It Never Ends!

FROM-Tehran Times

Melting Arctic ice heralds new polar hybrids: Pizzlies and more

An odd-looking white bear with patches of brown fur was shot by hunters in 2006 and found to be a cross between a polar bear and a grizzly bear.

Apparently, grizzlies were moving north into polar bear territory. Since then, several hybrid animals have appeared in and around the Arctic, including narwhal-beluga whales and mixed porpoises.

The culprit may be melting Arctic sea ice, which is causing barriers that once separated marine mammals to disappear, while the warming planet is making habitats once too cold for some animals just right.

The resulting hybrid creatures are threatening the survival of rare polar animals, according to a comment published Wednesday (Dec. 15) in the journal Nature.

A team led by ecologist Brendan Kelly of the National Marine Mammal Laboratory counted 34 possible hybridizations between distinct populations or species of Arctic marine mammals, many of which are endangered or threatened.

The “The greatest concern is species that are already imperiled,” said Kelly, first author of the Nature comment. “Interbreeding might be the final straw.”

When hunters encountered a hybrid of a polar bear and a grizzly in 2006, Kelly's colleagues remarked that the incident was just a fluke. But as Kelly delved into the issue, he found more evidence of similar anomalies.

In 2009, a cross between a bowhead and a right whale was spotted in the Bering Sea, between Alaska and Russia. And a museum specimen in Alaska attests to breeding between spotted seals (Phoca largha) and ribbon seals (Histriophoca fasciata), which belong to different genera, a scientific classification of organisms that is broader than the species level.

Global Warming Policies and the Perverse Incentives They Create

FROM-Heritage Foundation

Money is a powerful incentive. When it comes to global warming, governments all over the world have created policies that intend to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but have led to fraud, scams, black markets, and increased emissions. Mark Schapiro of Reuters reports on the unintended consequences of European companies offsetting their carbon dioxide emissions by paying the Chinese to destroy a much more potent contributor to warming:

In order to offset their own greenhouse gases, companies and utilities in Europe that are subject to the emission limits of the Kyoto Protocol have been paying vastly inflated prices to Chinese companies to destroy hfc 23, and in the process have been providing the Chinese government with hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue to compete against Europe’s own “green” industries. European concern about this practice was a major source of contention during last week’s climate negotiations in Cancun, as the U.N. attempted to defend the integrity of the multi-billion-dollar global carbon offset market.

And in an odd twist, the incentives offered through the U.N.’s Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) also appear to be stimulating production of an ozone-depleting refrigerant gas that has been landing in the U.S. black market. Investigations by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have led to the conviction of several smugglers who have illegally imported the ozone-depleting refrigerant, hcfc 22, into the U.S. for sale to trucking companies, supermarkets, automotive supply shops, and other large-scale users of refrigerant gases. The illegal refrigerant is significantly cheaper than non-ozone-depleting refrigerants permitted in the U.S., a price discrepancy triggered partially by the large overpayments to Chinese firms that have led to an ample supply of hcfc 22 on the international black market.

That black market completes a global circuit unique to the era of climate change: From China’s industrial zones, the credits for the greenhouse gases—bought and sold as commodities on the global carbon markets—flow to European companies that need them to continue polluting at home, while the underlying ozone-depleting gas responsible for creating those credits flows to American companies seeking discounted refrigerants.

If you need any more indication that these policies are more about seeking profit than protecting the environment, China’s Deputy Director of its Clean Development Mechanism fund threatened to release the hfc gases into the atmosphere if United Nations removed the gas as an acceptable credit. Shapiro also details how the credit program is increasing the production of other potent greenhouse gas emissions:

The offset credits paid to Chinese and Indian companies to eliminate the former, according to CDM Watch, have actually stimulated increased production of the latter—the ozone-depleting refrigerant hcfc 22, which is itself a potent greenhouse gas. CDM Watch has compiled records showing that companies in China and India have significantly increased production of hcfc 22 in order to receive funds to incinerate the byproduct gas, hfc 23.

This becomes an even bigger deal when governments implement policies that promote carbon-free, uncompetitive sources of energy. In the United Kingdom, for instance, David Cameron is reversing Margaret Thatcher’s privatized energy market in favor of a more state-controlled system with the possibility of a price floor on carbon dioxide. The plan would prematurely shut down older power plants in favor of a massive government spending project to increase the use of nuclear, wind, solar, and biofuels to meet carbon reduction targets. It’s an undertaking that cannot be done without government guarantees, says the regulator Ofgem. Ernst and Young projects the transition will cost $316 billion—a cost that will show up in consumers’ energy bills and later through higher taxes to cover the government’s investment.

And all this cost is for what? There won’t be any noticeable difference in emissions, and companies can pretend to go green and pretend to adhere to rules while others collect serious cash. Yet politicians in the U.S. are pulling wool over their own eyes when it comes to the facts, fraud, and inefficiencies of green policies in other parts of the world.

"Notable Quotes"

"When everything is evidence of the thing you want to believe, it's might be time to stop pretending you're all about science."

Ann Althouse

It Never Ends!

FROM-Jerusalem Post


'Global warming will make Mediterranean less salty'

The Mediterranean Sea will not become more salty due to the growth of desalination plants that leave salt residue behind, according to an Italian expert who participated in a decade-long census of world marine life. Instead, said Prof. Roberto Danovaro of the Polytechnic University of Marché, the melting of Arctic glaciers due to global warming will make the Mediterranean and oceans less saline....

Read and weep

Freedom survives climate conference

FROM-JDNEWS.com

Despite profuse self-congratulations and a Kumbaya spirit, the global warming summit in Cancun, Mexico, didn’t much advance the cause of climate alarmism. It may even have set back the movement.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, whose Draconian mandated cuts in greenhouse gas emissions expire in 2012, wasn’t extended or replaced, and nothing else legally binding was agreed upon by the assembled 190-plus nations. The United States never signed Kyoto, as most nations did.

