The Brian Griffiths Minute: 02-08-2010

Cold Hard Truth

Want to know the real reason why we cannot throw money at "alternative fuels" indiscriminately? Do you remember twenty years ago that scientists had discovered Cold Fusion? That Cold Fusion was going to revolutionize everything we knew about energy consumption? Well, the results couldn't be duplicated and scientists are still looking for that elusive Cold Fusion technique.

Now imagine if the state of Maryland had dumped millions of dollars into this unproven hypothesis, all at the expense of taxpayers and local businesses. Would have looked like a pretty stupid decision, would it not?

Well, if you replace then with now, and Cold Fusion with Global Warming, then the above can explain the likely passage of the Son of Global Warming Solutions Act in the General Assembly....

Twenty years from now, will we be thanking our state leaders for not succumbing to rash decision making? Or will we, our state in financial tatters, be asking why the people of Maryland allowed their leaders to sacrifice common sense for political expediency?

Liberals need to help save the planet for a change

This story gets to combine two of my least favorite things in life: pork and global warming hysteria. Observe:

The use of crop-based biofuels could speed up rather than slow down global warming by fueling the destruction of rainforests, scientists warned Saturday.

Once heralded as the answer to oil, biofuels have become increasingly controversial because of their impact on food prices and the amount of energy it takes to produce them.

They could also be responsible for pumping far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they could possibly save as a replacement for fossil fuels, according to a study released Saturday.

Whoops.

Now, we've all had this massive rush in Washington to subsidize corn based ethanol, mainly because they grow a lot of corn in Iowa and they happen to have a Presidential Caucus there. All of the Democratic pork producers love it, because they get to bolster their Presidential cred, make environmentalists happy, and get to say they are "protecting the family farm."

And remember: this 'aint our first rodeo with noting the dangers of biofuels.

One of the big problems that Republicans like myself have has little to do with the idea of using alternative fuels; exploring new ideas and innovation makes good sense. But our problem has been and continues to be this rush to judgment for the latest and greatest fad that will purportedly "save the environment" when, in fact, the science on that is unproven at best or shows that we are doing even more damage at worse.

Rushing to judgment means we all pay. And we are all paying dearly for rushing to judgment and pork barrell spending on envirofuels.

Next thing you know, we're going to be taking about perpetual motion engines as a national priority....

Turning Up the Heat on Peddlers of AGW

Looks like the global warming cult is seeing the tide of public opinion turn against them (H/T Josh Painter):

Al Gore’s side may be coming to power in Washington, but they appear to be losing the battle on the idea that humans are to blame for global warming.

Forty-four percent (44%) of U.S. voters now say long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming, compared to 41% who blame it on human activity.

Seven percent (7%) attribute global warming to some other reason, and nine percent (9%) are unsure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democrats blame global warming on human activity, compared to 21% percent of Republicans. Two-thirds of GOP voters (67%) see long-term planetary trends as the cause versus 23% of Democrats. Voters not affiliated with either party by eight points put the blame on planetary trends.

That's not all:

With Barack Obama and the new Congress focused heavily on economic recovery, it’s interesting to note that 46% of voters believe there is a conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. Thirty-two percent (32%) see no such conflict, however, and 22% are not sure.

Finally, it looks like all of the preaching and the pushing and the peddling of this nonsense without scientific data is finally starting to be realized, at least by a plurality of the public.

However, that is one thing that is so damnably frustrating about this poll. The same public who sees the folly of the AGW argument elected for Barack Obama, the most notoriously ecofriendly Presidential Candidate this side of Al Gore. Obama is going to pursue programs that address this problem. Obama is going to pursue policies that harm our economy in the name of environmental justice. In essence, a decent percentage of these people voted for Obama and by doing so contradicted their own beliefs and their self-interest in being opposed to these global warming arguments (perhaps speaking, again, to the relative weakness of the Republican brand in the 2008 election).

Opposition to self-interest aside, it's good to see that critical consideration of global warming arguments is continuing....

The End of the Innocence

Not to get all Don Henley on everybody, but is the fringe left finally starting to grow up on the issue of global warming? Because a long article basically debunking the idea, debunking Al Gore, and shooting down a bunch of other global warming strawmen appear on.....The Huffington Post.

You are probably wondering whether President-elect Obama owes the world an apology for his actions regarding global warming. The answer is, not yet. There is one person, however, who does. You have probably guessed his name: Al Gore.

Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that "the science is in." Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.

And it (surprisingly) goes on line this, noting that:

1. The phrase "Climate change" is redundant;
2. Al Gore and company are "flat-earthers" for knowingly misinterpreting the relationship between climate change and the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
   
3. Record sea-ice growth in Antarctica.

Author Harold Ambler closes with this:

To be told, as I have been, by Mr. Gore, again and again, that carbon dioxide is a grave threat to humankind is not just annoying, by the way, although it is that! To re-tool our economies in an effort to suppress carbon dioxide and its imaginary effect on climate, when other, graver problems exist is, simply put, wrong. Particulate pollution, such as that causing the Asian brown cloud, is a real problem. Two billion people on Earth living without electricity, in darkened huts and hovels polluted by charcoal smoke, is a real problem.

So, let us indeed start a Manhattan Project-like mission to create alternative sources of energy. And, in the meantime, let us neither cripple our own economy by mislabeling carbon dioxide a pollutant nor discourage development in the Third World, where suffering continues unabated, day after day.

Now, there is a lot to find interesting here, not the least of which is that somebody on one of the left's largest "news-sources" finally is starting to agree with people like me and Mark Newgent on the fallacy that is global warming. And it is also interesting that such an idea being floated by somebody on the left didn't bubble up until long after the hysteria was used as one way of helping to propel Barack Obama to the White House.

What is most interesting to me is the fact that this may be the beginning of the end of the loony left, at least in it's most vocal form.

When you think back to the 1960's, 60's radicalism as we remember it really didn't start getting moving until the escalation in Vietnam in 1965. At that point, things in America were still relatively good. Obviously, it wasn't good for everybody (race relations being the most obvious of these examples) but it was relatively easy to protest the war and protest against the government when the preponderance of society had food and shelter. The Sixties as a movement reached their cultural apex in 1969 with Woodstock and their political apex in 1972 with the nomination of George McGovern.

But what really killed the Sixties zeitgeist? Sure, McGovern's defeat helped. But look at what was going on in 1973. Gas shortages. Economic troubles. U.S. withdrawal in Vietnam. Once the protesters and rabblerousers began to worry about their own backyard, they didn't seem to worry too much about protesting the war and the government anymore. Perhaps the combination of victory in Iraq, the election of Obama, and the downward spiral of the economy is brining the so-called "reality based community" back to an actual reality for once, and beginning to question thing such as global warming hysteria. When folks realize that proposed global warming "solutions" may unnecessarily inflict further harm upon an already beaten down economy, those ideas really don't look like such a great solution anymore.

Speculation about the reasons for the stand down on global warming policy aside (and I think there may be other reasons out there that I did not necessarily touch on) I find it somewhat comforting that people on the left side of the aisle are finally starting to look critically at so called arguments for global warming policy change, and are starting to take the more reasoned position that a lot of us took some time ago...

The Green Dictatorship

Given the jones that Governor O'Malley and Annapolis Democrats has for the expansion of power in the name of the all things environment, I expect that this idea from Germany will be coming to a General Assembly near you:

This fairy-tale town is stuck in the middle of a utopian struggle over renewable energy. The town council’s decision to require solar-heating panels has thrown Marburg into a vehement debate over the boundaries of ecological good citizenship and led opponents to charge that their genteel town has turned into a “green dictatorship.”

The town council took the significant step in June of moving from merely encouraging citizens to install solar panels to making them an obligation. The ordinance, the first of its kind in Germany, will require solar panels not only on new buildings, which fewer people oppose, but also on existing homes that undergo renovations or get new heating systems or roof repairs.

To give the regulation teeth, a fine of 1,000 euros, about $1,500, awaits those who do not comply.

Read the whole thing.

This, of course, is completely appalling to anybody who believes in private property rights. Why should any government in any country force business owners and homeowners to install a technology that is inefficient and far from cost-effective? And all in the name of what? In the name of cleaner energy? In the name of global warming? Or, in actuality, is it really in the name of the expansion of government power?

This is the sort of thing that concerns me about the future of our state. We know many things about Governor O'Malley and Annapolis Democrats. They look for ways to diminish the property rights of Marylanders. They are committed to the religion of global warming. They are committed to the expansion of government powers. And they are committed to higher taxes, higher fees, and forcing taxpayers to spend money on unnecessary expenses.

If you think about it, this sort of thing is right up O'Malley's alley. And let's face it, we have seen this sort of thing before here in Maryland. After all, it was only just this year that the General Assembly narrowly averted destroying Maryland's economy by passing the Global Warming Solutions Act.

Whether or not Team O'Malley tries to implement the policy in place in Marburg, there is certainly an impetus not just here in Maryland but across the nation to impose a "Green Dictatorship" that severely restricts the freedom and the wallets of citizens and taxpayers alike. We must remain vigilant in order to protect our economy and protect our nation from this radical ideology.

Al Gore: Owned

The Al Gore is God Society may take umbrage with this, but let me share with you this clip from Meet the Press yesterday as Al Gore tries to defend his "do as I say, not as I do" lifestyle:



Glenn Reynolds notes the following:

My observation is that Al Gore is looking (and sounding) more and more like a Baptist televangelist all the time.

Amen...

The Continually Unraveling Consensus

If there is anybody left who actually believes that there is a scientific consensus that global warming is happening, chew on this:

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible."

In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."

The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity -- the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause -- has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.

Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton's paper an "expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and "extensive errors"

Now obviously, an influential component of a very large and important organization of scientists distancing themselves from this unproven theory should shatter the notion of a consensus in support of anthropogenic global warming.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Al Gore had his little shtick the other day, and Michelle Malkin helps expose he and his minions for what they are:

Britons buck belief in bunk

Even the British, with their more recent leftward swings in government, don't buy the hype in anthropomorphic global warming (h/t Instapundit):

The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.

The results have shocked campaigners who hoped that doubts would have been silenced by a report last year by more than 2,500 scientists for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found a 90 per cent chance that humans were the main cause of climate change and warned that drastic action was needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

I would be willing to be that the sentiments are the same here in America as well. What's one reason that the British don't buy the bill of goods they are being sold?

More than half of those polled did not have confidence in international or British political leaders to tackle climate change, but only just over a quarter think it's too late to stop it. Two thirds want the government to do more but nearly as many said they were cynical about government policies such as green taxes, which they see as 'stealth' taxes.

No confidence in politicians. No confidence in the UN. No confidence in the scientists. And a belief that it's all a just an excuse to raise taxes and grow government. Looks like the Brits really have a grasp on the global warming hype...

Aren't you over your carbon limit, comrade?

For better or for worse, Britain once again is taking the lead on completely insane policymaking:

Every adult should be forced to use a 'carbon ration card' when they pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy, MPs say.

The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain's CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.

Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.

And how would this cockamamie idea work?

Every adult in the UK would be given an annual carbon dioxide allowance in kgs and a special carbon card.

The scheme would cover road fuel, flights and energy bills.

Every time someone paid for road fuel, flights or energy, their carbon account would be docked.

A litre of petrol would use up 2.3kg in carbon, while every 1.3 miles of airline flight would use another 1kg.

When paying for petrol, the card would need to swiped at the till. It would be a legal offence to buy petrol without using a card.

When paying online, or by direct debit, the carbon account would be debited directly.

Anyone who doesn't use up their credits in a year can sell them to someone who wants more credits. Trading would be done through specialist companies.

Leave it to the British to institutionalize bad policies under a Gordon Brown's stewardship (which, if there is anything fortunate about it, is making Tony Blair look like a Thatcherite and helps give ascendancy to the Conservatives, such as happened in London).

Of course, such a policy has not been well thought out by the MP proposing it. What about government agencies? Tourists? Local schools? How in the world does such an idea work? And what type of penalties does one receive for being a "carbon criminal" and selling petrol without the proper papers?

Unfortunately, I have a bad feeling that such idea may again see life in a General Assembly near you...

Consensus This

Once again, the global warming consensus myth dies:

Global warming isn't to blame for the recent jump in hurricanes in the Atlantic, concludes a study by a prominent federal scientist whose position has shifted on the subject.

Not only that, warmer temperatures will actually reduce the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic and those making landfall, research meteorologist Tom Knutson reported in a study released yesterday....

...He said his new study, based on a computer model, argues "against the notion that we've already seen a really dramatic increase in Atlantic hurricane activity resulting from greenhouse warming."

The study, published online yesterday in the journal Nature Geoscience, predicts that by the end of the century the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic will fall by 18 percent.

Again, this does nothing to prove there is or that there is no global warming. Just the fact that the myth propagated by the left of this magical consensus on global warming is pure and utter bull....

Saving the Planet, Starving the Poor

Another catch-up from yesterday, here is a frightening thought:

And it has linked food and fuel prices just as oil is rising to new records, pulling up the price of anything that can be poured into a gasoline tank. "The price of grain is now directly tied to the price of oil," says Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, a Washington research group. "We used to have a grain economy and a fuel economy. But now they're beginning to fuse."

That's right, ethanol is making it harder and harder for people to put food on their plate. Not just because it makes it harder to buy grain, but because of all of the other uses grain has as it relates to food production, particularly when it comes to feeding livestock. Read the whole thing...

I've talked before about the potential pratfalls of switching to an ethanol based fuel situation, whether it relates to the impact on the poor, increased pollution due to higher grain production, or the further degradation of rain forests. And once again I can't emphasize enough the idea that people are jumping headfirst into support ethanol production no matter how wasteful ethanol production is and how much the increased use and production of ethanol may hurt, not help, our environment.

Obviously, the private sector needs to take the initiative in creating alternatives to both the use of oil and the use of ethanol in fuel consumption. Clearly, if there is a way to produce cleaner fuels we need to investigate those alternatives but we certainly should not do so at the cost of making it harder and harder for our working families to put food on the table.

But what about the independence of scientists?

What about it? You see, William Gray (as I have noted before) is the world renowned meteorologist from Colorado State University, famous for his hurricane season predictions. He's also a global warming skeptic. And one for whom the university tried to curtail funding for recently:

By pioneering the science of seasonal hurricane forecasting, William Gray turned a university far from the stormy seas into a hurricane research mecca.

But last year, the long-term relationship between Gray and Colorado State University, where he has worked for nearly half a century, nearly unraveled in an episode that highlights the politically charged atmosphere that surrounds the global warming debate.

University officials told Gray that handling media inquiries related to his forecasting required too much time and detracted from efforts to promote other professors' work.

Gray, who has emerged as a leading voice of skepticism about global warming, reacted hotly, firing off a memo to Dick Johnson, head of CSU's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and others. He didn't buy the too-much-media reasoning.

"This is obviously a flimsy excuse and seems to me to be a cover for the Department's capitulation to the desires of some (in their own interest) who want to reign (sic) in my global warming and global warming-hurricane criticisms," Gray wrote in the memo obtained by the Chronicle.

Gray initially declined to speak about the issue. But on Tuesday, Gray acknowledged the dispute.

"You see, so many people in our department make a living off the global warming threat," he said. "So I think that's part of why they came to me."

Since last year, he said, the university has "backtracked" on its position.

CSU officials said late last week that they intend to support the release of Gray's forecasts as long as they continue to be co-authored by Phil Klotzbach, a former student of Gray's who earned his doctorate last summer, and as long as Klotzbach remains at CSU.

Gray, an emeritus professor at CSU who has taught dozens of graduate students who populate the National Hurricane Center and other research institutions, has become increasingly vocal in his skepticism about climate change, saying the planet is warming due to natural causes.

Other than once again noting the fact that the concept of scientific "consensus" on global warming is pure crap, I have to ask this question; is the row over funding at Colorado State related to his skepticism of global warming. And if it is, would not the global warming believers be crying foul if, say, a scientist who believed in global warming had his fundingcurtailed by a Republican administration?

Baby it's gonna get cold outside!

Once again, more scary scientifically-based reasons to think that the Ice Age is on it's way:

THE scariest photo I have seen on the internet is www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity.

What is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot.

Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.

All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence that 2007 was exceptionally cold. It snowed in Baghdad for the first time in centuries, the winter in China was simply terrible and the extent of Antarctic sea ice in the austral winter was the greatest on record since James Cook discovered the place in 1770.

As always, read the whole thing. And remember this; the evidence that we are entering a period of natural, solar-related global cooling is just as strong, if not stronger, than the evidence that we are suffering from anthropomorphic global warming. And it's all the more reason why states and countries should not trip over themselves trying to pass far reaching legislation (i.e. O'Malley's Global Warming Solutions Act) without seriously considering the scientific and economic ramifications of such legislation.....

Brighter Ideas

The concept of CFLs are not new, though I was writing about them long before we knew about the environmental hazards these "green" bulbs provided. But as always, there is something better:



The moral of this story is this; let's not make irrational jumps to support things, particularly to help the environment, that sound great in the short term without trying to get a basic understanding of what the costs are that come with the benefits. And this is a lesson that the fringe-left environmentalist groups have been seemingly incapable of figuring out....

Impending Global Warming Hysteria induced Economic Cataclysm somewhat averted

I bet you that the people of Western Maryland won't give a lick about global warming if this happens:

A bill being considered in Annapolis today would require businesses across the state to cut their average emissions of pollutants that cause global warming by 25 percent by 2020 and by 90 percent by 2050.

Gary Curtis, a vice president of NewPage, said these limits could mean he would have to replace coal with natural gas - which creates less carbon dioxide but costs five times as much.

He said he could try to make his machinery more energy-efficient, but that would shave only a few percentage points off his fuel consumption. Substituting wind or solar power for coal wouldn't work, he said, because they are not reliable enough to run his wood pulping machines 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

"It would basically put us out of business," said Curtis, as he watched a clattering conveyor belt carry logs into a machine with whirling blades.

"We need to have [pollution] goals that are aggressive but achievable - and forcing us to do this much would be disastrous," he said.

With 950 employees, NewPage is the largest industrial employer in Western Maryland. And it's one of several businesses in the state, including the former Bethlehem Steel mill and power plants, that have complained that the Global Warming Solutions Act could make it impossible for them to compete by imposing limits that do not exist in other states or countries.

I'm glad that the O'Malley Administration is so dedicated to global warming that they plan on finishing off the state's economy once and for all in the process. And the impending economic disaster will be far worse for places in Western Maryland, where there are fewer industrial related jobs than it will in the Baltimore area. Places like Luke (population: 80) are dependent on these jobs to keep their economies above water., and it is something that impacts their entire region:

"This is one of the lone remaining heavy industries in the whole region," said Matt Diaz, director of economic development for Allegany County. "If it closed, it would have a ripple effect all over Western Maryland, impacting not only mill workers, but also a lot of loggers and coal miners and truck drivers."

The fact that the O'Malley Administration is content to kill off economies across Maryland for a visionless plan based on junk science should give all Marylanders pause...

....which made it even more curious to see this today:

The O'Malley administration today proposed paring back a bill aimed at reducing global warming pollution after Maryland industries warned the legislation could put them out of business.

