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As readers may know, National Review and I have an impending court date in Washington with Dr Michael E Mann, creator of the global-warming “hockey stick” and self-proclaimed Nobel laureate, for the hitherto unknown crime of “defamation of a Nobel prize recipient“. (You can contribute to our legal defense fund here; also, the TV rights to my forthcoming white Bronco chase are still available – we’ll be using a hybrid, of course). Forced by circumstance to take an interest in the latest developments on the climate-change “consensus”, I was interested to see this story, in which The New York Times...

(CNSNews.com) – A group of House Democrats labeling themselves the Safe Climate Caucus held a press conference today to warn that if Congress does not address global warming, the country could face dire consequences, including detrimental effects to California wines and an end to Vermont skiing. One Democratic representative even worried that global warming could destroy the state of Maryland. “If we do nothing about what is happening, it will destroy our economy, it will destroy our state, and it will have a broad impact not just here in this country but around the world,” Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.)...

In his recent inaugural address, President Obama promised that “we will respond to the threat of climate change, ..... But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet…” When pressed on the specifics of what the president means to do on climate, his spokesperson replied: “We...

A reanalysis of U.S. surface station temperatures has been performed using the recently WMO-approved Siting Classification System devised by METEO-France’s Michel Leroy. The new siting classification more accurately characterizes the quality of the location in terms of monitoring long-term spatially representative surface temperature trends. The new analysis demonstrates that reported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled, with 92% of that over-estimation resulting from erroneous NOAA adjustments of well-sited stations upward. The paper is the first to use the updated siting system which addresses USHCN siting issues and data adjustments. The new improved assessment, for the years 1979 to 2008,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the first-ever regulations aimed at reducing the gases blamed for global warming. The rules, which were challenged by industry groups and various states, will reduce emissions of six heat-trapping gases from large industrial facilities such as factories and power plants, as well as from automobile tailpipes.

Jeff Masters and I recently received an interesting email from Ken Towe who has been researching the NCDC historical temperature database and came across what appeared to be some startling inconsistencies. Namely that the average state temperature records used in the current trends analysis by the NCDC (National Climate Data Center) do not reflect the actual published records of such as they appeared in the Monthly Weather Reviews and Climatological Data Summaries of years past. Here is why. ------------------------------------------- Yet as we have seen time and time again, with the exception of a -0.05°C cooling applied for UHI (which is...

(Reuters) - Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney broke with Republican orthodoxy on Friday by saying he believes that humans are responsible, at least to some extent, for climate change. "I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that," he told a crowd of about 200 at a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire. "It's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors."

Good afternoon. David's friend and chief meteorologist of the Power of 5 weather network at WEWS Cleveland, Mark Johnson, has recently been drawing fire for his claims, “Earth hasn’t warmed in 15 years” story on newsnet5.com (http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/weather/weather_news/United-Kingdom-Meteorology-Office-declares-Earth-hasnt-warmed-in-15-years). The group, “thinkprogress.org”, began the criticism. The group “Forecast the Facts” on Facebook, (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Forecast-the-Facts/290379014343508) also joined in the crusade. Just when things were just staying on one meteorologist, they decided to go after another Cleveland meteorologist, WJW FOX 8 weather, Andre Bernier. Andre’s story related to the same topic titled, “Serious global…COOLING?” (http://andrebernier.com/?p=430).

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years. The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century. Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world...

The Wall Street Journal has a letter today signed by 16 noteworthy scientists who wanted to go on the record about global warming. What they had to say constitutes today’s Global Warming Oops Moment, one of those delightful public displays that reveal the emperor has no clothes. We quote:...

Climate change subscribers say the fight against global warming will require younger soldiers. On Monday, the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit group that denounces intelligent design and supports an evolution-only curriculum in the classroom, will expand its mission. The organization of scientists, anthropologists and others is turning its attention to climate change, and it will mount an aggressive effort to teach the nation’s schoolchildren that climate change is real and is being driven by human activity.