Cancun got off to a rocky start two weeks ago when Japan, a signatory, declared it would never agree to another Kyoto treaty. Apparently no one else was willing, either.

The Asia News Network reported that Cancun’s failures make it more likely developed countries will shift from Kyoto’s binding regime “to a voluntary system in which each country only makes pledges on how much it will reduce its emissions.”

Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists lamented, “Fundamentally there’s not consensus coming out of here on the long-term way forward in terms of the legal regime.”

This is good news for anyone who regards catastrophic manmade global warming to be a hyped nonthreat, and for anyone who cherishes liberty and economic freedom and is repulsed by transnational mandates.

Coming a year after gridlock at the U.N.’s previous worldwide climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Cancun’s delegates were intent on at least the appearance of agreement. Their consensus was more posturing than substance.

No firm proposals were agreed on for nations to reduce emissions by even the lowered amounts summit planners sought. Moreover, it was left to each nation to decide how much and how soon to reduce. A system was agreed upon to monitor, report and verify emissions, but without enforcement provisions.

A committee was agreed upon to provide technology for developing nations. But delegates avoided deciding how to protect developed nations’ intellectual property rights, a concern that inhibits sharing.

Similarly, there was no agreement on how much each rich nation will pay into the still-empty so-called Green Fund to subsidize poorer nations. Delegates set up an account for the World Bank to manage, hoping to receive up to $100 billion a year promised (but not yet delivered) by nations last year. We suspect there won’t be a mad rush to cut checks anytime soon — if ever.

Agreement was reached on a plan for developed nations to pay developing nations to soak up carbon dioxide using plants. Again, delegates backed off a proposal for faux carbon markets to finance the scheme. Everyone agreed to get together next year in South Africa to see if they can agree then on how to make any of this stuff legally binding.

Environmental activists were more candid than delegates. “The negotiations in the future,” said China’s negotiator, “will continue to be difficult.”

Is Green All that Should Matter?

FROM-Net News Ledger

ALGARY - In the world-wide race to develop energy sources that are seen as “green” because they are renewable and less GHG intensive, sometimes the most basic questions remain unanswered.

In a paper released today, authors Michal Moore, Senior Fellow, School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary and Sarah M. Jordaan at Harvard University in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, look at the basic question of whether these energy sources are ethical.

In addition to arguing that the greenhouse gas benefits of biofuel are overstated by many policymakers, the authors argue that there are four questions that need to be considered before encouraging and supporting the production of more biofuel. These questions are:

1.What is the effect of biofuel production on food costs, especially for poor populations?

2.Should more land be used for biofuel when the return of energy per acre is low? Are there better uses for that land?

3.In addition to worrying about the impact of global warming, should we not consider the impact on land of massively expanding biofuel production?

4 What are the other economic impacts of large scale production of biofuel?

“Policymakers, especially in the US, have been in a rush to expand biofuel protection,” says Michal Moore. “But they need to start thinking outside of the box of climate change and the corn lobby.”

“If policy is designed to create better outcomes for everyone, then we need to subject policy to ethical tests.

In many respects, current policy around biofuels fails those tests.”

The paper can be found at www.policyschool.ca then click on “latest papers”.

Top 10 Bad Developments For Global Warming Alarmists

From-Human Events

by Kenneth Hanner


Things keep getting worse for global-warming alarmists. Last year, saw the collapse at Copenhagen, Climategate and the death of cap-and-trade. A recent spate of bad developments added to their woes:

1. Cancun Play-Day: Following last year’s Copenhagen climate conference which turned into a farce, another meaningless UN climate conference was held this year in Cancun, Mexico. While little to nothing was accomplished, at least the well-dressed delegates picked a nice locale to pollute with their jets and limos.

2. Globe Stopped Warming: According to the UK Daily Mail, buried in a new British Meteorological Office report is data that shows there has been virtually no global warming for the past 15 years. A very inconvenient truth for the alarmists.


3. Invoking Ixchel: Christiana Figueres, a UN climate official, didn’t help the kooky image of global warming alarmists when she addressed delegates gathered at the UN’s climate conference in Cancun. Figueres invoked the ancient Mayan jaguar goddess Ixcehl, saying she hoped the goddess of weaving would inspire the delegates “to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change.” Where is the ACLU and their church-state separation wall when you really need it?

4. Cold Weather: With the East Coast gripped by bitter cold, Paris paralyzed by snow and a headline in the UK’s Daily Express exclaiming, “Britain is Freezing to Death,” global warming alarmists will again have to fall back on their “climate change” sleight of hand to explain away the cold.

5. WikiLeaks: Secret cables among the Wikileaks trove of leaked documents include accounts that the Danish climate minister floated financial assistance for small island nations to gain their support for the Copenhagen climate pact and put pressure on developing nations like Brazil and India to go along. Why are bribes needed if these nations are so imperiled by rising oceans?

6. Global One-Child Policy: Economist Brian O’Neill from the U.S.’s National Center for Atmospheric Research presented a study in Cancun which concluded that a rising global population is contributing to emissions growth, and that family planning could counter the trend. Media mogul Ted Turner followed up with a plea for a global one-child policy and proposed that fertility rights be sold so that poor people could profit from their decision not to reproduce.

7. Ted Turner Touts Cap-and-Trade: Speaking of Ted Turner, the CNN founder said at the Cancun climate confab that President Obama made “a big mistake” by not making his cap-and-trade energy legislation his “top priority” ahead of healthcare. You know you are in trouble when you have to out-flank Obama from the Left to make your case.

8. Gore Group on Last Gasp: The Alliance for Climate Protection had to drastically scale back its operations with the collapse of climate change legislation in Congress. The group was aligned with Al Gore in 2008 in a massive advertising and lobbying campaign to pass climate legislation. With cap-and-trade all-but-dead, the group has cut the number of states having field offices from 25 to seven. Funny how a midterm election can bring about change.

