Free Republic

Josh from CartoonsbyJosh.com writes: Another ‘Gate’ – but this one turned round and bit the owner.Leo Hickman and co at the Guardian thought they had a bona fide leak of incriminating information on the funding of climate skeptics by the Heartland Institute.Two problems, the funding turns out to be rather small beer, especially in comparison to the vast sums of money paid to promote Climate Change Alarmism. Secondly it looked like the funds were going to fund scientists and with another trenche for a website to explain climate science research.Hardly a surprise, and not exactly incriminating. It is what the...

  Al Gore Al Gore deserves an Oscar for hypocrisy to go along with the two Academy Awards his movie won last night, contends a think tank from his home state Tennessee. The former vice president's mansion in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, says the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, citing data from the Nashville Electric Service. Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth, a 95-minute film warning of a coming cataclysm due to man-made "global warming," won the award for best documentary feature and best...

As the European cold front is about to enter its third week, the Danube River and Black Sea have frozen over in many countries, with La Repubblica reporting that 420 have died across Europe. ... The Black Sea waters around the Ukrainian port city of Odessa were completely frozen for the first time since 1977, and Ukrainian ports will remain closed until at least Feb. 15. Russia's Novorossiysk port, usually an ice-free port all year round, was closed for two days last week because of ice. In the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanța, the waters were frozen for up...

China's biggest airlines warned on Thursday they will refuse to pay a new EU tax aimed at cutting carbon emissions. Beijing said it has deep concerns over the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which came into force on New year's Day and demands all airlines pay a green duty to offset carbon emissions. "China opposes the European Union's unilateral legislation. China has expressed to the EU our deep concern and opposition many times on a bilateral level," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said. … "The CATA, on behalf of Chinese airlines, is strongly against the EU's improper practice of...

A friend of mine watches the History Channel, because that's true information. Apparently she's seen a program twice about how global warming is causing the ice to melt and the additional weight of the water is increasing the likelihood of earthquakes. Danger, Will Robinson, danger!!!

This guy (Headmaster Rob Benzie) has become Scrooge in England, except he doesn’t provide even one lump of coal, because, well that would mess up his “carbon footprint”. This is just too bizarre not to pass on, thanks to The Daily Bayonet who writes: A headmaster at a British school decided a great lesson in sustainability would be to turn off the heat for a day. In December: Pupils at Ansford Academy in Castle Cary, Somerset, were forced to grip their pens through thick gloves and wear their coats and hats in class as temperatures dropped to 1C. The school’s...

Representatives from nearly 200 countries are gathering in Durban, South Africa, to negotiate strategies for dealing with climate change, including how to extend the soon-to-expire Kyoto Protocol. Efforts to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto pact, which committed industrialized nations to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by a set amount by 2012, have been on hold since the failure of the climate conference in Copenhagen two years ago. Previous debates have focused on how to balance the responsibilities of developed nations with those of emerging and still-developing countries, and few believe this conference, which begins Monday, will result in a new...

More than 200 Filipino children and youths gathered Tuesday in Pasay City for a national forum on climate change organized by the Climate Change Commission. The national youth workshop, as part of the first carbon neutral event in the Philippines, was held at the SMX Mall of Asia Convention Centre. It was organized by the Climate Change Commission in partnership with Al Gore’s The Climate Reality Project, National Youth Commission, Sangguniang Kabataan Federation, Council for the Welfare of Children, UNICEF-Philippines and USAID-Philippines. In a message sent for the national gathering, Nobel Laureate and former United States Vice President Al Gore,...

The Farmers' Almanac recently issued their outlook for the 2011-2012 winter season and are predicting a wet and wild winter for much of the nation. According to their forecasters, the Farmers' Almanac is predicting a season of "crime and punishment" with lots of unusually cold and stormy conditions. In the northern Plains, northern Rockies, and western Great Lakes, folks can expect frigid cold temperatures while those in the southern and eastern United States will experience above average temperatures. Near normal temperatures are predicted for the Midwest and far western parts of the country.

