Global Warming Hype

My Response To A Sixth-Grader - Last week I received this letter in the mail from a student at a middle school in Rockford MI. The letter was dated January 29, 2008 but it was postmarked March 12. Below is my written reply which I promtly returned via snail mail. For me, the urgent call to action was this question:
"When will the world be completely covered in water?"
Read the response here.

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May, 2008

April One Of the Coolest On Record - April 2008 was the coldest April in 11 years. April also ranked the 29th coldest since record keeping began 114 years ago.
According to the National Climatic Data Center, the U.S. average temperature for the month was only 51 degrees, which is 1 degree below the average from 1901-2000.
Along with those colder than normal temperatures, April 2008 was dry - the 54th driest on record. (05/09/08)

The Cost and Futility of Trading Hot Air - By Christopher Monckton - European and American statists, including activist NGOs like the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), assert that the moderate climate warming that is occurring today is a man-made catastrophe, and have embraced the dystopian fantasy that coercive policies for the elimination of fossil fuel production and usage can prevent or turn back the current warming cycle. They have, thus, made the "global warming planetary emergency" into the central plank of their ongoing campaigns for more centralized government. Leftist commentator, Alexander Cockburn, put it this way:

This turn to climate catastrophism is tied into the decline of the left, and the decline of the left's optimistic vision of altering the economic nature of things through a political programme. The left has bought into environmental catastrophism because it thinks that if it can persuade the world that there is indeed a catastrophe, then somehow the emergency response will lead to positive developments in terms of social and environmental justice [liberal fascism].

For decades environmental activists have insisted that capitalism is not a "sustainable" (sufficient to "save the planet") economic system. We now hear brazen declarations that democracy is no longer a "sustainable" political process. Al Gore lends a popular, philosophical/theological underpinning to collectivist impulses by casting the root of all environmental evils -- real and imagined -- in the scientific and industrial/technological revolutions. Put differently, for Gore and the EDF, the planetary environment, not human life, appears the supreme standard of value. Therefore, everything, most importantly Science and Economics, must be pried away from the benefit of man and pressed into total service of the State.
Given just a decade or two of such "sustainable" policies, bolstered by Gore's religion, the world will be well on its way to a new Dark Ages, and the human misery it breeds. (05/09/08)

A Climate of Belief - The claim that anthropogenic CO2 is responsible for the current warming of Earth climate is scientifically insupportable because climate models are unreliable - By Patrick Frank

"He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense." ~ John McCarthy1

"The latest scientific data confirm that the earth's climate is rapidly changing. [...] The cause? A thickening layer of carbon dioxide pollution, mostly from power plants and automobiles, that traps heat in the atmosphere. [...] [A]verage U.S. temperatures could rise another 3 to 9 degrees by the end of the century [...] Sea levels will rise, [and h]eat waves will be more frequent and more intense. Droughts and wildfires will occur more often. Disease-carrying mosquitoes will expand their range. And species will be pushed to extinction." (05/09/08)

Dispute over climate sceptic uni grant - By Andrew Trounson and Greg Roberts - THE University of Queensland has accepted $350,000 for environmental research from a climate change sceptic and the Institute of Public Affairs, a right-wing think tank, in a move that has divided university academics.
The university insisted the money came with no strings attached and oversight of three environmental doctoral scholarship projects to be funded remained under its independent direction. However, the IPA suggested two of the three agreed topics and hopes the results of the research will inform public policy. (05/07/08)

April, 2008

Our coldest April since 1975 - By Steve Lathrop, Albany Democrat-Herald - Cool temperatures and soggy conditions have made things rough for mid-valley athletes -- and spectators too.
During the Lebanon-South Albany softball game Wednesday, spectators struggled along with players to find a way to keep warm and dry, bundling up in winter gear and blankets.
"It's the coolest April since 1975," said George Taylor of the Oregon Climate Service. "But it's going to get better. Summer will come." (04/30/08)

ATTENTION! Bridge for Sale
How Global Warming Brings Heavier Snows - By Jeremy Plester - ...Global temperatures seem to be ever increasing, but at the same time snow is falling at what seems to be an increased rate and in unexpected areas. A warmer atmosphere means there is more energy in storm systems, which in turn translates to higher snowfall. Global warming should really be referred to as climate change. If you believe this crap, please contact me about the bridge! (04/23/08)

Scientist: Forget Global Warming, Prepare for New Ice Age - Sunspot activity has not resumed up after hitting an 11-year low in March last year, raising fears that -- far from warming -- the globe is about to return to an Ice Age, says an Australian-American scientist.
Physicist Phil Chapman, the first native-born Australian to become an astronaut with NASA [he became an American citizen to join up, though he never went into space], said pictures from the U.S. Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) showed no spots on the sun.
He said the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7 degrees Centigrade. (04/23/08)

Wake me up when Global Warming's over - Pollution, conservation bigger worries than climate - By Andrew Orlowski - It looks like Al Gore is going to need every cent of the $300m war chest he's amassed for climate persuasion. Americans polled by Gallup for 'Earth Day' value "traditional", bottom-up environmental issues such as pollution and conservation as being more worrying than Global Warming. Remarkably, the level of concern about greenhouse gas emissions has barely wavered in a generation. Recklessness, or Huck Finn-style American common sense?
A third of Americans think "Global Warming" is a serious concern - a figure that's effectively unchanged since 1990, when the question was first asked. Ominously for the climate doom-mongers, it ranks 10th on a list of 12 environmental issues. OK, so what are Americans worried about? (04/23/08)

Yawn
Global warming could flood Florida coasts - Yes I know, I saw the movie... MIAMI, April 23 (UPI) -- Scientists studying the consequences of global warming in south Florida say rising sea levels could flood coastal cities and damage fresh water supplies. (04/23/08)

Still don't believe Al's a fraud?
NewsBusters: Gore Used Fictional Video to Illustrate "Inconvenient Trut" - By Noel Sheppard - It goes without saying that climate realists around the world believe Nobel Laureate Al Gore used false information throughout his schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth" in order to generate global warming hysteria.
On Friday, it was revealed by ABC News that one of the famous shots of supposed Antarctic ice shelves in the film was actually a computer-generated image from the 2004 science fiction blockbuster "The Day After Tomorrow." [audio available here] (04/22/08)

NewsBusters: Tom Brokaw's Nostalgia for '70s Liberalism in Earth Day Lecture - By Tim Graham - On Tuesday's Today, NBC brought out old anchorman Tom Brokaw to fondly remember the first Earth Day in 1970, when ultraliberals first declared the need for dramatic government intervention into the planet-despoiling capitalist system. He hailed how green protests saved rivers, eagles, and America itself from ruin: "The air turned brown, rivers died. Eagles almost disappeared. America the beautiful was America the endangered." Then the first Earth Day was a "massive success." He talked like a bumpersticker: "Mother Earth -- love your mother. She's the only one we have." He sounded a lot like the environmental lobbyist that the Clinton administration unsuccessfully invited to run the National Park Service back in 1993. (04/22/08)

Well, thank the Lord for that lack. For the IPCC's 2007 final Summary for Policymakers shows that the climate alarmists are at last on the run. Their evidence for dangerous, human-caused global warming, always slim, now lies exposed in tatters for all to see. In contrast, the alternative, persuasive and non-alarmist view of climate change is well summarised in two recently issued and readily available documents. The first is a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations, which was released at the UN's Bali conference last December, supported by the signatures of 103 eminent professional persons. The second is the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change, the release of which coincided with the launch of the International Climate Science Coalition at a major climate rationalist conference in New York in early March. (04/22/08)		The IPCC - on the run at last - By Bob Carter photo: www.sciencealert.au
			Is global cooling next? Average lower atmosphere global temperature differences (degrees C) from 1979 - 1998. Data courtesy of Professors John Christy and Roy Spencer, University of Alabama, Huntsville; a best-fitted spline curve represents longer term temperature trends.

