Clinton Invokes Climate Change Debate to Explain Pakistan Floods
August 21, 2010
FoxNews.com

Didn’t you know folks that Bill’s (depends on what the meaning of is, is) wife is now an expert on climatology? What a pathetic excuse for Secretary of State of The United States. Rock bottom we have hit. But feel free Mrs. Climatology to run against the worse president the nation has ever had in the next primary elections.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gestures while speaking about the global health initiative Aug. 16 in Washington. (AP Photo)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other officials are pointing to the devastating floods in Pakistan and other extreme weather events as signs that climate change is getting worse.

Clinton, in an interview with Pakistan’s Dawn TV, said “there is a linkage” between the recent spate of deadly natural disasters and climate change.

“You can’t point to any particular disaster and say, ‘it was caused by,’ but we are changing the climate of the world,” she said.

Clinton said that on top of the Pakistan floods, which have forced millions out of their homes, the forest fires in Russia stand as another example. She said there’s no “direct link” between the disasters in Pakistan and Russia but that “when you have the changes in climate that affect weather that we’re now seeing, I think the predictions of more natural disasters are unfortunately being played out.”

Climate change skeptics say the planet is going through natural phases — the kind it’s gone through for eons. Pakistan, in particular, is prone to flooding and is routinely drenched by the monsoon rains. Some officials have partially blamed deforestation and inferior levee systems for the historic flooding which has affected one-fifth of the country’s landmass and triggered nearly a half-billion dollars in international aid commitments.

Scientists who study climate change tend to offer more nuance in their explanations of the possible link to a rise in greenhouse gas emissions. They generally say that no one natural disaster can be chalked up to man-caused climate change, but that it can contribute to those disasters happening more frequently and more intensely.

Both the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change and the World Meteorological Organization reiterated that point in light of the Pakistan floods. WMO climate data chief Omar Baddour was quoted saying it’s “too early to point to a human fingerprint” behind the recent disasters but climate change may be “exacerbating the intensity” of them.

But some government officials have shown little equivocation in directly linking the Pakistan disaster with climate change.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan’s foreign minister, said Thursday that his country’s flooding “reconfirms our extreme vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change.”

In a remarkable monograph, Roy W. Spencer presents hard evidence that 75% of the observed warming since the start of the 20th century is due to natural processes. He offers a detailed model describing how one of these processes, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), operates in the real world. Most importantly, he demonstrates that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a minor contributor to a global climate largely insensitive to man-made CO2.

Thanks to this highly skilled climatologist and his The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled The World’s Top Climate Scientists, we can now taunt the often corrupt and overtly political planetary high priests with this: PDO means AGW is DOA.

Written in a style that should be attractive to both warming newcomers and scientists from other fields, the volume’s appearance is not a welcome event for the world’s strident purveyors of global warming orthodoxy. For in the gentlest language possible, Spencer is telling the AGW clingers that they are scientifically incompetent lemmings.

The “blunder” Dr. Spencer (a leading analyst of satellite-derived atmospheric data) refers to is a basic one: confusing cause and effect. Most would-be scientists who make this mistake once, let alone repeatedly, often go into another kind of work. It’s the equivalent of the graduate student who forgets to plug in his detector and then reports a successful negative check experiment.

The effect Spencer seeks to explain is the 1.8ºC warming of the earth since 1900. He argues effectively that accepted global warming dogma and funding agency prejudices had discouraged potential heretics from seriously entertaining the idea that long-term, natural variations, rather than man-made CO2 “pollution,” could be operating over the timescale of a century to warm and cool our planet.

And as the recent Climategate scandal has confirmed, the AGW church fathers will discredit, shun, and excommunicate any deviant member of the warming consensus congregation.

Indeed, it is frustration with the controlling climate hierarchy that led Spencer to communicate his findings directly with the public in book form rather than in the peer-reviewed literature. He guides the reader through the fundamental blunder that has led almost every scientist astray.

Observing increasing CO2 levels and increasing temperatures, scientists assumed that the former must have caused the latter. How did the warmers know that it wasn’t the other way around, and that higher temperatures caused higher CO2 concentrations? Or how did the warmers know that there wasn’t another process, a naturally occurring one, that caused the temperature rise, with increasing CO2 just along for the ride? Answer: They didn’t, because they never bothered to look.

They never felt that they had to look, since emitting CO2 for the true believer is a kind of original sin, a crime committed by affluent societies that requires no corroborating evidence, let alone a scientific trial to determine guilt. But Spencer decided to look, peering into the CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) satellite data more deeply than anyone else in the field.

And ultimately, with just four parameters, keen insight into the behavior of the PDA and clouds, a simple program, and a few thousand Monte Carlo simulations, he was able to produce a model that explains our current climate system and man’s role in it with unprecedented clarity.

Spencer devotes several chapters to the important role of feedback in understanding climate and the need to carefully separate it from existing forces (causes) to avoid overestimating the sensitivity of climate to external changes.

At the end of Spencer’s careful analysis, a simple picture emerges. The PDO is a long-lived ocean-to-atmosphere heat transfer process (similar to the better-known El Niño and La Niña) but of much longer duration. Cloud cover decreases significantly during the positive PDO phase, allowing more sunlight to reach the earth’s surface. In the ocean, this extra energy is stored as heat. In its negative phase, the PDO acts in reverse and cools the atmosphere. And all of this occurs in roughly thirty-year cycles. While this mechanism is operating, mankind is dumping a small, vanishing amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. Big deal.

The most prominent frauds active in promoting AGW have always tried to bury evidence of natural warming and cooling cycles. Truly, the Medieval Warming Period and Little Ice Age are threats to their very CO2-obsessed existence. But these eras occurred centuries ago, with only proxies (like tree rings) to indicate the actual prevailing temperatures. Hence, data from these eras are easily brushed aside and forgotten. Not so with recent thermometer measurements, and temperatures from two periods in particular that have always plagued the theory of AGW.

The first is the period from 1900-1940. A full 60% of the temperature increase measured in the last century occurred during these forty years, when less industrialization existed worldwide and therefore less CO2 had been spewed into our atmosphere. The mild cooling period that ended in the mid-1970s is also baffling. But like any good theory, Spencer’s PDO-focused model fits the temperature data during these decades amazingly well. Natural processes — cloud formation and heat transfer — dominated the temperatures during these decades, as in every other decade in the modern era.

There is no greater pleasure in a scientist’s life than being able to explain phenomena more simply and comprehensively than anyone else did before him. This sense permeates Spencer’s book, along with something else: moral outrage.

Some wealthy, spoiled, self-hating Westerners might in their affluence be able to afford expensive energy alternatives to power — things like wind and solar that don’t directly involve the emission of CO2. But the rest of the world cannot. Cheap, affordable energy, the kind that comes from coal, natural gas and oil, is a prerequisite for any society to rise economically. Spencer seems thrilled to be able to tell the developing world that they have a free pass to burn hydrocarbons and prosper. – American Thinker

(H/T Peg)

Insects could be the key to meeting food needs of growing global population: The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation is taking seriously the farming of creepy-crawlies as nutritious food

Saving the planet one plateful at a time does not mean cutting back on meat, according to new research: the trick may be to switch our diet to insects and other creepy-crawlies.

The raising of livestock such as cows, pigs and sheep occupies two-thirds of the world’s farmland and generates 20% of all the greenhouse gases driving global warming. As a result, the United Nations and senior figures want to reduce the amount of meat we eat and the search is on for alternatives.

A policy paper on the eating of insects is being formally considered by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. The FAO held a meeting on the theme in Thailand in 2008 and there are plans for a world congress in 2013.

Professor Arnold van Huis, an entomologist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and the author of the UN paper, says eating insects has advantages.

“There is a meat crisis,” he said. “The world population will grow from six billion now to nine billion by 2050 and we know people are consuming more meat. Twenty years ago the average was 20kg, it is now 50kg, and will be 80kg in 20 years. If we continue like this we will need another Earth.”

