will meet from Thursday with environmental policy high on the agenda, amid fears that Europe’s tactics to cut greenhouse gas emissions may just export jobs and pollution abroad.

Blind date with disaster

We are constantly warned by scientists that our planet is in big trouble, so why can’t we change direction? David Suzuki, one of the world’s leading ecologists, on how humans have lost the vital skill of foresight (David Suzuki, The Guardian)

That’s part of the trouble David, you and your ilk have foolishly, falsely rung the clapper out of the alarm bell to the point where it will be very difficult to warn the population should a real problem arise.

Global warming…a New Religion

There was an article in Newsweek which reported that ‘there are ominous signs that the earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically, and these changes may portend a dramatic decline in food production with serious implications for just about every nation on earth’. ‘What’s new about this?’ you might ask. After all, we are bombarded daily with scare stories about the future of the planet.

NYT Scoffs at 400+ ‘Skeptical’ Scientists, Elevates 44 Green Southern Baptists

Remember when more than 400 scientists were revealed as "skeptical" about global warming hype? The New York Times’s Andrew Revkin blogged about it, saying the "perennial tug of war" was actually "a distraction from fundamentals that are clearly established."

Of course, 44 Southern Baptists who buy into the green agenda received a respectful print story in the March 10 Times, widely quoting the church leaders saying things like: "when we destroy God’s creation, it’s similar to ripping pages from the Bible."

Britain is stealing the US crown of No 1 climate villain

If it fails to stand up to BAA on Heathrow, Labour will be cast as the enemy in the environmental battle of the decade
Mark Lynas, The Guardian

More PlayStation® Climatology

GCMs have no greater demonstrated prognostic ability than ‘reading’ the entrails of ritually slaughtered animals. They are useful for their designed purpose, they are process models helping us to understand real world observations but they are not crystal balls and they have no valid role in prognostication.

A note from Richard Lindzen on statistically significant warming

Yesterday, in response to the thread on “3 of 4 global metrics show nearly flat temperature anomaly in the last decade” I got a short note from MIT’s Richard Lindzen along with a graph. I asked if I could post it, and he graciously agreed:

A guest post by Basil Copeland

[NOTE: After seeing some other analyses posted in comments by Basil, I’ve invited him to post his work here. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have so far - Anthony]

Worthwhile News Report “Climate Change Dissenters Say They Are Demonized In Debate”

There is a valuable news article by Karl Ritter of the Associated Press entitled  ”Climate change dissenters say they are demonized in debate”

This article is worth reading, as there is no question (from personal experience included) that there are active attempts to marginalize and ignore scientific results that conflict with the narrow view presented by the 2008 IPCC WG1 report.

Global Warming: the Sacrificial Temptation

The claimed unanimity of the scientific community about the human culpability for global warming is questioned. Up today there exists no scientific proof of human culpability. It is not the number of authors of a paper, which validates its scientific content. The use of probability to assert the degree of certainty with respect the global warming problem is shown to be misleading.

‘One-child’ policy aids climate change battle: China

China said on Tuesday its battle to rein in soaring greenhouse gas emissions has received a boost from an unexpected source — the nation’s controversial family-planning policy.

China tells developed world to go on climate change ‘diet’

The developed world should go on a climate change diet rather than lecture China over its rising greenhouse gas emissions, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Wednesday.

EU wants developing nations to do more on climate

COPENHAGEN - The European Union’s executive Commission wants developing countries to make more effort to cut their ballooning greenhouse gas emissions rather than rely on carbon offset schemes, a Commission official said.

EU leaders to boost fight against climate change, urge others to do likewise

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - European Union leaders open a two-day summit on global warming Thursday, and they are expected to warn countries such as the U.S. and China that they could face EU trade sanctions if they don’t accept, and comply with, a new international accord aimed at reducing C02 emissions.

Cloud-making plan to reverse global warming

While cloud-making could be a major boon to drought-stressed regions hitching this to the phantom menace is a bad idea — it’ll go out with the bathwater when people finally notice the catastrophe failed to materialize.

Increased carbon dioxide in atmosphere linked to decreased soil organic matter

Odd way to write it up since what they think they found is that plants became more water efficient with elevated CO₂ and it certainly increased plant biomass above and below ground.

From CO₂ Science this week:
Editorial:
Recent Greenhouse "Wisdom" from the Pages of the Medical Journal of Australia: Practicing physicians give their prescient prescriptions for saving the planet.

Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week:
This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Lake Neuchatel, Jura Mountains, Switzerland. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click here.

Subject Index Summary:
Blizzards: How are they influenced by rising global temperatures?

Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results (blue background) of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature for: Fenugreek, Norway Spruce, Red Spruce, and Spinach.

Journal Reviews:
On the Use of Near-Surface Air Temperature Data to Assess the Magnitude of Global Warming: Are people utilizing it appropriately?

Mid-Holocene and Medieval Warm Period Temperatures in China: How do they compare with those of the present?

Effects of Elevated CO2 on the Total Leaf Area of a Closed-Canopy Pine Forest with a Hardwood Component: Are they positive, negative or nil?

Forest Water Use in a CO2-Enriched Atmosphere: How does it compare with water use in current ambient air?

On the Potential for Carbon Sequestration in Wheat Fields: Can it be enhanced by rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations?

That poor virtual world, gets hit with everything, doesn’t it?

B.C. forecast: Drought, forest fires, storms

VICTORIA — Climate change is already causing dramatic changes in B.C. and, if left unchecked, could threaten the province with increased drought, forest fires, storms and a variety of other challenges, says a new report quietly released by the federal government.

Future of coal power under fire

Coal-producing states that supply nearly half of the nation’s electricity are feeling squeezed as efforts to combat global warming outpace technology needed to make the nation’s most abundant fossil fuel burn more cleanly.

Ethanol Lobby Is Perpetrating A Cruel Hoax

One of the many mandates of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for oil companies to increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline.

UK Home Power Plants Face 20-Yr Profit Wait

LONDON - The growing number of UK homeowners selling electricity from their rooftop wind turbines and solar panels must wait over 20 years before making a profit and need better incentives, according to a report by energy regulator Ofgem.

Ad hits Gore’s green lifestyle

By Jennifer Harper - Al Gore has been unfairly accused of unsound environmental practices, according to Kaylee Kreider, his spokeswoman. The former vice president actually leads an eco-conscious green life — complete with solar energy and geothermal heating.

His critics say he’s attempting "to rewrite history."

Chinese workers? Let them pick up litter

The hysterical campaign against plastic bags in the West is causing massive job losses in the East, and leaving people on the scrap heap.

Plastic bags choke Garrett

IF plastic shopping bags really are so bad, why must Peter Garrett make up so many fake excuses to ban them?

Harlequin frog rediscovered in remote region of Colombia

After 14 years without having been seen, several young scientists supported by the Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP), have rediscovered the Carrikeri Harlequin Frog (Atelopus carrikeri) in a remote mountainous region in Colombia.

Amphibians respond behaviorally to impact of clear cutting

The number of amphibians drastically decreases in forest areas that are clearcut, according to previous studies. A University of Missouri researcher, however, has found that some animals may not be dying. Instead, the Mizzou biologist said some animals may be moving away (possibly to return later) or retreating underground. The finding could have major implications for both the timber industry and the survival of amphibians.

US Soybean, Wheat Stockpiles Dwindling-USDA

WASHINGTON - The US soybean stockpile will shrink to less than a three-week supply before this fall’s harvest, and voracious demand around the world is also thinning US wheat supply, the government said on Tuesday.

March 11, 2008

California's cap-and-trade won't work

A plan to combat greenhouse gas emissions is open to abuse.

Vancouver set to host carbon trading registry

Um… no. Carbon trading will implode just as dot.bombs did and a whole lot faster because carbon trading doesn’t even have the promise of a new paradigm — it’s hot air trading pure and simple.

[Australia] Nation on track to meet Kyoto targets

Yeah, hurray… actually this is only because then-Environment Minister Senator Robert Hill did some nifty negotiating at Kyoto (’onyer, Bob!), for which now-PM K.Rudd’s party roundly criticized him and the Howard Government at the time (shameful, if I recall their description accurately). Will someone please tape this fool’s mouth before he digs us in any deeper! Sadly a decade-long media hatchet job saw Australia replace J.Howard with K.Rudd and it looks as if we are going to pay an enormous price.

Global warming hype is hot air, retired prof says

Howard C. Hayden, emeritus professor of physics from the University of Connecticut, says large corporations pushing the issue.

Why Bringing Sanity Back on Climate Change Won’t Be Easy

We are seeing increasing stories the last year in the news about cold and snow and global data bases based on satellite and station and ocean data suggest temperatures have leveled off over the last decade. These facts even have the IPCC head Dr. Rajendra Pachauri questioning whether natural forces are at least temporarily offsetting greenhouse forcing.

The Political Issue Of Global Warming

There was a candid admission in the newspaper Colorado Daily on February 22 2008 with respect to why the global warming issue is being promoted so vigorously in the media and in articles published in science journals. It also provides the reason that the actual diversity of human climate forcings, such as summarized in National Research Council, 2005: Radiative forcing of climate change: Expanding the concept and addressing uncertainties.

The media snowjob on global warming

Just how pervasive the bias at most news outlets is in favour of climate alarmism — and how little interest most outlets have in reporting any research that diverges from the alarmist orthodoxy — can be seen in a Washington Post story on the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), announced last week in New York.

Is the Media’s Environmental Reporting Improving?

USA Today and the Los Angeles Times provided hope today that the media may be turning away from hyping alarmism and platitudes on environmental issues and instead offering the public fair and balanced information. The first hopeful report is from USA Today on the science and politics of listing polar bears under the Endangered Species Act, and the second is an editorial from the Los Angeles Times stripping bare the rhetoric and reality about cap-and-trade legislation.

Stupid Media Tricks (Part 5,674,533,567)

Juliet Eilperin’s front-page article in today’s Washington Post entitled, "Carbon Output Must Near Zero to Avert Danger, New Studies Say," is accompanied by the photo below. It’s captioned, "A heavy haze could be seen in Beijing in August 2007. Two recent studies call for a heightened global effort to reduce carbon emissions."

Feb 2008 RSS global temperature anomaly near zero and in good agreement with UAH

Last week I posted the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) Microwave Sounder Unit (MSU) global temperature anomaly data for February 2008 with a note that it showed only a marginal increase from January 2008 data, and remained near zero.