Instead of mandating a 90 percent cut in greenhouse gases statewide by 2050, an amended version of the bill would set this as a goal that the state should write a plan to try to reach, officials said.

"The Maryland Department of the Environment will institute the planning process to get to the 2050 goal ... but we want to clarify that the bill does not require a straight out 90 percent reduction," Maryland Environment Secretary Shari Wilson told a joint hearing of State House committees this afternoon.

Which means this bill is actually even more pointless than before. However at least we have seen at least some capability of common sense to seep into Annapolis before we try to close the last remaining industrial wage-earning jobs we have here in Maryland.

This crisis has been averted, hopefully because legislators realized the damaging consequences to Maryland's working families.

Obviously we're all going to die!

Now that I've got your attention, it's time to break out the parkas, folks (H/T Instapundit)

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

And yes, there is a handy-dandy chart to show the cooling.

As I keep saying, in the long-term picture this means absolutely nothing. But it is interesting to see scientific evidence as to how much our planet has cooled just in the last year.

And that, of course, makes all of this stuff coming out from the O'Malley administration about carbon trading, carbon credits, and all of the other global warming nonsense coming out of Annapolis that much more farcical. While it's a typical tenet of O'Malleynomics to act before thinking, we should make sure that we fully understand what is going on around us before we go to great lengths to destroy Maryland's economy.

Great Planning Guys

The O'Malley folks are, as always, on the ball:

O'Malley administration officials said yesterday they don't yet know how they would achieve the governor's ambitious goal of cutting global-warming pollution by 90 percent by 2050.

So we are supposed to all get behind a plan that even administration officials aren't quite sure how to achieve?

Maybe before trying to be a front-runner and jump ahead of the environmental train, perhaps the O'Malley Administration needs to actually take a step back and seriously consider the implications of their plan prior to introducing any risky scheme like this one.

Yes, it was that cold

Apparently, January was one of the coldest months in a while:

This is yet one more indication of the intensity of planet-wide cooler temperatures seen in January 2008, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, which has seen record amounts of snow coverage extent as well as new record low surface temperatures in many places.

What does this prove about climate change? Absolutely nothing, other than to show once again the hysteria of the left...

Dimming Light

No matter the hype you get from our friends on the left, our friends at NASA are worried about something that is clearly not global warming:

Every day, scientists hoping to see an increase in solar activity train their instruments at the sun as it crosses the sky. This is no idle academic pursuit: A lull in solar action could potentially drive the planet's temperature down, or even prompt a mini Ice Age.

For millennia, thermonuclear forces inside the star have followed a regular rhythm, causing its magnetic field to peak and ebb, on average, every 11 years. Space weathermen are watching for telltale increases in sunspots, which would signal the start of a new cycle, predicted to have started last March and expected to peak in 2012. "When the sun's active, it's a little bit brighter," explains Ken Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council....

...Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a "stethoscope for the sun." Recent magnetic field readings are as low as he's ever seen, he says, and he's worked with the instrument for more than 25 years. If the sun remains this quiet for another a year or two, it may indicate the star has entered a downturn that, if history is any precedent, could trigger a planetary cold spell that could bring massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.

The last such solar funk corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. While there were competing causes for the climatic shift—including the Black Death's depopulation of tree-cutting Europeans and, more substantially, increased volcanic activity spewing ash into the atmosphere—the sun's lethargy likely had something to do with it.

I have discussed the possibility of an ice age before, and we keep hearing more and more actually scientific data on the potential for this kind of change. And so far, scientific evidence seems to be just as prevalent, if not exceeding, the scientific data supporting warming.

At the end of the day, predictions of dire anthropomorphic climate change need to be viewed with skepticism through whichever political prism they are delivered....

More Biofuel Worries

I've touched on this subject a few times before, but it still demands our undivided attention:

The world's rush to embrace biofuels is causing a spike in the price of corn and other crops and could worsen water shortages and force poor communities off their land, a U.N. official said Wednesday.

Speaking at a regional forum on bioenergy, Regan Suzuki of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization acknowledged that biofuels are better for the environment than fossil fuels and boost energy security for many countries.

However, she said those benefits must be weighed against the pitfalls - many of which are just now emerging as countries convert millions of acres to palm oil, sugar cane and other crops used to make biofuels.

Read the whole thing. Now the next paragraph illustrates a key point that Ms. Suzuki makes that I cannot reinforce enough:

"Biofuels have become a flash point through which a wide range of social and environmental issues are currently being played out in the media," Suzuki told delegates at the forum, sponsored by the U.N. and the Thai government.

Biofuels have become a sexy way for all parties involved to talk approvingly about alternative fuels. Folks on the environmental left can take about ways to create (theoretically) cleaner burning fuels that by continuing to use fossil fuels. And politicians get an easy way to pander to the farm vote by encouraging ethanol subsidies.

But as we continue to note, this continued reliance and glamorization of biofuels as the wave of the future is showing that it will have many drawbacks, and a lot of them will be harmful to the environment and harmful to the working poor, especially in developing nations trying to get ahead of the curve.

Foremost among the concerns is increased competition for agricultural land, which Suzuki warned has already caused a rise in corn prices in the United States and Mexico and could lead to food shortages in developing countries.

As usual, it's time that leaders from the around the world consider the consequences of "going green" before jumping headfirst into an empty pool. Let us hope that this rush to biofuels has not done any more damage to our ecology to our global economy, particularly in developing nations in Asia. I hate to repeat myself, but let's not kill the environment to save the environment.

Ice vs the Volcano

Looks like there is an actually, you know, plausible reason for Antarctic ice sheets to melt (h/t Instapundit):

Another factor might be contributing to the thinning of some of the Antarctica's glaciers: volcanoes.

In an article published Sunday on the Web site of the journal Nature Geoscience, Hugh Corr and David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey report the identification of a layer of volcanic ash and glass shards frozen within an ice sheet in western Antarctica.

"This is the first time we have seen a volcano beneath the ice sheet punch a hole through the ice sheet" in Antarctica, Vaughan said.

Volcanic heat could still be melting ice to water and contributing to thinning and speeding up of the Pine Island glacier, which passes nearby, but Vaughan said he doubted that it could be affecting other glaciers in western Antarctica, which have also thinned in recent years. Most glaciologists, including Vaughan, say that warmer ocean water is the primary cause of thinning.

Volcanically, Antarctica is a fairly quiet place. But sometime around 325 B.C., the researchers said, a hidden and still active volcano erupted, puncturing several hundred yards of ice above it. Ash and shards from the volcano carried through the air and settled onto the surrounding landscape. That layer is now out of sight, hidden beneath the snows that fell during the next 2,300 years.

Of course, if you would only listen to those with political skin in the game, volcanism could not possibly have anything to do with active volcanoes, instead being 100% the fault of 1) greenhouse gases, or 2) George W. Bush.

But given the preponderance of volcanoes across our planet, and the seismic history of Antarctica, it was bound to be determined that some of the ice cap melting on our southern continent had to do with volcanic activity. And quite frankly, a large volcanic eruption in Antarctica melting away a significant piece of the ice cap seems like a more plausible outcome and eventual cause for global warming that the current "consensus" scientific opinion has turned out so far.

Of course, you can't raise money by blaming it on a volcano...

A 2008 Global Warming "Death Spiral"?

And no....it doesn't mean what the left thinks it means. Let's start with an Investor's Business Daily prediction for 2008:

Global Warming 'Consensus' Fades

If 2007 was the Year of Al Gore, with his movie, Academy Award and Nobel Prize, 2008 just might be the year the so-called scientific consensus that man is causing the Earth to warm begins to crack.

The fissures started to show in 2007: Prominent French physicist Claude Allegre called Gore a crook and equates Gore's French followers with religious zealots. Weather Channel founder and meteorologist John Coleman said global warming is "the greatest scam in history." Gore continued to duck open invitations to debate his theory. More than 400 scientists disputed the global warming claims.

Though they were shut out of the meeting, dissenting scientists were able to get a bit of media attention at the December climate conference in Bali.

Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told us that it will take several years for the climate change scare to finally die. But the death spiral will begin at some point, and it looks like the spinning will start in '08.

All of this, of course, makes sense and are things that we have been reporting on here for some time. Then, the noted right-wing rag The New York Times checked in with this:

You're in for very bad weather. In 2008, your television will bring you image after frightening image of natural havoc linked to global warming. You will be told that such bizarre weather must be a sign of dangerous climate change — and that these images are a mere preview of what's in store unless we act quickly to cool the planet.

Unfortunately, I can't be more specific. I don't know if disaster will come by flood or drought, hurricane or blizzard, fire or ice. Nor do I have any idea how much the planet will warm this year or what that means for your local forecast. Long-term climate models cannot explain short-term weather.

But there's bound to be some weird weather somewhere, and we will react like the sailors in the Book of Jonah. When a storm hit their ship, they didn't ascribe it to a seasonal weather pattern. They quickly identified the cause (Jonah's sinfulness) and agreed to an appropriate policy response (throw Jonah overboard).

Today's interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.

A year ago, British meteorologists made headlines predicting that the buildup of greenhouse gases would help make 2007 the hottest year on record. At year's end, even though the British scientists reported the global temperature average was not a new record — it was actually lower than any year since 2001 — the BBC confidently proclaimed, "2007 Data Confirms Warming Trend."

Read the whole excellent piece.

It's not easy trying to scream (to borrow a phrase) into the Mighty Wurlitzer of Global Warming. But since the global warming hype machine is entitled to its own opinion, but not its own facts, the house of cards on which their argument is built is bound to fall sooner rather than later. The fact of the matter is that the facts on anthropomorphic global warming continue to line up against the hype machine....