California plan(s) to launch their long-promised cap and trade program to fight global warming starting tomorrow (Oct. 20, 2011). (Not coincidentally) Tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal will include these two headlines that are up already online: Japan Reconsiders Plan to Cut Carbon Emissions And, EU Weighs Pullback on Cutting Emissions

There seems little possibility that next month's climate summit in Durban will produce an emissions reduction agreement -- meaning the world will soon lack any binding CO2 targets. Europe may soon find itself alone in the fight against global warming. A climate catastrophe descended on the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin early last week. Politicians and diplomats from around the world were attending a conference to discuss how global warming will affect the world. They examined scenarios depicting how millions of people living in coastal areas could escape flooding, what will happen to the fishing and mineral rights of island...

From the mighty polar bear to the tiny house sparrow, many of Earth's species appear to be shrinking in size, a new study reports. And the authors think it's probably due to global warming, a little like wool sweaters that shrink when washed in hot water. But other experts say that conclusion goes too far, blaming global warming for what may be natural changes. ... The shrinking victims, according to the study, include cotton, corn, strawberries, bay scallops, shrimp, crayfish, carp, Atlantic salmon, herring, frogs, toads, iguanas, hooded robins, red-billed gulls, California squirrels, lynx and wood rats. Two years ago,...

Depopulation of Americas may have cooled climate MINNEAPOLIS — By sailing to the New World, Christopher Columbus and the other explorers who followed may have set off a chain of events that cooled Europe’s climate for centuries. The European conquest of the Americas decimated the people living there, leaving large areas of cleared land untended. Trees that filled in this territory pulled billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, diminishing the heat-trapping capacity of the atmosphere and cooling climate, says Richard Nevle, a geochemist at Stanford University. “We have a massive reforestation event that’s sequestering carbon … coincident...

Scientists say climate change will eventually claim many victims -– including, according to a new report, chocolate. As temperatures increase and weather trends change, the main growing regions for cocoa could shrink drastically, according to new research from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture. Ghana and the Ivory Coast –- which produce more than half of the global cocoa supply –- could take a major hit by 2050. Currently, the optimal locations to grow the crop are about 330 feet to 820 feet above sea level, with temperatures of about 72 degrees Fahrenheit to 77 degrees. That range will soar...

Earth's temperatures will likely stabilize for a period as deep ocean waters absorb enough heat to mask the effects of global warming for up to a decade, a new study indicates. Earth's "missing heat" has long been a mystery for climate scientists as the last decade saw an incessant growth in greenhouse gas emissions did not elevate surface temperature as much as expected. The joint U.S.-Australian study, based on computer simulations of global climate, points to ocean layers deeper than 1,000 feet (300 meters) as the main location of the "missing heat" during periods such as the past decade when...

Nobel prize winner for physics in 1973 Dr. Ivar Giaever resigned as a Fellow from the American Physical Society (APS) on September 13, 2011 in disgust over the group's promotion of man-made global warming fears. Climate Depot has obtained the exclusive email Giaever sent titled "I resign from APS" to APS Executive Officer Kate Kirby to announce his formal resignation. Dr. Giaever wrote to Kirby of APS: “Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I cannot live with the (APS) statement below (on global warming): APS: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming...

Science: Al Gore's Current TV will use 24 straight hours of airtime this week to try to convert global warming skeptics. Will he mention a recent report that shows the climate change scare is grossly overblown? And we also doubt that anyone else connected with the sympathetic media will. The CERN report, which we covered on this page two weeks ago, has been largely ignored by the mainstream press. Had the European Organization for Nuclear Research (known by its French acronym, CERN) report bolstered the conjecture that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are warming the planet, the story would have gone...

Despite winning a Nobel Prize and an Oscar for his work in the global warming area, most voters don’t consider former Vice President Al Gore an expert on the subject. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows that just 24% of voters consider Gore an expert on global warming. Fifty-nine percent (59%) do not think Gore is an expert on the subject, an increase in skepticism of 12 points since March 2007. Another 18% are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.) While a plurality of Democrats (43%) considers Gore an expert on global...

Cosmic rays interact with Earth's atmosphere - Image via WikipediaIsraeli Astrophysicist Dr. Nir Shaviv posted a guest essay at Luboš Motl The Reference Frame titled: The CLOUD is clearingIn a nutshell he’s saying that cosmic ray flux modulated by solar variability has a strong place right alongside CO2, and may in fact be a larger forcing.He writes: The results are very beautiful and they demonstrate, yet again, how cosmic rays (which govern the amount of atmospheric ionization) can in principle have an effect on climate.What do I mean? First, it is well known that solar variability has a large effect on...

