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Your daily routine -- switching on a light, cooking a meal, driving down the street -- would generate less greenhouse gases under a first-of-its-kind regional strategy to curb global warming unveiled Wednesday at the state Capitol in Salem. The strategy emerged from the Western Climate Initiative, an alliance of Western states -- including Oregon and Washington -- and Canadian provinces trying to jump ahead of any federal move to regulate greenhouse gases. Large utility companies and factory owners would feel the effects first, followed by fuel distributors, as they face limits on their greenhouse gas emissions. Individual Oregonians would not...

We are a little late to the party, but it is worth adding a few words now that our favourite amateur contrarian is at it again. As many already know, the Forum on Physics and Society (an un-peer-reviewed newsletter published by the otherwise quite sensible American Physical Society), rather surprisingly published a new paper by Monckton that tries again to show using rigorous arithmetic that IPCC is all wrong and that climate sensitivity is negligible. His latest sally, like his previous attempt, is full of the usual obfuscating sleight of hand, but to save people the time in working it...

Scientists Debate Moving Polar Bears to Antarctica as Arctic MeltsJuly 24, 2008 Scientists are obviously reaching a point of true desperation. While the world still debates whether climate change is even real (eye roll), the scientific community is coming back to an idea that was once considered wrongheaded and dangerous: moving species to new areas of the world as their natural habitats become inhabitable. First up: moving the polar bears to the other side of the globe. From Wired: Caught between climate change and human pressure, species are going extinct 100 times faster than at any point in human history....

After Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, global warming alarmists claimed greenhouse gas emissions had led to a season that had 22 named tropical storms. Recent reports raise strong doubts about those claims. “Former Hurricane Center head Max Mayfield is among experts who believe we're in a cyclical pattern of more violent tropical storms, while others say global warming may be the culprit,” ABC’s Sam Champion said on the Sept. 4, 2007 “Good Morning America.” “Earlier this year, a UN backed panel of scientists linked more powerful and frequent hurricanes to global warming and projected even more intense hurricanes in the...

What we really need from the climate modelers is an accurate 50-year projection of global politics. Will people believe the computer's dire prophecy enough to change their lifestyles? While we wait for 50 million lines of code to reveal the supposed future, consider how things look to one very knowledgeable energy analyst, Vinod K. Dar, who runs Dar & Company, a consultant to the energy industry, in Bethesda, Md. What follows is my own gloss on Dar's analysis. Everything he says, however, squares with all that I've seen and learned in the 30 years I've watched energy markets here and...

As Planet Gore readers likely know, Congress currently prohibits the federal government to sell leases for energy production along the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). As the Congressional Research Service Office has put it, “OCS moratoria, which prohibit leasing on most federal offshore lands, have been an important issue in the debate over energy security and the potential availability of additional domestic oil and gas resources. Congress has enacted the moratoria for each of fiscal years 1982-2006 [NB: now 2008] in the annual Interior Appropriations bill.” This prohibition expires at the end of this (and every other) fiscal year. It...

Skiing, local real estate likely to suffer scientists say VAIL, Colorado — If greenhouse gas emissions aren’t curtailed, climate change will reduce Eagle County’s snowpack by 57 percent by 2085, according to a new report. “The state’s most popular tourist activity is at risk from climate change,” said the report, published Wednesday by the Center for Integrative Environmental Research at the University of Maryland. The report, “Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Colorado,” does not paint a pretty picture for skiing — and the attendant industry of real estate — over the next century. The “snow season” could become 30...

Do as Al says, not as Al doesOn Thursday, former U. S. vice-president Al Gore delivered a major address calling on his country to abandon all fossil fuels within 10 years. By 2018, U. S. electricity and fuel should come entirely from "renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources," he said. Tickets to the event encouraged attendees to "please use public transit, bicycling or other climate-friendly means" to reach the lecture hall. So how did Mr. Gore and his retinue arrive? In two Lincoln Town Cars and a full-sized SUV that sat idling with the air conditioners blasting while the...

Global warming is likely to reduce the number of hurricanes that occur each year, according to two new studies by forecasters who previously claimed global warming would cause more hurricanes.

India has issued a report challenging global warming fears. This is dramatic. The Indian Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change said that India would rather save its people from poverty than global warming, and would not cut growth in order to cut gases. Referring to claimed changes in climate attributed to human activity, the report declares: "No firm link between the documented charges described below and warming due to an anthropogenic climate change has yet been established." The report goes on to state: "It is obvious that India needs to substantially increase its per capita energy consumption to provide a...

