GOP cave in

This article from PJM on global warming makes a great metaphor for the Republican party. James Lewis says that the scandalous scientific fraud has damaged real research for years to come.

But what worries me most is that the credibility of science may never recover — and perhaps it shouldn’t. Credibility has to be earned, and once it’s squandered may never be recovered. By now far too many scientists have knowingly colluded in an historic fraud, one that would put Bernie Madoff to shame. We are seeing political larceny here on a truly planetary scale.

...
It's a great compilation of the non-science reasons to be skeptical of the claims of agw proponents. Lewis points to the Stalinist accusations against the rational arguments against agw, especially pointing out the threats.
Without meaning to, I'm sure, he's touched on my thoughts regarding the loss of vision and mission of the Republican party, due to their cowardice while holding the majority in congress. They lost because they caved on Iraq. Perhaps understandable given the times and violence in Iraq. But the media invisibility and silence is a t least shared between them and the presidency.
And I speak only of their loss of credibility. They blew it and it will take years for them to build it back in this environment of media "Obamessiah" hype and control of message by the Democratic Party.

PowerLine article entitled:The Hockey Stick Hoax

I can't put this stuff into sentences when it really counts, but some otherwise very smart people have just swallowed this theory whole. They think it is because I don't understand the science. I'm sure there is lots of climate temperature transference physics that I could use a brush up with, but I understand human nature all too well, including the drive for dominance, and greed.

More recent scientific work has thoroughly debunked the Mann "hockey stick" analysis. It has been shown to rest on "collation errors, unjustified truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, incorrect principal component calculations, geographical mislocations and other serious defects," as well as "incorrect mathematics." There are indications, at least, that some of the errors on the part of Mann and his collaborators were deliberate--an instance of the corruption of science by politics and perverse financial incentives that underlies the entire global warming movement.

CO2 sceptics has a good set of articles, original perhaps.

espresso beans to PowerLine

Dr. Will HapperAGW Skeptic

"I have spent a long research career studying physics that is closely related to the greenhouse effect", said Happer. "Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science."

Dr. Happer views climate change as a predominately natural process. "The earth's climate is changing now, as it always has. There is no evidence that the changes differ in any qualitative way from those of the past."

............

Happer's latest remarks were made yesterday, as he asked to be included in a Senate Environment and Public Works report of scientists disputing global warming alarmism. Happer joins 650 other scientists on the list, many of whom have been interviewed previously by DailyTech.

"Computer models used to generate frightening scenarios from increasing levels of carbon dioxide have scant credibility," Happer concluded.

In response to Happer's remarks, Senator James Inhofe, ranking minority member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said, "The endless claims of a consensus on man-made global warming grow less and less credible every day".

The comments section is also good.

Andrew Bolt's column...The Ten Worst Global Warming Predictions

Mostly from Australia...good stuff just click the title.

kudos to?

gateway pundit or powerline? ace of spades?

Is Global Warming a Human Rights Issue?

Thank goodness for the UN. At least someone is taking human rights seriously again.

GENEVA (AFP) - Climate change is now officially a human rights issue , as the UN Human Rights Council on Friday passed a resolution on the subject, recognising that the world's poor are particularly vulnerable.
The council also gave the green light for a study into the impact of climate change on human rights, describing climate change as a "global problem .. that requires a global solution".
The resolution, submitted by the Maldives and passed without a vote, also noted that the poor tend to have limited resources to cope with the impact of global warming.

No one needs to know or do anything about the growing slave trade, or "honor" killings, or open seas piracy. But in a world that hasn't seen any appreciable advance in btu content in at least ten years, you'd think someone would notice the "the poor" can't be any more affected by a non-event than anyone else.
Just in case you are one of those cretins that are still unaware of this post-modern tragedy, several cities are uniting under the aegis of Earth Hour 2008 to cut their lights, at least some of them, in order to draw attention to their own misplaced concern for the future of humanity.