Plenty of Reasons Why

There is probably a good reason why the Free State Politics crowd stopped talking about global warming when Maryland's conservative blogosphere started talking extensively about it this week. The facts just aren't on their side, and this post at RedState from California Yankee goes a long way towards consolidating numerous links, studies, and reports detailing the total lack of consensus on the issue, including a recent report from the Senate's EPW Committee report noting the hundreds of scientists who are skeptical of the alleged "consensus."

This is just endemic of the problem on the left once again, much as it was with my debate throwdown. The majority of liberals like to talk smack and bloviate about generalities, but try to get them in a discussion about facts they get scared and run to momma. It's a sad statement on political discourse when you can't even get your opposition to stand up for what they believe in, but it's becoming painfully obvious that is what the modern urban liberals have become...

"Progress" on Environment anything but

Good job team:

President Bush has signed a law requiring automakers to increase fuel efficiency by 40 percent. It also requires wider ethanol use.

Or not:

Because of rising demand for ethanol, American farmers are growing more corn than at any time since World War II. And sea life in the Gulf of Mexico is paying the price.

The nation's corn crop is fertilized with millions of pounds of nitrogen-based fertilizer. And when that nitrogen runs off fields in Corn Belt states, it makes its way to the Mississippi River and eventually pours into the Gulf, where it contributes to a growing "dead zone" — a 7,900-square-mile patch so depleted of oxygen that fish, crabs and shrimp suffocate.

The dead zone was discovered in 1985 and has grown fairly steadily since then, forcing fishermen to venture farther and farther out to sea to find their catch. For decades, fertilizer has been considered the prime cause of the lifeless spot.

With demand for corn booming, some researchers fear the dead zone will expand rapidly, with devastating consequences.

"We might be coming close to a tipping point," said Matt Rota, director of the water resources program for the New Orleans-based Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental group. "The ecosystem might change or collapse as opposed to being just impacted."

And this ties in with the story I noted back in September where the demand for ethanol is killing rain forests in tropical climes.

Once again, it seems like political convenience took precedence over proven science. Nobody can possibly tell me that it is better for us to be growing more and more corn for ethanol use if it means creating a massive dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Sorry, that's "fixing" one problem (I'll get to that in a second) and creating one that is just as bad, and possibly even worse, in it's place.

And let's get back to the point of ethanol. Because guess what? There is no consensus that widespread use of ethanol (or other organic fuels) as a replacement for fossil fuels is a positive for the environment:

Energy outputs from ethanol produced using corn, switchgrass, and wood biomass were each less than the respective fossil energy inputs. The same was true for producing biodiesel using soybeans and sunflower, however, the energy cost for producing soybean biodiesel was only slightly negative compared with ethanol production. Findings in terms of energy outputs compared with the energy inputs were:

• Ethanol production using corn grain required 29% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced.
• Ethanol production using switchgrass required 50% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced.
  
• Ethanol production using wood biomass required 57% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced.
  
• Biodiesel production using soybean required 27% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced(Note, the energy yield from soy oil per hectare is far lower than the ethanol yield from corn).
• Biodiesel production using sunflower required 118% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced.

Of course, the study that I copied that from is from the notoriously anti-science , in the pocket of big business folks from.....the University of California-Berkeley. And Professor Tad Patzek, one of the authors of the aforementioned paper, is a major skeptic of biofuels to say the least (though in the interest of full disclosure, his bio notes that he worked for Shell back in the day).

Once again, Congress and the administration have teamed up to take "action" that does not necessarily accomplish any of the goals with they purportedly have aimed to achieve. By trying to increase ethanol production, they may have unwittingly caused the expansion and promulgation of a large environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and may be contributing to the increase, not decrease, of fossil fuel output due to the energy used to create biofuels.

We need to work on ways to create new alternative fuels whose use and production methods help us clean, not pollute, the environment. The rush of Washington to "do something" to fix the problems is merely meddling in areas that the politicians seem not to understand. By doing the wrong thing, this legislation merely proves that in all likelihood it will be the free market, not Washington, that will come through with the big breakthroughs that will continue to create a cleaner planet. As usual, Washington gives us a cure that could be worse than the disease...

Hysteria, meet reality

This is less than surprising (H/T Instapundit):

The Kyoto treaty was agreed upon in late 1997 and countries started signing and ratifying it in 1998. A list of countries and their carbon dioxide emissions due to consumption of fossil fuels is available from the U.S. government. If we look at that data and compare 2004 (latest year for which data is available) to 1997 (last year before the Kyoto treaty was signed), we find the following.

• Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
• Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%.
• Emissions from non-signers increased 10.0%.
• Emissions from the U.S. increased 6.6%.

In fact, emissions from the U.S. grew slower than those of over 75% of the countries that signed Kyoto. Below are the growth rates of carbon dioxide emissions, from 1997 to 2004, for a few selected countries, all Kyoto signers. (Remember, the comparative number for the U.S. is 6.6%.)

• Maldives, 252%.
• Sudan, 142%.
• China, 55%.
• Luxembourg, 43%
• Iran, 39%.
• Iceland, 29%.
• Norway, 24%.
• Russia, 16%.
• Italy, 16%.
• Finland, 15%.
• Mexico, 11%.
• Japan, 11%.
• Canada, 8.8%.

Which ties in nicely with this editorial from Governor Pete du Pont in today's Wall Street Journal:

In light of all this criticism, what is the status of global emissions over the past few decades? Compared with other countries, how has America done? We generate about 25% of the world's global warming emissions, which is not surprising since we are about 27% of the global economy.

From 1990 to 1995, America's emissions increased 3.9% compared with 3.4% for other developed nations.

From 1995 to 2000, the emissions increased to 11.3%, compared with other developed nations' decline of 1.4%.

From 2000 to 2005, our increase was 0.6% compared with other nations' 2.7%.

So we are making progress. Comparing us with other nations over the 1990-2005, period we are doing better than Canada, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and Turkey, and not as well as Australia, France, Germany, Britain and the Scandinavian nations.

There is no question we must do the research to find ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and that is going forward. As President Bush pointed out in last year's State of the Union address: "Since 2001 we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper and more reliable alternative energy sources." If the Congress fully funds the President's 2008 budget it will total $15 billion.

Governor du Pont also postulates that the real reason for the insistence of developing nations to get the U.S. to adhere to Kyoto and Bali is to slow the American economy to the levels of these developing nations. And when you consider that the liberals don't blink an eye when China, home to 16 of the world's most polluted cities, keeps building coal-fired electric plants to keep with their electric demand, that point seems rather strong.

What the fringe environmental alarmists fail to see is all of the progress that we have made in the United States. I have seen pictures of the 1960's and 1970's, all of the haze in the air. All of the pollution in the waterways. The Cuyahoga catching fire. Can people honestly look around at the air, at anti-pollution measures, at Green Space initiatives, and say that our air quality and our environment in these United States are worse now than it was thirty or forty years ago?

I am a conservationist, in the sense that it is not good politics or good policy for us to be trashing the natural resources that we have been blessed enough to receive here in this neck of the galaxy. But there is not a panacea or a magic wand that will be able to fix pollution without doing serious damage to the American economy. When you consider that it is currently countries that have lousy economies where a large chunk of the pollution is coming from, how is shrinking the American economy going to be able to save the environment when folks who are forced out of their jobs due to inflation and the hyperinflating cost of doing business? You think folks struggling to make ends meet are going to care at that point?

Hey...look.....a Hypocrite Convention

Well....that's not what it's supposed to be:

Never before have so many people converged to try to save the planet from global warming, with more than 10,000 jetting into this Indonesian resort island, from government ministers to Nobel laureates to drought-stricken farmers.

But critics say they are contributing to the very problem they aim to solve.

"Nobody denies this is an important event, but huge numbers of people are going, and their emissions are probably going to be greater than a small African country," said Chris Goodall, author of the book "How to Live a Low-Carbon Life."

Interest in climate change is at an all-time high after former Vice President Al Gore and a team of U.N. scientists won the Nobel Peace Prize for highlighting the dangers of rising temperatures, melting polar ice, worsening droughts and floods, and lengthening heat waves.

Two big climate conferences have been held in less than a month, both in idyllic, far-flung holiday destinations -- first Valencia, Spain, and now Bali. They were preceded by dozens of smaller gatherings. In Bangkok, Paris, Vienna, Washington, New York and Sydney, in Rio de Janeiro, Anchorage, Helsinki and the Indian Ocean island of Kurumba.

You would think it couldn't get any harder to take these clowns seriously.....but it's incredibly hard to take them seriously when they do stupid stuff like this.

Take the Hint

Apparently, environmentalists are a little irked that things like the war, the economy, and other issues that we can prove are happening are pushing environmental wackiness off the campaign trail:

Environmental activists are frustrated. They can't get the issue of global warming into the presidential campaign.

So a coalition of environmental groups, led by online magazine Grist.org and Public Radio International's "Living on Earth,'' held the first-ever presidential forum on global warming in Los Angeles on Saturday.

Good for them that they took the issue into their own hands. But at this stage national security, Iraq, and the economy half to take precedence over this.

More chink in the global warming armor

John Coleman is not a global warming fan. I'm sure that his criticisms will be dismissed since he is not a consensus scientist: merely the founder of the Weather Channel and an award winning meteorologist...

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the "research" to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild "scientific" scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmentally conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minute documentary segment.

I do not oppose environmentalism. I do not oppose the political positions of either party. However, Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you "believe in." It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam...

Truth on An Inconvenient Truth

Every so often somebody will moan about there being no scientists who are saying that what Al Gore is doing is wrong. Well, piling on to the court decision outlining Gore's lies is this:

ONE of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works".

Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.

His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.

"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."...

...But Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.

However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.

"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said....

..."It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."

I'll think I'll put my faith in a guy with a long, respected history of academic scholarship in the field of meteorology than I will a politician from Washington, DC Tennessee.

Unsurprisingly, no domestic news outlets have picked up on this despite the fact the Dr. Gray's speech occurred in North Carolina. They have to protect the agenda at all costs, you know...

Cheapening a Prize

Apparently being a hypocritical let-them-eat-cake biased Chicken Little on the environment has its benefits:

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and lay the foundations for counteracting it.

"I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize," Gore said. "We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."

I suppose he'll take his private jet to Oslo to pick up the hardware and, of course, the check.

As always, Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus makes sense on the issue:

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, a rare vocal global- warming sceptic among heads of state, is "somewhat surprised" that former US vice president Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize, the president's spokesman Petr Hajek said in a statement.

"The relationship between his activities and world peace is unclear and indistinct," the statement said. "It rather seems that Gore's doubting of basic cornerstones of the current civilization does not contribute to peace."

Klaus said in a recent speech that environmentalists' efforts to halt global warming "fatally endanger our freedom and prosperity."

I would say this cheapens the value of the Nobel Peace Prize that was given to people who have actually worked to do good in the world, like Martin Luther King (1964), Norman Borlaug (1970) and Muhammed Yunus (last year). And David Keelan says he has lost all respect for the prize. But given the fact that Communists, terrorists, anti-semites, and crooks have already won the award, I'm not exactly sure how Al Gore being a hysterical hypocrite makes thing any worse than they already were.

Proving the Point About the Size of Government

Those who modify their cars to run on biofuels are doing so, generally to save money in the long term on the cost of gas, but also in order to help clean the environment. Naturally, the bloated size of government could theoretically get in the way:

But it is technically illegal to modify a car to run on any fuel other than the one it was designed for. Because the Environmental Protection Agency has not approved vegetable oil as a fuel, grease cars are in violation of the Clean Air Act.

This does not apply to the use of biodiesel, an EPA-regulated fuel created from soy and other organic oils.

People who modify their cars to run on vegetable oil could face a $2,750 fine, although the EPA has no record of any such penalties, said spokesman Dale Kemery.

People who run their vehicles on homebrewed fuels are also supposed to pay a Maryland fuel tax of 24.25 cents per gallon, be licensed as a special fuel user by the state and file a monthly report on the use of fuel.

But because the use of vegetable oil fuel is so new, nobody has been penalized for not paying taxes, said Warren Hansen, spokesman for the Maryland Comptroller's Office. He said there are only about 100 licensed special fuel users in the state.

I think that it says so much about government overreach that innovators and early adopters of such emerging technologies could be subject to fines and penalties for doing something so innovative. Though I bet somebody in the Comptroller's office is looking at how to enforce this now given Franchot's zeal for collecting tax dollars...

No, TV doesn't try to push an agenda at all

No sir, no way:

Former Vice President Al Gore is expected to make an appearance on the NBC comedy show "30 Rock" in November. Gore was in New York last week to tape the episode, and a Gore spokeswoman says "he did have a great time".

Gore's office anticipates the episode will air as part of, what it called, NBC's upcoming "Green is Universal" week of environmentally-based programming, Nov. 4 - 10.

I am stunned that NBC will waste a week of program preaching environmentalist propaganda. That being said, if they are dumb enough to try this stunt during the November sweeps, then they've got it coming to them:

"We need to not just think green, but act green," said Zucker. "This commitment to a week of programming is an incredible opportunity for NBCU to use the collective power of its platforms – broadcast, cable, and film – and consumer expertise and reach to further the message of environmental awareness and change."

"For the first time ever, the massive resources of the entire NBC Universal family will stand together behind a single pro-social cause," said Zalaznick. "This far-reaching initiative represents the first step in our commitment to help raise environmental awareness and effect change both internally and externally."

Highlights from the "Green is Universal" week include:

NBC Entertainment programming, both scripted and unscripted, will adopt green-friendly and environmentally-oriented messages – across all dayparts – to promote the crucial issue of ecological awareness. Among NBC's many programs to feature this content will be the entire Thursday night line-up, including the Emmy Award-winning comedy "The Office," "My Name is Earl" and "30 Rock," the hit drama "Heroes" and "Deal or No Deal."

NBC News' platforms including "Today," "Nightly News," "Dateline," MSNBC and MSNBC.com, will support a week of special programming, including in-depth looks at the issues and some unique special broadcast events. NBC News' Chief Environmental Affairs Correspondent Anne Thompson will be featured throughout this special week of programming.

NBC Sports kicks-off "Green is Universal" week November 4th with its Sunday Night Football match-up between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles. The broadcast will feature additional announcements about "Green is Universal," as well as incorporate the themes throughout its telecast on Sunday and the following Saturday's Air Force vs. Notre Dame game.

And it goes on like this.

Can you imagine if Fox did something like this for, say, capitalism, or individual rights, or the Second Amendment? Incorporating it across every aspect of its programming? Liberals would be marching in the streets. But do something politically correct like this, and nobody says nary a word.

This is bad business, bad policy, and bad politics all at the same time. And I hope they get trounced in the ratings for it. Not that there is anything worth watching on NBC anymore anyway...

An Inconvenient Truth now officially deemed as biased

In the United Kingdom at least, the Goracle know gets the scarlet letter of being biased in his assertions (H/T Instapundit):

Schools will have to issue a warning before they show pupils Al Gore's controversial film about global warming, a judge indicated yesterday.

The move follows a High Court action by a father who accused the Government of 'brainwashing' children with propaganda by showing it in the classroom.

Stewart Dimmock said the former U.S. Vice-President's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, is unfit for schools because it is politically biased and contains serious scientific inaccuracies and 'sentimental mush'....

...Mr Justice Burton is due to deliver a ruling on the case next week, but yesterday he said he would be saying that Gore's Oscar-winning film does promote 'partisan political views'.

This means that teachers will have to warn pupils that there are other opinions on global warming and they should not necessarily accept the views of the film.

I don't think it takes a rocket scientist or a court of law to figure out that An Inconvenient Truth is nothing more than partisan propaganda (though some big government Republicans think its wonderful, too). But it does go to show the lengths to which the environmental movement will go to push their agenda. They never let the facts get in the way of the story as they present it.

Duck and Cover

So Al Gore loves to talk about Global Warming. Except when he doesn't (H/T Instapundit):

As over 150 heads of state and government gather at UN headquarters in New York to discuss climate change, former Vice President Al Gore, the most prominent proponent of the theory of the human-induced, catastrophic global warming, continues to refuse repeated challenges to debate the issue.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who addressed the General Assembly on climate change September 24, is but the latest global warming skeptic to receive the cold shoulder from Gore. In ads appearing in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Times, Klaus has called on Gore to face him in a one-on-one debate on the proposition: "Global Warming Is Not a Crisis." Earlier in the year, similar challenges to Gore were issued by Dennis Avery, director of the Center for Global Food Issues and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, and Lord Monckton of Brenchley, a former adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. All calls on the former vice president to face his critics have fallen on deaf ears.

Read the whole thing.

So I ask the question: why is Al Gore afraid to debate on Global Warming if the facts are allegedly so much in his favor? Why will he only talk to audiences who drink his kool-aid, or only before audiences who are not allowed to question his "facts?"

Killing the Environment to Save the Environment

I take a lot of heat for being a skeptic on man-made global warming. Well, a lot of my skepticism comes from reading stories like this one:

Primate scientist Jane Goodall said on Wednesday the race to grow crops for vehicle fuels is damaging rain forests in Asia, Africa and South America and adding to the emissions blamed for global warming.

"We're cutting down forests now to grow sugarcane and palm oil for biofuels and our forests are being hacked into by so many interests that it makes them more and more important to save now," Goodall said on the sidelines of the Clinton Global Initiative, former U.S. President Bill Clinton's annual philanthropic meeting.

As new oil supplies become harder to find, many countries such as Brazil and Indonesia are racing to grow domestic sources of vehicle fuels, such as ethanol from sugarcane and biodiesel from palm nuts.

The United Nations' climate program considers the fuels to be low in carbon because growing the crops takes in heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide.

But critics say demand for the fuels has led companies to cut down and burn forests in order to grow the crops, adding to heat-trapping emissions and leading to erosion and stress on ecosystems.

So basically, in order to save the environment from global warming we are condoning the undertaking of methods that cause additional global warming. And that's doubly so considering the additional smoke from burning and the additional loss of rain forest acreage. Combine that with the environmental damage caused by the manufacturing of biofuels, you have a triple play of environmental degradation in the name of saving the environment.

I have never been one to say that we should do nothing for the environment, because obvious it is in the best interest of us individually and as a species to keep the environment as clean as possible. But in order to avoid doing more damage we have to go out of our way to make sure we are taking an appropriate course of action. We have to make sure not to switch fuels and cause additional environmental damage. We should not rush to abide by useless, biased international treaties, or follow the environmental suggestions of ambitious politicians. And we certainly should not follow the example of environmental hypocrites who condemn the proletariat for their abuse of the environment from their luxurious private jets.

Appropriate environmental action calls for reason, not overreaction. That is what causes the problems Dr. Goodall notes....

Moving goalposts on climate change literature

What was once useless now pushes the mythology forward:

Ancient diaries of day-to-day weather details from the age before 19th-century standardized thermometers are proving of great value to scientists who study today's climate. Historical accounts were once largely ignored, as they were thought to be fraught with inaccuracy or were simply inaccessible or illegible. But the booming interest in climate change has transformed the study of ancient weather records from what was once a "wallflower science," says Christian Pfister, a climate historian at the University of Bern.

