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A Case Against Precipitous Climate Action Written by Dr. Richard Lindzen The notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope. The fact that the developed world went into hysterics over changes in global mean temperature anomaly of a few tenths of a degree will astound future generations. Such hysteria simply represents the scientific illiteracy of much of the public, the susceptibility of the public to the substitution of repetition for truth, and the exploitation of these weaknesses by politicians, environmental promoters, and, after 20 years of media drum beating, many others as well. (SPPI)
Hitting EPA’s Pause Button – What Are the Benefits, Risks? (Updated) by on February 17, 2011 in Blog Yesterday (Feb. 16), House Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) engaged in a colloquy with Interior and Agriculture Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-ID) on Sec. 1746 of H.R. 1, the One-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011. (Cooler Heads)
I gather the wonkers don't approve: EXCLUSIVE: Wonk Room Interviews Montana Legislator Who Introduced Bill To Declare Global Warming ‘Natural’ A bill has been introduced in the Montana state legislature to declare global warming a “natural occurrence and human activity has not accelerated it,” and that it is “beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana.” State Rep. Joe Read (R-MT), a farmer and emergency firefighter who unseated a Democratic incumbent in the climate zombie wave of 2010, introduced HB 549 “to ensure economic development in Montana”:
In an exclusive interview with the Wonk Room, the 55-year-old first-time legislator graciously explained why he filed this bill to outlaw science, which even he admitted was a “radical” act. Unlike the man who tried to get the Indiana legislature to redefine pi for a crank mathematical “proof” in 1897, Read’s motivation is primarily ideological. Read did not consult any climate scientists in the drafting of this bill, he said, relying instead on his own experience and understanding of the issues at play:
Read has also introduced a companion bill that asserts federal greenhouse pollution limits violate the Tenth Amendment (HB 550), modeled after Arizona’s so-called Freedom To Breathe Act. Both bills are scheduled for hearings this Friday, February 18, in the Helena, Montana capitol building. (Wonk Room)
Written by Dennis Ambler Whilst the continual scientific rebuttals of the climate reports produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) may make many people think that this charade cannot continue much longer, behind the scenes it is quite irrelevant; the long-term process marches relentlessly on as if there had never been any challenges at all. As the advocates throw in yet more spurious claims of the “hottest year on record”, or record cold caused by CO2 emissions, they occupy the debate, and determine the daily agenda in the media, whilst those who know that the claims are spurious, are driven to waste time, effort and resources on refuting them. (SPPI)
Analysis: Governments To Debate Kyoto Climate Dilemma Governments are looking at ways to keep the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol going beyond 2012 in some form to defuse a standoff between rich and poor nations that
threatens efforts to tackle global warming.
They say they believe but act like they don't This week the Australian government tells us that we ought to pay more tax to prevent the increase in natural disasters that are dead-set bound-to-occur, yet the government itself is budgeting less for these events. Figure that. They’ve cut their expenditure projections for future natural disasters and apparently expect them to be less expensive than what the previous conservative government spent (way back in 2006), and far far less than recent bills.
So it appears that the Australian Labor Party can warn us that natural disasters are on the rise (due to man-made emissions) but they estimate the costs of dealing with those disasters are going to be quite a lot less at least for a while. So either (a) they don’t really think disasters are coming, but they are happy to deceive the people about the risk, or (b) they do think disasters are getting worse, but they are happy to deceive people about the budget. Or there’s (c) no one is competent or organized enough to notice how these two things are wildly at odds with each other. Once again, watch Penny Wong absolve herself of any responsibility. Apparently, the Minister of Finance doesn’t have a role in this. The bureaucrats decide:
Why do we elect her, if it’s not her job to determine how much money we ought to spend? Can we elect the bureaucrats instead? More » (Jo Nova)
Climate change committee delays decision A decision on how to price carbon is still months away, the federal government says.
Written by Dennis Ambler We have seen the end of yet another UN “Climate Fest”, with COP 16 in Cancun. The actual conference, however, is just the “tip of the iceberg” of the massive wheeling and dealing that goes on all year round. (SPPI)
Are Skeptic Scientists Corrupt? Written by Russell Cook The collection of Original Papers at SPPI are authored by people with impressive credentials in science, or at least they have a demonstrated grasp of the various technical aspects of global warming theory through their history of writing on the subject. I must stress on no uncertain terms that I do not share those accomplishments, a fact that will no doubt delight believers of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and prompt them to read no further into this paper, but instead accuse SPPI of issuing papers written by people unqualified to speak about the subject. That would be unfortunate, as the evidence I present here and the questions I ask are things any unqualified, disinterested bystander might find and ask about. Indeed, believers of AGW could have posed the following to each other in order to see if their criticisms about skeptic scientists survive under hard scrutiny. (SPPI)
Debunking the Antarctica myths Fraser NelsonNicholas Lewis and Matt Ridley have joined forces to write the cover story for this week’s issue of the Spectator. They tell yet another powerful, and depressing tale of the woeful state of climate science. Real science welcomes refutation: with global warming, it is treated as a religion. (Spectator)
Flood Disasters and Human-Caused Climate Change [UPDATE: Gavin Schmidt at Real Climate has a post on this subject that
-- surprise, surprise -- is perfectly consonant with what I write below.]
Comment On The Nature Paper “Human Contribution To More-Intense Precipitation” By Min Et Al 2011 There has been quite a bit of discussion on weblogs of the Nature paper [h/t to Marcel Crok for alerting me to the paper] Seung-Ki Min, Xuebin Zhang, Francis W. Zwiers and Gabriele C. Hegerl: 2011: Human contribution to more-intense precipitation extremes. Nature. 17 February 2011. (Roger Pielke Sr.)
Climate Models Prove That Disastrous Floods Could Not Happen Below 350 ppm CO2 “Historical research” is now superseded by blind faith in climate models. (Steven Goddard, Real Science)
UK Floods in 2000 caused by Millennium bug Piers Corbyn astrophysicist of WeatherAction long range forecasters reports I have just completed a 10 year research programme into the causes of the UK floods in Autumn 2000 and conclusively demonstrate (Ref 1) their risk was very likely (a 2 in 3 chance) exacerbated by the millennium bug. The correlation between the floods and the exponential growth of the bug which started in January 2000, a full 9 months previously is widely accepted and fully piers reviewed. The other reason why we can be so confident is that we know of no other reason, or to be more precise there are allegedly plenty of other reasons but we don’t want to know them because our bug research grant needs renewal and it was hard enough to spin this one out for ten years. SERIOUSLY this level of drivel is only surpassed by the recent ‘Nature’ - Met Office – BBC publication – one-sided propagation by the familiar anti-science spin axis of ‘studies’ to the effect that Man-made CO2 contributed to the floods in 2000 and more intense precipitation in general. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v470/n7334/full/nature09762.html http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2011/Autumn-2000-floods-research http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/733v470/n4/full/nature09763.html (WeatherAction)
sigh... Climate’s Strong Fingerprint In Global Cholera Outbreaks For decades, deadly outbreaks of cholera were attributed to the spread of disease through poor sanitation. But recent research demonstrates how closely cholera is tied to environmental and hydrological factors and to weather patterns — all of which may lead to more frequent cholera outbreaks as the world warms. (Sonia Shah, e360)
CO2 Report Debunks Climate Change Catastrophes For decades, climate change alarmists have generated a host of doomsday scenarios, all based on the theory of anthropogenic global warming: human CO 2 emissions will force Earth's climate to warm uncontrollably causing all manner of unpleasantness. A new study, published by the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, addresses the major predicted effects of global warming head on. Making extensive use of peer reviewed research papers, the dire predictions of climate alarmists are demolished point by point. In fact, the authors conclude that rising atmospheric CO 2 concentrations associated with the development of the Industrial Revolution have actually been good for the planet. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, Feb. 17 2011 Greenpeace hippies are going to jail, Al Gore gets to inspect the underside of a bus and the Dutch want to glow in the dark. (Daily Bayonet)
Neal Amundson, considered by many the pre-eminent chemical engineer in the history of the United States just passed away after a long and distinguished career that spanned seven decades. He was 95. Rarely has there been in any branch of science and engineering such an influential figure who could claim, father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-great grandfather rights to practically any big name in the profession, covering the entire globe. He was a transformational figure. (ET)
Federal judge gives Interior 30 days to decide on deepwater drilling permits ByThe judge's order says permitting delays in the wake of the BP oil spill have “become increasingly unreasonable.” Read more... (E2 Wire)
Senators push drilling on word of new containment system ByAn array of pro-drilling lawmakers and business groups are boosting pressure on the Interior Department to resume issuing deepwater oil-drilling permits
following the announcement by major oil producers that they’ve developed enhanced systems to contain
well blowouts.
Energy: The brightest hope for America's energy independence has been shut down by an Interior Department that says it wants to review the rules for leases.
It really wants to kill off oil altogether.
Unconventional Gas Riles and Refigures the World Energy Market: The Pacific and Asia (Part II) by Donald Hertzmark In Part 1 of this series, the trends in U.S. unconventional gas output in were explored. The impacts on gas markets — $3–5/MMBtu — were noted. If unconventional gas puts pressure on LNG and Gazprom, can this supply and supplier turn to Asia as their new market? Maybe, and just for a while. (MasterResource)
The stupid things the whacko elite try to impose on real people: Stick a fork in it, we're done Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Green the Capitol initiative is over at the House's Longworth cafeteria.
Can technology keep up with regulatory zeal? Our friends at Interscan have prepared a nifty PowerPoint presentation entitled "Issues with low concentration gas detection in ambient air." (1.9 MB) While this may seem like an arcane subject, it really shouldn't be. Virtually every industry is affected by regulatory agencies that set compliance levels, and keep lowering them, for the level of toxic compounds in ambient air. Yet, the pitfalls of attempting to measure these concentrations are not well publicized—at all. Interscan details three areas of concern:
The information presented is practical and easy-to-understand. What's more, unlike so many other authors of PowerPoint content, Interscan distributes the native file, rather than a pdf version. I mention this because, as one who does PowerPoints himself, distributing only the pdf versions has always seemed ridiculous. With the pdf, you lose all the cool formatting, and that's at least half of what makes a good presentation. Years ago, this practice could be justified since it reduced the file size, but with today's broadband speeds, it is no longer appropriate. Interscan offers additional PowerPoint shows for free download, as well. Check them out. (Shaw's Eco-Logic)
EU cranks up antichemical crankery: EU To Ban Toxic Chemicals In Household Plastics The European Union will ban six toxic chemicals within three to five years, three of which are commonly used in plastic household items, the EU Commission
said on Thursday.
Doubt cast on salt guidelines for diabetics Australian researchers are challenging guidelines that urge diabetics to cut back on salt in their diet.
Oh... Group calls for FDA ban of soda 'caramel' Some chemically enhanced caramel food colorings used in widely consumed cola drinks could cause cancer and should be banned, a U.S. consumer advocacy group urged the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday. (Reuters)
JunkScience.com responds to food police attack on caramel coloring in cola, processed foods JunkScience.com responded today to the claim by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) that the caramel coloring used in Coca-Cola, Pepsi and
other foods is contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals.
Shhh! Don't tell people these things happen naturally! UT researchers link algae to harmful estrogen-like compound in water University of Tennessee, Knoxville, researchers have found that blue-green algae may be responsible for producing an estrogen-like compound in the
environment which could disrupt the normal activity of reproductive hormones
Serial envirocrank Paul Epstein with more imaginary ills: Coal's Hidden Costs Top $345 Billion In U.S: Study The United States' reliance on coal to generate almost half of its electricity, costs the economy about $345 billion a year in hidden expenses not borne by
miners or utilities, including health problems in mining communities and pollution around power plants, a study found.
Captain Lee Carver took his 90-foot 100-passenger boat out to sea on February 1, with only 26 passengers. When he returned to dock after four hours of
fishing, his catch report counted 52 sea bass, one grunt, and three sand tiles. After Wednesday, February 16, his boat will return to the docks with no sea
bass, no red snapper, no grouper, no vermillion snapper, nor any of the dozens of other species managed by the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council (SAFMC).
Oil, mining groups urge House to curtail EPA climate rules in CR ByMore than a dozen industry trade associations including refining and mining groups are urging House lawmakers to maintain provisions in federal spending legislation that thwart EPA greenhouse-gas rules. The GOP-drafted spending bill on the House floor — which funds the government through the end of September — would block funding for EPA’s implementation of initial rules to limit emissions. EPA has begun phasing in initial greenhouse-gas permitting requirements for large, new and modified emitters such as power plants. Read more... (E2 Wire)
House science chairman seeks to block funding for new ‘Climate Service’ ByRep. Ralph Hall wants to block funding for the overhaul of major federal climate change research and monitoring programs. Read more... (E2 Wire)
Cap-and-Trade Fantasies In Disneyland California, marching to the beat of its own drum, is on the road to another economic minefield of its own making. On September 2, 2010, voters rejected an alternate Proposition 23 route, one that would have avoided the approved Assembly Bill 32 superhighway to disaster. Resulting cap-and-trade booby traps will be triggered in 2012 when the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 is implemented. This legislation authorizes unelected officials at the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to establish a program enabling companies that cut greenhouse gas emissions to sell “allowances” to others that need them to meet reduction regulations targeted at 15% by 2020. (Larry Bell, Forbes)
What Does Climate Change Mean for Investment Portfolio Risk? Mercer, a global financial services firm, has just issued a major new
report on the risks of climate change on investment portfolios. The report was produced with the help of the LSE Grantham Institute and the World
Bank. Climate change could put trillions of investment dollars at risk over the next 20 years, a global study released on Wednesday said, calling for pension funds and other investors to overhaul how they allocate funds.However, when you actually take a look at the report, you find that it does not say what Reuters (or others) says it does . The report presents several top line conclusions about portfolio risks over the next 20 years. First, climate policies might have a large financial impact on portfolio risk: [C]limate policy could contribute as much as 10% to overall portfolio risk: Uncertainty around climate policy is a significant source of portfolio risk for institutional investors to manage over the next 20 years. The economic cost of climate policy for the market to absorb is estimated to amount to as much as approximately $8 trillion cumulatively, by 2030. Additional investment in technology is estimated to increase portfolio risk for a representative portfolio by about 1%, although global investment could accumulate to $4 trillion by 2030, which is expected to be beneficial for many institutional portfolios.Second, what about the risks caused by actual changes in the climate? (emphasis added) The economic model used in this study excludes physical risks of climate change which are not consistently predicted by the range of scientific models, and primarily for this reason concludes that, over the next 20 years, the physical impact of changes to the climate are not likely to affect portfolio risk significantly. However, this does not imply the absence of significant (and growing) risk, as shown by recent climate-related disasters that investors need to monitor closely.Thus, the risk to financial portfolios in the report is entirely due to climate policies and not the effects of "the physical impact of changes to the climate." Of course, a news story that begins -- "Climate change policies could put trillions of investment dollars at risk" -- doesn't really have the same ring to it. (Roger Pielke Jr.)
An over-the-top piece in the Post ignores the fact that cap and trade’s ‘market’ is entirely artificial One may accuse the Harper government of many things, but the notion that rejecting cap and trade in favour of regulation of carbon emissions makes them “Communists” — as suggested in a piece by Dan Gardner in the Post on Monday — seems a little over the top. Mr. Gardner asserts that since he cannot “read minds” he must assume that Environment Minister Peter Kent really means it when he says that “Climate Change is one of the most serious environmental issues facing the world today.” Thus the government must be sincere about addressing it. Instead, claims Mr. Gardner, their proposals to deal with the problem by regulation represent a level of economic ignorance unseen outside the University of Havana! Read More (Financial Post)
Signs of spring delayed by freeze Harsh winter in the UK means early signs of spring such as snowdrops and frogspawn are appearing later than normal (Press Association)
Horse spit! Flood risk 'doubled' by greenhouse pollution SCIENTISTS have shown for the first time that human activity has made extreme rainfall and floods around the globe worse in recent decades.
Why More Precipitation Does Not Necessarily Mean More Flood Damage It is common to see studies that find an increase in precipitation (whatever the cause) quickly linked to claims of increasing floods. Making such a link, however comfortable and intuitive, is not so direct in practice.In a peer-reviewed essay in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in 1999 we explained the "apparent paradox" between observations of increasing precipitation but at the same time, a lack of trends found in the same regions in peak streamflow (floods). (Roger Pielke Jr.)
Well, at least they recycle: Thawing permafrost likely will accelerate global warming in coming decades, says study Up to two-thirds of Earth's permafrost likely will disappear by 2200 as a result of warming temperatures, unleashing vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere, says a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.
Greenpeace Blasts Berlin for Secrecy on Carbon Storage Carbon capture and sequestration technology sounds great. But where would the CO2 be stored? Greenpeace has accused the German government of keeping potential sites secret and says the public has been misled. (Spiegel)
Senate Dems’ ‘win the future’ plan stuffed with energy proposals BySenate Democratic leaders are calling for extended tax credits for manufacturing “clean-energy” components and wider financing for low-carbon energy projects as part of a broader agenda to boost U.S. economic competitiveness. (E2 Wire)
Duke Energy's Jim Rogers Should Listen to His New Partner Progress Energy CEO Bill Johnson, whose company will (pending approval) be swallowed by larger electric utility Duke Energy, has been making the media rounds. He has discussed the planned merger, which he says is necessary because of looming capital projects that will be needed to meet electricity demand, but he also warned regulators in Washington of the dangers posed by the heightened government regulatory environment:
This is what many groups who represent low-income, minority, small businesses and senior citizens have been saying for years. What is ironic is that Progress would form its partnership with Duke, which as a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership has lobbied for policies (especially cap-and-trade) that dramatically increase those regulations that Johnson criticizes. Duke's Jim Rogers is known as one of the top rent-seeking CEOs in the country (perhaps second only to Government Electric's Jeffrey Immelt). (Paul Chesser, NLPC)
Exxon Struggles To Find New Oil HOUSTON—Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, is struggling to find more oil.
Alberta Backs C$5 Billion Oil Sands Refinery Plan The Alberta government is backing construction of a C$5 billion ($5.05 billion) bitumen refinery planned by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd and North West
Upgrading Inc as it seeks to develop energy-processing facilities in the province and create jobs.
