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

Opponents of massive new energy taxes and regulations breathed a small sigh of relief last month when the Lieberman-Warner climate-tax bill went down in flames on the Senate floor. Even 10 Democrats broke from the party line and voted against it, writing that they would have opposed the bill on final passage. Unfortunately, power-mad bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency remain undaunted. The EPA is expected today to release a document that blueprints a dizzying array of greenhouse-gas regulatory programs under dozens of different provisions of the 1970 Clean Air Act. The document, called an “Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,”...

The global warmers are becoming increasingly desperate to prop up their failing prophesy in every way possible. Behaving just as Leon Festinger predicted in When Prophecies Fail. As the earth shows no net warming in a decade and cooling into its 7th year, as new models suggest cooling may continue because of natural ocean cycles, as the sun stays quiet now 12 years since the last solar minimum, usually a signal of cooling, as more and more peer review calls into question the importance of CO2 and of the the accuracy of the models and the entire greenhouse theory because...

Estonian authorities have slapped a flatulence tax on farmers to compensate the country for the methane gas produced by cows. Farmers this week received their first 'fart tax' demands asking them to pay for the greenhouse gases their cattle produce.

OSLO (Reuters) - Canada will be investigated on suspicion of violating rules for registering greenhouse gases that are the mainstay of a U.N.-led fight against global warming, official documents show. Canada played down the news, saying it was taking quick steps to ensure it complied by the rules. Ottawa could be suspended from rights to trade carbon dioxide if found to be in breach of the rules by the enforcement branch of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol. Greece was suspended last month, the first state to face such a sanction. "On 5 May 2008 Canada was given an official notification of...

In the community of Shady Grove Woods, trees are becoming more and more scarce. Residents and other anti-Intercounty Connector activists marched through the neighborhood on Saturday, pointing out the trees that were cut down to make way for the six-lane highway. ‘‘It’s just that we didn’t have a say in it in so many ways and we’re not talking about a two-lane road, we’re talking about a major highway running through here,” resident Sam Chim said of the ICC. ‘‘We have a lot of nice, private woods back here and now we’re going to have a highway running through instead....

Did NASA's James E. Hansen commit perjury when he testified before House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on March 19, 2007? Ferenc Miskolczi had previously informed NASA that the equations being used to predict catastrophic global warming were invalid. Yet Hansen told Congress that "greenhouse gases" posed a serious threat. "The predominance of positive feedbacks, along with the inertia of the oceans and ice sheets, has profound practical implications. It means that if we push the climate system hard enough it can obtain a momentum, it can pass tipping points, such that climate changes continue, out of our control....

WASHINGTON (AP) - Revising his stance on global warming, President Bush on Wednesday proposed a new target for stopping the growth of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. The president also called for putting the brakes on greenhouse gas emissions from electric power plants within 10 to 15 years. "To reach our 2025 goal, we will need to more rapidly slow the growth of power sector greenhouse gas emissions so that they peak within 10 to 15 years, and decline thereafter," Bush said in excerpts of the speech released early by the White House.

(02-26) 04:00 PST Washington - Washington - -- A senior Environmental Protection Agency staffer's newly released memo warned that EPA chief Stephen Johnson would lose his credibility and might have to resign if he rejected California's rules limiting greenhouse gases from cars and trucks.The document, prepared by a top deputy in the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, is further evidence of the fierce internal struggle that Johnson faced before he ruled against California in December. Documents released earlier revealed that he overruled the unanimous opinion of his agency's legal and technical staff, who urged him to approve the...

If two scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are correct, people will still be driving gasoline-powered cars 50 years from now, churning out heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — and yet that carbon dioxide will not contribute to global warming. The scientists, F. Jeffrey Martin and William L. Kubic Jr., are proposing a concept, which they have patriotically named Green Freedom, for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline. The idea is simple. Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would...

If you haven't done so already, meet the Nano, possibly the most significant new car of the decade. Small, cute, and snub-nosed, it fits four people and a duffel bag, has a single windshield wiper, travels at 60 mph, and it's all yours for the princely sum of $2,500, roughly the same price as the DVD system in your neighbor's Lexus and about half the price of the cheapest cars on the market today. Even better, at least for the philosophically minded, the Nano comes with its own moral conundrum: What happens when the laudable, currently fashionable movement to improve...

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 10 (OneWorld) - Coastal residents and students from all over South Carolina are planning to picket this evening's Republican Party Presidential Candidates Debate. "We just want to emphasize how important the issue of climate change is to the future of South Carolina," said Gretta Kruesi of the state's Coastal Conservation League. "Climate change will affect the strength and number of hurricanes, beach erosion, and tourism, which is the backbone of our economy. We want to make sure the candidates address this issue and invite them to respond." Sporting surfwear and bathing suits, attendees plan to hold aquamarine...

