A Needed Change in EPA Motives - A Guest Article

Instead of ripping off borrowing this weeks Global Warming post, I have a Guest Article. This weekend Ryan H. emailed me and asked if he could post a guest article here. I do not know Ryan, but I like his style, and his post saved me from having to search for a post about green tyranny. I will not postulate why Ryan does not have a blog of his own, but I am not above capitalizing on helping a fellow writer. I am sure Ryan would like feedback, so please leave all suggestions in the comments, and I will make sure Ryan gets it. So without further adieu..........

Alright, a little more adieu:

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the original author. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of Right Wing Extreme, the RWE Staff, (RWE's alternate personalities) and/or any/all contributors to this site (there are no other contributors except for the previously mentioned alternate personalities).

Republican Party representatives on a committee for energy have put the EPA under fire this week, questioning them on future power regulations. This is yet another assault by the Republican Party who has revealed the EPA as a megalomaniacal organization that is out dated in the current year.

The regulations placed on the power sector are being brought to light as the next primary issue for debate, and have previously attacked the EPA budget, restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, and the Clean Air Act. What’s the relation of all three? Stagnant revenue and employment growth largely related to those relying on power plants and factories.

Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma has been a proprietor of EPA criticisms on their restrictions and the impacts they have caused. Inhofe said "I think everyone is aware of the huge cost to the American taxpayer on these huge bills that the Democrats are trying to push through, but they're not as aware of the cost of over-regulation. These regulations are the EPA, having to do with industrial boilers, having to do with ozone requirements, the endangerment finding. They would lose hundreds of thousands of jobs, and the cost is just tremendous. We cannot be globally competitive as long as we have over-regulation in America." Inhofe definitely does make a strong argument, pointing out the amount of regulations and problems the EPA have imposed on business leaders.”

Even the federal budget agreement was yet another failure by the EPA in recent months. The EPA had their budget slashed by 16% in the agreement, although not to any of the larger programs in question. The agency has spent a large part of 2010 and 2011 defending some seemingly useless regulations. The fight they have engaged to keep taxes up on costly regulations and restrictions has averted a lot of the attention from programs that directly affect health in the United States like asbestos removal and water contamination, preventing illnesses like leukemia, and mesothelioma, a deadly cancer directly related to asbestos exposure. Reallocation of resources towards these programs instead of restrictions with financial interests in mind would greatly help the EPA return to its original purpose.

Granted, support of the Clean Air Act and attempting to reduce the chances of global warming is one thing, but the continual support of stifling greenhouse gas emissions seems to be more motivated by money than with improving the health of Americans. These restrictions allow the EPA to enforce cap and trade taxes on the industries leaders, forcing them to pay out colossal amounts of money while the regulations themselves have a very minute impact on actual health issues.

As the EPA seems bent on keeping the course in regards to costly regulations, they have frequently discussed the “sensibility” of these rules. It can be expected for the [R]epublicans to continue to restrict the agency and it can be assumed that even more cuts are to follow in the coming years.

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES

Global Warming Wednesday

This week's post was brought to my attention by Climate Depot, but was originally posted by the staff at CTV News.

EurekAlert withdraws climate change paper

A study warning that the planet would warm by 2.4C by 2020, creating deadly consequences for the global food supply, is being debunked as false and impossible.

The study came from a little-known, non-profit group based in Argentina, called the Universal Ecological Fund. An embargoed copy of the study appeared on Eurekalert!, a news service operated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that's followed by many journalists.

The study was picked up by a number of international news organizations Tuesday. But it appears the study's claims were erroneous.

The AAAS says that after receiving complaints that the study's conclusions were impossible, it has removed all references to the study from its website.

"EurekAlert! deeply regrets the accidental posting of an erroneous news release on 18 January 2011," the news service wrote in a notice to journalists who subscribe to the service.

"The news release was swiftly removed from EurekAlert!, and staff are taking steps to set the record straight with all reporters who had seen it."

EurekAlert! notes that it is a non-profit news service that relies on staff members to determine the eligibility of up to 100 news release submissions. These staff proofread submissions for typographical or common-sense errors.

"But we rely mostly on the submitting organization to ensure the veracity of the scientific content of the news release; we try to exclude unreliable information providers on the front-end of our screening process," the notice says.

"…We deeply regret that the system failed yesterday, and we appreciate the help we received from reporters who are now setting the record straight."

The correction came after The Guardian newspaper in the U.K. published a reaction piece to the study. The paper said it had interviewed climate scientists who told them that rapid global warming at the rates projected by the study was impossible.

"2.4 C by 2020 (which is 1.4C in the next 10 years – something like six to seven times the projected rate of warming) has no basis in fact," NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt told the newspaper in an email.

According to The Guardian, the study's lead author Liliana Hisas, who is the UEF's executive director, erred by overlooking how the oceans, which absorb heat, will compensate for global warming by delaying the effects of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere.

Hisas said she stands by her report's findings, which have been endorsed by Nobel Prize-winning Argentine climate scientist, Osvaldo Canziani.

She said the UEF did not intend to withdraw the report.

"We are just going to go ahead with it. I don't have a choice now," she told The Guardian.

"The scientist I have been working with checked everything and according to him it's not wrong."

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES

Global Warming Wednesday

This week's exposure of the Global Warming "BIG LIE" come to us from a blogger going by the handle of hauntingthelibrary and his[her?] eponymous blog. This site should be required reading for any and all the [enviro]mental deficients you come across.

