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Todd Stern, now the State Department’s special envoy for climate change, once pushed for the creation of an annual “E8” summit to address environmental issues. As the administration’s point man climate issues, Stern represents the United States in international environmental negotiations. One of his biggest upcoming negotiations will be the annual United Nations Conference on Climate Change, which will take place in Copenhagen this December. As CNSNews reported in April, delegates to the Copenhagen conference will be negotiating a new global climate change treaty. Stern, a veteran of the Clinton administration, was also the U.S. negotiator at the conference in...

The climate “crisis” is a “moral issue that requires serious debate,” Al Gore proclaimed in an April 27 AlGore.com blog post. His conversion to the Anglo-American tradition of robust debate came a mere three days after the ex-VP refused to participate in a congressional hearing with Lord Christopher Monckton, former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Republicans had invited Monckton to counter Gore’s testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. But Gore froze like a terrified deer in headlights, and Chairman Henry Waxman told the UK climate expert he was uninvited. Their hypocritical cowardice simply reflects a recognition...

The House of Representatives will vote Friday(Today) on the so-called “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” -- a.k.a the “Waxman-Markey” global warming bill. But whatever you want to call this legislative atrocity, if enacted into law, it will go down in history as the death knell of the American standard of living and way of life. If you hate America, this bill is for you. After decades of fierce battling between rabid greens -- that is, left-wingers masquerading as “environmentalists” -- and the global warming skeptics, few Americans seem to have bought into the bill’s premise ­ that...

It appears that years of debate about climate change and energy may now come down to a vote on an actual bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES). As I write this, the vote is scheduled for Friday. If it occurs, you will be asked to vote to implement carbon rationing in the United States.   Without regard to party or ideology, I believe that the evidence is clear that this law would be contrary to the public interest. Here is why, in a nutshell: 1.  It would be a terrible deal for American taxpayers. According to the...

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their analysis of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill that had proponents of the bill claiming Americans could save the planet for just $175 per household. That was the figure CBO estimated cap and trade would cost households in 2020 alone.[1]Both the CBO's analysis and the subsequent legislation are troubled: The analysis grossly underestimates economic costs while the legislation will have virtually no impact on climate. Overall, there are a number of basic problems with CBO's analysis: Their allowance cost numbers do not add up; They ignore economic costs such as the decrease...

Science and ideology don't mix. They never have and they never will. The house of cards that is the science behind "climate change" is collapsing at exactly the same time it is being imposed by the Obama administration and Congress as an ideological "truth." America is facing the perfect storm of an imploding scientific theory that will be enforced by the rule of law. Make no mistake: the big bad wolf of truth is about to blow the straw house of global warming to bits. This is why there was a sudden shift, in the last nine months, from the...

WASHINGTON – America’s third largest party urged the U.S. House Tuesday to defeat plans for a $1.9 trillion energy tax hike over eight years. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is attempting to rush H.R. 2454, the Waxman-Markey energy tax bill, to a vote this week. “With unemployment rising above and beyond what President Obama said it would be with the multi-hundred billion dollar stimulus bill, now is not the time to dismantle our economy with a multi-hundred billion dollar energy tax hike,” said William Redpath, Libertarian National Committee Chairman. “Libertarians urge House members to defeat this job-killing tax hike on Americans,”...

ABSTRACT: Democratic leaders in the House have scheduled a Friday vote on a climate change bill that would establish a complex cap-and-trade system to limit the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, a priority for President Obama. The House Rules Committee unveiled the latest version of the bill, which weighs in at 1,201 pages. It features new items such as $7.5 billion in "green bonds" for a new federal financing agency called the Clean Energy Deployment Administration, extra emission allowances for politically powerful rural electric cooperatives, greater flexibility for states that want to use free allowances for mass transit, and tweaks benefiting...

Is an imperfect climate bill (Waxman-Markey) better than no bill at all? Al Gore says yes.To bring environment supporters together, Gore will host a nationwide conference call on June 23 at 8 p.m. ET. The purpose, according to his Repower America e-mail sent to a selected audience, is “to build urgency around this bill and make sure it passes. We have to go to the grassroots – we have to continue building support in communities across the nation.”“As this climate legislation moves before the full Congress this summer, we have an opportunity unlike anything we’ve seen yet,” the e-mail concludes.Gore...