Unconventional Gas Riles and Refigures the World Energy Market: North America (Part I) by Donald Hertzmark
In 2003 and again in 2005, Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, called on America’s governors and natural gas users to embrace vastly larger imports of methane energy. In his words: “North America’s limited capacity to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) has effectively restricted our access to the world’s abundant gas supplies.” As he was speaking, a revolution was brewing under his feet. New methods of producing gas from unconventional resources–tight gas, coalbed methane (cbm) and shale gas–had greatly expanded the universe of gas resources available throughout the world. By the end of that decade, the U.S., Australia and Canada would be able to book unconventional reserve additions in excess of annual production from all gas sources. (MasterResource)
EPA’s “Yee Haw” Moment in Texas Sworn statements from key players involved in controversial EPA order shed new light on how it all went down, and why it shouldn’t have The administrator had already had quite a day up until that point on December 7, 2010, and in an email sent at 4:54 that afternoon, he indicated it was about to get even better. “We’re about to make a lot of news,” EPA Region 6 administrator Al Armendariz wrote to friends and allies representing some of the most active anti-shale organizations in Texas. “There’ll be an official press release in a few minutes … time to Tivo channel 8.” But over on Channel 8’s website, the news had already broke: “The Environmental Protection Agency has issued an emergency order after it determined that a natural gas company’s operations caused or contributed to the contamination of drinking water in Parker County,” read the lead. Dr. Armendariz was quoted in the story, which was posted online before his office had even notified the state of Texas that EPA was about to take over its investigation. “Yee haw!” the director of the Texas Oil & Gas Accountability Project (OGAP), Sharon Wilson, wrote in reply. “Hats off to the new Sheriff and his deputies!” A Texas-style round-up was officially underway. Fast-forward a month-and-a-half. Rejected by the court after filing at least three separate motions requesting that any attempt to gather sworn testimony from its staff be blocked, EPA Regional 6 official John Blevins finally sat for a court-ordered deposition in New Orleans, where he was asked a series of straightforward questions. Questions like: Did EPA have prior knowledge of the fact that methane had been detected in water wells in Parker County long before Range ever arrived on the scene? Blevins: “[Y]es, we were aware of those facts.” Did you include those facts in the administrative record? “[W]e do not believe those facts were … germane or relevant to the issue at hand.” Ok. But at least EPA took a look at the Strawn Formation, right? The shallower, non-producing, higher-in-nitrogen formation that most experts now believe was the actual source of the natural gas in the Parker Co. wells? Blevins: “Not related to this case, no.” But obviously the nitrogen profile of the methane is an important factor in determining where the methane originated, right? “It’s a factor, yes.” So you’re saying no one at EPA even looked at it? “I don’t believe that I could say EPA has an expert to opine on the nitrogen levels within any gas source.” Then how were you able to determine the pathway? “That was not what we needed to issue the order on.” What, EPA just couldn’t do the work? “The Agency could do the work. The Agency doesn’t believe that we need to do the work.” Come again? (Energy in Depth)
Groups rally support for anti-ethanol amendment ByEthanol opponents off Capitol Hill are seeking to bolster political support for an amendment to House spending legislation that would block the Environmental
Protection Agency’s program to allow higher blends of the fuel in newer vehicles.
Figures... Northern New Brunswick wind turbines frozen solid FREDERICTON — A $200-million wind farm in northern New Brunswick is frozen solid, cutting off a potential supply of renewable energy for NB Power.
China To Shake Up Rare Earth Industry China announced a shake-up of its rare earths industry on Wednesday, vowing "reasonable" quotas on mining and exports to bring order to the small
but strategic sector where its dominance has spooked foreign buyers.
Inhofe Takes on Global Warming Alarmist Attempted Ambush Global warming alarmists led by Mark Hertsgaard attempted to ambush Senator Inhofe following a hearing this morning. See for yourself who ended up winning the argument. (Jim Inhofe Press Office)
Announcing a formal request for the Auditor General to audit the Australian BOM
The BOM claim their adjustments are “neutral” yet Ken Stewart showed that the trend in the raw figures for our whole continent has been adjusted up by 40%. The stakes are high. Australians could have to pay something in the order of $870 million dollars thanks to the Kyoto protocol, and the first four years of the Emissions Trading Scheme was expected to cost Australian industry (and hence Australian shareholders and consumers) nearly $50 billion dollars.
The NZ equivalent to the Australian BOM is under an official review The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition found adjustments that were even more inexplicable (0.006 degrees was adjusted up to 0.9 degrees). They decided to push legally and the response was a litany of excuses — until finally The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) was forced to disavow it’s own National Temperature Records, and belatedly pretend that it had never been intended for public consumption. But here’s the thing that bites: NZ signed the Kyoto protocol, arguably based very much on the NZ temperature record, and their nation owes somewhere from half a billion to several billion dollars worth of carbon credits (depending on the price of carbon in 2012). Hence there is quite a direct link from the damage caused by using one unsubstantiated data set based on a single student’s report that no one can find or replicate that will cost the nation a stack of money. NIWA is now potentially open to class actions. (Ironically, the Australian BOM has the job of “ratifying” the reviewed NZ temperature record.) Thanks to work by Ken Stewart, Chris Gillham, Andrew Barnham, Tony Cox, James Doogue, David Stockwell, as well as Cory Bernardi, Federal Senator for South Australia. (Jo Nova)
The Nazi father of global warming apocalypse
The Nazi Origins of Apocalyptic Global Warming TheoryThe first book that defended the idea of a catastrophe caused by carbon dioxide was written by Günther Schwab, an Austrian Nazi and environmentalist. » Don't Stop Reading » (TRF)
Making things arbitrarily more expensive doesn't cost consumers more, does it... Connie Hedegaard insists tougher carbon targets will boost European economy EU climate commissioner says there is 'debate' – but no row – over raising the carbon targets to a 30% cut by 2020
Just before lunch one Tuesday in mid-January, the public address system at Jiri Stastny’s office in Prague ordered all employees to evacuate: someone had
called in a bomb threat.
Japan: we wasted ¥6.55 trillion for 214 failed AGW projects Today, we learned that based on the 2010 GDP figures, China
overtook Japan as the world's second largest economy. Their 214 biomass projects, motivated purely by the global warming hysteria and funded in the recent six years, have led to no results. The cost was ¥6.55 trillion i.e. about $80 billion. That's like the GDP of the whole Czech Republic for 4 months. It's gone ;-) » Don't Stop Reading » (TRF)
CO2 is a benefactor not a pollutant. Producers should be rewarded not demonized and taxed By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS Fellow
Another eye-roller from the NYT: Climate Change Drives Instability, U.N. Official Warns The United Nations’ top climate change official said on Tuesday that food shortages and rising prices caused by climate disruptions were among the chief contributors to the civil unrest coursing through North Africa and the Middle East. (Green)
This nonsense, again: If greenhouse gas emissions stopped now, Earth still would likely get warmer While governments debate about potential policies that might curb the emission of greenhouse gases, new University of Washington research shows that the
world is already committed to a warmer climate because of emissions that have occurred up to now.
Global warming will not cause 'permanent El Niño' Major climate shifts unseen in previous warm eras
Look at the utter rubbish coming from NAS: Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts over Decades to Millennia Emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels have ushered in a new epoch where human activities will largely determine the evolution of Earth's climate. Because carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is long lived, it can effectively lock the Earth and future generations into a range of impacts, some of which could become very severe. Emissions reductions decisions made today matter in determining impacts experienced not just over the next few decades, but in the coming centuries and millennia. According to Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millennia, important policy decisions can be informed by recent advances in climate science that quantify the relationships between increases in carbon dioxide and global warming, related climate changes, and resulting impacts, such as changes in streamflow, wildfires, crop productivity, extreme hot summers, and sea level rise. One way to inform these choices is to consider the projected climate changes and impacts that would occur if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were stabilized at a particular concentration level. The book quantifies the outcomes of different stabilization targets for greenhouse gas concentrations using analyses and information drawn from the scientific literature. Although it does not recommend or justify any particular stabilization target, it does provide important scientific insights about the relationships among emissions, greenhouse gas concentrations, temperatures, and impacts. Climate Stabilization Targets emphasizes the importance of 21st century choices regarding long-term climate stabilization. It is a useful resource for scientists, educators and policy makers, among others. (NAP)
From CO2 Science Volume 14 Number 7: 16 February 2011 Editorial: Journal Reviews: A Century of Drought in Southern South America: Did the lower third of the continent get wetter or drier over the course of the 20th century? Breeding and Feeding Cycles in Great and Blue Tits: Are they becoming less synchronized in response to global warming? Great Cormorants on Greenland: They seem to be taking a liking to warmer weather. Vascular Plant Richness on Mountain Summits of Southern Norway: How has it changed since the early 1970s? More CO2 Enrichment Work on Wine Grapes: A little CO2 seems to help a whole lot. Ocean Acidification Database: Plant Growth Database:
Editorial: Ecuador's Bogus $8 Bil Ruling Vs. Chevron The Law: An Ecuador court's finding of Chevron liable for $8.64 billion over jungle drilling is a bogus case showing how easy it is for lawyers to manipulate banana republic systems. (IBD)
Four Regulatory Fronts Against Coal Power (after the defeat of cap-and-trade) by Robert Peltier Can the Republican House neuter the Obama Administration’s war against coal-fired power plants? I’m not optimistic, but coal is an plentiful, improving resource that will be hard to put and keep in the energy cellar. The coal industry has been fighting on five key regulatory fronts during the past two years. The good news is that cap-and-trade of carbon dioxide (CO2), a back door energy tax, is defeated. The subject is kryptonite in Washington among Republicans and a surprising number of Democrats–and rightly so. Cap-and-trade was defeated despite the clever Administration strategy to bribe stakeholders by making their support of the American Power Act economically worthwhile. Several major utilities (especially those with nuclear plants), most equipment manufacturers that sell to the industry, and even the Edison Electric Institute lined up in support of cap-and-trade legislation. I was especially amused by the strong support from nuclear utilities—I’m sure it had nothing to do with the formula for allocating allowances that would have given them a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars over time for sitting quietly on the sidelines. Thankfully, the Senate euthanized that legislation before it got much traction. The Big Regulatory Four Legislative control of CO2 is closed, perhaps for a decade or more, but this battle hardly ended the conflict. Instead, the Executive Branch has sidestepped Congress to put its full weight behind the regulate-to-death option. There are four fronts: [Read more →] (MasterResource)
Families go without food to pay winter fuel bills ONE of the coldest winters in a century saw Welsh people risking their health by switching off heating in the face of rising energy bills, a report has
found.
Michelle Obama: First Lady of Junk Science While her husband may have paid lip service to ending the abuse of science for "politics or ideology," first lady Michelle Obama gave herself a
super-sized waiver. Two of her showcase social engineering campaigns -- tax preferences for breast-pumping working mothers and expanded nutrition labels -- are
based on distorting or dismissing the prevailing public health literature.
Medical identity theft: You can lose more than money As if it weren't bad enough that identity theft is the nation's fastest growing crime, medical identity theft is a big part of this new crime wave. In this form of identity theft, the offender will steal your personal information to line his pockets with bogus claims against your own health insurance policy, or he can fraudulently obtain medical treatment and drugs in your name. This is covered in my latest HND piece. I point out that the losses here can go beyond financial. The perp could conceivably use up all your coverage. Even worse, his medical records could be mixed in with yours, leading to dangerously inappropriate treatments. Of course, the perp can also be an insider at a health care provider, who steals large amounts of personal data—to submit false claims to Medicare. I list some tips on how to make yourself a less likely target, garnered from identity theft expert Denis Kelly and the Federal Trade Commission. Kelly also has some choice thoughts on how HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) applies to this problem. Read the complete article. (Shaw's Eco-Logic)
Medicine: Has anyone noticed the 800-pound gorilla called AIDS hasn't been in the room for years? It's disappeared from the political radar because Big Bad
Pharma tamed it.
New York, NY, February 14, 2011 – A new publication released today by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), Whatever Happened to AIDS? How the Pharmaceutical Industry Tamed HIV, explains the central role played by the pharmaceutical industry in transforming AIDS from an inevitably fatal illness to a chronic, manageable disease. This story is largely untold. Read Full Article >> (ACSH)
EPA's Jackson declines to address impact of House GOP spending bill ByEnvironmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson declined Monday to directly address a bill proposed by House Republicans that would block funding
for the agency’s pending climate rules through September.
White House budget proposal cuts funding for EPA, but GOP wants more ByBudget would slash EPA funding by roughly $1.3 billion but continues collision course with Republicans on climate change. Read more... (E2 Wire)
Defunding EPA’s Ability to Regulate CO2
Last Friday, House Republicans re-introduced legislation that would fund the federal government for the remainder of fiscal year 2011. This iteration included deeper cuts that would reduce spending for the rest of the year by a total of $100 billion compared to the President’s budget proposal. Though the new proposal includes $16 billion in unwise cuts to security spending, taking their initial spending reduction proposal back to the drawing board for more cuts shows lawmakers’ commitment to putting the federal budget on a sustainable path, and is a promising step forward. Among the several needed cuts made by the House majority’s revamped proposal is a provision to prohibit funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) under the Clean Air Act. This spending cut proposal is a move that makes economic and fiscal sense. Congress never intended the Clean Air Act to cover carbon dioxide (CO2), and the result of doing so would be economically catastrophic. Continue reading... (The Foundry)
MORE than $5.5 billion has been spent by federal governments during the past decade on climate change programs that are delivering only small reductions in
greenhouse gas emissions.
TERRY McCRANN: Julia out to destroy us THE flood levy will raise less than $2 billion and last only one year. The Julia carbon tax will have to raise at least $10 billion a year. Every year.
Forever.
OK... Carbon Trust funding cut by 40% Cuts to the government's low-carbon agency will cancel grants to biofuel projects and cause dozens of redundancies
‘Carbon Nation’ to seduce right with Van Jones? February 14, 2011America’s wanna-be communists and their clean energy useful-idiots have a new documentary aimed at convincing the right that climate change is a problem and that clean energy is the solution. Read the rest of this entry » (Green Hell Blog)
NYT: Skeptical playwright much better than the worriers On Friday, Jeremy Lovell of ClimateWire wrote the following article for the New York Times: During the last month, two plays hit the stages of London theaters: "Greenland" was created by a committee of four
worriers (using the words of The Independent) while "The Heretic", written by the playwright Richard Bean, presented the skeptical viewpoint. » Don't Stop Reading » (TRF)
Waxman attacks Upton over ‘one-sided’ hearing on enviro rules ByRep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, is alleging that a Tuesday hearing will be unfairly stacked with
witnesses who allege environmental rules are hindering the economy.
Sheesh! News Bites: Hurling eggs at a climate scientist, growing pains for wind power, and more ByThe New Republic's Bradford Plumer checked out the booth scene at the Conservative
Political Action Conference (CPAC) and came away with this tidbit:
From Hockey Sticks To Boomerangs 14. Februar 2011 The Swiss online NZZ from Zurich has a report on a recent multiple-proxy temperature reconstruction produced by a Swedish team of scientists. It wasn’t that long ago when European media outlets were saying Mann’s old hockey stick was settled science – that is until a series of scientific and statistical analyses by leading experts debunked it and the pressure to drop it became too much to bear. Now Europe’s media are quietly abandoning it and returning to what years and years of reliable literature originally had stated: The temperature trend over the last several thousand years was by no means flat and that there were periods that were just as warm, if not warmer than today. Here’s the 2000-year reconstruction of the Swedish team I found at the NIPCC site:  Swedish proxy temperature reconstruction: Source: http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2010/dec/15dec2010a4.html
The meticulous new reconstruction was produced by scientists of the University of Stockholm, led by Fredrik Ljungqvist, and the results were published last year in Geografiska Annaler. It’s a temperature reconstruction of the extra-tropical northern hemisphere (30°-90°N) over the last 2000 years. (No Tricks Zone)
Uncertainty in the Global Average Surface Air Temperature Index: A Representative Lower Limit Written by Patrick Frank ABSTRACT: Sensor measurement uncertainty has never been fully considered in prior appraisals of global average surface air temperature. The estimated average ±0.2 C station error has been incorrectly assessed as random, and the systematic error from uncontrolled variables has been invariably neglected. The systematic errors in measurements from three ideally sited and maintained temperature sensors are calculated herein. Combined with the ±0.2 C average station error, a representative lower-limit uncertainty of ±0.46 C was found for any global annual surface air temperature anomaly. This ±0.46 C reveals that the global surface air temperature anomaly trend from 1880 through 2000 is statistically indistinguishable from 0 C, and represents a lower limit of calibration uncertainty for climate models and for any prospective physically justifiable proxy reconstruction of paleo-temperature. The rate and magnitude of 20th century warming are thus unknowable, and suggestions of an unprecedented trend in 20th century global air temperature are unsustainable. (SPPI)
The Influence of Station Numbers on Temperature Measurement Written by Jonathan J. Drake An intriguing article regarding the influence of the number of stations on the global temperature measurement has been written by Ross McKitrick and published on his website here: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/nvst.html. Looking at his graph, the eye is instantly drawn to the apparent correlation between the stations and temperature. There is a huge step in the raw mean temperatures around 1990 with a synchronous change in the number of stations. The adjustments and gridding methods employed to create the accepted global temperature records, are reportedly satisfactory to deal with such data aberrations and on visual inspection there is no immediately obvious problem. However, that does not rule out the possibility that the gridded end product contains artefacts of the processing and/or character from the raw data that are not related to climate and that could potentially distort the overall picture. This brief communication describes a method, utilising the dataset from Ross McKitrick and Joe D’Aleo, to calculate a historic temperature record through modelling the relationship between raw mean temperatures and the number of stations. (SPPI)
Here’s What Gives Science A Bad Name TerraDaily reports today of Jeffrey Kiehl’s “Lessons from Earth’s Past“, actually published by Science magazine a month ago. A cursory reading is what is needed to understand how flawed Kiehl’s whole idea is, of focusing on a question like:
(Kiehl’s answer: 35 Million years ago) How flawed is that question? Very, very flawed. For the geologically-challenged readers of this blog, here’s an in-depth commentary of Kieh’s rag(*) by Doug L. Hoffmann at Resilient Earth, summarized by this quote:
People that don’t believe in geology and are obsessed with temperatures can limit themselves to Wikipedia’s helpful graph “65 Million Years of Climate Change“, showing high temperatures around 35 million years ago indeed. But when seen in context, the 35Myr point is part of a whole different story than “CO2 concentrations driving the planet’s temperatures“: it was the end of the Eocene and of a steady decrease in temperatures, the time of the Antarctic glaciation and a brisk decrease in temperatures, the start of relatively cool 10 million years (still, warmer than today) etc etc.