Scientist: Farming Causes Obesity, Mental Illness, Overpopulation and Global Warming – Says Eugenics “Inevitable”

Posted on January 20, 2011 by hauntingthelibrary

In an article that makes you roll your eyes and wonder “where do they find these people?” the BBC interviews Dr Spencer Wells, explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society and in charge of their Genographic project, about his new book Pandora’s Seed

Dr Wells tells them about the claims he makes in the book:

In the book, I talk about global warming and overpopulation. I trace a lot of these issues back in time to the dawn of the Neolithic. This was a period when humanity made a sea change in its culture. We settled down and started growing our own food.

BBC. Sting in the Tail of Farming Revolution.

Wow! That’s a pretty big claim to make – that late stone age man caused global warming and overpopulation by inventing farming! But the invention of farming is a good thing, right?

Wrong, says Dr Wells. People were worse off with farming, becoming more malnourished. Which leads one to ask, well why did they keep farming then, if it was such a disaster for humanity? Dr Wells has the answer for that as well: they had to invent farming because of climate change:

It turns out the reason we became agriculturalists is that we were backed into a corner – a climatological corner. At the end of the last Ice Age, things were warming up, population densities at some locations increased significantly. And some people started to settle down.

And then, Say Dr Wells, the climate switched again and got colder, forcing people out of the lands they had previously settled:

we had too many people moving on the land at the time, and they couldn’t support themselves as hunter-gatherers so they had to develop an innovation. And that innovation was agriculture.

So let’s summarize: Dr Wells is arguing that agriculture caused climate change and overpopulation. Okay. He argues that agriculture wasn’t a step forward for mankind but a step backwards from hunter-gather living. Okay. But what does he think gave rise to agriculture? Climate change and overpopulation. Brilliant! What a great argument.

Pick your jaw up off the floor, though, because Dr Wells has more great ideas for humanity. Asked what he thinks about the invention of farming – the ‘neolithic revolution’ – he pins a whole host of ills on it, but then goes on to reveal some of the concluding thoughts of his book:

PR: So what in your view are the main costs of the Neolithic revolution?

SW: Diabetes, obesity, mental illness, climate change. I talk a little in the book about genetic engineering – re-engineering ourselves and eugenics. It’s the fact that we now have the tools to choose the genes for the next generation. People will start to make decisions on that basis – what they want their children to look like genetically.

Okay, now you’re getting scary Dr Wells. Eugenics to help decide what our children will look like? And what sort of aspects will this include?

There is a company in California that early last year announced that it was going to test not only for medically relevant conditions but also hair colour, eye colour and genes which pre-dispose to lower or higher IQ.

Sounds horrific if you ask me. But Dr Wells thinks that managing the genetics of the human population may be essential, we may need to manage the population for the common good:

PR: Then, do you think genetic engineering of humans is inevitable? Are we now into management rather than prevention?

SW: I think it is inevitable. I think it is something we have always done. I liken it to those simple decisions about growing crops and manipulating the genes of the crops to make them more efficient – produce more calories – that was done during the Neolithic.

Did you spot the beautiful circularity of the argument there? Eugenics, Dr Wells informs us, may be forced upon by circumstances. What circumstances might those be? The interview doesn’t specify exactly, but surely it’s a safe bet to say that global warming and overpopulation are among those circumstances.

Interestingly, in his interview with National Geographic, Dr Wells discusses another future for us he’d like to see, based on a new “mythos” that would be focussed on us wanting less, very much as tribal people in Africa (apparently) do:

Q:You mentioned tribes in Africa wanting less, needing less, focused on a quest for meaning, not consumption. Do you think this sensibility could creep into our society?

A: Yes. That’s the reason I entitled the final chapter of the book “Toward a New Mythos.” The term refers to accepted wisdom, what’s been passed down through the generations from your ancestors, including somewhat mystical explanations for why things are. In contrast, logos is hardheaded logic we use to solve problems. And I think a lot of people sense that we’ve lost too much mythos in the modern world. I argue in the book that we do need to make room at the table for mythos.

National Geographic. Growing Pains.

Or maybe we could just genetically engineer people to want less, learn to love the new “mythos” and accept “mystical explanations” for the way things are?

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES

RWE's Thoughts on the SOTU Speech

Hopefully we all tuned in to watch the State of the Union Address. I know that I hurried home to do so, what kind of political blogger would I be if I did not? If you missed it, I have included it for your viewing pleasure.


Initial Thoughts:
Here are some initial thoughts on The President's first (technically) State of the Union address itself. Besides being long, it is hard for me to stomach more than a sound bite's worth of air time from the current President, it was a well delivered, prepared (well what did you expect) address to the Congress, and the nation, if somewhat naive. It was good to see that TOTUS is doing well, and helping out "The Big Guy." Honestly I do not blame any President, even this one, for using a teleprompter for this sort of speech, though with this President, it is of course ubiquitous and cliche..

I clocked the speech at approximately sixty-eight minutes, but the YouTube above has it listed as sixty-three minutes ten seconds. Since that video is more accurate than my mere approximation, and being C-Span, it had a time stamp on the screen that says the speech started five minutes later than I thought it did. This is likely far more accurate than my mere estimation. Having said that, I counted that Congress stopped to applaud seventy-three times. While this is more dignified than the "You Lie" debacle, which I am still torn on, and definitely better than the Democrats booing of President Bush, I think it is a bit much. Do we really need an applause stop, on average, every fifty point five seconds? Really? It was fun to watch them all jump up and down in unison, especially the Democrats, like the heat underneath their seats was suddenly turned up to high. Additionally, The President used the term, "Win the Future," the speech's theme, eight times for an average of once every seven minutes fifty-three seconds.