Dallas, TX - The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is expected today to debate amendments to a bill proposed by Sens. Lieberman (I-CT) and Warner (R-VA) that would create a "cap and trade" system designed to cut total U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet an expert with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) says the cap and trade system would slow economic growth with little if any environmental improvement to show for it. "Back in 1997 the Senate took the sensible position that the U.S. should not adopt any climate treaty that would either harm the economy or that...

The energy bill to be signed by the president today is arguably the worst piece of energy legislation ever enacted into law. It will substantially increase the price of automobiles, increase highway fatalities, increase fuel prices, worsen air pollution, and force consumers to buy products (like super-efficient light bulbs) that they manifestly -- and for very good reason -- do not want to buy. It will transfer huge amounts of wealth from the consumer to the farm lobby in the course of promoting a dubious product -- ethanol -- that will make energy supplies less reliable and greenhouse gas emission...

As NewsBusters reported, Nobel Laureate Al Gore made a fool out of himself at the United Nations climate change meeting in Bali Thursday by chastising America for having the exact same global warming policy the Clinton administration had when he was vice president in 1997. Marvelously, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton was on Fox News the following day speaking inconvenient truths about the Global Warmingist-in-Chief that sycophantic media members disgracefully refuse to share with the citizenry. With that in mind, get your popcorn ready, kick your feet up, and listen to the facts about this issue spoken in a fashion...

Those who spend much time in greenhouses know that they are often very humid places because water evaporates from plants and from surfaces that get wet when the plants are watered. Meteorologists typically refer to the water vapor content of the air as relative humidity which is how close the air is to holding as much water vapor as it can hold at its current temperature. Unfortunately many climatologists waste so much time on the nonexistent impact of radiation on air temperature that they don't provide sufficient emphasis to the significant impact of water vapor on air temperature. Those who...

California researchers plan to make biofuels in a novel way that doesn't involve food crops or microbial fermentation. A new research effort involving three University of California campuses and West Biofuels LLC, will develop a prototype research reactor that will use steam, sand and catalysts to efficiently convert forest, urban, and agricultural "cellulosic" wastes that would otherwise go to landfills into alcohol that can be used as a gasoline additive. "We have a very feasible design to combine individual components of technology that have been proven separately into a successful biomass processing prototype," said Robert Cattolica, leader of the research...

I was rereading the essay by Dr, Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner and found this account of an experiment R.W. Wood conducted in 1909 that disproved the claim about greenhouses being hotter because they trapped radiation. <<I have always felt some doubt as to whether this action played any very large part in the elevation of temperature. It appeared much more probable that the part played by the glass was the prevention of the escape of the warm air heated by the ground within the enclosure. If we open the doors of a greenhouse on a cold windy day,...

Why do they buy the nonsense about alleged greenhouse gases causing dangerous global warming? The claim about the power of greenhouse gases sounds like magic and the evidence for “global warming” is of little value. Those who talk about global warming claim a 0.5 C (1 F) increase in what they call the global average temperature indicates the earth is getting warmer. You don’t have to be a mathematician or physicist to recognize that one temperature cannot represent every place on earth from frigid polar regions to blazing deserts. Nor can a single temperature represent year round conditions in temperate...

Further evidence for the decline of the oceans’ historical role as an important sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide is supplied by new research by environmental scientists from the University of East Anglia. Since the industrial revolution, much of the CO2 we have released into the atmosphere has been taken up by the world’s oceans which act as a strong ‘sink’ for the emissions. This has slowed climate change. Without this uptake, CO2 levels would have risen much faster and the climate would be warming more rapidly. A paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research by Dr Ute Schuster and Professor...

The State of Kansas has denied a permit to build two coal powered electric plants to Sunflower Electric. The state of the art plants would use flue gas to grow algae which could be used for biofuels or animal feed. The complex near Garden City would include an ethanol plant. Local officials favor the plant. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment denied the permit because of carbon dioxide emissions even though the algae would actually reduce CO2 emissions. The denial won't adversely affect growth in the Kansas economy because the Kansas economy isn't growing that much anyway and the...

Al Gore’s campaign against global warming is shifting into high gear. Reporters and commentators follow his every move and bombard the public with notice of his activities and opinions. But while the mainstream media promote his ideas about the state of planet Earth, they are mostly silent about the dramatic impact his economic proposals would have on America. And journalists routinely ignore evidence that he may personally benefit from his programs. Would the romance fizzle if Gore’s followers realized how much their man stands to gain? Earlier this year Gore experienced a notable public relations debacle. The Tennessee Center for...