Van Huis is an enthusiast for eating insects but given his role as a consultant to the FAO, he can’t be dismissed as a crank. “Most of the world already eats insects,” he points out. “It is only in the western world that we don’t. Psychologically we have a problem with it. I don’t know why, as we eat shrimps, which are very comparable.”

The advantages of this diet include insects’ high levels of protein, vitamin and mineral content. Van Huis’s latest research, conducted with colleague Dennis Oonincx, shows that farming insects produces far less greenhouse gas than livestock. Breeding commonly eaten insects such as locusts, crickets and meal worms, emits 10 times less methane than livestock. The insects also produce 300 times less nitrous oxide, also a warming gas, and much less ammonia, a pollutant produced by pig and poultry farming.

Being cold-blooded, insects convert plant matter into protein extremely efficiently, Van Huis says. In addition, he argues, the health risks are lower. He acknowledges that in the west eating insects is a hard sell: “It is very important how you prepare them, you have to do it very nicely, to overcome the yuk factor.”

More than 1,000 insects are known to be eaten by choice around the world, in 80% of nations. They are most popular in the tropics, where they grow to large sizes and are easy to harvest.

The FAO’s field officer Patrick Durst, based in Bangkok, Thailand, ran the 2008 conference.

Durst helped set up an insect farming project FAO project in Laos which began in April. This involves transferring the skills of the 15,000 household locust farmers in Thailand across the border. “There were some proponents of a bigger dairy industry in Laos to improve a calcium deficiency,” says Durst, whose favourite is fried wasp – “very crispy and a nice light snack”. “But this is crazy when most Asians are lactose intolerant.” Locusts and crickets are calcium-rich and 90% of people in Laos have eaten insects at some point, he says.Durst says the FAO’s priority will be to boost the eating of insects where this is already accepted but has been in decline due to western cultural influence.

He also thinks such a boost can provide livelihoods and protect forests where many wild insects are collected. “I can see a step-by-step process to wider implementation.”

First, insects could be used to feed farmed animals such as chicken and fish which eat them naturally. Then, they could be used as ingredients.

Van Huis adds: “We’re looking at ways of grinding the meat into some sort of patty, which would be more recognisable to western palates.”

One of the few suppliers of insects for human consumption in the UK is Paul Cook, whose business Osgrow is based in Bristol. However, no matter how they are marketed or presented, Cook is not convinced they will ever become more than a novelty. “They are in the fun element … But I can’t see it ever catching on in the UK in a big way.”

• This article was amended on 2 August 2010. In the original, Professor Arnold van Huis was described as an entomologist at Wageningen University in Belgium. This has been corrected.

LOCAL TREATS
Thailand Dishes include fried giant red ants, crickets and June beetles

Colombia “Fat-bottomed” ants are a popular snack, fried and salted

Papua New Guinea Sago grubs in banana leaves are a local delicacy

Ghana Winged termites are collected and fried, roasted, or made into bread

Japan Dishes include aquatic fly larvae in sugar and candied grasshoppers

Mexico The agave worm is eaten on tortillas, and grasshoppers are toasted

Cambodia Deep-fried tarantulas are popular with locals and tourists

South Africa Locusts lend interest to the staple dish of cornmeal porridge

Australia Witchetty grubs are a traditional part of the Aboriginal diet

President Obama said the U.S. has the right strategy in Afghanistan in his first public comments about the Wikileaks controversy.

Obama acknowledged Tuesday he is concerned about the “substantial” leak of more than 93,000 sensitive documents on the site Wikileaks.org, but he said the information “doesn’t reveal any issues that haven’t already informed our debate on Afghanistan.”

Without naming any names, Obama blamed the bad policies outlined in the leaked documents on the previous administration, noting the documents predate his new strategy announced in early December 2009.

In comments from the Rose Garden, the president said the United States now has the right strategy in the region, and Congress needs to act to provide the funds to “see that strategy through.”

Obama’s remarks followed a meeting with Senate and House leaders from both parties and were preceded by a 20-minute Oval Office huddle with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and legislative director Phil Schiliro.

Obama said he pressed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) to support and pass the war supplemental act, which has already passed the Senate unanimously. The House is to take up the Senate’s bill as soon as Tuesday.

The meeting with House and Senate leaders comes days before the House leaves for the August recess and less than 100 days before the midterm elections. Obama pleaded with Congress to ignore the “noise and the chatter” of the campaign season and focus on the legislative priorities the American people elected them to act upon.

The president voiced his tepid support for energy legislation the Senate will soon take up, even though it does not include provisions clamping down on carbon emissions.

“That legislation is an important step in the right direction,” Obama said. “But I want to emphasize it’s only the first step.”

He said he would “keep pushing” for more comprehensive energy legislation that deals with climate change.

The president also asked Congress to act on the small-business tax cuts package Senate Democrats have unveiled, saying such “commonsense steps” should be taken so small businesses are not “held hostage by partisan politics.”

One Republican aide said that in the meeting, Obama and lawmakers did not discuss any new ground, and Republicans and Democrats largely appeared to be at an impasse over the Democrats’ remaining legislative agenda. – The Hill

‘Climategate’ professor gets his job back

Professor Phil Jones, the scientist at the centre of the ‘climategate scandal’, is to be reinstated in his role at the University of East Anglia after being cleared of dishonesty by a major review.

Prof Jones lost his job as head of the Climatic Research Unit at the UEA after personal emails he sent appeared on the internet.

The emails referred to a ‘trick’ used to interpret data and the death of a leading climate change sceptic as “cheering news.”

Sceptics claimed the stolen emails showed Prof Jones and his colleagues were willing to manipulate key data to exaggerate the rise in global temperatures.

The scandal, that became known as ‘climategate’, caused repercussions around the world as it was used by those who question the case for man made global warming.

However a comprehensive review into the case by Sir Muir Russell, a senior UK civil servant, has cleared Prof Jones of dishonest behaviour.

Edward Acton, Vice Chancellor of the UEA, immediately announced that Prof Jones will be reinstated as Director of Research in CRU, a role of similar importance to his last post.

He said it was a personal vindication for Prof Jones, who has said he considered suicide over the affair.

“We hope this means the wilder assertions about the climate science community will stop,” he said.

However sceptics claimed the report was a whitewash and questioned the reinstatement of Prof Jones.

David Holland, one of the leading sceptics on the blogosphere, pointed out that Prof Jones referred to deleting emails in one of his communications.

“Would you trust a man who has asked to delete evidence?” he said.

The theft of the emails from the UEA at the end of last year caused a worldwide scandal just as the United Nations was meeting in Copenhagen to discuss the threat of global warming.

Sceptics said the emails show scientists exaggerated the extent of global warming by cherry picking certain data to show a rise in global temperatures. They repeatedly tried to retrieve the raw data behind the graphs under Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

But after six months of trawling through the emails Sir Muir Russell and his team of experts concluded that there was no evidence of dishonesty.

The review group point out that the global temperature records in question can be downloaded in a “matter of minutes” from different sources and show a similar conclusion to UEA.

Sir Muir said the report found no evidence the extent of global warming has been exaggerated.

“Climate science is a matter of such global importance, that the highest standards of honesty, rigour and openness and needed in its conduct,” he said. “On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.”

However Prof Jones was described as “unhelpful” and “defensive” in dealing with FOI requests, that are required to be answered under law, and the UEA was criticised for its lack of transparency.

“We do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degrees of openness, both on the part of UEA and, who failed to recognise not only the significance of the statutory requirements but also the risk to the reputation of the university and, indeed to the credibility of UK climate science,” added Sir Muir.

The review also partially upheld the accusation that scientists used a “trick” to “hide the decline” in an iconic graph used to show an increase in global temperatures since industrial times.

The graph, which was used in a report published in 1999 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and circulated widely, did not show temperature data from tree-rings once they diverged from actual measurements in the 1960s, falling while real temperatures rose.

The review said it was not misleading to omit part of the tree ring temperature series but the process should have been made plain in the graph, caption or text.