Barr Township, PA (AHN) - Two families who belong to an ultraconservative Amish sect were locked out of their homes Monday over the way they dispose of sewage. The Miller and Swartenzentruver families were ordered out of their homes because they were using an outhouse and spreading the waste on their fields without proper treatment. Building and health officials took the families to court after neighbors expressed fear that the practices would contaminate their fields. The families say the health and building codes violate their religious beliefs. A member of the sect was sentenced in March to 90 days in...

Earlier this month, the Heartland Institute sponsored the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change in New York. The Conference differed from most such events in that it was devoted to science, not politics or propaganda. Heartland has now made the materials presented at the conference available online, here. You can review the agenda, watch videos of the keynote presentations, read transcripts of some of the speeches, and see the Power Points that were presented by the speakers. More information will be posted as it becomes available. These are a few of the many slides that I found interesting. This one,...

As Congress tries to clean up the nation's energy sources and cut gases blamed for global warming, it is struggling to do so in its own backyard. The Capitol Power Plant, a 99-year-old facility that heats and cools the hallowed halls of Congress, still burns coal and accounts for one-third of the legislative branch's greenhouse gas emissions. For a decade, lawmakers have attempted to clean it up. In recent years, Congress has reduced its energy consumption. The steam and chilled-water power plant has become more efficient. It now burns more natural gas and only 35 percent coal, compared with 49...

ABSTRACT: Just as the U.S. gets a new President who promises to reverse years of climate change neglect, with Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore at his side, American environmental experts worry that Europe's resolve on climate change is substantially weakening. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has gone out of her way to show herself as a climate saviour. But those times are over. Now, with heads of state and government from the European Union gathering in Brussels at the end of the week to approve the bloc's climate goals, Merkel has begun singing a different tune. She said that she...

Al Gore does Oprah - was anybody watching?29 11 2008 A guest post by: Russ Steele from NCWatchWe can only hope the most people in the US are shopping on Black Friday and not watching the Oprah Winfrey Show today.  Al Gore has brought his global warming propaganda machine to share with Oprah.  You can find the details on Oprah’s web page.  Here are some of the topics that Gore is pushing:Classic Gore:“Some of the leading scientists are now saying we may have as little as 10 years before we cross a kind of point-of-no-return, beyond which it’s much more difficult...

Abstract: President-elect Barack Obama said attacking global climate change is a "matter of urgency" that will create jobs as he got advice from Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the issue. Obama made clear he would adopt an aggressive approach to global warming when he takes over the White House on January 20. He and Vice President-elect Joe Biden met for nearly two hours with Gore at Obama's presidential transition office in Chicago. Obama hopes addressing climate change can create the kind of jobs that will help pull the U.S. economy out of a...

Obama's World View on Energy and Climate - - In a video shown at a costly, two-day "global warming" jamboree at the Beverly Hills Hotel, hosted by Governor Schwarzenegger of California in November 2008, Barack Obama said: "Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We've seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season. Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken...

Regular readers will recall that not long ago I asked the climate community research community to suggest what climate observations might be observed on decadal time scales that might be inconsistent with predictions from models. While Real Climate has decided to take a pass on this question other scientists and interested observers have taken up the challenge, no doubt with interest added by the recent cooling in the primary datasets of global temperature.

Cool the climate hysteria 'Every generation needs a holier-than-thou, ideological mantra ... to wrap themselves virtuously'Global warming is the gift that keeps on giving to climate hysterics. For those already pre-disposed to being anti-western, anti-development, anti-growth, anti-capitalist and most of all, anti-U.S., it's the perfect propaganda tool. After all, as they screech, the survival of the Earth itself is at stake and they alone are on the side of the angels. They alone care about the legacy we will leave our grandchildren. To this crowd, the rest of us are "climate deniers," in a league with the devil, in the...

Rudyard Griffiths, co-director with Patrick Luciani of The Salon Speakers Series, sent me a copy of Czech President Vaclav Klaus' address delivered at Prague Castle this week. "Future dangers will not come from the same source," said the Czech head of state, speaking at the 60th anniversary of the communist takeover of the former Czechoslovakia. "The ideology will be different. Its essence will nevertheless be identical: an attractive, at first sight noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents about their right to sacrifice a...

