Junkscience.com -- Archives, March 2010

WASHINGTON - Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the healthcare overhaul signed into law by President Barack Obama costs too much and expands the government's role too far, according to a poll published on Tuesday.

The USA Today/Gallup survey of 1,033 adults, conducted between March 26 and March 28, suggests an uphill challenge for President Barack Obama and other Democrats as they try to persuade voters that the healthcare reforms are an important benefit.

The findings show that 65 percent of Americans believe the reforms cost too much, while 64 percent say they bring too much government involvement into the private healthcare industry. (Reuters)

Facing an American public that hates their new health care law, the Obama administration and their union/corporatist allies are planning a multi-million dollar television ad campaign to sell the benefits of Obamacare. While Food and Drug Administration regulations require all advertising for prescription drug to “present side effect information in a manner similar to that used for the benefit information,” the Obama administration faces no such hurdle when making their pitch. But if it did, this is what a typical pro-Obamacare ad would look like.

There’s only one way to pull the economy out of the doldrums. We need more jobs. Now.

As Obamacare inched its way toward passage, boosters of the radical legislation began making bold new claims about its virtues. The bill, they said, would do far more than simply fix the health care system; it would create jobs and boost the economy, too.

[Oddly, they stopped short of claiming it would also help melt away the pounds as you sleep.]

Not surprisingly, the early evidence is quickly proving their claims to be false. Continue reading...

The people at Zoll Medical Corp. saw a ray of hope in January when Scott Brown was elected senator from Massachusetts. Located in Chelmsford, 30 miles outside of Boston, Zoll is the nation's leading manufacturer of heart defibrillators, which save the lives of thousands of heart-attack victims each year. Back in January, as the Senate race was raging, both House and Senate Democrats wanted to impose a crippling new tax on the makers of medical devices, Zoll included, to help pay for Obamacare. (Byron York, Townhall)

Remember those lower health insurance premiums Obamacare would bring us? Don’t count on it—especially if you’re young. The Associated Press reports that a new analysis by Rand Health predicts premiums for young adults could rise as much as 17 percent under the new law.

The new age rating requirement is the culprit. It bars insurers from charging older patients much more than their younger, healthier customers. Today, the AP notes, “Insurers typically charge six or seven times as much to older customers as to younger ones in states with no restrictions. The new law limits the ratio to 3-to-1….” So how will insurers make up the difference? It will be “will be shouldered by young people in the form of higher premiums.” Continue reading... (The Foundry)

President Obama this morning cited The Heritage Foundation’s research in an attempt to sell his health care package as a “middle of the road, centrist approach.” We take great exception to this misuse of our work and abuse of our name. This is but the latest act in a campaign to sell this big-government program as a moderate law that incorporates conservative ideas. Americans should not be fooled.

Let’s be very clear: We oppose this new law because it is a radical new intrusion into the daily lives of all Americans and a massive takeover of one-sixth of the U.S. economy. We view the President’s health care law as inimical to our national interests and offensive to the historic American dedication to the principle of self-government.

Our research has shown that President Obama’s health approach is financially unsustainable and will ultimately lead to health care rationing, a lower quality of care and a greater degree of dependence on government. We deplore those outcomes and are committed to making the intellectual case for this law’s repeal.
What part of that does President Obama not understand?

Specifically, President Obama told NBC’s Today Show host Matt Lauer that a centerpiece of his health care package, “in terms of the exchange, just being able to pool and improve the purchasing power of individuals in the insurance market—that originated from The Heritage Foundation.”

But the President knows full well—or he ought to learn before he speaks—that the exchanges we and most others support are very different from those in his package. True exchanges are simply a market mechanism to enable families to choose their health insurance. President Obama’s exchanges, by contrast, are a vehicle to introduce sweeping regulation and federal standardization on health insurance. Continue reading... (The Foundry)

HSAs: Revenue-hungry Democrats have spared a choice tax break — one available even to the rich — and preserved one of the GOP's favorite plans. Could real health care reform be advancing under the radar?

By all political and fiscal logic, health savings accounts should be on their way out. That's what we once expected, and that's what liberal critics of HSAs wanted. But ObamaCare is now the law of the land and HSAs, enacted and promoted by a Republican Congress and President George W. Bush, are still here.

Democrats changed only two aspects of these plans in their quest for revenue. Holders of health savings accounts can no longer use the money to pay for over-the-counter drugs, and the tax penalty for spending HSA money on nonallowables rises to 20%. Neither revision alters the HSA basics, which in the current political climate are remarkably generous to high-income taxpayers.

An HSA holder can still deduct up to $6,150 ($7,150 if over 55) this year for a family high-deductible insurance plan. Unlike most other deductions or credits, this one doesn't phase out as income rises. The money grows tax-free and is not subject to tax when spent, as long as it goes toward medical expenses. As the New York Times' personal finance columnist Ron Lieber notes, the HSA "is a rare triple play in the world of tax breaks."

HSAs aren't a big-ticket budget item, at least not yet. Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation estimates they'll cost $6.5 billion in lost revenue from 2009 through 2013. But if their popularity continues to grow, they could cost far more in later years. Even now, they should have cost enough to rate notice by revenue-hungry Democrats, who left no seat cushion unturned in their quest for small change to pay for ObamaCare. (IBD)

Leading British retailers selling products banned in Canada and US

Boots and Mothercare are selling baby bottles made with a chemical that scientists fear may cause breast cancer, heart disease, obesity, hyperactivity and other disorders, The Independent can disclose.