“We do not find that the [graph] is misleading per se,” Sir Muir continued. “But we believe the procedures used should have been made plain.”

:: The Met Office will continue to provide weather forecasts for the BBC. The 90-year contract was up for annual review and it had been suggested a New Zealand compay would provide forecasts after the ‘BBQ summer’ furore. But the BBC said the Met Office continues to provide the best service. – Telegraph UK

‘Green’ Energy Company Threatens Economics Professor … with Package of Dismantled Bomb Parts

Spain’s Dr. Gabriel Calzada — the author of a damning study concluding that Spain’s “green jobs” energy program has been a catastrophic economic failure — was mailed a dismantled bomb on Tuesday by solar energy company Thermotechnic.

Says Calzada:

Before opening it, I called [Thermotechnic] to know what was inside … they answered, it was their answer to my energy pieces.

Dr. Calzada contacted a terrorism expert to handle the package. The expert first performed a scan of the package, then opened it in front of a journalist, Dr. Calzada, and a private security expert.

The terrorism consultant said he had seen this before:

[The terrorism expert] told me that this was a warning.

The bomb threat is just the latest intimidation Dr. Calzada has faced since releasing his report and following up with articles in Expansion (a Spanish paper similar to the Financial Times). A minister from Spain’s Socialist government called the rector of King Juan Carlos University — Dr. Calzada’s employer — seeking Calzada’s ouster. Calzada was not fired, but he was stripped of half of his classes at the university. The school then dropped its accreditation of a summer university program with which Calzada’s think tank — Instituto Juan de Mariana — was associated.

Additionally, the head of Spain’s renewable energy association and the head of its communist trade union wrote opinion pieces in top Spanish newspapers accusing Calzada of being “unpatriotic” — they did not charge him with being incorrect, but of undermining Spain by daring to write the report.

Their reasoning? If the skepticism that Calzada’s revelations prompted were to prevail in the U.S., Spanish industry would face collapse should U.S. subsidies and mandates dry up.

As I have previously reported at PJM (here and here), Spain’s “green jobs” program was repeatedly referenced by President Obama as a model for what he would like to implement in the United States. Following the release of Calzada’s report, Spain’s Socialist government has since acknowledged the debacle — both privately and publicly. This month, Spain’s government instituted massive reductions in subsidies to “renewable” energy sources.

Dr. Calzada is a friend of mine, kindly writing a blurb for the jacket of my latest book: Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America . My book details the Spanish “green jobs” disaster uncovered by Dr. Calzada, plus similar “green” economic calamities occurring in Germany and Denmark — also programs Obama has praised — as well as in Italy and elsewhere.

As I detail in Power Grab, they felt Spain would be in a dire position without the U.S. playing the role of sucker. With today’s revelation, now we know just how far the “green energy” lobby will go to keep the money flowing.

Christopher Horner @ PJM

Global warming book withdrawn

By Joe Dejka

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Millard Public Schools will stop using a children’s book about global warming — but only until the district can obtain copies with a factual error corrected.

A review committee, convened after parents complained, concluded that author Laurie David’s book, “The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming,” contained “a major factual error” in a graphic about rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels.

Mark Feldhausen, associate superintendent for educational services, this week sent a letter to parents who complained, including the wife of U.S. Rep. Lee Terry of Nebraska, outlining the committee’s findings.

“Although the authors have pledged to correct the graph in subsequent editions, the committee recommends that this correction be made to all MPS-owned texts before using it with students in the future,” Feldhausen wrote.

Corrected versions will continue to be used in Millard’s sixth-grade language arts curriculum, he wrote.

However, the district will cease to use a companion video about global warming, narrated by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, he wrote.

The committee found the video “without merit” and recommended that it not be used.

Robyn Terry, the congressman’s wife, had described the video as a “political commercial.”

Lee and Robyn Terry released a statement saying they were pleased with the decision and “impressed” by the district’s handling of the case.

“We are pleased with their decision not to use the politically natured global warming video as a classroom instruction tool and that they have set a standard that information-based texts must be factually correct to be put in front of our children,” they wrote.

A committee of five middle school parents, three teachers and one administrator met to determine whether the book and video served a proper purpose within the curriculum.

The book, new to the Millard curriculum this year, was part of “Plugged in to Non-Fiction,” a collection of books on a variety of subjects. Parts of the book were required reading for sixth-graders in Millard reading and language-arts classes.

Three parents, including Robyn Terry, complained to the district. The Terrys’ 12-year-old son attended Beadle Middle School last year. Mrs. Terry said that the materials used in his class portrayed global warming as fact when scientists disagree.

In the video, DiCaprio attributes global warming to mankind’s “destructive addiction” to oil. He says “big corporations” and politicians gained too much money and power “on our addiction,” making them “dangerously resistant to change.”

In the letter to parents, Feldhausen said the committee recognized there are “multiple viewpoints” on global warming. The committee recommended that all teachers using the book “make students aware of both sides of the global warming theory,” he said.

Omaha.com

April 19, 2010
Last in Class: Critics Give U.N. Climate Researchers An ‘F’
By Gene J. Koprowski
FOXNews.com NoConsensus.org

Hey folks, it’s very easy for me, and frankly quite tempting, to use Al Gore as the symbol/logo of this never-ending push to convince people of global warming. So here he is again. Hi Al. It seems as if Fire Mouth Al is just the right man to represent the looney-toons of global warming/climate change. Besides, Fire Mouth Al is just a big blow-hard.

It may be time for the United Nations’ climate-studies scientists to go back to school.

A group of 40 auditors — including scientists and public policy experts from across the globe — have released a shocking report card on the U.N.’s landmark climate-change research report.

And they gave 21 of the report’s 44 chapters a grade of “F.”

The team, recruited by the climate-change skeptics behind the website NoConsensus.org, found that 5,600 of the 18,500 sources in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Nobel Prize-winning 2007 report were not peer reviewed.

“We’ve been told this report is the gold standard,” said Canadian global-warming skeptic Donna Laframboise, who runs the NoConsensus.org site and who organized the online effort to examine the U.N.’s references in the report, commonly known as the AR4.

The cover of the IPCC’s fourth assessment report to the U.N., “Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report,” more frequently referred to as AR4.

“We’ve been told it’s 100 percent peer-reviewed science. But thousands of sources cited by this report have been nowhere near a scientific journal.”

Based on the grading system used in American schools, 21 chapters in the IPCC report received an F for citing peer-reviewed sources less than 60 percent of the time. Four chapters received a D, and six received a C.

The report also got eight A’s and five B’s from the auditors, who included Bob Ashworth, a member of the American Geophysical Union, and Dr. Darko Butina, a director of Chemomine Consultancy Ltd.

According to Lafromboise, much of the scientific research published by the U.N. cited press releases, newspaper and magazine clippings, student theses, newsletters, discussion papers, and literature published by green advocacy groups. Such material is often called “gray literature,” she said, and it stands in stark contrast to the U.N.’s claims about the study’s sources.

In June 2008, Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC’s chairman, said: “People can have confidence in the IPCC’s conclusions, given that it is all on the basis of peer-reviewed literature.

“We don’t pick up a newspaper article and, based on that, come up with our findings,” he told a group at the Commonwealth Club.

The U.N. is not commenting in depth on the audit, but it has acknowledged its existence. Isabel Garcia-Gill, a spokeswoman for the IPCC in Geneva, told FoxNews.com that the U.N. knows of what she terms the “Laframboise report.” She declined to answer further questions, and she asked that queries be sent by e-mail; she did not respond to such e-mails.

But not everyone agrees that “gray literature” is bad sourcing for a study. “The category of so-called gray literature includes valuable information that the IPCC — and we — shouldn’t ignore,” argued Peter Frumhoff, chief scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a lead author of the deforestation section of the last IPCC report.

“Handing out negative grades to the IPCC for simply being thorough is wrong,” he said, adding that the IPCC should “look at all the information, including peer-reviewed papers as well as gray literature, which includes government reports and other important information sources. By and large, the IPCC process works exceptionally well and the independent review of IPCC procedures now underway will assess opportunities for further strengthening it.”