No friends of the Earth - By Muhammad Cohen - HONG KONG - The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali last December generated extraordinary enthusiasm about global warning and put environmentalism at the top of the mainstream agenda for the first time in years. The Bali meeting brought worldwide consensus - albeit loose, broad and unspecific - that something needed to be done about climate change.
Within days of the Bali breakthrough, activists from environmental group Greenpeace were speeding toward Antarctica, ground zero for global warming, with an embedded BBC reporter aboard. The polar ice caps are melting at accelerating rates, and some islands, nestled thousands of kilometers north in the tropical Pacific Ocean are already at risk due to rising sea levels. The environmental activists it seemed could reinforce and extend the message of the Bali conference, with testimony from this critical climate battleground.
Except that the Greenpeace activists aboard MV Esperanza weren't there to talk about global warming. They were there to stop Japan - a critical player in climate change on several fronts - from conducting its annual whale hunt. Greenpeace planned to tail the Japanese whaling boats, hoping to harass and shame them into stop killing whales. Global warming was not on their agenda. (04/22/08)

'Climate change'? It's whatever you want it to be - By Lorne Gunter, National Post - EDMONTON -The trouble with writing a column about an event just before it is about to begin is that it may not pan out exactly as you suspect. But I think I'm on solid ground when I say that Edmonton's Earth Day 2008 -- which was not slated to begin Sunday until a couple of hours after I had to file -- was not as well-attended as most of its 18 predecessors.
Then again, who knows? There's a large and receptive audience for ecoprop here. In the past, Edmonton's one-day Earth Day has been one of the biggest enviro-festivals in the country. So perhaps scores of local advocacy groups and "green" businesses managed to erect their tents and displays, and tens of thousands of Edmontonians trudged through knee-deep snow to visit them, eat "Earth-friendly food" and sit in on lectures about stuff like composting your own human waste and applying used engine oil as a night-time facial moisturizer. (Be sure to take advantage of the suspended metal particles. They make an excellent exfoliant!).
There was also to be a kids' activities area, no doubt with educational puppet shows, or the like, around the theme "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down." But the city had nearly 10 centimetres of snow Saturday. Another 10 to 15 were expected Sunday, with a further 15 to 20 cms predicted for Monday.
We're not supposed to see the sun or crack the zero mark until Wednesday at the earliest. So I can't imagine more than a few hundred environmental evangelists made it out to the lovely quarry-cum-park that hosts the annual event. (04/21/08)

Earth Day Remembered - The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970. It was created by founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. senator from Wisconsin. This year Earth Day will officially be celebrated on Tuesday, April 22, although many events are planned beyond that one day. It is estimated that 1 billion people will come together across the globe to focus on steps to better the environment.
Many schools are making use of an on-line ecological footprint quiz to help students understand how much productive land and water they need to support what they use and what they discard. This is all well and good. All Americans should be good stewards of the environment.
Most troubling, however, is the acceptance that CO2 is a pollutant and greenhouse gas that causes global warming. CO2 gained its celebrity status as a pollutant after a 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court. Since then much has been made of the carbon dioxide being pumped out of car tailpipes. This is the same carbon dioxide that is essential in our life support system. Without carbon dioxide there would be no plant or human life. (04/21/08)

A world of hemp lingerie? No thanks - Women will be returned to the Dark Ages if the eco-fundamentalists end up having their way - By Melanie Reid - ...We should not be surprised when global-warming policy officers and climate-change academics rush to declare that the evidence for pending disaster is "overwhelming". Nor when they announce, in as menacing a tone as Abu Izzadeen, that we ignore what is happening "at our peril". These people have, after all, to justify their job titles; the industry of which they are part is worth billions of pounds a year; and for everyone in it to grow and prosper and pay their mortgages, the snow must continue to melt and the seas continue to rise. Just as the makers of aspirin wish you had a headache, the eco-alarmists rather love high temperatures. (04/21/08)

Americans mindlessly pursue global-warming scam, political correctness - It is disturbing to see the herdlike mentality taking place in America today. Two examples of this are manifested in our mindless pursuit of mankind's responsibility for global warming and in our obsession with political correctness.
Space does not allow for a point-by-point refutation of this scam, as John Coleman, the founder of The Weather Channel, is so fond of calling global warming. It is rumored that Mr. Coleman may sue Al Gore so that he will have to prove his contentions in a court of law rather than pontificate on his theories in a very one-sided slide presentation. (04/21/08)

Global Warming? No Sweat. - Shortly after winning an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth in 2007, Al Gore told reporters backstage at Los Angeles's Kodak Theatre that he hoped the honor would convince more people to "see the movie and learn about the climate crisis."He may want to rethink his wish. According to a recent study by researchers from Texas A&M University on American attitudes toward global warming, the more people know about climate change, the less concerned they are about it. (04/21/08)

Little Increase in Americans' Global Warming WorriesPublic just can't seem to get worked up about it - By Frank Newport - PRINCETON, NJ -- While 61% of Americans say the effects of global warming have already begun, just a little more than a third say they worry about it a great deal, a percentage that is roughly the same as the one Gallup measured 19 years ago. (04/21/08)

Off topic but relevant
Evolution and global warming: Who dares go against science's orthodoxy? - By Juanell Garrett--Midwest Voices Columnist 2008 - "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," Ben Stein's documentary about the difficulties of scientists who dare to tread off the evolutionary path, opened Friday at a few area theaters. (04/21/08)

NewsBusters: Global Warming 101: Professor Carter Explains Climate Realism - By Noel Sheppard - For years, NewsBusters has made the case that foreign press outlets do a far better job of covering both sides of the manmade global warming debate than American media.
Friday was a perfect example as New Zealand television's "Nzone Tonight" broadcast an interview with Professor Bob Carter of James Cook University, Queensland, Australia. (04/21/08)

Nigel Lawson loses no sleep over global warming - Nigel Lawson, the Iron Lady's chancellor, scourge of the miners and father of the adorable Nigella, has joined the ranks of the climate change sceptics. He believes David Cameron's green agenda is overblown, biofuels are useless and carbon trading resembles "nothing so much as the sale of indulgences by the medieval church" (04/20/08)

Global warming fanatics pollute the planet! - By Terry C. Graham - People obsessed with CO2 and greenhouse gasses as though they are pollutants, who stubbornly cling to the mythology that man is responsible for global warming and who proudly fancy that we can remedy the situation, are actually facilitating the polluting of our planet. (04/19/08)

Iwo Jima Veterans Blast Time's 'Special Environmental Issue' Cover - Time editor tells MSNBC "there needs to be a real effort along the lines of World War II to combat global warming and climate change." - By Jeff Poor - Business & Media Institute - For only the second time in 85 years, Time magazine abandoned the traditional red border it uses on its cover. The occasion -- to push more global warming alarmism. (04/17/08)