I do have one more gripe. The President was ready to give his speech, and the inconsiderate crowd would not shut-up and stop their applause. He asked them to have a seat, and yet they still applauded. Finally he said thank you like he was very perturbed. I wish that he would have done something similar during the Arizona Memorial. Would it have been so hard to remind the crowd that they were at a memorial to honor the fallen and wounded rather than a pep-rally to feed his own ego?

Other than these stats and gripes, I did not find this speech to be particularly informative on the subject. I mean the point is right in the name, "State of the Union." How hard is that? Despite this being, "A different kind of speech," I would have much preferred a frank report on our strengths and weaknesses, rather than a pep talk. I thought that is what The President's weekly address was for, but silly me. On a side note, did anyone else notice that Dingy Harry looked like a deer in the headlights and that at first The President looked so smug? That look was quickly wiped off of hi face. Now on to the speech.

The President's Speech had, it seems to me, six main themes.
Togetherness:
The President said, "[C]an we work together tomorrow?" and that legislation could only move forward with bipartisan support. Like during the lame duck session and the CommieCare debate Mr. President? Personally I think he was laying the groundwork for the opposition to take the blame along side his Democrats when their socialist pogroms blow up the faces of the American people as they inevitably will, as we have already seen from the ones they force-fed us plebes. I think that we have had all the togetherness and bipartisanship we can handle, especially in light of how The President, The former Speaker and The Senate Majority leaders led us with that method before. Their idea of bipartisanship is to do as we are told and like it. It is hard not to empathize with their frustration at our outrage over their high-handed methods, especially when they are only doing it for our own good. Personally I do not want any compromise with the socialist left. Hells bells, grid-lock means they can not force any more bad legislation on us. In fact the more roadblocks to Congress getting anything done, the better.

Economy and Budget:
These two points I have placed together as one because they are inexorably linked. The President said we were making economic progress? Really...Since When? Unemployment is still officially over nine percent, with the actual number being somewhere north of fifteen percent. It is difficult to believe that the economy is healing when the man on the street is homeless and unemployed.

The President suggested several ideas to fix our economy. For brevity's sake (I know, too late.) I will list them here then comment. Fix the tax code, review business regulations and remove the roadblocks to a sound economy, balance the budget, five year freeze on domestic spending, defense cuts, foreign spending cuts, downsize and consolidate government, tax the rich and a promise to veto any bill containing earmarks.

So let us review. Budget cuts and earmark vetoes: Since when has any President, especially this one, not found a spending bill the did not like? Fix the tax code for citizens and corporations and taxing the rich: They already pay most of the taxes actually paid in this country, and half of our citizens either pay nothing or get money they do not deserve back. Personally I recommend we find a percentage of the national income that will pay for the essential needs of government and tax that on every citizen, no loop-holes, no deductions and no nonsense. That would cut the IRS down in size, always a worthy goal. As for balancing the budget, that will only work if we include a debt payment, kind of like your debt payments as part of that budget. A five year freeze on domestic spending and the down-sizing of government are great ideas, but the government workers unions, which The President is way to beholden too, will never allow that, so there is another empty promise. Defense cuts sound good, but only if they are smart cuts. Cutting our next generation weapon systems, especially in the face of the ChiComm military build-up is probably not the best place to start. Cut foreign spending, bye-bye Israel. The President wants to fix social security, but without entitlement cuts, to shore up other entitlement programs, there just is not enough money, and it was made clear that entitlement cuts are not in the offing. As for reviewing business regulations and removing those that are roadblocks, please start with the EPA, your back door Crap and Tax Bill and the back door Net Neutrality.

With all these cuts, The President wants to, "Invest in America." He says that Russia, and others, are spending far more on infrastructure than we are. Dollars are not progress Mr. President. The others are building their infrastructure, we already have most of ours and simply need to maintain and improve it. A far smaller expense, but you would have us break the bank to keep up with the Jonse's. I do like the idea of the high speed rail, if it can be done economically, but I found it disturbing that he joked about the outrageous security measures taken by his administration by way of the TSA. All and all The President shows us why he can not get us out of the economic morass we find ourselves in, as if government ever could, and that is because he, and the members of his administration, know nothing about the economy. Maybe if they had spent more time working in the economy, as opposed to only learning about it, they might have a better chance, but as it stands, it is doubtful.

Environment/Energy Policy:
Green jobs and green r&d look good on paper, but our government's track record show this to be an exercise in throwing money down the rabbit hole. It would not be so bad if it was only a start-up boost to infant technology, but history shows that the subsidies will go on for green tech long after the technology has matured and proven itself a waste of money, but that is no reason to stop throwing good money after bad. Further he proposes pulling the oil company subsidies. That would be great, but you know who will be the ones making up that shortfall, though I hope we can find a way to stop giving them money without them passing the buck to us the consumers. Additionally The President proposed eighty percent of our energy come from clean sources. This is a great idea, if it pencils out better than the ethanol and wind subsidies. We must get nuclear power going in this country in a big way, I truly believe it is our only hope to getting off of fossil fuels.

Education:
With all of this administrations experience in the world of education, one would suspect they would understand it better, but alas that is a pipe-dream on my part. The President wants college for all, but many jobs are better server by a technical education rather than a sheep skin were all you learn is how to drink, how great and misunderstood Marx was and why all of the world's problems are Americas fault. The only way to fix education in an affordable manner is not to pussy-foot around the Teachers Union, but to tell them that the free ride stops NOW! Either get with the program and we will work together to find an equitable solution, of bugger off and we will hire new teachers more amenable to that equitable solution. I do have to give him kudos for almost sounding conservative on family values and calling for a better class of heroes than sports players.