Is climate sensitive to solar variability? (.pdf)

The causes of global warming—the increase of approximately 0.8±0.1 °C in the average global temperature near Earth’s surface since 1900—are not as apparent as some recent scientific publications and the popular media indicate. We contend that the changes in Earth’s average surface temperature are directly linked to two distinctly different aspects of the Sun’s dynamics: the short-term statistical fluctuations in the Sun’s irradiance and the longer-term solar cycles. This argument for directly linking the Sun’s dynamics to the response of Earth’s climate is based on our research and augments the interpretation of the causes of global warming presented in the United Nations 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

IPCC’s ‘evil twin’ launches climate change sceptic’s creed

A group of dissident scientists and climate researchers has affirmed that there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity cause climate change, and has called on world leaders to abandon all efforts to reduce emissions "forthwith." Issued last week at the close of the International Conference on Climate Change in New York, the Manhattan Declaration (http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22866) challenged the notion that a scientific consensus on climate change exists, and claimed that efforts at emissions reduction would diminish prosperity while having no appreciable impact.

Polar bears caught in a heated eco-debate

Eskimos in Alaska and Canada have joined to stop polar bears from being designated as an endangered species, saying the move threatens their culture and livelihoods by relying on sketchy science for animals that are thriving.

Agency faces action for delay in protecting polar bears

The US government agency responsible for including the polar bear on its list of endangered species faced a new legal challenge yesterday over its failure to protect the supreme Arctic predator. Environmental groups were ready to sue the Bush administration in federal court in California, claiming the Fish and Wildlife Service was in breach of its own mandate.

Continued climate change setting stage for rise in infectious diseases: experts

TORONTO - It’s not just our day-to-day weather and other aspects of the environment that will be altered by global climate change: disruptions in seasonal temperatures and precipitation patterns will also likely affect human health because of a rise in infectious diseases, experts suggest.

Observed climate change in Arkansas

THERE IS no observational evidence of unusual long-term climate changes in Arkansas. No emissions reductions by Arkansas will have any detectable regional or global effect whatsoever on climate change.

Floods in 2007 ‘not due to global warming’

Last summer’s flooding had more to do with the unpredictability of the English summer than climate change, scientists say in a new report.

EU Leaders To Endorse Deeper Greenhouse Gas Cuts

BRUSSELS - European Union leaders will call on the EU Commission to draw up a road map for deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions at a summit this week, going beyond a unilateral target agreed in the fight against climate change.

Alarming growth in expected CO2 emissions in China

The growth in China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is far outpacing previous estimates, making the goal of stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases even more difficult, according to a new analysis by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Diego.

Now climate discriminates…

No region untouched by climate change, study shows

More virtual world nonsense.

Nature makes fools of architects

Idiot! It’s precisely because architects have drunk the gorebull warming Kool-Aid that they are not designing with ice hazards in mind — the damn fools believe and these problems, recognized for centuries, suddenly become an issue once more. Sheesh!

Oh boy… has this chemist been lead up the garden path

A good scientist questions data and the conclusions drawn from the data. The scientist also recognizes that there is always some uncertainty associated with measurements and conclusions. The members of the International Panel for Climate Change have evaluated the scientific literature and reached a consensus that global warming is occurring and that about 75 percent of the effect can be attributed to anthropogenic sources such as carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, methane generated from raising cattle and cultivation of rice and deforestation.

Global Warming Talk Leaves Brits Cold, Says New Survey

BRITS are bored by global warming, according to a survey.

Three in 10 people reckon there is too much publicity about it and more than half are fed-up hearing about it.

Most ‘want more climate-change action’

The ‘Climate Institute’ is one of our wacko fronts down-under — I can just imagine how their questions were framed.

Kissing Off Canada

Quick — what country has the world’s largest oil reserves? Saudi Arabia? Iran? Nigeria? Venezuela? Wrong on all counts. The answer is Canada. And our neighbor to the north is worried we don’t want it.

US law could interrupt flow from Canada’s oil sands: Ottawa

OTTAWA (AFP) — Canada is warning that new US legislation could prohibit its southern neighbor from buying fuel from its oilsands with "unintended consequences for both countries," officials said Monday.

Canada Emission Rules Target New Oil Sands Plants

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Canada announced new rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on Monday, targeting future oil sands facilities and power plants, in a plan immediately derided by environmentalists as too little too late.

Alberta premier slams federal climate-change plan

EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach came out swinging Monday against Ottawa’s announcement that the federal climate-change strategy includes a national carbon-emissions trading and offsets program.

Cartel That Couldn’t Suddenly Can — Thanks To U.S. Shortsightedness

For much of its 47-year existence, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has been a cartel in name only. It could not control oil prices because many of its members regularly breached the production quotas that were intended to regulate the market.

Why daylight saving time is bad for the environment

What if fighting climate change was as easy as not setting your clock forward today?

Always sold as a conservation measure, the practice of daylight savings actually jacked electricity use in homes across one central U.S. state by up to four per cent, according to a new American study.

Nuclear power: grasp the nettle

The Government must put aside its distaste for the nuclear option if we want power in future

Government rations electricity in freezing Kyrgyzstan

The authorities in the central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan on Monday introduced electricity rationing in response to severe energy shortages caused by an unusually cold winter.

Green fears on biofuel power plants for region

EXCLUSIVE: A whole new generation of large power plants could be built in the region as Yorkshire attempts to lead the controversial "green fuel" revolution.

Pollution Is Called a Byproduct of a ‘Clean’ Fuel

MOUNDVILLE, Ala. — After residents of the Riverbend Farms subdivision noticed that an oily, fetid substance had begun fouling the Black Warrior River, which runs through their backyards, Mark Storey, a retired petroleum plant worker, hopped into his boat to follow it upstream to its source.

It turned out to be an old chemical factory that had been converted into Alabama’s first biodiesel plant, a refinery that intended to turn soybean oil into earth-friendly fuel.

Electric Vehicles Could Strain Water Supplies

As environmentally friendly as hybrid and fully electric cars are, it turns out replacing normal vehicles with them might dangerously strain already scarce water reserves.

Biofuels pioneer vents fury at City as he quits

Karl Watkin, founder of the biofuels pioneer D1 Oils, yesterday announced his departure from the company with a verbal broadside against governments, campaign groups and even the London Stock Exchange.

Browne joins green business

Brown with an ‘e’ (for eco-saboteur?) will be much happier there and do a lot less harm than when he was unfortunately with BP.

Government backs coal-fired power stations

The business secretary, John Hutton, today signalled government support for coal-fired power stations, accusing opponents of "gesture politics".

Ministers challenged over backing for coal-fired power station

The government has been criticised for its "confusing" climate change policy after ministers signalled support for a new coal-fired power station as a committee was launched to ensure that by 2050 the UK reduces carbon emissions by 60%.

Trash today, ethanol tomorrow: Invention promises major advance in biofuel production

University of Maryland research that started with bacteria from the Chesapeake Bay has led to a process that may be able to convert large volumes of all kinds of plant products, from leftover brewer’s mash to paper trash, into ethanol and other biofuel alternatives to gasoline.

Corn-Based Ethanol Could Worsen "Dead Zone" - Study

WASHINGTON - Growing more corn to meet the projected US demand for ethanol could worsen an expanding "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico that is bad for crawfish, shrimp and local fisheries, researchers reported on Monday.

Is Uncle Sam Giving the World Hunger Pains?

Late last month, the executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP) told the Financial Times that the U.N. agency would soon be forced to consider "cutting [its] food rations or even the number of people reached." This comes as soaring inflation in staple food items such as wheat, corn, rice, and soybeans has produced hunger riots in developing countries and left governments grasping at straws for a solution.

See also: The Greenest Hypocrites of 2007. Looks like Arnie is trying to climb the rankings.

Scientist hits both poles to measure ozone depletion

Most interesting for its passing mention of waves of warm tropospheric air traversing to the stratosphere, warming that.

The contrarian – Mining and NGOs: Breaking off the engagement

Actually there is never any excuse for allowing or tolerating NGO access nor interference in company operations. Development is a societal good in its own right and anyone interfering with that is by definition antisocial. Remove the misanthropic twits from the loop and both societies and the environment are better off. No excuses, no exceptions.

Eco-terrorists top the FBI’s threat list after wave of arson attacks

It began 16 years ago with a meeting of disaffected environmentalists in Brighton. Today the radical organisation they created - the Earth Liberation Front - is described as a decentralised al-Qaeda-style network and America’s No 1 domestic terrorism threat. It even provided inspiration for the villains in Michael Crichton’s 2004 thriller State of Fear.

Residential oil boilers raise health concerns for Northeastern U.S.

Would people be healthier freezing to death?

Mercury pollution risk of new bulbs

Compact fluorescent bulbs use less energy than old-style incandescent light bulbs, which is good for the environment.

But the new lights also contain toxic mercury, which is bad for the environment if it leaches into groundwater or vaporizes into the air.

Canada cool to light plan

OTTAWA - The federal government’s plan to phase out incandescent light bulbs isn’t such a bright idea, according to Canadians who wrote to the federal Environment Department.

Gulf War Illness Strongly Linked to Chemical Exposure

Not actually a new finding or any new research at all, just a data dredge with very wide parameters.

School childhood obesity and BMI screening legislation update

School BMI screening and childhood obesity legislation is becoming a growing concern among parents. This update is in response to multiple readers’ requests.

UN looks east for unused land in face of rising food prices

Uh-huh… 30 million acres can be returned to agricultural production without ‘any significant environmental impact’. Nice to know all the fuss in the past is now admitted to be bullshit.

State ‘can bear blame for seed row’

More greenpeas mischief-making.

March 10, 2008

Deal in an Autism Case Fuels Debate on Vaccine

This is most unfortunate because vaccine mischief-makers will mischaracterize compassionate assistance as liability for causation.

Drugs in water could affect human cells

Effects that disappear at higher doses?

Don’t hit the panic button

Risk by Dan Gardner and Panicology by Simon Briscoe and Hugh Aldersey-Williams argue that far from being in ever-increasing danger, we have, in fact, never been safer, says Rafael Behr

Ignorance blinds us to the real risks in our food, study claims

If you enjoyed a joint of roast beef yesterday then you are among those who have overcome the decade-old scare about BSE in beef and concluded that the traditional Sunday lunch is too good to miss – reassured, presumably, by scientific evidence showing it is safe to eat.

But over many other food risks, public perceptions fly in the face of science and are instead driven by prejudice, superstition and the often misleading advice of friends, a survey has found.

Green bill of rights cornerstone of environmental handbook

OTTAWA — A Canadian bill of green rights is one of the cornerstones of a new federal road map towards environmental sustainability and economic competitiveness, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s officials and opposition MPs were told Friday.

Series of blunders turned the plastic bag into global villain

Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims.

‘Sexed-up’ numbers should not always be accepted as science

In the recent flurry of moves to ban plastic bags a frequently cited statistic is that more than 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die each year from entanglement in, or ingestion of, plastic bags.

Invasion of the giant oysters

Hmm… "It was a case of history repeating itself. The Danish King Knut the Great did exactly the same during the 11th century, when he imported shiploads of oysters from England to what is now Germany’s north-west coast.

As in much of the rest of Europe, the inhabitants of Sylt were able to harvest oysters from the seabed for the next 900 years, until industrial fishing and disease rendered them virtually extinct." But now it’s gorebull warming?