In retrospect, we probably should have paid more attention when, around 2005, activists shifted their primary vocabulary from global warming to climate change to describe the impact of human beings on this biosphere we call the Earth. Both phrases had been around for a while, of course. Global warming got its modern start back in 1975, when the journal Science published a feature asking, “Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” In one form or another, climate change has been in use since the physicist Joseph Fourier wrote of the greenhouse effect in the 1820s. A child...

Breaking news: two years after the Climategate, a further batch of emails has been leaked onto the internet by a person – or persons – unknown. And as before, they show the "scientists" at the heart of the Man-Made Global Warming industry in a most unflattering light. Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Ben Santer, Tom Wigley, Kevin Trenberth, Keith Briffa – all your favourite Climategate characters are here, once again caught red-handed in a series of emails exaggerating the extent of Anthropogenic Global Warming, while privately admitting to one another that the evidence is nowhere near as a strong as they'd...

Five hours ago, FOIA left a link on my blog to a Russian site (I had been away). Emails and comments are streaming through to let me know that the Tallbloke, and Jeff ID have also got them. Tallbloke has opened it and checked for viruses. Jeff ID confirms there are thousands of emails readable and 220,000 more locked behind a password. (H/t Foia (!) Ripper,  hunter, RoryFOMR,  Janet J,… thanks!) Assuming (I stress) assuming that these are indeed real, and not an elaborate hoax, wow.It appears it’s all on again. The sordid details, honest thoughts, and human folly on...

A computer hacking in Russia has lead to a release of more undermining info about "Climate." Here's one tidbit: "Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels."

Readers may recall my previous essay where I pointed out how Mr. Gore’s Climate 101 Video, used in his “24 hours of climate reality”, had some serious credibility issues with editing things to make it appear as if they had actually performed the experiment, when they clearly did not. It has taken me awhile to replicate the experiment. Delays were a combination of acquisition and shipping problems, combined with my availability since I had to do this on nights and weekends. I worked initially using the original techniques and equipment, and I’ve replicated the Climate 101 experiment in other ways...

It has been over a week now since the Gore-a-thon aka “24 hours of climate reality”. The front page of the Climate Reality Project has changed from “live mode” to offering clips of video shown during the 24 hour presentation. Note the circled video on the front page below Mr. Gore. I’ve discovered that by watching carefully it reveals an “inconvenient truth” of the worst kind......

Gore's climate reality campaign kicks off AAP September 16, 2011 12:15AM AN internet campaign spearheaded by former US vice president Al Gore to raise awareness about climate change has begun airing its day-long broadcast around the world. The project, called 24 Hours of Reality, features a multimedia presentation viewable online that showcases how extreme weather events like floods, fires and storms are linked to climate change. By 11pm (AEST) the live-streamed broadcasts delivered in 13 languages, viewable at climaterealityproject.org, had drawn more than three million views, organisers said. The hourly broadcasts are scheduled in various locations around the world, including...

Gore in 24-hour broadcast to convert climate skeptics Photo 8:10am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Former President Al Gore will renew his 30-year campaign to convince skeptics of the link between climate change and extreme weather events this week in a 24-hour global multi-media event. "24 Hours of Reality" will broadcast a presentation by Al Gore every hour for 24 hours across 24 different time zones from Wednesday to Thursday, with the aim of convincing climate change deniers and driving action against global warming among households, schools and businesses. The campaign also asks people to hand over control of their social...

SYDNEY (AP) -- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is calling for urgent action on climate change. Ban lashed out at climate change skeptics during a speech Thursday at the University of Sydney and said science has proven climate change is real.

Calder's Updates Nigel Calder takes the pulse of science, as the author of Magic Universe and Einstein's Universe. He checks predictions of the past half-century, to see how they worked out. And his hand is on the brow of frenzied climatology, as a co-author of The Chilling Stars: A Cosmic View of Climate Change.   CERN experiment confirms cosmic ray action Climate Change – News and CommentsThe global warmists’ dam breaks A graph they'd prefer you not to notice. Tucked away near the end of online supplementary material, and omitted from the printed CLOUD paper in Nature, it clearly shows...