State Temp Date AL 112 Sept. 5, 1925 AK 100 27-Jun-15 AZ 128 29-Jun-94 AR 120 Aug. 10, 1936 CA 134 10-Jul-13 CO 114 July 11, 1888 CT 106 15-Jul-95 DE 110 21-Jul-30 FL 109 29-Jun-31 GA 112 Aug. 20, 1983 HI 100 Apr. 27, 1931 ID 118 28-Jul-34 IL 117 14-Jul-54 IN 116 14-Jul-36 IA 118 20-Jul-34 KS 121 24-Jul-36 KY 114 28-Jul-30 LA 114 Aug. 10, 1936 ME 105 10-Jul-11 MD 109 10-Jul-36 MA 107 Aug. 2, 1975 MI 112 13-Jul-36 MN 114 6-Jul-36 MS 115 29-Jul-30 MO 118 14-Jul-54 MT 117 5-Jul-37 NE 118 24-Jul-36 NV 125...

Has new research disproven the theoretical models of anthropogenic global warming?  A new study by a European nuclear research group appears to show that the actual prime cause of temperature shifts in the Earth’s climate isn’t carbon dioxide at all, or even the broader range of “greenhouse gases,” but the large ball of fire in the center of the solar system.  Not that this study from CERN has attracted much attention in the media, at least not in the US — but at least Nature reported the results and the implications: It sounds like a conspiracy theory: ‘cosmic rays’ from...

A report from Australia’s Climate Institute which links global warming with mental illness is already drawing eyerolls from a central academic in the global climate-change debate. In its report, the anti-carbon emissions organization argues that a spike in severe weather events in Australia coincides with increased rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse. Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish professor and environmental statistician, and a cautious believer in global warming — but also an advocate for sound and rational decisions about how to fix it — told The Daily Caller the study is “problematic.” Cutting carbon emissions to slow a...

President Obama faces political catastrophe in the form of Solyndra -- a San Francisco Bay area solar company that he touted as a gleaming example of green technology. It has announced it will declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy. More than 1,100 people will lose their jobs.

President Obama on Tuesday informed House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that his administration is considering seven regulations that would cost more than $1 billion. Boehner asked for the list of costly rules last week as the GOP prepped a fall jobs agenda focused on stopping regulations and cutting taxes.Four of the regulations Obama listed as costing more than $1 billion are being considered by the Environmental Protection Agency. The others are from the Department of Transportation. “I agree that it is extremely important to minimize regulatory burdens and to avoid unjustified regulatory costs, particularly in this difficult economic period,” Obama wrote to Boehner. “I...

Rising greenhouse emissions may tip off aliens that we are a rapidly expanding threat, warns a report for Nasa 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...

…Perry expressed his skepticism about global warming…. …Jim Rubens, a Republican…..who works as a consultant for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Rubens prefaced his question by reading statements from Perry's book "Fed Up!" that global warming is "a contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight." Rubens, an investor who works in the clean-energy sector, asked Perry how he reconciled those views and his assertion that the Earth is "experiencing a cooling trend" with findings that fossil fuel combustion is the primary cause of global warming and...Earth surface temperatures have risen above the 20th century average every...

London, 17 August – The Global Warming Policy Foundation today publishes an outstanding briefing paper by the distinguished physicist Professor William Happer of Princeton University (USA).In his paper The Truth About Greenhouse Gases, Professor Happer criticises the misguided scare-mongering about CO2 emissions as well as the habitual exaggeration of the likely impact and risks posed by global warming. He particularly laments the co-option of climate science by governments.Happer discusses what he calls the “contemporary moral epidemic” of climate alarmism: the notion that increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, will have disastrous consequences for mankind and for the...

The climate sceptics can finally get excited about the 2012 election: Rick Perry, their candidate of choice, is about to officially throw his hat in the ring. Perry calls global warming "all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight." Unlike many of the other GOP presidential candidates, he hasn't expressed concern about climate change in the past, so he won't have to do any back-pedaling. Notorious climate denier Marc Morano is a big fan: "Based on climate views alone, anyone who is holding their nose voting for Mitt Romney because there's no other viable candidate...

As far as summer fashion goes, clothes with built-in electric fans leave a little something to be desired. But Hiroshi Ichigaya has managed to turn his breezy invention into the must-have item of the summer, thanks to sweltering temperatures and a power shortage stemming from the triple disasters that hit Japan in March. The founder of Kuchofuku, or "air-conditioned clothing" in Japanese, says sales for his clothes have increased 10-fold. Phones at his office haven't stopped ringing. "People ask me, why would I want to wear a jacket when it's so hot," Ichigaya, a former Sony engineer, said. "I tell...