Monique Hanis, a spokeswoman for the Solar Energy Industries Association, downplayed the importance of the report, saying that despite a handful of errors, there is still a pressing need for cleaner energy to help combat climate change.

“Regardless of the debate on the science of climate change, the facts are that we still need to reduce pollution, increase renewable energy sources and shift to a clean energy future,” she said. “And despite the disappointing climate change event in Copenhagen, many of us in the industry are simply moving forward.”

But other policy experts were unsurprised by the report. Dan Miller, a spokesman for the Heartland Institute, a non-profit think tank that is hosting a global warming conference next month in Chicago, said the bad grades given to the U.N. were apt.

“The IPCC deserves every stroke of its ‘F’ grade,” Miller told FoxNews.com. “Not only is the data used in the report flawed and suspect, but even more egregiously, the IPCC authors — very few of whom indeed are scientists — refused to consult with scientists who are skeptical of the IPCC’s defining hypothesis: that the Earth faces a crisis from rising global temperatures and that human activity played a significant role.”

“The authors’ closed minds are a trait typical of propagandists, not scientists,” he added.

Roni Bell Sylvester, editor of environmental policy site Land and Water USA, told FoxNews.com: “Any policy already made that is connected in any way to climate change/global warming/CO2 theories must be rescinded. Any policy in the works that is connected in any way to climate change/global warming/CO2 theories must be aborted.”

There are still many who support restrictions on carbon emissions. A spokeswoman for carbon-accounting software firm Hara told FoxNews.com that the need for limits “will only get more critical, with climate-change legislation heating up in Cancun this fall.” Corporate giants like Coca-Cola, and Safeway, are among Hara’s customers, and venture funding is being provided by the firm Kleiner Perkins.

Others are calling for a more cautious approach than spending public or private dollars on discredited scientific research. “The correct policy to address this non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing,” said Lord Christopher Monckton, who was a science adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and now is chief policy adviser to the Science and Public Policy Institute.

US Senate Climate Bill
Backers Hope For Senate Vote In June Or July
by Richard Cowan Reuters News Agency
April 17, 2010

Measure could affect states’ climate control activities (Adds reaction from American Petroleum Institute)

WASHINGTON, April 15 (Reuters) – A long-awaited compromise bill to reduce U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming will be unveiled by a group of senators on April 26, sources said on Thursday.

The legislative language to be sketched out in 11 days, according to government and environmental sources, is being drafted by Democratic Senator John Kerry, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman.

Backers of the environmental bill hope the unveiling will pave the way for the full Senate to debate and pass a measure in June or July if the compromise attracts enough support from a group of moderate Republicans and Democrats.

Republican Senator Judd Gregg told Reuters he was “committed to getting something that addresses our energy needs in a constructive and comprehensive way.” He added he did not know yet whether he would support the bill being developed.

President Barack Obama has made climate change one of his top priorities and took steps recently to show Republicans he was serious, including expanding federal aid for building nuclear power facilities and allowing more domestic offshore oil drilling — initiatives to be included in the Senate compromise.

The White House is also eager to show the rest of the world the United States is ready to take a leadership role on global warming, including to help kick-start stalled international efforts to tackle the problem.

Despite vocal climate change skeptics in the United States, leading scientific groups have been hoping the United States, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, would take action.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported on Thursday the world’s combined land and ocean surface temperatures in March were the hottest on record.

Once the senators formally sketch out their bill, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid will decide the next steps in a year crowded with competing legislative priorities and congressional elections in November.

The bill could face stiff opposition from lawmakers in states with economies heavily dependent on oil and coal.

Lou Hayden, a policy expert at the American Petroleum Institute, said his group would not support the bill unless it went through an economic analysis by the Energy Information Administration, an independent arm of the Energy Department.

The bill is already slated to be analyzed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Congressional Budget Office, which could take more than a month.

BILL MIGHT END STATE/REGIONAL CARBON TRADE PROGRAMS

Kerry, Lieberman and Graham have been working for months on a global warming compromise significantly different from a measure passed last year by the House of Representatives and a bill approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It also takes many elements from those bills.

Like the House-passed bill and Obama administration policy, it would set a target of 17 percent reductions in smokestack emissions of carbon dioxide by 2020, from 2005 levels.

Point Carbon, an energy markets consulting service, estimated the anticipated Senate bill would result in U.S. gasoline prices rising an average of 27 cents a gallon from 2013 to 2020. The bill is expected to contain a fee on motor fuels.

On Wednesday, a Senate source told Reuters the legislation would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide emissions. It would also end state and regional carbon-trading programs, such as the one several Northeastern states participate in, to be replaced by a national carbon reduction policy. [N14150360]

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, with 10 participating states from Vermont to Maryland, has raised over $582 million for state efficiency and climate programs, said Environment Northeast, a Boston research group.

Peter Shattuck, a carbon markets policy analyst there, said shutting the program could create concerns among the states over lost revenues.

A group of nine senators, mostly from Midwestern manufacturing states, urged Kerry, Graham and Lieberman in a letter on Thursday to take into account jobs in their states.

“Without such a plan, we are concerned that the legislation will ultimately be unsuccessful,” Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and others wrote. (Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner in Washington and Ros Krasny in Boston; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Climate Scientists Plan to Hit Back at Skeptics
March 05, 2010
FOXNews.com

In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of “being treated like political pawns” and need to fight back in kind.

This is a view of the Amazon basin forest north of Manaus, Brazil. A U.N. report stated that global warming is threatening the forests — a statement that was recently discredited.

Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be “an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach” to gut the credibility of skeptics.

In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of “being treated like political pawns” and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.

“Most of our colleagues don’t seem to grasp that we’re not in a gentlepersons’ debate, we’re in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules,” Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.

Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work.

“This was an outpouring of angry frustration on the part of normally very staid scientists who said, ‘God, can’t we have a civil dialogue here and discuss the truth without spinning everything,’” said Stephen H. Schneider, a Stanford professor and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment who was part of the e-mail discussion but wants the scientists to take a slightly different approach.

February 25, 2010
Major Nor’easter Bears Down on New England
(AP) FoxNews.com

Another icy storm barreled into the winter-weary Northeast on Thursday as utility companies, airlines and others planned for what could team up with wet, heavy snowfall to be the most damaging part: high winds.

Even coastal New England, where rain was falling but nothing like the 18 inches of snow expected in some parts of northern New Jersey and upstate New York, was under coastal flood watches because of the wind.

The National Weather Service put much of the East Coast under wind advisories and warnings from 4 p.m. Thursday until as late as 7 a.m. Friday. The agency warned that winds could blow steadily between 20 and 30 mph in some areas, with gusts of 55 mph or higher in coastal and mountainous areas.

By late morning, the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, N.J., reported the strongest scattered gusts so far — a not-so-damaging 25 mph — with snow totals in the 2-inch range.

“Your tree may fall down; your neighbor’s may not,” said Kristina Pydynowski, a meteorologist for AccuWeather, a private forecasting company in State College, Pa.

She said dense, wet snow weighing down trees would make it more likely for strong winds to knock them down.

In upstate New York, the dangers are well understood.

In a storm hit the area with up to 2 feet of snow on Wednesday, some 150,000 homes and businesses lost power. By late Thursday morning, 60,000 customers were still without power, mostly in the Hudson Valley and the Catskills.

A pair of blizzards this month in New Jersey each knocked out 80,000 to 90,000 customers, mostly on the shore. Public Service Electric and Gas Co. in New Jersey had extra crews and supplies ready in case power lines start coming down this week.

Officials at Philadelphia International Airport said that by Thursday morning, nearly one-fifth of the flights scheduled there for the day had been scratched. The predictions of strong winds later in the day were the main reason, said airport spokeswoman Victoria Lupica.

The Delaware River Port Authority announced Thursday that no empty tractor-trailers would be allowed on its four Philadelphia-area bridges after 7 p.m., another nod to the wind forecast.