Nature Journal of Science, ranked as the world’s most cited scientific periodical, has just published the definitive study on Global Warming that proves the dominant controller of temperatures in the Earth’s atmosphere is due to galactic cosmic rays and the sun, rather than by man. One of the report’s authors, Professor Jyrki Kauppinen, summed up his conclusions regarding the potential for man-made Global Warming: “I think it is such a blatant falsification.” The research was conducted by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which invented the World Wide Web, built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and now has...

About six weeks ago Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama Huntsville (a center for lots of NASA activity and climate research) published an important new paper with William Braswell in the Journal of Remote Sensing entitled “On the Misdiagnosis of Climate Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance.” Translated from the scientific lingo, the paper essentially argues that discrepancies between what the climate models say should be happening and what we actually observe happening (namely, the pause in warming over the last decade) means we still don’t have a complete picture of cloud behavior. (This issue is...

'RATES of mental illnesses including depression and post-traumatic stress will increase as a result of climate change, a report to be released today says. The paper, prepared for the Climate Institute, says loss of social cohesion in the wake of severe weather events related to climate change could be linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse'

In a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) earlier this month, climate researchers have found that another prediction in the UN’s IPCC reports — what Al Gore likes to call “settled science” — is simply wrong, and that IPCC’s predicted rise in sea level over the next century is likely not going to happen.

National Science Foundation inspector general closes its investigation into Penn State climatologist Michael Mann after failing to find "any direct evidence of research misconduct." The National Science Foundation has closed its investigation into Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann after finding no evidence of scientific misconduct related to his research.

It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim. Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain. This highly speculative scenario is one of several described by scientists at Nasa and Pennsylvania State University that, while considered unlikely, they say could play out were humans and alien life to make contact at...

University of Georgia researchers recently joined a national team of scientists working on a five-year, $4.1-million U.S. Department of Agriculture grant designed around climate change’s effects on animal agriculture. “In 2009, poultry, beef cattle, dairy and swine accounted for nearly $5 billion of the agricultural value in Georgia. It is important to keep our animal producers informed of practices that are environmentally sound, climatically compatible and economically viable.” The goal of the USDA grant is to help livestock and poultry producers adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change, especially as they face new weather patterns or regulations put...

Tim Blair recently posted this list of things that the media have trumpeted as being the “first casualties of climate change”. I thought it would be an interesting exercise to check the veracity of each story – but what I was not expecting is that every story up until 2010 (after which some of the claims are too recent to verify one way or another) has either been completely debunked, or has since had some serious doubts placed on it. So the following examples have not been cherry picked – it’s a quick analysis of every claim made about “the...

Although Arctic sea ice appears fated to melt away as the climate continues to warm, the ice may temporarily stabilize or somewhat expand at times over the next few decades, new research indicates. The computer modeling study, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, reinforces previous findings by other research teams that the level of Arctic sea ice loss observed in recent decades cannot be explained by natural causes alone, and that the ice will eventually disappear during summer if climate change continues. But in an unexpected new result, the NCAR research team found that Arctic ice under...

Should energy consumers pay extra taxes to fund government-mandated and subsidized renewable energy technologies? "Absolutely yes," says John Bryson, President Obama's nominee for Commerce Secretary. He made the remark at a meeting of the Commonwealth Club of California in 2009 and went on to extol the virtues of hidden rates in California, a state encumbered with some of the nation's highest electricity and unemployment rates. Bryson, retired CEO of the electric utility Southern California Edison (SCE) and its parent company Edison International, excused the practice, saying, "That's been a part of the regulatory environment for the investor-owned utilities for as...

Two stories have dropped that may blow big holes in the anthropogenic global warming argument — one of which is literally sky-high.  Forbes reports on a peer-reviewed study that uses NASA data to show that the effects of carbon-based warming have been significantly exaggerated.  In fact, much of the heat goes out into space rather than stay trapped in the atmosphere, an outcome that started long before AGW alarmists predicted: NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new...