"It may not sound like a classic Saturday night blow-out, but at 8 p.m. on March 29, millions of people around the world will turn off their lights to celebrate Earth Hour.
This event, sponsored by the WWF, a global conservation organization, is intended to increase awareness of global warming and spur action to combat the issue.
The movement began last year when the WWF asked residents of Sydney, Australia, to turn off their lights for an hour. So on March 31, 2007, 2.2 million people and 2,100 Sydney businesses turned off their lights. Even icons such as the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House went dark.
Electricity in many cities and countries is powered by coal-fired plants that produce carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas that human activities emit into the atmosphere. The WWF estimates that if the greenhouse gas reduction achieved during the Sydney Earth Hour was sustained for a year, it would be equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year."

This article reminds the reader about the guilty rich American, doing his/her part for humanity...

Chicago - When Brian Becharas sits down to dinner with his sweetheart Saturday night, they'll eat by candlelight.
Guests at the Inn of Chicago on the city's Magnificent Mile will walk into a darkened, candle-lit lobby. And when they look out at the iconic skyline, it will look different: the Sears Tower, the Hancock Building, the Ferris wheel on Navy Pier, and some 200 downtown buildings plan to turn out the lights at 8 p.m.
It's all part of "Earth Hour," an international climate-change awareness campaign that started last year in Sydney, Australia and that the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is taking global this year. Starting in New Zealand, and rolling out through dozens of cities, including Bangkok, Thailand; Dublin, Ireland; and Tel Aviv; the campaign is urging individuals, businesses, and landmarks to go dark between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.


Like Disco music and fears of rampant global starvation, I have no doubt that this fad will also pass. The only question I have is how much damage will occur before we lose interest in this version of calamity-chic.

Why Would I EVER Ask You To Watch An Al Gore Movie?

In 15 yrs, "An Inconvenient Truth" will be as revealing of Gore's shrunken character as this.

The tape discussed on The Rush Limbaugh Show. A 1992 speech: Gore condemns President Bush for "blatant disregard for brutal terrorism, a dangerous blindness to the murderous ambitions of a despot."

This is Vice Presidential candidate Al Gore ripping the first Bush administration apart - because of Saddam's ties to terrorism!!! In 1992, and they did nothing, absolutely nothing about it...(sigh)

A Carbon Emissions Tax That Makes Sense

Economist Ross McKitrick has written a logical answer
to the dilemma of AGW in the Financial Post, part of Canada.com.
Title and sub-title are

Call their tax

Why not tie carbon taxes to actual levels of warming?
Both skeptics and alarmists should expect their wishes to be answered

He points out that the most recent computer models forecast a warming trend that will make itself known early in the area known as the tropical troposphere, and posits a tax based on the temperature increases, if there are any, that will occur there. Temps, according to the models, will rise in that part of the atmosphere only as a result of excessive carbon dioxide increases as opposed to fluctuations in solar activity.

The IPCC predicts a warming rate in the tropical troposphere of about double that at the surface, implying about 0.2C to 1.2C per decade in the tropical troposphere under greenhouse-forcing scenarios. That implies the tax will climb by $4 to $24 per tonne per decade, a much more aggressive
schedule of emission fee increases than most current proposals. At the upper end of warming forecasts, the tax could reach $200 per tonne of CO2 by 2100, forcing major carbon-emission reductions and a global shift to non-carbon energy sources.

Global-warming activists would like this. But so would skeptics, because they believe the models are exaggerating the warming forecasts. After all, the averaged UAH/ RSS tropical troposphere series went up only about 0.08C over the past decade, and has been going down since 2002. Some solar scientists even expect pronounced cooling to begin in a decade. If they are right, the T3 tax will fall below zero within two decades, turning into a subsidy for carbon emissions.

While I understand the reasoning behind the "science" of AGW, I more fully "get" the manipulative hysteria. The proposed tax is exquisitely formulated to make the side that is more accurate happy.

Under the T3 tax, the regulator gets to call everyone's bluff at once, without gambling in advance on who is right. If the tax goes up, it ought to have. If it doesn't go up, it shouldn't have. Either way we get a sensible outcome.