The coldest summer ever? Right now the so-called summer of '08 is on pace to produce the fewest days ever recorded in which the temperature in Anchorage managed to reach 65 degrees. That unhappy record was set in 1970, when we only made it to the 65-degree mark ... 16 days out of 365. This year, however ... there have been only seven 65-degree days so far. ... MEASURING THE MISERY In terms of "coldest summer ever," however, a better measure might be the number of days Anchorage fails to even reach 60. There too, 2008 is a contender, having...

GPs should tell parents not to have more than two children to help in the battle against climate change, according to doctors. The world's population increases by 1.5m each week and babies born in the UK will use more greenhouse gases during their lifetime than those born in the developing world. Two doctors, writing in the British Medical Journal, suggest that doctors should talk to their patients about climate change and encourage them to think about the consequences of having a big family. Investing in contraception would help in the fight against climate change, they argue. (snip) "We must not...

A college student's new discovery of fossils collected in the East Antarctic suggests that the frozen polar cap was once a much balmier place. The well-preserved fossils of ostracods, a type of small crustaceans, came from the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica's Transantarctic Mountains and date from about 14 million years ago. The fossils were a rare find, showing all of the ostracods' soft anatomy in 3-D. The fossils were discovered by Richard Thommasson during screening of the sediment in research team member Allan Ashworth's lab at North Dakota State University. Because ostracods couldn't survive in the current Antarctic climate,...

Universal access to contraception is needed to help fight climate change, it has been claimed. A spiralling global population, with an annual increase of 79 million people, is driving up greenhouse gas emissions, John Guillebaud of University College, London, and GP Pip Hayes of St Leonard's Practice, Exeter, said. And in an editorial in the British Medical Journal they raised the question of whether people in the UK should be told that stopping at two children is "the simplest and biggest contribution" that can be made to saving the planet. The doctors said every person born adds to greenhouse gas...

“I read somewhere that the sun’s getting hotter every year,” said Tom genially. “It seems that pretty soon the earth’s going to fall into the sun — or wait a minute ... it’s just the opposite — the sun is getting colder every year.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby This is the time of year that we start to get warm again.For years I called it summer, but apparently it is more than that; it is now global warming. And it turns out we all are responsible for it, or so the story goes.In another sign that we have...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a layman’s critique of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory, and in particular to challenge the fairly widespread notion that the science and projected consequences of AGW currently justify massive spending and government intervention into the world’s economies.  This paper will show that despite good evidence that global temperatures are rising and that CO2 can act as a greenhouse gas and help to warm the Earth, we are a long way from attributing all or much of current warming to man-made CO2.  We are even further away from being able to...

".....the End of the world is already near.....As  this same End of the world is drawing nigh , many unusual things will happen-----climatic changes, terrors from heaven, unseasonable tempests, wars, famines, pestilences and earthquakes."    The quotation is from a letter sent by a very famous and influential man to a European head of state. Its author is disclosed at the end of this essay. Climatology is a science. Climatism is an ideology. Climatologists are scientists. Climatists are social or political organizers who abuse climatology in the service of ideologues. Climatology was and still is an investigation of nature. Climatism is the...

Maybe you've noticed this, too. The less sure people are of their views, the more inclined they are to name-call, yell and bully. I've noticed this when it comes to religion and politics and life in general, but I've had trouble getting used to it when it comes to science. Science is supposed to be about irreducible facts, the discipline of the scientific method, repeatable experiments, rigorous analysis and solid conclusions rather than sound bites, insults, threats and public relations campaigns. But look at global warming and climate change. The Weather Channel's top climatologist says broadcast meteorologists who voice skepticism...

California, six other Western states and four Canadian provinces launched plans on Wednesday for one of the world's largest carbon-trading systems, a sweeping effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. The North American program, like a similar market-based system in Europe, focuses on heavy polluters such as electric utilities, oil refineries and large industrial and commercial facilities. Environmental groups immediately questioned whether the plan will be tough enough on polluters, while industry groups said the program lacks details. California officials said the proposal will be an integral part of the Golden State's ambitious goal of reducing...

I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector. FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old...

AUSTRALIAN television advertising is producing as much as 57 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hour, and thirty second ad breaks are among the worst offenders, according to audit figures from pitch consultants TrinityP3.