And so Kiehl’s context-free “it’s all CO2” work ends up looking like a tirade against people driving on a motorway at 70mph, written by somebody obsessed with analyzing what happens when people drive at 70mph, yes, but in a crowded market. Science, it ain’t: it’s just ever-the-misnomer “Science” magazine. (*) poetic license taken (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)
HWGA: Worldwide sulfur emissions rose between 2000-2005, after decade of decline Shipping, China top emissions growth in new analysis of 150 years of emissions
The nonsense keeps coming: Rising seas will affect major US coastal cities by 2100 Rising sea levels could threaten an average of 9 percent of the land within 180 U.S. coastal cities by 2100, according to new research led by University of
Arizona scientists.
New Paper: Solar irradiance at Earth surface varies up to 24 times more than expected A new peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics finds that measurements of solar irradiance at ground level at the South Pole show variations of up to 24 times more than would be expected over the course of a solar cycle. While satellite measurements find that total solar irradiance only varies 0.1% from a solar minimum to solar maximum, the ground-level measurements analyzed by the authors show a change of 1.8 ± 1.0% in the UV-A (320–400 nm) spectrum and 2.4 ± 1.9% in the visible (400–600 nm) spectrum over the course of a solar cycle. (Hockey Schtick)
New Paper “Random Walk Lengths Of About 30 Years In Global Climate” By Bye Et Al 2011 There is a new paper [h/t to Ryan Maue and Anthony Watts] titled Bye, J., K. Fraedrich, E. Kirk, S. Schubert, and X. Zhu (2011), Random walk lengths of about 30 years in global climate, Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2010GL046333, in press. (accepted 7 February 2011) The abstract reads [highlight added]
The text starts with
(Roger Pielke Sr.)
Time for a new rigorous Association of Scientists Below is the O so apt resignation of Steven J. Welcenbach from the American Chemical Society (ACS). In it he describes how the largest scientific society in the world has become a non-scientific activist group bowing to political pressure and ignoring it’s members objections. Such is his ire and dismay, he is not only pulling his membership but vows to do all he can to make sure ACS does not receive public money. He suggests that many former members will form a new society that rigorously follows the scientific method (hear hear). It’s time to start talking about that new society. What would we call this international coalition of scientists who demand the highest standards of reasoning, who expect that the society would be there to serve it’s members, not just serve the aspirations of the committee members, or grant-seeking-associates? What would be written into it’s constitution? Any large entity is a target for people seeking power or seeking to use science for their own purposes. How do we stop that decay? Where is this science association that would never dream of uttering an ad hom, or argument from authority, and would never declare that the “debate is over” and grovel before the false prophets of science? Where is the association that would outspokenly condemn any scientist who hides data, makes logical errors, and resorts to name-calling to silence the critics? Art Robinson wrote about the how the control of the quest for knowledge itself has been usurped from individuals and private industry and taken over by the government. I discussed his excellent article in The Truth Shall Set You Free. How soon can we start? More » (Jo Nova)
Oil industry pounces on Obama's budget request ByThe oil industry immediately pounced Monday on a proposal included in President Obama’s budget to slash tax credits for the oil and gas industry.
White House seeks new fees on offshore drillers ByThe fiscal year 2012 White House budget proposal calls for new fees on oil-and-gas companies to help fund drilling oversight, which the Interior Department
has expanded in the wake of the BP oil spill.
China gets a green free pass: Goldstein Anyone else see the irony of investing enormously in ‘dirty’ fuels to power its clean energy program?
Matt Simmons’s Failed ‘Peak Oil’ Price Wager (Julian Simon rides again!) by Robert Bradley Jr. (MasterResource)
Krugman Flunks Food—And History, By: Dennis T. Avery CHURCHVLLE, VA—Paul Krugman is a big deal: Princeton professor, New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate (2008). Krugman wrote last week about the
“food crisis, the second one to hit the world in the last three years.” His key statement: “what really stands out is the extent to which severe weather
events have disrupted agricultural production. And these severe weather events are exactly the kind of thing we’d expect to see as rising concentrations of
greenhouse gases change our climate—which means that the current food prices surge may be just beginning.”
Analysis: In Food Vs Fuel Debate, U.S. Resolute On Ethanol As world food prices reach new highs, a handful of U.S. politicians and hard-hit corporations are readying a fresh effort to forestall the use of more U.S.
corn and soybeans as motor fuel.
Today's Washington Post includes a noteworthy opinion piece from Tim Searchinger of Princeton University concerning the impact of expanding biofuel production on global food prices and availability. [Read More] (Geoffrey Styles, ET)
USDA Deregulates Corn Amylase Used For Ethanol The Agriculture Department said on Friday it has deregulated a variety of corn genetically engineered to produce a common enzyme that speeds the breakdown of
starch into sugar, a vital step in making ethanol.
Nuclear industry windfall feared By Kiran Stacey
GOP spending bill to cut EPA budget! February 11, 2011No sooner asked for than done, TheHill.com reports that the House GOP spending bill would slash funding for EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations… (Green Hell Blog)
Administration rails against GOP plan to block funding for climate regulations ByThe analysis represents an initial effort by the administration to push back against the legislation. Read more... (E2 Wire)
EPA's idiotic greenhouse propaganda still aimed at kids: Greenhouse Effect The Earth’s atmosphere is all around us. It is the air that we breathe. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere behave much like the glass panes in a greenhouse. (EPA)
Luetkemeyer Bill Seeks To Prohibit U.S. Contributions To UN Climate Change Panel The following information was released by the office of Missouri Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer:
AGs Band Together on Climate, Too Not only are there 20-something state attorneys general litigating against Obamacare, but now 22 of them have weighed in on a landmark lawsuit in which an electric utility has sought relief from the Supreme Court over eight Northeastern states' attempt to regulate greenhouse gases via a public nuisance lawsuit. And the AGs are backing the utility -- American Electric Power Company -- not their Northeastern colleagues: (Paul Chesser, American Spectator)
As it should: 'Bonfire of the quangos' threatens climate change committee The independent status of Britain's key climate change watchdog is under threat, environmental groups have warned, because it has been included on a list of
quangos whose structure could be altered at the discretion of ministers.
Another means of making your energy more expensive: Obama's budget to call for slashing oil tax breaks, boosting clean energy ByPresident Obama is expected to call on Congress Monday to eliminate billions of dollars in oil industry tax breaks. Read more... (E2 Wire)
Reid 'not a big fan' of president's proposed cut to energy assistance BySenate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Friday he is highly skeptical of a proposal by President Obama’s administration. Read more... (E2 Wire)
Labor to introduce a carbon tax next year and an ETS in 2015 JULIA Gillard plans to introduce a carbon price from July 1 next year and defy the Greens by insisting on compensation for the coal and electricity
industries, in a move that will infuriate its minority government partner.
Liberal bias: science writing's elephant in the room? Does the lack of political diversity among science writers and bloggers risk alienating large portions of the public? Jon Haidt caused a stir when he asked the thousand-strong audience of academics a simple question: how many identified as politically conservative?In a nation where 40% of the population describe themselves as conservative, just three people out of a thousand raised their hands. As Haidt went on to note in his talk (audio & slides here):
In building the case that anti-Conservative discrimination is a problem, Haidt went on to share the testimony of 'non-liberal' graduate students in psychology he had spoken to, controversially comparing their experiences with those of gay students in the 1980s. While anecdotal, their stories are fascinating. (Martin Robbins, Guardian)
Junior. Right and wrong, again: Tall Tales in the New York Times I've made peace with the fact that many people want to believe things utterly unsupported by data, such as what Elisabeth Rosenthal writes in today's New York Times, that intense storms and floods have become three times more common and increasing damage from such events is evidence of human caused climate change. Of course, people believe a lot of silly things that data don't support -- like President Obama is a Muslim with a fake birth certificate, vaccines cause autism, and climate change is a hoax, just to name a few on a very long list. While such misplaced beliefs are always disconcerting, especially so to academics who actually study these issues, such misjudgments need not necessarily stand in the way of effective action. So it is not worth getting too worked up about tall tales. (Roger Pielke Jr.)
February 13, 2011 And the appropriate response is to prepare for and adapt to them. Natural disasters are in the news in both Australia and New Zealand. Leaving aside the September 4th Christchurch earthquake as being in a different hazard category, the recent summer outburst of cyclones, storms and floods in both countries is well understood by scientists to be linked to the La Nina part of the Pacific Ocean’s El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climatic cycle. Despite strident claims by global warming pressure groups, no scientific evidence exists that human carbon dioxide emissions have anything to do with our current climatic woes. Rather, the weather events that are causing us so much present grief represent instabilities related to both short term (ENSO) and longer term (Pacific Decadal Oscillation – PDO) climatic oscillations. That such events would occur is not only predictable in principle, but (in the Australian case) was actually predicted in February 2009 by Dr. Stewart Franks from Newcastle University, who wrote: The historical record of climate variability suggests that we should expect a return to a 20-40 year period where La Nina dominates the climate of at least eastern Australia once more. The observation that many regions of Australia routinely experience multi-decadal variability of flood and drought, suggest that we should expect a return to major widespread flooding on a regular inter-annual basis, and for entirely natural reasons. In the light of subsequent events, it is astonishing that Dr Franks’ accurate caution, including earlier comments that he made in widely read international peer-reviewed research journals, was ignored by Australian planning authorities and by their IPCC-linked advisory scientists. (Bob Carter, Quadrant)
Is Al Gore wrong on the environment? IPCC says global warming is NOT to blame for snow Al Gore took to his blog earlier this month to respond to Bill O’Reilly’s question: “Why has southern New York turned into the tundra?”
Melting Glaciers, Ice Caps and Sea-level Rise Fluctuations in surface melting are known to affect the speed of glaciers and ice sheets, while the contribution of glaciers and ice caps to global sea-level rise is uncertain at best. Much has been made of the “accelerating” loss of ice from the Greenland glaciers. Over the past decade, Arctic sea ice retreated substantially during the summer months, and some predicted that the ice loss could be irreversible, a tipping point that would boost global warming. A number of new papers in Nature, Geophysical Research Letters and Nature Geoscience, shed new light on these subjects, and the answers are not the ones usually heard in the media. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
Interesting Paper “The Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project” By Compo Et Al 2011 I was alerted to a new paper Compo GP,Whitaker JS, Sardeshmukh PD, Matsui N, Allan RJ, Yin X, Gleason Jr BE, Vose RS, Rutledge G, Bessemoulin P, Br¨onnimann S, Brunet M, Crouthamel RI, Grant AN, Groisman PY, Jones PD, Kruk MC, Kruger AC, Marshall GJ, Maugeri M, Mok HY, Nordli Ø, Ross TF, Trigo RM, Wang XL, Woodruff SD,Worley SJ. 2011. The Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 137: 1–28. DOI:10.1002/qj.776 (Roger Pielke Sr.)
Landrieu slams 'de facto moratorium' amid news of key driller's bankruptcy BySen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) blamed the Interior Department’s “excruciatingly slow release of oil and gas permits” for the hard times. Read more... (E2 Wire)
Growing Boom in Sub-Salt and Unconventional Oil Reservoirs You can call it subsalt exploration, presalt exploration or whatever makes you happy.
Propaganda featuring the misguided and the deceived: Will Carbon Nation succeed where An Inconvenient Truth failed? A former army colonel, a Texan farmer and a geothermal energy pioneer who twice voted Bush – these 'greenocons' are the stars of a new climate change solutions film aimed at America's right (Guardian)
Dangerous Energy Policies: The Ethanol Fiasco BY MICHAEL R. FOX, PHD - If ever there was a question as to whether production of corn-based ethanol is forcing consumers to dig deeper into their wallets to
pay for food and fuel, it was dispelled by a government report showing that corn prices have jumped 89% in the past year
Ethanol pumping up food prices Get ready for higher food prices, which appear to be just around the corner for U.S. consumers and potentially a crippling burden for the world's poor.
‘Sustainability’: Some Free Market Reflections A few months ago, I participated in a symposium entitled, “A Sustainable Energy State — How Remote Is the Possibility?” I prepared some talking points for the event and, heeding the injunction to re-use and recycle, turn them here into a MasterResource column. The following reflections make three main points: (1) A “sustainable” energy system, as that term is commonly used, will likely not materialize in our lifetimes; (2) except for heavily-subsidized wind, solar, and biofuel energy, the current, largely fossil fuel-based energy system is already sustainable; and (3) the “sustainable energy” agenda imperils the improving state of the world and, therefore, is politically unsustainable. (MasterResource)
Administration to Push for Small ‘Modular’ Reactors WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s 2012 budget proposal will include a request for money to help develop small “modular” reactors that would be
owned by a utility and would supply electricity to a government lab, people involved in the effort say.
Gas Revolution: Europe Could Save €900bn And Still Hit Its CO2 Targets Europe could save €900bn (£762bn) and still hit its 2050 carbon reduction targets if it built fewer wind farms and more gas plants, a coalition of gas
producers including Gazprom, Centrica and Qatar Petroleum has told the European commission.
Shale Gas Faces Difficulties in Europe
The shale gas industry in Europe hasn’t really set in and already is facing major problems. For shale gas to work, dependant on the successful deployment of highly specific technology, the economics must be sharply honed. [Read More] (Andres Cala, ET)
Holland slashes carbon targets, shuns wind for nuclear We can't afford to be Groene
Kelly McParland: Ontario quietly reverses field on wind, solar energy Times of international turmoil are great moments for domestic governments to make important announcements they don’t want to be noticed. Especially if the
announcement involves a sudden reversal in policy that could seriously embarrass the government.
Ontario’s Power Trip: The wind won’t blow for offshore power Whatever the motivation, Ontario moratorium on offshore wind projects is a good sign that economic reality is winning out over fantasy.
Are Heavily Subsidized Wind, Solar, and Biofuels “Sustainable” Energies? by Marlo Lewis So-called “sustainability” advocates never tire of condemning fossil fuels as unsustainable. Their assessment is based on ideology, not facts, I argue in ”Sustainability: Some Free Market Reflections” over at MasterResource.Org, the free-market energy blog. By any reasonable definition, modern commercial energy (except for heavily subsidized renewables) is sustainable. Whether we consider air pollution, life expectancy, health of the elderly, vulnerability to extreme weather, per capita food consumption, or access to safe drinking water, the long-term trends show dramatic — and continuing — global improvement. Abundant, affordable, reliable energy from fossil fuels is a key factor driving those improvements. The truly unsustainable energy sources are those that cannot ’compete’ without special policy privileges. Clearly, subsidy-dependent enterprises are not self-sustaining. Chronic subsidy-dependence is an indication the value of the resources an enterprise consumes exceeds… Read the full story (Cooler Heads)
He's got this part right: Green Smoke Screen Supporters of "green energy" like to say it will create more jobs. They're wrong.
Experts skeptical of new report on infant deaths at Fort Bragg Ace reporters Aaron Kessler and Joaquin Sapien are digging into the tragic deaths at
Ft. Bragg, and won't stop until they get some definitive answers. Michael Foreman and I are honored to be part of this ongoing investigation.
Campaign to make Britons separate their own waste Recycling companies are threatening legal action against the Government to force British householders to separate their own rubbish. (TDT)
Gingrich calls for eliminating EPA, expanding domestic energy production ByFormer House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Thursday for abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency and passing energy legislation that expands domestic
oil production and streamlines nuclear licensing.
Federal Authority: At a contentious hearing on legislation to keep the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant, Republicans rightly called global
warming a power-grabbing hoax that is all pain for no gain.
Deceptive buggers, aren't they? Sierra Club launching campaign to defend EPA air rules ByThe Sierra Club announced Thursday that it is launching a new campaign to stop efforts by Republicans to block Environmental Protection Agency air pollution
rules.
EPA responds to congressional attempts to reel in greenhouse gas regulation The question is, are we a country of laws made by our representatives, or a country of laws made by bureaucrats? The constitution provides only one answer, and Ms. Jackson would do well to read it. Latest News release from the EPA: February 9, 2011 Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, Opening Statement Before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power As prepared for delivery – Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify about Chairman Upton’s draft bill to eliminate portions of the Clean Air Act, the landmark law that all American children and adults rely on to protect them from harmful air pollution. The bill appears to be part of a broader effort in this Congress to delay, weaken, or eliminate Clean Air Act protections of the American public. I respectfully ask the members of this Committee to keep in mind that EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act saves millions of American children and adults from the debilitating and expensive illnesses that occur when smokestacks and tailpipes release unrestricted amounts of harmful pollution into the air we breathe. Continue reading
Report Outlines State Strategies to Resist EPA Leviathan by Bryan Weynand In response to the growing tangle of regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the American Legislative Exchange Council has published EPA’s Regulatory Train Wreck: Strategies for State Legislators. The report serves as a toolkit for states to use in combating these regulations, which both burdens finite state resources and legally impedes on the states’ role in our system of government. EPA is in the process of rapidly tightening its existing regulations and expanding its reach in areas ranging from chemicals in plastic bottles to air quality to greenhouse gas emissions, creating a mess of duplicative and cumbersome rules. The report highlights one small subsection of this emerging regime - the Agency’s attack on the use of fossil fuels, and particularly… Read the full story (Cooler Heads)
Is This What The Climate-Change Debate Has Come To? Congressional Republicans choose to just ignore science and attack the EPA.
Hopes of 30% cut in greenhouse emissions dashed EU energy chief fears target would lead to a too-fast process of de-industrialisation as compared to current 20%
Conference: German Alarmists Alarmed Over Waning Alarmism – Growing US Scepticism 10. Februar 2011 Doubt over the science of climate change goes beyond USA, Great Britain and Australia, and is now spreading into mainland Europe, in particular Germany. So much so, that the German Greens are getting alarmed about the waning alarmism. (No Tricks Zone)
House Dems float plan to nix oil industry tax incentives BySeveral senior House Democrats ramped up calls Thursday to yank tax incentives from large oil companies, alleging they are especially inappropriate amid GOP
plans for deep spending cuts.
''Dual Capacity'' Tax Elimination: Another US Energy Harakiri
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has presided over global affairs as the world’s sole superpower. Now, China’s gunning for our spot. BNP Paribas and Goldman Sachs forecast respectively that China’s economy will outperform America’s as early as 2020 or 2027. [Read More] (Michael J. Economides, ET)
The End of a Peak Oil Theorist: Matt Simmons in Retrospect (Part II) by Michael Lynch
The death last year of Matthew Simmons, author of Twilight in the Desert and a well-known peak oil advocate, offers an opportunity to review his work and draw a cautionary lesson. (MasterResource)
Analysts: Don't expect 'fracking' standards until after 2012 election ByA federal proposal laying out new standards for a controversial natural-gas drilling practice called hydraulic fracturing likely won’t be issued until
after the 2012 elections, an energy analyst said Thursday.