Not long ago, I wrote about the hysteria environmentalists cause in order to create “awareness”. Years ago, we were all told we were using way too many paper bags at the supermarket. We were selfish, greedy, and responsible for the cutting down of trees. Now I don’t remember, as a consumer, being responsible for the introduction of paper bags to the supermarkets in the first place, yet we were the ones blamed for their use. We were told plastic bags were the most responsible alternative, and we were forced to comply. According to Wednesday’s Boston Herald, State Sen. Brian A....

Embracing Earth Charter key to environmental salvation Author and U of A professor Colin Soskolne says humans need to smarten up. March 7, 2008 - Edmonton -- Human beings, laments Colin Soskolne, are a "seriously dumb species." Just what kind of defect drives us to destroy the very ecosystems that provide us with sustenance? Why do we turn away from mounting, irrefutable evidence that we are sabotaging our very existence?Such questions are asked in a new collection of essays, called Sustaining Life on Earth: Environmental and Human Health through Global Governance, edited by Soskolne, on the environment and human health."Our...

One of the annoying attributes of global-warming scolds is their inability to practice what they preach. The US Chamber of Commerce produced a very amusing video last month explaining how much in carbon emissions the UN generated by insisting on conducting endless conferences on the issue. Today, the Los Angeles Times takes a look at the travel practices of Arnold Schwarzenegger, another booster of energy-production limits, and notices the stench of hypocrisy: Like many of the Californians he represents, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now spends more than three hours commuting because he lives so far from the office. But his ride...

Do the crime, do the time. That’s the rule in this country; there’s no mommy exception. If there were, environmental radical Briana Waters might not be looking at hard time after her conviction in Tacoma on Thursday on two counts of arson. Waters, a winsome 32-year-old mother, used to a be member of a violent Earth Liberation Front cell known as “The Family.” The Family was into torching other people’s property – including homes – it considered threats to the environment. It did a lot of this. One of its acts of ecoterror was the burning of the University of...

WOODINVILLE, Wash. — Explosive devices were found inside luxury houses set ablaze Monday morning outside of Seattle, and police suspected that a well-known eco-terrorism group ignited the fires. The multi-million-dollar development known as "Street of Dreams" in Woodinville, Wash., burst into flames in the early morning hours, and Snohomish County crews fought to contain the blaze. The Earth Liberation Front, known for violent acts in the name of environmentalism, left a sign at the scene and was suspected to have set fire to the swanky, newly built neighborhood. The Federal Bureau of Investigation released a statement saying that the FBI,...

A statewide cap on driving? Here’s the thing nobody is quite willing to say out loud about implementing California’s climate change law in the land use arena: The state may have to place an overall cap on vehicle miles traveled (VMT), even as it must accommodate more growth. Last Friday at UCLA Extension’s annual Land Use Law and Planning Conference, keynote speaker Anthony Eggert, senior policy advisor at the California Air Resources Board, issued what amounted to a plea for help from the 400 land use practitioners gathered in the room. CARB is charged with implementing AB 32. Land use...

My daughter had trouble sleeping last night. She brought home the latest issue of "GeoTrek", brought to us by The Weekly Reader. On the cover the lead story, "When Temperatures Are Leaving The Artic On Thin Ice". Of course, such an issue on climate "change" wouldn't be complete without pictures of those cute, cuddly polar bears. People are entitled to their opinions, but one would hope that when disseminating information to grade schoolers, that information would be factually correct, not politically correct.

About six weeks ago, I published a column ["Arnold can't give us 'green' cement," also at FR] in a number of newspapers warning that the governor’s dueling promises to radically reduce carbon dioxide emissions while delivering a new era of public works comprised a public policy charade of breathtaking mendacity. Highways, dams and aqueducts require heavy construction equipment and prodigious amounts of concrete that in turn produce enormous amounts of carbon dioxide. I wrote: “The governor is now on the horns of a dilemma of his own making. He must either confront the fact that AB 32 was an intellectually...

ALMOST three quarters of people believe global warming is a 'natural occurrence' and not a result of carbon emissions, a survey claimed today.

What should conservatives do about global warming? Jim Manzi suggests in his June 25 National Review cover story (“Game Plan”) that conservatives embrace junk science and “manage” global climate change so that they can “peel off” 1 percent of the votes from the “opposing coalition” in some future presidential election. Manzi’s is a recipe for social, political and economic disaster – not just for conservatives, but for everyone, with the possible exception of the misanthropic, back-to-nature socialists among us. "It is no longer possible, scientifically or politically, to deny that human activities have very likely increased global temperatures…,” intones Manzi,...