Health Care:
The President invited Congress to not revisit the fights of the past by repealing CommieCare. While there are a few things in that abortion of a bill that should be retained, it is disingenuous to say you are willing to work with the opposition to fix the problems when you already showed, clearly, that you are not when it first came up. I do love that he realizes that We The People have him far enough over the barrel to finally talk about tort reform. I do not care how we get it, it is badly needed, and CommieCare must go the way of the Dodo.

Wars/National Security:
The President is still pushing for a path to citizenship when he said we had to bring the illegal aliens out of the shadows. He said we can not afford to rid ourselves of the best and brightest of this group. Rather I would ask how can we afford to not expel a known criminal class. This is not to say that they are drug dealers or something of the like, but just by being here they are criminals, and they are stealing the sweet air of freedom from American Citizens and other legal visitors to our shores. There was also a surprising nod to reality when he actually said the words, "Al Qaeda" and "terrorist." I almost wet myself in surprise, but it was quickly dispelled when he later referred to both groups as "extremists" beyond the one nod. I was also expecting a mention of time-line for withdrawal in the Afghan war, and i was not disappointed. Lastly in this topic the President mentioned the importance of missile defense, which I found odd seeing as how he has done everything in his power to gut the concept. All of this proved, to me at least, that he has as much knowledge about defense as he does in economics, so that should make one ponder hard come election time.

Misc.:
A passing nod was given to Don't Ask, Don't Tell with this comment, "No American will be forbidden from serving the nation they love because of who they love." I will reserve comment on this topic for a later post as I have strong opinions about DADT that deserve a post all of heir own. I did like the salmon joke, but was disturbed, highly, by his suggestion that congress disclose every meeting with lobby members. That to me is like getting a fox to guard the hen house considering the Secret Service would no turn over his visitor logs.

Closing thoughts:
This speech was a lot of bad, sprinkled with a little good, and much rhetoric and promises that I have no confidence The President will stand behind given his track record. To sum it up, we have a very photogenic Amateur-In-Chief in the White House, but as my daddy used to say, "Boy he sure talks purdy don he?"

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES

Global Warming Wednesday

This week's Global Warming Wednesday repost comes to us from the Left Coast Rebel.

Uh-Oh! Global cooling interfering with pro-illegal immigration

Conehead

By Sam Foster

Obama's administration may not be willing to do anything to stop the influx of illegal immigration, so apparently father winter took matters into his own hands.

10 Dominican illegals were caught by surprise when they fled into abnormally chilly AL port. Authorities caught the suspects nearly frozen to death.

But they had been spotted from the tug boat that was pulling the barge and an all-night search involving border control officers ensued. They were found early Thursday morning huddled in a container yard.

Wearing only summer clothes, they were half frozen after a night outside in the cold snap that has hit the Deep South.

All were hospitalized with hypothermia and once they all recover they will be deported, Dabbs said.

Prediction: the Dominican's will sue and blame the US' CO2 usage as the reason they nearly died of hypothermia. The suit will then be used as Democrats to push cap and trade legislation.

Illegal immigration: Close your eyes -- it isn't there!

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES

Global Warming Wednesday

Tip O' the Hat to Ray Schneider at Political Brambles for this post on the growing skepticism in the pervasive Global Warming Idiocy. Just a thought.......If the computer models can only predict the weather out to five days or so with any kind of accuracy, what the hell makes these people think that their models are any good at a year, let alone twenty? Just sayin'!

Global Climate Alarmism Being Overwhelmed by Critical Thinking

SEE HERE Bunk is bunk. Global climate alarmism is totally unmotivated by serious science. That's why all the alarmists are climate modelers. It takes relatively little critical thought to realize that there are fundamental foundational problems with the whole story line. My mantra is always "Show me the data" and what I get for my trouble is fundamentally flawed, unvalidated climate models that in many cases are shown to be agenda driven and driven by data that was cherry picked from the beginning. That's called propaganda not science. The world is waking up and about time.

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES

Global Warming Wednesday

Tip O' the Hat, again, to the Green Hell Blog for this week's "Green" atrocity.

Energy efficiency is not a jobs policy

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) just released its state energy efficiency scorecard.

Spurred by ACEEE’s ranking of California as the most energy efficient state and the fact that California is only exceeded by Michigan and Nevada in unemployment, we ran a simple regression of ACEEE energy efficiency rankings versus state unemployment rankings according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics for August 2010.

Unemployment ranking was positively correlated (slope=.15) with energy efficiency ranking — i.e., states with higher unemployment rankings tended to have higher energy efficiency rankings.

ACEEE claims that energy efficiency creates jobs — and maybe it does. But do the jobs created through energy efficiency efforts wind up destroying other jobs — and more of them?

Energy efficiency is a policy of contraction, not one of growth — and job gains only occur during periods of growth. While energy efficiency may make sense on a case-by-case basis, blindly implemented on a societal scale, it is a suicidal policy.

There is plenty of energy out there. We need to put as much of it to good use as soon as possible to get our economy and standard of living back on the positive track.

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES

Global Warming Wednesday

This weeks post is brought to you by greenhellblog at......you guessed it, the Green Hell Blog. Here he debunks the electioneering ad by the Green Knight of Global Warming, Michael Mann. Nothing shines the light like the truth.

Michael Mann: Vote Democratic and save me from jail!

Poor, poor pitiful Michael Mann. Check out his op-ed in last Friday’s Washington Post — our comments in bracketed bold.