This is what the anti-energy cranks want to stop: New drilling method opens vast oil fields in US A new drilling technique is opening up vast fields of previously out-of-reach oil in the western United States, helping reverse a two-decade decline in
domestic production of crude.
Peter Foster: China backs shale revolution $5.4B investment in Encana shows importance of ‘unconventional’ gas Encana’s announcement on Wednesday of a proposed $5.4-billion investment by PetroChina in its shale gas operations confirms the soaring importance of a resource that 10 years ago was hardly on the commercial map. It also looks like a nice piece of timing, since it came before Encana’s revelation Thursday that slumping natural gas prices had continued to hit earnings in the fourth quarter, although this was hardly unexpected. Read More (Financial Post)
Political pressure to fix energy problems of the future by Marita Noon The coldest temperatures in the contiguous states created a “state of emergency” due to a disruption of natural gas delivery. Power plants were shut down, workers sent home, schools closed, and shelters set up for those without heat. This was Thursday, February 3. Many people remained without heat a week later while temperatures reached as low as thirty-degrees-below zero. This was in New Mexico but other states in the southwest faced rolling blackouts and a variety of energy related emergencies. This same problem could face the nation if we continue down the path we’ve been pursuing for our energy supplies. Businesses, residents and hospitals received word that there may be natural gas disruptions throughout the day. This did not mean that there was, as many… Read the full story (Cooler Heads)
Right for the wrong reasons: Bristol's biofuels plant must be refused planning permission Burning biofuels in power stations is environmental vandalism on a staggering scale – both in terms of emissions and habitat loss (Guardian)
Growth of Wood Biomass Power Stokes Concern on Emissions Across the U.S., companies are planning scores of projects to burn trees and wood waste to produce electricity, claiming such biomass plants can be carbon-neutral. But critics contend that combusting wood is not really a form of green energy and are urging a go-slow approach until clear guidelines can be established. (Dave Levitan, e360)
D'oh! Wind turbine costs more than it saves One of Britain's most visible wind turbines performed so badly last year that the energy is produced was worth less than the value of its public subsidies, it was reported. (TDT)
LED products billed as eco-friendly contain toxic metals, study finds UC researchers tested holiday bulbs, traffic lights and car beams Those light-emitting diodes marketed as safe, environmentally preferable alternatives to traditional lightbulbs actually contain lead, arsenic and a dozen
other potentially hazardous substances, according to newly published research.
EPA Goes After Perchlorate and Chromium: The Media Follow Along Without Questioning Perchlorate and chromium are on EPA’s bucket list of ‘toxic chemicals’ on which it proposes to set new limits. Neither has been given fair coverage by the main-stream media. Quotes can be found from environmental groups supporting the action, but nothing from scientists and others with an opposing view, typical of the unbalanced reporting that has covered the perchlorate and chromium issues. (Jack Dini, CFP)
Economic recovery depends on stopping greenhouse regs  Illustration:
EPA Unpluggedby Greg Groesch for The Washington Times The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has hit the ground running with its greenhouse-gas regulations. But congressional Republicans are just getting
around to introducing well-intended, but futile legislation to stop the agency.
Two-Year Delay on EPA Climate Regs Is No Solution
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) endangerment finding gives the agency justification to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, most notably carbon dioxide (CO2), under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The EPA already began targeting motor vehicles last year and will start regulating emissions from new power plants and major expansions of large greenhouse-gas-emitting plants (more than 25,000 tons of CO2 per year) this year. Several Members of Congress released or plan to release bills to either delay or prohibit the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases. Some ideas are better than others; unfortunately, the proposal garnering the most support in the Senate is also the least effective. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D–WV) wants to delay the EPA’s ability to regulate CO2 for two years, but this is not the right approach for Congress to take. Voting for a two-year delay is nothing more than a political cover. It’s not a step in the right direction and will do more harm than good by creating uncertainty and leaving the endangerment finding intact. Continue reading... (The Foundry)
Energy & Commerce Hearing: Questions Energy Tax Prevention Act Supporters Should Be Asking by Marlo Lewis Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.) clarified that today’s hearing is not on climate science but on whether Congress or EPA makes climate policy and the cost of EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations. Right! Somebody though needs to ask Administrator Jackson questions that flesh out Sullivan’s point: When will EPA respond to the environmental groups’ December
2009 petition to establish national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for CO2 set at 350 parts per million (ppm)? Read the full story (Cooler Heads)
Energy & Commerce Hearing: What the Energy Tax Prevention Act Is — and Is Not — about by Marlo Lewis I’m watching the House Energy and Commerce hearing on the Inhofe-Upton-Whitfield draft legislation, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, to stop EPA from ‘enacting’ climate policy through the regulatory backdoor. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is off to his usual demagoguery, claiming that Messrs. Inhofe, Upton, and Whitfield are trying to “re-write the laws of nature.” He accuses them of trying to overturn EPA’s endangerment finding (which he equates with SCIENCE) by legislative fiat. The premise of the bill, he says, is that climate change is a hoax. Poppycock. Read the draft legislation. It says nothing about climate science. The bill’s real premises are: Congress never delegated to EPA the truly awesome (and potentially economy-crushing) power to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2). Read the full story (Cooler Heads)
Inhofe Hearing Statement: Legislative Hearing on the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011 Opening Statement of Senator James M. Inhofe, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, U.S. House Energy and Commerce
Subcommittee on Energy and Power Legislative Hearing on “H.R. ___, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011”
Despite veto threats, critics say Obama would sign two-year delay of EPA regs Since the 112th Congress was gaveled into session, lawmakers have introduced numerous different pieces of legislation to block the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. But they have all been burdened with a threat from President Obama to veto any bill that undermines the
EPA’s authority.
Energy & Commerce Hearing: Does the Clean Air Act Authorize EPA to Regulate Greenhouse Gases? by Marlo Lewis That’s the question Rep. Henry Waxman just asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. She replied: “The Supreme Court said greenhouse gases fit into the Clean Air Act’s broad definition of ‘air pollutants.’” Or words to that effect. Civics 101: Congress, not the Supreme Court, wrote the Clean Air Act (CAA). Read the full story (Cooler Heads)
'Healthy Skeptic' on Climate Change Promises Hearings by Science Subcommittee The House of Representatives science committee's panel on basic research and education plans to hold hearings on climate change to present more views on the
topic, says its new chair, freshman Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL).
Brooks, 56, says he's trying to keep an open mind on a number of issues that come before the subcommittee, including federal funding of academic research,
support for training future scientists and engineers, and an immigration policy that welcomes foreign-born scientists "who are highly skilled and who will
generate more tax dollars than they will consume" while excluding all other immigrants. He relishes the opportunity to explore technological issues for
which he once showed an aptitude, he adds, noting that he turned to politics because of his disappointment with the outcome of the Vietnam War after the U.S.
government chose not to "get into it to win."
Spending bill looms as venue for climate battle ByThe continuing resolution could include a provision to hamstring EPA’s power to regulate emissions. Read more... (E2 Wire)
It's about time: Republicans propose $1.6bn cut to Environmental Protection Agency After challenging agency's legal authority over CO2 emissions, cut largest of 70 budgetary measures put forward by party
NASA climate programs being eyed for the budget axe  Dr. James Hansen, NASA GISS chief
scientist, arrested in front of the White House 9-28-10.Image: via Wonk Room NASA spent over a billion dollars last year on climate change studies…which would you rather have? Pronouncements about death trains, expert testimony for climate vandals, failed predictions, failed models, and a questionable GISTEMP dataset, or a continued manned spaceflight program? From my perspective, NASA GISS is a duplication of climate services already covered by NOAA/NCDC, and all we seem to get from it is climate activism arrests of the chief scientist, a coffee table book by his assistant, and a snarky condescending blog called RealClimate that one private citizen and some volunteers are currently beating the pants off of in public outreach. Further, the government spent over $8.7 billion across 16 Agencies and Departments throughout the federal government on these efforts in FY 2010 alone. Inside NASA, we have duplication of climate services not only at GISS in NYC, Goddard Spaceflight in Virgina, but also at JPL Pasadena. There’s been all sorts of domestic military base closures in the recent years to save money, and NASA Goddard and GISS re-purposed itself after the Apollo program ended and their mission did too. It’s time to close this duplication of services dinosaur, it will be missed far less than a TV comedy series by the American public. If you feel the same way, tell your representatives. – Anthony
In their recent letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-KY) and Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf (R-VA), Posey, Adams and Bishop state that while “moving forward under a constrained budget, it will be critical for the Appropriations Committee to produce legislation that is precise in its budget cuts. For years, Presidents and Congress have charged NASA with completing tasks that fall outside the scope of NASA’s primary mission.
Republicans push back against claims they would 'gut' key air law ByHouse Republicans are pushing back against claims by Democrats that a bill to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas
emissions is an attempt to “gut the Clean Air Act.”
Stronger FOIA law now under review in Virginia ATI Praises VA House Passage of Strengthened FOIA Law FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The American Tradition Institute today praised yesterday’s passage of a stronger Freedom of Information Act law in the Commonwealth of Virginia’s House
of Delegates, after the University of Virginia had previously misled a House member about the existence of records pertaining to former UVA climate scientist
Michael Mann.
 Krugman's Graph of density
distribution from his NYT article
Guest post by Indur M. Goklany 1. Krugman in Gradual Changes and Extreme Events forgets that there is a threshold on the left hand side, below which cold kills. In fact, in the moderate to higher latitudes more people die daily during the cold months than in the rest of the year. See Winter kills: Excess Deaths in the Winter Months. 2. How does Krugman know that the distribution does not become narrower due to warming?
Greens have taken to calling the invisible gas you’re currently exhaling ‘carbon pollution’. It’s nonsense, of course, but that hasn’t stopped the EPA from demonizing CO2 as a planet-killer while conveniently forgetting the world would actually be a barren rock without it. Given this context, what follows is a horrifying glorification of wanton pollution by the most recognizable brand on the planet. You may want children in the room to turn away before viewing the short film. . . If you were able to watch the whole thing without crying, you may have noticed how the gaseous poison was highlighted, nay celebrated, with sparkles – almost as if there was nothing to worry about. Big Soda is truly evil – the tag line at the end ‘Light It Up’ is a clear signal that they intend for the planet to burn. We’re doomed. (Daily Bayonet)
Projected Impact Of Global Warming On Europe Negligible Climate change activists have long warned of a bleak and impoverished future due to the ravages of global warming. But evaluating the effects of climate change in the long term is an extremely complex issue. There are no reliable, accurate predictions for future climate, demographic change, economic development, or technological progress. A new study in Proceedings of the National Academies of Science finds that if the climate of the 2080s were to occur today, the annual loss in household welfare in the European Union (EU) would range between 0.2–1%. Furthermore, this minuscule change was derived using aggressive IPCC scenarios for temperature and sea-level rise. Regardless of the claims made by climate change doomsayers, the future is not going to suck after all. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
Flimflam man has scored another propaganda post: Tim Flannery appointed Australia's climate commissioner ENVIRONMENTALIST and former Australian of the Year Tim Flannery has been appointed to a newly-created position as Australia's climate commissioner.
Uh-huh... his plants told him: Prince of Wales: climate change sceptics 'playing a reckless game of roulette' Climate change sceptics are "playing a reckless game of roulette" with the future of their grandchildren, the Prince of Wales on Wednesday told
a European Union conference on global warming.
NASA revises the sunspot prediction down again From the Marshall Space Flight Center:
Current prediction for the next sunspot cycle maximum gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 58 in July of 2013. We are currently two years into Cycle 24 and the predicted size continues to fall. Additionally, the monthly data plots are out, and there’s been little change from last month in the three major solar indexes plotted by the Space Weather Prediction Center: Continue reading (WUWT)
Radiative Changes Over the Global Oceans During Warm and Cool Events
In my continuing efforts to use satellite observations to test climate models that predict global warming, I keep trying different ways to analyze the data. Here I’ll show how the global oceanic radiative budget changes during warm and cool events, which are mostly due to El Niño and La Niña (respectively). By ‘radiative budget’ I am talking about top-of-atmosphere absorbed sunlight and emitted infrared radiation. (Roy W. Spencer)
Offshore Drilling and the Federal Deficit
For all the talk about job creation and deficit reduction, the Obama administration continues to ignore one solution to accomplish both: offshore oil drilling. As the de facto drilling moratorium continues to shackle the Gulf coast region, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) is determined to hold the administration accountable for what is more than just a regional issue. The day after President Obama’s Interior Department was held in contempt of court for refusing to lift the moratorium, Vitter wrote to David Hayes, deputy secretary at the Interior Department, demanding that he properly assess the financial damage caused by the moratorium and the liability of the federal government. Continue reading... (The Foundry)
by Robert Bradley Jr.
Matt Simmons founded the investment banking firm Simmons & Company International soon after the 1973 energy crisis to cater to oil companies. He first stepped out in a very public way by questioning official inventory statistics for oil. But then he took a decidedly controversial turn (and one that befuddled his longtime industry friends). In this White Paper, Simmons donned a neo-Malthusian hat to challenge the reality of the improving condition of mankind (particularly in market settings). But given the elementary errors and oddities of his attempted resurrection of the doomsday Club of Rome study, one must speculate if Simmons wanted to be a maverick for its own sake and whether he was working from his conclusions to his reasoning rather than the other way around. Such a perversion of logic appears to have also occurred in his peak-oil thinking–suggesting a strange case study of energy thinking indeed. (MasterResource)
Drilling technology sparks new oil boom Gary Williams recalls the last time the oil industry showed up in his tiny town of Waskada, Man. Crews punched holes in the prairie ground, then disappeared
as suddenly as they arrived when those holes came up empty.
CEOs, ex-military brass float plans to cut oil reliance ByThe Energy Security Leadership Council — a coalition of CEOs and retired military officials — floated a big report Wednesday that calls for several
transportation policies aimed at curbing oil reliance.
The Economist just finished hosting an online debate on natural gas. The resolution was an interesting one: This house believes that natural gas will do more than renewables to limit the world’s carbon emissions. [Read More] (Robert Rapier, ET)
Terence Corcoran: Toyota’s media car crash Irresponsible news outlets caused this wreck A year ago in this space I wrote: “Toyota is already the victim of one of the most irresponsible and destructive bouts of media thuggery in history.” On Tuesday, the U.S. Highway Safety Administration proved that statement accurate with a report — backed by NASA — that found no evidence Toyota’s were unsafe, and no evidence that the auto company’s electronics or technology were the cause of Toyota car crashes. The only car crash involving Toyota was the multi-billion-dollar pileup of media-driven frenzy and a U.S. administration, led by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. On Tuesday, the cause of that destruction of Toyota’s market share and reputational damage — the U.S. government and the media–walked away from the wreckage as if nothing had happened. After investigating scores of individual incidents of runaway car syndrome, the report found that the likely cause of 99% of them was driver error. One appears to have been the result of an out-of-place floor mat. Read More (Financial Post)
Lawrence Solomon: One health activist attacks another (through me) “Port Hope is the deep dark underbelly of the Canadian nuclear industry, representing dangers that so far, have escaped sufficient scrutiny and cleanup. … no level of radiation is safe and it is cumulative — each dose adds to the risk of cancer. Children are 10 to 20 times more radiosensitive than adults, and fetuses are extremely sensitive.” So wrote Dr. Helen Caldicott, an Australian health activist campaigning to evacuate the town of Port Hope, in an Ottawa Citizen article yesterday. The shoddy science in the article so incensed David Sweanor, an adjunct professor of law at the University of Ottawa and once a prominent health activist himself, that he asked me to respond. Dave was for years the voice of the Non-Smoker’s Rights Association, an organization with unparalleled success in opposing pollution from cigarette smoke. Dave wrote me partly because I had previously countered Caldicott’s claims about Port Hope, partly because he was too pressed for time to respond himself, and partly because he grew up in Port Hope, and as a summer student had been involved in the massive cleanup of radioactive soil that took place throughout the town. Dave knows firsthand that fears of radiation contamination had been hyped. “One of the jobs I had that summer was to stand by the gate of a site where this apparently contaminated soil was being taken and to thoroughly scan the dump trucks with my Geiger counter as they were leaving in order to ensure all the radioactive material had been disposed of,” he wrote me. “Well, being a bored and sceptical student I started to also scan the trucks as they arrived fully laden with the removed soil, and guess what? That they were free of elevated radioactivity levels upon leaving was not overly surprising because they were similarly free of such radioactivity upon arriving. They were, at great monetary and carbon expense, removing soil that registered normal background levels of radiation.” Over the decades, government agencies have moved some 100,000 tonnes of contaminated soils to other locations and overseen 30-odd environmental studies and 13 epidemiological studies of the
health of residents who may have been contaminated over the decades. Those studies generally show that the town’s level of radioactivity, and the health of
its residents, compare with those found in other communities. In fact, the studies of nuclear workers in Port Hope obtained results that the researchers
didn’t design for, and didn’t expect – the Port Hope nuclear workers contracted fewer cancers, and lived longer, than the general population of Port Hope.
Those who live in Port Hope also contract fewer leukemias than those who live in the nearby area. LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com
Sam Kazman's "Drug Approvals and Deadly Delays" article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (Winter 2010), tells a story about how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's policies have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. Let's look at how it happens. (Walter E. Williams, Townhall)
Indonesia to boost rice stocks amid global food fears Indonesia ordered hefty rice imports on Wednesday to boost stocks by a third in the latest sign that governments concerned about rising food prices and
dwindling supplies are rushing into the market and could drive inflation even higher.
Greens' departure allows Irish government to embrace GM crops The collapse of its coalition with the Green Party has given Fianna Fáil the freedom to ditch Ireland's anti-GM stance
EPA Rules Are Bad For The Economy Steve Milloy talks EPA on FOX Business
Republicans v. EPA battle goes public ByState of Play: The GOP-led campaign to scuttle the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas rules will burst into public view Wednesday.
EPA, greens strike back against Republican ‘job-killing’ message ByThe efforts come ahead of hearings this week featuring a barrage of GOP and industry attacks on Obama administration regulations. Read more... (E2 Wire)
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s journey as a regulatory warrior Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday in what will be the
first showdown between the newly empowered House Republicans and the EPA chief over the agency’s regulatory powers.