But the benefits don't stop there. The T3 tax will induce forward-looking behaviour. Alarmists worry that conventional policy operates with too long a lag to prevent damaging climate change. Under the T3 tax, investors planning major industrial projects will need to forecast the tax rate many years ahead, thereby taking into account the most likely path of global warming a decade or more in advance.

I was not aware of the "tropical troposphere" early warning, probably because it
tends to break the sense of urgency needed for emotional manipulations which the
press depends on to sell advertising. This tax clearly depends on all sides
agreeing that the climate change computer models be accurate on this point.
Not that this would ever happen.

espresso beans tonewsbusters

Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) "Does anybody know how small that number is?"

I've been away for a while but I've been paying attention, particularly to AGW and Finance/Economics/Business articles - saving them when I thought they'd still be relevant when I returned to writing. The AGW stories have stayed current because the only variable is to how many skeptics will be allowed to contribute to the conversation, if one could call it that. So the headline "Global warming debunked" The Timaru (New Zealand) Herald article of May 19, 2007 by Andrew Swallow caught my eye. Highlights...

Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week.

...

Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.
"If we didn't have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time."
The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contributed only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.
However, carbon dioxide as a result of man's activities was only 3.2 per cent of that, hence only 0.12 per cent of the greenhouse gases in total. Human-related methane, nitrogen dioxide and CFCs etc made similarly minuscule contributions to the effect: 0.066, 0.047 and 0.046 per cent respectively.
"That ought to be the end of the argument, there and then," he said.
"We couldn't do it (change the climate) even if we wanted to because water vapour dominates."

...

"The Greens are really going to go after you because you put out 49 per cent of the countries emissions. Does anybody ask 49 per cent of what? Does anybody know how small that number is?
"It's become a witch-hunt; a Salem witch-hunt," he said.

The biggest surprise here ie that even in NZ they use the cliche "Salem witch hunt."

Global Warming's Economic Happy Face!

All of a sudden there's gold in them thar nooks and crannies buried under the melting Arctic. Now the question is how much damage will the sudden wealth and attention do to the "ancient culture" of the Inuits and the Sami? I think they'll be fine.Riches await as Earth's icy north melts

HAMMERFEST, Norway - Barren and uninhabited, Hans Island is very hard to find on a map. Yet these days the Frisbee-shaped rock in the Arctic is much in demand — so much so that Canada and Denmark have both staked their claim to it with flags and warships.
The reason: an international race for oil, fish, diamonds and shipping routes, accelerated by the impact of global warming on Earth's frozen north.

The AP article doesn't want anyone to think they've forgotten the "catastrophic" aspects of the subject, no one wants to make the Gorniacs angry. But it's about time we saw some of the potential of the era we may be entering, if the trend continues. The opening of shipping lanes is called "priceless" and compares the economic impact to that of the opening of the Suez Canal!

Over at NRO, warming skeptic James S Robbins says " Hooray for Global Warming!"

But if the world is warming, I say “bravo.” People in most parts of the globe should have no objection to a warmer, wetter climate. If the aliens were watching they’d conclude we were making our planet more habitable on purpose.

And this is cute!

Anyway, get with it Democrats, where is your traditional love of public works? Rising ocean levels will keep the government in the sea wall business for decades.

If you ever have the pleasure of passionately disagreeing with a pervasive cultural norm, such as the religious belief in man-made global warming, do so by all means - go for it! You will find a level of sarcasm you never thought you had. I try hard to keep mine in check, the introvert in me wins that one. Mr Robbins does not have that problem...

Think of the other advantages the Left is ignoring. A warmer wetter world could very well mean more rain forests — hence more biodiversity! We are supposed to value that for some reason, right? And if the ice caps melt and we get more ocean, well that just means more habitat for whales doesn’t it? And warmer climates might reverse the migration pattern in this country away from the frigid liberal northeast towards the warm conservative south. Imagine Massachusetts and Vermont gaining seats in Congress and then tell me how bad global warming is.