9. Climate Committee Axed: With Republicans taking back the House of Representatives in January, expect changes in how various committees are run. None will be greater than the fate of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Incoming House Speaker John Boehner has already announced that the panel, a pet project of Nancy Pelosi, will be dismantled.

10. Pachauri Proclaims: Dr. Rajendra Pachauri is the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which has been under fire for its report stating Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 with no scientific evidence to back up the claim. Now he is back in the news, lecturing climate delegates in Cancun on the eminent dangers of global warming. Let’s hope he has some science to back up his claims this time.

Kenneth Hanner is former national editor of The Washington Times and former managing editor of HUMAN EVENTS.

The Cretaceous SUV's ?

It never ends!

FROM-Newsminer.com

Gaseous dinosaurs that ‘might have contributed’ to global warming


by Ned Rozell

SAN FRANCISCO — The emissions of northern dinosaurs may have led to a warmer planet 70 million years ago, said a scientist attending the 2010 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in mid-December.

Dinosaur hunters have found preserved footprints of hadrosaurs in rocks all over Alaska, including: Denali National Park, near the Colville River north of the Brooks Range, at Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve on the Alaska Peninsula, and in Yukon-Charley National Park and Preserve.

Tony Fiorillo of the Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas started thinking about all those hadrosaurs being plant-eating dinosaurs as large as elephants and their nickname, bestowed by paleontologists: cows of the Cretaceous.

At AGU, Fiorillo presented his idea that hadrosaurs were spread across the landscape at numbers comparable to today’s caribou, a calculated “standing crop” of 500,000 hadrosaurs in Alaska 70 million years ago.

He figured the output of one hadrosaur equaled that of about 10 cows, and then he extrapolated. Because there are published reports on how much methane wafts from the average cow pie, Fiorillo figured that the Alaska hadrosaurs might have contributed an impressive amount of the greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. In short, “hadrosaurs may have contributed to a warmer Arctic,” he said.

The world of the hadrosaurs might also have featured wildfire behavior similar to what we see in the north today, Fiorillo said. The Alaska climate experienced by dinosaurs was probably comparable to current trends in the region between Portland, Oregon and Calgary in Alberta, Canada.

“It must have been delightful,” he said. “Lush vegetation and high mountains in the distance.”

Winter was perhaps the dry season 70 million years ago, which may have made spring the fire season. Fiorillo and other scientists have found charcoal embedded in some fossil sites. He thinks fires and dinosaurs may have been responsible for the open landscape upon which the dinosaurs apparently lived.

“Fire might have made clearings, and (plant-eating dinosaurs) maintained them, something like giraffes and hippos do today,” he said.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Letters to the Editor and other People Speak


FROM-UK Telegraph


Whatever the weather, climate alarmists blame mankind

The alarmists use any weather – extreme or moderate – to denounce what they see as the wickedness of capitalism



SIR – With so many politicians promoting hype about the risks of catastrophic climate change, it was cheering to read that the end of November and start of December were the coldest in central England since records began in 1772 (Christopher Booker, December 12). So much for global warming.

What is clear is that the climate behaves in unexpected ways all the time – regardless of what humans do.

In Roman times, wine was made from grapes at Hadrian's Wall, while in the 18th and 19th centuries, Britain was a much colder place than in the 20th century, with frost fairs taking place over the Thames.

Despite millennia of climate change, the alarmists use any weather – extreme or moderate – to denounce what they see as the wickedness of capitalism, seemingly failing to grasp that the public view their inconsistent pronouncements as more ridiculous by the day.

Jamie Robinson
Edinburgh


SIR – Parts of the world are buried under record levels of snow and people are dying from the cold. Moreover, the science supporting the theory of man-made global warming has been discredited.

Surely the time has come for our politicians to wake up to reality and stop wasting billions of taxpayers' money on ugly and useless wind farms.

The country would be better served by putting that money to good use, for example investing in snow ploughs, transport infrastructure and much needed new power stations.
Do we all have to die of hypothermia before our politicians wake up to the fact that they have got it wrong?

Stefan Reszczynski
Margate, Kent

SIR – Without the agreement of China and India to reduce dramatically their use of fossil fuels, the plans made at Cancun for a low-carbon economy are futile. China is already responsible for 50 per cent of the global carbon dioxide that comes from the combustion of coal.

The UN estimates that the worldwide consumption of coal will increase by 25 per cent in the next quarter-century, mainly in the developing world.

By 2020, China will have installed over 400GW of new coal-fired generating capacity, which is about 40 times greater than the planned British reduction in coal-fired capacity by that date. So the impact of British measures to combat climate change will be infinitesimal.
One day the electorate will have to assess whether that warm feeling of doing your noble but futile bit to save the planet was worth it.

James Atwell
Felbridge, Surrey

SIR – For years we have been subjected to dire warnings of the effect of raised carbon dioxide levels on our climate and told that the world was heating up to the level where tropical plants would thrive in Britain.

With the coldest winter in years upon us, as well as in many other countries, and many indifferent summers behind us, I feel that we are heading in the wrong direction.
Should we perhaps encourage the use of fossil fuels to help warm the climate?

David Parker
Redruth, Cornwall

SIR – How interesting that during our increasingly numerous periods of intense cold, the nomenclature used by fearmongers has changed from global warming to climate change.

Barry Bond
Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

Inhofe: WikiLeaks climate revelations show Obama’s ‘desperation’

FROM-The Daily Caller


By John Rossomando


The revelation that the Obama administration used a covert CIA program to dig up dirt on countries opposed to the Copenhagen climate treaty shows a White House desperate to enforce its orthodoxy on global warming, Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe told The Daily Caller.