Get the anti-science bent out of politics
By Michael E. Mann
Friday, October 8, 2010; A17

As a scientist [Wanna poll that assertion?], I shouldn’t have a stake in the upcoming midterm elections, but unfortunately, it seems that I — and indeed all my fellow climate scientists — do. [Republicans = Inquisition, don't ya know...]

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has threatened that, if he becomes chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he will launch what would be a hostile investigation of climate science. The focus would be on e-mails stolen [There's no evidence that the e-mails were "stolen."] from scientists at the University of East Anglia in Britain last fall that climate-change deniers have falsely claimed demonstrate wrongdoing by scientists, including me. [As between so-called climate-change deniers" and Michael Mann, "falsely" and "wrongdoing" only apply to Mann.] Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) may do the same if he takes over a committee on climate change and energy security.

My employer, Penn State University, exonerated me [False: PSU never really investigated Mann; it more or less just took his word that he had done nothing wrong. Since there was no genuine investigation, he could not have been genuinely "exonerated."] after a thorough investigation [LOL!] of my e-mails in the East Anglia archive. Five independent investigations in Britain and the United States, and a thorough recent review by the Environmental Protection Agency, also have cleared the scientists of accusations of impropriety. [All were as whitewashey as PSU's. "Independent" is probably not the right adjective to describe the investigations; "staged" is much more accurate.]

Nonetheless, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is investigating my previous employer, the University of Virginia, based on the stolen e-mails. [Even if the e-mails were stolen, how exactly does that exonerate Mann? BTW, Daniel Ellsberg stole files (Pentagon Papers) and he was/is a hero of the Left.] A judge rejected his initial subpoena, finding that Cuccinelli had failed to provide objective evidence of wrongdoing. [The judge said that Cuccinelli was within his rights to file such subpoenas and that he needed to be more specific as to what he was looking for.] Undeterred, Cuccinelli appealed the decision to the Virginia Supreme Court and this week issued a new civil subpoena.

What could Issa, Sensenbrenner and Cuccinelli possibly think they might uncover now, a year after the e-mails were published? [Evidence of f-r-a-u-d.]

The truth is that they don’t expect to uncover anything. Instead, they want to continue a 20-year assault on climate research, questioning basic science and promoting doubt where there is none. [No, they are just questioning whether the hockey stick was a fraud and whether a fraud was perpetrated on taxpayers.]

Cuccinelli, in fact, rests his case largely on discredited claims that Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) made during hearings in 2005 at which he attacked me and my fellow researchers. [Discredited? By who? When? Where? Any names? Details?] Then-Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) had the courage and character to challenge Barton’s attacks. We need more political leaders like him today. [Boehlert = RINO]

We have lived through the pseudo-science that questioned the link between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer [Tobacco company hijinks = Michael Mann innocence?], and the false claims questioning the science of acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer. [What false claims is he referring to? Does he know anything about either? Or is this just more guilt by Mann-uendo?] The same dynamics and many of the same players are still hard at work, questioning the reality of climate change. [No one questions "the reality of climate change"; it's the causes and drivers that are being debated.]

The basic physics and chemistry of how carbon dioxide and other human-produced greenhouse gases trap heat in the lower atmosphere have been understood for nearly two centuries. Overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is heating the planet, shrinking the Arctic ice cap, melting glaciers and raising sea levels. It is leading to more widespread drought, more frequent heat waves and more powerful hurricanes. Even without my work, or that of the entire sub-field of studying past climates, scientists are in broad agreement on the reality of these changes and their near-certain link to human activity. [These last three sentences are disputed by skeptics.]

Burying our heads in the sand would leave future generations at the mercy of potentially dangerous changes in our climate. [Humans have always been at the mercy of nature. Fossil fuels have greatly lessened our vulnerability.] The only sure way to mitigate these threats is to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions dramatically over the next few decades. [Really? No more bad weather if we reduce CO2 levels?] But even if we don’t reduce emissions, the reality of adapting to climat

e change will require responses from government at all levels. [There is no evidence that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will have any discernible effect at all on the climate.]

Challenges to policy proposals for how to deal with this problem should be welcome — indeed, a good-faith debate is essential for wise public policy-making. [Quite a statement from someone who tried to silence critics.]

But the attacks against the science must stop. [No one is attacking science. We're attacking junk science.] They are not good-faith questioning of scientific research. They are anti-science. [Mann accuses his opponents of what he is doing — an old trick of narcissists and Communists.]

How can I assure young researchers in climate science that if they make a breakthrough in our understanding about how human activity is altering our climate that they, too, will not be dragged through a show trial at a congressional hearing? [Easy... tell them not to engage in junk science or fraud.]

America has led the world in science for decades. It has benefited our culture, our economy and our understanding of the world. [No thanks to Michael Mann and his kind.]

My fellow scientists and I must be ready to stand up to blatant abuse from politicians who seek to mislead and distract the public. They are hurting American science. And their failure to accept the reality of climate change will hurt our children and grandchildren, too. [If Michael Mann wants to "stand up" to something, why doesn't he stand up for a debate against a skeptical climate scientist? I think we all know the answer to that one.]

Michael E. Mann, the author of “Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming,” is a professor in the meteorology department at Penn State University and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. [PSU's continued employment of Mann gives a whole new meaning to Nittany lion.]

We urge people to move to Virginia just so they can vote for Ken Cuccinelli in future elections.

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES!

Global Warming Wednesday

I rarely write this column myself. Often I sift the net until I find something that I think would interest you, my readers. A great side effect of this methodology is that I get to plug my fellow bloggers and I get to publish a piece without having to work too hard as I constantly crawl the net for news anyway. Unfortunately I can not for the life of me remember where I ran across this video. I have looked around but still can not place where I first saw it, but I digress.