I hope the delay in approving the power plants Sunflower Electric has proposed isn't because the Kansas Department of Health and Environment believes the lie that carbon dioxide has some magical power to control atmospheric temperatures. How can anyone believe that CO2, which is only 0.04 percent of the atmosphere, can have any impact on air temperatures? I have yet to see any scientific evidence to support the claims about the magical ability of CO2 claimed by greenhouse gas believers. If these believers had any real scientific evidence they wouldn't be claiming that their estimates of past temperatures provide evidence....

Scientists take two approaches to determining the validity of theories. One approach involves efforts to prove the theory is valid which sometimes is difficult to do. The other approach attempts to disprove the theory, or falsify it. If the theory can be falsified,then there is no need to attempt to prove it. Heinze Thieme has published several essays demonstrating that the greenhouse gas theory is false. In "On the Phenomenon of Atmospheric Backradiation" he shows that "An assessment conducted in the light of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the principles of vector algebra of the key greenhouse theory concept...

Governments need to scrap subsidies for biofuels, as the current rush to support alternative energy sources will lead to surging food prices and the potential destruction of natural habitats, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development will warn on Tuesday. The OECD will say in a report to be discussed by ministers on Tuesday that politicians are rigging the market in favour of an untried technology that will have only limited impact on climate change. “The current push to expand the use of biofuels is creating unsustainable tensions that will disrupt markets without generating significant environmental benefits,” say the authors...

More bad news from holier-than-America Europe: Great Britain won't meet its Kyoto Protocol target of a 20 percent reduction in emissions of six greenhouse gases by 2010, and chances of achieving that goal by 2020 are almost as bleak. The admission by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs merely confirms what Cambridge University and others have been saying for years. Britain, like most of the rest of Europe, Canada and scores of other global-warming citadels throughout the world, is hopelessly out of compliance. About the only nations on target to live up to their Kyoto obligations are China,...

Feeling guilty about the amount of deadly greenhouse gases you emit by driving that big SUV or using your air conditioner during the summer? Well, don't count on an easy fix. While celebrities like Al Gore and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger burnish their green credentials by buying so-called carbon offsets that fund projects like wind farms to make up for their energy excesses, environmental advocates nationwide criticize the effectiveness of the programs. Their concern: The carbon offset market, which is largely unregulated, lacks the standards or the oversight needed to make sure that the projects consumers send money to are actually...

Eating beef ' is less green than driving' Last Updated: 2:59am BST 19/07/2007 Producing 2.2lb of beef generates as much greenhouse gas as driving a car non-stop for three hours, it was claimed yesterday. Japanese scientists used a range of data to calculate the environmental impact of a single purchase of beef. Taking into account all the processes involved, they said, four average sized steaks generated greenhouse gases with a warming potential equivalent to 80.25lb of carbon dioxide. advertisement This also consumed 169 megajoules of energy. That means that 2.2lb of beef is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions which have...

On the 23 of June, I had the opportunity to attend the Friends of Trees Conference in Barcelona. It has taken me a few weeks to digest all the information, which I, together with about 900 other people managed to inhale: The fumes of change, the organic revolution, the climate crisis, the need for solidarity and action. It was a most overwhelming task: and Al Gore's redundant joke of: "I used to be the next president of the United States," has hardly helped ease the intensity of the situation. The crowds clapped at every comment made by the speakers, who...

Climate Change: Reputable scientists now say the long-term threat to climate is severe cooling, not rising temperatures. In fact, our carbon emissions may just have prevented the next ice age. Chicken Little may have to be measured for a winter coat, if the observations of R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre of Canada's Carleton University, are accurate. Writing in Toronto's National Post, Patterson reported on his research that involved analysis of core samples of more than 5,000 years of mud recovered from the bottom of Western Canada's fjords. In summary, his research showed...

The controversy about purported "greenhouse gases" is much ado about nothing. I have yet to see any empirical scientific evidence to support the claim that carbon dioxide ( CO2) can convert low energy Infrared radiation (IR) into heat energy. Supporters of the belief in greenhouse gases rely on studies of the distant past to support their belief. They suffer from the delusion that they can precisely determine temperatures from periods hundreds and even thousands of years ago by examining ice cores, tree rings, etc. They have convinced a lot of gullible politicians and journalists that they can determine past temperatures...