Winter storm warnings stretched into Ohio and along much of the Appalachian Mountains, with snow and wind expected as far south as the Tennessee-North Carolina line.

The National Weather Service on Thursday slightly downgraded some of its snowfall predictions, though the deepest totals were still in the 18-inch range. Forecasters said the snow would pile up a bit less than originally expected because it’s so heavy.

In snow-weary Philadelphia, this winter had set a seasonal record of more than 70 inches of snow even before the first flakes began falling Thursday. The new snow started arriving just as Philadelphia and New Jersey finally finished cleaning up from the two blizzards that deposited more than 3 feet of snow a few weeks ago.

Airlines canceled hundreds of flights in the New York City area and Philadelphia airports. Continental Airlines canceled 70 of its 200 flights at the major international airport in Newark, N.J., as well as all 200 flights planned by regional partners. Southwest scratched most of its Philadelphia flights.

Thousands of schools across the region either closed or planned to let out early.

The speed limit on New Jersey’s Atlantic City Expressway was reduced to 35 mph and transportation officials in Pennsylvania said they would close interstates in eastern Pennsylvania if conditions got bad enough.

New York State Police attributed one fatal traffic accident Thursday to the weather.

In Allentown, Pa., in the Lehigh Valley, 52-year-old Jim Yourgal put on knee-high snow boots and trudged three miles to his job as a valet at an orthopedic center. He figured he wouldn’t be driving home in a foot of snow. His dedication was no big deal, he said.

“What else am I going to do, read a book at home? I can do that on the weekend,” he said.

Tue Feb 16, 2010 5:35pm EST

* EPA pursuing CO2 rules if Congress does not act (Adds byline, American Petroleum Institute petition, others)

By Ed Stoddard

DALLAS, Feb 16 (Reuters) – Texas and several national industry groups on Tuesday filed separate petitions in federal court challenging the government’s authority to regulate U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Texas, which leads U.S. states in carbon dioxide emissions due to its heavy concentration of oil refining and other industries, will see a major impact if U.S. mandatory emissions reductions take effect.

In December, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide endanger human health, opening the door for the agency to issue mandatory regulations to reduce them.

Texas said it had filed a petition for review challenging the EPA’s “endangerment finding” with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Texas has also asked the EPA to reconsider its ruling.

“The EPA’s misguided plan paints a big target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers and the hundreds of thousands of Texans they employ,” Texas Gov. Rick Perry said.

The National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, and the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association also said on Tuesday they filed a petition challenging the EPA in federal appeals court.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and U.S. iron and steel makers have also signaled they would file lawsuits.

Environmental groups said Texas should focus on building cleaner energy sources instead of filing lawsuits.

“Governor Perry should win an Olympic medal for taking the environment downhill,” said Luke Metzger at Environment Texas. “Global warming is the greatest environmental threat facing Texas and the planet and Governor Perry’s obstructionism puts the state at great risk.”

Conservative Republicans like Perry have been sounding the alarm of job losses in the debate over regulating greenhouse gas emissions — a hot-button issue at a time of high joblessness and economic uncertainty.

The EPA is threatening to regulate carbon emissions if Congress does not. In June, the House of Representatives narrowly passed a cap and trade bill that would allow industry to buy and trade pollution permits, but the legislation has stalled in the Senate.

President Barack Obama would rather have Congress pass a bill that could provide more protections for industry while also controlling pollution. But he is using the threat of EPA regulation to encourage lawmakers.

Some prominent Senate Democrats have predicted that comprehensive climate control legislation, including a cap-and-trade mechanism, will not pass this year.

Reuters.

February 10, 2010
Round 2: Blizzard Buries East, Grounds Flights
(AP)

Snow, wind and slush closed the federal government for a third straight day — the longest weather-related government shutdown since 1996, when employees did not have to go to work for a full week.

WASHINGTON — Worst winter ever? The second blizzard in less than a week buried the most populous stretch of the East Coast under nearly a foot of snow Wednesday, breaking records for the snowiest winter and demoralizing millions of people still trying to dig out from the previous storm.

Conditions in the nation’s capital were so bad that even plows were advised to get off the roads, and forecasters were eyeing a third storm that could be brewing for next week.

For many families, the first storm was a fun weekend diversion. People even went skiing past Washington’s monuments. But Wednesday’s blizzard quickly became a serious safety concern. The Pennsylvania governor shut down some highways and warned that people who drove were risking their lives.

“I’ve seen enough,” said Bill Daly, 57, as gusts of wind and snow lashed his face in Arlington, Va., where streets were nearly empty just a few days after people had been playing in the snow.

“It’s scary and beautiful at the same time. I wanted to shovel but thought if I had a heart attack it could be a while before anybody found me in this kind of weather.”

National Weather Service issues blizzard warnings Wednesday as thousands of people scramble to plow and salt roads buried by another major storm that dumped piles of fresh snow on the crippled Mid-Atlantic.

Old-timers talk about a storm that blew through Washington in 1922, collapsing the roof on the Knickerbocker theater and killing more than 90 people. Their great-great-grandchildren will be able to describe the back-to-back blizzards of 2010, which were not nearly as deadly but set records for the snowiest winters ever in Washington and Baltimore.

Up to 16 inches fell in parts of western Maryland. Reagan National Airport outside Washington had nearly 10 inches by 2 p.m., and Baltimore got nearly a foot. That was on top of totals up to 3 feet in some places from the weekend storm.

“I have never in my lifetime seen or heard anything quite like this,” said D.C. Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin, who was born and raised in the District.

The previous records for snowiest winters were 62.5 inches in Baltimore in 1995-96, and 54.4 inches in Washington in 1898-99. As of Wednesday afternoon, Baltimore had 72.3 inches so far this winter and Reagan had 54.9.

Heavy snow also fell in New York and New Jersey. Airlines canceled hundreds of flights, and New York City’s 1.1 million schoolchildren enjoyed only their third snow day in six years. The Washington area’s two airports had no flights coming or going Wednesday.

The streets of downtown Philadelphia, which was close to setting its own snow record, were nearly vacant as people heeded the mayor’s advice to stay home.

Entrance ramps to closed highways were blockaded, and the Pennsylvania National Guard had Humvees stocked with food and blankets ready to help anyone who got stuck. Earlier in the day, about 25 vehicles were involved in two separate pileups on snowy Interstate 80 in central Pennsylvania. One man was killed and 18 people injured.

“For your safety, do not drive,” Gov. Ed Rendell said. “You will risk your life and, potentially, the lives of others if you get stuck on highways or any road.”

In Virginia, where some areas had snow totals exceeding 30 inches from the two storms, winds were howling at 50 mph and temperatures were plunging. Gov. Bob McDonnell urged people to stay indoors.

“This snow reminds me of when I was driving tractor-trailers in Saudi Arabia, and the sandstorm starts and you can’t see the roads,” said Syeed Zada, 55, a plow driver for the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Utility customers in western Pennsylvania said about 30,000 people were without power. Some never got it back after the last storm.

Glenn Harvey, 59, who has a lung problem and needs oxygen, had been staying at a Red Cross shelter in Bentleyville, Pa., since Saturday.

Firefighters brought him there after the storm knocked out power to his house Friday night. His wife stayed home with their dog, where she’s using a kerosene heater to keep warm.

“It’s not been easy on her,” Harvey said.

In Washington, the federal government was closed for a third straight day. The longest weather-related government shutdown ever was in 1996, when employees did not have to go to work for a full week.

A Caribou Coffee shop in the capital was standing-room-only. Most people pecked away at laptop computers as snow fell steadily outside.

“Can’t get to the office, but the work still needs to get done,” said attorney Christopher Erckert.

Driving conditions got so bad that officials in Washington and some nearby suburbs pulled plows off the roads. In Baltimore, Pete Korfiatis dumped snow into the Inner Harbor with a front-end loader until city officials decided the roads were too slick.

“They just shut everything down,” he said.