We are living in strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough - irrespective of the fact that in the course of the 20th century the global temperature increased only by 0.6 per cent - for the environmentalists and their followers to suggestradical measures to do something about the weather, and to do it right now. In the past year, Al Gore's so-called "documentary" film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain's - more or less Tony Blair's - Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the Group...

By Tom DeWeese June 13, 2007 American Policy Center Global warming alarmists are a clever bunch. They have very carefully changed the issue from "global warming" to "climate change." Now any change in weather, be it mild winters or cool summers can be attributed to "climate change." Whatever the weather, the news is very bad. One claim threatens massive storms thrashing our communities. Such a threat was an easy sell in 2005 as Katrina was blamed for nearly destroying New Orleans in a hurricane season that seemed without end. Surely it could not be denied that climate change Armageddon was...

A classic dispute before the Air Resources Board, pitting environmentalists against builders over a multibillion-dollar plan to cut diesel pollution, has gone beyond the confines of the ARB and is spilling over into the state budget and the highest levels of the Schwarzenegger administration. Environmentalists have successfully pushed into the 2007-08 Senate budget version a provision that requires builders, with some exceptions, who win new infrastructure-construction contracts to use specially approved exhaust filters to block harmful diesel emissions. The language could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars--directly from the pockets of equipment owners. "The point here is to make...

Who Will Defend Industry from Eco-Terrorism? Tuesday, February 14, 2006 By: Onkar Ghate Man's method of survival--transforming nature to meet his needs--must be defended against environmentalism's attack. The good news: a federal grand jury in Eugene, Oregon, has indicted 11 people on charges that they committed acts of domestic terrorism on behalf of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. Moreover, now one of the FBI's "highest domestic terrorism priorities," according to director Robert S. Mueller III, is to prosecute people who commit crimes "in the name of animal rights or the environment." Nevertheless, it remains worrisome that...

NASA administrator Michael Griffin made headlines last week when he told a National Public Radio interviewer he wasn't sure global warming was a problem. "All I can really do is apologize to all you guys ... I feel badly that I caused this amount of controversy over something like this," said Griffin. The head of NASA told scientists and engineers that he regrets airing his personal views about global warming during a recent radio interview, according to a video of the meeting obtained by The Associated Press. NASA administrator Michael Griffin said in the closed-door meeting Monday at the Jet...

Pelosi wants to pass CO2 bill this year Fri Jun 1, 2007 11:45AM EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rep. Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said on Friday she wanted Congress to pass mandatory caps on heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions this year. "I'd like to see it pass this year," Pelosi said. "Congress will act upon cap-and-trade legislation in this Congress."

MR. GRIFFIN: I have no doubt that global -- that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change. First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does...

SAN FRANCISCO - Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards says a wave of mergers in the oil industry should be investigated by the Justice Department to see what impact they have had on soaring gasoline prices. ADVERTISEMENT During a campaign stop in Silicon Valley Thursday, Edwards planned to berate the oil industry for "anticompetitive actions" and outline an energy plan he says would reduce oil imports "and get us on a path to be virtually petroleum-free within a generation." "Vertically integrated companies like Exxon Mobil own every step of the production process — from extraction to refining to sale at the...

This video has strong language. Be advised. It captures an Al Gore supporter taking a sign from the FreedomWorks Panda and tearing it up. He then littered the sidewalk and told the film maker, “F!@# yourself.” The Panda's sign read, "Stop Pandering to Radical Environmentalists." Here is the video.

A capacity crowd of 1,500 people jammed into Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University last night for Al Gore's speech and book-signing. But the numbers don't matter: Even if Gore were speaking before a sellout crowd at Verizon Center, he would still be the smartest guy in the room. He reminded his listeners of this repeatedly last night. Click here for the rest

A carbon tax is the best, cheapest and most efficient way to combat cataclysmic climate change ___ IF YOU HAVE KIDS, take them to the beach. They should enjoy it while it lasts, because there's a chance that within their lifetimes California's beaches will vanish under the waves. Global warming will redraw the maps of the world. The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that sea levels will rise 7 to 23 inches by the end of the century; as the water gets higher, the sandy beaches that make California a tourist magnet will be washed away. Beachfront real...

