Free Republic

There are lies, damn lies, statistics—and official EU car fuel consumption figures. I and others have been banging on about this for years; the figures quoted by manufacturers in their ads usually (but, interestingly not always) bears absolutely no relation whatsoever to what happens in the real world. … To get those “official” figures, new cars are subjected to something called the “New European Driving Cycle”, a series of short runs on a “rolling road” where the car is accelerated, put on a short cruise and decelerated under laboratory conditions. All the car makers have to put their cars through...

A European Union law to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from airlines traveling to and from Europe has drawn a joint protest from 23 non-EU countries and sparked talk of a global trade war. The law incorporates the aviation industry into Europe's emissions trading scheme and requires airlines to pay for their greenhouse-gas emissions by obtaining special permits. Eight-five percent of the permits are being given away for free; the other 15 percent are initially expected to add about $2 to the cost of a trans-Atlantic flight. But for representatives of 23 countries who convened in Moscow on Wednesday, the price...

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson on Wednesday attacked bills piling up in Congress that would block the agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and reiterated the White House veto threat. Jackson, speaking to reporters, initially declined to address whether President Obama would veto bills that stop climate rules, but later said that past threats still stand. “What has been stated from the White House is that the president’s advisers would advise him to veto any legislation that passed that would take away the EPA’s greenhouse gas authority,” Jackson told reporters. “Nothing has changed.” Jackson defended the agency’s initiatives...

  Earlier this month corporate climateers including Nike and 3M were given awards -- supposedly "the equivalent of an Oscar for the climate change mitigation world" -- for their efforts to reduce their carbon emissions. The honors were bestowed by the Carbon War Room, which "harnesses the power of entrepreneurs to implement market-driven solutions to climate change." The Virgin Group's Richard Branson is one of the nonprofit's co-founders. The War Room gave Nike the Gigaton Award for the "consumer discretionary" category. The prize was named for a Clinton Global Initiative project called Gigaton Throwdown, which "encourages companies, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and...

Radicalism: A group of academics wants to force rationing in developed countries to turn back what they see as the carbon threat. How does this differ from a socialist group demanding the seizure of private property? Negotiators from 192 nations will be in the Mexican beach resort of Cancun through Dec. 10 trying to hash out a deal they believe will curb global warming. The hot air won't be from the ocean breezes but from the negotiators' own carbon dioxide emissions. There will be plenty of nonsense from politically motivated academics, starting with Kevin Anderson, director of the U.K.'s Tyndall...

(CNSNews.com) - In a White House press conference Wednesday, President Barack Obama did not rule out using regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency to cap carbon emissions in the United States without an act of Congress.Meanwhile, on October 25, the EPA announced new regulations to limit “greenhouse gas” emissions by heavy-duty trucks and buses.In the last Congress, the House of Representatives passed a “cap-and-trade” bill that would have forced carbon emissions caps on U.S. industry in the interest of protecting the planet against warming. However, the Senate never voted on the bill.During his Tuesday press conference, Obama initially...

Richard Curtis’s eco-fascist snuff movie was a disaster for the green movement, I think we can all agree. Well, not quite all of us to judge by one or two bizarre comments and newspaper responses I’ve seen today. Let’s just dispense with a few of them. 1. It was an internet “hit.” (~~snip~~) 2. It was all part of Richard Curtis’s “cunning plan”. (~~snip~~) 3. Richard Curtis is a secret “denier” and devised the project as satire.(~~snip~~) 4. This was an unfortunate accident. It isn’t representative of the green movement.(~~snip~~) 5. It’s actually “funny” and people who don’t think so...

In a major announcement that flies in the face of the erroneous mantra of the world's political elite, a team of scientists has declared that carbon dioxide is NOT causing climate change. Left (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)--Al Gore continues to push debunked notion of man-made global warming. The team, sponsored by the International Climate Science Coalition, issued the following declaration: We, the undersigned, having assessed the relevant scientific evidence, do not find convincing support for the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing, or will in the foreseeable future cause, dangerous global warming. In the short time since issuing...

I read an interesting article on the American Thinker where the author showed an interesting theme from this C&T bill. The entire purpose of C&T is to put a cap on CO2 emissions. “Presently, 40 percent of CO2 emissions in the United States are derived from electricity generation, 35 percent from transportation, and 25 percent from business, industry, and natural gas to heat homes.” The current goal in the Senate bill which came from the House bill is to reduce emissions by 17%. So where will this 17% come from? I wrote last week about the emissions exchange in Chicago...

