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The greenhouse gas theory( GHGT) is a theory claiming that certain gas molecules in the atmosphere are inhibiting the Earth from transmitting heat into space. There is great debate about what role different gases play in heating and cooling and the accuracy of certain assumptions of data. It turns out that these arguments are irrelevant because the basic assumption of the theory is wrong and based on ignorance of science. Every object with a temperature above absolute zero radiates energy and every object absorbs radiated energy. Any movement of an atom creates a disturbance in the electromagnetic field that transmits...

In the first quarter of this year, U.S. carbon emissions hit a 20-year low. As Figure 1 below demonstrates, the U.S. has observed substantial reductions in CO2 emissions over the last five years. These reductions contrast with the increases in CO2 emissions that the Energy Information Administration forecasted in 1998 when the U.S. was considering committing to CO2 emissions reductions in the Kyoto Agreement. At the time of these discussions, the EIA estimated that CO2 emissions would increase at a rate of approximately 1.3 percent annually through 2020. In fact, to reach the Kyoto Agreement target for 2012, the U.S....

Weather Science: Climate alarmists are now explaining away their failed predictions by claiming China's power plants emit sulfur dioxide that cancels out carbon dioxide emissions. So should we burn more coal? Among the emails unearthed during ClimateGate, when scientists working at or with Britain's Climate Research Unit conspired to "hide the decline" in global temperatures, is one from Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research to Michael Mann, inventor of the now-discredited "hockey stick" graph that purported to show sudden and dangerous man-induced temperature rise. Trenberth says: "Well, I have my own article on where the heck is...

Rules: A bill encouraging the use of natural-gas-powered vehicles will give the EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases while rewarding the Democratic left's patron saint. We like natural gas. It's the cleanest-burning fossil fuel, the U.S. has lots of it and, thanks to technologies such as hydraulic fracturing (aka "fracking"), we can get even more of it from the vast shale formations that dot the country. Others like it, too, which is why a bill floating through Congress, the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act of 2011 (HR 1380), or Nat Gas Act, has seen a number of...

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...

A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the EPA’s plan to seize control of greenhouse gas permits from Texas. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must wait until at least Friday so the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia can make a decision on Texas’ bid to prevent the federal takeover.

LONGVIEW, Wash. - A coalition of conservation and clean energy groups applauded the state's decision to intervene in their challenge to the permit for a coal export terminal in Longview. The state contends that the Cowlitz County commissioners did not go far enough in considering greenhouse gas emissions outside the immediate boundaries of the project before issuing the permit for construction of the massive coal export facility. "We are very pleased that the state is calling for full disclosure of the risks to Washington's environment posed by this coal export facility," said Jan Hasselman, an attorney for Earthjustice, who filed...

All too often the ‘simple physics of CO2′ argument is presented to the public by the media, politicians, climate scientists and environmental advocacy groups, in a way that grossly simplifies the issue of the response in global temperature to increasing CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere.An excellent response to the simple physics argument is to be found in the comments at Climate Etc (Professor Judith Curry’s blog)In reality my feather blew up into a tree “….. which is that since CO2 is a GHG it follows that increasing CO2 must increase the temperature (of something). No matter how many times we say that the...

On December 23, 2010, the EPA issued a series of rules that put the necessary regulatory framework in place to ensure that industrial facilities can get Clean Air Act (CAA) permits covering their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions when needed and ensure that facilities emitting GHGs at levels below those established in the Tailoring Rule do not need to obtain CAA permits. The agency says these actions will ensure that the largest industrial facilities can get CAA permits that cover GHG emissions beginning in January 2011. These actions are part of EPA’s common sense approach to GHG permitting outlined in the...

Energy Policy: The administration plans to use sleight-of-hand politics to sneak through an economy-killing tax on energy as necessary to save the Earth. Make no mistake: Cap-and-trade is a tax every American will pay in every aspect of his or her life.IBD Exclusive Series: American Freedom And Prosperity Under AttackCap-and-trade is like Jason Voorhees of the "Friday the 13th" movie series. Just when you think you've killed it, it comes back. Exposures of fraud in the climate science used to justify it seemed to doom its chances as the economy soured and prospective costs seemed prohibitive. Then the Deepwater Horizon...

Regulation: An initiative to suspend California's draconian climate law has qualified for the November ballot. The people can now choose between jobs and junk science and fight hot air at the ballot box. Thomas Jefferson once said that when people fear the government, there is tyranny, but when government fears the people, there is liberty. And right now there are politicians and bureaucrats in Sacramento who are at least very concerned. An initiative to suspend Assembly Bill 32 officially qualified for the ballot last week by gathering more than 800,000 signatures, far more than the 433,971 required. Those who signed...

