Family Feud At General Electric

As has been pointed out here (do a search on General Electric) many times, General Electric Corporation (GE), which owns NBC, MSNBC, "Newsweek Magazine", The Weather Channel and the Discovery Channel, is accused of broadcasting misinformation about global warming for their own monetary benefit.

In other words, this large corporation which manufactures and sells things such as wind turbines, solar panels, fluorescent light bulbs, "clean coal technology", and nuclear power plants, and has a huge stake in the "cap and trade" carbon hustle---- this same corporation operates and maintains its own propaganda machine. They have been pouring out a consistent stream of inaccurate "news" about the catastrophes awaiting us all if we do not immediately act to prevent global warming and climate change. Interestingly, the things they propose to save us, all come back to buying GE products or having the government grant them subsidies, tax credits, or outright grants, loans, and now "economic stimulus" money.

This has been reported on here and elsewhere in the non-mainstream media, but now it seems even NBC affiliates are beginning to smell the rot and stink of GE activity. Hopefully this will all be brought out into the fresh air for the public to see.
Peter

NBC Affiliate Meteorologist Rips MSNBC for Apocalyptic Global Warming Special

Michigan affiliate's chief meteorologist slams disingenuousness of MSNBC's 'Future Earth' special; GE's financial stake in cap-and-trade passage.
By Jeff Poor Business & Media Institute
4/27/2009 4:19:36 PM

NBC Universal and its networks have been criticized for the global warming alarmism it parades on a regular basis. However, now the criticism is coming from its own affiliates.

Prior to its April 26 airing on MSNBC, shows on NBC had been promoting the first part of the climate special “Future Earth” – an MSNBC program that used computer animation to show the possibilities of a polar icecap melting. That prompted Bill Steffen, a meteorologist for NBC’s Grand Rapids, Mich. affiliate, to call out MSNBC for that special.

Steffen challenged several premises of “Future Earth: Journey to the End of the World,” on his WoodTV.com blog. Steffen debunked the entire series premise that is posted on the MSNBC Web site: “Find out why Earth’s climate machine — the North Pole — is melting alarmingly fast. Learn about our planet’s future, and how you can stop its decline.”

“First, the North Pole is not ‘Earth’s Climate Machine,’” Steffen wrote. “There is far more heat and area in the Tropics than at the North Pole. Second, YOU can’t stop its decline (assuming it’s declining)! Nature is big - you personally are insignificant compared to nature. Don’t you wish you had the power to control icecaps! If you don’t mind some profanity, check out George Carlin’s take on ‘Saving the Planet.’ Third, MSNBC does not know ‘our planet’s future.’”

Steffen rebutted claims of the MSNBC special saying that ice in the Antarctic has actually been expanding and that polar ice melting alone would not cause sea level to rise as depicted in the “Future Earth.”

“Keep in mind that if the Polar icecap (without Greenland) melted…it would hardly cause sea level to rise, because the icecap is currently displacing water in the Arctic Ocean,” Steffen wrote.

Steffen also pointed out, as many others have, the financial stake NBC Universal’s parent company General Electric (NYSE:GE) has invested in cap-and-trade becoming law.

“One last point, MSNBC is owned by General Electric,” Steffen wrote. “GE is already making money off the issue with their Carbon Credit Master Card (link from ‘Treehugger,’ no less). Here’s CNN’s story on the new credit card.”

Steffen even showed how much GE has spent lobbying for environmental causes, originally reported by the Washington Examiner on March 3.

“Interesting note: In the fourth quarter of 2008 as GE/NBC stock fell 30 percent, GE spent $4.26 million on lobbying — that’s $46,304 each day, including weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Steffen wrote. “In 2008, the company spent a grand total of $18.66 million on lobbying. Reviewing their lobbying filings, GE’s specific lobbying issues included the ‘Climate Stewardship Act,’ ‘Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act,’ ‘Global Warming Reduction Act,’ ‘Federal Government Greenhouse Gas Registry Act,’ ‘Low Carbon Economy Act,’ and ‘Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.’ Do you think this ‘big business’ is just concerned about the environment?”

The Climate AND Attitudes Are Changing!

Things sure get interesting when the mainstream media allows questions to be asked about the causes of the climate climate change phenomena usually blamed on man-caused global warming. In this case the common periods of draught in Australia receive an alternate explanation. Then given a chance, the fears of dying coral reefs, drowning polar bears, increased hurricanes, flooding, and heat waves will all be shown to be part of a natural, not man-caused, pattern of climate change.

Let us hope the following article is an example of a shift in attitude from one of Al Gore and Jim Hansen-type climate alarmism, to one of reason and common sense.
Peter

The climate sure is changing when doubt gets an airing
Written by Andrew Bolt, Melbourne Herald Sun
Tuesday, 21 April 2009

HMM, I could be wrong. Maybe the climate is changing after all. The intellectual climate, I mean. For years it's been a social crime to doubt man is heating the world to hell.

But suddenly the ice is cracking - and no, not the ice around Antarctica, which has actually grown. Take a few signs from last week alone. Australia's pre-eminent academic geologist, Prof Ian Plimer, published Heaven and Earth, challenging the gospel that the world is warming dangerously and that human-caused gases are to blame.

In fact, says Plimer, what warming we saw until a decade ago was not unusual, not dangerous and most likely caused mainly by solar activity. What's more, temperatures now seem to be falling.

While true, this kind of talk has been enough - until recently - to get you defamed as crazy or corrupt. Only last November, Plimer had a leper's bell rung over his head when he appeared on the ABC's Lateline Business, with presenter Ticky Fullerton warning he was "a geologist, not a climatologist" who "by definition works closely with the mining industry". Cross yourselves!
(When did the ABC last warn viewers that Al Gore "is an ex-politician, not a climatologist", and Tim Flannery "is a mammal expert, not a climatologist"?)

Then came Fullerton's "how-corrupt-are-you" question: "You are a greenhouse heretic . . . Is this scepticism genuine, or it it also about economic self-interest?"
(Has the ABC asked Flannery: "Is your warming belief genuine, or is it also about the $50,000 speaking fees?")

So what's changed? Perhaps not that much, but Sydney Morning Herald columnist Paul Sheehan, long a warming alarmist, did last week praise Plimer's book to the cooling heavens, and confess he could have been wrong in his own warming faith.

On Wednesday, another shock. The ABC's evangelical PM program did, true, report stock predictions of doom from alarmist scientists, but not before giving air time to two sceptical ones who'd given evidence to a Senate inquiry into the Rudd Government's planned emissions trading scheme.

And so listeners heard environmental engineer Prof Stewart Franks, say the West "has been railroaded into this notion of disastrous climate change for which there is no empirical evidence".

They also heard environmental geologist Prof Bob Carter warn that even if the world resumed warming, the Rudd scheme would at best cut temperatures by a thousandth of a degree, but at an insane cost.

And on Saturday came the final straw in the wind - even the ABC's AM gave Plimer an interview, albeit not without some alarmist at the end to "balance" his views as Flannery's never are.

By then Plimer's publisher had already sold an extraordinary 5000 copies of Heaven and Earth in just a week to a public clearly having second thoughts about all the warming hype.

By then, too, other researchers had given yet another reason to doubt.
The University of NSW Climate Change Research Centre has now found that our Big Dry is not unusual and not caused by global warming (as the Government insists), announcing: "The causes of southeastern Australia's longest, most severe and damaging droughts have been discovered, with the surprise finding that they originate far away in the Indian Ocean.

"A team of Australian scientists has detailed for the first time how a phenomenon known as the Indian Ocean Dipole - a variable and irregular cycle of warming and cooling of ocean water - dictates whether moisture-bearing winds are carried across the southern half of Australia."
This explanation "challenges the accepted understanding of the key drivers of Australia's climate", the centre added. No kidding?