Earlier this month, The Guardian newspaper reported that State Department administration officials, acting at the request of the CIA, sent a secret cable on July 31, 2009, asking U.S. diplomats to gather intelligence on other countries’ preparations for the then-pending Copenhagen climate conference. The request also asked diplomats to be on the lookout for indications that countries were not fostering environmental cooperation and for evidence of countries circumventing U.N.-sponsored environmental treaties.

The cables do not make clear whether CIA Director Leon Panetta was directly involved in the request. Panetta has a long, documented history of environmental activism, particularly on climate change, going back several decades.

So far, administration allies are not commenting on the revelation. TheDC approached former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright last week during an appearance at the liberal Center for American Progress, but she declined to comment.

The leaked cables show the Obama administration has had particular trouble influencing the so-called BASIC-bloc countries of Brazil, South Africa, India, and China. Administration officials have sought to work with the EU to plot strategy to overcome opposition and find ways to neutralize their opposition to the Copenhagen Climate Accord.

So far, 116 countries have associated themselves with the accord and another 26 have indicated their intention to associate. The treaty would continue the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and established a mechanism for developing nations to establish emissions targets, which they have vehemently opposed.

According to a leaked Feb. 17, 2010 cable, Michael Froman, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for international affairs, held a meeting with the EU’s climate commissioner-designate, Conne Hedegaard, looking for ways to work around “unhelpful countries such as Venezuela or Bolivia” and get the treaty into force.

The cable quotes Froman as saying the U.S. and E.U. “need to neutralize, co-opt or marginalize, co-opt or marginalize these and others such as Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador.”

Froman also advocated using divide and conquer tactics to confront the BASIC bloc and other Copenhagen treaty opponents, saying the U.S. and E.U. needed “to better handle third country obstructionism and avoid future trainwrecks on climate …”

The Obama administration subsequently cutoff aid to Ecuador and Bolivia last April that would have helped them reach the Copenhagen treaty’s carbon emissions targets, citing their opposition to the agreement.

“I think this goes to show that to the left-wing of the Democratic Party, national security means anything you want it to,” former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said. “I don’t mind using any instruments of persuasion…but I think it is certainly a misallocation of priorities to be using intelligence capabilities on something like climate change.”

Inhofe expressed similar sentiments, suggesting Obama’s use of the CIA and diplomatic threats to push his climate agenda around the world are part of what Inhofe considers Obama’s larger “liberal agenda.”

“For the last 10 years, I have been largely alone on this, but people have learned to understand the economics as well as the science, and clearly we have won,” Inhofe said. “[Obama] has certain things he has to do for the far-left. One is on the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal; one is abortions in military hospitals, and one is on cap-and-trade.

“He has to use every resource that’s available to him to get this liberal agenda through, knowing it won’t go through,” Inhofe continued. “I can see the conversations right now with George Soros: ‘He should be using the NSA on this.’ He’s going to use every resource and it’s not going to work, so nothing surprises me.”

Climate Change: It's the Sun, Stupid

FROM-American Thinker

Randall Hoven

Guess who wrote this.

"The Sun is the primary forcing of Earth's climate system. Sunlight warms our world. Sunlight drives atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. Sunlight powers the process of photosynthesis that plants need to grow. Sunlight causes convection which carries warmth and water vapor up into the sky where clouds form and bring rain. In short, the Sun drives almost every aspect of our world's climate system and makes possible life as we know it.

"... According to scientists' models of Earth's orbit and orientation toward the Sun indicate that our world should be just beginning to enter a new period of cooling -- perhaps the next ice age...

"Other important forcings of Earth's climate system include such "variables" as clouds, airborne particulate matter, and surface brightness. Each of these varying features of Earth's environment has the capacity to exceed the warming influence of greenhouse gases and cause our world to cool. " [Emphases added.]

Lord Monckton didn't write that. Neither did physicist Richard Lindzen, physicist William Happer, or physicist Hal Lewis. Nor was it Steve McIntyre who blew the whistle on the "hockey stick." It was none of the usual suspects among the "skeptic" community.

It was NASA, home of our space program, the currently unmuzzled James Hansen and one of the major centers for collecting climate data and analyzing it. (HT: Ace.)

The NASA statement is simply astounding to me. It says, quite unambiguously, that our climate is dominated by the sun and our orientation to it. It also credits non-carbon sources as "important forcings" of our climate: clouds, particulate matter and surface brightness. Finally, it warns of coming global cooling!

Of course, the NASA statement still says there is human-caused warming. But, it will be swamped by these other forces to yield net cooling. In short, whatever man is doing to the climate, it is insignificant in the face of natural forcings.

The science "consensus" has not only collapsed, it has raised the white flag and confessed that the skeptics were right all along. I think we can stick a fork in the climate change agenda. A few nuts will continue to wander the streets, mumbling to themselves and each other. But as a significant political agenda, I think it's over. I sure hope it is.

The Energy Equation: Practical Fact vs. Political Fiction

FROM-American Thinker

By Frank Burke

Politically motivated energy solutions continue to exacerbate the problems they were supposed to counteract. The automotive industry and the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) regulations, which originated in 1975 as a result of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, make up only one example of many.

In the early 1980s, American car-makers were refining the design strategies necessary to meet the mileage requirements imposed by the government. One of the Big Three automakers' programs called for the use of a small four-cylinder engine equipped with a supercharger -- a mechanism that intermittently forces air into the combustion chamber to provide more complete combustion and greater power when needed.

Following a planning meeting with one of the key suppliers, a design engineer was asked the inevitable question: Is this going to work? He smiled and replied that although the mileage standards would be met, it might be more practical to consider all of the energy inputs that go into the manufacture of an automobile engine. He noted that the metal has to be mined or reclaimed from scrap, then smelted. Depending on the engine component, it then requires forming, casting, machining, and other operations prior to final assembly. There is also energy usage for transportation at virtually every step of the process, as well as indirect costs related to plant operation. He noted that with proper care, the typical six- or eight-cylinder engine could have a useful life that frequently exceeded 200,000 miles. Unfortunately, the supercharged smaller engines would run so hot that many would not see 100,000 miles. The end result: the improved mileage standards resulted in a net expenditure of far more energy.