Vote due on gas-guzzler fees By Chris Bowman - Bee Staff Writer Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, June 7, 2007 Here's one way to combat global warming: Take $2,500 out of the pockets of new Hummer owners and give it to buyers of the Toyota Prius. That's essentially the proposal set for a vote today or Friday on the Assembly floor of the California Legislature. The same body that passed the nation's first law curbing climate-altering or "greenhouse" tailpipe exhausts is debating a system of fees and rebates to coax some of those emission cuts from new car buyers. The...

If you have tried to reason with a GWF (Global Warming Fanatic), you know it's a waste of time. They believe GW with a passion that has no room for facts and data. Tell them the planet has been warming (slightly) since 1977 because it's on the up side of a solar-driven warming and cooling cycle going back hundreds of thousands of years. Tell them CO2 (carbon dioxide) - not a pollutant but a harmless gas that every oxygen-breathing animal breathes out and plants breathe in to survive - is a tiny fraction of the Earth's atmosphere, man-made CO2 a...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has boosted his environmental profile by signing global warming agreements with states and foreign governments, most recently one this month with the Australian state of Victoria. Schwarzenegger officials say the agreements are intended to force the federal government to take a more stringent approach to tackling global warming. But some critics note the signings have given Schwarzenegger opportunities for photo-ops with foreign leaders, and Democrats have raised concerns that the Republican governor is using the deals to predispose California to a market-based system in which companies can buy their way out of emissions reductions. Each of the...

A gentleman named George Monbiot has accused the leading industrial nations of the world of condemning millions to die. Perhaps, if he were criticizing their unwillingness to take stronger military action against Islamic Fundamentalists, the gentleman would have a point. He isn’t. He instead is accusing these nations of using phony science to deny the inevitable reality of anthropogenic global warming. Monbiot drags forth all the AGW bogeymen. The Ice Caps on Greenland will melt, just like they did in the Middle Ages, when the Vikings settled the vast island and appropriately named it Greenland. The Amazon Rain Forest would...

GLOBAL warming could devastate China's development, but that should not stand in the way of economic progress, according to the country's first official survey of climate change. Hotter average global temperatures fuelled by greenhouse gases mean that different regions of China are likely to suffer spreading deserts, worsening droughts and floods, shrinking glaciers and rising seas, the National Climate Change Assessment warns. This environmental upheaval could derail the ruling Communist Party's plans for sustainable development, the report says. However, it also insists economic growth must come before greenhouse gas cuts. "Climatic warming may have serious consequences for our environment of...

For most of us facing gridlocked roads and packed trains, the Monday morning commute is a more pressing concern than climate change. Staggering rush hours could tackle climate change But there may be a single solution to both, according to business leaders. The Institute of Directors is calling for flexible hours and more home working to help tackle global warming. Miles Templeman, the institute's director-general, said offering employees greater flexibility would ease pressure on transport networks and cut rush-hour power demand - thereby reducing emissions. Mr Templeman urged ministers not to rush into policies that risked harming the economy, such...

Climate Change: Ronald Reagan once declared that air pollution comes from trees. He was right then and he's right now. Psssst: Trees can also contribute to global warming. Reagan's famous statement contributed to the conventional wisdom that Republicans are ignorant or uncaring or both on environmental issues. It also earned the Gipper considerable derision. His former press secretary, James Brady, once grabbed the president as they flew over a forest and said in mock alarm, "Look, Mr. President — killer trees!" Turns out, Reagan was right. Planting trees are said to be food for the environment and a tool to...

UN report says poor will suffer most unless measures taken to cut greenhouse gases BRUSSELS (AP)-- As the world gets hotter, millions of people will suffer from hunger, thirst, floods and disease unless drastic action is taken, the bleakest report yet on global warming said yesterday. "Don't be poor in a hot country, don't live in hurricane alley, watch out about being on the coasts or the Arctic, and it's a bad idea to be on high mountains with glaciers melting," Stephen Schneider, a Stanford University scientist and study co-author, said. All regions of the world will change, with the...

The heavy condemnatory breathing on the subject of global warming outdoes anything since high moments of the Inquisition. A respectable columnist (Thomas Friedman of the New York Times) opened his essay last week by writing, "Sometimes you read something about this administration that's just so shameful it takes your breath away." What asphyxiated this critic was the discovery that a White House official had edited "government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming." The correspondent advises that the culprit had been an oil-industry lobbyist before joining the administration, and on leaving it he took...

US Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe (both R-ME) have introduced a measure (S.1073) that would require automakers to reduce new vehicle greenhouse gas emissions 30% below 2002 levels by 2016. This would nationalize California’s motor vehicle greenhouse gas reduction standard. The EPA would be required to tighten the reductions every five years. The bill also requires fuel suppliers to increase the percentage of low-carbon fuels—biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol E85, hydrogen, electricity, and others—in the motor vehicle fuel supply by 2015. This would reduce emissions from motor vehicle fuels by 10% below projected levels by 2030. It’s clear...

The EU's top political leaders meet three times a year in a rose-coloured marble building known as Justus Lipsius. EU leaders arrived in gas-guzzling cars to debate green issues It is named after a 16th-Century Dutch scholar often described, predominantly by his fans, as one of the most learned men of his day, as well as the founding father of neo-stoicism, which combined pagan materialism with Christianity. Nowadays, the new Europe under Jose Manuel Barroso could even be described as eco-stoicism, combining materialism with environmental zealotry. The new movement, though, does not have as many converts as the Portuguese...

Gore's carbon footprint may be the size of Godzilla's, but he eases his conscience with "carbon offsets." He buys them from himself. And every time someone else buys them, Big Al gets richer. ...Speaking of carbon offsets and shell games, guess where Gore buys his carbon offsets? Well, he buys them from a firm call Generation Investment Management LLP, a tax-exempt U.S. 501(c)3 corporation. The chairman and co-founder is Al Gore. In other words, he buys his carbon offsets from himself. Others who buy these offset are really buying stock in Gore's growing business. You, too, can green up his...

The idea of a cap-and-trade system for limiting carbon-dioxide emissions in the U.S. has become all the rage. Earlier this year, 10 big American companies formed the Climate Action Partnership to lobby for government action on climate change. And this week the private-equity consortium that is bidding to take over Texas utility TXU announced that, as part of the buyout, it would join the forces lobbying for a cap on carbon emissions. But this is not, as Lenin once said, a case of capitalists selling the rope to hang themselves with. In most cases, it is good old-fashioned rent-seeking with...

With a winter that brought snow to Tucson, Ariz., and 70-degree weather to New York City -- along with an Academy Award for the global-warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" -- climate change has become more ingrained in the public consciousness. Not everyone may be willing to overhaul their lives to accommodate the environment, but more people are opting for the rising number of options offered by companies to neutralize their "carbon footprints," meaning the amount of energy they consume. Most carbon-offset programs require consumers to make small payments that in turn go to programs that create renewable energy or absorb...

Despite constant criticism from environmental activists at home and across Europe claiming the U.S. government is doing nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, new evidence suggests America's efforts are more effective than Europe's. According to H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), the United States has spent more on research and technologies to reduce climate change than any other country, and its business-led efforts are paying off. "The United States is doing a far better job reigning in its emission than Europe, even though it has a faster-growing economy and population," says Burnett....

In the late Middle Ages, professional pardoners sold indulgences to Roman Catholic parishioners with the promise that their sins would be forgiven. It was one of the practices that led to the success of Martin Luther's Reformation. Today, some environmentally conscious people purchase so-called carbon offsets to compensate for the CO2 emissions they are personally responsible for. ...At least 50 companies sell offsets for air travel for between $5 and $30 per ton of CO2. Some of them sell offsets for other activities as well.

You can neutralize the rest of your pollution—through offsets. When you buy offsets, you essentially pay someone to reduce or remove global warming pollution in your name. For example, when you buy 10 tons of carbon offsets, the seller guarantees that 10 fewer tons of global warming pollution go into the atmosphere. While the pollution you produce yourself is the same, you get the credit for that 10-ton reduction.

Global-warming doomsayers were out and about in a big way recently, but the rain came in central Queensland, then here in Sydney. January also was unusually cool. We have been subjected to a lot of nonsense about climate disasters, as some zealots have been presenting extreme scenarios to frighten us. They claim ocean levels are about to rise spectacularly, there could be the occasional tsunami as high as an eight-storey building, and the Amazon Basin could be destroyed as the ice cap in the Arctic and Greenland melts. An overseas magazine called for Nuremberg-style trials for global-warming sceptics, and a...

But if you have carbon markets, why do you need subsidies? Living in a carbon constrained world looks inevitable. Congress will be voting on a number of proposals to set limits on the emission of greenhouse gases later this year. So industrialists see the policy handwriting on the wall and are now rushing to help shape the emerging greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions regulatory scheme. In January the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, consisting of 10 big companies including DuPont, Alcoa, General Electric and Duke Energy, issued a "blueprint for a mandatory economy-wide, market-driven approach to climate protection." Also in January, the Electric...