And these are my exact sentiments on this...

So if we see global warming for the beneficial trend that it is rather than a looming threat to life and limb, none of the “solutions” being proposed by the alarmists are necessary. There is no challenge posed by a slow-rolling phenomenon like global warming that cannot be overcome; and when deserts start blooming, blizzards stop hitting, and you are enjoying the surfing at your beach house in upper Newfoundland, you won’t care what caused global warming, you’ll just thank goodness it happened.

Some Global Warming

That Al Gore has trouble with the truth is fairly well established. His "An Inconvenient Truth" has scared the bejeepers out of enough folks though, that responses fall on frightfully deaf ears. Manipulation is much easier if fear, guilt, and contempt can be planted in a willfully ignorant mind. Intimidation is the tool of the weak argument.
It's not that difficult to recognize the behavior. I have survived a tornado, I know the definition of "urgent." Global Warming is a tactic against those who are stridently, and believably vocal about their opposition to any sort of globally dominant entity for the purpose (it is my belief) of establishing a globally dominant entity. They are fools following idiots, liars, and opportunists.
There is a State Rep from Gore's home state of Tennessee, Stacey Campfield of Knoxville, that is embarrassed enough to have put together a resolution, that he sadly will not enter, that gives a little perspective to the global warming scare. Just a couple paragraphs of a fairly lengthy document...

WHEREAS, An Inconvenient Truth never acknowledges the indispensable role of fossil fuels in alleviating hunger and poverty, extending human life spans, and democratizing consumer goods, literacy, leisure, and personal mobility; and

WHEREAS, An Inconvenient Truth never acknowledges the environmental, health, and economic benefits of climatic warmth and the ongoing rise in the air's CO 2 content; and

espresso beans to alphapatriot

This Week's Funnies

I've collected a few cultural stories that have a humorous side to them. For instance, I think it's nice to know that some in the U.S. military can still call a politically incorrect spade an "immoral" spade. His apology seems to be directed at the fact that he should have stayed on script, not that he said what he believes.No apology from Gen. Pace for gay stance

After a flurry of condemnation Tuesday, Pace issued a statement acknowledging that the Defense Department's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays is a sensitive subject and said: "I should have focused more on my support of the policy and less on my personal moral views."
The military lets gay men and lesbians serve if they keep their sexual orientation private. Commanders may not ask, and service members may not tell. More than 10,000 troops, including more than 50 specialists in Arabic, have been discharged since President Clinton signed it into law in 1994.

It's not a given, but probable that "specialists in Arabic" refers to Muslims. Homosexuality is supposed to be a forbidden act among them, and perhaps that's why they joined the coalition forces. Of course, if you're "lucky" enough to be of some importance or influence in a Muslim country, it's an entirely different scenario.
Left unsaid in this piece is any analysis of timeframe in the numbers it mentions. Or any possible other employment oppurtunities for said "specialists in Arabic." If I spoke Arabic and knew the culture, I might find plenty of incentive to want to leave the Army pay grade and work for Halliburton or Blackwater and perhaps make a killing. Or perhaps as a volunteer Army Arabic specialist in 2001-02, I didn't consider the possibility that I'd go to war against Iraq seriously enough. Perhaps others can think of reasons why someone would WANT to leave the military that also have nothing to do with being gay.
And then, there's every reason for a descendant of the mighty, historically important Persian empire to be embarrassed about the current administration in Iran. That a loosely historical comic book style portrayal of the Greco-Persian wars is thought to be an attack is simply paranoid. I would think that Frank Miller ought to be very proud for the mention, though. Iranian official lashes out at Hollywood movie "300" for insulting Persian civilization

Shamqadri was quoted as saying "following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Hollywood and cultural authorities in the U.S. initiated studies to figure out how to attack Iranian culture," adding "certainly, the recent movie is a product of such studies."