Heavy snow collapsed part of the roof and a wall at a Smithsonian Institution storage building in Suitland, Md. It was not clear if any artifacts were damaged.

February 8, 2010
FoxNEWS.com (AP)

It has become very easy to call out the hypocrites like Al Gore who were so intent on taking money out of the pockets of middle-class America to fund his charlatan program of “Global Warming”, now called “Climate Change”. He deserves all the grief that comes his way. And I am more than happy to spoon-feed him loads of grief.

Mid-Atlantic Digs Out From A Historic Snowstorm

Tens of thousands of workers in the snowy Mid-Atlantic states were given Monday off to shovel out from a blizzard that buried some areas in nearly 3 feet of snow.

Federal agencies that employ 230,000 in Washington were closed, as were many businesses and school districts across the region.

The National Weather Service, meanwhile, issued a storm watch for the Washington area Tuesday, saying there was potential for another 5 inches or more of snow. Forecasters expect highs in the low- to mid-30s for the next few days, though sunshine on Monday should help melt some of the snow, said weather service meteorologist Bryan Jackson.

“You’ve got a whole city held captive here,” Gwen Dawkins, who was trying to get to Detroit, said as she waited at Washington’s Reagan National Airport, where all flights had been canceled after 18 inches of snow was recorded by Sunday.

The sight of cross-country skiers cascading down monument steps and flying snowballs has since given way to images of people hunched over snow shovels or huddled next to fireplaces.

John and Nicole Ibrahim and their 2-year-old son, Joshua, have been without power at their suburban Washington home in Silver Spring, Md., since overnight Friday. They were among hundreds of thousands without electricity across the region, and utilities warned it could be days before electricity is restored to everyone.

“We were all bundled up in the same bed together and (Joshua) was coughing in his sleep and his heart was racing, and we worried he might be getting pneumonia,” Nicole Ibrahim said.

The National Weather Service called the storm “historic” and reported a foot of snow in parts of Ohio and 2 feet or more in Washington, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Parts of Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia got closer to 3 feet.

Eric Berry, a plow driver for Baltimore, said he worked 12-hour shifts Saturday and Sunday. He said overanxious residents were sometimes hindering his ability to clear secondary roads by digging out their cars and moving them into the path of his plow.

“They feel like they need to park in the street, so that when it’s time to go, they can up and go,” Berry said.

In Philadelphia, 28.5 inches of snow fell during the storm, just shy of the record 30.7 inches during a January 1996 blizzard. Snow totals were even higher to the west in Pennsylvania, with 31 inches recorded in Upper Strasburg and 30 inches in Somerset.

The nearly 18 inches recorded at Reagan National Airport was the fourth-highest storm total for Washington, and airport officials haven’t decided when flights would resume.

Dawkins, 59, was supposed to leave Washington on Saturday but still hadn’t Sunday afternoon because of delays and cancellations. And she said there was “no way we’re getting out of here tonight.”

“They were very ill-prepared,” she said.

At nearby Dulles International Airport in Virginia, the record was shattered with 32 inches. Some flights there have resumed.

Authorities say most public transportation in Philadelphia has resumed. In Pittsburgh, bus service restarted but light-rail wasn’t running. Washington’s Metro trains were to be limited Monday to underground rails, and its buses were going to operate on a very limited basis.

Despite the snow, watching the Super Bowl was still a priority for many. Eric Teoh, 29, of Arlington, said he borrowed his neighbor’s snow shovel and spent at least an hour getting his car out of the snow to head to the Crystal City Sports Pub in Arlington, Va.

“I was snowed in and I dug my car out today to come here,” he said. “I couldn’t go anywhere.”

The frigid temperatures and snowy and icy streets did not deter runner Patrick Duffy, 23, from training for the Pittsburgh Marathon in May. He admitted was going slower than usual.

“I’m trying not to fall. I haven’t fallen yet,” Duffy said, his eyelashes frosted white.

In Mount Lebanon, a suburb south of Pittsburgh, Robb and Meredith Hartlage were again trying to clear the sidewalk in front of their house.

“We did a couple hours yesterday. I would say about four hours mixed with sledding,” said Robb Hartlage, 40, who said he’s not too old to play in the snow. He acknowledged, however, that the shoveling was hard work.

“I made some ‘old man’ noises when I got out of bed,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

February 8, 2010
Africa-Gate? U.N. Fears of Food Shortages Questioned
FOXNews.com

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

The cover of the IPCC’s fourth assessment report to the U.N., “Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report,” more frequently referred to as AR4.

The U.N.’s controversial climate report is coming under fire — again — this time by one of its own scientists, who admits he can’t find any evidence to support a warning about a climate-caused North African food shortage.

The statement comes from a key 2007 report to the U.N., and asserts that by 2020 yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50% in some African countries thanks to climate change.

But this weekend, a key author of the team behind that report told The Sunday Times that he could find no evidence to support his own group’s claim. The revelation follows the retraction by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of a claim that the Himalayan glaciers might all melt by 2035, dubbed ‘Glaciergate’ by commentators.

The newest controversial claim could become a very important error in the IPCC’s reporting, because it comes not only from the IPCC’s report on climate change impacts — called Assessment Report 4, or AR4 — but is also repeated in its “Synthesis Report.” That report is the IPCC’s most politically sensitive publication, distilling its most important science into a form accessible to politicians and policy makers.

Its lead authors include IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri himself, who has quoted it in speeches, as has U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.

Speaking at the 2008 global climate talks in Poznan, Poland, Pachauri said: “In some countries of Africa, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by 50% by 2020.” In a speech last July, Ban said: “Yields from rain-fed agriculture could fall by half in some African countries over the next 10 years.”

Speaking this weekend, Professor Chris Field, the new lead author of the IPCC’s climate impacts team, said: “I was not an author on the ‘Synthesis Report,’ but on reading it I cannot find support for the statement about African crop yield declines.”

This sort of claim should be based on hard evidence, said Robert Watson, chief scientist at Defra, the U.K.’s department for environment food and rural affairs, who chaired the IPCC from 1997 to 2002.

“Any such projection should be based on peer-reviewed literature from computer modelling of how agricultural yields would respond to climate change. I can see no such data supporting the IPCC report,” he said.

February 05, 2010
U.N. Climate Chief: Critics Should Rub Their Faces With Asbestos
FOXNews.com

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.’s International Panel on Climate Change, said global warming skeptics are like people who see no difference between cancer-causing asbestos and talcum powder.

The U.N.’s climate chief dismissed “nefarious” global warming skeptics this week by insinuating that they are deep in the pockets of big business — and suggested that they go rub their faces in cancer-causing asbestos.

Rajendra Pachauri, the besieged head of the U.N.’s International Panel on Climate Change, told the Financial Times on Wednesday that he is the victim of a “carefully orchestrated” campaign to block climate change legislation.

“I would say [there are] nefarious designs behind people trying to attack me with lies, falsehoods,” he told the paper, swatting away allegations that his India-based climate institute, TERI, has benefited from decisions made by the IPCC, which he also chairs.

Climate change skeptics “are people who deny the link between smoking and cancer; they are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder,” he said.

“I hope that they apply it (asbestos) to their faces every day.”

Pachauri’s remarks came as pressure and scrutiny are mounting against the IPCC’s hallmark Fourth Assessment Report, which laid out the case for man-made climate change over a thousand sprawling pages.

The report contained misleading data about the melting rate of glaciers in the Himalayas and is riddled with citations to data furnished by activist groups, non-scientific journals and material that was never peer-reviewed.

Pachauri called the furor over errors in the assessment report “a blip that is going to pass,” and reiterated his intention to remain in place as the chief of the world’s most powerful climate body.

“I’m not a quitter. Some people would want me to be; some people would probably say that I should go, but I am not going to oblige them. I have no desire to leave at all,” he said.

His critics in the business world, he told the paper, “see climate change as a threat to their own comforts, their own convenience and the generation of easy profits.” He accused them of establishing a network of lobbyists in D.C. “trying to write all kinds of malicious articles and indulge in invective.”