Being president of the Czech Republic is more like being England’s monarch than the president of the United States. While the Czech president has veto power over certain types of legislation, his role is supposed to be mostly ceremonial.

But Vaclav Klaus — who was re-elected last month after being chosen by the Czech Parliament as head of state in 2003 — has not been content to confine himself to ribbon cuttings and state dinners.

What Does And Does Not Drive Climate Change

 - The last defences of ‘Global warmers’ refuted - and the centrality of solar-magnetic activity demonstrated  -  Climate forecasts and Specific trial forecast  (first made available 22 Feb  - see below ) of blizzards likely in USA Midwest 9-13 March by Piers Corbyn of Weather Action

Global Warming Politics

EDITOR’S NOTE: This speech was presented by Michael R. Fox Ph.D. to the 2008 International Conference on Global Climate Change on March 2-4, 2008 Marriott Hotel in New York City, NY. He represented the Evergreen Freedom Foundation

Climate Charlie

Below is a photograph of Prince Charles’s ‘eco-friendly’ mode of travel. Charles and Camilla flew to Trinidad to board the private yacht Leander in order to cruise to Tobago, St Lucia, Montserrat and Jamaica, rather than fly, in order to reduce their ‘carbon footprint.’ Personally, I’d have thought it would be more eco-friendly not to go at all, but that’s just me being silly.

Enviro lobbyist is key McCain adviser…

Former Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman is reportedly now an adviser to presidential candidate John McCain.

As reported here, Mehlman was also recently hired to lobby for Environmental Defense on global warming.

McCain is already soft-in-the-head on climate (for eample, he co-sponsored the McCain-Lieberman climate bill in 2003). Have no doubt that Mehlman will exploit this weakness.

Global Warming Skeptics Meet

Complete with the standard slur from NRDC…

To Our Media’s Shame

Today, I ask a simple, but immensely serious, question: “Why has the UK media, in pretty well all its forms, failed to report ‘The Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change’, signed in New York on March 4, 2008?” The meeting at which the ‘Declaration’ was agreed [‘The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change’, March 2 - March 4] was attended by over 500 people (scientists, economists, policy makers, etc.), with over 100 speakers delivering keynote addresses, or participating in panel discussions.

Blurred truth: Climate change fact or fiction depends who’s doing the telling

Although audiences at midsize dailies are not as vast as the behemoths on the left or east coasts, some of us feel an obligation to pass along to a few friends and neighbors impact pieces you’ll never read in the New York Times and Washington Post, or view on CBS, NBC or ABC.

Southern Baptists Back a Shift on Climate Change

By endorsing a competing religion?

No Way To Fix Climate Without Private Sector -UNDP

Guess what? There’s no way to fix what ain’t broke, period!

Let’s cool it in heat of great debate

HUNDREDS of prominent scientists this week attended a conference in New York hosted by the US Heartland Institute.

The scientists rejected claims that we are seeing catastrophic human-induced global warming.

They concluded that the earth may be undergoing a period of modest warming but that it and cooling are constant features of the earth’s climate.

Funny: Writer-activist calls for more action against climate change

Earth’s atmosphere is "unstable" at 350ppmv CO₂? McKibben must be off his medication or something

Election win sets stage for green battle

Tories could face ‘war’ with Ottawa over climate change

Climate change: the burning issues

Thoughtful use of solid science must underpin environmental protection

We are currently in the midst of a serious policy debate on the highly technical subject of world climate change. What is it happening? Why is it happening? What are we to do? And ultimately who is to decide what we will do? I attempt only to answer the last of these questions here.

Bogus Body Counts: Casualties in the Climate War

CommentIsFree, rather like Grist, is a rich mine of ecobabble. Its writers are so prolific that it’s hard to keep up with their imaginations. Yet its writers are also often the highly qualified experts we’re all being asked to invest our confidence in. We missed "It’s time for a body count" by Dr Simon Lewis, who is a Royal Society research fellow at the Earth and Biosphere Institute, University of Leeds, last week.

Do they employ people sitting around dreaming up this nonsense or what?

Trying hard to stampede politicians

If you don’t do anything useful then how much is too much to spend? I’d suggest a single dollar wasted attempting to address the phantom menace is far too high a price to pay. How much worse then these fools trying to divert literally trillions of dollars that really could be applied to improving the lot of impoverished peoples and funding environmentally useful actions? Improving crop yields would do more for wildlands and critter habitat than all the enviros that have or will ever exist ever manage to do.

Oops! Propaganda so blatant even Andy Weaver trashes it

The Fraser Institute has developed a booklet on climate change for students and teachers that it says will help them understand the issue and make their own decisions about what actions are needed.

The booklet, Understanding Climate Change, doesn’t debate whether or not the world is warming or how much of that warming is caused by human activity, the institute says.

Climate change may spark conflict with Russia, EU told

European governments have been told to plan for an era of conflict over energy resources, with global warming likely to trigger a dangerous contest between Russia and the west for the vast mineral riches of the Arctic.

3 of 4 global metrics show nearly flat temperature anomaly in the last decade

It has been 10 years since the super El Niño of 1998 helped to spike global temperatures dramatically. Now since it appears we are in the opposite phase, I thought it would be interesting to look at the 10 year trend from January 1998 to January 2008.

We’re a long way from warming ‘oblivion’

Ancient carbon dioxide levels were up to 10 times above today’s levels

Climate change czar aims to paint province green

Earth Hour initiative will see ‘guerrilla outfit’ set up to ensure Ontario government keeps its promises

Beware the politician posing as a scientist

Christopher Booker squares up to Sir David King, the former Chief Scientist, whose knowledge of chemistry does little to underpin his crusading rhetoric as a green campaigner

Delay in polar bear policy stirs probe

Wonder when Americans are going to wake up that ESA exists purely as a cudgel for misanthropists to beat governments into doing their bidding?

Scotland 2080: a nation hit by severe drought

FROM dreich to drought in just 70 years. The most detailed-ever study of predicted rainfall and temperatures in Scotland has revealed precisely where climate change is likely to hit hardest.

This is going to hurt…

Australia will end years of chilly isolation on climate change when its ratification of the Kyoto Protocol comes into force Tuesday but remains one of the world’s worst polluters for its size, analysts say.

Climate change debate appeals to two sides of us

WE are all both simultaneously consumers and members of the community.

Mark Newgent: What consensus on climate change?

Is there really a scientific consensus of 2,500 climate experts in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and are all the IPCC signatories experts on the global climate?

Whoa! Slow down there cowboy!

They want to play the consensus line? Bad idea! Why not teach neo-Paganism in schools? After all, there’s a much larger consensus among neo-Pagans than the IPCC (about 1 million as opposed maybe a dozen chapter reviewers). The populist Al Gore-style climate change simply does not exist in the real world and no, it most definitely should not be taught in schools. Teach the global warming pseudo-religion and you open the door to creationists attempting to depose biology, organic foodies trying to insert themselves into real agriculture, chemical hysterics indoctrinating against vaccines…

Climate hysteria is not science and should not be misrepresented as such to impressionable young minds. For all the PlayStation® climatology we still have zero evidence that increases in the essential trace gas CO₂ constitutes any form of threat. We are all for teaching science but let’s leave it at actual science, no? Save religions like Climate Catastrophism for the seminary.

Afternoon at GISS

Tim, with Stephen Jewson, is doing some interesting work on modeling hurricane tracks, so far mainly in the Atlantic. He has some papers on the GISS web site which you can download. He’s using this work to better quantify landfall frequencies, which are of obvious interest.

Evaluating the Effects of Historical Land Cover Change by Wichansky et al. 2008

Yet another new paper is “in press at JGR” (subscription required) that documents the first-order effect of human-caused landscape change on the climate.

MOZAMBIQUE: La Nina triggers record number of cyclones

JOHANNESBURG, 8 March 2008 (IRIN) - The 2008 cyclone season in the southwestern Indian Ocean has recorded the highest number of cyclones in possibly a decade because of the climate phenomenon called La Niña, according to meteorologists.

Ups And Downs Of Sea-Levels

Yesterday, Reuters reported some extremely interesting observations from the Geological Survey of Norway about long-term sea-level change [‘Oceans to fall, not rise, over millions of years’, Reuters, March 6]: “Sea levels are set to fall over millions of years, making the current rise blamed on climate change a brief interruption of an ancient geological trend, scientists said on Thursday.

Scotland 2080: a nation hit by severe drought

FROM dreich to drought in just 70 years. The most detailed-ever study of predicted rainfall and temperatures in Scotland has revealed precisely where climate change is likely to hit hardest.

Model scams

Experts use mathematical models to give us predictions about the future.

Canada warns US over oil sands

See also this.

Darling plans Labour’s greenest budget yet
Ashley Seager and Patrick Wintour
The Guardian, Monday March 10 2008

Alistair Darling will unveil a host of new measures in his first budget on Wednesday aimed at cutting carbon emissions from cars and including a fresh drive to boost biofuel use. The chancellor, under pressure from business leaders to cut corporation tax and scale back his controversial plans to tax non-domiciles, will instead present the budget as Labour’s greenest to date.

He is also expected to reject calls to scrap the 2p a litre rise in fuel duty planned for April because he thinks it would go against the grain of a budget that is trying to limit carbon emissions.

Green experts to press for tougher targets

A powerful new government climate change committee will meet today for the first time to decide how ministers will meet their commitment to cut carbon emissions by 60% by 2050, and whether the target needs to be strengthened in the face of worsening forecasts on climate change.

Another blasted eco-toff…

Virgin’s green idea loses its pulling power

Branson’s bandwagon-jumping is all show? Well, imagine that…

Gas guzzlers will rule again

If carbon taxes to offset climate change usher in global cooling …

Bus-Sized Batteries May Help Efficiency Of US Grid

LOS ANGELES - The next time some US utility customers collectively pump up their air conditioners on a sweltering summer day, that power may be coming from a battery the size of a double decker bus.

Solar Energy Firms Leave Waste Behind in China

GAOLONG, China — The first time Li Gengxuan saw the dump trucks from the nearby factory pull into his village, he couldn’t believe what happened. Stopping between the cornfields and the primary school playground, the workers dumped buckets of bubbling white liquid onto the ground.

Oil Reserve Can Wait

OPEC has snubbed President Bush’s plea to boost production and give Americans relief at the pumps. Adding insult, oil sheiks say Bush has mismanaged the crisis. Time for some unilateral action.

Emissions move up oilsands agenda

Wednesday’s ruling by a federal court about the Kearl Lake expansion by Imperial Oil over environmental concerns should be viewed as the proverbial canary in the coal mine.

Get set for emissions trading

The year 2007 marked the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Kyoto Protocol; the 20th anniversary of the release of the report "Our Common Future" by the World Commission on Environment and Development, headed by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland (the expression "sustainable development" was used officially for the first time); and the 15th anniversary of the adoption of the Framework Convention on Climate Change by the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development.