The Deniers - By David Forsmark - FrontPageMagazine.com - The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud -- and Those Who Are Too Fearful to Do So - By Lawrence Solomon - Richard Vigilante Books, $27.95, 239 pp.
"Ozone Man" said Al Gore recently on 60 Minutes referring to the folks who doubt his global warming scenario and arguing that they are part of a ""tiny, tiny minority now." "They're almost like the ones who believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the earth is flat. That demeans them a little bit."
Gore went on, condescendingly, "But it's not that far off ..."
Gee, Al, thanks for not trying to be too demeaning!
In Lawrence Solomon's new book -- The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud -- and Those Who Are Too Fearful to Do So -- the environmental columnist for Canada's National Post lists a few of the "kooks" who haven't attained Al Gore's exalted level of scientific knowledge:
Dr. Antonino Zichichi, a former president of the European Physical Society who discovered nuclear antimatter and is one of the world's foremost physicists. He calls global warming projection models "incoherent and invalid."
Dr. Christopher Landsea, the past chairman of the American Meteorological Society's Committee on Tropical Meteorology and Tropical Cyclones. Says he: "There are no known scientific studies that show a conclusive physical link between global warming and observed hurricane frequency and intensity." Prof. Freeman Dyson, one of the world's most eminent physicists. He asserts the models used to justify global warming alarmism are "full of fudge factors" and "do not begin to describe the real world that we live in."
Prof. Paul Reiter, chief of Insects and Infectious Diseases at the famed Pasteur Institute. He notes, "no major scientist with any long record in this field" accepts Gore's claim that global warming spreads mosquito-borne diseases.
Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, a world-renowned expert on the ancient ice cores used in historical climate research. He says the U.N. "based its global-warming hypothesis on arbitrary assumptions and these assumptions, it is now clear, are false."
But what would they know, anyway! More. (04/17/08)

Letters: Liberal media behind global warming scare - Why are politicians the ones promoting global warming while our national weather experts strongly deny its possibility?
Is it because the Al Gores of the world are making hundreds of millions of dollars on this fantasy? There is a promise of billions more if they can convince a gullible public and get its full support.
Please let us listen to the experts not the politicians. It is estimated taxpayers will foot the bill for over a $1 trillion in global warming "fixes" and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Liberal news sources have besieged the world with global-warming scare tactics. A recent study has shown 38 pro-global warming news articles for every one supporting the climate-change side.
World temperatures have been cooling since l998. This past winter is one of the snowiest in recent memory, much to the dismay of the alarmists. Please remember, whoever controls the output of information controls the minds and actions of most people. The most obvious examples are China, North Korea and regime after regime. (04/17/08)

NewsBusters: Time Tramples Iwo Jima Image to Push 'War on Global Warming' - By Mark Finkelstein - In our nation's history, there are few images more heroic, more sacred in a civil sense, than that of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima. Time has now twisted, and enlisted, that image for its "war on global warming."
Time editor Rick Stengel, making his regular Thursday appearance on Morning Joe to tout the week's cover story, naturally thought it was a wonderful idea. He also explained why Time decided to editorialize in favor of a "massive" effort to combat global warming. View video here. (04/17/08)

photo: NewsBusters

NewsBusters: World's Oldest Tree Rewrites Climate History, Challenges Global Warming - By Noel Sheppard - Scientists used to believe the oldest trees on the planet were in North America with ages in the 5,000-year range.
Hooey, for a new discovery in Sweden has completely debunked this consensus, resulting in a total rewrite of climate history while bringing into serious question global warming theories espoused by Nobel Laureate Al Gore and his sycophant devotees. (04/17/08)

The global-warming gravy train - By Craige McMillan - Perhaps God is the master of subtle irony. As I drove from the Midwest to the West coast at the beginning of April, the snow was falling – not melting. The same was true for yesterday, when I performed my little tax errand. I find the snow makes the daffodils look much more pale, don't you?
Now that the United Nations and the "world government cartel" has officially blessed the global warming "let's tax thin air" movement, it was probably inevitable that the rest of us would drive around through snow in the middle of April.
You see, the United Nations and one-world elitists have an exquisite history of incompetence and corruption that enriches their friends and makes nearly everything they touch among the most useless organizations and efforts on earth. To refresh your memory, here are just a few... (04/17/08)

Fire season; time to blame global warming again
Wild fires likely to spread due to global warming - ..."An increase in fire may be the greatest early impact of climate change on forests," Brian Amiro from the University of Manitoba said late on Wednesday. "Our forests are more likely to become a victim of climate change than a savior," he added...(04/17/08)

Bush's legacy on global warming - His emissions goal may help loop China and India into setting goals. Will his strategy work? - ...Bush came into office soon after the Senate rejected the Kyoto treaty by a 95-0 vote. He saw little prospect of Americans sacrificing an energy-rich lifestyle and paying the costs to prevent global warming. Reflecting that mood, Congress was reluctant to take strong action, too. As a result, activists turned to states, courts, and regulators to force Americans to reduce their use of fossil fuels, with little result.
Wealthy economies that did sign onto Kyoto (Europe, Canada, Japan) are now largely failing at achieving the pact's goals. And the UN mechanism set up to let those nations buy their way out of emission caps is faltering over doubts about the quality of carbon-reduction projects in poor nations. Kyoto hasn't proved to be the enticement for poor nations to follow suit. (04/17/08)

Global warming "greatest hoax" - I have to chuckle as I read letters and news articles stating that we must change our lifestyles if we are to stop global warming. How quickly we have forgotten history.
The very area that we live in was once covered by glaciers. Where are those glaciers now? They retreated from this area long before mankind's industrial age. What caused them to retreat? Temperatures rose. Global warming existed long before mankind was a factor.
Manmade global warming will eventually turn out to be the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the human population of this planet. We really need to slow down and take a hard look at both the "science" of global warming, as well as those behind it.
We need to follow both the ideology of those perpetrating this hoax, and where the money trail leads. That is where you will find the truth about global warming. ~ Alan Jordano, Erie (04/16/08)

Teenage Skeptic Takes on Climate Scientists - By David Kestenbaum - If you're a scientist trying to convince people they are making the world warmer, Kristen Byrnes is your worst nightmare. She's articulate, intelligent, she has a Web site, and one day her people will be running the world. Her people, meaning 16-year-olds.
Kristen's Web site, "Ponder the Maunder," has made her a celebrity among climate skeptics. After she posted a critique of Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth, her Web site got so many hits the family's internet service provider sent them a warning.
Her story may dismay mainstream scientists, but plenty of people are friendly to her ideas. (04/15/08)

More Global Warming Nonsense - By PAUL REITER and ROGER BATE - Today, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing on the implications of climate change for human health. Malaria will top the menu, but so will ignorance and disinformation.
The lead witness will be Dr. Jonathan Patz of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has suggested that U.S. energy policy may be "indirectly exporting diseases to other parts of the world." Dr. Patz, the World Health Organization (WHO) and others claim that global warming is now spreading disease and may be the cause of some 160,000 deaths a year.
In 2007, for example, WHO pointed to rising temperatures in an outbreak of a mosquito-borne virus, Chikungunya, in Italy. Yet WHO misdiagnosed the problem. Modern transportation, not climate change, caused the outbreak. (04/10/08)

