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United Nations boss Ban Ki-moon and his top deputies gathered in secret last year to chart the future course of humanity through “sustainable development,” a controversial concept the UN equates with “saving the planet” in what would ultimately entail a radical and complete transformation of human civilization. But even though the erection of a global so-called “green-economy” regime is a top UN priority, leaked minutes of the meeting revealed that the term itself remains undefined. The closed-door session, held last October in Long Island, focused mainly on using the upcoming UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UN CSD) in Rio de...

That’s the droll title of an article by Patrick Michaels at the prize-winning science blog Watts Up With That. Michaels is having fun while making some trenchant observations about the uproar surrounding a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “No Need To Panic About Global Warming.” It’s by sixteen concerned scientists, including the estimable Richard Lindzen of MIT, who were aiming their words, at least in part, at the current presidential candidates (hello, Newt Gingrich). This article apparently set off a @#$%storm in the already beleaguered warmist community, including the NY Times‘ leading enivro blogger, The Guardian, a gaggle of “climate...

The debate over global warming is now entering the classroom and its proponents are alarmed. It seems the “dogma” of the existence of global warming is running into problems as boards of education in several states have established a standard that requires the presentation of climate change “denial” as a valid scientific position. Legislators in other states have introduced bills that require equal time for climate change skeptics’ views in the classroom. With new national science standards from kindergarten through twelfth grade due by the end of 2012, we can expect to see a heated debate over climate change appear...

Actually, a couple of funny things happened to global warming’s Vatican, as Bret Stephens notes in a must-read Wall Street Journal essay: ClimateGate and the world’s financial meltdown: The U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada and the EU have all but confirmed they won’t be signing on to a new Kyoto. The Chinese and Indians won’t make a move unless the West does. The notion that rich (or formerly rich) countries are going to ship $100 billion every year to the Micronesias of the world is risible, especially after they’ve spent it all on Greece. Cap and trade is a dead letter...

(South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu speaks during a climate justice rally held in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, Nov 27, 2011, ahead of the official start or a two-week international climate conference with about 190 countries beginning upcoming Monday. The U.N.'s top climate official, Christiana Figueres said Sunday she expects governments to make a long-delayed decision on commitments to reduce emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases, amid fresh warnings of possible climate-related disasters in the future.(AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)DURBAN, South Africa (AP) — Global warming already is causing suffering and conflict in Africa, from drought in Sudan and Somalia to flooding in...

"Obama had raised about $89 million for his own re-election campaign. That's nearly 31 times the amount Gingrich raised during the same period. It's even more than 2.7 times the amount raised by Romney..." While he has surged in recent polls, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich may be missing one key ingredient for making a late-stage power play for the GOP presidential nomination: money. In years past, political candidates have certainly been erroneously written off by pundits and the press. Notably, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was widely thought to have fizzled long before he ultimately surged back to life and...

Modern science used to pride itself on its insistence on doubting everything and establishing the truth of things based on empirical data. Often the lone scientist would work hard against the common assumptions and make great breakthroughs and discoveries. It seems such ideas about science are becoming old-fashioned and romantic. Today’s scientists are part of university establishments that must worry about their bottom line and prestige. Sometimes it is simply too controversial to doubt. Scientists are treated no different from other academics and are encouraged to tow the politically- or ecologically-correct party line to ensure their future careers. The most...

As Chris Christie continues to play footsie with a presidential run, we should be aware that the New Jersey governor is yet another example of the politician as scientific know-nothing, warning of the dangers of anthropogenic global warming. Christie — a graduate of the University of Delaware in political science [sic] with a law degree from Seton Hall — has decided global warming is real. How does he know? Says Christie: “I’m certainly not a scientist, which is the first problem. So I can’t claim to fully understand all of this, certainly not after just a few months of...

An effort to "expose" climate change skeptics will instead show that Gore is a charlatan. Unfortunately for Al Gore, but fortunately for the rest of us, much of what we will hear in his 24 Hours of Reality extravaganza starting Wednesday evening is pure fantasy. Gore is completely wrong when he tells us that the science of climate change is settled. If his “Climate Reality Project” actually did promote climate realism, he would tell us that the science is in a period of negative discovery — the more we learn, the more we realize we do not understand about this,...

They say that everyone talks about the weather, and no one ever does anything about it-- but since the mid-1980's we've been expected to do things about it. Two generations of children have grown up with the mantra that putting the empty soda in the right trash can is all that stands between them and the destruction of the planet, not to mention all the dead dolphins, paddling polar bears and crying indians. There are just too many people, we're told, and too many of them are buying things and eating things and living too long. And all that...