The accounts dispel any lingering doubts that the Earth is heating up more dramatically than ever before, he says.

Of course, it actually does not clear up anything because the diaries didn't suddenly become cogent and accurate overnight. The only reason the diaries are at all being referenced is because it moves the global warming argument forward for those individuals who believe that humans are the only cause of climate change. The newfound interest in their contents is only in order to push agenda politics.

Wasting Money Early

Looks like a lot of the Democratic Presidential hopefuls are already getting a head start on wasting the people's money :

Former Sen. John Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign has paid nearly $22,000 to offset its global-warming emissions this year, including more than $5,000 a month from April through June, making him the candidate with the largest acknowledged output of greenhouse gases.

Meanwhile, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign spent $2,367 to offset its emissions for April alone, while Sen. Christopher J. Dodd paid $650 for his presidential campaign's emissions from April through June.

Together, they are the three campaign pioneers in the new world of carbon neutrality: the idea of "offsetting" their greenhouse-gas emissions by paying a third-party company to plant trees, build clean-energy projects or take other steps that will lead to less carbon dioxide being emitted.

Presidential campaigns, it turns out, are a dirty business, environmentally speaking — and for the first time, the campaigns' Federal Election Commission reports are providing a glimpse of just how dirty they are when it comes to greenhouse-gas emissions.

I am amazed that, given how money is the "mother's milk" of politics, that these candidates would spend so recklessly on these environment indulgences for zero political gain on an unproven environmental concept.

Actually, given that we're talking about Sens. Clinton, Dodd, and Edwards....I'm probably not that amazed.

The Ugly Truth

Yes folks, while promoting the cause of saving the environment, Live Earth and its participants are...well....killing the planet:

The Live Earth event is, in the words of one commentator: "a massive, hypocritical fraud".

For while the organisers' commitment to save the planet is genuine, the very process of putting on such a vast event, with more than 150 performers jetting around the world to appear in concerts from Tokyo to Hamburg, is surely an exercise in hypocrisy on a grand scale.

Matt Bellamy, front man of the rock band Muse, has dubbed it 'private jets for climate change'.

A Daily Mail investigation has revealed that far from saving the planet, the extravaganza will generate a huge fuel bill, acres of garbage, thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions, and a mileage total equal to the movement of an army.

The most conservative assessment of the flights being taken by its superstars is that they are flying an extraordinary 222,623.63 miles between them to get to the various concerts - nearly nine times the circumference of the world. The true environmental cost, as they transport their technicians, dancers and support staff, is likely to be far higher.

The total carbon footprint of the event, taking into account the artists' and spectators' travel to the concert, and the energy consumption on the day, is likely to be at least 31,500 tonnes of carbon emissions, according to John Buckley of Carbonfootprint.com, who specialises in such calculations.

Throw in the television audience and it comes to a staggering 74,500 tonnes. In comparison, the average Briton produces ten tonnes in a year.

The concert will also generate some 1,025 tonnes of waste at the concert stadiums - much of which will go directly into landfill sites.....

....Let us start with some facts. Worldwide, an audience of around 1,268,500 is expected to attend the concerts - making it one of the largest global events in history.

Dr Andrea Collins, an expert in sustainability from Cardiff University, has researched the impact of such mass gatherings on the environment.

"An event of this size at Wembley - which holds 65,000 at a rock concert, will generate around 59 tonnes of waste," she says. "That is largely composed of the rubbish from food and drink consumption."

She found that a Wembley-sized football match generated an 'ecological footprint' of 3,000 global hectares - an area the size of 4,166 football pitches. This is the amount of bioproductive land required to absorb the C02 emissions produced by such an event.

Here is the most relevant quote:

But Dr Barrett says: "It would be far better for these celebrities to stay at home. Holding large concerts to highlight environmental concerns and cut carbon emissions just seems ridiculous. What planet do these people live on?"

And it is 100% true. The Guardian, Times of London, and Investor's Business Daily also pile on, while some wonder if Global Warming has Jumped the Shark.

While trying to do what they do best and tell us how to live, Live Earth participants are being exposed as hypocrites, much like their hypocrite-in-chief. Nobody is saying that these celebrities are not entitled to live the "rock and roll lifestyle" because they have for the most part earned their station in life. But for God's sake, don't stand there and become part of this massive global event to preaching climate change to the proles while living your carbon-emitting life of luxury.

And it is no wonder that Gore has had to go on the defensive against the charges of hypocrisy leveled by some musicians, including Live Aid/Live8 organizer and former Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof, British band Arctic Monkeys, and The Who frontman Roger Daltrey.

If these rock stars were truly serious about combating climate change, they would not fly around the world on private jets to concerts designed to fight the pollution they just dumped into the atmosphere. They would be better off starting a charity or an interest group than by doing what they are doing. And if Al Gore were functionally capable of toning down the rhetoric, toning down the hypocrisy, and occasionally tell the truth, maybe some of us would be a little less skeptical of not only his message that global warming is the end of us all, but what his motives actually were....

EDIT: Take that (H/T Instapundit:)

Tomorrow’s Live Earth concerts all over the world are part of Al Gore’s plan to save, well, the Earth. But they could end up generating more carbon dioxide than was produced by all of Afghanistan in 2006.

Grab the Blankets

Because it looks like it's going to get cold (H/T Instapundit):

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.

Read the whole thing.

At this point, the most prudent way for individuals to deal with climate change is to look at the thermometer before going to work in the morning, and decide at that point if you need to take a jacket...

Crazy Even for the UN

This is so appallingly stupid that it defies logic:

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the slaughter in Darfur was triggered by global climate change and that more such conflicts may be on the horizon, in an article published Saturday.

"The Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change," Ban said in a Washington Post opinion column.

UN statistics showed that rainfall declined some 40 percent over the past two decades, he said, as a rise in Indian Ocean temperatures disrupted monsoons.

"This suggests that the drying of sub-Saharan Africa derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming," the South Korean diplomat wrote.

"It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought," Ban said in the Washington daily.

Yes, let's use the global warming bogeyman as an excuse for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in a mass genocide. Maybe Ban Ki-moon should spend a little more time finding solutions to this and all of the other problems the UN has failed to address in recent years, and a little less time assigning blame to the murder of thousands.

Told You So

Remember in February I talked about the Carbon Neutral Campus that was all of the rage, with schools pledging to dismiss proven science in an effort to be green in a politically correct way. I said at the time:

Luckily, no Maryland schools have signed up for this as of yet. But I have a feeling that some private or public school in our state is going to sign up for this, taking millions of taxpayer dollars with it.

Well, here come the screws:

More than 280 college presidents - including the head of Maryland's flagship public university - pledged yesterday to fight global warming by making their campuses "climate neutral."

Signers of the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, which was inspired by similar collective efforts among cities and businesses, are pledging to work toward neutralizing greenhouse gas emissions on campus and to increase global warming research and education efforts.

Among Maryland college presidents who have signed the pledge are C.D. "Dan" Mote Jr. of the University of Maryland, College Park; Jonathan C. Gibralter of Frostburg University; Joan Develin Coley of McDaniel College; and Baird Tipson of Washington College.

As a taxpayer, I am of course appalled that two public schools are signing on to this; especially considering all of the whining and moaning that went on the last several years regarding the state of funding for higher education in Maryland. The last thing I want are public schools reallocating resources from their primary mission of educating students in an effort to pass Pollyanna-ish environmental reforms because certain politically motivated scientists tell them the sky is falling.

And as an alumnus of a signatory school (under its real name, I must remind you), I have a major problem with this bullet:

Use their endowment investments to advocate for environmentally friendly business policies.

Once again, I don't want to see a private institution (even one that gets millions from the state of Maryland under the Sellinger Fund [learn more about that boondoggle]) waste money that could be reinvested on (bad) infrastructure and educational improvements blowing money on environmental insanity. What's even more disturbing, to me, is the fact that a private institution of higher learning thinks it is appropriate to use monies from its endowment as a hammer in an effort to lobby businesses and presumably governments on the need for environmentally friendly business practices. You have to ask yourself if colleges these days are places of higher learning or liberal reeducation camps, but sadly I think I know the answer.

(Ironically, going to Western Maryland College made me more conservative...and I'm not the only one who became that way...)

Common Sense from Europe?

How about that(H/T Instapundit):

Europe's citizens must be on their guard against political correctness and moralising politicians, says the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

The former Portuguese premier and centre-Right politician is concerned that freedom can be the loser in European culture wars over climate change, cheap air travel, Islam and free speech.

"We should be aware of people who, sometimes for good reasons, try to establish what I call private moral codes, for this or that, be it climate change, religious behaviour or any kind of social behaviour," he says.

Unfortunately too many folks over on this side of the pond could use a refresher...

A Blemish on Academic Freedom

Turns out that people who are skeptical about global warming are taking their lives into their hands:

Scientists who questioned mankind's impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.

They say the debate on global warming has been "hijacked" by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.

Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.

One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming.

"Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened," said the professor.

"I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal."

Violent zealotry hasn't worked for other fringe movements. So I certainly cannot understand the need for it with such a "consensus" out there...

Quotable

"At the moment, there is almost a McCarthyism movement in science where the greenhouse effect is like a puritanical religion, and this is dangerous"
- Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in today's Washington Times

Following the Data

There has to be a lack of consensus on global warming when politically connected French socialists come out as skeptics(H/T RedState):

Claude Allegre, one of France's leading socialists and among her most celebrated scientists, was among the first to sound the alarm about the dangers of global warming....