EU, Asia Set 2009 Climate Pact DeadlineHAMBURG, Germany (Map, News) - European and Asian foreign ministers agreed to set a 2009 deadline to complete negotiations on a new international climate change pact to limit greenhouse gases, diplomats said Tuesday. Under the agreement, which came during two-day talks here, Asian nations - including China and India - will not have to adhere to binding targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Instead, ministers outlined the responsibilities of richer and poorer nations in combatting climate change, the diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

Fascist Ecology: The "Green Wing" of the Nazi Party and its Historical Antecedents Peter Staudenmaier "We recognize that separating humanity from nature, from the whole of life, leads to humankind’s own destruction and to the death of nations. Only through a re-integration of humanity into the whole of nature can our people be made stronger. That is the fundamental point of the biological tasks of our age. Humankind alone is no longer the focus of thought, but rather life as a whole . . . This striving toward connectedness with the totality of life, with nature itself, a nature into...

Oddly, Bella Pelosi's consiglieres in the Drive-By Media forgot to mention that it was a COLD day in Ilulissat, Greenland when Her Majesty stayed overnight there on Saturday, "observing the global warming". Actually, it was a pretty cold day for May 26 in that part of Greenland ANY year. But I guess it will be a cold day when the MSM actually shares with the peasantry any facts that might throw a monkeywrench in the agenda... May 26 Temperatures for Ilulissat, Greenland high low year 36 30 2007 42 37 2006 35 31 2005 59 41 2004 39 28 2003...

Whether or not blind faith in man-made, catastrophic global warming has become a new religion, many of its adherents, ironically, embrace it with the same type of unquestioning zeal they sloppily attribute to and summarily condemn in Christians. Case in point: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, after leading a congressional delegation to Greenland, declared that she and her fellow travelers saw "firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality, there is just no denying it." Pelosi is also sure the "global warming" is caused by human beings. She said, "It wasn't caused by the people of Greenland; it was caused by...

I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train By David Evans Posted on 5/28/2007 [Subscribe or Tell Others] [A version of tihs article was previously blogged on Mises.org here, and inspired a spirited debate. The author reworked the piece for the Mises.org front page. The blog item remains the same.] I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened that case....

Green group sues Canada over greenhouse gases By Randall Palmer 2 hours, 37 minutes ago OTTAWA (Reuters) - Environmental group Friends of the Earth Canada sued the Canadian government on Tuesday for not meeting its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The legal action, filed in the Federal Court in Ottawa, was the first lawsuit against a country for breaching Kyoto, the environmentalists said. "We must see an end to important programs being dismantled, terminated and slashed -- all part of the pattern of Kyoto denial by the federal government," Beatrice Olivastri, head of Friends of...

BERLIN - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday she led a congressional delegation to Greenland, where lawmakers saw "firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality," and she hoped the Bush administration would consider a new path on the issue. After meeting with German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, Pelosi praised Berlin for its leadership on the issue. Her trip comes ahead of next week's Group of Eight summit and a climate change meeting next month involving the leading industrialized nations and during a time of increased debate over what should succeed the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international treaty that caps...

Rich must pay bulk of climate change bill: Oxfam By Jeremy Lovell 37 minutes ago Coping with the ravages of global warming will cost $50 billion a year, and the rich nations who caused most of the pollution must pay most of the bill, aid agency Oxfam said on Tuesday. The call, barely 10 days before a crucial Group of Eight (G8) summit in Germany which has climate change at its core, is likely to make already tense negotiations even tougher. The United States, which Oxfam says must foot 44 percent of the annual $50 billion bill, is rejecting attempts...

German environment minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) sharply attacked the US-government because of its behaviour in the climate politics shortly before the G8-Gipfel. In the "Saarbrücker newspaper" (Tuesday edition), Gabriel confirmed that the USA blocks the German design of a termination explanation previously. The minister gave notice on to hold " the debatable points " if needed open until the conversations in Heilendam. Then the heads of state and heads of the government themselves would have to confess. "If they really want to block, it must become clear, who carries the the responsibility. Gabriel named the climate change a "dramatic danger"...

  Mironov Tells Kyoto Experts The World Is Getting CoolerBy Simon ShusterStaff WriterSergei Mironov ST. PETERSBURG -- It was a failure from the start. Russia's biggest conference on the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to fight global warming, began with a speech from a top official who denied that global warming even exists. "In reality, the scientific basis for the protocol is fairly weak," Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov told a crowded opening session of the two-day conference Thursday, which drew more than 200 environmental experts and carbon market participants from around the world. "In the opinion of many experts, the...