Overregulation: The Senate votes on blocking a government bureaucracy from usurping power never delegated to it by Congress. This administration may put Copenhagen above the Constitution, but we the people have other plans. The GOP's 1994 "Contract with America," a gift that keeps on giving, hopefully will rescue us once again from the clutches of an unelected bureaucracy, the Environmental Protection Agency, which has been allowed by the Supreme Court to regulate every breath we take and every machine we operate. When cap-and-tax legislation was introduced in Congress, the Obama administration threatened that if Congress failed to act, the EPA...

Climate Science: Noted scientists at a Chicago climate conference declare that global warming is not only dead, but that the planet faces a big chill for decades to come. What about those frozen wind turbines? It's not exactly Copenhagen or Kyoto, but the 700 scientists attending the fourth International Conference on Climate Change, sponsored by the Heartland Institute, had some chilling news of their own in the most liberal sense. "Global warming is over — at least for a few decades," Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told the gathering. "However, the bad news is that...

Regulations: Call it cap-and-trade or bait-and-switch, but John Kerry and Joe Lieberman continue to tilt at windmills with a bill to restrain energy growth in the name of saving the planet.IBD Exclusive Series: American Freedom And Prosperity Under AttackThe bill introduced Wednesday and sponsored by the two senators is called the American Power Act, an Orwellian phrase if ever there was one. Like President Obama's offshore drilling program, for every "incentive" there is a restriction. It's as if Hamlet were to be appointed Secretary of Energy. The legislation has little to do with developing America's vast domestic energy supply. It's...

Corruption: The carbon trading system being pushed here has spawned crime and fraud across the pond. Cap-and-trade is not about saving the planet. It's about money and power, and absolute power corrupting absolutely. All across Europe authorities have been conducting raids, rounding up individuals involved in a new version of Climate-gate. This time the data aren't corrupted. Europe's Emissions Trading System is. The system is so sick, it's turned out to be a scam built upon a scam. Twenty-five people have been arrested in raids by British and German authorities as part of a pan-European crackdown on carbon credit VAT...

Cap-And-Trade: While senators froth over Goldman Sachs and derivatives, a climate trading scheme being run out of the Chicago Climate Exchange would make Bernie Madoff blush. Its trail leads to the White House. Lost in the recent headlines was Al Gore's appearance Monday in Denver at the annual meeting of the Council of Foundations, an association of the nation's philanthropic leaders. "Time's running out (on climate change)," Gore told them. "We have to get our act together. You have a unique role in getting our act together." Gore was right that foundations will play a key role in keeping the...

Pollution Control: From cars to coal mines, the imposition of economy-killing restrictions is under way. Are the new EPA regulations on auto emissions the precursor to regulating carbon dioxide by executive order? In announcing the Environmental Protection Agency's first regulations on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cars, Administrator Lisa Jackson has promised they won't be the last such rules stemming from the EPA's "endangerment finding" that carbon dioxide, six pounds of which every human being exhales every day, is a dangerous pollutant. "These are the first regulations that cover greenhouse gas emissions in the United States," Jackson told reporters in...

Climate Fraud: A senator wants an investigation of the false climate testimony before Congress and wants Al Gore to reappear. The illegalities may involve more than just lying to Congress. At a hearing Tuesday by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the Environmental Protection Agency's budget, ranking Republican James Inhofe told EPA head Lisa Jackson that man-induced climate change was a "hoax" concocted by ideologically motivated researchers who "cooked the science." More than that, Inhofe, in releasing a GOP report questioning the science used to support cap-and-trade legislation, hinted that such activities may be part of a vast...

States' Rights: A revolt against economic hardship imposed by unelected bureaucrats based on junk science is brewing. This Tea Party movement wants the faulty finding on carbon dioxide to be reviewed and dumped. They say you shouldn't mess with Texas, and on Tuesday the state filed suit to overturn the "endangerment" finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant that must be regulated. CO2, the basis for all plant and therefore all animal life, was targeted early by environmental activists as the root cause of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (AGW). But the Earth has cooled...

Federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions will impose new controls on millions of Americans. On December 7, as delegates from around the world gathered in Copenhagen for the United Nations climate conference, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson announced that her bureaucracy would begin to regulate the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases deemed to be warming the planet. “Today, I’m proud to announce that EPA has finalized its endangerment finding on greenhouse gas pollution,” Jackson proclaimed. As a consequence, the agency “is now authorized and obligated to take reasonable efforts to reduce greenhouse pollutants under the Clean Air...