Agreement on southwest Va. plant removes bonus for carbon capture

ROANOKE, Va. - Dominion Virginia Power lowered its profit expectation on a coal-fired power plant in southwest Virginia because of questions about whether it will be able to capture carbon dioxide emissions.

Top firms ‘complacent on climate change’

Well duh! Firms are trying to stay out of the line of fire until this most stupid of scares inevitably collapses.

Hand-wringing nonsense from down-under

In case someone doesn’t know Australia doesn’t have any city even vaguely akin to New Orleans and zero possibility of a similar disaster. Australia does have periodic regional floods and droughts — always has, always will. Frankly, a really stupid piece.

A Global Need for Grain That Farms Can’t Fill

Lousy time for advocates to be putting increased pressure on oil & gas by sabotaging coal, no? Fortunately there is an element of hysteria about global grain reserves too, since a few major exporters have had droughts, now largely behind them and some rebuilding of stocks can be anticipated. Still, this’d be a good time to jettison dopey antibiotechies and advocates of low-productivity ‘organic’ nostalgia, wouldn’t it?

Biofuels: Fields of dreams

We can run our cars on corn, sugar cane or wheat: limitless cheap energy grown on our doorstep. But are biofuels the answer to exhausted oil wells or just another nightmare scenario?

Myths on CO2 food miles

LAST week federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Tony Burke, exposed the "food miles" campaign as "nothing more than protectionism". Burke is right, but beneath such transparent protectionism, the food miles emperor is still naked.

GMO Coffee Decision Causes Outrage with Kona Coffee Farmers

KAILUA KONA, HAWAII - Sen. Jill Tokuda (D-Kailua-Kaneohe), Chair of the House Committee on Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs, decided not to support, or even provide a committee hearing on HB 1577, which would place a moratorium on field trials for genetically modified coffee. Instead she is asking for a study to "develop policies that best serve the needs of our agricultural community".

Activists Plan More Attacks Against Multinationals In Brazil

SAO PAULO -(Dow Jones)- Campaigners from the Landless Rural Workers Movement, or MST, will organize more attacks against multinational companies in Brazil, a spokesman for the group said late Friday.

U.S. activist circles globe to fight biotech crops

At least they correctly label this nitwit as "preaching". We’ve never been able to substantiate even one claim of harm from GM crops, far less Smith’s fraudulent claim of "thousands". Rampant profiteering scaremonger but I guess at least he’s doing a lot less harm than Al & the IPCC.

Opposing Views On Biotech Crops Keep Debate Alive

KANSAS CITY - The debate over biotech crops is a constantly moving argument: each country, each crop, each new genetically altered strain of corn or bean or cotton offers a fresh battleground for biotech champions and critics.

Mexico Farmers Quietly Plant Banned GM Corn

EJIDO BENITO JUAREZ, Mexico - In the dry state of Chihuahua, south of the Texas border, 68-year-old Amado Trevizo became an accidental outlaw last year when his son planted 10 sacks of seeds of GM corn, banned in Mexico.

March 7, 2008

Breath is toxic waste?

The federal government may soon declare your very breath to be toxic regardless of its minty freshness.

U.S. investors have filed a record 54 shareholder resolutions with U.S. companies facing "far-reaching business impacts from climate change," according to a coalition of investors demanding that corporations include tangible responses to climate change in their basic business strategies.

Hmm… the Nenana again. Wonder if they’ve had a look at what the late John Daly had to say last time there was one of these melt-down pieces? John raised excellent points like urban heat contamination of the Tanana River as it negotiates Fairbanks, upstream of Nenana, as well as increasing snowfall with the positive phase of the PDO (which affects mechanical stress and ice breakup). That things are less frigid as we get further from the depths of the Little Ice Age would hardly be a surprising result, nor a worrisome one really.

Weather Stations Disappearing Worldwide

I know, this sounds like “save the whales”.

Amazing as this sounds, weather stations used to monitor near surface temperature for the global climate record are disappearing worldwide at and alarming rate. There are two things going on here: 1) Stations are actually being closed down, particularly in Canada and in Russia in the early 1990’s. 2) Some stations while open, have disappeared off the reporting radar for global temperature metrics such as GISS.

Researcher: Basic Greenhouse Equations "Totally Wrong"

New derivation of equations governing the greenhouse effect reveals "runaway warming" impossible

Anyone gone through this yet? I admit I haven't -- maybe this weekend, depending on family time demands.

GM, Toyota Doubtful on Fuel Cells’ Mass Use

GENEVA — Top executives from General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. Tuesday expressed doubts about the viability of hydrogen fuel cells for mass-market production in the near term and suggested their companies are now betting that electric cars will prove to be a better way to reduce fuel consumption and cut tailpipe emissions on a large scale.

Industry fights tougher air-pollution standards

Big industries are waging an intense lobbying effort to block new, tougher limits on air pollution that is blamed for hundreds of heart attacks, deaths and cases of asthma, bronchitis and other breathing problems.

Global Warming Not Cooling Travellers’ Wanderlust

BERLIN - Global warming’s threat to the existence of the exotic resorts and beaches tourists crave has not dented holidaymakers’ appetites for pollution-producing, long-haul trips, experts said at Berlin’s annual tourism fair.

UK Signals Nuclear Fast-Track, Offers New Sites

LONDON - Britain said on Thursday it was making up to 18 more sites available for the next generation of nuclear power stations and signalled an acceleration of its plans for new reactors.

EU Warned of Climate-Induced Polar Security Threat

BRUSSELS - European Union leaders will receive a stark warning next week of potential conflict with Russia over energy resources at the North Pole as global warning melts the ice cap and aggravates international security threats.

Heard the One About the Farmer’s Ethanol?

After motherhood and apple pie, energy independence probably qualifies as the most popular political slogan in the land. It is, as they say, a no-brainer. Robert Bryce agrees: You have to have no brain to think it is possible or even desirable.

Food crisis will take hold before climate change, warns chief scientist

Food security and the rapid rise in food prices make up the "elephant in the room" that politicians must face up to quickly, according to the government’s new chief scientific adviser.

Rush for biofuels threatens starvation on a global scale

The rush towards biofuels is threatening world food production and the lives of billions of people, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser said yesterday.

INTERVIEW - China Province Seeks Dams Despite Environment Fears

BEIJING - China’s southwestern province of Yunnan is still hoping to build controversial dams and hydropower plants on the upper reaches of the Salween River, a senior official said on Thursday, despite environmental concerns.

Changes in Ocean Conditions in Sargasso Sea Potential Cause for Decline in Eel Fishery

American eels are fast disappearing from restaurant menus as stocks have declined sharply across the North Atlantic. While the reasons for the eel decline remain as mysterious as its long migrations, a recent study by a NOAA scientist and colleagues in Japan and the United Kingdom says shifts in ocean-atmosphere conditions may be a primary factor in declining reproduction and survival rates.

Bizarre headline

What they really found is that a majority of abundant damsel fish naturally have asymmetrical ears in the larval stage and proportionately fewer of these successfully navigate to suitable habitat (or that the asymmetry more frequently resolved naturally — it isn’t clear which). None of which is clearly associated with water temperature, acidity, climate change, global climate disruption or any such bogeymen.

I suspect the believers are overrepresented among engineers rather than geologists and geophysicists too — earth scientists tend to have pretty long-term perspective and very relaxed views about trivial changes in Earth’s apparent mean temperature (another reason you don’t often see them asked to lead author chapters for the IPCC’s conclusion dredges).

Lindzen vs Rahmstorf: an exchange

PDF file (Lindzen’s article; Rahmstorf’s semi-reply; Lindzen’s response)

This exchange is kind of interesting because both participants are highly regarded figures in climatology and they approach the problems as physicists.

Czech President Compares Global Warming Hype to USSR

President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, compares Global Warming hysteria to propaganda used by Breshnev in the USSR.

Consensus? What consensus? (.pdf)

The notion of a consensus, although it means little in science, is often used in support of the claim of man-made warming.

NY Climate Conference: Journey to the Center of Warming Sanity

If you rely solely on the mainstream media to keep informed, you may not have heard that the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change concluded in New York City on Tuesday.  And if you have heard anything — this being primarily a forum of skeptics — it was likely of a last gasp effort by "flat-Earthers" sponsored by right-wingers in the pockets of big-oil to breathe life into their dying warming denial agenda.

Global-Warming Payola?

Advocates are sniping at Tierney in the comments but it’s a pretty good post, favoring none.

Climate Skeptics Reveal ‘Horror Stories’ of Scientific Suppression

New York, New York – Scientists skeptical of man-made climate fears meeting at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York City described the “absolute horror stories” about how some scientific journals have engaged in “outrageous and unethical behavior” in attempting to suppress them from publishing their work in peer-reviewed journals.

US House Bill Lets California Restrict Car Emissions

WASHINGTON - A bill was introduced in the US House of Representatives on Thursday that would overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to prevent California from limiting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions spewed by cars.

Just how wrong can one person get? Pity the poor carbon tax

At first glance I thought this was "Pity the poor under a carbon tax" — a case of seeing what one wants to see, for sure. Gibbering Justine goes on to lament a business minimizing costs to stay in business and hand-wringing about carbon emissions.

JFS Special: Electric current ‘lobotomies’ for weight loss?

This study on the human experimentation of an ‘obese’ man received the briefest mention in the press, but its true significance was missed. In fact, the reality of what happened, and what is happening in the increasingly drastic efforts to eradicate obesity, will continue to be overlooked until the science of obesity is recognized.

Natural solutions for private fears

What helpful and amazing medical information can be found on the internet!

The trouble is, much of it isn’t true. Worse, just as much of it can be downright dangerous should we decide to believe it.

Clean living could be making people sicker

U.S. researchers say modern living appears to be leading to an increase in allergies and immune system diseases.

When the chips are down — soak them

Uh-huh… I wonder how many hot fat injuries and fat fires will occur as people try deep frying wet potato in order to avoid something that has no demonstrated ill-effect on people? I suspect fear of trivial and hypothetical risks does a great deal more harm than the alleged risks ever could.

Per Iain’s observation below about marginalizing critics as oil-industry shills, it seems a coincidence that this tactic is used by so many on the Left. In fact, it is no coincidence at all, but the product of a well-organized “training” campaign of academics, journalists, and activists by Gore’s The Climate Project. (Never mind the absurdity of the charge. By the money-buys-opinion standard, all news folk are auto-industry stooges, since 70 percent of newspaper revenue comes from car-dealer ads.)

About those Gore Climate-Camp grads

Following up on posts by Iain and Henry below, my feelings were hurt yesterday to receive an email noting that a fellow with whom I just shared a podium — at the very same MSU — was defending his honor on a website called Michigan Liberal. Apparently someone indicated that possibly he and I were not evenly matched in our debate, prompting, well, this.