The paper industry, like the steel industry, has always utilized recycled materials in the production process. Paper is composed of compressed fibers, and the average fiber can be recycled a maximum of three times. When Congress decreed that recycled content had to be increased, paper-makers were forced to utilize an expanded refining process that, of course, used more energy.

At the onset of the recent BP oil well disaster, the Obama administration refused offers of aid and equipment from experts worldwide. The result was a more protracted and serious crisis.

Despite the lessons inherent in these, and many other earlier failures, the administration has stubbornly failed to realize that, when politicians attempt to involve themselves in technical and business matters in which they have no experience, the results are predictably disastrous.

Nowhere has the administration's current inability to see the big picture been more obvious than in the so-called green energy programs. Under normal market-driven conditions, emergent technologies typically experience a start-up period or pioneer phase. At this time, some fall short on their own or are unable to meet competitive challenges. Examples of this include early steam and electric vehicles, which gave way to the internal combustion engine, and, more recently, the Betamax vs. VHS format war for the home video recorder market.

Once a product or process has made it past the initial stage, it typically evolves and inspires the development of new and better features as it matures.

In terms of generating electricity, both wind and solar power systems are in the early phases, and it remains to be seen how much they can contribute to solving our energy problems. Wind farms require huge amounts of real estate; they are expensive to construct; maintenance is expensive and downtime common; and they pose a danger to birds, especially migratory waterfowl. They are also are extremely difficult and costly to maintain. At the present time, the hardware frequently derives in whole or in part from foreign sources, adding to the cost of transportation. They are hardly the perfect solution.

Solar power has improved, but like with wind power, it has not reached the point where it can be embraced as the key to self-sufficiency.

Despite this, the Obama administration has poured billions of dollars into the coffers of preferred companies such as General Electric and foreign manufacturers in establishing installations that will shortly become obsolete -- if they aren't already. At the same time, they administration has stalled the development of nuclear plants and oil reserves that could accomplish the goal of energy independence while creating tens of thousands of new and permanent jobs.

A further example of the lack of cohesion and leadership in energy policies is reflected in the manner in which program elements frequently contradict each other. For instance, under the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-sponsored green building certification program, a major criterion involves sourcing building materials locally so as to minimize energy expenditure in the transportation process. How does the square with importing and trucking giant wind power components thousands of miles or bringing tankers loaded with oil from halfway around the world?

If one had to pick the single best (or worst) example of the Obama administration's inability to view the big picture when it comes to energy-related matters, one could hardly find a better example than the much-vaunted and publicized Chevrolet Volt. A totally electric automobile with a 60-mile range that can be recharged in the owner's garage or at remote recharging stations, the Volt is so expensive that the government has had to create a subsidy program to incentivize buyers. Because of its zero emissions, it has been touted as the car of the future and a major step on the road to solving our environmental problems.

Once again, the reality is quite different. Most of our domestic electrical energy supply derives from coal-burning power plants, and in view of the administration's refusal to aggressively pursue nuclear power, that is likely to be the case into the short- and mid-term future. Seen in this light, the Chevrolet Volt is, in reality, a coal-powered automobile. If one were to produce a graphic illustrating how much coal would be required to generate the electricity that would power the Volt every day over the course of -- say -- a ten-year life, it would become apparent that the actual carbon footprint is huge.

Once again, the equation does not add up, and the administration that purports to be on the side of the angels when it comes to the environment has produced, through its General Motors subsidiary, the first coal-powered transport vehicle since the decline of the steam locomotive.

Until and unless the administration is willing to solicit and heed the advice and guidance of the private-sector professionals with the technical and business experience to help set practical policies, the equation is not going to balance. Instead, we will continue to overpay for impractical non-solutions.

STOP THE PRESSES !

Sanity in the Main Stream Media



FROM-Pittsburgh Tribune

Loons in Cancun

Another costly United Nations conference on wealth redistribution under the guise of climate change has come to a predictable close.

"Experts" trotted out disputed "science" to buttress predictions of climate cataclysms. Notes British columnist Christopher Booker in The Telegraph, the same United Kingdom National Weather Service computer that predicted a four-degree rise in global temperatures over the next 50 years also "has consistently got every one of its winter and summer forecasts hopelessly wrong" over the past three years.

Climate cluckers couldn't come to terms on arbitrary emissions cuts. But they did come up with a "Green Climate Fund" to shuffle $100 billion in aid by 2020 to poor nations. No details yet on how deeply the duly concerned intend to reach into Uncle Sam's wallet.

What unfolded over two weeks was more of a circus than any meaningful scientific consensus on complex global weather patterns. The direction was set with an opening prayer to Ixchel, the Mayan mood goddess.

And how strange that no one mentioned the "carbon footprint" left by thousands of pampered delegates, who didn't get to Cancun by paddling canoes.

From this nonsense Mr. Booker derives a fitting conclusion. "The global warming scare may have been fun for the children while it lasted, but the time has come for the joke to be declared well and truly over."

Bureaucrats Swindle Greens In Cancun

FROM-The American Interest


WALTER RUSSELL MEAD

The climate conference in Cancun was a turning point for the world’s greens. There were two possible outcomes. One was a total political meltdown in Cancun that would have been hideously embarrassing in the short run but that in the long term would have cleared the way for more hopeful approaches to carbon issues. The other was a cobbled together pseudo-deal of some kind that would have avoided short term embarrassment but over the long run would doom the greens to a future of frustration and futility.

Outcome one would have helped the planet; outcome two helps the bureaucratic rent seekers and process junkies of the world’s diplomatic establishment.

Guess who won?