“It’s all part of a pattern,” he continued. “But let me clarify. I have no proof. I can only presume something like this is at work.”

The Great Global Warming Collapse
Anthony Jenkins/The GlobeAndMail.com
Margaret Wente/GlobeAndMail.com
February 6, 2010

As the science scandals keep coming, the air has gone out of the climate-change movement.

In 2007, the most comprehensive report to date on global warming, issued by the respected United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made a shocking claim: The Himalayan glaciers could melt away as soon as 2035.

These glaciers provide the headwaters for Asia’s nine largest rivers and lifelines for the more than one billion people who live downstream. Melting ice and snow would create mass flooding, followed by mass drought. The glacier story was reported around the world. Last December, a spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental pressure group, warned, “The deal reached at Copenhagen will have huge ramifications for the lives of hundreds of millions of people who are already highly vulnerable due to widespread poverty.” To dramatize their country’s plight, Nepal’s top politicians strapped on oxygen tanks and held a cabinet meeting on Mount Everest.

But the claim was rubbish, and the world’s top glaciologists knew it. It was based not on rigorously peer-reviewed science but on an anecdotal report by the WWF
itself. When its background came to light on the eve of Copenhagen, Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, shrugged it off. But now, even leading scientists and environmental groups admit the IPCC is facing a crisis of credibility that makes the Climategate affair look like small change.

“The global warming movement as we have known it is dead,” the brilliant analyst Walter Russell Mead says in his blog on The American Interest. It was done in by a combination of bad science and bad politics.

The impetus for the Copenhagen conference was that the science makes it imperative for us to act. But even if that were true – and even if we knew what to do – a global deal was never in the cards. As Mr. Mead writes, “The global warming movement proposed a complex set of international agreements involving vast transfers of funds, intrusive regulations in national economies, and substantial changes to the domestic political economies of most countries on the planet.” Copenhagen was never going to produce a breakthrough. It was a dead end.

And now, the science scandals just keep on coming. First there was the vast cache of e-mails leaked from the University of East Anglia, home of a crucial research unit responsible for collecting temperature data. Although not fatal to the science, they revealed a snakepit of scheming to keep contradictory research from being published, make imperfect data look better, and withhold information from unfriendly third parties. If science is supposed to be open and transparent, these guys acted as if they had a lot to hide.

Despite widespread efforts to play down the Climategate e-mails, they were very damaging. An investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian – among the most aggressive advocates for action on climate change – has found that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed, and that documents relating to them could not be produced.

Meantime, the IPCC – the body widely regarded, until now, as the ultimate authority on climate science – is looking worse and worse. After it was forced to retract its claim about melting glaciers, Mr. Pachauri dismissed the error as a one-off. But other IPCC claims have turned out to be just as groundless.

For example, it warned that large tracts of the Amazon rain forest might be wiped out by global warming because they are extremely susceptible to even modest decreases in rainfall. The sole source for that claim, reports The Sunday Times of London, was a magazine article written by a pair of climate activists, one of whom worked for the WWF. One scientist contacted by the Times, a specialist in tropical forest ecology, called the article “a mess.”

Worse still, the Times has discovered that Mr. Pachauri’s own Energy and Resources Unit, based in New Delhi, has collected millions in grants to study the effects of glacial melting – all on the strength of that bogus glacier claim, which happens to have been endorsed by the same scientist who now runs the unit that got the money. Even so, the IPCC chief is hanging tough. He insists the attacks on him are being orchestrated by companies facing lower profits.

Until now, anyone who questioned the credibility of the IPCC was labelled as a climate skeptic, or worse. But many climate scientists now sense a sinking ship, and they’re bailing out. Among them is Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the University of Victoria who acknowledges that the climate body has crossed the line into advocacy. Even Britain’s Greenpeace has called for Mr. Pachauri’s resignation. India says it will establish its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the IPCC.

None of this is to say that global warming isn’t real, or that human activity doesn’t play a role, or that the IPCC is entirely wrong, or that measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions aren’t valid. But the strategy pursued by activists (including scientists who have crossed the line into advocacy) has turned out to be fatally flawed.

By exaggerating the certainties, papering over the gaps, demonizing the skeptics and peddling tales of imminent catastrophe, they’ve discredited the entire climate-change movement. The political damage will be severe. As Mr. Mead succinctly puts it: “Skeptics up, Obama down, cap-and-trade dead.” That also goes for Canada, whose climate policies are inevitably tied to those of the United States.

“I don’t think it’s healthy to dismiss proper skepticism,” says John Beddington, the chief scientific adviser to the British government. He is a staunch believer in man-made climate change, but he also points out the complexity of climate science. “Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can’t be changed.” In his view, it’s time to stop circling the wagons and throw open the doors. How much the public will keep caring is another matter.

Bin Laden Blames U.S. for Global Warming in New Tape
January 29, 2010
(AP)

CAIRO — Usama bin Laden sought to draw a wider public into his fight against the United States in a new message Friday, dropping his usual talk of religion and holy war and focusing instead on an unexpected topic: global warming.

The Al Qaeda leader blamed the United States and other industrialized nations for climate change and said the only way to prevent disaster was to break the American economy, calling on the world to boycott U.S. goods and stop using the dollar.

“The effects of global warming have touched every continent. Drought and deserts are spreading, while from the other floods and hurricanes unseen before the previous decades have now become frequent,” bin Laden said in the audiotape, aired on the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera.

The terror leader noted Washington’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse gases and painted the United States as in the thrall of major corporations that he said “are the true criminals against the global climate” and are to blame for the global economic crisis, driving “tens of millions into poverty and unemployment.”

Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders have mentioned global warming and struck an anti-globalization tone in previous tapes and videos. But the latest was the first message by bin Laden solely dedicated to the topic. It was also nearly entirely empty of the Islamic militant rhetoric that usually fills his declarations.

The change in rhetoric aims to give Al Qaeda’s message an appeal beyond hardcore Islamic militants, said Evan Kohlmann, of globalterroralert.com, a private, U.S.-based terrorism analysis group.

“It’s a bridge issue,” Kohlmann said. “They are looking to appeal to people who don’t necessarily love Al Qaeda but who are angry at the U.S. and the West, to galvanize them against the West” and make them more receptive to “alternative solutions like adopting violence for the cause.”

“If you’re looking to draw people who are disenchanted or disillusioned, what better issue to use than global warming,” he said. While the focus on climate may be new, the tactic itself is not, he said: Al Qaeda used issues like the abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay to reach out to Muslims who might not be drawn to Al Qaeda’s ideology but are angry over the injustices.

Bin Laden “looks to see the issues that are the most cogent and more likely to get popular support,” Kohlmann said.

The Al Qaeda leader’s call for an economic boycott helps in the appeal — providing a nonviolent way to participate in opposing the United States.

“People of the world, it’s not right for the burden to be left on the mujahedeen (holy warriors) in an issue that causes harm to everyone,” he said. “Boycott them to save yourselves and your possessions and your children from climate change and to live proud and free.”

Al-Jazeera aired excerpts of the message and posted a transcript on its Web site. The tape’s authenticity could not be independently confirmed, but the voice resembled that of bin Laden on messages known to be from him. The new message comes after a bin Laden tape released last week in which he endorsed a failed attempt to blow up an American airliner on Christmas Day.

In the new tape, bin Laden refers to the Dec. 18 climate conference in Copenhagen — indicated the message was made recently.

The message — whose length Al-Jazeera did not specify — makes only brief passing mentions of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine and instead hits on issues that could resonate at a time of widespread economic woes.

“The world is held hostage by major corporations, which are pushing it to the brink,” he said. “World politics are not governed by reason but by the force and greed of oil thieves and warmongers and the cruel beasts of capitalism.”

To stop global warming, he called for the “wheels of the American economy” to be brought to a halt. “This is possible … if the peoples of the world stop consuming American goods.”