Global warming not always to blame for extreme winters

Natural variations in weather can vary more than climate change signals, experts say

Climate Propaganda Works: ‘Global Warming Equals More Snowfall’

Actually some models do estimate more snowfall due to increased evaporation from warming but that wasn’t the thrust of the original post, which was a contrast of consecutive years of press claims about GW reducing/increasing snows in the same regions.

UAH Global temperature data for Feb08: near zero anomaly

Last month I posted the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) Microwave Sounder Unit (MSU) data for January 2008 with a note that it showed a sharp drop from January 2007 data.

The February data from UAH is out. You can see it the raw data yourself here.

It shows a slight rebound from the -0.046°C value of January 2008 to 0.016°C for a slight change (∆T) of .05°C upwards.

Polar bears and melting ice

People have long held a near mystical kinship with the polar bear. In recent years the emotional human attraction to this ferocious carnivore species has reached unparalleled proportions.

Oceans to fall, not rise, over millions of years

OSLO (Reuters) - Sea levels are set to fall over millions of years, making the current rise blamed on climate change a brief interruption of an ancient geological trend, scientists said on Thursday.

EU industry commissioner pushes for exemptions to emissions trading system

EU industry commissioner Guenter Verheugen is pushing for EU leaders at their summit next week to agree that energy intensive industries should have a special status when it comes to the bloc’s pollution-reducing emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Terrorism’s Left Turn

Domestic Terrorism: A group burns some new homes it thinks are an affront to nature. A nut riding a bicycle explodes a small bomb at a military recruiting center on Times Square. Any connection? We think so.

March 6, 2008

Protecting Patents, Saving Lives

Permitting slightly higher drug prices today will guarantee incentives for innovation and development tomorrow.

People of Aceh shafted again

Yeah, hurray! More impoverished villagers trapped in stasis like some museum exhibit for the amusement of wealthy eco-snobs. These people need development not pretend hot air sales to enrich everyone in the scam except the victims at either end. Another crime against poor people perpetrated by natur über alles elites protecting their personal playgrounds.

A change in the climate: credit crunch makes the bottom line the top issue

CEOs who allow themselves to be distracted by touchy-feely non-concepts like "corporate social responsibility" need to be booted out the door. Corporate entities maximize their social return by maximizing profits (those things that keep people employed, underwrite pension plans, fund society through taxation…) and so-called CSR is a trojan horse used by anti-corporates to sabotage the capitalist model. The sooner this blight on society is expunged the better off everyone (and the environment) will be.

Eco-Groups Could Kill Kosovo Economy Before It Grows

‘Biggest enemies of the poor’ might seek to shut down new nation’s mining lifeline.

Twelve Months of Cooling Doesn’t Make A Climate Trend

By Dr. John R. Christy

I have been flooded this week with calls and e-mail messages concerning a story that has appeared on various Internet sites, in which the claim is made that cooling global temperatures over the past twelve months in some way negate or eliminate any global warming that might have happened over the past 100 years.

“Here is my perspective on this issue: Twelve months of data does not make a trend, especially in a system as complex and slow moving as global climate, and even more so when the cause for that short-term cooling is as reasonably well understood and well documented as a switch from a minor El Niño Pacific Ocean warming in January 2007 to the La Niña cooling event now taking place.

Weekly Round-Up: 2008 Media Coverage Vs 2007 Media Coverage

Here at the Inhofe EPW Press Blog we have been reading – with great interest, and to be honest, a little amusement – the media’s coverage of our blog post from last week. The blog post was simply a round-up of several articles/blog posts reporting on the news that temperatures this past winter have been lower in temperature.

They sure are an imaginative bunch!

Check out what the virtual worlders have come up with now! Climate and economic modeling more than 90 years and the reporter is apparently stupid enough to take it seriously. To warm the ocean-atmosphere system 3.5 K would require all the ‘excess’ forcing of 1200 ppm CO₂ for more than 40 years in an absolutely lossless system, which the Earth absolutely is not. Just to reach 1200 ppm (4xCO₂) by 2100 from here means we need to increase atmospheric carbon dioxide by about 9 ppm every year from here on in (hands up anyone who thinks we can even mine carbon at that rate).

"Global warming" is not a global crisis.

Analyze this, ye warming believers: Peter Foster

It will be fascinating to see how the proceedings of The Heartland Institute’s conference on Climate Change, which is currently taking place in New York, will be covered both by the media and the climate change industry.

Taking Aim at Chicken Little

NEW YORK — "It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals," the playwright Henrik Ibsen once remarked. "Let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians."

After years of being labeled everything from devotees of a neo-Flat Earth Society to the equivalent of Holocaust deniers by an opposition that refuses to seriously engage them — i.e. declaring unsettled science settled, refusing to publicly debate spurious claims made in one’s Academy Award winning documentaries, repeatedly using scorn as a crutch to steady lack of reason — the global warming skeptics gathered at the Heartland Institute’s 2008 International Conference on Climate Change held at the Times Square Marriott certainly appeared fully on board with Ibsen’s proposition.

Heartland Climate Conference Summary

I am one of the scientists that attended the recent Heartland Climate Conference in Manhattan, where I live. It is my belief that the strident and frequent claims of catastrophes caused by man-made global warming are stated with a degree of confidence not warranted by the data.

Networks Ignore, Newspapers Mock N.Y. Climate Change Conference

Networks continue trend of ignoring scientists who challenge ‘consensus,’ while newspapers find plenty of environmentalists to mock them.

Smoking Out The Warm-Mongers

The founder of the Weather Channel wants to sue those who sell carbon offsets as scam artists who participate in the "the fraud that is global warming." Indeed, on global warming the jury is still out.

Is the stampede to global warming slowing down?

Even though polls say most people believe global warming is occurring and about half believe it’s man made, we believe most still are unwilling to pay to “fix” it when weighed against real-life jobs and food on the table, and the uncertainties of the science. Meanwhile, reality may mercifully be slowing the government stampede to impose costly solutions.

Famed Hurricane Forecaster William Gray Predicts Global Cooling in 10 Years

Expert states ocean cycles will have a more profound effect on climate than CO₂; criticizes James Hansen’s climate models.

From CO₂ Science this week:
Editorial:
Floods, Forests, Food and Biofuels: How are they related?

Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week:
This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Ria de Vigo, Northwest Iberia, Spain. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click here.

Subject Index Summary:
Nectar: How is its quantity and quality impacted by elevated levels of atmospheric CO2? And what are the implications of these phenomena for man and nature?

Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results (blue background) of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature for: Oilseed Rape, Spinach, Soybean, and Thale Cress.

Journal Reviews:
The Wildfire History of Central Quebec, Canada: How did wildfire frequency there vary over the past three centuries, as the earth transited from the depths of the Little Ice Age to the peak warmth of the Current Warm Period?

A Temperature Reconstruction of the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in the Middle Qilian Mountains of China: What does it tell us about the pervasiveness of the MWP and LIA and the uniqueness of Current Warm Period temperatures?

Century-Long Warm and Cold Periods of the Past 2000 Years in Southern Alaska: What important lesson do we learn from them?

Biological Soil Crusts Promote Desert Reclamation in China: So what does this have to do with the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content?

Is the Atmosphere's Rising CO2 Concentration Enhancing Natural Tree Growth?: A new review of the scientific literature evaluates the evidence for the phenomenon.

Ban on bags can’t carry weight

Plastic bags are under siege, pilloried globally as a menace to the environment and a symbol of man’s conspicuous consumption, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

For a while, it looked like the Groaniad was taking a sensible position

Plastic bags are much in the news. Gordon Brown announced he’ll back a move to charge people for them, so that we’ll use fewer. Clearly, nobody has pointed out to him that they’re made from naphtha, a byproduct of oil refining for which no other use has been found.

AUTOSHOW - Automakers Hopeful For New CO2 Limit Deadline

GENEVA - Car makers are becoming more optimistic that European authorities will grant them more time to meet proposed limits on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from their vehicles — a major point of contention between them.

MPs Call For Higher Aviation Taxes

LONDON - Air passengers should face a "significant increase" in taxes, including a new charge for the longest flights, to help combat climate change, a group of MPs said in a report on Wednesday.

They need to ask?

Say, will you guys be affected if we commit economic suicide to appease the angry Earth Goddess? Sheesh!

Carbon Group Seeks To Open US To Global Offsets

NEW YORK - A greenhouse emissions business group hopes to shape US climate change legislation to include broad use of international carbon offsets, like wind and solar power farms in developing countries, that are not currently in the leading climate bill.

Czechs Oppose EU Carbon Auctioning Plan

PRAGUE - The Czech Republic may block the European Commission’s plan to auction carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions permits to energy companies after 2012, government officials said on Tuesday.

Japan Eyes Technology Upgrades To Halve Emissions

TOKYO - Japan plans to focus on its efforts to improve 21 technologies to help the world halve greenhouse gases by 2050, a trade ministry official said on Wednesday.

Winter Storms Cost China Power Sector 16 Billion Yuan

Read through and note the increased pressure on oil supplies. Why on Earth would we limit our coal-fired capacity?

House passes bill on coal plants but not with veto-proof majority

A bill allowing two coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas won House approval Tuesday, but not with the majority needed to override a promised veto from Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

Loans Program For Coal Plants Suspended

(AP) The federal government is suspending a major loan program for coal-fired power plants in rural communities, saying the uncertainties of climate change and rising construction costs make the loans too risky.

Want to Increase Your Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Use Biofuels!

In almost every essay we feature at World Climate Report, our focus is on climatic phenomena and the general disagreement between observations and what numerical models of climate tell us should be happening given the ongoing buildup of greenhouse gases. We draw heavily from the professional scientific peer-reviewed literature, and our journals of choice range from highly specialized journals in the climate community to far more generalized, but very highly respected journals such as Science and Nature.

Court Questions Planned Oil Project in Canada

OTTAWA — The Federal Court of Canada has ordered a environmental review panel to take a second look at the greenhouse gas implications of oil sands project in Alberta proposed by Imperial Oil, an oil producer based in Calgary, Canada.

Mideast, North Africa Flaring Gas Worth $10 Billion/Year

DOHA - Middle Eastern and North African countries are flaring natural gas worth as much as $10 billion every year, a World Bank body said on Wednesday.

Turning Glare Into Watts

BOULDER CITY, Nev. — At first, as he adjusted pumps and checked temperatures, Aaron Boucher looked like any technician in the control room of an electrical plant. Then he rushed to the window and scanned the sky, to check his fuel supply.

Mr. Boucher was battling clouds, timing the operations of his power plant to get the most out of patchy sunshine.

Sometimes I worry about these dumb-as-a-doorknob pieces. Charcoal & pollen in sediments show it was warm enough for tall birch shrubs 9,000 years ago. Check (nothing new if it warms that much again then). Birch shrubs burn. Check (who’d a thought?). Burning stuff releases carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Check (duh!). That will increase greenhouse gas levels. Huh? The push for biomass is because burning non-fossil growth only cycles the carbon extracted from the atmosphere by growing plants back to the atmosphere.