Global Warming Censored: How the Major Networks Silence the Debate on Climate Change - By Julia A. Seymour and Dan Gainor - So much for that job requirement of balance and objectivity. When it came to global warming the media clearly left out dissent in favor of hype, cute penguins and disastrous predictions.
"They [penguins] are charismatic, endearing and in serious trouble," warned NBC's Anne Thompson on the Dec. 12, 2007, "Nightly News." Thompson didn't include any disagreement.
While the networks had plenty of time to worry about the future of birds, most network news shows didn't take much time to include any other point of view even though hundreds of scientists have expressed skepticism of manmade climate change theory.
Another NBC reporter, Kerry Sanders, hyped the threat of warming to polar bears and walruses on Dec. 9, 2007, "a world scientists say may melt away by 2050." Sanders didn't include any scientists who disagreed with that claim.
The lack of balance on the issue prompted one network journalist, John Stossel of ABC, to do a story on the media's one-sidedness on "20/20" Oct. 19, 2007... (04/09/08)

Maybe we should just let high school students write their own textbooks...
Student Sees Problems With H.S. Text - By NANCY ZUCKERBROD - WASHINGTON (AP) -- Talk about a civics lesson: A high-school senior has raised questions about political bias in a popular textbook on U.S. government, and legal scholars and top scientists say the teen's criticism is well-founded. Really? [...]
The edition of the textbook published in 2005, which is in high school classrooms now, states that "science doesn't know whether we are experiencing a dangerous level of global warming or how bad the greenhouse effect is, if it exists at all."
A newer edition published late last year was changed to say, "Science doesn't know how bad the greenhouse effect is."
The authors kept a phrase stating that global warming is "enmeshed in scientific uncertainty." So where are the inaccuracies? (04/09/08)

Academic cool on warming - By Brad Norington - RESPECTED academic Don Aitkin has seen the ugly side of the climate change debate after being warned he faced demonisation if he challenged the accepted wisdom that global warming poses a danger to humanity.
Professor Aitkin told The Australian yesterday he had been told he was "out of his mind" by some in the media after writing that the science of global warming "doesn't seem to stack up".
Declaring global warming might not be such an important issue, Professor Aitkin argued in a speech to the Planning Insitute of Australia this month that counter measures such as carbon trading were likely to be unnecessary, expensive and futile without stronger evidence of a crisis.
The eminent historian and political scientist said in a speech called A Cool Look at Global Warming, which has received little public attention, that he was urged not to express his contrary views to orthodox thinking because he would be demonised.
He says critics who question the impact of global warming are commonly ignored or attacked because "scientist activists" from a quasi-religious movement have spread a flawed message that "the science is settled" and "the debate is over". (04/09/08)

More Indoctrination Idiocy
A peacock and fox turn up heat on environment - KUALA LUMPUR: One 16-year-old would choose to be a peacock if he could be an animal, another a fox.
The two secondary school students were among 80 who learnt about the effects of global climate change.
This was of question they were asked during the Shell-NSTP Global Climate Change writing workshop on Saturday. It was one of a series of 10 workshops that will involve 800 secondary school students from 200 schools in 10 states.
Participants will submit articles, pictures and posters on global warming to be published in the New Straits Times and Berita Harian on World Environment Day on June 5.
Fourth Former Dahlan Daim of Victoria Institution here said: "If I were an animal, I would like to be a peacock.
" It is a symbol of pride, and its elegance, beauty and confidence triumph over other animals. I want to colour the world with my beautiful presence."
Dahlan's schoolmate, Isaac George, said he would want to be a fox.
" If I were a fox, I would be cunning. I would use my power of manipulation to make people aware of global issues."
The participants were shown excerpts from An Inconvenient Truth, the Academy Award-winning documentary about global warming presented by former United States vice-president Al Gore.
Participants were asked to highlight the global environmental issues raised in the movie that had the most impact on them.
Many were affected by the fact that polar bears were losing their habitat because of the melting of polar ice caps brought about by global warming.
Another worry was the emergence of new diseases such as avian flu and SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome). (04/08/08)

Blog bully crows over BBC climate victoryEmergent Truthiness - By Andrew Orlowski - Improve IT Culture and employee satisfaction in your business - Sign up for the latest RegCast here
Bullying bloggers are no strangers to online media - especially when they're Single Issue Fanatics (SIF). "They're deeply emotional, they're bullies, and they often don't get out enough," the BBC's Adam Curtis noted here last year. This week, campaigner Jo Abbess is boasting about how she browbeat the BBC into modifying a story about Global Warming. The BBC has defended the changes to its story. (04/08/08)

Absurdity of the day
Price of global warming - Climate change sceptics are wrong for the same reason that financial models have been proved wrong of late - ...In short, the uncertainty about the future course of global temperatures means that it is sensible to buy some insurance against 25 standard deviation climatic outcomes... What's next? Buying insurance against a catastrophic asteroid impact? Absurd! (04/08/08)

The Comedy of Global Warming - By Philip V. Brennan - As the list of global warming skeptics lengthens, the alarms warning of a planet about to be barbecued sounded by the fanatical adherents of man-made climate change grow more shrill and sometimes border on the comical.
This latter feature was recently ridiculed by a parody posted on April Fools' Day by skeptic physicist James Peden where an imaginary eight-year scientific study discovered a link between global warming and tooth decay in children. It sounded exactly like the global warming propaganda that blames everything on global warming... (04/08/08)

Global Warming Is Highly Beneficial - According to a scientific report given at the International Conference on Climate Change last month, anthropogenic global warming is not only not bad for the earth, it's actually extremely beneficial, and more is needed! - By Walt Thiessen - It didn't get any attention in the media, but there was a highly significant presentation made last month. According to the ICCC, David Archibald, the presenter, is a scientist (and entrepreneur) operating in the field of cancer research, climate science and oil exploration. His presentation made some startling points about the truth regarding global warming.
First and foremost, the greens refuse to understand that global warming is directly caused by the sun. That should be patently obvious to everyone, but apparently it isn't obvious to the greens. This isn't just sad; it turns out it's the basis for a potential global calamity (but not the one the greens want us to believe in). According to Archibald, green global warming fanatics are 100% diametrically wrong. The data shows that the Earth is actually getting colder, and that this trend is likely to accelerate. It also shows that carbon dioxide's warming effect is minimal at best. Most startling of all is his point that global warming increases agricultural production, and this is where things get interesting , because if Archibald is correct, we're in for some really bad times starting in about 20 years or so. (04/08/08)

From animal terror to eco-terror...
PETA to Al Gore: 'Meat' is the Enemy and Number One Cause of Global Warming - Norfolk, Va. - Is changing your diet more important than changing your light bulbs? PETA thinks so and is challenging global warming crusader Al Gore to put his money where his mouth is--literally--by encouraging people to go vegetarian as a cornerstone of the Alliance for Climate Protection's (ACP) new "We" campaign. Although PETA commends Gore for his dedication to saving the planet, the group questions We's failure to address the number one contributor to heat-trapping gas emissions: meat production. (04/08/08)

Maryland lawmakers killed a bill last night that would have required major cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.
The bill was a victim of the crush of work and lack of time that usually plagues the last day of the session. [...]
The reaction was mixed in the hallway outside the hearing room, where steelworkers - some wearing hard hats - celebrated and environmentalists commiserated.
Thomas "T.J." Johnson, a coordinator with the United Steelworkers of America union, said the personal lobbying from industrial workers made the difference.
The industrial companies argued that the goals of the bill - 25 percent reduction of carbon dioxide by 2020 and a 90 percent reduction by 2050 - would put factories out of business. (04/08/08)