I hope the example of last week's three sceptical scientists - and of the NSW climate change researchers - inspires others to now cry that the emperor has no clothes. Or, rather, that he's wearing a jumper, it's got so cool.

You see, in just one week this month, I talked to three federal frontbenchers (two Labor), one prominent union leader and two media stars who all doubt man is warming the planet dangerously, but do not dare tell you. Indeed, I'd now reckon a quarter of Labor's frontbenchers and more than half of the Liberals' are closet sceptics.

It is tragic that so many smart people are too scared to say what they believe, especially when it's true. I blame most our crusading don't-argue media.

I wonder how much public opinion would turn against the warming scare if such sceptics came out and declared themselves. What a blow they'd strike not just for this country, but for reason.

But for now we still remain the prey of warming priests, carpet-baggers and the barking mad. The climate may be changing, but not enough for many sceptics to yet dare step outside.
Source

Sunspots, Solar Activity And Global Cooling?

Finally, I think this is the first time I've come across an article on ABC , part of the "mainstream media", questioning the too-widely-held assumption that man's activities are responsible for global warming and/or climate change. A change in the amount of solar energy received by the Earth has always been the logical explanation for climate change. Here is more evidence pointing toward the sun.

A real inconvenient truth is global cooling could be harder to deal with than the global warming scare that has been hammered into us for decades. Stay tuned.
Peter


A QUIET SUN DOESN'T HAPPEN OVERNIGHT

Written by Charles Osgood, The Osgood File
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
I know you've already got a lot to worry about as it is, but something rather odd is going on --- on the Sun.
The Sun normally undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity --- and last year, it was supposed to have heated up --- and, at its peak, would have a tumultuous boiling atmosphere, spitting out flares and huge chunks of super-hot gas.

Instead, it hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity. Right now, the sun is the dimmest it's been in nearly a century.
Did you know that? It's true. Astronomers are baffled by it, but has the press covered the story? Hardly at all. Is the government doing anything about it? No, it's not even in the Obama budget or any Congressional earmarks.

But, sooner or later, I bet it will turn out to be our fault --- yours and mine. And in Washington, where everything is political, they'll note that it began before President Obama took office --- perhaps "another example of the failed policies of the Bush Administration."
At an upcoming meeting of astronomers in the United Kingdom, they'll be studying new pictures of the Sun taken from space, looking for any hint that the Sun will start heating up again and acting up again, the way it's supposed to. But there is no sign of that, so far.

In the mid-17th Century, there was a quiet spell on the Sun --- known as the Maunder Minimum --- which lasted 70 years, and led to a mini-Ice Age here on Earth.
Right now, global warming is a given to so many, it raises the question: Could another minimum activity period on the Sun counteract, in any way, the effects of global warming?

Hush, child! You're not even supposed to suggest that. The only thing that can change global warming is if we human beings --- we Americans, especially --- completely change our ways and our way of life.

I'm sure you'll be hearing more about this solar dimming business, now that the story is out. Remember, you heard it here first...

The Osgood File. Transcripts, podcasts, and Mp3's of all these programs can be found at theosgoodfile.com. I'm Charles Osgood on the CBS Radio Network.

Limit Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Harm The Economy, Harm The Environment

Who would ever have thought wealthier countries have cleaner air and water than do poor underdeveloped nations? This is heresy to radical environmentalists, but a lot of people don't seem to realize that a robust economy is good for our health and well-being. Limiting and taxing carbon dioxide, (which the Obama Administration seems hell-bent on doing) will damage our economy and thus be bad for our health and well-being. This is exactly the opposite of what the supposed goals of the EPA are when they declare carbon dioxide (CO2) a pollutant.

The following article comes from The New York Times and shows that they, or at least the writer Mr. Tierney, realize this global warming alarmism we're hearing may have a very serious negative downside.
Peter

April 21, 2009
Findings
Use Energy, Get Rich and Save the Planet
By JOHN TIERNEY
When the first Earth Day took place in 1970, American environmentalists had good reason to feel guilty. The nation’s affluence and advanced technology seemed so obviously bad for the planet that they were featured in a famous equation developed by the ecologist Paul Ehrlich and the physicist John P. Holdren, who is now President Obama’s science adviser.

Their equation was I=PAT, which means that environmental impact is equal to population multiplied by affluence multiplied by technology. Protecting the planet seemed to require fewer people, less wealth and simpler technology — the same sort of social transformation and energy revolution that will be advocated at many Earth Day rallies on Wednesday.

But among researchers who analyze environmental data, a lot has changed since the 1970s. With the benefit of their hindsight and improved equations, I’ll make a couple of predictions:
1. There will be no green revolution in energy or anything else. No leader or law or treaty will radically change the energy sources for people and industries in the United States or other countries. No recession or depression will make a lasting change in consumers’ passions to use energy, make money and buy new technology — and that, believe it or not, is good news, because...

2. The richer everyone gets, the greener the planet will be in the long run.

I realize this second prediction seems hard to believe when you consider the carbon being dumped into the atmosphere today by Americans, and the projections for increasing emissions from India and China as they get richer.

Those projections make it easy to assume that affluence and technology inflict more harm on the environment. But while pollution can increase when a country starts industrializing, as people get wealthier they can afford cleaner water and air. They start using sources of energy that are less carbon-intensive — and not just because they’re worried about global warming. The process of “decarbonization” started long before Al Gore was born.

The old wealth-is-bad IPAT theory may have made intuitive sense, but it didn’t jibe with the data that has been analyzed since that first Earth Day. By the 1990s, researchers realized that graphs of environmental impact didn’t produce a simple upward-sloping line as countries got richer. The line more often rose, flattened out and then reversed so that it sloped downward, forming the shape of a dome or an inverted U — what’s called a Kuznets curve. (See nytimes.com/tierneylab for an example.)

In dozens of studies, researchers identified Kuznets curves for a variety of environmental problems. There are exceptions to the trend, especially in countries with inept governments and poor systems of property rights, but in general, richer is eventually greener. As incomes go up, people often focus first on cleaning up their drinking water, and then later on air pollutants like sulfur dioxide.

As their wealth grows, people consume more energy, but they move to more efficient and cleaner sources — from wood to coal and oil, and then to natural gas and nuclear power, progressively emitting less carbon per unit of energy. This global decarbonization trend has been proceeding at a remarkably steady rate since 1850, according to Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University and Paul Waggoner of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.

“Once you have lots of high-rises filled with computers operating all the time, the energy delivered has to be very clean and compact,” said Mr. Ausubel, the director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller. “The long-term trend is toward natural gas and nuclear power, or conceivably solar power. If the energy system is left to its own devices, most of the carbon will be out of it by 2060 or 2070.”

But what about all the carbon dioxide being spewed out today by Americans commuting to McMansions? Well, it’s true that American suburbanites do emit more greenhouse gases than most other people in the world (although New Yorkers aren’t much different from other affluent urbanites).

But the United States and other Western countries seem to be near the top of a Kuznets curve for carbon emissions and ready to start the happy downward slope. The amount of carbon emitted by the average American has remained fairly flat for the past couple of decades, and per capita carbon emissions have started declining in some countries, like France. Some researchers estimate that the turning point might come when a country’s per capita income reaches $30,000, but it can vary widely, depending on what fuels are available. Meanwhile, more carbon is being taken out of the atmosphere by the expanding forests in America and other affluent countries. Deforestation follows a Kuznets curve, too. In poor countries, forests are cleared to provide fuel and farmland, but as people gain wealth and better agricultural technology, the farm fields start reverting to forestland.

Of course, even if rich countries’ greenhouse impact declines, there will still be an increase in carbon emissions from China, India and other countries ascending the Kuznets curve. While that prospect has environmentalists lobbying for global restrictions on greenhouse gases, some economists fear that a global treaty could ultimately hurt the atmosphere by slowing economic growth, thereby lengthening the time it takes for poor countries to reach the turning point on the curve.