Corruption: The carbon trading system being pushed here has spawned crime and fraud across the pond. Cap-and-trade is not about saving the planet. It's about money and power, and absolute power corrupting absolutely. All across Europe authorities have been conducting raids, rounding up individuals involved in a new version of Climate-gate. This time the data aren't corrupted. Europe's Emissions Trading System is. The system is so sick, it's turned out to be a scam built upon a scam. Twenty-five people have been arrested in raids by British and German authorities as part of a pan-European crackdown on carbon credit VAT...

The present invention is directed to a method of residential emissions trading and a residential emissions trading commodity. In particular, an embodiment of the present invention is a method for identifying, quantifying, and aggregating reductions in residential emissions into a tradable... Inventors: Franklin D. Raines, Robert J. Sahadi, Kenneth Berlin, Michelle Desiderio, Scott Lesmes, Elizabeth Arner Cavey, Carlton Bartels, Jane Bartels What is claimed is: 1. A method for providing a residential emissions trading program, comprising the steps of: identifying an energy savings opportunity in a residential property; quantifying an emissions reduction produced by the energy savings opportunity; and aggregating...

Cap-And-Trade: While senators froth over Goldman Sachs and derivatives, a climate trading scheme being run out of the Chicago Climate Exchange would make Bernie Madoff blush. Its trail leads to the White House. Lost in the recent headlines was Al Gore's appearance Monday in Denver at the annual meeting of the Council of Foundations, an association of the nation's philanthropic leaders. "Time's running out (on climate change)," Gore told them. "We have to get our act together. You have a unique role in getting our act together." Gore was right that foundations will play a key role in keeping the...

With almost two-thirds of Europe's flights grounded, cancelations and postponements were popping up across the entertainment landscape on Saturday as Icelandic scientists warned that volcanic activity had increased and showed no sign of abating. Organizers of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., tweeted that some acts were forced to pull out of the weekend event. British musicians The Cribs, Bad Lieutenant, Delphic, Talvin Singh and Gary Numan as well as Scottish rockers Frightened Rabbit and Chicago brass group Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, who were on tour in Europe, weren't able to make the lineup. "I can't tell...

The Copenhagen summit achieved its main aim, to maintain the carbon-trading system established by the Kyoto Protocol, says Christopher Booker As fairy-tale snow gently descended on Copenhagen, the great global warming conference degenerated through pantomime, boredom, chaos and anger to its entirely predictable conclusion – a colossal pile of fudge with a very hard and nasty rock hidden at its centre. The "world summit" on climate change was never really going to be about saving the world from global warming at all. Even if the delegates had got all they wanted, it would no more have had any influence on...

Republican lawmakers said on Thursday they would try to block a Environmental Protection Agency proposal that opens the door to federal regulation of planet-warming gases. Last week, the EPA issued a ruling that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health, clearing the way for the agency to regulate carbon without congressional legislation. Senator Lisa Murkowski, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is leading an effort in the chamber to overturn the finding through a rarely used joint resolution of disapproval. Getting the proposal passed will be a heavy lift, since Republicans are a minority in both...

Perhaps when the history of our times is written, ours will be called The Era of Narcissistic Catechisms. To understand why this is the case it is enough to consider the fortunes of two green movements. On the main stage of global affairs this week we have the much touted UN climate change conference in Copenhagen. Standing with 15,000 delegates representing green activism groups and politically correct scientists the world over are international celebrity leaders like Nobel Peace Prize laureates Barack Obama, Al Gore and Desmond Tutu and their fellow celebrities and Oscar and Grammy winners Al Gore, Leonardo Dicaprio,...

Europe's cap-and-trade program which is designed to reduce CO2 emissions is rife with fraud thanks to organized crime's alleged involvement in the market as reported by the European Police Office (EUROPOL): The European Union (EU) Emission Trading System (ETS) has been the victim of fraudulent traders in the past 18 months. This resulted in losses of approximately 5 billion euros for several national tax revenues. It is estimated that in some countries, up to 90% of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities. In France prosecutors have "opened a criminal investigation of four men allegedly involved in a...

Environmental Protec tion Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson yesterday an nounced that the EPA has determined that global warming, allegedly caused by mankind's burning of fossil fuels, endangers public health. The finding paves the way for a huge power grab by EPA bureaucrats -- indeed, more power than even they think they can handle: The likely regulatory cascade will end up with the EPA having complete control over the nation's energy supply and its use. Large apartment buildings and hospitals would need EPA operating permits to continue running their furnaces. Lawnmowers and aircraft alike would be regulated for fuel economy like...