Attorney General Jerry Brown sued the county in April 2007, charging that a general plan update approved a month earlier would worsen global warming. The general plan, a blueprint for growth through 2030, projects more homes and increased traffic as the county's population continues to increase. It was the first time the state sued a public agency for not taking into account global warming. State and county officials hailed the greenhouse reduction plan that the county agreed to as groundbreaking. Julie Rynerson Rock, the county's director of land-use services, said the county's plan will be the most far-reaching in the...

At Hearing, Official EIB Clown Attacks Official EIB ClimatologistJuly 22, 2008 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The official climatologist of the EIB Network, Dr. Roy Spencer, a brilliant independent climatologist and scientist, former NASA, he's now at University of Alabama at Huntsville, testified before Senator Boxer's committee on climate change research, and they had the following exchange. SPENCER: In conclusion, I am predicting today that the theory that mankind is mostly responsible for global warming will slowly fade away in the coming years, as will the warming itself, and I trust you would agree, Madam Chair, that such a result deserves to...

Australia's state and federal governments must invest in training specialist emergency rescue crews to avert severe livestock and wildlife losses caused by climate change, a leading animal welfare campaigner says. The head of disaster rescue operations for the Boston-based International Fund for Animal Welfare, Dick Green, has told a national wildlife conference in Canberra, ''Your big three natural disasters here in Australia are bushfires, floods and wind storms and, as the world's climate changes, you're going to get more of them. You need to plan for that and be better prepared.'' He said the number of natural disasters across the...

The Chosen “Grandpa Abyssal, what did he mean today at Synagogue, that the Jews are the chosen? Chosen for what? What were we chosen to do?” “Ahh, Chaadrean, that is a long story. We would have to venture far, far out into the future to try to see that clearly. It is too late now. I came up here to tell you that your light was supposed to be off fifteen minutes ago. If your mother sees your light on, there will be trouble…. Now go to sleep!” “But grandpa! Deep religious questions are torturing my mind, they will not...

NOAK48 PAFC 232101 CCB PNSAFC PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT...UPDATED NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ANCHORAGE AK 1125 AM AKDT WED JUL 23 2008 ...SUMMER 2008 CLIMATE STATISTICS... THE SUMMER OF 2008 IS NOTABLE SO FAR FOR THE FOLLOWING CLIMATE STATISTICS THROUGH JULY 23: DAILY HIGH TEMPERATURES OF 60 DEGREES OR MORE 35 SO FAR IN...2008 ** 46 TOTAL IN....1971 59 TOTAL IN....1932 AND 1973 61 TOTAL IN....1966 62 TOTAL IN....1939 AVERAGE NUMBER OF DAYS OF 60 DEGREES OR GREATER IS 88 DAILY HIGH TEMPERATURES OF 65 DEGREES OR MORE 7 SO FAR IN...2008 ** 16 TOTAL IN....1970 19 TOTAL IN....1920 21 TOTAL IN....1982...

A reader sent me a heads-up to an article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society ($, abstract here) titled "Climate Change Education and the Ecological Footprint".  The authors express concern that non-science students don't sufficiently understand global warming and its causes, and want to initiate a re-education program in schools to get people thinking the "right" way.So, do climate scientists want to focus on better educating kids in details of the carbon cycle?  In the complexities in sorting out causes of warming between natural and man-made effects?  In difficulties with climate modeling?  In the huge role that feedback...

California, six other Western states and four Canadian provinces will launch a market-based carbon trading system in a major North American effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, according to a draft proposal released today. When it officially begins in four years, the program would first target heavy polluters such as electric utilities, oil refineries and large industrial and commercial facilities, which would be required to begin reporting emission levels beginning in 2011 to allow participating governments to agree on the maximum level of emissions for the region. The plan also includes an offsets system, part of...

A whole new industry is springing up that will dwarf Al Gore's ripping off of the population through Global Warming. Companies are figuring out how to work the ridiculous "Carbon Credits" debacle to make big bucks. Rhodia, is a French Company, makes adipic acid which is a chemical used in the production of nylon. They have moved their operation to South Korea and Brazil. Why? A by-product of their manufacturing process is the creation of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is over 300 times more potent as an atmospheric warming agent than carbon dioxide. Rhodia destroys the nitrous oxide...

A former global warming alarmist and creator of the model that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol says that while global warming is real, there is no evidence that the main cause is carbon emissions. David Evans says that C02 emissions play - at most - a minor role. Evans writes in The Australian newspaper that if global warming was caused by C02, scientists would have found hot spots about six miles up in the earth's atmosphere over the Tropics. Evans describes those hot spots as the signature of the greenhouse effect. He says scientists have been trying to...