But then, is there much reason to think that countries at different stages of the Kuznets curve could even agree to enforce tough restrictions? The Kyoto treaty didn’t transform Europe’s industries or consumers. While some American environmentalists hope that the combination of the economic crisis and a new president can start an era of energy austerity and green power, Mr. Ausubel says they’re hoping against history.

Over the past century, he says, nothing has drastically altered the long-term trends in the way Americans produce or use energy — not the Great Depression, not the world wars, not the energy crisis of the 1970s or the grand programs to produce alternative energy.
“Energy systems evolve with a particular logic, gradually, and they don’t suddenly morph into something different,” Mr. Ausubel says. That doesn’t make for a rousing speech on Earth Day. But in the long run, a Kuznets curve is more reliable than a revolution.

Telling It Like It Is

These in the following article have been said before but they warrant repeating. The big lie about global warming being foisted on Americans by the Obama Administration must be objected to and rejected.
Peter


"Clean Energy" is a Dirty Lie
Written by Alan Caruba, Warning Signs
Sunday, 19 April 2009 (source)
What does it take to be a dedicated environmentalist—a Green—these days?
“The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” An example would be a belief in “global warming” despite the fact that the planet has been cooling for a decade.

“To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed.” This describes anyone who says that carbon dioxide, CO2, is responsible for a warming that is not occurring or that this gas could cause it.

“To deny objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies.” This is how Congress can restrict access to national energy sources—oil, natural gas, and coal—while claiming it wants the USA to be “energy independent.”
The definition above comes from George Orwell’s “1984” and describes “double think” in his allegory of Communism.

President Obama’s environmental beliefs and policies are a composite of outright lies and high on the list is his promise of “Green jobs.” This is based on his intention to radically transform our society from one in which energy jobs in areas such as oil production and mining are replaced by those providing wind and solar energy.

The auto industry is getting a makeover as General Motors brands that sell well are forced by government fiat to be abandoned for those few that people want or can afford.

Regarding so-called Green jobs, Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, recently pointed out that a study in Spain that was released in late March made clear that, “Spain has spent billions in taxpayer resources to subsidize renewable energy programs in an effort to jumpstart its ailing economy and what they have gotten in return are fewer jobs, skyrocketing debt and some of the highest and most regressive energy prices in the developed world.”

The lies Greens are telling, whether in Spain are here in the USA, always produce the same results. For every “Green job” created by the Spanish government over the past decade, 2.2 other jobs were destroyed as a result. To not expect the same result here is to be willfully ignorant.

All the talk of “clean energy”, wind and solar, is now shifting into high gear with the introduction of the Waxman-Markey legislation on March 31. It is touted as “a new direction for America’s clean energy future and fighting global warming.” At the risk of being repetitive, there is NO global warming. The Earth is now ten years into a cooling cycle.

This is possibly the most dreadful piece of legislation to be put before Congress in the history of the nation. It is the deliberate reordering of American society because without adequate energy, the economy will implode and the lifestyles that Americans take for granted, all based on affordable electricity and fuel for transportation will cease to exist.

It is based entirely on the “global warming” lie. It is based entirely on the lie that carbon dioxide (CO2) is the driving force behind “climate change.”

Clean jobs are just one more of the endless lies that Greens tell in order to put an end to America’s capacity to compete in the global marketplace.
Clean energy is the term applied to wind and solar energy, deemed “renewable”, amidst more lies about the oil and coal which most surely will neither be renewable nor even available if Congress and the White House continue to put the national lands under which they exist off limits to all exploration and extraction.

Totally supported by government subsidies and mandates for their use, wind and solar energy represents barely one percent of the electricity Americans use every day.

In countless ways, the Greens are working to destroy America’s ability to have the energy it needs to survive and grow. Our economy, already suffering from government mandates that destroyed the nation’s housing market, will utterly collapse when it can no longer access the energy required for the future.
Clean energy is a dirty lie.

Alan Caruba writes a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com and a weekly commentary at http://www.anxietycenter.com , the website of The National Anxiety Center.

A Cruel Despotism Has Been Unleashed On America

This really is utterly amazing, the declaration that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a "pollutant" and a danger to the health and well-being of all Americans. It is one thing to hear Al Gore ranting and raving about this, but now the nonsense comes from the Environmental Protection Agency. This is supposedly a governmental agency that employs honest scientists whose tax-payer funded jobs are to protect us. We naively assume they are above "politics", like our police, firemen, and military are supposed to be.

However, this is obviously not the case with the EPA. The Obama Administration and his hand-picked appointees to agencies like the EPA and the Interior Department, the Treasury, and others, seem hell-bent on controlling every aspect of American's lives. We've seen this now with the auto, banking and mortgage industries. Now they want to control the very energy we use. The EPA declaring CO2 a "pollutant" is the tool they're going to use. This is insanity and we who understand the science, and understand what a HOAX the entire man-caused global warming theory is must do all we can to stop this move now!

Search this blog, there is much supporting information here, and links to even more.
Peter

Stop the EPA Before it Destroys America!

Written by Alan Caruba, Warning Signs
Friday, 17 April 2009

Jackson: Science be damned!
If the Environmental Protection Agency were some benign government unit tucked away in the corner of some massive federal government building, we could safely conclude it was doing its job to keep the nation’s air and water clean.
It is the very antithesis of that. It is a Green Gestapo that has wreaked havoc with all aspects of the nation’s industrial and agricultural communities, run roughshod over property rights, declared puddles to be navigable waters, and removed invaluable, beneficial chemicals from use to protect the lives and property of all Americans.

In much the same way as the FBI maintains a “Ten Most Wanted” list of criminals, so does the EPA.

The EPA’s former director, Carol Browner, was recently discovered to be a commissioner in Socialist International, described by Steven Milloy of JunkScience.com as “a decidedly anti-capitalistic political cause.” Socialist International’s principles are the communist principles set forth by Karl Marx.

Browner is presently the chief White House advisor to the President on environmental issues. The announcement that the EPA has declared carbon dioxide a “pollutant” and all so-called greenhouse gases a danger to human health and welfare now clears the way to regulate every single economic activity in the nation, most notably the emissions from automobiles.

The EPA is poised to further ruin the quintessentially American auto industry with regulatory power that will determine what kind of automobile Americans will be permitted to drive, limiting the use of internal combustion, and forcing the purchase of high cost hybrids and those run on massive batteries.

Naturally, the announcement was greeted with joy by the likes of the demented Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and a panoply of environment organizations such as the Environmental Defense Fund. The EDF hailed the announcement saying “The U.S. is taking its first steps as a nation to confront climate change.” Vickie Patton, EDF’s deputy general counsel, went on to say “Global warming threatens our health, our economy, and our children’s prosperity.”

Only there is NO global warming and there is NOTHING that the U.S. government or all the governments of all the nations of the world can do about “climate change.” This is a “threat” that does not exist!

What the EPA and other elements of government can and will do is use the international “global warming” hoax to pass new laws and more regulations to destroy the economic viability of all activities that utilize energy.

Here’s why CO2 and the so-called “greenhouse” gases do not perform a “greenhouse” function. As explained by retired analytical chemist, Hans Schreuder:
“With no atmosphere at all, our moon is very hot in sunshine (over 100°C) and very cold in the shade (less than minus 150°C).” “With earth receiving as good as the same amount of solar irradiation, our atmosphere thus acts as a cooling medium during the hours of sunshine and a blanket during the hours of darkness.”

“Global warming, global cooling and all climate change is caused by the daily revolutions of our earth around its own axis, throughout which time the varying amounts of heat gained during the day and similar variations of heat lost during the night make the weather what it is: ranging from plus 50°C to minus 50°C (even more extreme in places), unpredictable beyond a few days and at times violent or totally quiet.”