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice this week issued a blistering rebuke of Russia, China and other countries that blocked the Security Council from adopting a statement linking the threat of climate change to international peace and security. During the Security Council’s first formal debate in four years on the environment Wednesday, Russia was not swayed by Western nations led by Germany, this month's council president, insisting that the 15-nation panel needs to respond to the effects that climate change has had on Sudan's Darfur region and in Somalia, where the United Nations say famine had struck two...

Climate change sceptics should get less BBC coverage and be challenged 'more vigorously', says report on science output Broadcasters to give less airtime to critics of majority view By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 12:44 PM on 19th July 2011 Opponents of global warming should be given less coverage by the BBC than the climate change lobby, the corporation will rule. The BBC is set to publish a report tomorrow on its science output announcing changes to rules on impartiality. Following the overhaul, programme makers and broadcasters will be compelled to give less prominence to those who oppose the...

Some of the Great Lakes' treasured national parks are showing ill effects of climate change that are likely to worsen in coming decades, from shoreline erosion to decline of certain wildlife and plant species, a former park system administrator said Wednesday. Without changes in public policies and personal habits that pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the parks could lose qualities that attract visitors and support unique ecosystems, Stephen Saunders, former deputy assistant secretary of the Interior Department, said in a report released by two advocacy groups. "Human disruption of the climate is the greatest threat ever to America's national...

Climate Conversations - Turning environmental destruction into a crime against peace LONDON (AlertNet) - Criminalising 'ecocide' - the destruction of ecosystems - is an idea that "just has to come," says David Hart, an environmental lawyer and advocate of 'wild law'. "[Ecocide] is turning something which humans as a whole regard as an obvious crime into something that is internationally recognised," he said in an interview with AlertNet at an event held in London by Net Impact recently. At the the event, environmental lawyer Polly Higgins outlined the proposed law of ecocide, which she says should be recognised by the...

The Kentucky Utilities Electric Power Plant in Ghent, shown here in a 2002 file photo, is one of some 600 coal-fired power plants in the US. At least 86 older plants will be forced into early retirement as a result of a new EPA rule, unveiled Thursday. The EPA’s tough new air pollution regulations will force scores of older, dirty, inefficient plants to shut down. Those that remain open must dramatically clean up their emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency hopes these and other measures will improve air quality across 27 states. Effects should appear relatively quickly. Under the new Cross-State...

As time passes the global warming fiasco becomes more and more understandable, and more incredulous, more unbelievable. Hard-nosed physical evidence of man-made global warming has yet to be provided by the promoters of warming, even after a nominal $80 billion dollars have been spent in the attempt to do so. Since some of the ideas for mitigating man-made global warming (yet to be demonstrated) involve trillion dollar measures, it is crucially important that we get the science right. If we don’t get the science right, we’ll never get the policy right.

The NASA scientist who once claimed the Bush administration tried to "silence" his global warming claims is now accused of receiving more than $1.2 million from the very environmental organizations whose agenda he advocated. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington, D.C., a group claims NASA is withholding documents that show James Hansen failed to comply with ethics rules and financial disclosures regarding substantial compensation he earned outside his $180,000 taxpayer-paid position as director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "Hansen's office appears to be somewhat of a rogue operation. It's clearly a taxpayer-funded global warming advocacy organization," said...

California's largest utility promises its customers green salvation through its ClimateSmart program. For every bit of energy a Pacific Gas & Electric ratepayer uses - from turning on a vacuum cleaner to powering up a computer or heating up an oven - a little part of a tree or forest is saved to erase the carbon sins of the customer. The voluntary program costs participants about $60 a year. But the company isn't telling its customers one crucial fact: Those forests were purchased years ago by a Virginia conservation group that used nearly $50 million in loans and grants from...

Industry lobbyists behind ‘scientific’ claims in IPCC press releaseThe entire world will soon depend on renewable energy so governments ought to start subsidizing these industries immediately. So said the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a report released Tuesday. The study’s conclusion was such a blockbuster that the panel issued a press release last month previewing the finding. “Close to 80 percent of the world’s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies a new report shows,” it proclaimed. Since this statement was supposedly based on actual scientific...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – For years, scientists have been predicting the Sun would by around 2012 move into solar maximum, a period of intense flares and sunspot activity, but lately a curious calm has suggested quite the opposite. According to three studies released in the United States on Tuesday, experts believe the familiar sunspot cycle may be shutting down and heading toward a pattern of inactivity unseen since the 17th century. The signs include a missing jet stream, fading spots, and slower activity near the poles, said experts from the National Solar Observatory and Air Force Research Laboratory. "This is highly...