Warmer Springs Mean Less Snow, Fewer Flowers In The Rockies

More phenology based entirely in the contemporary warming phase — what do they know of the 1950s through 1970s? How does the current thaw compare with the 1950s? Do we think there’s an agenda in studying only one phase? Uh, yeah.

New method to estimate sea ice thickness

Scientists recently developed a new modeling approach to estimate sea ice thickness. This is the only model based entirely on historical observations.

Lowly Icelandic midges reveal ecosystem’s tipping points

That’s the thing isn’t it? If their model is correct then… What does their model tell them about how the system they are trying to model survived the climatic swings of just the last few thousand years?

How ominous does this sound?

This is going on under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The language says it all, doesn’t it?

State legislature passes climate change blueprint

OLYMPIA — The Legislature has passed a measure that creates a blueprint on setting limits on Washington’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Ambulance chasers: Climate-change law growing

A growing area of legal practice — climate change — brought the top lawyer at Dominion Resources Inc. back to his old law firm after his retirement last year.

Stossel: ‘Socialist Media — Maybe They Will Just Never Get It’

ABC ‘20/20′ co-anchor says journalism has anti-business, anti-capitalist tendencies.

What’s Left About Green?

Our stance on the climate debate is often assumed - with approval or derision, depending on who’s doing the assuming - to reflect a wider Conservative outlook. We wouldn’t want people <cough> to go around thinking that Climate Resistance is some sort of Conservative reply to Environmentalism. Because it isn’t.

Pesky Oreskes

And so to the 2nd (and quite possibly the final) part in our mini-series of posts about videos that really annoy us: “The American Denial of Global Warming”

Israeli scientists wonder: Could seaweed power the world?

What if it turned out that corn and cane sugar fuels, considered substitutes for more polluting fuel, were also the cause of serious environmental damage? We would then search for greener substitutes: seaweed, animal fat and other fruits and vegetables containing oil. Over the past year, Israeli researchers have accelerated attempts to develop various types of "green" fuel, and research groups are hard at work developing technology that will become part of a global oil substitute trend.

Energy giants must act to avoid windfall tax, Brown warns

Gordon Brown warned yesterday that energy companies could still face a windfall tax unless they offered a much bigger rebate for the poor and pensioners facing big rises in fuel bills.

March 5, 2008

British study links radiation to heart disease

The effect, if real, is at the limits of detectability.

Baby weight watchers

An “alarming” crisis of large babies in Scotland was reported yesterday as evidence of a worsening obesity epidemic. Fat mothers were blamed for putting their babies’ health at risk by Tam Fry, honorary chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, who said: “There are a significant number of mothers who are not only obese but alarmingly so, and they are giving birth to alarmingly large babies.

Fat children and the courts

Two different news stories today reveal the struggles of parents trying to keep their children that the court system and social service officials want to take away. Their crime: the children are fat.

Some Experts Doubt Obesity Epidemic

 (AP) — Go on, have another doughnut. According to some experts whose views are public health heresy, the jury is still out on how dangerous it is to be fat. "The obesity epidemic has absolutely been exaggerated," said Dr. Vincent Marks, emeritus professor of clinical biochemistry at the University of Surrey.

NGOs Wary of Doomsday Seed Vault

BANGALORE, Mar 4 (IPS) - Agricultural non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in India and elsewhere are criticising the newly-opened Global Seed Vault (GSV) at Svalbard in Norway as fundamentally unjust in its objectives.

‘Food miles’ is a con, says Burke

European campaigns urging shoppers not to buy Australian food because of the carbon footprint of long-distance transport are a con, the agriculture minister says.

California dairies face new pollution tests

California dairies are being tested more than ever — literally — since the state began rolling out new water-discharge regulations last year and issuing new reporting requirements.

SCOC ruling means end of the road for farmers trying to sue Monsanto over canola

OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed the wishes of two organic farmers who wanted the right to file a class-action lawsuit against Monsanto Canada Inc. over genetically modified canola.

Brazil GMO Cane Research Advances, Waits For OK

SAO PAULO - Sugar cane genetically modified for greater ethanol and sugar production could be developed in three to five years but strict Brazil biotechnology regulation could keep it off the market for as much as seven years, companies said on Tuesday.

US Won’t Meet Ethanol Goal Due Cellulosic Shortfall

WASHINGTON - The United States will not meet Congress’ mandate to produce more ethanol from waste products over the next 15 years, resulting in an overall shortfall in ethanol production requirements contained in a new energy law, a government forecaster said Tuesday.

… all this crap is founded on models programmed to produce catastrophic warming with trivial increases in essential trace gas levels. These bear no known relationship to reality.  And yet their output is treated as ‘data’. What a farce!

Boston Globe readers not so silly

I AM on the side of green. I have used a few compact fluorescent light bulbs, but after reading your article, it is hard to fathom how advocates for using these bulbs think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages ("Mercury leaks found as new bulbs break," City & Region, Feb. 26).

Bentley steals march on its rivals with green pledge

As manufacturers of premium cars fell over themselves in promoting new green technologies and fuels, Bentley stole a march on its rivals by saying it would be the first in this market segment and one of the first in the world to deliver cars capable of running on 100% renewable fuels throughout its fleet.

Dutch think tank criticises EU climate change plan

The Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency think tank on Tuesday warned that EU plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions using biofuels will increase food prices and threaten biodiversity.

Swedish committee proposes national climate goals

A Swedish parliamentary committee on Tuesday presented a series of measures aimed at reducing the Scandinavian country’s greenhouse gases in a report commissioned by the government.

CER market uncertain over future demand

February has been a recovery month in the secondary market for issued Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs). Prices rose almost 15 per cent from January’s lows sparked by turmoil on global financial markets and the release of the EU ETS phase III proposals by the European Commission.

ESRC: Southampton youths debate climate change with experts

Good grief! The audience will be asked whether it is basically the government’s responsibility to tackle climate change or if individuals have to take action themselves.

The youngsters will be polled on their initial opinions and then briefed before the event. On the day, Dr Stephen Lake of Southampton Solent University will present both sides of the argument. (the argument presumably being whether govt. or individual, not whether the whole premise is real or not).

The youngsters will then debate the issue among themselves and come up with questions for an expert panel, consisting of Chris Bluemel of Friends of the Earth, Dr. Sophie Nicholson-Cole of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and Jeff Stanfield of Hampshire County Council.

Representatives from Fiends of the Earth, the Tyndall Centre for Generating Climate Hysteria and some guy from the city council now constitute an expert panel. Those poor kids…

Speaking at international conference, he blames the propagation of the global warming ’scare’ on a combination of factors, including the ‘the media wanting a scare story.’

Not CO2? Mayans may have caused climate change

Forest clearing and the draining of wetlands may have lead to localised climate change which saw the Mayan civilisation bring about its own demise a thousand years ago, according to new research.

Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate

Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change

Heartland conference: day 3 and wrap up

Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus started off the day with a rousing speech. I hadn’t known he was an economist, but it was obvious quickly through his use of phrases like “maximize their personal utility function” and “is there statistically significant global warming?” This was not a standard political speech.

He joked that certain people “want to stop economic growth [in Europe]; though, not their own,” particularly in developing countries.

Hmm… Andy’s work interferes with his leisure time. How sad.

Despite his protestations of "fair and balanced" reporting "making no one happy" check out the way he phrases his descriptions.

Here’s the bottom line for you Andy: really crappy models say there’s a potential problem — the real world says there’s not. If you actually get around to reporting in a fair and balanced manner I’d suggest the story is the gargantuan industry built on virtual world scare stories that is siphoning vast sums out of of society’s coffers.

Wannabe commanders must be terrified their hot chance is chilling

BROOKLIN, Canada, Mar 4 (IPS) - Colder than usual January temperatures in the United States have brought the climate change deniers out of hibernation, flooding websites, and opinion and letters pages about the "great global warming hoax". They even organised their own conference on denial in New York City this week.

CNN: Climate Conference Attendees Are Like Flat Earthers

As NewsBusters reported, there’s an international conference on climate change happening in New York City wherein well-renowned scientists from all over the world are meeting to discuss anthropogenic global warming.

Back in the virtual world…

The world must respond to climate change and other environmental challenges now while the cost is low or else pay a stiffer price later for its indecision, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Wednesday.

WashPost taking lessons from The Crone? Dumber by the minute:

MARYLAND’s efforts to slow global warming got a big boost late last month when Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) threw his support behind a bill in the state Senate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That was the right move. Climate change is upon us, and continuing to wait for leadership from Washington is no longer an option.

Is global warming a hoax?
by MILES KETCHUM, The Justice

The global warming scare has become the latest entry in a long list of memes that have infected our culture. Whether or not the Earth’s climate change is anthropogenic or natural is far from being supported with conclusive scientific evidence.

NZ ‘running late’ on carbon targets

The Government is running risks with New Zealand’s international reputation by talking about carbon neutrality when on our present course and speed we will be lucky to reach our Kyoto target by 2050 - 38 years late, the New Zealand Institute says.

Polls shows climate change high on NZers’ priorities

Who knew they could afford to ring Australia that much? It’s simply not credible that there are 3,000+ New Zealanders who have not escaped to Australia yet but at least the last one out won’t have to worry about turning off the light

Given how few New Zealanders there are, expatriate or otherwise, what makes anyone think the world will notice whether they apply punitive tariffs or not?

Aussie brewery produces ‘green’ beer

They mention the hops, what about the land cleared for barley growing, the malting thereof… Wonder if they’re going to sell it flat, so no CO₂ is released on opening?

Prince faces climate change dilemma over cruise

He says he is a green pioneer, and flaunts his environmental credentials. So why is Prince Charles leaving today on a cruise that will do as much damage to the planet as 260 transatlantic flights?

Leading article: Show boating

Poor Prince Charles; he just cannot get it right, even when it comes to an issue he cares about as passionately as the environment.

Does the Danube Exist? Versions of Reality Given by Various Climate Models and Climatological Datasets - A Guest Weblog By Valerio Lucarini

Today, we have a guest weblog that has been graciously provided to us by Valerio Lucarini.

Here’s a small patch that should consider itself extremely lucky

Given the tough winter suffered by much of the Northern Hemisphere these guys should be giving thanks, big time! We’re awaiting the February figures but will not be surprised to see continued fall in the global mean.

(AP) Nearly a year after being told to do so, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday he couldn’t say when he would comply with a Supreme Court directive and determine whether greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles should be regulated.

The Independent, Big Oil and me

A gossip columnist’s libel against spiked in a national newspaper unwittingly revealed a lot about contemporary politics and debate.

Oil For Terror

Unfortunately the global market for oil is sufficiently tight that declining to buy Venezuelan oil will not deny them a market for their product. Perhaps other options should be investigated.