Can anyone doubt that Walter Russell Mead is now our country’s most authoritative and brilliant essayist? In a series of three lengthy columns — two of which are now out — Mead takes on and destroys any pretentions to credibility that Al Gore may still have had. They appear on Mead’s blog at The American Interest. You can read part I here, and part deux, as he calls it, here. Let me whet your appetite by reproducing the best paragraph from his first entry. In part one, Mead takes up the issue of Gore’s well noted hypocrisy. He writes: But...

The cold spring apparently has slowed sales of Minnesota fishing licenses. Sales through Monday are down 21 percent compared with the same time last year. "We think it's likely the cool spring weather,'' said Ed Boggess, DNR Fish and Wildlife Division director. "And last year we had an early, warm spring and sold a lot of licenses early.'' Sales are down just 9 percent from 2009 and are up about 1.5 percent from 2008, which was another cold spring, Boggess noted. The DNR had sold 344,189 licenses through Monday. Last year, the agency had sold 435,270 licenses.

Gore to young advocates: Battle industry lobbyists to turn the tide on climate By Ben Geman - 04/15/11 09:10 PM ET Al Gore told young green energy advocates Friday that progress on global warming must come from a strong grassroots movement that can counter the oil and coal lobbies, which he alleged have “paralyzed” governments. Gore – who compared action on global warming to the Civil Rights movement – was the keynote speaker at Power Shift 2011, a Washington, D.C. conference attended largely by college students. “It’s true that governments by and large have been politically paralyzed because the energy...

The NASA scientist at the heart of the global warming fiasco seems set to stir more controversy after declaring in an op ed piece for The South China Morning Post and a personally published follow-up that American democracy is not competent to deal with global warming, and communist China now represents the world’s “best hope”. In the op ed piece for the Chinese newspaper, which he entitled Chinese Leadership Needed to Save Humanity (published as The Price of Change) Hansen placed the blame for the vast majority of Co2 emissions supposedly causing global warming on his home country of America,...

Can scientists become "Deadly Ninjas of Science Communication"? That was proposed by Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War Against Science," and a member of the board of directors of the American Geophysical Union. Mooney advocated this idea in a presentation at the Union's December 13-17 fall meeting in San Francisco. Mooney is concerned that global warming skeptics are getting the upper hand in the ongoing debate....

In the midst of a lawsuit before the State Supreme Court between Virginia's Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, and the University of Virginia (UVA), the school has received yet another Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the same materials which prompted the current lawsuit. Virginia Republican Delegate Bob Marshall of Prince William Co., the public interest law firm American Tradition Institute, and federal attorney David Schnare are asking the university to turn over documents they say contain important global warming research used by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to mold environmental policies worldwide. Cuccinelli originally requested the...

It's impossible to open a magazine on any topic anymore without encountering a barrage of "tips" on how to live a greener life. Cooking magazines tell you how to carry on eco-friendly cooking. Computer magazines warn readers about the dangers of "vampire power" from their plugged in devices. Business publications lecture on carbon neutral business practices. Entertainment mags offer cackle on about celebrities and their ecologically friendly mansions. Anyone a century from now who picks up a present day magazine will assume that the people of the early 21st century spent all their time sorting compost and calculating their carbon...

The global warmists are essentially pagans for whom the worship of Gaia, an Earth goddess If you want to know the core beliefs of those who gathered in Cancun, Mexico, for yet another Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conference, you need look no further than the way one of its days began with a prayer to Ixchel, a Mayan Moon goddess. The global warmists are essentially pagans for whom the worship of Gaia, an Earth goddess of Greek origin, symbolizes their rejection of the Judeo-Christian values embraced by Western civilization. It is, by now, a cliché to call environmentalism...

Another United Nations Climate Change Conference has come and gone. This year’s Cancun Climate Conference didn’t look to be a repeat of the disaster that was Copenhagen. For one thing, the UN chose the sunny, party beach capital of Mexico over the stately, old-world (and, oh yeah, cold) city of Copenhagen. The attitude at the conference was different too. Where the delegates arrived at Copenhagen with dreams of sweeping change – dreams which, for the most part, turned into shattered illusions – they descended on Cancun with smaller expectations in mind. And yet, even with what seemed like less at...