It’s official: a new Ice Age is on its way. In what has been described as “the science story of the century”, heavyweight US solar physicists have announced that the sun is heading for a prolonged period of low activity. This makes global cooling a much more plausible prospect in the next few decades than global warming. Indeed, it might even usher in a lengthy period of climate grimness such as we saw during the Maunder Minimum (when Ice Fairs were held on the Thames) or the Dalton Minimum (which brought us such delights as the 1816 Year Without A...

It seemed like a straightforward question on a second-tier issue: Would Mitt Romney disavow the science behind global warming? The putative Republican presidential front-runner, eager to prove his conservative bona fides, could easily have said what he knew many in his party’s base wanted to hear. Instead, the former Massachusetts governor stuck to the position he has held for many years — that he believes the world is getting warmer and that humans are contributing to it. Romney’s answer to a question about climate change last Friday during his first town hall meeting since announcing his second presidential campaign allowed...

(CNSNews.com) – John Bryson, President Obama’s nominee to head the Commerce Department, told a University of California Berkeley audience in 2010 that a cap and trade system was a good way to hide a carbon tax from the public. Bryson, formerly the CEO of Edison International, said that a carbon tax was the new “third rail” of politics because politicians wouldn’t want to tax energy directly. “I think it’s still unlikely there’ll be a carbon tax bill because I think in the end a very high percentage of the members of Congress think it’s kind of the third rail to...

Christie pulling N.J. out of greenhouse gas pact By Maya Rao INQUIRER TRENTON BUREAU TRENTON - Gov. Christie said today New Jersey will withdraw from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade agreement between 10 northeast states, by the end of the year. The governor acknowledged that humans play a role in global warming but said the program does not address the problem. "This program is not effective in reducing greenhouse gases and is unlikely to be in the future," said the governor, standing alongside Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin at a statehouse news conference. The goal of...

Tackling climate change just got a little bit easier, with some help from federal funding. The Environmental Protection Agency recently awarded grants to five local and tribal governments in California for projects that include reducing waste, improving energy efficiency and planting drought-resistant gardens. Nationwide, 50 communities will receive funds for localized efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, totaling $20 million in two years. While there isn't a national target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the state's Global Warming Solutions Act (known as AB 32) mandates a reduction to 85 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. In the Bay Area, Alameda...

The public is increasingly skeptical of global warming and far more worried about the economy than the environmentWhat the heck went wrong?" That, apparently, is the question roiling the environmental community as it realizes that the fight against climate change has fizzled. As Brad Plumer writes in the New Republic, everything was looking great in 2008 for a sweeping effort to make good on candidate Barack Obama's pledge to start turning back the rising oceans. The Democrats held Congress. Both John McCain and Mr. Obama had promised to push for capping carbon emissions. Corporations had gotten on board. Al Gore...

New calculations applied to a U.S. Senate report reveal the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to combat global warming through regulation of greenhouse gases would theoretically take over $700 trillion, seven times the world's gross production, to drop the earth's temperature only 1 degree Celsius. The report released last year by Sen. James Ihnofe, R-Okla., then-ranking minority member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, quotes the EPA's own stats and experts to break down the numbers, including one researcher who called the Obama administration's plan "absurd." Citing a study by the EPA's Dr. Linda M. Chappell and various...

Scientists and journalists debate why Americans still resist the consensus among research organizations that humans are warming the globe As glaciers melt and island populations retreat from their coastlines to escape rising seas, many scientists remain baffled as to why the global research consensus on human-induced climate change remains contentious in the U.S. The frustration revealed itself during a handful of sessions at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., this past weekend, coming to a peak during a Friday session, "Science without Borders and Media Unbounded." Near the forum’s conclusion, Massachusetts...