Global Warming: Markets or Socialism, Part I - While global warming no longer seems to be the issue of the day (that is, I am not hearing about it every five minutes on cable news), there is still much fear and trepidation about what exactly we are to do about it. I have decided to proceed as though Global Warming is a significant problem and that it is man-made, or at least significantly so, despite yet being convinced of this last point. I want to take a look at what kind of approaches we have open to us in the event of such a dire scenario.
Philosophically, we generally have two structures to work with - a capitalist/market-based solution or a socialist/collectivist solution. (04/08/08)

Facts don’t support greenhouse warming - To The Editor: Global warming's 1 degree Fahrenheit increase and concurrent 50 percent CO2 increase over 100-plus years is observed fact, not hoax.
Other assertions, however, result from countless computerized assumptions. Verified meaningfully accurate methods that isolate and quantify greenhouse impacts or predict climate change don't exist. Consequently CO2 control justifications gravitate toward deception. Consider Times-News letters:
By leap of faith, global warming becomes greenhouse driven warming. Skepticism of global catastrophe by greenhouse warming is misrepresented as denial of global warming. (04/08/08)

The Late Charlton Heston On Global Warming

Global Warming gets the Cold Freeze - Global warming hoax exposed by record global cold - by F. William Engdahl - The media and governmental hype over a danger from global warming that already is allegedly causing the polar icecaps to melt and threaten a global climate catastrophe, looks more and more like the political hype it is. This year to date, snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.
According to the US National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) many American cities and towns have suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was - 0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 average."
China is surviving its most brutal winter in one hundred years. Temperatures in the normally mild south were low for so long that some middle-sized cities went weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.
There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has been hurt as home buyers have stayed home. In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, breaking the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in 1950. (04/07/08)

From the land of fruits and nuts...
Los Angeles considers global warming tax - The Orange County Register - To fight global warming, a bill in Sacramento would enable Los Angeles County transit officials to increase taxes on motorists. It's a bad idea that may foreshadow even worse to come.
Billed as a "climate change mitigation and adaptation fee," the measure would cost motorists either an additional 3 percent motor fuel tax, or up to a $90 annual flat fee, based on vehicle emissions. The new charges would be on top of taxes already paid at the pump. Either option requires a majority approval by a vote of the people.
" At this point the people of the Los Angeles region have just had it when it comes to traffic and air quality," claimed Assemblyman Mike Feuer, a Los Angeles Democrat and author of Assembly Bill 2558. (04/07/08)

“Dad, what’s global warming?” - I always ask my kids how school was and the answer, as usual, was some vague response.
“Good,” one said. “Good,” the other said.
“That’s good,” I said. “Shall we listen to some tunes?”
We were in the minivan. If I had only reached that dial a little quicker maybe I could have avoided a chain of events threatening to disrupt the dreams of school-children everywhere. “Dad?” one said, “what’s... global warming?” (04/07/08)

Oh please!
Global Warming A Killer - Global Warming may kill an estimated 150,000 people annually, according to researchers. The human toll of global warming—often overlooked in favor of environmental concerns—is growing increasingly evident, according to The AFP. (04/07/08)

Filling young minds with mush...
Learning about global warming cool experience for Cdn teens on Arctic expedition - Shona Couturier of St-Hubert, Que., stood at the base of a towering Norwegian land glacier when suddenly a horrible rumbling broke the Arctic calm.
The 17-year-old glanced up as massive chunks ripped free from an adjacent glacier and slammed into the icy ocean below, the force of which sent waves crashing onto the ground around her.
" That image just stays in my mind so much. It was the noise that it made because everything around you is so quiet," said Couturier as she recalled taking part in Cape Farewell, a charitable organization and international climate change awareness program... (04/06/08)

Lord Lawson claims climate change hysteria heralds a 'new age of unreason' - By Christopher Booker - One of the striking features of how concern over global warming has risen to the top of our political agenda is the extraordinary unanimity with which it has been taken up by our political establishment.
...On one hand, we are just starting to appreciate the colossal cost of the measures being taken to meet the European Union's target of a 60 per cent cut in our CO2 emissions in the next four decades, ranging from plans to spend hundreds of billions of pounds on wind turbines to the EU's emissions trading scheme, already costing us billions through our electricity bills.
On the other hand, global temperatures, after flattening out, have in recent months shown a sharp fall, wholly unpredicted by those computer models on which the proponents of warming orthodoxy rely. This raises rather large question marks over whether the theory has actually got it right... (04/06/08)

Global Warming's a Myth, Insists Hurricane Expert - The world's top hurricane forecaster says don't believe the hype of global warming. He's in town for this year's hurricane conference and sat down with me for a one-on-one interview.
"I am very disappointed at the media," Dr. William Gray stated flatly, charging that we've been entirely too willing to just repeat whatever scientists say. The problem, according to Gray, is that the scientists are ignoring salinity as the indicator of hurricanes. "We have no theory, if the sea surface temperatures get a little warmer, why we should have more storms."
The opposite would be better science, Dr. Gray argues. So why are so many scientists getting on the bandwagon?
Because, Gray pointed out, "There's money in this."
Gray said he lost most of his funding in the Clinton years because he wouldn't get on the bandwagon. As for this hurricane season, he told me to expect an above average, busy one. His official forecast comes out next week. (04/03/08)

Nutcase Ted Turner...
Ted Turner: Global warming could lead to cannibalism - Billionaire environmentalist says world has too many people - By MIKE MORRIS - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - Failure to address global warming will have us all dead or eating each other by mid-century.
So says Ted Turner, the restaurateur, environmentalist and former media mogul whose controversial comments have earned him the nickname "Mouth of the South."
If steps aren't taken to stem global warming, "We'll be eight degrees hotter in 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow," Turner said during a wide-ranging, hour-long interview with PBS's Charlie Rose that aired Tuesday.
"Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals," said Turner, 69. "Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state -- like Somalia or Sudan -- and living conditions will be intolerable." (04/03/08)

Light bulbs and gimmicks won't stop global warming - COMMUNITY VOICES: A guest columnist's view - By SOREN WUERTH - When Google's main page was black Saturday, I immediately thought "gimmick." The slogan, "we've turned our lights out; now it's your turn," led me to a link for "Earth Hour." The idea is to have people around the world turn their lights out for an hour as an effort in curbing global greenhouse gas.
What a noble thing to do.
The solutions to global warming provided by corporations would be laughable if they weren't taken seriously by mainstream media and organizations, including environmental groups. (04/03/08)

Forget global warming: 80% of Africa still use charcoal as fuel - No global warming: Charcoal fuels 80% of Africa - It is 21st century and do you know what is the main fuel for several African nations now? It is charcoal.
Maybe, a shocking news for environmentalists and people who are bothered about the global warming issues.
But it is a fact that countries like Mozambique bank on charcoal for its population's 80 per cent fuel needs.
In southern Africa, charcoal is the main money-spinning source for lakhs of people.
People in these nations have been chopping trees and making charcoal for as long as they can remember. And that is how impoverished people throughout this developing world stay alive. (04/03/08)