...With a wealth of data now in, Dr. Allegre has recanted his views. To his surprise, the many climate models and studies failed dismally in establishing a man-made cause of catastrophic global warming. Meanwhile, increasing evidence indicates that most of the warming comes of natural phenomena. Dr. Allegre now sees global warming as over-hyped and an environmental concern of second rank.

His break with what he now sees as environmental cant on climate change came in September, in an article entitled "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" in l' Express, the French weekly. His article cited evidence that Antarctica is gaining ice and that Kilimanjaro's retreating snow caps, among other global-warming concerns, come from natural causes. "The cause of this climate change is unknown," he states matter of factly. There is no basis for saying, as most do, that the "science is settled."

Dr. Allegre's skepticism is noteworthy in several respects. For one, he is an exalted member of France's political establishment, a friend of former Socialist president Lionel Jospin, and, from 1997 to 2000, his minister of education, research and technology, charged with improving the quality of government research through closer co-operation with France's educational institutions. For another, Dr. Allegre has the highest environmental credentials. The author of early environmental books, he fought successful battles to protect the ozone layer from CFCs and public health from lead pollution. His break with scientific dogma over global warming came at a personal cost: Colleagues in both the governmental and environmental spheres were aghast that he could publicly question the science behind climate change.

Read the whole thing, and the others in the National Post series. But I can assure you that with more and more evidence that there is no consensus on global warming, the more and more one has to come the conclusion that only the true believers, the megalomaniacal, and the ostrich-like can claim that there is any sort of "consensus." It also shows that there are, in fact, people in the global warming debate who do follow the data, not political talking points, when speaking on the issue.

Missing the Point

No Al Gore apologists seem to get the point these days.

Daffodil Lane meekly attempts to defend Al Gore's energy consumption by recycling Keith Olbermann's talking points and trying to change the topic to that Gore's energy costs more because they are using green power. Oh, and it's all OK because Gore buys "carbon credits,"; we'll get to those later.

As we noted, the original report does not deal with the cost of Gore's energy, by that Gore uses 20 times as many kilowatt-hours of electricity as the average consumer. Something Gore, as of yet, has not denied. And Bill Hobbs notes:

As the news media swarmed around the story of Gore's gargantuan energy consumption yesterday, Gore's people touted his purchase of "carbon offsets" as evidence that he lives a "carbon-neutral" lifestyle, but the truth is Gore's home uses electricity that is, for the most part, derived from the burning of carbon fuels. His house gets its electricity from Nashville Electric Service, which gets its from the Tennessee Valley Authority, which produces most of its power from coal-burning power plants. Which means most of the power being consumed at the Gore mansion comes from carbon-emitting power sources.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, check out this complete stupidity. TaxProf Blog notes this from the New York Post:

HOLLYWOOD'S wealthy liberals can now avoid any guilt they might feel for consuming so much non-renewable fossil fuel in their private jets, their SUVs, and their multiple air-conditioned mansions. This year's Oscar goodie bag contained gift certificates representing 100,000 pounds of greenhouse gas reductions from TerraPass, which describes itself as a "carbon offset retailer." The 100,000 pounds "are enough to balance out an average year in the life of an Academy Award presenter," a press release from TerraPass asserts.

Yes...free carbon credits. The Hollywood crowd now even gets their indulgences for free, while lecturing the rest of us about the need to be carbon neutral. The Virginian compares them to sumptuary laws that regulated the social hierarchy.

Then there are Dianne Feinstein and Arnold Schwarzenegger, from the LA Times:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein offers plenty of tips on how California households can combat global warming, such as carpooling and running only a full dishwasher.

But one bit of information Feinstein declines to share is the number of times that she flew last year on her husband's Gulfstream jet, which burns much more fuel per passenger-mile than commercial airliners.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also has asked constituents to do their part to conserve energy — including cutting summertime power consumption — even though he takes to the skies on leased executive jets.

Aides say there is nothing contradictory between the pro-green pronouncements and the flying habits of the Democratic senator and Republican governor.

Some environmentalists aren't so sure.

"There appears to be a discrepancy between calling on people to make personal reductions and using a private jet that exacerbates the problem," Clean Air Watch President Frank O'Donnell said.

Flying on a Gulfstream rather than an airliner is like driving a sport utility vehicle instead of riding a bus, O'Donnell and others say.

In a lot of these cases, the moral of the story is "Do as I say, not as I do." Sadly, their apologists cannot see the forests for the trees and really understand what is going on here.

Meteorologists are Scientists you know

Mark Alexander wrote about the politics and science of global warming, and from that I'd like to director your attention to this article from September 2005 in Discover Magazine. Some people want to kvetch about the scientific consensus in support of global warming. So I present you with this:

You don't believe global warming is causing climate change?

G: No. If it is, it is causing such a small part that it is negligible. I'm not disputing that there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and '40s, and then there was a slight global cooling from the middle '40s to the early '70s. And there has been warming since the middle '70s, especially in the last 10 years. But this is natural, due to ocean circulation changes and other factors. It is not human induced.

That must be a controversial position among hurricane researchers.

G: Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical as hell about this whole global-warming thing. But no one asks us. If you don't know anything about how the atmosphere functions, you will of course say, "Look, greenhouse gases are going up, the globe is warming, they must be related." Well, just because there are two associations, changing with the same sign, doesn't mean that one is causing the other.

The guy answering the questions is somebody you might have heard of; noted hurricane scientist Dr. William Gray from Colorado State University.

One Brief Fit of Praise

Look, Al Gore, his movie, and his acolytes deserve all of the criticism that they get. However, I would like to say that the Virgin Earth Challenge is a good idea. Why? Because it is an attempt at a private sector solution to climate change, instead of the government-led solution that is usually the starting point for global warming true believers.

I can pretty much give a pass to any movement (that is legal, of course) that wants to encourage people to change their habits or use new technologies through private sector prizes and grants. Why not? It worked for transatlantic flight and space flight. It's when people want to parlay unscientific data intro strict government regulation that it's time to throw the brakes on...

Piling On

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention (via RedState and Instapundit):

Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.

Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Of course, apparently that makes Bill Frist more of the conservationist...

The Preachers of Hollywood and Vine

During Sunday's Oscar Telecast, usually four hours of left-wing self-congratulation, the entire evening became a love-in for former Vice-President Al Gore and the Global Warming movement. It was so bad that CNN noted that Gore basically received $5 million in free advertising during the event. Hollywood blogger Nikke Finke has more.

In what ways was it bad?:

• Ellen DeGeneres made a joke in the monologue about people having actually voted for Al Gore, despite him not winning.
• The Goracle joins intellectual heavyweight Leonardo DeCaprio on stage to talk about how the Oscars went green this year led by the " non-partisan" Natural Resources Defense Council (see what sacrifices the rich with leerjets want you to make!). Oh: and we are all going to die (or something) if we don't take action right now. Ironically, Libertas notes:
  

  Leo and Gore. Between them these two environmentalists' combined living space could house all those Haitian Boat People Clinton turned back.
  

• Gore apparently made a movie which the Cuban Government loves that won Best Fictional Drama Best Documentary for some reason. His producer noted that he was "moved to act by this man." He and the Goracle then got their prom picture together.
• On the way up to accept the award, the Movie Voice Guy ( Don LaFontaine) said, and I quote as best I can:
  

  The movie was scheduled to be filmed in New Orleans the day before Hurricane Katrina hit, a prime example of the effects of global warming.

  (Never mind that Katrina was the epitome of Democratic failure, incompetence, and corruption)
  
  
• Then, some other guy comes up and wins an award and thanks Al Gore apparently for existing.
  

The entire night a celebration of a has-been politician and his "documentary" which has been savagely torn apart nine ways to Sunday.

Now, here comes the real question: how would Hollywood celebrate a movie about creationism?

I don't ask this question in jest. Creationism is, by all accounts, a theory. A theory that has little in scientific basis; in fact, most scientists support alternative theories (i.e. evolution) and have a substantially greater scientific basis to support the alternative theories. Creationism is accepted by millions of people as fact. They accept it on faith alone.

That's what many of the Hollywood elite do with current theories on global warming. They accept what they have been told on faith alone, notwithstanding the fact that no scientific consensus exists on the matter. Does anybody seriously think that Leonardo read any of the literature on climate change before coming to the conclusion that the Goracle must save us all? I highly doubt it, if only due to the culture of Hollywood that accepts left-leaning talking points as the truth, regardless of their veracity.

Hollywood's global warming alarmists adopt the global warming orthodoxy on a leap of faith. Ironically, these same people savagely criticize those who are religious for taking the same leap of faith on their beliefs.

Now I am skeptical about man-made global warming. And I am skeptical about creationism. But the contrast of the acceptability of believing in global warming on faith is striking when compared to the modern day acceptability of creationism.

Those who are on television, like DeCaprio. preaching about the need to conserve and the need to fight global warming remind me a lot of the televangelist Jim Bakker . Both preach to the true believers, both preaching gospels as they see fit. Both living lives of hypocrisy; Bakker for his sex scandals and financial improprieties, DeCaprio for his large houses and gas-guzzling modes of transportation.

That makes the global warming crowd in Hollywood nothing more than Preachers proselytizing to their flock. They are the Preachers of Hollywood and Vine...

Coming Soon to a taxpayer funded budget near you...

The Carbon Neutral Campus (H/T Instapundit and Bill Hobbs):

We, the undersigned presidents and chancellors of colleges and universities, are deeply concerned about the unprecedented scale and speed of global warming and its potential for large-scale, adverse health, social, economic and ecological effects. We recognize the scientific consensus that global warming is real and is largely being caused by humans. We further recognize the need to reduce the global emission of greenhouse gases by 80% by mid-century at the latest, in order to avert the worst impacts of global warming and to reestablish the more stable climatic conditions that have made human progress over the last 10,000 years possible.