As the United Nations opened its latest conference on global warming, Mother Nature sent snowstorms and freezing temperatures that disrupted travel all across Europe and much of the Northern Hemisphere. Even Cancun, Mexico's sunny resort city that hosted the confab, was not spared the chill. The UN summit, known as COP16 (the 16th Conference of Parties on global warming), concluded Saturday morning after an all-night marathon session. Cancun may not have experienced blizzards and ice, but it did, nevertheless, get hammered with record low temps for the month of December. Meteorologist Anthony Watts, who runs the global warming skeptic blog...

Former Vice President Al Gore admitted Monday that his pivotal 1994 Senate vote for ethanol subsidies was bad policy but good politics. That says a lot about the reality of environmentalism in government. As the ethanol tax credit comes up for renewal in Congress on Dec. 31, it's worth noting it only came about because the vice president cast the decisive 51st vote in favor of it in 1994. At the time, he packaged it as a big move to preserve the environment in a market-friendly, sustainable manner, and for years defended his vote because it was supposedly good for...

Here's a question to the global warming deniers who sarcastically called me a dope during last winter's back-to-back-to-back blizzards on the East Coast: Is it hot enough for you now? As temperatures topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking records in the nation's capital, and the pavement turned into a skillet, my thoughts raced back to the frigid days of last winter's "snow-pocalypse." Those were the days, you may recall, when Sen. James Inhofe, a proud Oklahoma Republican friend of the oil industry, and his family built an igloo on Capitol Hill and christened it "Al Gore's New Home." I might now...

It's just a wasteful, reckless, unnecessary, ozone-destroying exercise Last Sunday, they ran the Coca-Cola 600 and the Indianapolis 500. That's about 1,100 unnecessary miles of tire treads wearing thin. My friends, auto racing is a road to nowhere. Ten years into a new millennium, it's time to put the exhaust pipes into an antique shop. It's time we engage in a new age of enlightenment, recognize auto racing as obsolete and end the around-the-oval madness. At the risk of being tossed out of the sports fraternity -- Who am I kidding? I was tossed out years ago; why do you...

Pity the poor Climategaters. The staid were played. Gentlepersons were violated. And the billion-dollar global warming science complex can't compete with spunky skeptics. Those are some of the complaints registered in newly disclosed emails among members of the National Academy of Sciences, whose messages were mysteriously made public last week via the Washington Times. Some call it Climategate II; Whinergate is more apropos. Among their electronically-sent lamentations: • "Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," said Paul...

The Earth is warming, which is changing weather patterns and often causing localized weather volatility as opposed to localized warming. Extreme storms, droughts, intense rains, unusual amounts of snow or lack of snow are all signs of global warming. People know the weather is getting less predictable. They call it “weird weather.” This quote from Jonathan Rose, who is on the Natural Resources Defense Council, is utter scientific and factual rubbish. Consider his comment that, “People know the weather is getting less predictable.” No they don’t, however, they are confused because they know weather forecasts beyond 72 hours never were...

When I went around to the barnyard to look in on Henny-Penny, founder and recording secretary of The Holy Order of The Sky is Falling (Al Gore, Pontiff), I found her pacing about, with a steely look in her eyes. Me: You don't look happy. Ms. H-P: I'm not. I'm a free-range chicken and I am ranging this yard to think out a solution to a new threat to the human race. One of the Pontiff's people just called to tell me about a molecule that people overdose on and die of every day. We'll have to get the EPA...

More than 100 manatees have been found dead in Florida waters since the beginning of the year, mostly victims of a nearly two-week cold snap. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says the preliminary cause of death for 77 of the endangered animals is cold stress. They were found from Jan. 1 through Jan. 23.

Al Gore won an Academy Award and the Nobel Prize for his well-known movie about global warming. It is shown in public schools as a routine part of science classes. There is only one problem with using the film as a documentary. It isn't one; it's an opinion piece. Gore himself admits there was a certain amount of exaggeration in the film which he deemed necessary to raise public awareness of the dangers of global warming. How much exaggeration? Only several orders of magnitude. The movie depicted floods sweeping across Manhattan as New York City was swamped by a rise...

South Florida is America's most vulnerable community to climate change. While Miami-Dade County, a pioneer and national leader, has made strides in addressing climate-change mitigation and adaptation, we now are moving toward a more resilient and sustainable future. Miami-Dade County is developing a community-sustainability plan called GreenPrint to achieve aggressive energy- and greenhouse-gas reduction goals. This community plan, which does not know city or county boundaries, is being developed to reaffirm and synchronize our government and community goals, initiatives and measures. It will leverage existing sustainability goals and initiatives and develop new ones where needed. In September, I convened the...