Global warming profiteers are wrong - Climate alarmists are alarmed, scaremongers scared, for their predictions of catastrophe are not coming true. "Global warming" has stopped. For 10 years, average temperatures on earth have not risen. For seven years, the trend has been downward. The fall between January 2007 and January 2008 was the biggest since records began in 1880.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's climate panel, says it had better find out where it got its sums wrong. Lord Lawson, a former UK Treasury Secretary, says the panel should be scrapped.
Polls reveal that voters worldwide, bored with wolf-crying scientists, see "global warming" as just another pretext for more tax, regulation and empire-building. So the tiny clique of politicized scientists driving the scare are desperate to revive fear of doom. Otherwise, the multibillion-dollar climate-change industry is headed straight down the pan. (04/03/08)

Letter: Media ignored truth behind climate change - By Tom Mueller, St. Cloud - A year ago, NASA's Goddard Institute, and separately the National Science Foundation, released a major report about ice breaking off the Antarctic due to global warming. As expected, the mainstream press reported this in the context of human-caused global warming.
Only if you dug further into the reports did you discover that the scientists involved, who admitted intent to advance the global warming theory, were baffled by the ice breaking off. Why? Because their satellite and ground temperature data and ice cores showed that the Antarctic has actually cooled in the past 35 years and gained more ice over that same period.
The scientists admitted puzzlement, because it did not fit their global warming models.
One year later, as the evidence and number of scientists showing global warming as a myth has increased, it seems the mainstream press has opted for a boilerplate formula for global warming articles. If any event happens, report the event. Find a scientist who will call it global warming. Give no facts or evidence. Close with disastrous warning. (04/03/08)

Doctors say global warming may bring malaria to Britain - LONDON (Reuters) - Climate change could bring malaria and other diseases to Britain and trigger more frequent heatwaves that will have huge health impacts, doctors said on Thursday.
With the exception of Lyme disease, insect-borne diseases are largely unknown in Britain. But global warming could change that in a few decades, according to a report from the British Medical Association (BMA). But what about this? (04/03/08)

I'm convinced that the entire world is insane.
Can World Afford Global Warming Fight? - By JOSEPH COLEMAN Associated Press Writer - BANGKOK, Thailand -- With global markets in turmoil and the U.S. threatened by recession, negotiators at a climate change conference are asking: can nations afford to make rapid cuts in emissions to fight global warming without going into an economic tailspin?
The price of slashing the carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming is expected to be high, but proponents of firm action argue that delay will cost more in the long run. (04/03/08)

Where's the Global Warming Panic? Coming Soon to a TV Screen Near You? - By Ronald Bailey - Cato Institute Senior Fellow Jerry Taylor points out that a new poll finds that Americans are not panicked about man-made global warming. To wit:
According to today's Energy & Environment Daily, a new poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates and released by the John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress at New York University finds that Americans are less worried about climate change than they were a couple of years ago.
E&E Daily reports that the survey's margin of error was +/- 3 percent. Here are the highlights:
The percentage of Americans who said global warming requires immediate attention declined from 77 in 2006 to 69 percent today... (04/02/08)

NY Sues EPA Over Global Warming Regulations - New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, joining with the Attorneys General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and 15 other states has filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) comply with the Supreme Court's decision holding that the Agency has the authority to regulate global warming pollution under the Clean Air Act.
"Despite clear directions a year ago from the highest court in the land, the EPA has failed to move forward on combating global warming. The EPA's foot-dragging would not be tolerated from any other defendant that failed to comply with a court order," said Cuomo. "Global warming is one of the most critical environmental problems of our generation, posing huge risks to our environment, health, and economy, both globally and right here in New York. We all know that global warming is dangerous -- it's beyond dispute. But a year after the Supreme Court's decision, the EPA refuses to acknowledge even this simple truth." (04/02/08)

Increased knowledge about global warming leads to apathy - Science Centric - 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 and M University political scientists and a former colleague indicates that trend, as explained in their recent article in the peer-reviewed journal Risk Analysis.
"More informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming," states the article, titled "Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes toward Global Warming and Climate Change in the USA."
The study showed high levels of confidence in scientists among Americans led to a decreased sense of responsibility for global warming. (04/01/08)

March, 2008

OUTRAGEUOS INDOCTRINATION ALERT!

From the editor..
Regular patrons of this site know that the indoctrination of our school children by the global warming zealots is more than just a pet peeve of mine. Recently, sixth grade students at David A. Brown Middle School in Wildomar California (with the help of their teacher Michael Steria) wrote letters to The Heartland Institute admonishing them for their position on global warming and attacking the Institute as shills for Exxon-Mobile. As a tax payer in the State of California, and the parent of a child that will be entering the sixth grade next year I am outraged!. The entire story and the actual letters from the students are here.
UPDATE: Holly Fretwell comments on this story:
Teachers Indoctrinate Kids about Global Warming - (PressMediaWire) Los Angeles, CA (March 28, 2008) -- A shocking news report has revealed how public school teachers are indoctrinating kids about global warming, and that's disturbing to Holly Fretwell, natural resources allocationexpert and author of The Sky's NOT Falling: Why It's OK To Chill About Global Warming (ISBN 0976726947, Kids Ahead, for ages 8-up, September 2007). Says Fretwell, "Kids are getting anearful at school about global warming, and too much of that information ismisleading or just plain wrong."
Letters sent from a school in Wildomar, CA to the Heartland Institute as reported in The American Chronicle provide a perfect example. Heartland recently sponsored a conference attended by scientists and economists skeptical of the UN's scientifically questionable pronouncements on global warming. Apparently this exercise in free speech was too much for 6th grade teacher Michael Steria. Notes Fretwell, herself a teacher and mother of two, "The kids wrote angry letters to Heartland based on 10 articles they read. It appears that none of those articles dealt with the science of global warming." (03/28/08)

On a more positive note (I think), I also received a letter from a sixth-grader this month, asking for information about global warming. The letter and my response is here.

Are we seeing global warming or global cooling? - The Al Gore fearmongers point to melting ice caps in Antarctica as proof that the world is rapidly warming, but they offer no proof of this except a picture of ice caps melting, which was taken in August, when ice caps do melt. Two new studies of temperatures and ice cap movement in that same area indicate that (global warming) is not the case. In fact, Antarctica is becoming colder. Dr. Peter Dorman and his team of scientists have determined that since 1986, temperatures have been dropping an average of 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, and downturns have occurred since 1978 in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of east Antarctica. When scientists noticed that glacial ice wasn’t melting, streams weren’t flowing, lakes were shrinking and microorganisms were disappearing, they decided to expand their data collection and discovered that Antarctica as a whole had gotten considerably colder. The study seems to confirm what 17,000 scientists have previously determined: There is no global warming. (03/31/08)

Some excellent videos here; some -- not-so-excellent...
Creative takes on advertising global warming awareness - By Craig Takeuchi - While in Vancouver's recent snow flurries may make it seem like we're going through cooling moreso than global warming, the weird weather patterns are certainly indicative that we are all being affected. Here are some inventive takes on presenting the global warming awareness message in a more creative way. (03/31/08)

Conference shows no 'consensus' on warming - ...So why do catastrophe-alarmists want to stifle debate? Because they know that they are promoting the greatest mass delusion of our time(man-made global warming), and the truth about this is, indeed, "inconvenient" for their cause. (03/31/08)

Comments About Global Warming - By John Coleman (jcoleman@kusi.com) - It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming. It is a SCAM.
Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data back in the late 1990's to create an illusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental wacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the "research" to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus. More on the blog. (03/31/08)