Domestic oil refiners kept up their attack of climate legislation, saying a Senate bill under consideration could increase gas prices. Domestic oil refiners kept up their attack Wednesday of climate legislation, saying a Senate bill under consideration could increase gas prices. The group, among the fiercest critics of the measure, said the proposal could add 77 cents a gallon, or around 30 percent above today’s prices. Democrats on a key Senate panel shot back, saying the industry’s estimate is based on an inflated projection of the price of permits companies will have to hold to cover their carbon emissions. A...

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) plans to introduce an amendment Thursday morning banning the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide. The proposal is fiercely opposed by the administration, which sees EPA action as a way to pressure the Senate into passing cap and trade legislation curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Prospects for the bill have dimmed in recent weeks, as the health care debate has taken center stage. “We don't think the amendment is a good idea,” White House climate advisor Carol Browner said on Tuesday. “It could get you a situation where activities that should go forward — like...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – South Africa will not sign any deal that would compromise the country's economic development chances at the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen, the environment minister said Tuesday. "All negotiators are there to pursue national interests ... and South Africa is no different in this regard. If a deal is going to compromise our national interest we are not going to support it 100 percent," Buyelwa Sonjica told journalist. In the lead up to the crucial climate summit in December which hopes to thrash out a new climate treaty, Sonjica said it was unrealistic for developing countries...

Conservation: The Chevy Volt is said to be able to get 230 miles per gallon. That's if it's continually plugged into a fragile and overburdened power grid. Where will you be when the lights go out? Since most U.S. electricity generation is not carbon-free, the Congressional Research Service agrees. The "widespread adoption of plug-in hybrid vehicles through 2030 may have only a small effect on, and might actually increase, carbon emissions," it observes. "If you are using coal-fired power plants and half the country's electricity comes from coal powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?"...

Climate Change: NASA's James Hansen leads a protest against a District of Columbia power plant in the middle of a snowstorm. Meanwhile, a scientist fired by Al Gore says we need to emit more carbon dioxide, not less.Speaking before Bill Clinton's Global Initiative in New York City last Nov. 2, Gore advocated the concept of civil disobedience to fight climate change. "I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration," Gore said to loud applause. Following Gore's lead, a...

Having children is the surest way to send your carbon footprint soaring, according to a new study from statisticians at Oregon State University. The study found that having a child has an impact that far outweighs that of other energy-saving behaviors. Take, for example, a hypothetical American woman who switches to a more fuel-efficient car, drives less, recycles, installs more efficient light bulbs, and replaces her refrigerator and windows with energy-saving models. If she had two children, the researchers found, her carbon legacy would eventually rise to nearly 40 times what she had saved by those actions. “Clearly, the potential...

Last time, it killed thousands and changed the weather for five years, now it could be even deadlier...

Residential customers aren't the only ones stung by a string of electricity rate increases. A year ago the steel mill faced a problem businesses love -- its Roanoke plant scrambled to match production with red-hot demand. "We were going great guns right through September of last year," said Joe Crawford, vice president and general manager of Steel Dynamics Roanoke Bar Division, formerly known as Roanoke Electric Steel. "And then October hit." The minimill melts scrap metal in electric-arc furnaces and thus depends heavily on electricity. For months now, it has operated at about 50 percent capacity and tried to cut...

India has now joined the list of U.S. allies receiving shabby treatment from the Obama administration. Actually, the shabby treatment arguably has been ongoing -- despite their globe-trotting, neither President Obama nor Secretary of State Clinton bothered to visit our giant and increasingly important ally in the sub-continent during the first six months of the administration. Now, Clinton has finally visited India, but the government probably wishes she had stayed home. For Clinton used the visit to attempt to pressure India to accept binding limits on carbon emissions. Clinton made this effort despite the fact that (1) India's carbon emissions...

Here's what I wrote in last year's column titled "Global Warming Rope-a-Dope" (12/24/2008): "Once laws are written, they are very difficult, if not impossible, to repeal. If a time would ever come when the permafrost returns to northern U.S., as far south as New Jersey as it once did, it's not inconceivable that Congress, caught in the grip of the global warming zealots, would keep all the laws on the books they wrote in the name of fighting global warming. Personally, I would not put it past them to write more." On June 28, 2009, the House of Representatives, by...

Climate Change: Supporters of economy-killing cap-and-trade legislation not only misquote the Congressional Budget Office's report lowballing the costs. They ignore how CBO cooked the books to get its numbers.We have often cited the CBO in our editorials. It's a nonpartisan entity whose staffers normally do a decent job analyzing data and crunching numbers. But as regards the true cost of climate change legislation, they have fallen victim to the computer-age trap: garbage in, garbage out. In recent weeks, ABC's "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos twice misquoted a CBO analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill that claims that we can save the...