As green negotiators in Cancun ended their embarrassing two-week junket (videos of partying bureaucrats did not go down well with voters in a northern hemisphere freezing in an early winter), it’s clear that the bureaucrats did what bureaucrats do: they kept a ‘process’ (job-creating bureaucratic gravy train) alive while doing little or nothing about the problem they were supposed to solve.

read entire article here

It's only weather

But it's still cold!

Death of the Global Warming Myth

FROM-American Thinker

By Peter Heck


When your cockamamie theory is literally collapsing around you, it's probably best to take your plight to a higher power. But if that isn't possible, a fake jaguar goddess could work.

According to the Washington Post,

"Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was... ‘the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving.'"

I'll give this conglomeration of exploiting profiteers five stars when it comes to creativity. You can't manipulate data to produce fatalistic scenes of New York City being overwhelmed by tidal waves and Yellowstone erupting into volcanic ash without having a robust imagination. But reason? I think that went out the window long before they started praying to a jaguar.

The disintegration of this political juggernaut known as global warming is as imminent now as it is remarkable. The heights from which these scientists' credibility has plunged is equaled only by the speed at which it has done so.

Consider that it was only last year when the scientific and political world was held spellbound by the deliberations of the UN Climate Change summit held in Copenhagen. Nearly 45,000 attendees anxiously anticipated a global climate agreement that could spare us all from the imminent planetary incineration that was about to befall us thanks to the unholy alliance of SUVs, deforestation, and belching cows. American taxpayers alone shelled out nearly $400,000 for Nancy Pelosi to lead a cadre of liberal Congressmen and staffers to attend the Warmer deliberations.

Yet now, just one year later, political leaders are staying as far away from the annual climate summit (this year held in Cancun) as possible. Even the Congressional Warmer triumvirate of Henry Waxman, Dianne Feinstein, and Barbara Boxer skipped the festivities. Remember it was Boxer who proclaimed not so long ago that global warming was her "signature issue." Yet when it came time for this year's convention, Boxer merely murmured, "I'm sending a statement to Cancun."

Meanwhile, across the pond, things aren't much better for the global warming hysterics in the British Meteorological Office. As the Met geared up for Copenhagen in 2009, they were warning of the "warmest year on record." Fast-forward to this year, and as Britain is in the grip of yet another extraordinarily frigid winter, their admonitions are much more subdued. Even the Daily Mail noted why: "Buried amid the details of those two Met Office statements 12 months apart lies a remarkable climbdown that has huge implications -- not just for the Met Office, but for debate over climate change as a whole...for the past 15 years, global warming has stopped."

This most inconvenient truth is why, despite millions of dollars of propaganda and free marketing offered by a totally duped American media, Al Gore's climate heist machinery is dismantling before our eyes. The defeat of climate legislation in Congress has prompted Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection to whittle its resources from 25 states down to 7 states, acknowledging, "the situation in Congress has changed."

Indeed it has. As the Democratic Party's death grip on Congress dies in January, Nancy Pelosi's House Select Committee on Global Warming will be dying with it. Republicans have announced that they have no desire to continue wasting taxpayer dollars on a committee whose only contribution was a proposed energy tax that would have destroyed millions of jobs in an already stagnant economy.

For its swan song, the committee held a final hearing - one so boring that according to the Washington Times, the Chairman never returned from lunch break.

So how has this environmental Goliath collapsed so quickly and so painfully? Certainly the ClimateGate scandal that revealed the epic fraud and deceit upon which the movement was built didn't help. Al Gore admitting his willingness to fabricate dire consequences for the sake of getting people's attention didn't help.

But ultimately it comes down to this: given time, truth wins out. Eventually rational people realize that groupthink and demonizing your opponents as "deniers" doesn't count for evidence. They realize that a movement so freely changing names - from Global Cooling to Global Warming to Climate Change to Global Climate Disruption - might be more about a neo-Marxist pursuit of global governance than about saving polar bears.

In the end, that is what has hastened the demise of Warmerism. This makes the climate changers' prayer to Ixchel the jaguar goddess so very appropriate...one myth perpetuated on humanity deserves another.

The Gore Effect Nature’s Little Joke

FROM-Tuscon Citizen



by Jonathan DuHamel


The Gore Effect strikes the Cancun Climate conference which experienced six straight days of record low temperatures. The “Gore Effect” is a tongue-in-cheek correlation between appearances of Al Gore to talk about global warming and the occurrence of unusually cold weather at that place and time. The term has subsequently applied to any conference on global warming that experiences unusually cold weather.

The Gore Effect was first noticed in January, 2004, when Al Gore visited Boston and New York to deliver a global-warming panic speech, and bitter cold weather came with him. Boston experienced its lowest temperatures in almost fifty years, while in New York it was -40 degrees with wind chill.

In October, 2006, Gore visited New Zealand, touting his film An Inconvenient Truth. New Zealand newspapers report an unusually cold October that left Southland dairy farmers struggling.

When Gore visited Australia in November, 2006, the Gore Effect struck again. It snowed in Queensland in November for the first time in at least 65 years. “Ski resort operators gazed at the snow in amazement. Parents took children out of school and headed for the mountains. Cricketers scurried amid bullets of hail as Melbourne residents traded lunchtime tales of the incredible cold.” (The Age).

Back in the U.S., in the L.A. area where Gore has been nominated for an Oscar, snow fell in West L.A. and Malibu. The last snowfall recorded at Los Angeles International Airport was in January 1962, according to the National Weather Service.

Some other examples:

First October snow since 1922 blankets London as global warming bill debated – October29, 2008.

Al Gore will be in Melbourne on 13 July 2009 for the launch of Safe Climate Australia. Melbourne is set for more icy weather from the current cold snap, with some temperatures set to drop below zero.

The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing scheduled for Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building has been postponed due to inclement weather. The hearing is entitled Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?