Scientists at Columbia University are developing a carbon dioxide (CO2) scrubber device that removes one ton of CO2 from the air every day, says the Heartland Institute. While some see the scrubber as an efficient and economical way to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide, many environmentalists oppose the technology because it allows people to use fossil fuels and emit carbon in the first place. According to Columbia University physicist Klaus Lackner, who is leading the research team: Producing a large number of CO2 scrubbers can keep to a minimum any rise in atmospheric CO2 without the economically painful elimination of inexpensive...

For the second time ever, Green Parties from around the world gathered together for a decision-making Congress. The first Global Greens Congress took place in April 2001 in Canberra, Australia. This time, with 625 delegates and observers participating from 88 countries, the Second Congress took place May 1-4 in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2001, one of the key objectives of the Congress was to approve the first ever Global Greens Charter. In 2008, the political content was driven by the planetary need to respond to the ever-worsening global climate crisis. One of the reasons São Paulo was chosen as the...

The Arctic may get some temporary relief from global warming if the annual North American wildfire season intensifies, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado and NOAA. Smoke transported to the Arctic from northern forest fires may cool the surface for several weeks to months at a time, according to the most detailed analysis yet of how smoke influences the Arctic climate relative to the amount of snow and ice cover. "Smoke in the atmosphere temporarily reduces the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface. This transitory effect could partly offset some of the warming...

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A protester who wanted his message to stick managed to superglue himself to the British prime minister Tuesday evening. Dan Glass, right, takes hold of the British PM's right arm just before he was about to receive his award. Dan Glass was at 10 Downing Street to receive a charity's award for his work on transportation issues when he staged the unusual protest. Just before Prime Minister Gordon Brown presented him with the award, Glass squirted superglue in the palm of his left hand. He shook Brown's right hand and then grabbed the prime minister's sleeve....

Opening Statement of Senator James Inhofe Senate Environment and Public Works Full Committee An Update on the Science of Global Warming and its Implications Tuesday, July 22, 2008 Madame Chairman, I am very disappointed to see that this Committee is once again beginning its deliberations on global warming in the wrong manner.  Rather than focusing on substantive issues that would be helpful to the debate on global warming legislation, this Committee is choosing to engage in more political theater with a predetermined outcome.  The rushed process and the complete lack of understanding of the policy implications of the Lieberman Warner doomed...

Comments and reports about global warming are getting silly and even ridiculous.  Al Gore says we have ten years left. We’re told cooling is due to warming. More rain and flooding and less rain and drought are both due to warming. More hurricanes are predicted while fewer occur. Global temperatures declined as much in the first few months of 2008 as they increased in the previous 100 plus years due to warming. Recently we were told global warming is causing an increase in kidney stones in a travesty of geographic correlation assuming cause and effect. One blogger who began recording,...

SYDNEY (AFP) - A top Australian politician said on Tuesday the country should introduce "meaningless" carbon trading if big polluters in the developing world do not agree to reduce emissions. Opposition leader Brendan Nelson said he was committed to introducing emissions trading by 2012, but if big polluters like China and India do not make commitments to reduce emissions it should be deliberately toothless. "Our policy has not changed, and that policy is we would implement an emissions trading scheme, cap-and-trade, no later than 2012," he told Sky News. "And obviously what you would do, if for example we haven't...

He's a former vice president of the United States, Nobel Prize winner and best-selling author, so the lavish news coverage of Al Gore's latest brainstorm was inevitable. Less understandable is why an idea so irresponsible - in economic terms, in fact, just this side of deranged - attracted so little ridicule. Gore proposed last week that the United States "commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years." Not just all new electricity, mind you, which would be challenging enough. But all existing electricity, too. This would of course require...

U.S. Senate Hearing on Climate Science - Study Finds 'Mostly Natural' Warming [Note: Below is testimony from today’s hearing “Full Committee hearing entitled, “An Update on the Science of Global Warming and its Implications.” Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Roy Spencer was one of the scientists testifying and deatlied new studies showing “mostly natural” climate influences. ] Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Roy Spencer, formerly of NASA: New Study Finds ‘warming we have experienced in the last 100 years is mostly natural’ (Spencer is currently Principal Research Scientist, Earth System Science Center University of Alabama in Huntsville Spencer’s Testimony Excerpt: On the subject of...