This video clearly shows how much regard the greenie-wienies have for human life in relation to the importance they place on the environment. This video, titled "No Pressure," is from a "help the environment," global warming mitigation campaign called 10:10. This movie is as appalling as it is eye-opening.

WARNING! - This video depicts graphic violence committed against children, young business persons, amateur athletes, voice-recording artists and other people who are t0o smart to buy into the lies propagated by Dr. Mann, Al Gore and their legion of green idiots who will believe anything as long as they are told it will save the planet, even when it conflicts with that other stuff that will save the planet.

On a side note, if those green-idiots try to force me to toe their line or die, I will unleash a whole can o' Whup-Ass on them. On the plus side the contents of that can will help the Earth by seriously reducing the population pressure and fertilizing the soil, but then again, No Pressure!

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES

Global Warming Wednesday 2.0

This post is also the target of shameless thievery also from seeker101 at Follow the Money.

Meteorologist forecasts drastic cooling

http://www.iceagenow.com/Meteorologist_Forecasts_Drastic_Cooling.htm

“Think the markets are in the tank? asks meteorologist Joe Bastardi. “Wait till you global temperature watchers get a load of what is coming. The drastic drop being portrayed here is something akin to the kind of cooling we saw with Pinatubo.”

Using data compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Bastardi sees a climate crash in the months ahead.

“It looks rather extreme,” says Bastardi. “I mean both poles cold and then 75% of the earth under normal? Geez, I know there is cooling that is going to go on, but this is a bit drastic.”

If the almighty climate models are showing this kind of crash, says Bastardi, “such an event could take the running 13 month temp of the earth next year to -.2 or -.3…”

“As this La Nina, low solar cycle and cumulative volcanic activity means business, then things may be quicker than I thought.”

In NOAA’s forecast, blue represents cold and the tannish to orange colors warm.

NOAA chart from:
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/images3/glbT2mSea.gif

———–

thanks to metric for the link..

but we are supposed to be heating up..??

bilderberg did say global cooling didnt they?..hmm

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES!

Global Warming Wednesday

This post is shamelessly stolen from seeker401 over at Follow the Money.

3rd Climategate whitewash report to be tabled

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10530554.stm

An inquiry into questions raised by the so-called ClimateGate affair will release its conclusions on Wednesday.

The Independent Climate Change Email Review was commissioned by the UK’s University of East Anglia following the hacking of emails from its servers.

Climate sceptics allege that the emails undermine the integrity of researchers at the university’s Climatic Research Unit and of climate science in general.

Two previous reports found issues in the unit, but no deliberate deception.

At the end of March, a report from the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee said the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) should be more open and transparent and must comply with Freedom of Information laws.

But it found no evidence of malpractice.

And in April, a second inquiry looking at scientific output from CRU found no evidence of malpractice, but criticised the sometimes “messy” practices within the unit and suggested closer liaison with professional statisticians.

Both reviews were criticised in “sceptical” circles as superficial and lacking in balance.

The unit has played a key role in building datasets of global temperatures, which are key to understanding modern-day human-induced climate change and widely cited in the influential assessments from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The third review, chaired by former civil servant Sir Muir Russell, is likely to prove the most influential of the three and has spent much of its time gathering and sifting comments sent in by interested parties.

These include working climate scientists, including some who have collaborated closely with the unit and its former director Phil Jones, and prominent critics.

The Canadian blogger Stephen McIntyre, who runs the influential website climateaudit, called the independence of panel members into question – an issue that Sir Muir rejects.

On CRU itself, his submission to the inquiry said the unit had manipulated and withheld data in such a way as to distort temperature records.

“The manipulation includes (but is not limited to) arbitrary adjustment (‘bodging’), cherry picking and deletion of adverse data.

“The problem is deeply rooted in the sense that some forms of data manipulation and withholding are so embedded that the practitioners and peer reviewers in the specialty seem either to no longer notice or are unoffended by the practices.”

However, Professor Raymond Bradley, an eminent climatologist from the University of Massachusetts, said he had “the greatest respect for (the CRU team’s) scholarship, insight and scientific integrity, and I have seen nothing in the stolen emails that changes this opinion”.

The hacked emails and other documents emerged shortly before the Copenhagen climate summit, and the episode was seen in some quarters as an attempt to wreck the chances of a meaningful global treaty.

“The theft was a political act, and your inquiry should be fully aware of the context in which you are operating,” Professor Bradley told the inquiry.

The panel’s investigation will:

• Examine the hacked e-mail exchanges, other relevant e-mail exchanges and any other information held at CRU to determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice
• Review CRU’s policies and practices for acquiring, assembling, subjecting to peer review and disseminating data and research findings
• Review CRU’s compliance or otherwise with the university’s policies and practices regarding requests under the Freedom of Information Act
• Review and make recommendations as to the appropriate management, governance and security structures for CRU and the security, integrity and release of the data it holds.

It will not review the accuracy of the science emerging from CRU, or of climate science itself.

On Monday, a review commisioned by the Dutch government into the IPCC’s projections of climate impacts found “no errors that would undermine the main conclusions” – that man-made climate change poses a significant threat in many regions of the world.

———–

“It will not review the accuracy of the science emerging from CRU, or of climate science itself.”

[I] rest my case..

whitewash..

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES!

Global Warming Wednesday

Tip O' the Hat to Jeff Dunetz at Yid with Lid for this contribution to the great task of rolling back the left's brainwashing of American Society about Global Warming.