Republicans ask court to toss climate case Two top House Republicans and the Senate’s leading global warming skeptic asked the Supreme Court Monday to throw out a lawsuit seeking to force electric
utilities to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate: Congressional Republicans want a lower court ruling that lets states and environmental groups sue utilities over CO2 emissions thrown out. Which
makes this a good time to revisit the carbon question.
Sen. Inhofe, environmental groups spar over whether carbon emissions actually pose health risk When Republican lawmakers introduced legislation this week to block efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate carbon, environmental
groups pushed back hard. And this time, the groups stepped up their efforts by attempting to shift the argument from being about climate change science and
green jobs to public health safety.
UK carbon tax would not cut wider emissions, report warns The introduction of a carbon tax would help the UK meet its greenhouse gas target, but make no difference to emissions of greenhouse gases across Europe
according to new research.
Report boosts carbon price case CLIMATE change officials have dramatically increased their estimates of the emissions cuts necessary for Australia to meet its international promises,
lifting the nation's "abatement challenge" by 16 per cent in two years to 160 million tonnes.
Junior posts a Reality Check 
What would it take for Australia to meet the least ambitious of these targets? I answer this question in a recent paper: (Roger Pielke Jr.)
Questions real journalists ought to be asking about Yasi When “experts” say that cyclones and extreme storms will be more common in a warmer world, and are “linked”, “connected”, “expected”, or “definitely” due to man-made CO2 emissions, journalists could try asking some real questions. … 1. If storms are getting worse thanks to man-made CO2 emissions, why has there been no increase globally as man-made CO2 emissions rose over the last 40 years?  Last 4-decades of Global
Tropical Storm and Hurricane frequency -- 12-month running sums. The top time series is the number of TCs that reach at least tropical storm strength (maximum
lifetime wind speed exceeds 34-knots). The bottom time series is the number of hurricane strength (64-knots+) TCs..
Source: Global Tropical Cyclone Activity Dr. Ryan N. Maue … 2. So if you admit the global trend doesn’t change, but suggest that the local or regional trends will change, which parts of the world will get fewer cyclones? If global averages are still “average”, things have to get better somewhere else right? … 3. So if climate simulations project that Queensland will experience more cyclones, and be one of the areas that get worse, but the Crompton and McAneney (2008) paper shows that in that region the number of cyclones has been falling. (Follow up: So the global trend is the same, and the regional trend in Queensland is falling, yet we should expect that “it will get worse”?) More » (Jo Nova)
Mixing Politics into “Scientific” Papers There is a paper in this week’s Science magazine by a long list of authors led by Ulf Büntgen from the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow
and Landscape Research that unabashedly throws political commentary into the conclusions of their scientific research paper (i.e., it is not an opinion piece).
Analysis: Greenland Of 1770s Gives Clues To Chill Winters The icy winters suffered by Europe and North America for the last two years contrast with unusually mild weather in the Arctic, in a pattern first noted by a Danish missionary in Greenland in the 1770s. (Reuters)
U.S. agency says walrus protection can wait The Pacific walrus, hampered by vanishing sea ice in Arctic waters, deserves protection under the Endangered Species Act but must wait in line behind more
imperiled animals, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman said on Tuesday.
Ryan O'Donnell has posted a splendid pictorial guide to the oddities of Eric Steig's method for creating trends in the Arctic. If you have been one of the people not following the story too well so far, here's a little layman's version of the posting, which assumes no prior knowledge. I hope this helps. There's a lot of talk of the Antarctic peninsula. This is fairly obvious at the left hand side of each map below. The name refers only to the narrow bit of land though. The slightly fatter bit that joins the Peninsula to the main part of the Antarctic continent is West Antarctica. Now Steig's method purported to show that he whole continent was warming, and particularly West Antarctica. Previously it had been thought that only the peninsula was warming. Here's Steig's original result with the warming showing up as the dark colour in West Antarctica.
Click to read more ... (Bishop Hill)
New Paper “Climate Stability And Sensitivity In Some Simple Conceptual Models” By J. Bates I have been alerted to an important recent paper on modeling the climate system. It is Bates, J., 2010: Climate stability and sensitivity in some simple conceptual models, Climate Dynamics (28 December 2010), pp. 1-19. (Roger Pielke Sr.)
From CO2 Science Volume 14 Number 6: 9 February 2011 Open Letter to the United States Congress:
To view a pdf file of this letter, click here.
Major Report: New Book: The book is The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment, written by the son/father team of Craig D. and Sherwood B. Idso. It is encyclopedic in nature, with fifty-five different subjects treated and arranged in alphabetical order -- starting with Air Pollution Stress (Non-Ozone) and ending with Wood Density -- each of which entries comes with its own set of reference citations. The book is subtitled How humanity and the rest of the biosphere will prosper from this amazing trace gas that so many have wrongfully characterized as a dangerous air pollutant. It may not be everything you "always wanted to know" about the bright side of the issue; but it illuminates a number of significant aspects of earth's biosphere and its workings, as well as mankind's reliance on the biosphere for food and numerous other material necessities that are hardly ever mentioned by the mainstream media. Brief synopses of each of the 55 sections of the book may be found at http://www.co2science.org/education/book/2011/55BenefitsofCO2Pamphlet.pdf, while the book can be ordered from Vales Lakes Publishing, Inc. Editorial: Journal Reviews: A 450-Year History of Flooding in Southern Germany: Was flooding there greatest in colder or warmer times? Ocean Acidification and Marine Diatoms: How might the former affect the latter? The Folly of Biofuels: How great it is! Biofuels or Bioweeds?: Can one become the other? The Prospects for Increased Pigeon Pea Production in India: How good are they? ... and why? Ocean Acidification Database: Plant Growth Database:
The UN has Become a Clear Danger to Our Energy Future and National Sovereignty
If you’re like me, a denizen of western civilization, the United Nations has targeted you and me. The crosshairs are trained on how we use energy and the intent is to change our energy generation methods and sources. [Read More] (Art Horn, ET)
Oil-and-gas companies are being vilified in tax debate, trade group says ByAfter being branded “yesterday’s energy” by Obama, the industry is pushing back against Democratic efforts to end their tax incentives. Read more... (E2 Wire)
Power: Tilting once again at windmills, the Interior Department has announced that it's fast-tracking wind farms off four Atlantic states. Now, if they were
oil rigs, we might actually get some real energy.
Dems consider cash-for-clunkers "successful", want to throw away more of your money on EVs: Obama to propose electric vehicle rebate plan ByPresident Obama’s budget request will call on Congress to pass legislation offering consumers a rebate of as much as $7,500 for purchasing electric
vehicles.
Oh boy... Green thinktank warns against using tax cuts to stabilise fuel prices Pleas from industry to cut fuel duty will result in rises to other taxes or further spending cuts, Green Alliance says
These clowns don't get it at all: The UK must own up to the full scale of its emissions problem Outsourced emissions are a growing problem that the government is failing to acknowledge
China creates rare earth strategic reserve China is building up strategic reserves of rare earth metals in a move that could give it better control over the resource so indispensable to high tech products, the Wall Street Journal reported. (SMH)
Three Questions About Renewable Energy (false choices skew public opinion poll) Several months ago, renewable energy advocates hailed a poll as unquestionably demonstrating the public’s support of renewable energy resources. However, answers to follow-up questions showed that the public’s willingness to pay for increased renewable energy is lukewarm at best. Therein lies the fickle support for government-dependent energy path that shines is one thing in the abstract and another in the real world. The Financial Times/Harris poll, conducted online by Harris Interactive, surveyed household members who pay the energy bill each month in France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, and the U.S. between September 15 and 21, 2010. They were asked three questions about their support of renewable energy. (MasterResource)
Voluntary guidelines to avoid bird-wind impacts WASHINGTON (AP) — The Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing voluntary guidelines for onshore wind energy developers to avoid bird deaths and other harm to
wildlife as part of the Obama administration's big push for renewable and clean energy. posted by Ben Pile on Tuesday, February 8, 2011 Bishop Hill points to a paper by Ross McKitrick. The Bishop himself points to the following passage, a thought experiment in which an Intergovernmental Panel on Economics, analogous to the IPCC is imagined. (Climate Resistance)
Peter Foster: The straight goods from Animal Farm Ottawa’s agri-food institute produces Soviet-style plan to drive up food prices The Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI) is, according to its website, an independent, non-partisan, unbiased, not-for-profit policy forum. It’s difficult to see how this squares with it being government-created and government funded. Its idea of non-partisanship seems to align with that of Barack Obama: “Let’s all get together and agree we need more government.” CAPI this week produced a steaming shovel-ready pile of policy titled Canada’s Agri-Food Destination, which amounts to a non-fiction rewrite of Animal Farm for the 21st century: a self-parody of bureaucratic pretension. The CAPI report produces grand Soviet-style targets before getting down to the nitty-gritty of planting new gobbledegook-fertilized bureaucracies as far as the eye can see. By 2025 it wants Canada to double the value of its food exports to $75-billion, produce and supply 75% of its own food, and “Generate revenue and efficiency by relying on biomaterials and biofuels in 75% of the agri-food sector.” Read More (Financial Post)
States: A court has tentatively ruled against California's cap-and-trade law because alternatives were not considered. But then, neither were climate facts
or the economic impact.
A Cherry-Picker’s Guide to Temperature Trends Update: Warming Crisis Not Back in October 2009, my post “A Cherry-Picker’s Guide to Temperature Trends” examined the many different statements that could be made to describe the tendencies of global temperatures over the past 20 years. I concluded that anything from rapid cooling to a faster than expected warming could be supported by carefully picking through the available data. Now, more than a year later, and after one of the “warmest years on record,” I’ve updated my analysis so that any new statements characterizing global temperature can be evaluated against the complete set of recent observations. In general, I find that statements such as “global warming has stopped” should be tempered, at least for the time being. But I conclude that my original article’s summary remains applicable:
I say “more or less” because one could argue from the data (as we’ll see below) that the warming rate during recent years has upticked with the warmth in 2010 indicating a warming that is occurring faster than projected and is accelerating. But, I think that this represents a temporary condition. In due course (say over the next several months), the warmth in 2010 will continue to subside as the cooling influence from a Pacific La Niña event supplants the warming influence of last year’s El Niño (see here for example). This will have the effect of flattening out recent temperature trends and returning them once again to lower-than-projected values. I imagine that we’ll see such an impact when it comes time again for me to produce an update to this update. But until that time, I’ll describe the situation as it presents itself data available through December 2010. [Read more →] (MasterResource)
Who would have thought that if you knew the air pressure in Darwin and Tahiti in June, you could figure out that the start of 2011 might be a Stalingrad Winter up North and a cooler wetter summer down south (Not that people in Sydney feel all that cool right now). But the air pressure ratios are reported as the SOI (Southern Oscillation Index) and it’s the handiest thing if you like predicting global temperatures 7 months ahead. Look at that correlation. Since June last year Bryan Leyland has been using the simple connection described by Carter, De Freitas, and McLean in 2009 to predict up and coming temperatures. So far, for what it’s worth, he’s right on track. 
Such is the power of the stored pool of cold that is the bottom three-quarters of the Pacific Ocean. And when you look at how vast the Southern Pacific ocean is, is it any wonder it has such an influence? All that heat capacity… More » (Jo Nova)
Clean Energy Standard: Cap-and-Trade Only Less Efficient by Marlo Lewis As noted previously on GlobalWarming.Org, Obama’s ”Clean Energy Standard” would effectively impose the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill’s emission reduction target on the electric power sector. Under Obama’s proposal, “By 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources” (i.e. from wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, “clean coal,” and natural gas). Similarly, an estimated 81% of U.S. electricity would come from such sources in 2030 in the Energy Information Administration’s “Basic Case” analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill. There is one difference though. Emission reductions accomplished via Soviet-style production quota (mandates) such as a clean energy standard would likely be more costly than emission reductions accomplished via market-like mechanisms such as cap-and-trade. National Journal reporter Amy Harder spotted this issue last Friday:
Read the full story (Cooler Heads)
House energy chairman cool to proposals for 'clean' energy standard ByRep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said the electricity standards already in place at the state level seem to be working. Read more... (E2 Wire)
Defining ''Clean'' is the Energy Challenge
In an effort to show some semblance of an energy and environmental policy, the Obama administration has recently begun advocating clean energy standards (CES). [Read More] (Michael J. Economides, ET)
Clean Coal: The Fallows Fallacy The United States has done little to develop clean coal technology—because there are few reasons for doing so.
Green-energy plant sucks up subsidies, then goes bust To turn wood chips into ethanol fuel, George W. Bush's Department of Energy in February 2007 announced a $76 million grant to Range Fuels for a cutting-edge
refinery. A few months later, the refinery opened in the piney woods of Treutlen County, Ga., as the taxpayers of Georgia piled on another $6 million. In 2008,
the ethanol plant was the first beneficiary of the Biorefinery Assistance Program, pocketing a loan for $80 million guaranteed by the U.S. taxpayers.
Listening to the Shale Revolution Often the only 'reform' needed is a plan to remove obstacles to innovation.
Oil has joined the Past… NG is the Future! The natural gas cartel, a dream of Russia’s just a few years ago, is dead. It died when a natural gas revolution broke out and Gazprom lost. Energy
importing nations around the world are evaluating their own geology, currently, to see if they have shale reserves that can be tapped. Nations like Argentina,
Germany, Poland, France, and Sweden are looking into their national shale reserves.
Finally something useful from TERI? Microbial cocktail stimulates methane formation in coal seams As fossil fuels like coal and petroleum face criticism for the greenhouse gases they emit, methane is emerging as a relatively cleaner option. So, worldwide
efforts are on to scout for methods to generate the gas in copious quantities.
Hastings knocks ‘exclusive’ White House focus on offshore wind ByA senior House Republican on Monday greeted Obama administration plans to
boost offshore wind power with criticism of the White House’s recent decision not to sell oil-and-gas leases off the Atlantic Coast.
That didn't take long: Asia-Pacific At Risk From Climate Migration: Report Governments in the Asia-Pacific region face the risk of unprecedented numbers of people displaced by floods, storms and other impacts of climate change, the
Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in a report on Monday.
Sun exposure and vitamin D linked to MS risk People who have spent more time in the sun and those with higher vitamin D levels may be less likely to develop multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a new
study from Australia.
Another Environmental Disaster Hollywood often makes heroes out of undeserving people in order to further their unenlightened agenda. Ten years ago, it was “Erin Brockovich” that
received Tinseltown’s royal treatment. Directed by Steven Soderbergh (who would later deify Che Guevera in “Che”), the film starred another leftist, Julia
Roberts, who won the Academy Award for this propaganda. We now find out that the entire story was a hoax and that Brockovich has gone on to destroy even bigger
targets on her fictitious crusade.
For more than two years, Broomfield County, Colorado has been a battleground between the forces for what’s euphemistically called “Sustainable
Development” and local people who value private property rights. “Sustainable Development” is the feel-good name that applies to hundreds of specific
behavior-modifying recommendations contained in Agenda 21, a 40-chapter non-binding document adopted by the United Nations and 179 nations in 1992.
Calif. cap-trade plan dealt blow by S.F. judge The California Air Resources Board violated state environmental law in 2008 when it adopted a comprehensive plan to reduce greenhouse gases and again last
year when it passed cap-and-trade regulations, a San Francisco Superior Court judge has ruled in a tentative decision.
EU 2020 climate targets: $3.9 trillion A few years ago, when this blog was getting started, there was a counter in the sidebar that was copied from (and created by) Steve Milloy's JunkScience.COM. Europe must invest €2.9tn to meet 2020 emissions goal (other sources)the EU commitments to reduce the carbonization of the economy before the year 2020 will cost a staggering €2.9 trillion which is $3.9 trillion. That's the result of a study, Carbon Capital (PDF), by Accenture and Barclays Capital. The figure is $390 billion per year - it's more than twice the Milloy's "denier" value, and it's only the European Union which only represents 1/7 of the world's CO2 emissions. » Don't Stop Reading » (TRF)
Australia one of the largest drags on global climate action, says PM's adviser, Ross Garnaut JULIA Gillard's climate change adviser Ross Garnaut has labelled Australia one of the largest drags on global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (Sid Maher, The Australian)
Greens, miners hit carbon bid from both sides JULIA Gillard and the Greens are on a collision course over the assistance levels for big greenhouse gas emitters in the government's proposed new carbon pricing regime, as mine companies prepare to combat suggestions Australia is a "laggard" in international efforts to combat climate change. (Sid Maher The Australian)
How close Brisbane's man-made flood came to being truly catastrophic: A few more inches and heaven help Brisbane
Here’s how close to utter disaster Brisbane came during last month’s floods. This is the Wivenhoe dam, built to save the city from flooding, at the moment its operators were desperately trying to lower the levels before it overtopped and parts of the dam gave way. (Andrew Bolt)
More Stupid Environmentalist Tricks This gem from Spain -- Madrid's mayor proclaimed massive air pollution reductions except, ah, "The state prosecutor's office found that in 2009 the Madrid municipality had quietly moved nearly half its pollution sensors from traffic-clogged streets in the city centre to parks and gardens" -- reminds us of the cheapest way to cool the planet: Reopen the Canadian and Siberian temperature stations closed ca. 1990, prompting 'the hottest decade on record'.
Much cheaper than energy rationing. And more effectively addresses the matter, as well. (American Spectator)
Yasi proves only that we panic too fast IT HADN’T even hit yet, and already a gibbering horde was shrieking that Cyclone Yasi proved we’d warmed the world.
There is an article in The Hill’s Energy and Environment Blog on February 1 2011 by Andrew Restuccia titled Scientists ask Congress to put aside politics, take ‘fresh look’ at climate data (Roger Pielke Sr.)