Every day it seems new evidence emerges that the “evidence” for global warming has been exaggerated, manufactured or just plain wrong. Take the case of Charles Monnett of the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. On July 18, Monnett -- a longtime poster boy for global-warming orthodoxy -- was put on leave pending an investigation into the “integrity” of his work.

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 study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed. Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave...

Demographics: Former Vice President Al Gore has a new idea for saving us from global warming: fewer babies. It's scary to think this man was a heartbeat away from the presidency. 'One of the things we could do about (global warming)," Gore said recently, "is to change the technologies, to put out less of this pollution, to stabilize the population, and one of the principle ways of doing that is to empower and educate girls and women." That, he said, would cause population "to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices." The logic is inescapable:...

From the Tropics north, warmer summers - and their almost certainly disastrous consequences - within the next few decades are close to being an irreversible consequence of global warming says a new study from Stanford University in the United States of America. The research is published in the new edition of the journal Climate Change and says warmer summers are on the way unless greenhouse gas concentrations stop increasing. The change will be felt first closest to the Equator, where, say the scientists there will be a "permanent emergence of unprecedented summer heat" within 20 years. The warming trend will...

The Web site Think Progress (Think Liberal) speculated Mother Nature unleashed tornadoes last month that killed at least 349 people in several Southern states in retribution for their congressional delegations' recent refusal to support a resolution supporting the global-warming dogma: They "overwhelmingly voted to reject the science that polluting the climate is dangerous. They are deliberately ignoring the warnings from scientists." The pollution in question, of course, is carbon dioxide, which fuels earth's life cycle. But the bigger hole in this theory is last month's twister outbreak was far from the deadliest on record. For example, tornadoes killed 454 Southerners...

Charles Manson, the notorious cult leader, has broken a 20-year silence in an interview from his prison cell to warn the world of an impending apocalypse due to global warming. In a series of rambling interviews from his Californian jail, the man who brainwashed members of his commune known as "The Manson Family" into butchering eight people on two nights in August 1969 described himself as a "very mal hombre". Among those stabbed in the killing spree was Sharon Tate, the wife of film director Roman Polanski, who was eight months pregnant with his child. [snip] Refusing to discuss whether...

Gas industry dismisses claim that shale-derived natural gas is worse than coal for the climate. In the calculus of global warming, natural gas is generally considered to be preferable to coal as a fuel. That's because, on a per-joule basis, burning methane, the primary constituent of natural gas, produces less carbon dioxide than burning coal. But, earlier this week, the conventional wisdom was shaken by researchers from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who argue in a study to be published in Climate Change1 that, over a 20-year period, the use of natural gas extracted from 'gas shales', porous rocks...

Ten more faulty assertions from Climate Minister Combet(Also on Quadrant, here and here.) In a speech given at the National Press Club on April 13th, Climate Minister Combet has yet again revealed that he is receiving unbalanced scientific advice, and that his understanding of the problem of hypothetical dangerous global warming is inadequate. His predecessor, Senator Penny Wong, exemplified the same weaknesses and so does the government.It is a structural governance deficiency of high order that our current government continues to take exclusive advice on global warming from an unelected, unaccountable international political body (the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on...

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2011/04/bonneville_power_administratio_2.html The Bonneville Power Administration wants to shut down Northwest wind farms this spring when hydroelectric dams are generating plenty of electricity as a huge mountain snowpack melts. The Portland-based BPA may have to limit production from wind farms to free space in the regional power grid, The Seattle Times reported Wednesday.

California Governor Jerry Brown will sign a bill today which will raise the required amount of costly renewable energy for electric generation in the Golden State to 33% while Texas Governor Rick Perry is likely grinning from ear to ear. Texas and other business-friendly Western states such as Arizona and Utah, stand to benefit from California's latest payoff to the green lobby.  The bill boosts the electric renewable energy standard from its current 20% to 33% by the year 2020, and California consumers and businesses will be stuck with the additional cost.  Businesses will have one more reason to leave...