Even a compromised agreement to reduce emissions could devastate the economy - and all for a theory shot full of holes, says Christopher Booker. What makes this even odder is that the runaway warming predicted by their computer models simply isn't happening. Last week one of the four official sources of temperature measurement, compiled from satellite data by the University of Huntsville, Alabama, showed that temperatures have now fallen to their average level since satellite data began 30 years ago...In March, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has a key role in President Obama's plans to curb CO2 emissions,...

The push for conversion to plug-in electric cars will do nothing to stop carbon emissions, a report by the GAO warns, throwing cold water on a push by Democrats to get more plug-ins on the road. In fact, the problem could be made worse as demand goes up at coal-fired electrical plants. Plus, the need for batteries may just have the US changing the dictators to which we’re chained, as IBD reports...

House to continue Energy Bill Debate with Possible Vote Today Later today, the House will continue general debate on the American Clean Energy & Security Act, Pres. Obama's climate change legislation. The bill centers on a renewable electicity standard, encouraging the use of renewable energy and a cap-and-trade policy.

For the last several years, I've been warning you the whole global-warming nonsense is nothing more than a huge power grab by governments around the world.

The bill is House Resolution 2454, imposing a domestic carbon emissions cap-and-trade program on the American economy.The goal seems to be nothing short of eradicating American farms and self-sustainability. Even DEMOCRATS are opposing the Obama Energy Bill. Climate change legislation will be utterly devastating for American farmers. Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA) of the House Agriculture Committee says that not only will he not vote for it, but no one else on his committee will support it either. The bill would increase the cost of everything that farmers depend on, such as diesel fuel, gasoline, fertilizers, pesticides, and a host of...

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration declared Friday that carbon dioxide and five other industrial emissions threaten the planet. The landmark decision lays the groundwork for federal efforts to cap carbon emissions -- at a potential cost of billions of dollars to businesses and government. The Environmental Protection Agency finding that the emissions endanger "the health and welfare of current and future generations" is "the first formal recognition by the U.S. government of the threats posed by climate change," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson wrote in a memo to her staff. The finding could touch every corner of Americans' lives, from the...

BEWARE of geeks bearing formulas. That's the lesson most of us have learned from the financial crisis. The "quants" who devised the risk models that induced so many financial institutions to buy mortgage-backed securities thought they had reduced risk down to zero. Turns out they got a few things wrong. Their formulas were based on only a few years of actual data. Or they failed to take into account the possibility that housing prices would fall. Or that the market for mortgage-backed securities might suddenly stop functioning. The lesson seems clear. Don't allow a whole system to become hostage to...

UPDATED: President Obama's climate plan could cost industry close to $2 trillion, nearly three times the White House's initial estimate of the so-called "cap-and-trade" legislation, according to Senate staffers who were briefed by the White House. A top economic aide to Mr. Obama told a group of Senate staffers last month that the president's climate-change plan would surely raise more than the $646 billion over eight years the White House had estimated publicly, according to multiple a number of staffers who attended the briefing Feb. 26. "We all looked at each other like, 'Wow, that's a big number,'" said a...

The atmosphere is cooling, the ice is expanding, the seas are not rising -- even though carbon emissions are increasing. The evidence is now crystal clear to anyone with an unwashed brain that man-made global warming theory is sheer unadulterated bunkum. So how do the warmers react to the ever more embarrassing evidence that they have hitched their reputations to the biggest anti-scientific scam in history? By ratcheting up the hysteria to fever pitch and shrieking that their predictions about the impending irreversible environmental apocalypse have grievously underestimated the catastrophe which is going to be far, far worse. At the...

Already we are seeing the Socialist, Marxist cogs in the change wheel manipulating away our freedoms and money. Congress and this President have wasted no time from the executive orders to the manipulative speeches and attachments on the ‘stimulus’ bill that insult and betray the American people. Don’t you love the endless speeches and statements by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Obama regarding the URGENT need to pass the stimulus bill or our country will go down in heaping flames? Naturally, we all understand the EXTREME emergency choices added to the bill such as $650 million for digital TV coupons;...

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=wth_p4p0rfY&feature=PlayList&p=AF27CAAC2A8AD49A&index=12 Wow, this is the first time I heard of this documentary

that he is a political radical, it’s not surprising that he has tried to present a moderate image to the public. The PR campaign has been working to a large extent. But problems are beginning to emerge. Carol Browner might be one of them. Obama chose Browner, a former EPA administrator, to be his energy czar (really, czarina). Browner is all for draconian carbon emission controls aimed at halting global warming. Critics of carbon control say such plans are really about expanding government control over the economy and have little to do with things climatological. In order words, such plans...