Climate change not expected to lead to mass cross-border migration People are more likely to move short distances to cities, rather than across borders, says a new report
Magnetic pole: motion sped up by 800 percent The North Magnetic Pole is the place on Earth where the magnetic field has a
vertical direction. Magnetic Polar Shifts Causing Massive Global Superstormsin which it is claimed that the motion of the North Magnetic Pole towards Russia sped up from 8 km per year to 60 km per year in recent years (from 1989 or so) and that storms similar to the (technical) Category 6 cyclone Yasi may flood the whole Earth because of the looming or ongoing reversal, bringing us 500 km/h winds all over the world. Nice. ;-) » Don't Stop Reading » (TRF)
Phew! And it was keeping me awake at night, too! Still hope for Arctic sea ice The substantial decline of Arctic sea ice in recent years has triggered some fears that the ice cover might be approaching a “tipping point” beyond which the loss of the remaining sea ice would become unstoppable. However, new research carried out at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg/Germany now indicates that such tipping point is unlikely to exist for the loss of Arctic summer sea ice. The sea-ice cover reacts instead relatively directly to the climatic conditions at any given time. Hence, the ongoing loss of Arctic sea ice could be slowed down and eventually stopped if global warming were to be slowed down and eventually stopped. (PIM)
Hmm... Tropical Atlantic sees weaker trade winds and more rainfall Earth's global temperature has been rising gradually over the last decades, but the warming has not been the same everywhere. Scientists are therefore trying
to pin down how the warming has affected regional climates because that is what really matters to people, and to adaptation and mitigation strategies. Their
efforts, however, had hit a roadblock because the necessary observations of the winds over the oceans were biased.
If only there really were "global warming" in the populist sense... Malaria in Africa Likely to Decline With Global Warming Malaria transmission will not increase because of global warming in the African nation of Burundi according to a statistical analysis by researchers in Austria and Burundi. Writing in the International Journal of Global Warming, the team explains that rising temperatures will lead to lower humidity and rainfall which will shorten the lifespan of mosquitoes carrying malaria. (ScienceDaily)
Vitter says Obama favors ideology over science, is 'attacking traditional energy' BySen. David Vitter (R-La.) accused the White House of "leading with ideology and politics" on the deepwater oil drilling debate. Read more... (E2 Wire)
Permitorium: 103 Gulf of Mexico Drilling Plans Await Government Approval As oil prices continue to climb, a backlog of more than 100 offshore drilling plans for the Gulf of Mexico are awaiting approval from the Obama administration, according to federal data. The federal government has not approved a single new exploratory drilling plan in the Gulf of Mexico since lifting its deepwater drilling moratorium on Oct. 12. There are currently 103 plans awaiting review by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. The information reveals that the Obama administration — not the oil industry — is the culprit for the slowdown of drilling activity in the Gulf. The Gulf of Mexico accounts for more than 25 percent of domestic oil production. Continue reading... (The Foundry)
White House's Contemptible Drilling Ban Energy Policy: An administration that has no respect for Congress, the courts or the Constitution has been found in contempt for reissuing a drilling
moratorium that a U.S. district judge found overly broad.
Peter Foster: Egypt, Harper, Obama and oil If the U.S. is serious about cutting reliance on Mideast oil, Keystone XL should be approved as soon as possible Despite commitments to beef up the North American security perimeter, thin an increasingly fat border, and remove trade irritants, President Barack Obama’s thoughts after his meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Washington yesterday were clearly far more on Cairo than Fort McMurray. Still, Egypt and Alberta are firmly linked by the geopolitics of oil and U.S. concerns about energy security. Mr. Harper briefly acknowledged that energy had been part of the discussion, and stressed Canada’s role as a “secure, stable and friendly supplier,” but he did not elaborate on whether the extension of TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline to take oil sands oil to the Gulf Coast had been discussed. This remains a sensitive matter. A related problem is the extent of President Obama’s continuing adherence to draconian action on climate change. Read More (Financial Post)
BP-Rosneft Deal Leaves U.S. Out in Arctic Cold
U.S. Congressman Edward Markey – of (failed) Waxman-Markey Climate Bill fame – hailed it a threat to “national security”. But if last month’s historic tie-up between BP and Russia’s Rosneft revealed that national as well as business interests were at the heart of what amounts to a coup for BP; and America only has itself to blame if Exxon-Mobil et al have been left out in the Arctic cold. While Rosneft and BP were busy making a quantum leap forward to finally begin exploiting the world’s latest hydrocarbon frontier, President Obama was selling cloud-cuckoo-land ‘clean energy’ policies in his State of the Union address. (, ET)
Anti-Energy Agenda Could Cause More Rolling Blackouts
Drudge’s top storylines for the morning feature energy shortage problems in a number of states across the country because of the exceptionally cold weather. Increased demand from the inclement weather has put strains on suppliers, and in some cases, the weather itself has adversely affected energy output. New Mexico is calling for a state of emergency because of natural gas shortages, natural gas pipes in Texas are experiencing low pressure, and several other states are managing rolling blackouts and record-high energy usage. While the recent energy turmoil is a result of extreme weather conditions, it is symbolic and a grim foreshadowing of what our energy policy in the United States has become: an anti-energy agenda. Continue reading... (The Foundry)
Texas Power Outages: A Preliminary Analysis (Cold snap brings failure–isolated ERCOT an issue)
On Wednesday morning, The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), operating the power grid for much of the state, called upon local distribution companies to cut power to blocks of consumers on a rotating basis. The rolling outages produced hardship for millions, and even isolated instances of severe harm. Consumers and policymakers are dissecting what went wrong and what should be done about it. The following is a preliminary analysis based on public data and news reports. A subsequent post will present more details once more complete information becomes available. In brief, extreme cold weather pushed power demand to very high winter levels. At the same time, fifty of the state’s power plants were offline due to the effects of the cold, and several others were undergoing planned maintenance. The combination of very high demand and reduced supply left the ERCOT grid perilously short of reserves. Rolling consumer outages were employed to protect the system from failing completely. Some wondered whether wind power was at fault, but wind contributed about seven percent of ERCOT’s power during the emergency – about the same as this time last year. No power system is immune to hazards. But policy decisions that increase the likelihood of hazards or multiply the resulting damages ought to be given careful reconsideration. In this case, the choice by Texas policymakers to keep ERCOT isolated from surrounding power systems prevented power companies within ERCOT from accessing excess power capacity elsewhere in the state and in neighboring states. Other policy issues also are raised by the emergency, but few solutions are likely to be as cost-effective and technically simple to implement as linking ERCOT to its neighbors. Cold Snap ERCOT reported that severe weather led to the loss of 50 generation units amounting to 7,000 MW of capacity on Wednesday morning. From news accounts it looks like a few large coal plants failed after water pipes burst. Some natural gas generators found insufficient fuel supplies due to heavy demand for natural gas. Other natural gas generators found their access to fuel curtailed by state rules that give priorities to other customer classes when supplies run short. In addition, a larger than usual amount of generation was off-line for scheduled maintenance – one estimate put this quantity at about 12,000 MW. [Read more →] (MasterResource)
Department of Energy Seeks To Cut Solar Costs By 75 Percent The U.S. Department of Energy said on Friday it will spend $27 million on a new effort to reduce the costs of solar power by 75 percent by the end of the
decade in a bid to make the renewable power source as cheap as fossil fuels.
Green Jobs Are Not Evergreen Jobs After receiving at least $43 million in aid from the state of Massachusetts, Evergreen Solar announced last month that it would be closing its manufacturing
plant in Devens, Mass., laying off its 800 workers and moving its manufacturing operations to China.
Top nuclear official: New reactor approvals possible this year ByThe approvals could pave the way for construction to begin on the first new nuclear reactor in the United States in decades. Read more... (E2 Wire)
More people panic: UN 'concerned' by world population growth trends The world population growth rate must slow down significantly to avoid reaching unsustainable levels, says a new UN report.
Defeating the BPA fear entrepreneurs My latest HND piece takes a look at the so-called Precautionary Principle, and how the fear entrepreneurs have used it to propose bans on bisphenol-A (BPA). (Shaw's Eco-Logic)
That same old song...Obesity epidemic risks heart disease "tsunami" More than half a billion people, or one in 10 adults worldwide, are obese -- more than double the number in 1980 -- as the obesity epidemic spills over from
wealthy into poorer nations, researchers said on Thursday.
Road traffic tied to poverty-stricken kids' asthma Teenagers living close to a busy road are more likely to have allergies and asthma than those living farther from traffic, a study of one shantytown in Peru
suggests.
Indoctrination begins early: Germany sells vision for 'green toys' to world NUREMBERG, Germany -- The hottest "green" toy in Germany isn't made of organic or recycled materials. That's so 2010. This one has a solar panel
and only runs if kids remember to insert bright red "energy stones" that power the rest of the space station.
EPA takes hardline in first GHG permit The first permit to emit greenhouse gases under the EPA’s new climate rules has been issued by Louisiana for a Nucor steel facility. While that’s the good news, the Obama administration may be planning to take this opportunity to make cap-and-trade look like it would have been a walk in the park compared to EPA regulation. (Green Hell Blog)
Crony Capitalism Or Raw Corruption? Favoritism: It's good to have friends in high places. Last month, the White House issued tough new rules on CO2 emissions. This month, its biggest corporate
supporter wins an exemption. Something smells here.
Inhofe sees Dem backing for plan to kill EPA climate rules BySen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said Wednesday that his bill to upend EPA climate change rules could gain traction in the closely divided Senate, claiming
several Democrats are potential backers. "I could name several — I won't — but I could name several Democrats that would like to be in support of my bill," Inhofe said. Inhofe, the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, is working with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.)
on legislation they're circulating this week.
Do the causes of temperature changes matter? A key part of the climate panic methodology is to take the data and numbers out of their proper context. This procedure is being systematically applied to
all quantities describing the atmosphere, all climatic phenomena, all weather events, as well as their real or hypothetical impacts.
Oh, really? Should we apply double standards here? Why? » Don't Stop Reading » (TRF)
Headline looked promising... Investors Charged With Managing Risk Mustn't Confuse Ideology With Science As our planet's climate has continued to change, those who aren't convinced by the scientific evidence have increasingly turned to attacking climate
scientists.
Gasbags America can't recognize genuine pollutants either: Public health groups launching campaign to defend EPA climate rules ByA coalition of public health organizations in the coming weeks plans to step up efforts to oppose legislation that would block or delay Environmental Protection Agency climate rules. The American Lung Association recently hired Peter Iwanowicz, a former New York state environmental official, to head up a new campaign to pressure lawmakers to reject efforts to limit EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Iwanowicz is working to build a coalition of public health groups to inform lawmakers about the health risks of increased levels of pollutants like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Read more... (E2 Wire)
Loons looking to leverage media disaster porn: Wild weather could help blow in the new carbon tax The general public was more receptive to the arguments for global warming the last time the weather was big news, when Australia was dealing with record
drought and lethal bush fires.
Cyclone Yasi has been exaggerated by Govts and beaten up by media February 4th, 2011 byThis ABC online story quoting an experienced north Queensland storm chaser starts to
reveal the truth that Yasi was unlikely to have been a category 5 cyclone as it hit the coast – the damage simply is not there for that. Luckily for residents
windspeeds must have decayed quicker than we have been told. Just to remind us what cyclone damage can look like – here is a photo from Darwin after Tracy (thanks National Archives) and here is a website with other photos.
Gore's Unending Blizzard Of Lies Hoaxes: As the nation digs itself out, the grand wizard of global warming comes out of hiding and blames it all on that SUV stuck in your driveway. A
blizzard is a terrible thing to waste.
Ooh! Bad timing... Wolverine population threatened by climate change BOULDER—The aggressive wolverine may not be powerful enough to survive climate change in the contiguous United States, new research concludes.
Self Regulation Of The Climate System By Deep Cumulus Convection We have published a set of papers that discuss an under recognized climate feedback which constrains how warm and cold the troposphere can become. These papers present a constraint based on the temperatures of the sea surface and the deep cumulus response to these temperatures. The idea is straightforward and originated in an idea from Ben Herman at the University of Arizona. When cold air masses travel over unfrozen ocean, vertical mixing through deep cumulus convection mixes the air through the troposphere such that temperatures at 500mb, for example, hardly ever becomes colder than -40C to -45C. These cold values are actually reached in November in the Northern Hemisphere despite several more months of winter. This limit on tropospheric cooling is reported on in our paper: Chase, T.N., B. Herman, R.A. Pielke Sr., X. Zeng, and M. Leuthold, 2002: A proposed mechanism for the regulation of minimum midtropospheric temperatures in the Arctic. J. Geophys. Res., 107(D14), 10.10291/2001JD001425 Tsukernik, M., T.N. Chase, M.C. Serreze, R.G. Barry, R. Pielke Sr., B. Herman, and X. Zeng, 2004: On the regulation of minimum mid-tropospheric temperatures in the Arctic. Geophys. Res. Letts., 31, L06112, doi:10.1029/2003GL018831 Herman, B., M. Barlage, T.N. Chase, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2008: Update on a proposed mechanism for the regulation of minimum mid-tropospheric and surface temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic. J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 113, D24101, doi:10.1029/2008JD009799. Herman, B.M. M.A. Brunke, R.A. Pielke Sr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2010: Global and hemispheric lower tropospheric temperature trends. Remote Sensing, 2, 2561-2570; doi:10.3390/rs2112561. Since, as discussed in my post The Westerlies Explain The Recent Extreme Winter Weather, Not “Global Warming” it is the cold tropospheric air towards the poles and the warmer tropospheric air to the south that drives the westerlies, if the coldest that the troposphere can achieve is -40C to -45C, irrespective of a global average surface temperature trend, this is a self-regulation of the climate system. Similarly, tropospheric temperatures cannot become warmer that about -5C at 500mb in the tropics for very long as deep convection over the warmest oceans still results in temperatures at that level of ~-5C. This deep convection is prevalent over tropical oceans as air travels around the globe. Only if the high latitude oceans warm to well above freezing almost everywhere (which means most of the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice disappears) and/or the tropical oceans warm substantially above their current values, will this self-regulation of the climate system change. The role of human climate forcings would have to be large enough to alter these surface temperatures. The latest sea surface temperature and temperature anomaly maps show that large enough changes have not yet occurred to alter this self-regulation of the climate system - as illustrated below. The 2007 IPCC, and more recent pronouncements have ignored assessing the role of this self-regulation of the climate.
(Roger Pielke Sr.)
They could hardly get worse... New Discoveries Improve Climate Models Underwater Ridges Impact Ocean's Flow of Warm Water
Good News for Sea Turtles from the Great Barrier Reef If you haven’t heard the news, global warming is causing sea level to rise and causing storms to become more severe, and the net result is shoreline
erosion throughout the world. This pillar of the apocalypse is particularly easy to sell—gather up some pictures of shoreline erosion, throw in some images of
turtle nest destruction, and you are on your way to winning a Nobel Prize for putting all the pieces together.
Mr. President, You’re in Contempt Anyone who has ever watched Law & Order knows that someone is held in contempt of court when they egregiously disrespect the role of the court and the rule of law. Holding someone in contempt is a powerful sanction in a judge’s arsenal to redress an intentional disregard for the law and the courts. So it is no small matter when yesterday Federal District Court Judge Martin Feldman held the Obama Interior Department in contempt of court for dismissively ignoring his ruling to cease the job-killing drilling moratorium imposed by President Obama last year. Feldman wrote: “Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the reimposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this Court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt of this Court’s preliminary injunction order.” President Obama first ordered the halt of offshore drilling in response to the BP oil spill in April 2010. While some reasonable observers concluded that a temporary stoppage was necessary to assess the status of safe drilling operations in the Gulf, nearly nobody has supported the permanent moratorium the Obama administration has since enforced. Continue reading... (The Foundry)
Judge holds Interior in contempt over drilling ban ByA Louisiana federal judge on Wednesday held the Interior Department in contempt for re-imposing a deepwater oil-drilling ban last year
after the judge had struck down an earlier version of the moratorium.
Shell scraps bid to drill off Alaska’s coast this year ByShell Oil announced Thursday that it's abandoning efforts to drill in icy waters off Alaska’s northern coast this year, a decision that prompted Alaska's
senators to accuse the Obama administration of blocking access to large domestic supplies.
Gasland: turning good news into bad Shale gas might help solve a global energy shortage. So why is Josh Fox’s Oscar-nominated doc so down on it?
D'oh! Alternative energy investors not seeing green yet BOSTON - President Obama laid out an ambitious goal in his latest State of the Union address: By 2035, America will get 80 percent of its electricity from
clean energy sources.
80% “Clean” Energy by 2035: What Does This Mean? [Editor’s Note: Ken Kok has 35 years experience in nuclear energy and R&D project management, including business development, facility management, proposal preparation and project planning. He has a master's from Michigan Technological University in Business Administration and Nuclear Engineering and is a licensed Professional Engineer and ASME Fellow.] President Obama proposed in the 2011 State of the Union Address (SOU) that we have a goal of 80% of our energy coming from “clean” sources by 2035. “Clean” was [not] defined, but one must assume it is a generation mix of politically correct renewables, e.g. wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, etc. as defined by the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), nuclear, and others such as clean coal. So what are we really talking about in such a major energy transformation? As calculated in Table 1, the staggering answer is 750+ large nuclear plants and 1.4 million + large wind machines–not to menntion some 500 new gas-fired power plants to firm up the wind. Table 1 – Evaluation of the electric energy production
Table 1 was generated based on the above numbers using data currently displayed by the EIA. As noted in the Table 1 footnote, the number of wind turbines is based on a 20% capacity factor. Because of the variability of wind and the need for stability in the electric grid the wind generation capacity needs to be augmented by a conventional, fast-responding generating technology. [Read more →] (MasterResource)
Still haven't quite got it, but better: Clean Tech Innovation and the "Iron Law" From GreenBeat:There is no doubt that unrealistic expectations about governments increasing the costs of energy through cap-and-trade legislation contributed to the notion that clean tech would become competitive by making the alternatives cost more. Thiel may be right about the need for more engineers in the industry, but they may need more pragmatic policy analysts as well. His bottom line is right on target -- we need less expensive energy. (Roger Pielke Jr.)
Texas, indulging in its famed braggadocio, loves to talk up the fact that it is the biggest wind power state and even ranks high world-wide compared to other countries. But somehow, that didn’t seem to serve the residents of the great Lone Star State on February 2. [Read More] (Philip E. Lewis, ET)
EU leaders to dodge energy efficiency at summit EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Friday (4 February) are expected to announce a review of the bloc's energy savings plan only for 2013 and have no intention
of making their 20% savings target legally binding, EurActiv has learned.
Study calls antibiotic-asthma link into question While some studies have suggested that giving babies antibiotics might boost their risk of asthma later on, a new analysis concludes that much of that
evidence is flawed.
Literal heartbreak from losing the Super Bowl or silly statistics? What do you get when you combine an alarming study with the signature U.S. sporting event?