Lights on, power use up for Earth Hour - By KELLY ANDREW - It was far from lights out during Earth Hour in Wellington, with many landmark buildings in the city glowing like beacons through the rain.
...power usage was higher than average in the Wellington region during the "lights out" hour and The Dominion Post photographed several landmarks around the city including the Town Hall, Parliament Buildings, the Cenotaph, and the Victoria University Law School, that were all brightly lit between 8pm and 9pm.
Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast said the city was not an official participant in the initiative this year. (03/31/08)

Media cult of global warming, once histrionic, now merely ridiculous... - By Tom Korski - It is the triumph of Earth Hour: save a planet with sanctimony, and have fun. So, that was "Earth Hour." They dined by candlelight to save the planet. No sacrifice is too great for eco-heroes, so long as it's inexpensive and free of drudgery.
The Toronto Star interviewed a woman who boasted she never turns on the lights when going to the kitchen for a drink of water at night: "I know it's kind of dangerous, but I try it." The Calgary Herald interviewed a man who considered Earth Hour a badge of citizenship. "It's about showing you care." (03/31/08)

Gore's $300 million campaign - No, it's not for the presidency, although some Democrats may look wistfully at Al Gore's launch of his newest global-warming initiative and wonder what might have been. The former VP has garnered almost as much as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to start an ad blitz to generate support for global-warming initiatives. The ads will feature some strange bedfellows, such as Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton... (03/31/08)

This idiotic idea again...
Fertilize the Ocean with Iron to Control Global Warming, Scientists Debate - As millions of people prepare to fertilize their lawns and gardens this spring, scientists are still in the midst of intensive hand-wringing over the pros and cons of fertilizing the world’s oceans in an effort to control global warming, according to an article scheduled for the March 31 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS’ weekly newsmagazine. (03/31/08)

Global Warming: Boo, Hiss - Now for some biting humor - By Gene Weingarten - Sunday, March 30, 2008; Page W43 - THE LIBERAL MEDIA is often accused of exaggerating the effects of global warning in order to advance our own selfish, narrow-minded agenda of limiting the growth of big business, restricting free enterprise, saving the planet, etc.
And yet, we journalists have a duty to the truth. And so it is at the risk of being unfairly attacked once again that I feel I must call your attention to a recent news story in USA Today. I'm quoting it verbatim:
"As climate change warms the nation, giant Burmese pythons could colonize one-third of the USA, from San Francisco across the Southwest, Texas and the South and up north along the Virginia coast, according to U.S. Geological Survey maps released Wednesday. The pythons can be 20 feet long and 250 pounds. They are highly adaptable to new environments." (03/30/08)

Voices: Will Earth Hour make a difference? - We asked whether you think Earth Hour will make a difference. Here's what you had to say...
No, it won't. And global warming is not a fact either. It is a scientific theory which has not been proven, just a newer way of claiming the sky is falling, when it isn't. In fact, real science seems to contradict the global warming theory. So all this Earth Hour stuff is useless.
Rick Doccasilva, Toronto
I refuse to allow anyone to smoke in my home for the obvious reasons of toxic pollutants being released in the air, so why would I allow needless candle burning in the home? Disposable batteries too are a hazard to the environment. All the alternatives depicted in 'Earth Hour' pollute my environment as badly if not worse. Collectively, electricity is the best method of providing light in our home; we need to use it wisely. The present alternative it seem will throw us back to the pioneer days.
John Thornton, Orangeville, Ont.
This silly idea reminds me of something they called "Hands Across America" some years back, just a big fraternity, Book of Records stunt. Lights out and disco in the square. I think its real impact was nicely summed up someone who said she was going to her friend's house to just sit in front of the electric fireplace.
John Chuckman, Toronto (03/30/08)

The bright side of global warming - By Kate Golden | JUNEAU EMPIRE - One the one hand, two entire villages are in danger of being swallowed by a newly encroaching sea. On the other hand, the state could stand to profit from global warming - from increased tourism and research dollars, and the expansion of commercial shipping into the Arctic.
Both are conclusions drawn in a final report of a legislative commission on climate change's impacts on Alaska. The group of two House members, two state senators and seven public members took a year and a half to investigate the topic, working with government agencies and the public all over the state. Results were released March 17. (03/30/08)

False alarms and climate change - If warming is not a burning issue, let's say so as we open debate - By ROB BRADLEY - 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."
But as columnist George F. Will has observed in reference to climate science, "People only insist that a debate stop when they are afraid of what might be learned if it continues." (03/29/08)

From the JunkMan
Junk Science: Global Smearing - By Steven Milloy - 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.
ABC News reporter Dan Harris interviewed Singer for more than an hour at the recent International Climate Conference. From that interview, Harris produced a three-minute TV broadcast and Web site article that was about as fair and objective toward Singer as I might expect Greenpeace to be. (03/28/08)

Evangelicals Like It Hot | Still skeptical of climate change. - By Mark D. Tooley - SUPPOSEDLY GLOBAL WARMING IS the wedge issue that will peel evangelicals away from their conservative voting habits and their ostensible preoccupation with sexual mores. So when the president of the conservative-led 16 million member Southern Baptist Convention signed a Global Warming statement, headlines blazed, and the evangelical left cheered. But the church's president has since attempted to clarify. And the head of the denomination's official public policy arm is publicly opposing congressional legislation mandating increased carbon caps. (03/28/08)

Earth Hour coverage should be grounded - By Andrew Bolt - 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.
Why? Because Earth Hour proves that what threatens us is not so much global warming, but lousy journalism. (03/28/08)

Global warming: fact or fiction? - By Claire Biddiscombe - At times like this, it's hard to pity Aristotle and Ptolemy. All they had to do was prove the Earth was round.
The major question in earth sciences now is not as easily resolved with simple geometry. In fact, even with the wealth of modern technology at their disposal, the world's top scientists are still having difficulty coming to a consensus.
Is it really getting warmer? And if it is, what is causing the shift? (03/27/08)

Media Hype on 'Melting' Antarctic Ignores Record Ice Growth - By Marc Morano - The media is once again hyping an allegedly dire consequence of man-made global warming. This time the media is promoting the ice loss of one tiny fraction of the giant ice-covered continent and completely ignoring the current record ice growth on Antarctica. Contrary to media hype, the vast majority of Antarctica has cooled over the past 50 years and ice coverage has grown to record levels since satellite monitoring began in the 1979, according to peer-reviewed studies and scientists who study the area. (LINK) (03/27/08)

Massive ice shelf collapses, but ice near record high - ...The full Wilkins 6,000 square mile ice shelf is just 0.39% of the current ice sheet (just 0.1% of the extent last September). Only a small portion of it between 1/10th-1/20th of Wilkins has separated so far, like an icicle falling off a snow and ice covered house. And this winter is coming on quickly. In fact the ice is returning so fast, it is running an amazing 60% ahead (4.0 vs 2.5 million square km extent) of last year when it set a new record. The ice extent is already approaching the second highest level for extent since the measurements began by satellite in 1979 and just a few days into the Southern Hemisphere winter and 6 months ahead of the peak. Wilkins like all the others that temporarily broke up will refreeze soon. We are very likely going to exceed last year"s record. Yet the world is left with the false impression Antarctica' ice sheet is also starting to disappear. PDF (icecap.us) (03/27/08)

Increased knowledge about global warming leads to apathy, study shows - COLLEGE STATION " 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. (03/27/08)