These people are responsible for educating our next generation. So naturally, they dismiss science out of hand and make ground pronouncements of things they don't understand just to score political points.

Incidentally, I can assure you that the last thing a college campus needs are more reporting requirements, more bureaucracy, and especially more committees. This protocol calls for all three. We could probably be more carbon neutral by eliminating all of that hot air...

Luckily, no Maryland schools have signed up for this as of yet. But I have a feeling that some private or public school in our state is going to sign up for this, taking millions of taxpayer dollars with it.

Incidentally, take a look at their proposed solutions, which probably says more than any grand statement of purpose could.

When "Consensus" is Wrong

Some people refuse to believe that any environmental science lacks consensus. Well, tell that to some British scientists about organic farming (H/T: Instapundit):

Organic food may be no better for the environment than conventional produce and in some cases is contributing more to global warming than intensive agriculture, according to a government report.

The first comprehensive study of the environmental impact of food production found there was "insufficient evidence" to say organic produce has fewer ecological side-effects than other farming methods....

David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, drew a furious response from growers last month when he suggested organic food was a "lifestyle choice" with no conclusive evidence it was nutritionally superior.

Sir David King, the Government's chief scientist, also told The Independent he agreed that organic food was no safer than chemically-treated food.

The report for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs found "many" organic products had lower ecological impacts than conventional methods using fertilisers and pesticides. But academics at the Manchester Business School (MBS), who conducted the study, said that was counterbalanced by other organic foods - such as milk, tomatoes and chicken - which are significantly less energy efficient and can be more polluting than intensively-farmed equivalents.

Ken Green, professor of environmental management at MBS, who co-wrote the report, said: "You cannot say that all organic food is better for the environment than all food grown conventionally. If you look carefully at the amount of energy required to produce these foods you get a complicated picture. In some cases, the carbon footprint for organics is larger."

The irony of this is the fact that many people specifically eat organic foods because they think they are healthier or are doing their part to help the environment. But as usual science may tell us a different story. You can't be like some people and stick your head in the sand and only refuse to believe what you want to believe. Even something as mainstream as recycling has its detractors who say it may hurt the environment.

If people want to buy organic foods and conduct organic farming because it makes them feel better, go right ahead. But the people who claim that organic farming is a panacea may have another thing coming...

Consensus This

Remember all that hoopla about a consensus on Global Warming? Mother Nature has other ideas (H/T Instapundit):

Greenland isn’t melting as fast as we feared.

It was big news when the rate of melting suddenly doubled in 2004 as ice sheets began moving more quickly into the sea. That inspired predictions of the imminent demise of Greenland’s ice — and a catastrophic rise in sea level. But a paper published online this afternoon by Science reports that two of the largest glaciers have suddenly slowed, bringing the rate of melting last year down to near the previous rate. At one glacier, Kangerdlugssuaq, “average thinning over the glacier during the summer of 2006 declined to near zero, with some apparent thickening in areas on the main trunk.”

The whole crux of this is that Greenland was warmer sixty years ago than it is now. And back then, things turned out OK. I'm sure some will say that the New York Times is just a political arm of Big Oil for allowing such things to be printed.

Incidentally, you have to love the following from the profile on Tierney's blog.

With your help, he's using TierneyLab to check out new research and rethink conventional wisdom about science and society. The Lab's work is guided by two founding principles:

1. Just because an idea appeals to a lot of people doesn't mean it's wrong.
2. But that's a good working theory.

Scaremongering

The Baltimore Reporter has a well detailed post regarding "global warming scaremongering", including a 25 minute video from a Canadian group debunking a lot of the global warming myths.

But remember; there is a "consensus."

Green Politics and Greenback Politics

Again I ask the question: Why Elect a Democratic County Executive when you can have John Leopold instead?

Leopold is trumpeting the fact that he has signed up Anne Arundel County to be part of the Sierra Club Cool Cities Program by signing the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement spearheaded by the City of Seattle, the full text of which is available here.

The main crux of all of this is to get city and municipal governments to adhere to the tenets of the Kyoto Protocol, which as you know was defeated in the U.S. Senate by a 95-0 vote in 1997 through passage of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution.

And the reasoning he gives for his decision: Al Gore;

Mr. Leopold said he was inspired to take action on global warming after seeing former vice president Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."

"I saw the movie, 'An Inconvenient Truth,' and was impressed with the adverse impact in the world of the greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide in the air, etc.," Mr. Leopold said. "That movie was inspiring."

That kind of reasoning is appalling. Especially given the fact that Gore's film is politically motivated drivel...

Now despite the fact that there is no consensus that global warming is caused by man, and despite what people from some corners of the universe seem to believe, I am not opposed to doing things to improve our environment. We only have one environment and we as responsible citizens and responsible consumers need to do what we can in order to ensure that we have clean air and clear water. Conserving our resources is a good thing.

But there are responsible ways to do this. One responsible way is to not overreact every time the temperature breaks above 50 degrees in January, because that is not proof of Global Warming. As I have said, there is no consensus on Global Warming. But just because there is no consensus does not give us no excuse to do things to try and protect the environment as consumers. We do not get carte blanche on cleaning the environment because the science is questionable. If I could go out and by a hybrid car (or preferably, a Tesla Roadster) I'd do it.

All of that being said, this Agreement and the Sierra Club program are kind of strange. Sure, we all can get behind things like protecting open space, using energy efficient street lighting, and ensuring the government purchases energy efficient appliances and equipment. Those are things that are economically viable in the long-term. But these plans also include trying to implement Kyoto's agreements on "trading" emissions credits, more government intervention in promoting the development of cleaner burning fuels, creating "walkable" communities, etc.

And now this gets back to the environment, economics, and the county budget. John Leopold has stated repeatedly about the need to find "efficiencies" in government to save money and cut government spending. However, signing up for these agreements seems contrary to everything Leopold has said about efficiencies in government. Leopold campaigned on a platform of not raising taxes and reducing county spending. I'm not sure he can keep his promises while adhering to these compacts. By signing this document, Leopold has committed to Anne Arundel County government to:

• Provide incentives for car pooling and using public transit;
• Support the use of "waste to energy technology";
• Invest in "Green Tags " (the buying and selling of emission credits, commonly known as a carbon credit);
• Improving building codes for energy efficiency;
• Renovating county buildings;
• Practice and promote "sustainable building";
• Recover wastewater treatment methane for energy production;
• Help educate the public, schools, other jurisdictions, professional associations, business and industry about reducing global warming pollution.
  

All of which may benefit the environment, but at what cost to the taxpayer? How efficiently is government going to be able to provide this? And where is the money going to come from? And will any of this stuff achieve the intended consequences or, worse yet, have any unintended consequences that will negatively impact our county?

As I stated, some of these things are clearly workable and have a clear net positive for the county and for taxpayers. More open space means more parkland and less ground level pollution. Using energy efficient lighting and appliances save money on electricity costs. But what about building renovation? From whom are we buying "Green Tags?" Yeah, Plasma arc technology sounds cool on paper, but are it and other "waste to energy" technologies efficient or economically viable?

We all have a stake in protecting the environment, an environment that has been constantly improving since the Nixon Administration. However, we need to take proactive steps, much like the U.S. Senate in 1997, to ensure that protecting the environment does not come at the cost of wrecking our economy. We can have it both ways; there are ways to be environmentally sustainable in an economically sustainable manner.

But I am concerned that the agreement to which Leopold has ascribed Anne Arundel County leads us too far down the way toward too much government intervention in the economy and potential tax and budget hikes down the road. This agreement is the antithesis of what John Leopold campaigned on during the 2006 election. This is not where we need to go, especially given that his whole reason for signing this accord is "inspiration" from Al Gore.

I shudder to think what comes next...

How Dare I?

Apparently, I am a "closed off to facts", "spew complete misinformation," and am a "heretic" on the subject of global warming, mainly because I understand that there is not a consensus on the issue. At least, according to the folks at Daffodil Lane.

I never understand why the people who claim that they are tolerant are the most intolerant of the bunch. Certainly, this added nothing to the conversation of global warming...

Everytime I think of the "global warming gospel" crowd, I think of this:

Let's Hold off with the Global Warming Hysteria

The Maryland Weather Blog noted something tonight (bolded emphaiss mine):

AT BWI...THE AVERAGE TEMP OF 43.5F DURING THE 45 DAYS (DEC 1-JAN 14) MARKING THE FIRST HALF OF WINTER RANKS IT 4TH WARMEST ON RECORD...SINCE 1872. THE WARMEST SIMILAR 45 DAY WINTER PERIOD WAS ALSO DURING`THE WINTER 1889-90 WHEN THE AVERAGE TEMP WAS 46.6F. ONLY A TRACE OF SNOW HAS FALLEN SO FAR IN BALTIMORE SINCE DEC 1ST...TYING IT WITH 10 OTHER SIMILAR FIRST HALF WINTER PERIODS...INCLUDING LAST WINTER. TOTAL PRECIPITATION SO FAR OF 4.18" FOR THIS PERIOD IS SLIGHTLY BELOW THE NORMAL RAINFALL OF 4.95".

So yes, this has happened before. The Global Warming boogeyman is not at fault for this one...

So Which Is It

Here is a quote from this wire story about the big bad ice island:

"This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years," Vincent said. "We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead."

Three paragraphs later...

Some scientists say that the break-off of the ice shelf is the largest event of its kind in Canada in 30 years and that climate change was a major element.

So is it a drastic event, or the biggest of its kind in thirty years? Ice sheets calve apart due to natural climate change, kinda like how they use to farm Greenland in the medieval warm period.

Climate change happens. Not everything can be blamed on the big bad human race...