Is Michael Mann Backing Away from the Climate Change Hockey Stick?

Maybe Michael Mann is seeing the writing on the wall because it looks as if he is taking a giant step backwards away from his invention, the climate change hockey stick. The Penn State professor now says his hockey stick should not have become 'climate change icon' and it was 'somewhat misplaced' to make his work an 'icon of the climate change debate'.

The climate change hockey stick is a graph created a little over decade ago that was supposed to show global temperatures for the last 1,000 years. The graph plots out a sharp rise in temperature over the last 100 years as man made carbon emissions increased, creating the shape of a hockey stick. The problem is that Mann's data has been proven bogus many time over.

... speaking to the BBC recently, Prof Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University, said he had always made clear there were "uncertainties" in his work.

"I always thought it was somewhat misplaced to make it a central icon of the climate change debate," he said.

Mann's claim that he never wanted his hockey stick belies the truth. At the time the graph was developed, there were actually two graphs being developed. Scientists didn't want to use the Mann version because they weren't sure about his numbers. Mann insisted that his version was the one that should be used because it looked more dramatic.

According to uncovered documents, Mann and his team wanted to present a simple story for policy makers, Others wanted scrupulous honesty about uncertainties contained in Mann's chart.The IPCC's core job is to present a "consensus" on the science, but in this critical case there was no easy consensus.

The tensions were summed up in an email sent on 22 September 1999 by Met Office scientist Chris Folland, in which he alerted key researchers that a diagram of temperature change over the past thousand years "is a clear favourite for the policy makers' summary"

But there were two competing graphs – Mann's hockey stick and another, by Jones, Briffa and others. Mann's graph was clearly the more compelling image of man-made climate change. The other "dilutes the message rather significantly," said Folland. "We want the truth. Mike [Mann] thinks it lies nearer his result." Folland noted that "this is probably the most important issue to resolve in chapter 2 at present."

The evidence shows that while people were suspicious of Michael Mann's research, Mann wanted his graph used because it more compelling. His "walking back" from the graph has more to do with the fact that it has been proven bogus, than any previous desire that it "not become an icon."

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES!

Global Warming Wednesday

Tip O' the Hat to Sammy Benoit at Yid with Lid for this week's debunking of Global Warming. The proof just keeps rolling in that this is a hoax of epic proportions. I am not one to buy into conspiracy theories, but the whole "Climate Change" nonsense is starting to look that way.

BAD NEWS For Global Warming Moonbats Thickest Ice Cap in Years

Oh Boy, poor Al Gore! He has had such an awful few weeks. First it was the announcement that he is separating from his wife of 40+ years. Then the revelation of his affair with friend Larry David's ex-wife, and today the biggest blow of all. A new observational study shows that the arctic ice is thicker than it has been in years, striking a blow to Gore's Billion Dollar Climate change buisness.

The Arctic meltdown is not as bad as some of the moonbats suggest at least according to geophysicist Christian Haas of the University of Alberta. His international team flew across the top of the planet last year for the 2,412-kilometre survey. They found large expanses of ice four to five metres thick, despite the record retreat in 2007.

"This is a nice demonstration that there is still hope for the ice," said Haas.

The survey, which demonstrated that the "bird" probe tethered to a plane can measure ice thickness over large areas, uncovered plenty of resilient "old" ice from Norway to the North Pole to Alaska in April 2009.

The thickness had "changed little since 2007, and remained within the expected range of natural variability," the team reports in the Geophysical Research Letters.

There is already speculation about how the ice will fare this summer, with some scientists predicting a record melt. Haas said he doesn't buy it.

He said the ice is in some ways in better shape going into the melt season than it has been for a couple of years. "We have more thick ice going into the summer than we did in 2009 and 2008," he said.

Much will depend on the intensity of the winds, and how the ice fractures and is blown around, he said. "But any talk about tipping points, a sudden drop and no recovery . . . I don't think it is going to happen."

.....Part of the problem with ice forecasting is that it based largely on data from satellites. They are good at measuring how large an area is covered by ice, but tell little about its thickness — which can measure in mere centimetres in the case of new ice, or metres in the case of ice several years old.

Its the equivalent of making a weather forecast without looking out the window. Which is the problem with most of the global warming predictions, which are based on computer modeling without the benefit of observation.

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES!

Global Warming Wednesday

Tip O' the Hat to Jim Hoft from Gateway Pundit For this weeks debunking of the Global Warming hoax.

Top UN Scientist: There Never Was Consensus On Global Warming - Only a Few Dozen Believed It

It was all hot air and hoax.

A top official with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted yesterday that there never was agreement on global warming and that only a few dozen scientists actually believed it.
The National Post reported:

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony.

“Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous,” the paper states unambiguously, adding that they rendered “the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism.”

Hulme, Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia – the university of Climategate fame — is the founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and one of the UK’s most prominent climate scientists. Among his many roles in the climate change establishment, Hulme was the IPCC’s co-ordinating Lead Author for its chapter on ‘Climate scenario development’ for its Third Assessment Report and a contributing author of several other chapters.

Hulme’s depiction of IPCC’s exaggeration of the number of scientists who backed its claim about man-made climate change can be found on pages 10 and 11 of his paper, found here.

And to think, it was just two years ago junk scientist Al Gore promised that the arctic ice cap would be melted entirely in 5 years.
And, they gave him a Peace Prize for that.

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES!

Global Warming Wednesday

Via The Middleberry Community Network, here is a great editorial titled The Great Global Warming Hoax?