“That's quite apart from the seasonal differences caused by the annual trip around the sun and the varying distance that our planet revolves around our sun and we're not even considering even greater forces of influence.”

The entire white paper is available at http://tech-know.eu/uploads/ACCInput.pdf <http://tech-know.eu/uploads/ACCInput.pdf >

Throughout its history the EPA has deliberately distorted actual science to advance its own warped “environmental” agenda. This EPA ruling permits the government to control all aspects of CO2 emissions, short of the exhalation of CO2 by human beings. Humans emit CO2. Animals emit CO2. And energy use emits CO2. It is not a “pollutant” or a threat to health; it is a natural gas vital to all life on Earth via the process of photosynthesis by all plant life. Without CO2 all vegetation dies and with it all animal life.

Congress has a long record of restricting access to the nation’s vast reserves of coal, oil and natural gas. Our “dependency”; the importation of these energy sources is entirely the result of national policies. Now add thousands of regulations on all USE of energy.

Some will mark the announcement as the beginning of the decline of the American economy, but the U.S. government has long been engaged in all manner of control over everything required for a successful economy. What begins is the end to the abundant choices Americans have always had regarding the manufacture, distribution, and purchase of anything and everything common to our present lifestyle.

It is a cruel despotism that has been unleashed on all Americans.

Alan Caruba writes a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com and a weekly commentary at http://www.anxietycenter.com , the website of The National Anxiety Center.

The Political Mess That Is Man-Caused Global Warming

The New York Times just reported the EPA is going to announce it has determined carbon dioxide (CO2) is a "pollutant" that "threatens public health and welfare". The following abstract of an article published by the American Chemical Society directly contradicts the EPA's statement. There needs to be a battle here. The implications of the use of the power the EPA has is enormous.

(Note: I always use the term "man-caused" global warming instead of "Anthropogenic Global Warming", abbreviated as AGW, because I don't want anyone to be misled or put-off by the impressive-sounding, pretentious "scientific" word, "anthropogenic". Man-caused global warming is what it is, a myth perpetuated by those with a political agenda.)
Peter

"E.P.A. to Clear the Way for Regulation of Warming Gases
The agency on Friday
is expected to formally declare carbon
dioxide and other heat-trapping gases
to be pollutants that
threaten public health and welfare."
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

The following abstract is from "wagmc" here.

Potential Dependence of Global Warming on the Residence Time (RT) in the Atmosphere of Anthropogenically Sourced Carbon Dioxide.
Robert H. Essenhigh, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210

Abstract:

The driver for this study is the wide-ranging published values of the CO2 atmospheric residence time (RT), τ, with the values differing by more than an order of magnitude, where the significance of the difference relates to decisions on whether (1) to attempt control of combustion-sourced (anthropogenic) CO2 emissions, if τ > 100 years, or (2) not to attempt control, if τ ~ 10 years. This given difference is particularly evident in the IPCC First 1990 Climate Change Report where, in the opening policymakers summary of the report, the RT is stated to be in the range of 50−200 years, and (largely) on the basis of that, it was also concluded in the report and from subsequent related studies that the current rising level of CO2 was due to combustion of fossil fuels, thus carrying the, now widely accepted, rider that CO2 emissions from combustion should therefore be curbed.

However, the actual data in the text of the IPCC report separately states a value of 4 years. The differential of these two times is then clearly identified in the relevant supporting documents of the report as being, separately (1) a long-term (~100 years) adjustment or response time to accommodate imbalance increases in CO2 emissions from all sources and (2) the actual RT in the atmosphere of ~4 years. As a check on that differentiation and its alternative outcome, the definition and determination of RT thus defined the need for and focus of this study. In this study, using the combustion/chemical-engineering perfectly stirred reactor (PSR) mixing structure or 0D box for the model basis, as an alternative to the more commonly used global circulation models (GCMs), to define and determine the RT in the atmosphere and then using data from the IPCC and other sources for model validation and numerical determination, the data (1) support the validity of the PSR model application in this context and, (2) from the analysis, provide (quasi-equilibrium) RTs for CO2 of ~5 years carrying C12 and ~16 years carrying C14, with both values essentially in agreement with the IPCC short-term (4 year) value and, separately, in agreement with most other data sources, notably, a 1998 listing by Segalstad of 36 other published values, also in the range of 5−15 years.

Additionally, the analytical results also then support the IPCC analysis and data on the longer “adjustment time” (~100 years) governing the long-term rising “quasi-equilibrium” concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. For principal verification of the adopted PSR model, the data source used was the outcome of the injection of excess 14CO2 into the atmosphere during the A-bomb tests in the 1950s/1960s, which generated an initial increase of approximately 1000% above the normal value and which then declined substantially exponentially with time, with τ = 16 years, in accordance with the (unsteady-state) prediction from and jointly providing validation for the PSR analysis.

With the short (5−15 year) RT results shown to be in quasi-equilibrium, this then supports the (independently based) conclusion that the long-term (~100 year) rising atmospheric CO2 concentration is not from anthropogenic sources but, in accordance with conclusions from other studies, is most likely the outcome of the rising atmospheric temperature, which is due to other natural factors.

This further supports the conclusion that global warming is not anthropogenically driven as an outcome of combustion. The economic and political significance of that conclusion will be self-evident.

The following is the link to the original source.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ef800581r

Mr. Obama: You Are Wrong About Climate Change

Mr. Obama, you are wrong, or so say an increasing number of prominent scientists around the world. Are our lawmakers listening? Have politics so completely exceeded the boundaries of common sense and reason that we will allow this myth of man-caused global warming to continue? Let us hope not. Let us spread this message as far and wide as possible.
Peter


"Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change.The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear."
— PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, NOVEMBER 19 , 2008

With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true. (source)

We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated.
Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.1,2
After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events.3
The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior.4
Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.