Although a vote on "climate change" legislation is being pushed into 2010, a leading think tank is warning people to stay on their toes. Prospects are looking dim for cap-and-trade legislation in 2009. In conjunction, America's failure to pass the legislation is having a negative effect on the upcoming Copenhagen climate treaty talks. But Ben Lieberman of The Heritage Foundation warns concerned citizens that the fight is not over. "Those of us who are concerned about the global-warming legislation as it currently stands need to constantly be vigilant," he urges. "But it does look like things are being pushed into...

Today's report about political developments surrounding the global warming issue is brought to you by the letter "C." 1. C is for "carbon dioxide." Environmental extremists and major news journalists call this gas that is exhaled by all animals, and that is food for plants, a dangerous pollutant. Yet we would all die without it. That makes me sad. 2. C is for "climate change." It used to be called global warming, which many activists with a socialist bent warned would bring more catastrophic weather events, elevating seas, and economic ruin. They said because humans continue to produce greater amounts...

According to the latest Pew Research Poll, only 35 percent see global warming as a very serious problem, down from 44 percent last year. Fifty-seven percent believe there is solid evidence that man is driving climate change, down from 71 percent in 2008. As the public concern over climate change continues to erode, Lord Christopher Monckton -- the former advisor for science policy to Lady Margaret Thatcher -- says the alleged science behind manmade climate change is eroding as well. Christopher Monckton"First of all, it's now been demonstrated by measurement that CO2 has only one-sixth of the warming effect on...

Carbon trading markets will yield few fortunes and break a lot of hearts I am no economist, but for an amateur I have a track record in predicting economic trends at least as good as Paul Krugman’s and I didn’t bother attending an Ivy League school to be able to do that. In predicting economic bubbles there are two things to remember. One is that most bubbles deal with intangibles, such as Michael Milliken’s junk bonds and the dot com bubble that saw insane valuations for non-performing stocks simply because they had an “E” in front of their name. The...

Take a look at the action of the Department of Energy. They just recently loaned $529 million dollars to a Finnish company that is producing a $90,000 dollar hybrid sports car (that is $90,000 per car Clyde). These funds are supposed to be used to create , or save American jobs, not sent overseas to create Finnish jobs building cars that none of us can afford in the first place. Now comes the really interesting part, guess who is now receiving profits from this little venture by way of ownership of a fair amount of stock in this company? You...

A Government advert which implies pets will die from climate change has received more than 200 complaints from viewers. The television advert shows a father reading a bedtime story to his daughter. In the book, puppies drown and rabbits are left without water to drink because of rising CO2 levels. The male character reads: "There once was a land where the weather was very, very strange... "Scientists said it was being caused by too much CO2, and it was the children of the land who'd have to live with the horrible consequences." The young daughter asks if there is a...

Anyone who believes that the Kyoto Accord and all the subsequent meetings spearheaded by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is actually about global warming or climate change, would be well advised to submit a wish list to Santa Claus in care of the North Pole. Chances of having jolly St. Nick deliver what’s on that list are better than the chances of stopping global warming. That’s because global warming has already stopped with no help from Al Gore and his friends. In fact, recent scientific discoveries have found the smoking gun of global warming isn’t actually smoking...

An anonymous adage advises, “There is nothing wrong with making mistakes. Just don’t respond with encores.” Break your stick in ice hockey and drop it immediately or a penalty is assessed because continued use can cause serious damage (Rule 10.3). Apparently this rule doesn’t apply in climate science where a few scientists continue to use a broken “hockey stick” and cause serious damage. Facts proving humans are not causing global warming are not enough to stop the political juggernaut. Perhaps exposure of collusion among a small group of self-proclaimed climate scientists who continue to play with a broken stick...

People all across the U.S. are asking a similar question: "What happened to summer?" A check on Twitter will find a recurring tweet theme from people in New England. For example, "It's so depressing that it's the middle of July, cloudy, and barely 70 [degrees]." Another reads, "Had to wear my winter coat; it was 48 degrees this morning...in July!" Marc Morano with ClimateDepot.com says all across America, record low temperatures have been broken throughout the summer. He blames that on a recent trend of global cooling that has been in place for more than seven years. "The reason Climate...

Australia's Connor Court Publishing is creating waves again. First the pro-free speech heretics published Professor Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth - a skeptic's guide to global warming, a runaway bestseller. What's more, the European Union President endorsed it. Now? The publisher informs me (via email) that a new book is on the way: The Climate Caper. Details are also available on their website: So you think the theory of disastrous climate change has been proved! You believe that scientists are united in their efforts to force the nations of the world to reduce their carbon emissions! You imagine perhaps that...