Gore Won't Put His Money Where His Mouth Is - By Justin Paulette - Today is the deadline of the Global Warming Challenge -- a bet proposed by J. Scott Armstrong, a climate-change skeptic who doubts the varsity of climate forecasting models upon which Al Gore had based many of his dooms-day predictions. (03/27/08)

EPA Chief's Australia Trip Irks Sen. Boxer - Good! Stephen Power reports on environmental and energy policy.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson has riled Democrats again -- this time over his travel plans.
California Sen. Barbara Boxer, in a letter to Johnson Wednesday, complained that he and "a substantial number of EPA staff members" are planning a trip to Australia that will make him unavailable to testify before Congress "on certain important matters through much of April." (03/27/08)

Rep. Bachmann and global warming - When we elect members to Congress, it's with the hope that they will serve with a firm grasp on reality and with a mind open enough to at least try to solve even our most vexing of problems.
That doesn't seem to be the case with U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., at least on the global warming issue.
In a story that's making state and national headlines this week, Bachmann -- who represents the northern suburbs and St. Cloud area -- has introduced a bill with the light-hearted title, "Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act." I love it!
It's an attempt to repeal a nationwide effort to phase out conventional light bulbs in favor of the longer-lasting, more-efficient compact fluorescent lights, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
Bachmann argues that she is trying to preserve homeowners' and others' rights to use whatever kind of light bulb they want -- even if it costs them more in electrical expenses.
We're not going to fight her on that, (then why write this idiotic editorial?) although it's a little silly to discourage the use of more efficient bulbs. People probably should be able to have some choice in how they light their homes.
But there are things behind Bachmann's bill -- including ignoring sound industry advice plus her take on global warming -- that make us question her credibility.
The Star Tribune reported Wednesday that Bachmann recently told a meeting of Sherburne County Republicans that any human connection to global warming is "voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax"... WOW! The congresswoman spoke the truth. Oh, the horror! (03/27/08)

Attention News Editors: The light bulb myth: What will it really take to stop global warming? TORONTO, March 27 /CNW/ Time to shed some light on the fluorescent bulb myth: If every home in the U.S. put in one compact fluorescent light bulb, the savings in greenhouse gas emissions would be wiped out by fewer than two medium-sized coal plants - the kind of plant that is being built in China at a rate of one a week. Countless green ideas promoted in Canada and other Western nations to help people reduce their so-called carbon footprint would contribute just a fraction of the overall reduction needed to cut global emissions 50 per cent by 2050 - a minimum target scientists widely agree we must meet... (03/27/08)

Networks Hype Eroding Beaches, Breaking Icebergs - NBC and CBS blame volatility of coastlines and rise in sea level on global warming. - By Jeff Poor, Business & Media Institute - To demonstrate that global warming is supposedly causing the collapse of nature, the March 26 "CBS Evening News" featured eroding coastlines causing people to lose homes in England as evidence.
"Much of the effects of climate change have been couched in terms of if or when its effects will be felt," CBS correspondent Mark Phillips said. "Well, here there is no if. And when is now. So choices are being made. It"s called managed retreat. Some areas of coastline deemed indefensible are being abandoned. Climate change is producing winners and losers, and Diana Wrightson and the others here have already lost."
Happisburgh has become a poster child for the global warming alarmist movement. A February 22 Associated Press story referred to Happisburgh as an example of a coastline "vulnerable" to the effects of global warming. (03/27/08)

Global warming policy analyzed - By Jordan Schrader - The John Locke Foundation, a Raleigh think tank skeptical of the idea that global warming is a crisis that calls for major new laws and regulations, will bring experts on the issue to Asheville.
John Christy and David Tuerck will speak on "The Science and Economics of State Global Warming Policy" 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Grove Park Inn. (03/27/08)

Baptist eco-activists are blowing hot air - By Luke Boggs For the Journal-Constitution - Count me among those Southern Baptists who aren't wild about some in the denomination issuing a declaration on climate change earlier this month.
While the activists at the self-styled Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative have every right to their opinions, I believe they are overreaching in trying to transform a political question into one of morality.
In fact, with all due respect, I think these folks have a lot of nerve, telling their fellow Baptists to jump on the global-warming bandwagon and take action in what may well prove to be this century's equivalent of tilting at windmills, only with a host of potentially devastating consequences.
The declaration, which was not endorsed by the denomination itself, boils down to this: "We resolve to engage this issue without any further lingering over the basic reality of the problem or our responsibility to address it." In other words: The debate is over, global warming is here, and we must, as good Baptists, rise up to fight it.
But merely declaring a debate over doesn't make it so. Amen! While plenty of scientists buy into global warming, many others don't. Temperature shifts can reflect any number of factors unrelated to human activity. And a healthy skepticism makes sense... (03/27/08)

Another BS Alert from the UN
Global warming may turn Pakistan barren in 40 years: UN Report - ISLAMABAD: A UN report on economic and social survey on Asia-Pacific 2008 launched in here on Thursday warns that due to the global warming, Pakistan may turn into a barren land within a span of four decades. (03/27/08)

Global Warming, Bad Weather Scuttle Fall Out Boy's Quest for Antarctic Glory - It's a sad day for fans of emo and/or quixotic quests, as Fall Out Boy's epic journey in search of a multi-continental world record was canceled today due to bad weather. "It's an utter f***ing disappointment," bassist AND primary lyricist AND backing vocalist Pete Wentz told MTV... (03/27/08)

Global Warming Policies Cool Minority Economic Engines - By Deneen Borelli - For someone once considered "our first black president," Bill Clinton seems to have particular disregard for the economic well-being of minorities when it comes to energy.
At a recent rally, the former Man from Hope said: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren."
Slowing down the economy won't hurt Clinton and Al Gore - his former vice president and self-appointed global warming czar - it will hurt lower-income families, especially minorities. With all the panic over indications the economy may already be slowing, why purposely make things worse? (03/27/08)

NewsBusters: 'Today' Food Editor Claims Global Warming Making Napa Valley Wines Passe - By Geoffrey Dickens - Proving that no segment, be it even one on food trends, is safe from liberal bias, NBC's "Today" show food editor claimed, in a report on hot new food trends, that global warming was causing Napa Valley wines to become passe. On Thursday's "Today" show co-anchors Ann Curry and Hoda Kotb sipped wine, while Lempert claimed that North Carolina wines were going to be all the rage because Napa Valley wineries were being harmed by "global warming."
The following exchange occurred on the March 27 "Today" show... (03/27/08)

EPA Cautious Global Warming. - By H. JOSEF HEBERT - WASHINGTON (AP -- The Environmental Protection Agency is making clear it will not be rushed into a decision on whether to regulate emissions linked to global warming, as directed by the Supreme Court. (03/27/08)

Something isn"t following the Greenhouse script
The Oceans Have Stopped Warming! - By Dennis Avery - This year of 2008 is starting out cold--but according to the "consensus" climate watchers it's still likely to be one of the "top 10 warmest" in the thermometer record before it's over. After all, the Greenhouse gasses continue to accumulate in the atmosphere.
But wait. Something isn't following the Greenhouse script. The oceans, which contain 80 to 90 percent of the planet's heat, have recently stopped warming!
Over the past 4-5 years, "there has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant,"J osh Willis of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently told National Public Radio. (03/26/08)

Global Warming Hyperbole