Looney attack on coal-fired power

A long-term study by the Wildlife Conservation Society, the BioDiversity Research Institute, and other organizations has found and confirmed that environmental mercury—much of which comes from human-generated emissions—is impacting both the health and reproductive success of common loons in the Northeast.

Lump sums

Oil production may soon ‘peak’, but what about coal? David Strahan reports on the recent figures that suggest global reserves may not be nearly as plentiful as the industry and governments have led us to believe

Energy firms tell Treasury: don’t bring in windfall tax

Energy companies last night launched a pre-emptive strike on the government ahead of next week’s budget, warning that any windfall tax on the industry would undermine investment in green power projects and other measures to combat climate change.

The makings of an oil supply crunch

Another day, another record high in international oil prices. West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark crude, has hit by some measures its highest ever price in real terms. Its relentless surge poses a conundrum for Opec, the oil producers’ cartel, which meets on Wednesday in Vienna to review output quotas.

California Cows Start Passing Gas To The Grid

RIVERDALE, Calif., - Imagine a vat of liquid cow manure covering the area of five football fields and 33 feet deep. Meet California’s most alternative new energy.

The green betrayal

Green lobby turns on Government over failure to curb air and road travel

The battle of Bear Creek: New threat in America’s backyard

An attack by eco-terrorists on one of Seattle’s most exclusive enclaves has exposed the dark side of environmental activism. Leonard Doyle reports.

New scheme unites UK scientists with developing world

A new non-profit organisation aiming to use the UK scientific community to address the needs of the developing world has been launched in London today (4 March).

Dissolved organic matter in the water column may influence coral health

Bacterial communities endemic to healthy corals could change depending on the amount and type of natural and man-made dissolved organic matter in seawater, report researchers from The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute and Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida.

March 4, 2008

Jaccard gets around with his carbon tax modelling

Mark Jaccard’s one-man crusade to hook Canada up to a monster new global warming policy nightmare popped up again last week.

Climate camp to target coal power station

Climate change activists are to target the site of the proposed new coal-fired power station with a week-long camp in Kent this summer, organisers announced today.

EU nations agree on action against shipping emissions

EU environment ministers agreed Monday that European action is needed to tackle toxic shipping emissions as international maritime authorities had failed to do enough, a spokeswoman said.

No Heathrow runway? Stop flying

The objectors to the Heathrow expansion are hypocrites if they plan to use planes as normal

Global warming threatens more than just coral

The old disappearing islands chestnut again. Granted, there are islands sinking into the sea but that has everything to do with tectonic movement and magma displacement and nothing to do with gorebull warming and sea level rise. Some low atolls are suffering increased erosion, mainly due to excavation of surrounding reef material for building and roads. One other problem is the increased extraction of fresh groundwater (often to support ecotourism) causing local subsidence.

Will global warming increase plant frost damage?

Widespread damage to plants from a sudden freeze that occurred across the Eastern United States from 5 April to 9 April 2007 was made worse because it had been preceded by two weeks of unusual warmth, according to an analysis published in the March 2008 issue of BioScience.

Eat whale and save the planet

If only greenhouse was a problem they might be on to something…

Teacher under fire for showing Gore film without rebuttal

At the very least this alleged teacher is guilty of rank laziness — plonk the kids in front of a movie and don’t bother with teaching. That doesn’t even qualify as low-grade day care.

France, Germany Draw Battlelines On Car Emissions

BRUSSELS - European Union countries that make heavy cars, led by Germany, clashed on Monday with makers of smaller ones such as France over tough measures to force automobile manufacturers to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

EU To Adopt Climate Fight Plan Despite Differences

BRUSSELS - European Union environment ministers expect to approve pivotal plans by December to combat climate change, despite differences over plans for energy-intensive industries and the sustainability of biofuels.

INTERVIEW - UN Urges EU To Aid Developing Nations On Climate

OSLO - The European Union should speedily work out ways to help developing nations fight global warming to avert a "Catch 22" impasse that could brake action worldwide, the UN’s top climate change official said on Monday.

This is interesting. Russell Seitz appears to be taking his lead from the hedgerow snipers at RealKlimat.

If that’s what he has declined to then so be it but should he actually wish to engage as he implies then we are more than happy to give him all the space here that he requires.

Just amazing: People take off their shirts when it gets hot: peer-reviewed study

I am finding it difficult to breath after reading this abstract from a peer-reviewed scholarly article in a respected journal.

Judges at the helm

Two separate federal courts, one in San Francisco and the other in Los Angeles, just ordered the United States Navy to limit its use of sonar, the underwater radar essential for tracking enemy submarines and detecting the ocean floor. These rulings tie the hands of our Navy and are the latest outrage committed by judicial supremacists.

The World Has Plenty of Oil

Many energy analysts view the ongoing waltz of crude prices with the mystical $100 mark — notwithstanding the dollar’s anemia — as another sign of the beginning of the end for the oil era. "[A]t the furthest out, it will be a crisis in 2008 to 2012," declares Matthew Simmons, the most vocal voice among the "neo-peak-oil" club.

Only in California…

Save the planet! Chop down the neighbor’s redwoods!

Solar panels called an economic ‘loser’

Installing solar panels on homes is an economic “loser” with the costs far outweighing the financial benefit, a respected University of California- Berkeley business professor said recently.

Green radicals suspected in US luxury homes fire

Pre-dawn fires destroyed four new homes in an upscale Seattle suburb Monday, local officials said, with environmental extremists reportedly suspected of arson.

California’s ‘exceptional circumstance’ is ecochondria, nothing else.

Global Warming Skeptics Insist Humans Not at Fault

When Christopher Monckton, who served as a special adviser to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, ponders the current political push to curb greenhouse gases linked to climate change, he thinks of King Canute.

Climate Skeptics Roast Gore On Global Warming

NEW YORK - Al Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar for his environmental advocacy, was the main target on Monday at a conference of dissident scientists skeptical of his views on global warming.

Weather Channel Founder Blasts Network; Claims It Is ‘Telling Us What to Think’

TWC founder and global warming skeptic advocates suing Al Gore to expose ‘the fraud of global warming.’

Heartland conference: day 1

For the next three days, I’ll be reporting on the Heartland Conference on Climate Change.

Heartland conference: day 2

In the morning, there were enormous piles of bacon, which is, as all competent doctor’s should recommend, is the best way to start a day.

Donations To Climate Science

Is there a sadder or more eloquent commentary than this? Professor Roger A. Pielke Sr. is absolutely not a skeptic and states categorically that anthropogenic warming is a fact, a problem needing to be addressed. His ‘crime’ is in looking for the real reasons for apparent warming and raising questions about the accepted CO₂ orthodoxy. He questions the use of global mean temperature as a metric and challenges poorly sited thermometry as a basis for this metric.

And the professor must effectively panhandle to fund communicating a wider diversity of climate science information. Says way too much about climate science and orthodoxy, doesn’t it?

Hundreds More Scientists Have Found the 1,500-Year Climate Cycle

The following list includes more than 400 additional qualified scientists, with their home institutions, and the peer-reviewed studies they have published in professional journals, which reveal evidence of the moderate 1,500-year Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles. Together with a previous list released by Hudson on Sept. 12, 2007, this brings the total of scientific researchers who have published evidence of this natural cycle to more than 700.

The enemy within (Number Watch)

Global Temperatures Have Dropped: Did Sunspots Predict It?

CHURCHVILLE, VA—Three of the world’s major climate monitors have announced that the earth’s temperatures dropped over the last 12 months—by enough to virtually offset the entire “unprecedented warming” of the last century. This comes after nine years of no warming, and a net warming since 1940 of just 0.2 degrees.

Equally important, a drop in temperatures had been predicted by the sunspot index that foretells the earth’s temperature changes with a log time of nearly a decade.

Team probes mysteries of oceanic bacteria: Wee creatures are key to Earth’s environment

Microbes living in the oceans play a critical role in regulating Earth’s environment, but very little is known about their activities and how they work together to help control natural cycles of water, carbon and energy.

THE GLOBAL WARMING SCAM - Dr Vincent Gray

PowerPoint presentation by Dr Gray at International Conference on Climate Change, New York, 3 March, 2008 (Climate Science NZ)

Alternatively we have converted it to .pdf (717kb) here: The Global Warming Scam

Cool And The Gang

Knut the polar bear isn’t so cute and cuddly anymore. He’s grown up a tad and is now a killing machine capable of surviving in perhaps the Earth’s most hostile environment — the Arctic.

Nor is the poster animal for warming warnings that drive children to tears and his kind in danger of perishing anytime soon.

ANALYSIS: Tug-of-war begins over EU climate change plans

Brussels - With the ink barely dry on the European Commission’s plans for fighting climate change, the European Union’s member states have already begun a tug-of-war to pull the legal proposals in their favour.

Lunar eclipse may shed light on climate change

Last month’s lunar eclipse not only treated skygazers to a ruddy view of the Moon – it revealed that Earth’s atmosphere contains little light-blocking volcanic dust.

Some researchers say the low volcanic dust levels in the atmosphere over the last dozen years could be contributing to global warming, but others dispute the claim.

Unfavorable ocean conditions likely cause of low 2007 salmon returns along West Coast

NOAA scientists are reviewing unusual environmental conditions in the Pacific Ocean as the likely culprit for the dramatically low returns of Chinook and coho salmon to rivers and streams along the West Coast of the United States in 2007.

Clean Seas is playing the right tuna

AUSTRALIAN company Clean Seas Tuna has become the first in the world to successfully breed southern bluefin tuna in captivity.

FTC reviews rules to keep advertisers true ‘green’

Attention companies jumping on the "green" bandwagon: If you claim you’re Earth-friendly, you may soon need to prove it.

The great organic con trick

Organic produce is better for you? Robert Johnston explodes five myths about its benefits (The First Post)

King of soya: environmental vandal or saviour of the world’s poor?

Vast plantations are a source of cheap food - but also encourage deforestation

Invading trees put rainforests at risk

To the list of threats to tropical rainforests you can add a new one — trees. It might seem that for a rainforest the more trees the merrier, but a new study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution warns that non-native trees invading a rainforest can change its basic ecological structure — rendering it less hospitable to the myriad plant and animal species that depend on its resources.

France proposes tougher EU rules for modified crops

BRUSSELS, March 3 (AFP) Mar 03, 2008
France on Monday proposed scrapping the EU's present system for authorising genetically modified crops for tougher standards which take into account a wide range of environmental and safety factors.

North plea over GM food imports

Northern Ireland farmers must be allowed to import genetically modified (GM) animal feed to help them survive in the face of spiralling grain costs, Assembly members have claimed.

In a debate on the impact of the inflated global feed markets on the local intensive farming sector MLAs backed a proposal calling on the EU to loosen restrictions on the import of biotech feedstuffs.

States Move to Label Cloned Food

After the FDA refused to require labels for cloned food, some state legislatures are drafting laws to respond to consumers’ demands.