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is betting that as many as 15 Senate Democrats will back a GOP-led bill that strips EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. His estimate of Democratic support is far above what is widely believed and would put the measure — which might receive a Senate vote next week — on the brink of the 60 votes needed or over the top. Manchin, in a West Virginia radio interview this morning, said he’s urging fellow Democrats to back Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) amendment to small-business legislation. “Other people might not, but I believe there’ll be...

The New Hampshire House of Representatives today voted overwhelmingly — 246 to 104 — for New Hampshire to become the first state to repeal an up-and-running global warming cap-and-trade energy tax system. The state senate is expected to follow suit with a similarly veto-proof repeal. The move has major implications both in the region and nationally. Since 2008, New Hampshire has been one of the 10 members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a power plant-only cap-and-trade system that holds quarterly auctions requiring electric utilities to buy carbon dioxide permits. The cost of those permits is buried in the...

It certainly didn't take long for someone, a British academic this time, to couple the tragedy in Japan to the specter of future tsunamis caused by global warming. In 2004, Michael Crichton's State of Fear had the plot line of an extreme environmental group planning to trigger a tsunami using a massive underwater explosion, with the intention of blaming it on man-made climate disruption. Sadly, Japan's tsunami is now being used to stoke the dying embers of climate-change mania. Even before nature's fury ravaged Japan, meteorological mischief was contemplated to awaken the world's interest in climate change. This effort would...

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, after surviving 15 years, mostly spent on life support. It reached its peak in Bali in 2007 at the annual UN gabfest, had a sudden unexpected collapse in Copenhagen in 2009, and has been in a coma since. Kyoto had its real beginning at the 1992 Global Climate Summit in Rio de Janeiro. I missed that great party but George Bush the elder went and signed up for the United States. The language of the Global Climate Treaty, the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), was vague enough to not be completely objectionable...

As Congress looks for ways to trim the budget, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) represents an opportunity for up to $9 billion in savings. This outfit has become little more than an advocacy group for trendy leftist causes operating on the public’s dime. Many liberal policies being promoted are so unpopular that congressional Democrats can’t muster the votes to get them through the proper legislative process. So they go to the EPA instead. That’s why the EPA announced Tuesday that it had revised the deadlines imposed on certain companies for reporting so-called “greenhouse gas” production. A facility that manufactures paper,...

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...

My new book, Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax, is dedicated to Al Gore, whose invention of the Internet made it possible–and whose invention of facts made it necessary. Beginning with the aggressively hyped 1988 U.S. Senate hearings he organized, no one has done more to melt down complacent minds with stoked-up claims of fossil-fueled climate peril. In 2006 Gore launched an initial three-year, $300 million “Alliance for Climate Protection” media campaign to promote greenhouse gas reductions. While ads appearing in national television, print, radio, and online outlets were directed to diverse audiences, the ultimate...

Some things never change: Cover of Newsweek, January 22, 1996. h/t to World Climate Report Update: James Taylor’s post on Forbes supports our position. A number of alarmists have been organized to team up on the comment section to defend the undefensible. Please add your voice of support to shout them down in the comments section. By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS FellowAs we reported, the eco-pressure group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, as part of a continuing misinformation campaign sponsored a teleconference yesterday with a very confused Jeff Masters of Weather Underground, opportunist Mark Serreze of NSIDC and a UCS...

At today’s House Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing on EPA’s job killing greenhouse gas regulations, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) asked panel witness Gina McCarthy — chief of EPA’s air programs, including the agency’s greenhouse gas regulations — whether she had any idea of what the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide is, SHE ADMITTED THAT SHE DID NOT!

A bit over a year ago, in the wake of Climategate, I put up a blog post over at the Foresight Institute which got picked up and run here at WUWT.  The essence of the post was that there was lots of natural variation in the ice core record of climate, so that it was reasonable to be skeptical of scientists who claimed that recent CO2 variations were “the only thing that could account for the recent warming trend” (quoting myself). Apparently that got enough exposure — and was persuasive enough — that over a year later the alarmists still...

Barack Obama may be forced to order a two-year delay in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) action on climate change to try to avoid a complete government shutdown, an environmental conference has been warned. Buried among the $61bn in Republican budget cuts are a series of measures that would strip the overall budget of the EPA by 30%. The Republican bill would specifically bar the Obama administration from funding programmes regulating greenhouse gas emissions, or connected to climate science and international negotiations for a deal to end global warming. It cuts funds for the post of White House climate adviser, Carol...