This chart, adopted from a very interesting new survey (.pdf) of 2,164 American adults on climate policy, reveals part of the problem that advocates of more aggressive measures to curb climate change may be encountering as they seek to push forward initiatives like cap-and-trade. The survey, conducted by George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication, reveals that Americans are concerned about global warming in the abstract -- but perhaps only in the abstract. Just 32 percent of Americans think global warming will harm them "a great deal" or a "a moderate amount" personally. The further we get out...

As Earth Day again brings forth disciples of the religion of inanimate matter, we would do well to examine just how little we know about our world. Doubtless a prominent theme in this Earth Day will be the great peril of global warming. Our planet is growing warmer because of sinful man, and if government does not take drastic steps to curb our activities, then our wicked ways will bring rising oceans, drowning cities, and countless other plagues upon us. Is the Earth warming? Any professor who wants tenure will say, "Yes!" now. Any bureaucrat who values his job will...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is going on the road to pitch his energy plan — as well as environmentally friendly jobs production — in a hard-hit Iowa town, while administration officials make a similar push back in Washington.

California’s KQED has a story about elementary school children being taught that man-made “Mr. Carbon” is giving the Earth a global warming “fever” and killing “lovable” polar bears. Of course, the San Francisco-based PBS station thinks that’s just swell. It’s not – it’s outrageous. Cool The Earth, the group behind this blatant indoctrination program, is the brainchild of two Marin County parents who say they were inspired by watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. That’s probably all you need to know, but bear with me – it gets better. According to their website, “Cool The Earth is a ready-to-run program...

Former Congressman Ernest Istook (R-Oklahoma) says President Obama's proposed energy tax plan is going to be so expensive that a typical family will see its home electricity bill go up by $1,800 a year. The Obama administration initially estimated its cap-and-trade plan would cost the energy industry $646 billion over eight years. President Obama has said the plan would be offset by an $800 "Making Work Pay" tax credit for 95 percent of taxpayers. But word now comes from the administration that the cap-and-trade plan could cost up to $1.9 trillion over the next eight years -- about triple the...

With about three months to go in the winter of 2008-09, Madison could end up with the average total amount of snow for a season already before the calendar is flipped to the new year. With 42.9 inches already in November and December, the 1-3 inches expected on Tuesday could push the snowfall total up to the average 45 inches that normally falls in any given winter in these parts, with the brunt of winter still to come. The record snowfall in December is now at 38.6 inches, breaking the previous December mark of 35 inches set in 2000 as...

Notable, I’d say, both for the source and the sentiment. On CNN last night, meteorologist Chad Myers discussed the record snowfall and cold in Las Vegas with Lou Dobbs, who asked him what this had to say about global warming. Myers compared the research models to analyzing the reliability of a three-day-old car:

The Climate for Change By AL GORE THE inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he — and we — must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis. The electrifying redemption of America’s revolutionary declaration that all human beings are born equal sets the stage for the renewal of United States leadership in a world that desperately needs to protect its primary endowment: the integrity and livability...

There’s a wonderful irony in the fact that, back in the 1970s, the Greens were issuing warnings and even writing books about the coming Ice Age. They would abandon this issue, based in well-known and accepted solar science, in favor of a vast international hoax alleging man-made global warming. As the global warming hoax begins to lose its power to influence public opinion and policy, the Greens are not likely to be heeded for a long time to come because they were right about an Ice Age and lying through their teeth about global warming. Scientists and laymen who follow...

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Climate change presents a tough choice for governments determined both to fight global warming and tackle the rising cost of living. Climate measures inflate energy costs by putting a price on burning fossil fuels and also stoke food bills by using farmland and crops to produce renewable fuels. Now near-record oil and food prices coupled with a global economic slowdown have triggered unrest in several countries and demands to ease taxes on fuels and free up farmland for food. "This important part of the global economy, food and energy, has been grossly distorted due to under-pricing...

The Bush Administration named the polar bear to the “threatened species” list based on computer predictions of the anticipated loss of sea ice due to global warming Tuesday. “Computer models predict sea ice is likely to recede in the future,” said Department of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. “They [polar bears] are in my judgment likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future, in this case 45 years.” Kempthorne used a series of slides showing images of decrease polar sea ice while making his announcement. They are available here. The polar bear’s classification as “threatened” is a step below “endangered”—a classification...