Syun Akasofu, Ph.D, University Of Alaska
Arthur G. Anderson, Ph.D, Director Of Research, IBM (retired)
Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D, Anderson Materials Evaluation
J. Scott Armstrong, Ph.D, University Of Pennsylvania
Robert Ashworth, Clearstack LLC
Ismail Baht, Ph.D, University Of Kashmir
Colin Barton Csiro, (retired)
David J. Bellamy, OBE, The British Natural Association
John Blaylock, Los Alamos National Laboratory (retired)
Edward F. Blick, Ph.D, University Of Oklahoma (emeritus)
Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, Ph.D, University Of Hull
Bob Breck Ams, Broadcaster Of The Year 2008
John Brignell, University Of Southampton (emeritus)
Mark Campbell, Ph.D, U.S. Naval Academy
Robert M. Carter, Ph.D, James Cook University
Ian Clark, Ph.D, Professor, Earth Sciences University Of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
Roger Cohen, Ph.D, Fellow, American Physical Society
Paul Copper, Ph.D, Laurentian University (emeritus)
Piers Corbyn, MS, Weather Action
Richard S. Courtney, Ph.D, Reviewer, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
Uberto Crescenti, Ph.D, Past-President, Italian Geological Society
Susan Crockford, Ph.D, University Of Victoria
Joseph S. D'aleo, Fellow, American Meteorological Society
James Demeo, Ph.D, University Of Kansas (retired)
David Deming, Ph.D, University Of Oklahoma
Diane Douglas, Ph.D, Paleoclimatologist
David Douglass, Ph.D, University Of Rochester
Robert H. Essenhigh, E.G. Bailey Emeritus, Professor Of Energy Conversion, The Ohio State University
Christopher Essex, Ph.D, University Of Western Ontario
John Ferguson, Ph.D, University Of Newcastle
Upon Tyne, (retired)
Eduardo Ferreyra, Argentinian Foundation For A Scientific Ecology
Michael Fox, Ph.D, American Nuclear Society
Gordon Fulks, Ph.D, Gordon Fulks And Associates
Lee Gerhard, Ph.D, State Geologist, Kansas (retired)
Gerhard Gerlich, Ph.D, Technische Universitat Braunschweig
Ivar Giaever, Ph.D, Nobel Laureate, Physics
Albrecht Glatzle, Ph.D, Scientific Director, Inttas (Paraguay)
Wayne Goodfellow, Ph.D, University Of Ottawa
James Goodridge, California State Climatologist, (retired)
Laurence Gould, Ph.D, University Of Hartford
Vincent Gray, Ph.D, New Zealand Climate Coalition
William M. Gray, Ph.D, Colorado State University
Kenneth E. Green, D.Env., American Enterprise Institute
Kesten Green, Ph.D, Monash University
Will Happer, Ph.D, Princeton University
Howard C. Hayden, Ph.D, University Of Connecticut, (emeritus)
Ben Herman, Ph.D, University Of Arizona, (emeritus)
Martin Hertzberg, Ph.D, U.S. Navy, (retired)
Doug Hoffman, Ph.D, Author, The Resilient Earth
Bernd Huettner, Ph.D.
Ole Humlum, Ph.D, University Of Oslo
A. Neil Hutton, Past President, Canadian Society Of Petroleum Geologists
Craig D. Idso, Ph.D, Center For The Study Of Carbon Dioxide And Global Change
Sherwood B. Idso, Ph.D, U.S. Department Of Agriculture (retired)
Kiminori Itoh, Ph.D, Yokohama National University
Steve Japar, Ph.D, Reviewer, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
Sten Kaijser, Ph.D, Uppsala University, (emeritus)
Wibjorn Karlen, Ph.D, University Of Stockholm, (emeritus)
Joel Kauffman, Ph.D, University Of The Sciences, Philadelphia, (emeritus)
David Kear, Ph.D, Former Director-General, Nz Dept. Scientific And Industrial Research
Richard Keen, Ph.D, University Of Colorado
Dr. Kelvin Kemm, Ph.D, Lifetime Achievers Award, National Science And Technology Forum, South Africa
Madhav Khandekar, Ph.D, Former Editor, Climate Research
Robert S. Knox, Ph.D, University Of Rochester (emeritus)
James P. Koermer, Ph.D, Plymouth State University
Gerhard Kramm, Ph.D, University Of Alaska Fairbanks
Wayne Kraus, Ph.D, Kraus Consulting
Olav M. Kvalheim, Ph.D, Univ. Of Bergen
Roar Larson, Ph.D, Norwegian University Of Science And Technology
James F. Lea, Ph.D.
Douglas Leahy, Ph.D, Meteorologist
Peter R. Leavitt, Certified Consulting Meteorologist
David R. Legates, Ph.D, University of Delaware
Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D, Massachusetts Institute Of Technology
Harry F. Lins, Ph.D. Co-Chair, IPCC Hydrology and Water Resources Working Group
Anthony R. Lupo, Ph.D, University Of Missouri
Howard Maccabee, Ph.D, MD Clinical Faculty, Stanford Medical School
Horst Malberg, Ph.D, Free University of Berlin
Bjorn Malmgren, Ph.D, Goteburg University (emeritus)
Jennifer Marohasy, Ph.D, Australian Environment Foundation
James A Marusek, U.S. Navy, (retired)
Ross Mckitrick, Ph.D, University Of Guelph
Patrick J. Michaels, Ph.D, University Of Virginia
Timmothy R. Minnich, MS, Minnich And Scotto, Inc.
Asmunn Moene, Ph.D, Former Head, Forecasting Center, Meteorological Institute, Norway
Michael Monce, Ph.D, Connecticut College
Dick Morgan, Ph.D, Exeter University, (emeritus)
Nils-axel Morner, Ph.D, Stockholm University, (emeritus)
David Nowell, D.I.C., Former Chairman, Nato Meteorology Canada
Cliff Ollier, D.Sc., University Of Western Australia
Garth W. Paltridge, Ph.D, University Of Tasmania
Alfred Peckarek, Ph.D, St. Cloud State University
Dr. Robert A. Perkins, P.E. University Of Alaska
Ian Pilmer, Ph.D, University Of Melbourne (emeritus)
Brian R. Pratt, Ph.D, University Of Saskatchewan
John Reinhard, Ph.D, Ore Pharmaceuticals
Peter Ridd, Ph.D, James Cook University
Curt Rose, Ph.D, Bishop's University (emeritus)
Peter Salonius, M.Sc., Canadian Forest Service
Gary Sharp, Ph.D, Center For Climate/Ocean Resources Study
Thomas P. Sheahan, Ph.D, Western Technologies, Inc.
Alan Simmons, Author, The Resilient Earth
Roy N. Spencer, Ph.D, University Of Alabama-Huntsville
Arlin Super, Ph.D, Retired Research Meteorologist, U.S. Dept. Of Reclamation
George H. Taylor, MS, Applied Climate Services
Eduardo P. Tonni, Ph.D, Museo De La Plata, (Argentina)
Ralf D. Tscheuschner, Ph.D.
Dr. Anton Uriarte, Ph.D, Universidad Del Pais Vasco
Brian Valentine, Ph.D, U.S. Department Of Energy
Gosta Walin, Ph.D, University Of Gothenburg, (emeritus)
Gerd-Rainer Weber, Ph.D, Reviewer, Intergovernmenal Panel On Climate Change
Forese-Carlo Wezel, Ph.D, Urbino University
Edward T. Wimberley, Ph.D, Florida Gulf Coast University
Miklos Zagoni, Ph.D, Reviewer, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
Antonio Zichichi, Ph.D, President, World Federation Of Scientists

Footnotes
Swanson, K.L., and A. A. Tsonis. Geophysical Research Letters, in press: DOI:10.1029/2008GL037022.
Brohan, P., et al. Journal of Geophysical Research, 2006: DOI: 10.1029/2005JD006548. Updates at http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature.
Pielke, R. A. Jr., et al. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2005: DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-86-10-1481.
Douglass, D. H., et al. International Journal of Climatology, 2007: DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651.

Top Earth Scientist Says Global Warming NOT Caused By Man

The following commentary and book review comes from The Sydney (Australia) Herald and sums up and validates much of what I've been posting on this blog from the beginning. Geologists (or Earth Scientists) are the first climate scientists and as such are best able to understand the meaning and significance of the current international anxiety and debate about global warming and climate change.

It is refreshing to see a prominent geologist like the author of "Heaven And Earth" write about global warming and climate change. I have not read the book, but the following excerpted quotations clearly show Professor Ian Pilmer does not even remotely accept the myth of man-caused global warming. I think we will be hearing more about this book and the ongoing debate.
Peter


Beware the climate of conformity
Paul Sheehan April 13, 2009 - 11:59PM (source)
(A new book) questions much of what I have written in this space, in numerous columns, over the past five years. Perhaps what I have written can withstand this questioning. Perhaps not. The greater question is, am I - and you - capable of questioning our own orthodoxies and intellectual habits? Let's see.

The subject of this column is not small. It is a book entitled Heaven And Earth, which will be published tomorrow. It has been written by one of Australia's foremost Earth scientists, Professor Ian Plimer. He is a confronting sort of individual, polite but gruff, courteous but combative. He can write extremely well, and Heaven And Earth is a brilliantly argued book by someone not intimidated by hostile majorities or intellectual fashions.

The book's 500 pages and 230,000 words and 2311 footnotes are the product of 40 years' research and a depth and breadth of scholarship. As Plimer writes: "An understanding of climate requires an amalgamation of astronomy, solar physics, geology, geochronology, geochemistry, sedimentology, tectonics, palaeontology, palaeoecology, glaciology, climatology, meteorology, oceanography, ecology, archaeology and history."