My bold, obviously, that's the funniest projection of fascist ideology I've ever seen. Living in an oppressed, tightly controlled society, this propaganda rings true to the Iranian reader. If they had any idea at all how unregulated "Hollywood and cultural authorities" are in America, they'd wonder how we've managed to survive.
The best is saved for last. No comment is necessary.Frostbite ends Bancroft-Arnesen trek

MINNEAPOLIS - A North Pole expedition meant to bring attention to global warming was called off after one of the explorers got frostbite. The explorers, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen, on Saturday called off what was intended to be a 530-mile trek across the Arctic Ocean after Arnesen suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment.

....

Then there was the cold — quite a bit colder, Atwood said, then Bancroft and Arnesen had expected. One night they measured the temperature inside their tent at 58 degrees below zero, and outside temperatures were exceeding 100 below zero at times, Atwood said.

....

Atwood said there was some irony that a trip to call attention to global warming was scuttled in part by extreme cold temperatures.
"They were experiencing temperatures that weren't expected with global warming," Atwood said. "But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability."

Cartoons at The Ryskind Sketchbook

On target political cartoons with excellent commentary. Check out his "favorites," funny!

NOAA and NASA Want Antarctica To Melt

You don’t hear much about the ozone hole any more. Has it gone away? Nope. NOAA and NASA say in 2006 it was bigger and deeper than ever.
But wait, you say, we implemented the Montreal Protocols in 1989, eliminating ozone depleting CFCs. Kofi Annan called the Protocol, “Perhaps the most successful international agreement to date.” CFC concentrations have been falling since 1995. How can the ozone hole be worse?
It’s not worse, says NOAA, it’s better. It’s just that you can’t see how great the Protocol is working because colder than average temperatures in the Antarctic mask the benefit. Cold weather “result[s] in larger and deeper ozone holes, while warmer weather leads to smaller ones.”
Colder in Antarctica? Al Gore told me it was melting! Al Gore told me there was consensus. Consensus!

espresso beans topowerline

Global Warming In The News Again

First, a democratic congress that refuses to will a victory for the U.S. in Iraq, and now - it had to happen, man-made climate change hysteria. In the IndyStar, from AP in Paris...

However, the panel also said its best estimate was for temperature rises of 3.2-7.1 degrees Fahrenheit. In 2001, all the panel gave was a range of 2.5-10.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
On sea levels, the report projects rises of 7-23 inches

Some nerve, calling THAT kind of cushion "science!" Isn't that like saying tomorrow's temperature will be somewher between -20 and +70 degrees?

by the end of the century. An additional 3.9-7.8 inches are possible if recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.

Did you know that England, long ago, used to grow wine grapes just like France? That was way back when England was much warmer than it is now. Yup. The Vikings of Norway used to sail their long ships to Iceland and Greenland, and even to the Americas...back when it was warmer.

"It's very conservative. Scientists by their nature are skeptics."

Especially when threatened with de-certification for holding beliefs considered heretical to orthodox "science."

While critics call the panel "overly alarmist, it is by nature relatively cautious because it relies on hundreds of scientists, including skeptics.

Why do they keep saying that? So anyway, The Norse settlers in Iceland had to abandon the homes (or they stayed and starved to death) because their growing seasons got shorter and the winters became longer and colder. French wine making moved south to the Mediterranean while the British grew hops and other short season grains, and made ale and beer (which explains why we Americans drink more beer than wine). Don't let me interrupt the global panic!

Authors of the report called it conservative: It used only peer-reviewed published science and was edited by representatives of 113 governments who had to agree to every word.

I live in Indianapolis (GO COLTS!!) which at one time was under a mile or two of ice. It's probable that the planet has warmed some since. That and the fact that no one ever guaranteed us a right to a stable climate draws me to agree somewhat with the concept of global warming. Still, there's something troubling to me about the way man's interference is being "marketed" - as the cause - to us. You can tell when the voice at the other end of the phone line is informing you of, say, a prescription that is ready for pickup - and when they are trying to sell a new medicine to you that you've never needed before. Professor Gray saysgive it time.