The Heritage Foundation issued a harsh rebuttal to Barack Obama’s latest climate change comments, blasting the president-elect for recycling problematic climate change rhetoric from the campaign trail. The Washington think tank also criticized Obama’s plans to address global warming, calling the proposals “fear mongering” based on tainted data. The Heritage Foundation’s statement came in response to comments made at the Global Climate Summit, a meeting arranged by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Los Angeles earlier this week. More than 600 global climate-change experts convened at the summit to try to break gridlock on environmental issues ahead of next month’s United...

If you haven’t made up your mind who to vote for in tomorrow’s presidential election, I’m not sure that what I am about to tell you will help — but it just might. Both candidates told the web site sciencedebate2008 that they accept the scientific agreement that greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels are changing the Earth’s climate. And both candidates have said they want to cap emissions produced by the burning of those fossil fuels.But only Barack Obama has said he would regulate CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.President George W. Bush has declined to curb...

Breathless in Arizona Regulating carbon dioxide emissions could leave Arizonans out of breath By Byron Schlomach, Ph.D. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) appears to want to regulate our very breath. But not with mandates for regular doses of Listerine in the morning. The problem is carbon dioxide, the gas we expel with every breath. It has become public enemy number one. ADEQ's director, Steve Owen, wants to impose rules on Arizona's economy similar to those California has proposed for the regulation of the so-called greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. Ironically enough, it is the federal government and the Environmental...

Global Warming : A Religion of Non-Sense         Myth:  Humans are the primary cause for Global Warming.Myth:  If we conserve energy and decrease our carbon emissions, we will reverse or stop Global Warming.        Myth:  We (human beings) have the power to alter the global temperature of the earth.Myth:  Having children is hazardous to the environment and selfish.        Myth:  Carbon Credits will offset human pollution.Fact:  The earth has been changing temperature, long before we started driving SUVs.Fact:  China is not going to slow their economic growth or stop building a new coal plant every other day, because of a bunch of environmentalist whacko’s and...

Though Austin Chronicle writer Robert Bryce is likely not a household name, his column published in Thursday's Energy Tribune is a must-read for all anthropogenic global warming skeptics. In "Al Gore's Zero Emissions Makes Zero Sense," Bryce not only skewered the Global Warmingist in Chief's schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth," but he also deliciously mocked all the sycophant devotees of the former vice president that have failed to recognize the obvious as they tour the country professing imminent planetary doom at the hands of a naturally occurring gas that happens to be a necessity to all forms of life. With that...

When it comes to their role in causing global warming, Californians can feel slightly less guilty than most Americans. The average Californian generates fewer carbon dioxide emissions - the main heat-trapping gas blamed for warming the planet - than residents in all other states but Idaho, Vermont and Rhode Island, according to data from the U.S. Department of Energy. California ranks second in total carbon emissions, trailing only Texas. But the country's most populous state is one of the lowest carbon emitters on a per-person basis. Each person in California is responsible for about 24,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per...

As deadlines loom in California's landmark law to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, the Senate hopes to write into the state budget a rule that forces Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Market Advisory Committee to eschew closed-door meetings and allow the public to view its deliberations. The committee is charged with proposing the heart of the carbon-emissions law--the system of rewards and penalties that will actually make the statute work. The confidential nature of the committee is well known in the Capitol but has been largely ignored outside the state, where the focus has been as much on Schwarzenegger, an actor-turned-politician with a huge...

Prominent political fundraisers who backed Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign are reserving support for the current slate of 2008 Democrats in hopes the former vice president will swoop in for another White House bid. H.E. "Sonny" Cauthen Jr. told The Washington Times he has been flattered to get calls from candidates asking for his help this time around, but said he is hesitating on picking one while he waits to see what Mr. Gore decides. "If he wants to run, I would be very supportive of that," said Mr. Cauthen, a founding partner of the Washington lobbying firm Cauthen Forbes...

Supermarkets, hotels, councils and universities could be given a "cap" on the amount of carbon dioxide they are allowed to emit within five years under Government plans announced yesterday to set legally binding carbon reduction targets. Any business or public body wanting to use more power than its allocation would have to buy low-carbon technology or purchase carbon credits on the open market under the powers contained in a draft Climate Change Bill. The new legislation, binding the UK to an ambitious 60 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050, was published as ministers stepped up their attack on...