The most important point to remember about Plimer is that he is Australia's most eminent geologist. As such, he thinks about time very differently from most of us. He takes the long, long view. He looks at climate over geological, archaeological, historical and modern time. He writes: "Past climate changes, sea-level changes and catastrophes are written in stone."

Much of what we have read about climate change, he argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modelling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as "primitive". Errors and distortions in computer modelling will be exposed in time. (As if on cue, the United Nations' peak scientific body on climate change was obliged to make an embarrassing admission last week that some of its computers models were wrong.)

Plimer does not dispute the dramatic flux of climate change - and this column is not about Australia's water debate - but he fundamentally disputes most of the assumptions and projections being made about the current causes, mostly led by atmospheric scientists, who have a different perspective on time. "It is little wonder that catastrophist views of the future of the planet fall on fertile pastures. The history of time shows us that depopulation, social disruption, extinctions, disease and catastrophic droughts take place in cold times … and life blossoms and economies boom in warm times. Planet Earth is dynamic. It always changes and evolves. It is currently in an ice age."

If we look at the last 6 million years, the Earth was warmer than it is now for 3 million years. The ice caps of the Arctic, Antarctica and Greenland are geologically unusual. Polar ice has only been present for less than 20 per cent of geological time.

What follows is an intense compression of the book's 500 pages and all their provocative arguments and conclusions:

Is dangerous warming occurring? No.

Is the temperature range observed in the 20th century outside the range of normal variability? No.

The Earth's climate is driven by the receipt and redistribution of solar energy. Despite this crucial relationship, the sun tends to be brushed aside as the most important driver of climate. Calculations on supercomputers are primitive compared with the complex dynamism of the Earth's climate and ignore the crucial relationship between climate and solar energy.

"To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable - human-induced CO2 - is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly. Yet when astronomers have the temerity to show that climate is driven by solar activities rather than CO2 emissions, they are dismissed as dinosaurs undertaking the methods of old-fashioned science."

Over time, the history of CO2 content in the atmosphere has been far higher than at present for most of time. Atmospheric CO2 follows temperature rise. It does not create a temperature rise. CO2 is not a pollutant. Global warming and a high CO2 content bring prosperity and longer life.

The hypothesis that human activity can create global warming is extraordinary because it is contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology. "But evidence no longer matters. And any contrary work published in peer-reviewed journals is just ignored. We are told that the science on human-induced global warming is settled. Yet the claim by some scientists that the threat of human-induced global warming is 90 per cent certain (or even 99 per cent) is a figure of speech. It has no mathematical or evidential basis."

Observations in nature differ markedly from the results generated by nearly two dozen computer-generated climate models. These climate models exaggerate the effects of human CO2 emissions into the atmosphere because few of the natural variables are considered. Natural systems are far more complex than computer models.

The setting up by the UN of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988 gave an opportunity to make global warming the main theme of environmental groups. "The IPCC process is related to environmental activism, politics and opportunism. It is unrelated to science. Current zeal around human-induced climate change is comparable to the certainty professed by Creationists or religious fundamentalists."

Ian Plimer is not some isolated gadfly. He is a prize-winning scientist and professor. The back cover of Heaven And Earth carries a glowing endorsement from the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, who now holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. Numerous rigorous scientists have joined Plimer in dissenting from the prevailing orthodoxy.

Heaven And Earth is an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/beware-the-climate-of-conformity-20090412-a3ya.html

Global Warming (And Cooling) Events Are Common

Dennis Avery, "environmental economist" and author, predicts the Earth is entering a cooling phase. He maintains that changes in solar activity are the primary cause of over 500 global warming periods during the past One Million years of Earth history. He disregards the popular concept of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions causing global warming or climate change.

For more articles by Mr. Avery, search this blog. Note that he is also the co-author, with Dr. Fred Singer of the excellent book "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years".
Peter

500 Warmings by Dennis Avery
Issue 129 - April 8, 2009 (source)http://www.acuf.org/issues/issue129/090406cul.asp
At the recent 2nd international conference of man-made warming skeptics sponsored by the Heartland Institute in New York, I predicted the earth’s warming/cooling trends for the 21st century.

I will be among splendid company such as John Coleman, founder of the weather channel, Ross McKitrick, who debunked the “hockey stick” study, physicist Willie Soon, and many other presenters with brilliant credentials. A thousand scientists, economists, and skeptics from every walk of life met to discuss the current climate indicators.

In my presentation, I used physical evidence of the more than 500 warmings in the past million years, which are found worldwide in ice cores, seabed sediments, fossil pollen and cave stalagmites. At least 700 scientists have published evidence on these solar-driven Dansgaared-Oeschger cycles. The good news is that the D-O cycle’s warmings have been getting somewhat cooler for the past 10,000 years—and there is no evidence that human-emitted CO2 will make them much warmer.

This means that the Modern Warming will probably remain cooler than the Medieval Warming (950-1300). It was 0.3 degrees warmer than the 20th century based on Craig Loehle’s study of 2000 years of temperature proxies. Willi Dansgaard’s 10,000-year reconstruction from ice cores shows the Roman Warming as warmer than the Medieval—but the two Holocene Warmings centered on 4,000 and 7,000 years ago were lots warmer than either.

The IPCC rejects the cycle evidence. They have concluded that the variability of the sun is “too small” to account for the earth’s recent warming 1976-98. They want us to sacrifice trillions of dollars to displace fossil fuels based on computers that couldn’t even predict the current cooling.
In contrast, I’ll predict a cooling planet for the next 25-30 years, because of the D-O cycle’s solar linkage. The sunspots began predicting cooling back in 2000, and it arrived a bit early, in 2007. CO2’s correlation with our temperatures over the past 150 years is only 22 percent. The correlation with sunspots is 79 percent—What does the UN think caused the 500 previous D-O cycles in the ice cores and seabed records?

There’s more. NASA, bless their hearts, reported last April that their Jason satellite confirms a cooling shift in the Pacific, our biggest heat sink. Roseanne D’Arrigo’s tree ring and rainfall proxies from around the Pacific Rim tell us that the earth’s temperatures have mirrored the Pacific’s cyclical shifts—in 25-40 year spurts—for at least the past 400 years.

I predict that after the current Pacific cooling is over, the earth will resume getting slowly and erratically warmer. But not much warmer. That’s because the D-O cycles are typically abrupt, delivering about half their temperature increase in the first few decades. Remember, we’ve had no significant net warming since 1940.

If the moderating trend in the global warming cycles persists, then we will get less than 0.5 degree C more warming over the next two centuries. If the Greenhouse Theory has any validity, we might get a bit more than 0.5 degree more warming—but not much. We tend to forget that the climate forcing power of CO2 unquestionably declines logarithmically, so the earth has probably already gotten three-fourths of the total.

As the earth cools, the U.S. will use our new natural gas surplus instead of biofuels, carbon taxes will die and the deliberate disruption of the economy will be stifled. Further warming 40 years from now will be too mild and erratic to renew public panic. Environmental assessments will become more realistic—and useful.

DENNIS T. AVERY is an environmental economist, and a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421

Sources for this Article: Craig Loehle, “A 2000-year global temperature record based on non-tree ring proxies,” Energy and Environment 18 (7-8): 1059-1058 (2007); S. Johnson, W. Dansaard, et al., “Oxygen isotope profile through the Arctic and Greenland ice sheets, Nature, 235:429-454 (1972); Roseanne D’Arrigo et al., Tree-ring Estimates of Pacific Decadal Climate Variability” Climate Dynamics: Vol 18: 219-224, (2001).