Mr Gore visited Italy last week, precisely Milan (Northern Italy). He gave a speech on his usual theme: the globe is warming, there’s a lot of warning signs, we shouldn’t be so foolish to dismiss them, we must act now, etc. Outside the hall, it was snowing and snowing. Dec. 2006

Al Gore visits Harvard, October, 2008, “the temperature in Cambridge is 44.5 °F. Tonight, it is predicted to drop to 34 °F, close to the record low of 28 °F measured in 1940.

You can find many more examples if you Google “gore effect.”

Read a satirical “scientific” paper that discusses the theoretical basis for the Gore Effect: Recent research has shown that the mere presence of Al Gore is able to reduce ambient temperatures by approximately 27.6°C. This phenomenon is termed the “Al Gore Effect.” Various theories about the physical mechanism of this phenomenon, its dangers, and its potential usefulness in fighting global warming are discussed. The paper cautions Mr. Gore to not overuse his powers, lest he cause another glacial epoch.

Wasting Away in Margaritaville

FROM-The American Spectator
By Andrew B. Wilson

Actually, a few people did show up for the UN climate change conference in Cancún. To be precise, there were about 15,000 delegates from 194 countries. But no one of any importance bothered to come -- no leaders from the free or the un-free world. It was left to the totally daft Ted ("I'm not chased by demons") Turner to try to keep everyone from falling fast asleep and forgetting all about global warming.

Thank god for small fiascoes. They are so much better than the big ones.

What a difference a year makes.

At this time last year, the lunatics were in full command of the asylum. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and a supporting cast of thousands were jetting off to Copenhagen to swear their undying allegiance to the idea that it is necessary to save the planet from the scourge of human life. That would be human life, most particularly, as it is lived here in the United States and other parts of the world that have not yet gotten around to pulling the plug on capitalism and moving on to a more enlightened way of organizing production and redistributing material wealth.

"Climate change is a religion for them, so there was no way they were going to miss this," said one GOP aide of the huge contingent of Democratic representatives and senators who boarded Air Force and commercial jets for Copenhagen. "This is their Hajj."

Never mind that the "Climategate" scandal had only recently exposed how climate scientists working for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had conspired to quash evidence contrary to the theory of man-made global warming. Paying no attention to that, Obama began his speech to the UN Climate Summit Conference in Copenhagen with these words:

Good morning. It is an honor for me to join this distinguished group of leaders from nations around the world. We come here in Copenhagen because climate change poses a grave a growing danger to our people. All of you would not be here unless you -- like me -- were convinced that this danger is real. It is not fiction, it is science. Unchecked, climate change will pose unacceptable risks to our security, our economies, and our planet….

That's why I come here today -- not to talk, but to act.

Well, actually, nothing came of the Copenhagen conference. There was no global climate deal. But so what? The point is, the president rubbed shoulders with just about all of world's leaders at the Copenhagen conference -- everyone from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to Indian premier Manmohan Singh, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. From Copenhagen Obama flew on to Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Prize and give another speech filled with intimations of his own omniscience.

That was COP-15, as the Copenhagen conference is called in UN lingo. It was the 15th annual Council of Parties since COP-1, the Berlin Climate Summit held in 1995.

Heads of state are conspicuous by the absence from COP-16, as the Cancún confab is called. No fewer than 119 heads of state signed up for Copenhagen. Even Robert Mugabe, the deranged president of Zimbabwe, felt compelled to put in an appearance. As far as I can tell from COP-16's blog site, Mexican President Felipe Calderón, was the only head of state in attendance this year. Nor did any leading U.S. Democrats come down to soak up the sun or to add some much needed spice to the warmed-over warnings of global warming being served to the participants. Even alarmist-in-chief Al Gore was a no-show.

Calderón did not help the cause by giving a thuddingly boring opening address. Calling on negotiators in Cancún to make progress in the interest of their children and grandchildren, he said that the "eyes of the world" were focused on the meeting. In an audience composed of mid-level UN officials and apparatchiks like Jane Davidson, the Welsh environmental minister, I doubt that there was a single soul who didn't know full well that the eyes of the world were glazed over at the thought of one more global warming summit.

Thus it was left to always surprising Ted Turner -- author of the autobiography Call Me Joe -- to try to inject some life into the conference. Turner, a longtime supporter of the president, said that Obama had made "a big mistake" by ramming through Obamacare rather than cap-and-trade. As he put it in his inimitable way, "If we don't stop global warming, we'll be extinct, and then we'll be really sorry."

And this raises a further subject for honest wonderment. What a difference a year has made in the life of our 44th president.

A year ago, he was flying over to Europe to give speeches and accept a Nobel Prize. Today he is sulking in his tent and lashing out at critics both left and right. He even claims that he is the victim of a "hostage" situation. He is upset that the Republicans seem to have hijacked the bus carrying the clear majority of the American people and are using that to make outrageous demands. Pobre hombre! It seems that he has come face-to-face with the realization that he really doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing as the leader of the United States and the free world.

Hypocrisy alive and well at Cancun climate conference

FROM-The Daily Caller
By Amanda Carey

From November 29 to December 10, delegates from 194 countries gathered in sunny Cancun, Mexico to “lay the ghost of Copenhagen to rest,” as one dignitary put it. After last year’s chaotic, disastrous and worthless climate change conference in Copenhagen, the goal this year was simple: avoid further embarrassment.

The focus has been on hashing out details for a global climate fund, extending the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012, and establishing an official agreement among developed countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by about 40 percent by 2020.

But in the middle of all the global-warming demagoguery and calls for developed nations to shell out $100 billion per year by 2020 in climate reparations to help less-developed countries cope with the unfair burden of climate change, one thing has very obviously not changed: the hypocrisy.

Yes, hypocrisy was present in Cancun just as it was in Copenhagen in 2009, Ponzan in 2008, Bali in 2007, and the many other climate change summit cities before them. As hundreds of officials travel in gas-guzzling jets and carbon-dioxide emitting cars to the conference site and stay in luxurious, high electricity-consuming resorts, the carbon footprint of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is ironic, to say the least.