Editor's Introductory Note: Our planet has been slowly warming since last emerging from the "Little Ice Age" of the 17th century, often associated with the Maunder Minimum. Before that came the "Medieval Warm Period", in which temperatures were about the same as they are today. Both of these climate phenomena are known to have occurred in the Northern Hemisphere, but several hundred years prior to the present, the majority of the Southern Hemisphere was primarily populated by indigenous peoples, where science and scientific observation was limited to non-existent. Thus we can not say that these periods were necessarily "global".

However, "Global Warming" in recent historical times has been an indisputable fact, and no one can reasonably deny that.

But we're hearing far too often that the "science" is "settled", and that it is mankind's contribution to the natural CO2 in the atmosphere has been the principal cause of an increasing "Greenhouse Effect", which is the root "cause" of global warming. We're also hearing that "all the world's scientists now agree on this settled science", and it is now time to quickly and most radically alter our culture, and prevent a looming global catastrophe. And last, but not least, we're seeing a sort of mass hysteria sweeping our culture which is really quite disturbing. Historians ponder how the entire nation of Germany could possibly have goose-stepped into place in such a short time, and we have similar unrest. Have we become a nation of overnight loonies?

Sorry folks, but we're not exactly buying into the Global Hysteria just yet. We know a great deal about atmospheric physics, (bio) and from the onset, many of the claims were just plain fishy. The extreme haste with which seemingly the entire world immediately accepted the idea of Anthropogenic ( man-made ) Global Warming made us more than a little bit suspicious that no one had really taken a close look at the science. We also knew that the catch-all activity today known as "Climate Science" was in its infancy, and that atmospheric modeling did not and still does not exist which can predict changes in the weather or climate more than about a day or two in advance.

So the endless stream of dire predictions of what was going to happen years or decades from now if we did not drastically reduce our CO2 production by virtually shutting down the economies of the world appeared to be more the product of radical political and environmental activism rather than science. Thus, we embarked on a personal quest for more information, armed with a strong academic background in postgraduate physics and a good understanding of the advanced mathematics necessary in such a pursuit. This fundamental knowledge of the core principles of matter and its many exceptionally complex interactions allowed us to research and understand the foundations of many other sciences. In short, we read complex scientific articles in many other scientific disciplines with relative ease and good understanding - like most folks read comic books.

As our own knowledge of "climate science" grew, so grew our doubts over the "settled science". What we found was the science was far from "settled".. in fact it was barely underway.

It was for a while a somewhat lonely quest, what with "all the world's scientists" apparently having no doubt. Finally, in December 2007 we submitted an article to one of our local newspapers, the Addison Independent, thinking they would be delighted in having at minimum an alternative view of the issue. Alas, they chose not to publish it, but two weeks after our submission (by the strangest coincidence), published yet another "pro-global-warming" feature written by an individual whom, to the best we could determine, had no advanced training in any science at all, beyond self-taught it would appear. Still, the individual had published a number of popular books on popular environmental issues, was well-loved by those of similar political bent, and was held in high esteem among his peers. We had learned a valuable lesson: Popular Journalists trump coupled sets of 2nd-order partial differential equations every time. Serious science doesn't matter if you have the press in your pocket.

In fairness to the Addison Independent and its editors, our article was somewhat lengthy and technical, and presumably the average reader most likely could not follow or even be interested in an alternative viewpoint, since everyone knew by now that the global warming issue was "settled science". And we confess that we like the paper, subscribe to it, and know a number of folks who work there personally. They're all good folks, and they have every right to choose what does or doesn't go in their publication. They also have a right to spin the news any direction they choose, because that's what freedom of the press is all about. Seems everyone, both left and right, does it - and it's almost certain we will be accused of doing the same here. And we just may be, as hard as we may try to avoid it. We humans aren't all shaped by the same cookie cutter, and that's a blessing that has taken us as a species to the top of the food chain.

But by then we had been sharing our own independent research of the literature with others via email, and receiving a surprising amount of agreement back in return. (We're in contact with a large number of fellow scientists around the country, dating back to our college days in the 17th century when beer was a quarter a bottle). One local friend, in particular, kept pressing us to publish, and even offered to set up a "debate" with the Popular Journalist who had usurped our original article. This we politely declined, arguing that "debate" cannot prove or disprove science...science must stand on its own.

But then something unusual happened. On Dec. 13, 2007, 100 scientists jointly signed an Open Letter to Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, requesting they cease the man-made global warming hysteria and settle down to helping mankind better prepare for natural disasters. The final signature was from the President of the World Federation of Scientists.

At last, we were not alone...

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES!

Global Warming Wednesday

Tip O' the Hat to Ray Schneider at Political Brambles for this weeks debunk of all that greenie-weenie nonsense.

The "Going Green" Fraud! It's Not Going to Happen. It's a Scam!

SEE HERE The laws of physics are not going to be repealed and unfortunately that is what would have to happen for the "going green" nonsense to make any sense. If you all want to starve to death you can stop using energy, but since most people are not that nuts it isn't going to happen. Why not? Aren't wind and solar and all that just great? Well there is the slight problem that they're unreliable and don't work when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine. But it is actually worse than that. They are also relatively inefficient, so even when they do work they don't work all that well. You can do some of it if you like. It's expensive, much more expensive than conventional hydrocarbon based fuels and it has side effects like everything else. If you did manage to shift to it (which can't actually happen but we can imagine it) then the same bunch of kooks would be moaning about bird strikes, noise, disposal of solar panels and whatever else they can complain about. The green crowd won't be happy until Gaia has lost it's cognitive dimension, i.e. until man has died out. That's what it comes down to.

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DEATH TO HER ENEMIES!