Not Evil Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria

This new film about the hoax that is behind the man-caused global warming fiasco will be interesting to see. Of course Al Gore's true believers will do everything they can to squash it, discredit it or somehow ban it altogether.
Peter





An Inconvenient Film
Written by Peter Foster, National Post
Saturday, 11 April 2009

Al Gore is about to feature in a new movie, but he’s not going to like it very much. Titled Not Evil Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria, the film presents a devastating account of the shaky foundations and hefty price of Mr. Gore’s brand of self-interested and hypocritical alarmism.



Created by the Irish film making duo of Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney — who made another excellent documentary about the “dark side of environmentalism” called Mine Your Own Business — Not Evil provides the perfect rebuttal to Mr. Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

Despite being chock-a-block with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, Mr. Gore’s movie has frightened schoolchildren all over the world, driven the public policy debate, and garnered both an Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Prize for its star.

Not Evil — which is due to be released later this year — will appear at a crucial time. The world’s crisis-beset nations are due to meet in Copenhagen in November to concoct a new policy straitjacket to succeed the meddlesome but utterly failed Kyoto Accord. If global warming's U.N.-based ringmasters have their way, this will lead to a slashing of industrial production in developed countries and to a huge extension of boondoggle redistributionist schemes to fund “green” technologies in developing countries.

Such policy represents a triple threat: it will destroy economic activity; it will cripple trade; and it will hurt the poorest the most. Nevertheless, President Obama appears to be on-board this ship of fools, having bought into the notion that there are net “green jobs” to be had from a massive increase in taxation and regulation of industrial activity.

The impact on Canada could be horrendous, and not merely on the oil sands, which have been targeted by environmental non-governmental organizations. This week, Environment Minister Jim Prentice admitted that Canada could be forced to adopt more draconian regulation if it is not to be hit by threatened U.S. carbon tariffs.

The truly astonishing feature of this policy fandango is that it will have little or no effect on the climate, the science of which is still only dimly understood. However, alarmists such as Mr. Gore have successfully sold the notion that the science is “settled.” This is just one of the claims to which Not Evil Just Wrong puts the lie.

Alternating credible skeptics with arresting imagery, the film makes clear that the science, far from being settled, has been comprehensively misrepresented by the likes of NASA’s James Hansen, who is to Al Gore and climatology what Trofim Lysenko was to Joseph Stalin and agronomy.

There is a wonderful scene of Mr. Hansen becoming almost discombobulated at the very mention of Stephen McIntyre, the maverick Canadian who, with the help of Guelph economist Ross McKitrick, took on the UN climate change establishment over the so-called “hockey stick” temperature graph, and won. Mr. Hansen claims that paying attention to such inconvenient truths amounts to just “clouding the issue.”

The film dramatically outlines the dreadful damage already done by environmental hysteria, in particular the millions of unnecessary deaths caused by the campaign against DDT. That campaign started with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which was at the root of the modern environmental movement in every sense. Despite the World Health Organization’s lifting of the DDT ban, Al Gore remains devoted to Ms. Carson’s memory. And methods. As Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace but now a skeptic, points out, radical environmentalists “care more about fish eggs than they do about children.” Meanwhile kids are shown fretting about about imminent global inundation and the deaths of polar bears.

Just as Mine Your Own Business showed how opposition to mining in developing countries comes often not from the “grassroots” but from well-funded multinational NGOs with as little concern for local employment as they have for truth, so Not Evil Just Wrong further demonstrates environmentalists’ disregard for humanity, and in particular the poor.

Perhaps the most memorable scene in Mine Your Own Business was that of the WWF’s local representative in Madagascar, Mark Fenn, who was leading opposition to a development by Rio Tinto. The appalling Mr. Fenn, who owned a $35,000 catamaran and was building a local luxury home, claimed that poor people were happier, and that if the locals had more money they would “just spend it.”

The film makers have come up with similar buffoons for their new movie, including a Bible-thumping environmentalist in Uganda who opposes using DDT and claims that the U.S. never experienced malaria and Hollywood actor Ed Begley, who suggests that Fijians are “happy with nothing.”

Not Evil Just Wrong which will be released later this year —is an important film that deserves the widest possible distribution, both in theatres and schools. The only quibble that I have with it is that its title might be too generous to those it exposes.

(To find out more about the movie and the fundraising campaign to help its distribution visit its website: noteviljustwrong.com).
Source

Archaeologists Recognize Past Climate Change

Geologists are not the only scientists who study and measure past climate change. Archaeologists continually learn more about climate change and how it greatly influenced human evolution and the growth of civilization. The following article is an excellent example of this.

Of course the cause of these often dramatic and rapid climate changes, both warming and cooling, had little to do with human activity and certainly nothing to do with the burning of "fossil fuels" like coal, oil, and gas. How these indisputable facts escape modern climate "modelers" who predict "catastrophic" global warming or climate change is a shocking oversight. Carbon dioxide emissions from "fossil fuels" had nothing to do with these changes, not then, and not now.

The following article adds to our knowledge of how ancient man evolved during the last Ice Age and followed the melting glaciers northward, dealing with constant climate change and rising sea levels. As these early humans moved they followed the animals they hunted for the meat needed to survive. This is all clear beyond a doubt. Sorry PETA, but humans evolved and survived by eating meat.
Peter

14,000-year-old hunting kit found in Scotland
Tools may have been used to hunt and prepare big game from the region
By Jennifer Viegas
Discovery Channel (source)
Archaeologists have just identified the oldest evidence for humans in Scotland, a fairly sophisticated 14,000-year-old toolkit that may have been used to hunt and prepare big game from the region.

According to a report in the latest British Archaeology, the flint artifacts constitute the most northern evidence for the earliest people in Britain.

Alan Saville, senior curator of Earliest Prehistory at National Museums Scotland, worked on the project. He told Discovery News that the toolkit find is "exciting" for two main reasons.
"Firstly, it pushes back the earliest occupation of Scotland by some 3,000 years, and is the first real evidence for Upper Paleolithic open-air settlement occupation north of the English Midlands," he said.

"Secondly, it appears to represent a technological variant which has not been recognized anywhere else in Britain," he added, explaining that the style of the tools matches hunting implements from southern Denmark and northern Germany.

It's now believed people from those regions made their way to Scotland via a large land bridge called Doggerland, which connected the island of Great Britain to mainland Europe during the last ice age. The individuals in this case likely belonged to the Hamburg culture, known for its reindeer-hunting prowess.

Early Scotland supported herds of reindeer, along with mammoths, rhinos, horses and other large animals. The climate "fluctuated wildly" at the end of the ice age, resulting in more moderate temperatures, but also icy cold snaps that caused the reappearance of glaciers in the highlands.

Scientists unearthed the prehistoric tools in a field at Howburn Farm, Elsrickle, South Lanarkshire, in the southern part of Scotland.
"The tool types involve particularly a couple of tanged points (projectile heads), but also burins, end-of-blade scrapers, and a piercer of so-called Zinken-type, as well as there being evidence for a certain type of blade-core preparation technique known as en eperon," Saville said.

A burin was a flaked rock tool with a chisel-like edge probably used to remove flesh from bone. "Eperon" means "spur" in French. Here it refers to a blade with a thick-ended butt at one end.
The toolkit suggests there were at least two major technologies in early Britain: Hamburgian and Creswellian. The latter was characterized by "Cheddar points," tools with trapezoidal-backed blades.

Saville thinks early hunters followed migrating herds of big game beasts, "and that human groups would follow these migrations of what was a major food source for the time."
He added, "We have no way of calculating numbers or densities, but the general assumption must be that inhabitation was low-level and sporadic."

Archaeologist Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology, suggested to Discovery News that the nature of this find — researchers simply digging up flint tools at a Scottish farm — shows "what you can do without a lot of expensive technology or lengthy project designs." He said he made similar discoveries "while still at school walking over ploughed fields."
Residents and visitors to Scotland might therefore do well to look downward while walking, as they could stumble upon the next big archaeological find.
"In Scotland now," Pitts said, "the search is on for sites of this age with well-preserved stratigraphy that would hold out hope for seeing just what these people (the first Scots) then were doing."