The unbearable spectacle of it all is what prompted one climate scholar to stop attending the conferences all together. Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and author of the newly-released “Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America,” told The Daily Caller he hasn’t been to the annual U.N. climate change conference since it was held in Montreal in 2005.

“The ritual teary-eyed Europeans declaring a never-ending series of ‘historic agreements,’ which were no such thing, became too farcical to continue attending,” said Horner. “The enterprise is pompously and risibly dedicated in equal parts to wealth redistribution and self-perpetuation, as a platform for, and along the way, engaging in visceral anti-Americanism.”

According to The Telegraph, the carbon footprint of the Cancun conference is five times larger than it was for the 2009 conference in Copenhagen, despite the fact that attendance this year was significantly lower. The figure of the carbon footprint released by the Mexican government is 25,000 tons.

The plan is to offset the conference’s carbon footprint by protecting forests and planting trees in the surrounding poor areas.

The Telegraph article also pointed out that although recycling bins were located throughout the lavish Moon Palace hotel, the closest actual recycling facility was hundreds of miles away.

Read more: Here

Global warming ideology still on top

FROM-Washington Times


The science has crumbled, but too much money backs the scareBy Tom Harris and Bryan Leyland

"Climate change" has suffered significant setbacks in the past year. First there was Climategate. Then the Copenhagen conference ended without binding agreements on either mitigation or adaptation. This was followed quickly by Glaciergate, Amazongate, Kiwigate and serious challenges to the credibility of Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Next, professor Phil Jones of the United Kingdom's Climatic Research Unit (and lead author of the IPCC chapter on temperatures) admitted that there has been no statistically significant warming for 15 years. Then "hockey stick" promoters finally acknowledged that there indeed was a Medieval Warm Period.

These events, coupled with the economic downturn and the education efforts of climate realists - those who take a balanced perspective of climate change - have impacted public opinion. Now, a significant fraction of the public regards the past century's warming as primarily natural and a human-induced global-warming catastrophe as improbable. So public support for expensive greenhouse-gas-reduction policies has eroded.

Republican climate skeptics have taken control of the U.S. House of Representatives, thereby killing any chance of federal "cap-and-trade" legislation for now. Republican congressional leaders also have vowed to use every trick in the book to block Environmental Protection Agency carbon-dioxide (CO2) regulations scheduled to start on Jan. 2. And, not surprisingly, the United Nations' 2010 Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, is failing, with Mother Nature helping to dampen warming fears as an early winter sets in across the Northern Hemisphere.

Some commentators tell us that this is the beginning of the end of the climate scare. More likely, it is just the end of the beginning. If this were a hockey game, the first period would have just ended with a couple of quick goals by climate realists. But alarmists built up a 5-0 lead while realists were still learning to play. The score is now 5-2, with most of the game yet to go. While it is appropriate for realists to revel in their late-period success, it is vastly premature to celebrate.

Through the tireless work of hundreds of thousands of mostly unpaid activists, aided by unquestioning journalists, grant-seeking scientists, pandering politicians, opportunistic or naive industries and well-meaning but misinformed citizens, climate campaigners made "stopping global warming" a cause celebre. The warmists' message was pounded out, free of charge, daily for years: "We in the West are causing a planetary emergency and the poor of the world are the primary victims." Celebrities, leading scientists and charismatic mega-fauna such as the polar bear were recruited as the faces of responsible environmental stewardship.

As a result, massive donations from left-wing foundations poured in to groups focused on promoting alarm. With unprecedented resources at their disposal, climate campaigners hired communications and legal exerts to help craft long-term, often ruthless strategies to sway public opinion and frighten industry away from effectively defending itself. Meanwhile, throughout the 1980s and '90s, nature cooperated. Global warming, later to become "climate change," was ready for prime time.

It wasn't long before scientifically illiterate politicians faced intense pressure to "do something to save the planet." And so, instead of helping educate the public about climate realities or even seeking qualified alternative opinions, they capitulated, signing international agreements prescribing crippling restrictions on "global warming pollution." Western governments then diverted billions of dollars of public money to help finance climate alarmism, resulting in the creation of countless climate-change public- and private-sector jobs. These bureaucrats then rewarded activists with yet more grants and donations, which were used to push governments and industry to do still more.

Today, climate alarmism is de rigueur "science" in virtually all public schools, colleges and universities. Most mainstream media, corporations, even churches and essentially all environmental organizations promote the now politically correct view of human-caused climate change. Aside from President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, not a single prominent world leader contests the hypothesis that humanity's CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming. The fact that the basic science behind the scare is crumbling appears to have no impact on these groups. Instead, science is cherry-picked to prop up public policy that has more to do with pleasing vested interests and satisfying social ideology than protecting the environment.

There simply is too much money and political capital, and too many reputations are at stake for alarmists to back down. After their late first-period letdown, environmental activists have stepped up their campaign to keep governments and media from falling off the climate-change bandwagon. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars are still being funneled into promoting alarm and futile solutions. In the third quarter of this year, the McKnight Foundation alone donated $26 million to the Climate Works Foundation, a group originated in 2008 with roughly a half-billion dollars in start-up funding.

As a result, the worldwide climate movement continues to enjoy significant successes. For example, Australia's new prime minister has just called for a countrywide price on CO2. Across the world, "climate-safe energy solutions" such as wind turbines still receive billions in subsidies. This has led to soaring energy costs in many jurisdictions, where dangerous brownouts and blackouts await if such programs aren't canceled quickly and replaced by lower-cost and more effective solutions to the need for more power.

As we enter into the second period of the climate game, no one should be under the illusion that victory will be quick. Although they are still behind, climate realists finally have earned some respect. But we can be sure alarmists are strategizing to bring the contest back under their control. Now the game is going to get really interesting.

Tom Harris is the executive director of the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC). Bryan Leyland is ICSC's founding secretary and energy issues adviser.