March 3, 2008

Federal court rejects Bush stance over Navy sonar use

The Commander in Chief and the Navy are required to protect the country. Wonder if that includes retiring enviro-activist judges? It probably should.

All About: Eco-philanthropy [read: “misanthropic twits”]

(CNN) — If the excessive lifestyles of the rich have been partly to blame for destroying the environment, then it seems equitable that they use their money to preserve it. But the degree to which they are actually helping does largely depend on what they do with their money. And some ‘beneficiaries’ of that aid are yet to be convinced.

The Indy takes pot shots at the messenger

The first international conference designed to question the scientific consensus on climate change is being sponsored by a right-wing American think-tank which receives money from the oil industry.

The same group has tried to undermine the link between passive smoking and health problems and has accepted donations from a major tobacco company.

Here's another sample of The Indy's smear tactics:

On 21 February, The Independent's Johann Hari wrote a typically terrible column in which he made a fairly explicit statement about the need for green authoritarianism to control carbon emissions:

'The only way that can ever happen is by governments legislating to force us all – green and anti-green – to shift towards cleaner behaviour. Just as the government in the Second World War did not ask people to eat less voluntarily, governments today cannot ask us to burn fewer greenhouse gases voluntarily.'

He also suggested that anyone critical of the 'consensus' around climate change could only be doing so as corporate shills - and specifically mentioned Spiked in that regard:

'[T]he only people who cling to a libertarian defence of fossil fuels are people who take money from the fossil fuel industry itself, like Spiked Online. They have to scrape together any old excuse.'

However, only today - 10 days after the original article - has The Independent deigned to print our editor's short rebuttal of Hari's attempt to smear Spiked:

'Sir: Contrary to Johann Hari's claims (21 February), my online magazine spiked has never "taken money from the fossil fuel industry", and those organisations that do sponsor us do not dictate our editorial agenda. It is testament to the small-mindedness of today's illiberal liberal commentators that they think anyone who criticises green authoritarianism must be in the pay of Big Oil.

Brendan O'Neill'

JunkScience readers can make their own minds up about the ethical standards of Independent columnists. In the meantime, Spiked is open to working with any organisation - public or private - that shares our desire for open debate and editorial independence.

Rob Lyons
Deputy Editor, Spiked

Earth to Red Ken: Bugger off! Thieving little dictator!

United States embassy in Grosvenor Square, London. Photograph: Alamy

Ken Livingstone will be thumbing through his thesaurus in search of new adjectives. The US embassy in London - whose head has been described by the London mayor as a "chiselling little crook" - now owes more than £2m in unpaid congestion charge payments and other traffic penalties, the Guardian has learned.

No it doesn't. Red Ken just doesn't understand that he can't impose illegal taxes.

Fishing down the food chain?

Not content to wait for people to have kids for them to exploit WWF are scamming the soon to be wed:

Following Hansen’s lead: “They’re trying to silence me”?

More short-term phenology. Note the reverse situation here, when the worry was the trend 1950s-1970s. The Indy is impressed but then they have no clue about contemporary history (and not much about anything else either, for that matter). From the 50-70s growing seasons shortened. Since then they’ve lengthened. Isn’t it good?

Global Warming Paradox?

What paradox? The better informed people are the less likely they are to fear the irrelevant.

Skeptics on Human Climate Impact Seize on Cold Spell

Andy is right to point out a downturn in apparent global mean temperature means very little in the short-term (as we have been telling everyone for quite a few years about gorebull warming really). On the other hand skeptics are probably justified in so doing in order to counter the absurd everything-is-caused-by-warming mantra repeated ad nauseum by activists and the majority of the media (probably can’t blame ‘em that much — there’s no revenue in "everything’s alright").

Is Winter 2008 Making Climate Alarmists Question Global Warming?

For years, climate realists have been wondering how the global warming alarmists would react when the planet actually cooled, albeit for an unknown amount of time.

Michael McCarthy: Proof that we are not taking climate change seriously

Wrong on two counts. We take climate change very seriously — significant cooling will be hugely injurious to large numbers of people and wildlife. Moreover we take global warming hype extremely seriously as this has far more potential for inflicting massive harm on far more people and could so bankrupt society that all environmental protection must be abandoned in the effort to survive. Gorebull warming hype is the biggest threat we face today.

Europe faces slowdown

Strict emission regulations add to malaise as business climate and consumer confidence deteriorate.
Christine Tierney / The Detroit News

Japan Says To Consider Emissions Trading System

TOKYO - Japan will consider a scheme for trading greenhouse gas emissions, the government said on Friday, a week after a powerful business lobby and the trade ministry softened their strong opposition.

Clueless Crone: The Senate Shills for Big Oil

One of the major shortcomings in last year’s admirable energy bill was its failure to extend vital tax credits to producers of wind, solar and other renewable fuels. This was entirely the doing of the Senate, which caved in to the oil companies and their White House friends.

Tax Cut For Hugo?

If there’s anything more dumbfounding than the House’s imposition of higher taxes on oil companies, thereby guaranteeing higher prices at the pump, it’s the exemption voted for Venezuela’s state oil firm.

It goes to show that Congress is more willing to empower dictators than to get serious about America’s energy supply.

What’s Eating Big Coal?

The prospect of government caps on greenhouse-gas emissions may be the least of coal’s concerns.

Skyrocketing capital costs already are making coal a tougher sell. The cheap and abundant fuel source—which provides half the power in the U.S.—isn’t so cheap anymore.

Priced Out of the Market

The world’s food situation is bleak, and shortsighted policies in the United States and other wealthy countries — which are diverting crops to environmentally dubious biofuels — bear much of the blame.

Crop Boom May Prompt Food Aid Rethink In US Congress

WASHINGTON - A lawmaker who has championed using US food aid donations to fund development projects is rethinking his support of proposed legislation as soaring commodity prices eat into aid available for crises.

ANALYSIS - Tough Times For US Ethanol To Force Shake-Out

NEW YORK - US ethanol producers likely face an industry shake-out as record corn prices driven by the alternative fuel boom are set to last into the foreseeable future, squeezing profits for small distillers.

Brazilian Ethanol Goes It Alone

BRASILIA, Mar 1 (IPS) - Despite the urgency to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change, Brazil has been unable to stave off the doubts that are slowing the growth of an international market for plant-based biofuels.

EPA says global climate change problem isn’t unique to California

Quite correct and since no ‘problem’ is peculiar to California (other than being California, perhaps) then all waivers should be rescinded immediately and Californians can try acting like real people, too.

‘Enjoy life while you can’

Right advice for the wrong reasons. Despite the fact the developed world doesn’t really have any environmental problems, things are the best they’ve ever been, which is why enviros now have to fight mythical problems like ‘catastrophic climate disruption’, this twit wants to claim he was right about environmental catastrophe. If things are so bad how did this nutter make the ripe old age of 88? What were his chances of that had he been born just 100 years earlier?

Tickelled Green

Patron of the Optimum Population Trust, neo-malthusian and miserablist to world governments, Sir Crispin Tickell went head-to-head with Austin Williams of the Future Cities Project on the question of "are there too many of us?" on Thursday. BBC Radio 4’s PM program has been featuring the question all week, leading to some interesting discussion. You can catch the program here. (It starts about 42 minutes in.)

Repeat: More Prisoners = Less Crime

The number of adults imprisoned in the U.S. has hit an all-time high, a new report says, bringing with it fresh concern about "our priorities." Don’t know about you, but we think this is a good thing.

‘Chronic Diseases Bigger Threat Than Terrorism’

SYDNEY, Feb 29 (IPS) - International health experts and activists are calling for immediate global action to avert the looming epidemic of preventable chronic diseases which will kill 388 million people in the next decade, threatening economies in the developed and developing worlds.

Cod liver oil tied to low bone mass in women

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Cod liver oil, a long-used source of vitamin D, may have the unexpected effect of lowering bone mass, a new study suggests.

Selling hope — Can 48 special supplements reverse a genetic condition?

A recently published anti-oxidant vitamin and mineral supplement study was so understated, that the significance of what the researchers were doing and found was largely missed. But it could provide parents of babies with Down syndrome information to help protect them from questionable, costly and potentially harmful products promoted with promises that far exceed the science.

South Korean scientist caught faking breakthrough research

A South Korean scientist who once said he wanted to be as famous as now-disgraced stem cell expert Hwang Woo-Suk has been caught faking his study, news reports here said Saturday.

Poor indoctrinated little blighters

When his teacher asked the class to come up with ideas for a unit on arctic climate change, 5th-grader Vinay Vemuri initially thought he should write to the president and express his concerns about global warming.

New wave protesters target airport expansion

Terrific! A whole new crop of bloody idiots with no idea of what it has taken to provide them the pampered existence they seek to deny everyone else.

Google Earth showed protesters way to conquer parliament

They should pay an enormous price for breaching parliamentary security and Leake should end his days in the tower for publicizing their methodology. Don’t these idiots know terrorist planners read? And if Google wants to profit from these toys they have an absolute moral obligation to blur out every security-sensitive site in their databases and this is an object lesson why.

Climate crisis getting short shrift in US president race: Gore

Here’s Albert, trying to drum up business again. Do you suppose he’s trying to distract people from the way the world has been ‘warming in a negative manner’ lately?

Rent-seekers run amok: Banks Say In Talks To Shape US Climate Policy

LONDON - US banks, industry and decision makers are holding open talks about the shape of future climate regulations in the United States, likely to have far-reaching impact on the economy, bankers say.

The main idea of any climate change regime is to put a price on carbon emissions, for example with a carbon tax, or subsidise alternative, low carbon-emitting energy technologies like solar power, or both.

Carbon calculator provides personalized footprint

Heck, our carbon calculator may not have pictures (and therefore may not suit Californians) but it will give you a much clearer picture of exactly how much your carbon sacrifice will do for the planet.

Interesting Paper On Trends In Atmospheric Moist Enthalpy

Souleymane Fall of Purdue University has alerted us to a very interesting new paper on trends in the combined effect on heat of water vapor and sensible temperature (i.e., moist enthalpy; see Pielke et al. 2004). (Climate Science)

Strong La Niña brings historic values for the Southern Oscillation Index

February monthly value can be the highest for the month since records began

Preliminary data indicate that the monthly SOI for February will be around 20.5, according to the Australian daily monitoring tool. The final number will be released on Monday (March 3rd) by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), but it is already possible to anticipate a major and historic milestone.

EGYPT: Scientists uncertain about climate change impact on Nile

Photo: Martina Fuchs/IRIN

The Nile supplies 95 percent of Egypt’s total water needs for irrigation, and industrial and economic activities

CAIRO, 2 March 2008 (IRIN) - One scenario set out by climatologists is that global warming in Egypt could speed up the Nile river evaporation process and lead to a decline in freshwater supplies, exacerbating the country’s acute shortage of water for drinking, irrigation and hydro-electric generation.

Such a scenario could also have serious socio-economic consequences, one of which could be that Egypt might not be able to feed its 80 million people.