EPA chief slams bills to block climate rules, affirms Obama's veto threat ByEPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said "nothing has changed" on White House threat to veto bill blocking greenhouse gas regulations. Read more... (E2 Wire)
Sen. Boxer says climate science hearings are 'absolutely' in the works BySenate Environment and Public Works Committee Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is issuing a challenge to skeptics of climate change science: Bring it on. Boxer said Wednesday that she's expecting hearings on the issue. She said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who is expected to head the panel's oversight subcommittee, "is working on getting us going with some hearings." "We are going to absolutely look at the science of carbon pollution and its impact on our people, on our planet," Boxer said at a committee hearing on drinking water safety. "We are absolutely going to keep up with the science." Read more... (E2 Wire)
Mann et al. try old lie on new Congress Hokey stick creator Michael Mann and a number of fellow alarmists sent a letter to Congress yesterday asking it to take a “fresh look at climate change.” In the letter’s section “Climate Change Deniers,” Mann et al. state:
Some quick thoughts:
In addition to choking off funding for the EPA, Congress needs to stop taxpayer funding of Mann et al. Let’s see if Penn State is willing to support Mann’s nonsense without taxpayer largesse. (Green Hell Blog)
Sheesh! EU needs €2.2 trillion to meet carbon targets Europe must bridge a €2.2trillion (£1.9trn) "carbon capital chasm" if it is to meet 2020 carbon emissions reduction targets.
Orwell is back: Bulb ban is freedom (The Michigan View 2.2.11) In a leap of Orwellian logic, USA Today — America’s second-largest newspaper — argues in its lead editorial Tuesday that banning the incandescent light
bulb is a victory for free markets.
A Challenge to the Climate Research Community I’ve been picking up a lot of chatter in the last few days about the ’settled science’ of global warming. What most people don’t realize is that the vast majority of published research on the topic simply assumes that warming is manmade. It in no way “proves” it. If the science really is that settled, then this challenge should be easy: Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out natural, internal climate cycles as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record. Studies that have suggested that an increase in the total output of the sun cannot be blamed, do not count…the sun is an external driver. I’m talking about natural, internal variability. The fact is that the ‘null hypothesis’ of global warming has never been rejected: That natural climate variability can explain everything we see in the climate system. (Roy W. Spencer)
UAH Update for January 2011: Global Temperatures in Freefall …although this, too, shall pass, when La Nina goes away.
Watermelons hoping for disaster: Cyclone May Be Tipping Point In Australia Climate Policy Debate Australia has endured two of its deadliest summers on record, blamed in part on global warming, but record fires, floods and cyclones have not persuaded it
to take strong action on climate change.
Can we ease off the disaster porn now? Relief as Australia mops up from giant cyclone Australians voiced relief and surprise after one of the world's most powerful cyclones spared the nation's northeast coast from expected devastation on Thursday, with no reported deaths despite winds tearing off roofs and toppling trees. (Reuters) The media has certainly had a lot of fun, dashing around hoping for disaster but the fact is these storms do happen fairly regularly and developed countries can afford the infrastructure to warn the populace and get the vulnerable out of harm's way. Granted, Yasi was a big bitch with plenty of grunt, a certain recipe for disaster in poorer and less developed regions but wealth generation and development is highly protective, something we have been trying to point out for a very long time now.
The average annual weather-related normalised damage over the 40-year period is AUD$820 million with a standar deviation of AUD$960 million. The recent past has been relatively benign in terms of loss activity, with annual damage over the most recent 5 years averaging AUD$420 million, close to half the average annual loss over the entire period of the Disaster List.In the absence of systematic evaluations of data, it would be all too easy to consider recent experience (whether that be the past week or the past decades) to somehow be "normal" and thus the basis for expectations of the near future. Such expectations, when out of sync with a longer term perspective, can easily lead to misplaced judgments of risk and contribute to poor decision making. Such a systematic evaluation of the long-term tropical cyclone landfall record in eastern Australia was published last summer in Climate Dynamics by Jeffrey Callaghan and Scott Power (2010). Callaghan and Power find a long-term trend of much fewer landfalls of intense cyclones (i.e., Category 3, 4, and 5) in the region. They write: The linear trend in the number of severe TCs making land-fall over eastern Australia declined from about 0.45 TCs/year in the early 1870s to about 0.17 TCs/year in recent times—a 62% decline.The figure at the top of this post comes from their paper and comes with the following caption: Fig. 1 The number of severe tropical cyclone (TC) land-falls in each TC season from 1872/1873 to 2009/2010 inclusive. The corresponding linear trend of -0.0021 TCs/year is also shown. This represents a decline of approximately 60% over the full period.They find evidence for a relationship between intense cyclone landfall activity and the ENSO cycle, reflecting the natural variability of the system. They speculate about a connection between the significant decrease in landfalls and global warming, but find little convincing evidence of such a link. (Roger Pielke Jr.)
Warmer Summers May Actually Slow Down Greenland Glacier Flow by Marlo Lewis In his Academy Award-winning scare-u-mentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore warned that global warming could raise sea levels by 20 feet, and implied it could happen in our lifetimes or those of our children. Gore explained that the Greenland Ice Sheet could break apart and slide into the sea as ”moulins” (ice crevices and fissures) transfer surface melt water during warm summers down to the underlying bedrock, thereby lubricating glacial ice streams and accelerating their seaward flow. In CEI’s July 2009 film Policy Peril, climatologist Dr. Patrick Michaels handily debunked Gore’s 20-foot hobgobblin. A month later, I provided additional information and links to relevant studies here. Gore’s thesis was always a bit goofy, because his main “evidence” was a 2002 study in Science magazine finding that summer ice melt enhanced… Read the full story (Cooler Heads)
The strong decline of the Arctic winter sea-ice extent, as touted by the NSIDC, is largely a consequence of their unrealistic definition of the Arctic
Energy Price-Control Lessons for ObamaCare (remembering a classic WSJ editorial from 1979) For decades I have enjoyed the opinion-page editorials of the Wall Street Journal, both the unsigned editorials and the guest opinions. During the 1970s energy crisis, and today amid climate alarmism and the futile crusade to regulate carbon dioxide, the Journal has been a bastion of sound thought. I was recently reminded of perhaps my favorite WSJ energy editorial of all, “Buffer of Civility,” published during the dark days of energy rioting in summer 1979 (yes, the U.S. experienced fuel riots from federal price controls that caused energy shortages). What brought this to mind was another WSJ editorial, “Sebelius’s Price Controls,” which reported on a 136-page price-regulating rule under ObamaCare–and this message to state governors from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
The Journal added:
Economic reality: maximum price controls cause shortages, and shortages cause social strife, even violence. This brings us back to June 1979 and a plea to recognize the real virtue of the free market, our buffer for civility. Here is the classic editorial. [Read more →] (MasterResource)
Canada-U.S. Pipe Would Cut Mideast Oil imports: Study A proposed pipeline from Canada's oil sands to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico would help "essentially eliminate" U.S. oil imports from the
Middle East in a decade or two, according to a new study commissioned by the Department of Energy.
OPEC´s Oil Reserve Revisionism
What’s with OPEC member’s recent oil reserve revisionism? First Venezuela, then Iraq, followed closely by Iran, and then again by Venezuela, in anticipation of further upgrades from Kuwait and Iraq. [Read More] (Andres Cala, ET)
Obama Administration Plans Second Front in War on Appalachian Coal Production by William Yeatman Last week Tim Huber of the Associated Press broke news on yet another front being opened in Obama’s war on Appalachian surface coal mining (I blogged about the other front yesterday). The AP story pertained to a controversial rule derivative of the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA), known as the “100 feet buffer rule. As its name would suggest, it basically prohibits mining waste from being deposited within 100 feet of intermittent or perennial streams. According to the AP article, the Obama Administration’s preferred interpretation of this rule would cost 7,000 mining jobs, almost exclusively in Appalachia. And that’s the Department of the Interior’s own estimate, which is likely a lowball. Background: The 100 feet buffer rule was largely ignored until… Read the full story (Cooler Heads)
'Reducing CO2 Emissions Early Can Save Money in the Longer Term' In an interview, EU Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard discusses the upcoming energy summit in Brussels, the need for stronger energy efficiency regulations in Europe, the inevitable use of coal in the foreseeable future and plans for a low-carbon future. (Spiegel)
But EPA administrator says it's no guarantee more regulation ahead
China working on thorium reactors Ordinary nuclear power plants use uranium, Z=92, as their fuel. Brand new nuclear programme within 20 years (Register)Note that the thorium reserves are enough to cover something like 8,000 years of the energy needs of the mankind. Moreover, the waste products' half-lifetimes are mostly below 50 years so they don't have to be stored for insanely long periods of time. In particular, plutonium and long-lived minor actinides are almost totally avoided. » Don't Stop Reading » (TRF)
Adopting watermelon tactics: Eco-bulbs linked to breast cancer A new study suggests that compact fluorescent light bulbs may cause an increase in breast cancer:
Whether or not the study is reliable is irrelevant, we can use the alarmist tactic of the ‘precautionary principle‘ used to justify any number of green ideas to prevent slightly milder weather caused by a trace gas essential to life on Earth. (Daily Bayonet)
Several readers have enquired about this: UK researchers invent 'artificial petrol' costing 19p per litre UK researchers are developing a synthetic petrol that could cost as little as 19p per litre. The future fuel, developed by Cella Energy in Didcot, ditches
hydrocarbons for the cleaner, more abundant element hydrogen.
Cella Energy hydrogen beads: gasoline for $1.50 per gallon
Giz Mag, Google NewsHowever, this new fuel would be made out of micron-sized nanotechnological beads - hydrides stored in small porous polymers. It would be cheaper than the regular gasoline - relatively to the prices in Central Europe, it would be 4 times cheaper. » Don't Stop Reading » (TRF)
Obama Invites Crisis If He Ignores Ruling The decision by federal judge Roger Vinson striking down President Obama's signature health care law effectively ends ObamaCare unless some higher court
overturns it.
Senate rejects bid to repeal healthcare law President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats in the Senate blocked a Republican bid on Wednesday to repeal his healthcare overhaul, a year-old law whose
ultimate fate likely rests with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Why Small Business Wants Repeal of ObamaCare The law is unpopular among small business owners because it is not making employee health insurance more affordable.
Chamber pushes broader reg review ByCheck out this story by my
colleague Kevin Bogardus.
EPA to regulate potentially harmful chemical found in drinking water ByIn a reversal of Bush administration policy, the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday it will regulate a chemical found in drinking water that
could affect infant and child development.
New York City Council votes to ban smoking in parks New York City on Wednesday moved a step closer to ban smoking in parks, beaches and other outdoor public spaces, amid grumbling that the city government may
have gone too far in its war on salt, fat and smoke.
Liberal parents believe the autism-vaccination link Paul Nurse, the boss of the Royal Society, recently compared
climate skeptics to the people who reject modern medicine, or those who doubt the relationship between HIV and AIDS, and who prefer alternative medicine
instead.
Some vaccines tied to lower kids' leukemia risk Kids who have had certain vaccines might be less likely to develop cancer, especially one type of leukemia, suggests a new study.
Meeting of saboteurs: Bingaman to meet with Obama Wednesday on 'clean energy standard' BySenate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) will meet with President Obama at the White House on Wednesday afternoon to discuss a proposal to significantly expand U.S. low-carbon power generation. (E2 Wire)
U.S. Chamber cool to Obama’s ‘clean energy standard' plan ByThe U.S. Chamber of Commerce signaled Tuesday that it’s likely to oppose President Obama’s call for a “clean energy standard” for electric utilities, alleging the proposal isn’t feasible. (E2 Wire)
Couldn't agree more: Scientists ask Congress to put aside politics, take 'fresh look' at climate data By"Political philosophy has a legitimate role in policy debates, but not in the underlying climate science," the scientists said. Read more... (E2 Wire)
Eighteen hardcore AGW alarmists threaten U.S. Congress
Scientists ask Congress to put aside politics and take 'fresh look' at climate dataThe word "deniers" only appears thrice in the letter. Michael Mann, Kevin Trenberth, Ben Santer, and 15 of their "peers" need this word in order to demand that the representatives deny the existence of climate skeptics. » Don't Stop Reading » (TRF)
China takes big lead in CO2 emissions race The Department of Energy released yesterday its estimates for global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy use:
For those who wonder why we can’t be more like the Chinese, here are a few more facts:
While the U.S. is not the most efficient user of energy, as measured in terms of CO2 emissions, it is way ahead of China. There can be no doubt that heavy reliance on nuclear power by France (79%) and Japan (61%) is what makes those economies so efficient emissions-wise. (h/t Willie Soon for CO2 data) (Green Hell Blog)
HSBC research reveals China's coal rush THE myth of China's switch to so-called clean energy has been blown right out of the water by research from HSBC Bank.
Your health hostage to whacky weather worries: NHS managers ordered to look at environmental impact of decisions Health service 'route map' sets out measures to meet greenhouse gas targets
Is the University of Virginia biased against professors that challenge the idea of global warming? For months, the University of Virginia has been involved in a legal battle with state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli over an investigation into government
grants given to a university professor who allegedly used the money to falsify research supporting climate change. Now, some are also accusing the university of
treating a professor whose views do not exactly accept the mainstream view of man-made global warming unfavorably.
Climate change: A new religion complete with evangelists, tithes, indulgences and superstitions Last night BBC Four aired a documentary which took a look at climate change sceptics and in particular one of the movement's most prominent poster boys, Lord
Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount of Brenchley.
Global Warming, Totalitarianism and the Political Left BY MICHAEL R. FOX PHD - The president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus has offered some remarkable observations about environmentalism and global warming
and how the measures currently being proposed to curb climate change are a threat to human freedom. Klaus’s advice is especially important to Americans.
There is only one climate sceptic in the world. His name is Christopher Monckton. This is the only conclusion you could draw from Rupert Murray’s film, Meet the Climate Sceptics, broadcast on BBC4 tonight. The film portrays Monckton single-handedly attacking the entire global scientific establishment, sabotaging any possibility of climate legislation in the USA, and thereby demolishing any possible global deal on emissions-reduction through the UNFCCC process. Along the way he destroys Kevin Rudd’s administration and the Australian ETS… In Murray’s fantasy, Christopher Monckton is to climate scepticism what James Bond is to the UK. The film belongs to a strand on BBC TV, called Storyville. But Rupert Murray doesn’t just tell a story, he constructs a mythology. (Ben Pile, Climate Resistance)
Despite their desire to include AGW there is some genuine information reported in this piece - a major improvement (excerpted to save you wading through the whole thing): Queensland's cycles of havoc Nott says Yasi could be the severest cyclone to directly affect Cairns since European settlement.
Warmist’s Answer to High Food Prices: “Climate Tax” On Milk and Meat. As you no doubt have read in the papers, or seen on the TV news, food prices have recently shot up, leading the warmists to blame global warming, of course. Sensible people point to the insane practice of turning food into biofuels that no one wants. but everyone is feeling the pinch of higher food prices, with the poor especially hard hit by the rise. So it should come as no surprise then, to read that the warmist’s answer to this is to call for a hefty “climate tax” on all milk, dairy produce, and meat products. (htl)
by Michael Kile
From CO2 Science Volume 14 Number 5: 2 February 2011 Special Issue In what follows, we conduct just such an appraisal, comparing against real-world observations ten of the more ominous model-based predictions of what will occur in response to continued business-as-usual anthropogenic CO2 emissions: (1) unprecedented warming of the planet, (2) more frequent and severe floods and droughts, (3) more numerous and stronger hurricanes, (4) dangerous sea level rise, (5) more frequent and severe storms, (6) increased human mortality, (7) widespread plant and animal extinctions, (8) declining vegetative productivity, (9) deadly coral bleaching, and (10) a decimation of the planet's marine life due to ocean acidification. And in conjunction with these analyses, we proffer our view of what the future may hold with respect to the climatic and biological consequences of the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content, concluding by providing an assessment of what we feel should be done about the situation. Click on the links below to read the report, or download the full report in a pdf file (2.5 mb in size) by clicking here. Next week we will return to our regular format for CO2 Science.
Carbon Dioxide and Earth's Future: Pursuing the Prudent Path
1. Unprecedented Warming of the Planet 2. More Frequent and Severe Floods and Droughts 3. More Frequent and Severe Hurricanes 4. Rising Sea Levels Inundating Coastal Lowlands 5. More Frequent and Severe Storms 7. Widespread Plant and Animal Extinctions 8. Declining Vegetative Productivity 10. Marine Life Dissolving Away in Acidified Oceans (co2science.org)
U.S. Chamber energy plan calls for more drilling, end to regulatory ‘barriers’ ByThe U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday floated energy policy principles that the powerful business group said would spur job and economic growth.
Energy Security: As unrest spreads in the Middle East, threatening oil transport and oil-rich kingdoms, our laughable energy policy may come home to roost.
Better get those wind turbines spinning in a hurry.
Terence Corcoran: Oil price clashes with carbon price Economics 101 versus Green Economics 101 The great economic divide between the reality of oil pricing and the fantasy of carbon pricing, already at oceanic proportions, looks even greater today as the price of oil shoots up past US$100. The turmoil in Egypt explains part of Monday’s price increase, but there’s clearly more going on in the oil market than political coups in the Arab world. Global monetary inflation, stoked by the U.S. Federal Reserve and central bankers around the world, also seems to be a major factor. More real growth in the United States and elsewhere also stimulates demand for fossil fuels. Whatever the causes, the run-up in the market price of crude oil is a major inconvenience for fans of carbon pricing. Rising market prices have the effect of boosting the profits of the oil industry and encouraging new expenditures on exploration. Exxon’s profits rose 53% to $9.25-billion in the fourth quarter, a sign the industry could soon be back to the boom times of 2008. Read More (Financial Post)
Gas Drilling Technique Is Labeled Violation Oil and gas service companies injected tens of millions of gallons of diesel fuel into onshore wells in more than a dozen states from 2005 to 2009,
Congressional investigators have charged. Those injections appear to have violated the Safe Water Drinking Act, the investigators said in a letter to the
Environmental Protection Agency on Monday.
NJ Gov. Christie Signs Bill To Get More Power Plants Built New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Friday signed a bill into law to promote the construction of new power plants and make electricity more affordable in a
state with some of the highest costs for power in the nation.