A Prelude To What America Can Expect?

This is real folks. It is happening in Australia, but it can happen in America if we institute some (any) of the proposals coming from the Obama Administration. There is more than an economic cost to insane legislation such as "cap and trade". There are very real, and very dangerous human costs involved with raising energy costs. We had better start seriously questioning these things before we head down the path Australia is already on.
Peter


Green obsession puts deadly heat on elderly

Written by Andrew Bolt, Melbourne Herald Sun
Tuesday, 07 April 2009

THE green jihad against airconditioners must stop. Too many elderly Australians have died already.

Victoria's chief health officer, Dr John Carnie, this week said some 374 Victorians may have been killed by the January heat wave, most of them old.
In South Australia, the toll is estimated at 80.
Just how many died because power blackouts knocked out their airconditioning is not known. And I doubt either government will ever say.

But what we are told is that both states now have plans to cut off the airconditioning - or make it too costly for pensioners to use - just when the heat is at its most lethal and the lives of the elderly hang in the balance.
True. But first the background.

Neither Victoria nor South Australia have built the infrastructure to cope with so many airconditioners in McMansions being turned on at the same time on a blistering day.
Building power stations is no longer sexy with so much global warming hysteria about, and investing in better power distribution wins few votes.

Thus both states risk blackouts when temperatures spike, which is why both governments ask you to turn off your airconditioner exactly when you want
it most. In Victoria, Deputy Premier Rob Hulls has urged people to avoid airconditioning. In South Australia, the Rann Government did the same as January's heatwave neared, citing environmental reasons.

It's the typical government response in these use less green times - to tell people to use less of what governments should actually provide more, whether water, power or land for urban housing.

Trouble is, airconditioning actually saves the lives of the elderly and sick. They are the first to die in extreme temperatures, as we saw as far back as Black Friday in 1939, when 438 people died from heat over just a few days, and despite the much smaller population.

That's why Council of the Ageing chief executive John Yates pleaded in January: "If you have air conditioning, use it ... It could be literally fatal for the older people not to."
Senior Victorians Minister Lisa Neville now concedes much the same, promising the Brumby Government will next time help councils cope with further heatwaves by "providing a cool place of respite" to older residents.

But in my house, Lisa, a "cool place of respite" is next to our airconditioner. So here's an idea: how about building a more reliable power supply and making airconditioners cheaper for the poor?
Sensible, you'd think. But not in a country so fiercely green that the Rudd Government has specifically banned schools from installing airconditioning with the $14 billion it's giving them to fix facilities and build school halls.
So here's what's planned instead.

Victoria will soon lead a national roll-out of smart meters meant to force us to use less power during the peak period - from 2pm to 8pm on working days, just when temperatures tend to be highest.

Charging extra for peak power will alone drive up the cost of ducted cooling to as much as $11 for those six hours - too high for some pensioners.
But worse is that the price could rocket even higher if the distributors want to slash demand to stop blackouts. Then ducted cooling could cost as much as $78 - a price few aged pensioners could afford.

Even worse is the plan by ETSA Utilities, South Australia's main electricity distributor, to install
remote-controlled switches in homes so it can turn off the compressors of airconditioners when power use is too high. As in during a heatwave.

So just as the heat gets too much for the old or weak, some technician in an ETSA office far away can cut their airconditioning with a flick of a switch.

That's potentially murder by remote control - simply because a government is too sluggish and green-crazed to build a power supply that will cope with hot days and keep people alive.
So hear the chant of the times? Save the planet! Kill a pensioner!
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The Only Thing Really Heating Up Is The Global Warming Debate

The following is an excellent article. We really need to open up the debate of global warming, or climate change and its causes. This is incredibly serious business, made even more so because of our global economic recession and some of the draconian proposals coming from the Obama Administration.
Peter


Environmental debate heats up; validity of global warming questioned

Written by JAMES H. SHOTT, Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Tuesday, 07 April 2009

Proponents of man-made global warming say that burning fossil fuels to produce electricity, power manufacturing processes and fuel motor vehicles is seriously harming the environment. However recent evidence shows that to be a flawed theory.

Data shows that the earth cooled last year rather than warmed, following a trend that began in 2000, and in light of this evidence much of the doomsday talk has quieted down. However, while activists still cling to their flawed theory, they have replaced the term “global warming” with “climate change,” using the same theory to now account for any change that occurs, warming or cooling.

Scientists do not speak with one voice on this issue. Ivar Giaever is a Nobel Laureate in physics, and is one of 650 dissenting scientists who argued against this theory at the United Nations global warming conference in Poland last December. “I am a skeptic,” he said. “Global warming has become a new religion.”

Other opponents have made similar comments, like former NASA official, atmospheric scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, who declared, “Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly ... As a scientist I remain skeptical.”

Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires, commented that, “The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds.”

Colorado State University hurricane expert William Gray was more direct, calling global warming “a big scam.”

Whether or not man causes atmospheric changes is no mere peripheral argument; a lot hangs in the balance. We must know beyond any reasonable doubt that human activities are actually harming the environment before we take the drastic actions that environmental activists tell us we need to take. We do not know beyond a reasonable doubt that man-made “climate change” is real, and as time passes the evidence that it isn’t real continues to mount.

Studies show that cutting greenhouse gas emissions would be extremely costly and would produce an insignificant affect on global temperatures. The Congressional Budget Office reports that a 15 percent cut in emissions would increase average household energy costs by $1,300 annually. That’s a lot of money.

But is there any reason to increase household energy costs even $1 per year in the absence of overwhelming evidence that burning fossil fuels seriously damages the environment? No.

What we need is a sensible energy policy. We must continue the development of solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative and renewable energy sources, but we also must not rush their development and implementation, forcing these technologies into use before they are ready. When they are efficient, effective and economical, they will thrive of their own accord, without the use of scare tactics or government edicts.

In the meantime, let’s open known or highly likely areas of oil and natural gas supplies to responsible development by energy companies. Let’s refuse to increase, and in fact scale back punitive taxation and regulations on coal, oil and natural gas so the price of these energy sources does not further escalate.

And let’s get past the irrational fear we have of nuclear power, and take fuller advantage of this safe and inexpensive energy source. In more than 12,700 cumulative reactor-years of commercial operation in 32 countries there have been only two noteworthy accidents: Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and Chernobyl, Ukraine.

Our fear of nuclear power is based largely upon a gross exaggeration of the problems caused by the radiation released at Three Mile Island 30 years ago. In an analysis for the Heritage Foundation, Jack Spencer and Nicolas Loris tell us that, “the steam leakage released a radiation dose equivalent to that of a chest X-ray scan, about one-third of the radiation humans absorb in one year from naturally occurring background radiation. No damage to any person, animal, or plant was ever found.”

The far more serious accident at Chernobyl seven years later was the result of human error, a poorly designed system, and technology that was far less well developed than that of the United States at that time. While there was an increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer in the region after the accident, nothing remotely close to the number of deaths the World Health Organization said might result from the radiation release have occurred in the 23 years since the accident.

What has passed for “discussion” of these critical issues is something far removed from what is needed. Like fossil fuels, the use of which we have been told is going to kill the planet, nuclear power has been the victim of a concerted effort to create fear among the citizenry. As Spencer and Loris wrote, “the propagation of ignorance by anti-nuclear activists has caused more harm to the affected populations than has the radioactive fallout from the actual accident.”

The American people deserve a free, honest and balanced discussion of energy issues that will produce an energy policy based upon facts, and free of ideological bias. Fear-mongering and demagoguery have no place in this discussion, but that may be beyond the abilities of the politicians and the media.
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