“We must also stop dealings in the dollar and get rid of it as soon as possible,” he said. “I know that this has great consequences and grave ramifications, but it is the only means to liberate humanity from slavery and dependence on America.”

He also called for the “punishing and holding to account” of corporation chiefs, adding, “this should be easy for the American people to do, particularly those who were effected by Hurricane Katrina or those who lost their jobs, since these criminals live among them, particularly in Washington, New York and Texas.”

The message represents a honing of Al Qaeda’s rhetoric. In 2007, bin Laden issued a tape in which he warned that human life is endangered by global warning, and he blamed democratic systems for seeking the interests of major corporations, said the U.S.-based Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamic militant message traffic.

But in Friday’s message, the anti-democracy rhetoric is dropped.

“It’s populism, pure and simple,” Kohlmann said.

HumanEventsOnline.com
by Ross Kaminsky
January 10, 2010

After the climate hoaxers and extortionists quietly slunk home after their utter failure in Copenhagen, one might have expected a barrage of “the end is nigh” press releases by Al Gore and friends, explaining how the refusal of governments to kneecap their economies will lead to us all being slowly convection baked to death in a never-ending trend of man-made global warming.

But apparently the alarmists have gone into hibernation…perhaps because world-wide record breaking cold would expose errors so great that even the “mainstream” news would have to call them out as full of (much needed) hot air.

As often seems to happen around big “global warming events”, Copenhagen was hit with extremely cold weather during the “climate conference,” including a blizzard on December 17…in a country which hasn’t had a white Christmas since 1995. In a bit of “God must have a sense of humor” irony, the cold weather followed President Obama home, dumping record snowfalls in and around Washington, D.C. two days later.

But that was just a warm-up for the world’s continuing deep-freeze, which seems to have frozen the alarmists’ mouths shut:

Dallas had its first “White Christmas” in more than 80 years and Oklahoma City broke a 95-year old record by getting 14 inches of snow — the previous record was 2.5 inches for that day.

From the Irish National Meteorological Service, Met Éireann, December 2009 was “the coldest December for 28 years over most of the country and the coldest of any month since February 1986 at a few stations.”

And now it continues into January, shattering even more records:

From the Times of Malta (January 1, 2010), “Heavy snowfall and seemingly permanent freezing temperatures have made this December the coldest for 13 years, UK forecasters said yesterday.” The UK’s Times newspaper piles on: “forecasters have warned Britons to brace themselves for a freezing cold, bleak new year — this winter is set to be the coldest for more than 30 years.”

From the Chinese news service Xinhua (January 5, 2010), “A cold wave across much of China since Saturday has brought heavy snow to major cities in the north, causing a surge in fuel demand and traffic chaos on roads and at airports.” And from China Daily, “In the next 10 days, temperatures could fall to around -32 C in the far north and another cold wave will sweep the region around Friday, bringing gales and severe cold…”

The BBC reports (January 4, 2010) that “Dozens of people have died in a cold wave sweeping through northern India.” And from Agence France-Presse, “As temperatures plunged to minus 25 degrees Celsius (minus 13 Fahrenheit) in Poland at the start of the year, the number of cold-related deaths rose to 122 so far this winter, police said.”

It’s not just Europe and Asia that are cold: From Columbia, Missouri (January 4, 2010), “If Columbia doesn’t warm up to more than 20 degrees by Wednesday, this winter will make the list of worst cold snaps in Columbia history. The National Weather Service predicts temperatures will stay below 20 degrees through Saturday, which would be the ninth day of temperatures that low. A streak that long hasn’t happened since 1983.”

From Palm Beach, Florida (January 4, 2010), “Nevermind what your goosebumps are telling you — this cold weather snap is not about how cold it’s getting, but about how long it’s going to stay that way.” Southwestern Florida expects a cold streak to tie or break a 37-year old record.

And in Colorado, the National Weather Service station nearest my house reports that “December was the coldest December (and the coldest month of any name) in 27 years of record.”

To be sure, there are parts of the planet that are not colder than average today, but they represent places where a tiny fraction of the world’s population lives. Let’s face it: The Tunisians are not big players in the “global warming” debate. Essentially the entire highly-populated latitudes of the northern hemisphere are in the deep freeze, with forecasts for more record-breaking cold — and more cold-related deaths — for the immediate future.

From a decade-long lack of warming to record-long cold snaps and snowfalls, from a recovery in the Arctic sea ice extent to a healthy polar bear population, from fewer hurricanes than average to stable sea levels, the data are not on the side of the alarmists. But of course, the real data never have been on the side of the alarmists, which is why they felt the need to “hide the decline” and to manipulate the peer-reviewed publication process.

Yet neither the short-term nor long-term trends keep the alarmists from fear-mongering with junk science intended to cause you to give up your money and your economic liberty. Energy Secretary Steven Chu warned earlier this year of dramatic long-term sea-level rises due to global warming even though multiple studies have shown no trend of accelerating rises…and no rise at all around some of the island nations like Tuvalu and the Maldives which routinely try to extort money from the west with the excuse that we’re causing them to be flooded out of existence. And the most (in)famous chart in the climate change debate, Michael Mann’s “hockey stick,” has been proven wrong both in its underlying math and in its wildly faulty predictions of ever-increasing temperatures.

The alarmists regularly get it wrong in the relatively short-term as well. In a stunningly erroneous prediction, the British Met Office said in September, 2008, that “the coming winter (is) likely to be milder than average.” The actual results? The winter of 2008/2009 was the UK’s coldest in 13 years. The same office guessed in September, 2009 that “that winter temperatures are likely to be near or above average over much of Europe including the UK. Winter 2009/10 is likely to be milder than last year for the UK, but there is still a 1 in 7 chance of a cold winter.” Let’s just say Caesar’s Palace isn’t worried about odds-making competition from climate alarmists. In their November update, the Met Office said there was only a 20% chance of a colder winter this year.

Meanwhile, British senior citizens are burning books to keep warm. As one bookstore worker in Wales said, “Book burning seems terribly wrong but we have to get rid of unsold stock for pennies and some of the pensioners say the books make ideal slow-burning fuel for fires and stoves. A lot of them buy up large hardback volumes so they can stick them in the fire to last all night.” Apparently, it’s cheaper to burn an encyclopedia than coal. Perhaps Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com will have an epiphany and begin to lobby, along with Al Gore and other enviro-radicals and profiteers, for higher taxes on coal; just think what that could do for sales of War and Peace.

Ross Kaminsky has been a professional derivatives trader for over 20 years. Ross is a fellow of the Heartland Institute and writes about political economy and current events at Rossputin.com. He also contributes to blogs for the Denver Post, the National Taxpayers Union and FreedomWorks among others.

By Heather Buchman
AccuWeather.com
January 3, 2010

This story was to much of a temptation for me not to post for obvious reasons. Thanks Al. We love ya!

The powerful storm that created blizzard conditions in Maine, dumped 1 to 2 feet of snow across northern New England and has been producing high winds across the entire Northeast will pull away from the region through Monday.

While snow lightens up through tonight from eastern New York into New England, winds will take awhile longer to subside. Lake-effect snow will last several more days across the Great Lakes region, while lighter snow showers linger across the Appalachians.

In many areas where snow has fallen, winds are causing significant blowing and drifting of the snow and thus dangerous travel conditions. The good news is that winds are expected to lighten up north-to-south across the hardest-hit areas of New England tonight.

This will aid crews working to plow roads overnight.

Across areas farther south from southern New York and New Jersey into Maryland, winds will remain quite strong through the overnight hours with gusts still reaching 30 to 40 mph.

These winds will keep AccuWeather RealFeel® temperatures below zero through Monday morning in cities like Buffalo, N.Y., Pittsburgh and State College, Pa. In New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., RealFeel temperatures will be in the single digits.

People in these cities should bundle up before heading to work Monday morning.

Winds through the early part of the upcoming week will not be as strong as they were over the weekend. Still, gusts between 20 and 25 mph are expected the next few days, making it feel at least 10 degrees colder than actual temperatures.