‘Gresham’s Law of Green Energy’ (Jonathan Lesser on bad energy driving out good) by Eric Lowe
Jonathan A. Lesser, of Continental Economics Inc., has written a penetrating essay describing the unmet promises of subsidies to so-called green energy (or politically correct, nonhydro renewables). He looks at the supposed benefits of these subsidies and the associated costs and comes to a familiar conclusion: government-subsidized energy is uneconomic energy. The arguments for green energy subsidies are numerous; perhaps most used are those pertaining to putting people to work and even creating wholly new industries that will re-invigorate the entire economy (the Obama fantasy). At its core, Lesser’s refutation of these notions provides quite a good lesson in some of the foundational theories of microeconomics (and good common sense). Lesser begins by exploring the history of electricity markets, and how with the creation of markets for “installed capacity” (backup power to meet peak demand), several states reacted with price-suppression policies. The principle lesson one learns in microeconomics is that markets are intended to get the prices “right”. If extra capacity comes free, that drives down the market clearing price other utilities can receive, thus meaning they exit the market (cannot make a profit). Less competition is never good for consumers. He refers to this principle as “Gresham’s Law of Green Energy,” an application of a principle that says that bad can drive out good (rather than the other way around) from government interference with consumer preference in an open market. Elsewhere in the piece he uses a more appropriate metaphor: transferring wealth instead of creating it. Subsidies for green energy are taken from taxpayer dollars, meaning that you and I are less well-off while the owners and employees of green energy companies are better off. But factor in ratepayers, all losers, and the wealth transfer is negative and pernicous indeed. [Read more →] (MasterResource)
Pulling Back the Curtain on Wind Power Because wind turbines are minimally productive more than half the time, fossil fuel power plants will be needed as backups and will contribute to greenhouse
gases.
Judge rules against health law, cites Obama’s words In ruling against President Obama‘s health care law, federal Judge Roger Vinson used Mr. Obama‘s own position from the 2008 campaign against him, when
the then-Illinois senator argued there were other ways to achieve reform short of requiring every American to purchase insurance.
Editorial: ObamaCare Is No Longer A Law The Law: Already bruised and unpopular, ObamaCare has now been issued a death sentence. Yet the White House says it will "proceed apace" with its
implementation. Has anyone there heard of checks and balances?
Obama admin vows to continue implementing health care law despite ruling Obama administration officials are vowing to continue implementation of the president’s health care law “apace” despite a second ruling that the law is
unconstitutional, calling the decision by Judge Robert Vinson “a plain case of judicial overreaching” well outside mainstream legal thought.
Health care repeal ruling emboldens Senate Republicans An emboldened caucus of Senate Republicans came out in full force in favor of a bill to repeal the new health care law Monday, just hours after Federal Judge
Roger Vinson ruled the law unconstitutional.
Michael Foreman's Chinese drywall inspection protocol is now available for free download This is big news. Foreman and Associates, Inc. has been leading the way in Chinese drywall (more appropriately called tainted corrosive drywall) testing and remediation since August, 2008. Bear in mind that the Consumer Product Safety Commission—the lead federal agency on this matter—officially started receiving complaints in December, 2008. Go here to download the free protocol. (Shaw's Eco-Logic)
Tonsil removal, childhood obesity link CHILDREN who have their tonsils removed are more likely to become obese, US researchers claimed today.
Only In Government Do All Benefits Justify Costs Despite the old saying, "Don't cry over spilled milk," the Environmental Protection Agency is doing just that.
Second judge strikes down Dems' healthcare law as unconstitutional A federal judge in Florida struck down the entire healthcare reform law Monday afternoon, ruling that the requirement for individuals to purchase insurance
is unconstitutional and is too central to making the law function.
Federal Judge: Obamacare is Void Today’s decision by Judge Vinson is another stinging defeat for the administration in its defense of Obamacare. Defenders of the health care bill had tried to paint any legal challenge as “frivolous.” When then-Speaker Pelosi was asked by a reporter “where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate,” Pelosi responded incredulously, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” To wit, Judge Vinson offered a serious response, striking down not only the mandate, but the whole of the health care bill. In a 78-page opinion, Judge Vinson dissects the two major claims at issue in this case: whether Obamacare violates the spending clause, particularly the coercion principles announced in South Dakota v. Dole, and whether the mandate to purchase health insurance violates the Commerce Clause. On the first claim, Judge Vinson sided with the administration. In the second, he offered a detailed analysis of the law which reads like a treatise. Rather than picking and choosing his cases, as many proponents of Obamacare like to do, he went through all of the relevant case law at length before concluding that the mandate violated the Commerce Clause. He correctly observed that “it would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause.” He then concluded that “the individual mandate and the remaining provisions are all inextricably bound together in purpose and must stand or fall as a single unit. The individual mandate cannot be severed.” As such, he appropriately struck down the entire law. Today’s decision should be a major source of concern for the Obama administration for at least five reasons. Continue reading... (The Foundry)
Blinder tries leading the blinder? Economist Alan Blinder is trying to hoodwink the 112th Congress into a carbon tax. In an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, the former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, Princeton University professor and Clinton administration economic advisor called the carbon tax a “miracle cure” for our ailing economy and federal budget problems. (Green Hell Blog)
White House starts messaging battle on new energy plan ByThe White House wants a "clean energy" standard, but some conservatives are criticizing it as a relative of cap-and-trade legislation. Read more... (E2 Wire)
Flashback 1975: Holdren Says Real Threat to USA Is Cheap Energy I see that Climate Depot are having a bit of fun at the moment doing a round-up of John Holdren’s bizarre pronouncements, so I thought I join in by reminding us all of Holdren’s bizarre 1975 essay on the perils of cheap energy. (htl)
Rockefeller floats bill to delay EPA climate rules by two years BySen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) introduced his bill to delay by two years the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions Monday. “We must give Congress enough time to consider a comprehensive energy bill to develop the clean coal technologies we need and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, protect West Virginia and improve our environment," Rockefeller said in a statement. "We can address emissions and secure a future for the U.S. coal industry, but we need the time to get it right and to move clean coal technology forward.” Six centrist Democrats co-sponsored the legislation. They include: Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.). Read more... (E2 Wire)
Senate Republicans offer sweeping plan to block climate rules BySeveral leading Senate Republicans floated broad legislation Monday that would prevent the federal government from regulating greenhouse gases or
taking them into account when implementing various laws.
New Mexico Supreme Court Issues Backwards Ruling by William Yeatman Last week the New Mexico Supreme Court blocked Governor Susana Martinez’s attempt to stop a cap-and-trade energy rationing scheme from taking effect, on the grounds that the Governor failed to follow proper administrative procedure. In delivering the ruling, Chief Justice Charles Daniels admonished Governor Martinez, saying that “no one is above the law.” This is ridiculous. Governor Martinez was trying to block a cap-and-trade that had been imposed by her predecessor (ex-Governor Bill Richardson), during a lame-duck session, and after the state legislature had opposed it. When a state executive imposes an energy tax over the will of the legislature, isn’t he acting “above the law”? Fortunately, Governor Martinez still can block the regulation. She’ll have to wait until it’s published… Read the full story (Cooler Heads)
Trade talks could wreck climate change measures, campaigners warn Protests staged in London during attempt to promote Canadian tar sands as energy source
Uh-huh... Liberals plan to ‘uncloak’ the Koch brothers The liberal activist group Common Cause is rallying its supporters to protest David and Charles Koch’s convocation of conservative heavy hitters in
California this weekend. The billionaire Koch brothers, whose family business is one of the largest private companies in the world, are longtime funders of many
conservative causes, including Tea Party groups, and initiatives to defeat Obamacare and global warming legislation.
Oh... The Kochs vs. Soros: Free markets vs. state coercion Palm Springs, California -At the front gates of the Rancho Las Palmas resort, a few hundred liberals rallied Sunday against "corporate greed" and
polluters. They chanted for the arrest of billionaires Charles and David Koch, and their ire was also directed at the other free market-oriented businessmen
invited here by the Koch brothers to discuss free markets and electoral strategies.
OMG! ANOTHER GLOBAL WARMING SNOWSTORM!!
I really can’t decide whether I should hate Al Gore… or thank him for giving me something to write about. He has caused the spread of more pseudo-scientific incompetence on the subject of global warming (I’m sorry — climate change) than any climate scientist could possibly have ever accomplished. Who else but a politician could spin so much certainty out of a theory? As someone who has lived and breathed meteorology and climate for 40 years now, I can assure you that this winter’s storminess in the little 2% patch of the Earth we like to call the ‘United States of America’ has nothing to do with your SUV. Natural climate variability? Maybe. But I would more likely chalk it up to something we used to call “WEATHER”. Let me give you a few factoids: 1) No serious climate researcher — including the ones I disagree with — believes global warming can cause colder weather. Unless they have become delusional as a result of some sort of mental illness. One of the hallmarks of global warming theory is LESS extratropical cyclone activity — not more. 2) If some small region of the Earth is experiencing unusually persistent storminess, you can bet some other region is experiencing unusually quiet weather. You see, in the winter we get these things called ’storm tracks’…. 3) Evidence for point #2 is that we now have many years of global satellite measurements of precipitation which shows that the annual amount of precipitation that falls on the Earth stays remarkably constant from year to year. The AREAS where it occurs just happen to move around a whole lot. Again, we used to call that “weather”. 4) Global average temperature anomalies (departures from seasonal norms) have been falling precipitously for about 12 months now. Gee, maybe these snowstorms are from global cooling! Someone should look into that! (I know…cold and snow from global cooling sounds crazy….I’m just sayin’….) I could go on and on. Now, I know I’m not going to change the minds of any of the True Believers…those who read all of Reverend Al’s sermons, and say things like, “You know, global warming can mean warmer OR colder, wetter OR drier, cloudier OR sunnier, windier OR calmer, …”. Can I get an ‘amen’?? But I hope I can still save a few of those out there who are still capable of independent reasoning and thought. NOW can I go to bed? (Roy W. Spencer)
by Walter Starck
Pakistan floods last summer could have been predicted WASHINGTON—Five days before intense monsoonal deluges unleashed vast floods across Pakistan last July, computer models at a European weather-forecasting
center were giving clear indications that the downpours were imminent. Now, a new scientific study that retrospectively examines the raw data from these
computer models, has confirmed that, if the information had been processed, forecasters could have predicted extremely accurate rainfall totals 8-10 days
beforehand.
This comment just appeared on the Met Office thread, courtesy of Thinking Scientist. It's too good not to have a post of its own:
Can anyone think of a rational explanation? (Bishop Hill)
Arctic Ice “Tipping Point” Rejected A common rhetorical device to make potential future climate sounds even scarier, is to invoke the concept of “tipping points”—events that no one is
sure when or even if they will happen, but suggest that when and if they do come to pass, they will lead to some sort of catastrophe that can’t be recovered
from. Of course, global warming will push us closer to reaching these “tipping points.”
Idiots! An atlas of pollution: The world in carbon dioxide emissions Continuing expansion of China has offset the reduction in carbon emissions in recession-hit western countries (Guardian)
Ocean Fertilization: summary for policymakers Geoengineering schemes involving ocean fertilization to affect climate have a low chance of success, according to the first summary for policymakers on the issue. (IGBP)
Oil Spill Commission Ignored Mechanical Causes of Spill President Obama’s oil spill commission spent six months examining the “root causes” of the Gulf disaster, yet never inspected the failed blowout preventer — the part of the well that could have, as its name suggests, prevented the explosion. At a House Natural Resources Committee hearing this week, the co-chairmen of the National Oil Spill Commission faced a barrage of questions from Republicans and Democrats about why their final report is long on regulatory recommendations but short on engineering explanations. Lawmakers took issue with the commission’s apparent lack of effort to explain the failure of the blowout preventer. Republicans said it calls into question the commission’s recommendations — and, more seriously, leaves the Gulf vulnerable to a similar malfunction in the future. “Why should we take [the commission] seriously if [it] did not even make that modicum of effort to determine the actual cause of the disaster?” asked Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.). “We’ve never had a blowout failure like this one. Until we find out why it failed, it could happen again. It could happen anytime — and the commission has not advanced our understanding of how to prevent that. … We have before us a report recommending bureaucratic solutions to engineering problems authored by bureaucrats rather than an engineering solution authored by engineers.” Continue reading... (The Foundry)
Section 1603 Extension: The Renewable Energy Bailout of 2011 by Lisa Linowes and Bill Short In the waning hours of the tax bill debate last December, the Obama Administration and GOP leaders released the terms for continuing the Bush-era tax cuts. The framework negotiated between the parties initially omitted any reference to extending the renewable energy programs introduced in 2009 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which were scheduled to sunset at the end of 2010. The renewable industry responded ferociously. A media blitz hit overnight, and wind and solar lobbyists huddled with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Repeated warnings about job loss and the immediate harm to green energy businesses worked. Lawmakers relented and sanctioned a 1-year extension. The windfall? A check from the U.S. Treasury for 30 percent of a project’s qualifying cost. With the fuss now behind us, we decided to examine one of the more popular renewable subsidy programs to be extended, the Section 1603 cash grants. Our analysis revealed a pattern of rewarding inflated project costs and decreased energy production, while shifting a substantial portion of the development risks to American taxpayers. Supersubsidy upon Subsidy Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, tax-based policy incentives lost much of their effectiveness as the number of tax equity investors declined. Provisions under ARRA were designed to fill the void by reducing, and essentially eliminating, the need for tax advantaged investors. The Section 1603 cash grant program enabled developers to secure direct monetary outlays from the Federal government to cover 30 percent of a project’s qualifying cost. (Greenwire October 14). The criteria for receiving the grant were not onerous, and the Treasury Department was prohibited by law from ranking the projects before distributing the funds. Spanish energy giant Iberdrola Renewables, Inc., which received nearly a billion in cash grants alone, argued the money was crucial to promote jobs and economic opportunity (as if the money spent elsewhere would not have done the same….). But a preliminary evaluation of the grant outlays published last year found that 61% of the grant money distributed through to March 2010 “likely would have deployed under the PTC [production tax credit] if the grant did not exist.” In many cases, money went to projects that were already under construction, and in some cases already producing electricity. [Read more →] (MasterResource)
EU Wind Power Construction Slows, Coal Gains -EWEA Construction of new wind farms slowed in Europe by about one tenth last year, while coal power construction gathered pace, the European Wind Energy
Association (EWEA) said on Monday.
Vestas Says Has Cut 2,200 Jobs Out Of 3,000 Danish wind turbine maker Vestas said on Friday it had carried out 2,200 out of 3,000 planned layoffs mainly at five plants in Denmark and Sweden and would
implement the rest before the end of June.
Key senator backs nuclear in clean energy proposal WASHINGTON -- A clean energy standard that includes nuclear power has the support of the Senate energy committee chairman, as long as it's done in a way that
also helps the development of renewable energy.
As public concern rises over the safety and ecological soundness of renewable energy sources like solar and wind, the nuclear power industry is quietly ramping up to build new, smaller types of reactors that can be deployed as sealed power units. Russia is moving ahead with plans to locate floating nuclear power plants along its northern coast and a French company has designed a small offshore nuclear power plant called Flexblue. At the same time, efforts by the US Department of Energy's Savannah River Site to host a range of proof-of-concept units from several vendors has run afoul of bureaucratic infighting. Around the world, nuclear power is progressing, while former nuclear technology leader America founders. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)
House Dems question whether diesel 'fracking' is affecting drinking water ByOil and gas services companies are breaking federal drinking water standards by injecting diesel fuel into the ground to get access to valuable natural gas
supplies, an investigation by three senior House Democrats has found.
Senate panel to put ethanol under the microscope ByThe Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s agenda this year includes new scrutiny of ethanol. A spokesperson for committee Democrats said a hearing is in the offing but hasn’t been scheduled yet. Whenever it occurs, the session will highlight the ongoing Capitol Hill battle over the renewable fuel. Ethanol is already under attack from interests
ranging from environmentalists to food industry groups to oil refiners, as well as a left-right coalition of lawmakers seeking to strip tax subsidies. Opponents
of expanded ethanol use include Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the
Environment and Public Works Committee's top Republican.
E15 Gas: A green disaster for your car The EPA has mandated that E15 gasoline will become the norm for most drivers in the US. The agency decided the 15% ethanol, 85% gasoline mix is safe for use in cars dated 2001 and newer: (Daily Bayonet)
HWGA: New federal dietary guidelines released Federal officials Monday released the government's latest advice to Americans on what they should be eating, including specific new recommendations to limit salt intake. (WaPos)
When you have neither the facts nor the law on your side... Sometimes, the fiercest battles are fought not only in a court of law, but also in the court of public opinion. In the latter arena, some combatants think
the most effective weapon isn't persuasion or even propaganda, but outright intimidation.
Overcoming the tragedy of the commons: In Novel Approach to Fisheries, Fishermen Manage the Catch An increasingly productive way of restoring fisheries is based on the counter-intuitive concept of allowing fishermen to take charge of their own catch. But the success of this growing movement depends heavily on a strong leader who will look out not only for the fishermen, but for the resource itself. (Bruce Barcott, e360)
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A
team of skeptical scientists, citizens, and an Australian Senator have lodged a formal request with the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) to have the BOM
and CSIRO audited.
Given the
stakes, the Australian people deserve to know they are getting transparent, high quality data from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). The small cost of the audit
is nothing in comparison with the money at stake for all Australians. We need the full explanations of why individual stations have been adjusted
repeatedly and non-randomly, and why adjustments were made decades after the measurements were taken. We need an audit of surface stations. (Are
Australian stations as 
Spend enough
time listening to doubters and deniers of climate science speak, and you start to recognize certain familiar tics and tropes. There's the personal conversion
story, for one. The skeptic explains how, once upon a time, he, too, blindly accepted everything climatologists have to say about how human activity is heating
the planet. But then, as he began to pore over the evidence, the holes in the theory became readily apparent, and, more in sorrow than anger, the skeptic had to
conclude that the scientific consensus was mistaken. (Bradford Plumer, TNR)
WASHINGTON – As House leaders
examine ways to cut spending and address the ever growing budget deficits that have plagued Washington for years, U.S. Representatives Bill Posey (R-FL), Sandy
Adams (R-FL) and Rob Bishop (R-UT) were joined by several other of their colleagues in calling for a reprioritization of 
The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2
Enrichment: Many are the books and reports that rail against mankind's usage of fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil, because of the copious quantities
of carbon dioxide or CO2
that their combustion releases to the atmosphere. Indeed, this phenomenon is routinely castigated in numerous print and visual venues as a result of the unproven
predictions of catastrophic CO2
-induced global warming that are derived from theoretical computer-driven simulations of the state of earth's climate decades and centuries into the future.
Now, however, comes a book that does just the opposite, and that describes a host of real-world benefits that the controversial atmospheric
trace gas provides, first to earth's plants and then to the people and animals that depend upon them for their sustenance.
This photo from the
ABC on an article about damage at Cardwell - on examination shows only moderate damage. Click for 