Fewer than half of Americans polled by the Pew Research Center believe humans are causing global warming, and a declining number even believe the Earth is experiencing a warming trend. The survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, finds "roughly half, or 47 percent, of Americans say the Earth is warming because of human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels." Nearly as many, 45 percent of respondents, contend the higher Earth temperatures are due to "natural environment patterns," that no global warming exists, or that causes cannot be scientifically determined. Seventy-one percent...

I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.

Why do certain ideas in science become targets of social criticism and others do not? It would be easy to assume that the controversy occurs when science challenges "ignorance," especially ignorance created by cultural myths and religion. This is very neat if you believe you are being scientific, but it doesn't pass the test. For example, Darwin's idea on evolution and Freud's ideas of the mind and behavior were met with strong social and cultural opposition which could be interpreted as a contest between religion and science. On the other hand, theories about the quantum nature of reality, the big...

On Thursday, former U. S. vice-president Al Gore delivered a major address calling on his country to abandon all fossil fuels within 10 years. By 2018, U. S. electricity and fuel should come entirely from "renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources," he said. Tickets to the event encouraged attendees to "please use public transit, bicycling or other climate-friendly means" to reach the lecture hall. So how did Mr. Gore and his retinue arrive? In two Lincoln Town Cars and a full-sized SUV that sat idling with the air conditioners blasting while the Gore party was inside. It was 34...

Bureaucrats at the American Physical Society (APS) have issued a curious warning to their members about an article in one of their own publications. Don't read this, they say - we don't agree with it. But what is it about the piece that is so terrible, that like Medusa, it could make men go blind? It's an article that examines the calculation central to climate models. As the editor of the APS's newsletter American Physics Jeffrey Marque explains, the global warming debate must be re-opened. "There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not...

Scientists say they have found a workable way of reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere by adding lime to seawater. And they think it has the potential to dramatically reverse CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere, reports Cath O'Driscoll in SCI's Chemistry & Industry magazine published today. Shell is so impressed with the new approach that it is funding an investigation into its economic feasibility. 'We think it's a promising idea,' says Shell's Gilles Bertherin, a coordinator on the project. 'There are potentially huge environmental benefits from addressing climate change – and adding calcium hydroxide to seawater will also mitigate the...

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - U.S. Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA), Chairman of the House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee, today introduced bipartisan federal legislation to advance the development and deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. CCS is a method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by capturing and injecting underground the carbon dioxide emitted from electricity generation plants that use fossil fuels. (snip) "Coal is America's most abundant domestic fuel, and today, coal accounts for more than one-half of the fuel used for electricity generation. Given our large coal reserves, its lower cost in comparison with other fuels, and the inadequate...

The current issue of Physics and Society contains a mathematical proof by Christopher Monckton that there is no “climate crisis.” (report) One might expect intense scientific debate to follow. The opening rounds however, have centered on “discourteous” behavior by administrators of the organization behind the publication. It's gotten personal. Physic and Society is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by The American Physical Society (APS). The Council of the American Physical Society, administrators of APS, added a disclaimer at the top of Monckton's paper, Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered, highlighted in red. This article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its...

Your owner does it. And you do it too. If you deny it, I’m going to say that you are the one that supplied it. Have you figured out what I’m talking about? That’s right, I’m talking about air poopies or, what many of you know it better as, farts. “Bo, why must you bring this up in a family oriented blog?” my readers will ask. To which I must respond, “Because farts make me laugh.” (Experts said the slow digestive system of cows makes them a key producer of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that gets far less public...

Carbon Offsetting Option Continental is committed to promoting environmental responsibility within its culture, which includes helping our customers to respond to concerns about climate change with a carbon offsetting option. We've partnered with Sustainable Travel International ("STI"), a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education and services that support environmental conservation, to provide this option to customers. If you want to leave continental.com to learn more about STI or to purchase carbon offsets from STI for this itinerary, go to sustainabletravelinternational.org/sti_offset_air/flights/c/2. CO2 Offset Calculation for your Continental Airlines itinerary Total Passengers 1 Flight segments VPS SLC VPS SLC Flight type Round...

The bleak report into the future of the Murray-Darling river system found the situation had become "critical". The system, which runs from Queensland in the country's north east to Victoria in the south, irrigates Australia's vast food bowl and drinking water to more than a million people. However, due to rising temperatures and a desperate lack of rain, inflows to the basin are at their lowest ever recorded levels. Climate change minister Penny Wong yesterday said the Murray Darling was "in real trouble". "We've had very low inflows, we've had a very dry June and the focus absolutely has to...