"They've been brainwashing us for 20 years," Gray says. "Starting with the nuclear winter and now with the global warming. This scare will also run its course. In 15-20 years, we'll look back and see what a hoax this was."
Gray directs me to a 1975 Newsweek article that whipped up a different fear: a coming ice age.
"Climatologists," reads the piece, "are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change. ... The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."
Thank God they did nothing. Imagine how warm we'd be?

The Climate Strange Debate

I don't know the names of any of the individuals involved, but a couple days ago the lead meteorologist for The Weather Channel advocated the de-certification of any American Meteorological Society weather person that is skeptical of global warming caused by human activity. This weatherman objects... S H O W N

*Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up. This is big money, make no mistake about it. Always follow the money trail and it tells a story. Even the lady at “The Weather Channel” probably gets paid good money for a prime time show on climate change. No man-made global warming, no show, and no salary. Nothing wrong with making money at all, but when money becomes the motivation for a scientific conclusion, then we have a problem. For many, global warming is a big cash grab.

*The climate of this planet has been changing since God put the planet here. It will always change, and the warming in the last 10 years is not much difference than the warming we saw in the 1930s and other decades. And, lets not forget we are at the end of the ice age in which ice covered most of North America and Northern Europe.

Then he mentions a resource I'm not aware of but will be checking into. I've heard of Gray, but not Christy.

In fact, I encourage you to listen to WeatherBrains episode number 12, featuring Alabama State Climatologist John Christy, and WeatherBrains episode number 17, featuring Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University, one of the most brilliant minds in our science.

espresso beans todrudge

U.S. Senators Need To Review The Meaning of "Free Speech"

British Lord Stings Senators Rockefeller and Snowe: 'Uphold Free Speech or Resign'
British Lord Stings Senators Rockefeller and Snowe: 'Uphold Free Speech or Resign' The lingering html is in the original...

In what The Charleston (WV) Daily Mail has called "an intemperate attempt to squelch debate with a hint of political consequences," Senators Rockefeller and Snowe released an open letter dated October 30 to ExxonMobil CEO, Rex Tillerson, insisting he end Exxon's funding of a "climate change denial campaign." The Senators labeled scientists with whom they disagree as "deniers," a term usually directed at "Holocaust deniers." Some voices on the political left have called for the arrest and prosecution of skeptical scientists. The British Foreign Secretary has said skeptics should be treated like advocates of Islamic terror and must be denied access to the media.

Lord Monckton, Viscount of Brenchley -- former policy adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher -- a name tp remember!

Concludes Lord Monckton, "I challenge you to withdraw or resign because your letter is the latest in what appears to be an internationally-coordinated series of maladroit and malevolent attempts to silence the voices of scientists and others who have sound grounds, rooted firmly in the peer- reviewed scientific literature, to question what you would have us believe is the unanimous agreement of scientists worldwide that global warming will lead to what you excitedly but unjustifiably call 'disastrous' and 'calamitous' consequences."

espresso beans to drudge

heck, here's the original letter in pdf, it's even better! (emphasis mine)

There is no evidence that further warming will cause malaria or yellow fever to spread. Climatic warmth is not an important habitat signifier for the anopheles or Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes. But when the US administration sought to appoint Paul Reiter, a world expert on the mosquito, to the UN’s climate change panel, the panel vetoed his appointment because they knew he disagreed with the alarmist view that they were determined to purvey. It is easy to claim a “consensus” if scientists who disagree are excluded.

Senate Debates Global Warming, CNN Anchor Snoozes

Newsbusters describes what it's like to be on the less alarming side of the Global Warming debate. I still can't get a grip on why things are this way. I guess there's nothing like a good, running, controversial story to sell papers.

Dr. David Deming, a geophysicist from the University of Oklahoma recounted an experience he had with an NPR reporter who hung up on him after he declined to say that he thought global temperature increases were human-caused.

espresso beans to watersblogged!