The behaviour of Britain's biggest infant-products retailers contrasts with that of manufacturers, who have quietly stopped putting bisphenol A, or BPA, into baby bottles "to allay parents' fears", amid peer-reviewed studies in medical journals associating it with serious health problems in laboratory animals.

Canada and three US states, Connecticut, Minnesota and Wisconsin, have banned BPA in baby bottles and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says it is concerned about its impact on babies and young children, and supports its removal from infant-feeding products. (Martin Hickman, The Independent)

The tangled tale of the Princeton rats

Princeton University recently circulated an article announcing a study finding that rats that consumed lots of high-fructose corn syrup became obese. The authors conclude, "Translated to humans, these results suggest that excessive consumption of HFCS may contribute to the incidence of obesity."

As might have been expected, the HFCS industry quickly responded. But others with less direct interest in the outcome have voiced criticism, too, notably Marion Nestle, a professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University and author of the Food Politics blog. In her entry about the study, she writes:

"I can hardly believe that Princeton sent out a press release yesterday announcing the results of this rat study. The press release says: 'Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.' How they came to these conclusions is beyond me." (Washington Post)

Anti-smoking campaigners' use of statistics has become ever wilder

To support its call for a complete ban on smoking in cars, the Royal College of Physicians claims that exposure to tobacco causes 22,000 cases of asthma in children every year. This recalls the fashion some years back among anti-smoking campaigners for blaming passive smoking for the soaring incidence of cot deaths. The only snag was that the years between 1970 and 1988, when cot deaths shot up by 500 per cent, coincided with the very time when the number of adults who smoked in Britain was falling most sharply, from 45 to 30 per cent. To anyone but a fanatical anti-smoking campaigner, this might have suggested that "environmental tobacco smoke" was unlikely to be the chief cause of cot deaths.

In the run-up to the smoking ban in 2006, the campaigners' use of statistics became ever wilder. The number of people claimed to be dying each year from passive smoking, according to "scientists", steadily rose from 600 to 1,000 to 3,000 to 12,000 (despite the findings of the two largest scientific investigations ever carried out into passive smoking – one under the auspices of the World Health Organisation – that it doesn't cause cancer). With the campaigners now gripped by this new itch to ban smoking in cars, we can expect much more of the same. (Christopher Booker, TDT)

Two measures approved by Gov. Gary R. Herbert would allow use of eminent domain to take valuable sites. A long court fight is likely.

Salt Lake City - Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert has signed two bills authorizing the state to use eminent domain to seize some of the federal government's most valuable land.

Supporters hope the bills, which the Republican governor signed Saturday, will trigger a flood of similar legislation throughout the West and, eventually, a Supreme Court battle that they hope to win -- against long odds.

More than 60% of Utah is owned by the U.S. government, and policymakers complain that federal ownership hinders their ability to generate tax revenue and adequately fund public schools. Governments use eminent domain to take private property for public use.

Initially, the state would target three areas, including the Kaiparowits plateau in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which is home to large coal reserves. Eminent domain would also be used on parcels where Interior Secretary Ken Salazar scrapped 77 oil and gas leases last year. (Los Angeles Times)

CNN continued what has become a precipitous decline in ratings for its prime-time programs in the first quarter of 2010, with its main hosts losing almost half their viewers in a year.

The trend in news ratings for the first three months of this year is all up for one network, the Fox News Channel, which enjoyed its best quarter ever in ratings, and down for both MSNBC and CNN.

CNN had a slightly worse quarter in the fourth quarter of 2009, but the last three months have included compelling news events, like the earthquake in Haiti and the battle over health care, and CNN, which emphasizes its hard news coverage, was apparently unable to benefit. More…

VICTORIA — B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner was hoping to spark a little romance with his wife over a candlelit dinner Saturday during Earth Hour.

Instead, he accidentally set his cat on fire. (Canwest News Service)

Fortnightly bin collections, overfeeding of garden birds and greater use of home compost bins are leading to a growing urban rat and mouse problem, a survey suggested. (TDT)

What is Kennedy Jr. thinking suing zero-discharge hog farms for ... discharge? Perhaps his trial lawyers can answer.
March 29, 2010
- by Dennis T. Avery

What is the environmental movement thinking?

Now extending the list of their mistakes is a Robert Kennedy Jr. campaign to dump millions of tons of hog waste into American rivers … while his trial lawyer acquaintances take billions suing the modern confinement farms that produce most of America’s meat and eggs. How does that square with Bobby’s long-term claim to be the nation’s top “riverkeeper”?

For more than a decade Bobby has been railing against “factory farming,” which he defines as any farm that keeps its birds or animals indoors. Kennedy claims the big hog farms produce more manure than a large city, and claims their waste is ruining our rivers.

Bobby’s got it backwards.

The little hog farmers keep their hogs outdoors, and often use the creeks as hog sewers. Today’s commercial hog farms are zero-discharge. They don’t pour any water or waste into the streams. The hog wastes are carefully collected in ponds and tanks and then used as organic fertilizer on crop fields.

When Bobby Jr. sued Smithfield Farms a few years ago, claiming the hog waste was ruining North Carolina’s rivers, his suit was tossed out of court. The judge even forced Bobby Jr. to pay Smithfield’s legal fees. (PJM)

A flock of starlings which died after they crashed on to a driveway could have confused the drive's shingle with reeds they could land in or might have been trying to escape a predator, experts suggested today.

The flock of 76 birds crashed into the ground because of a "fatal error" in their flight, according to an inquiry led by the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) wildlife group.

They could have crashed as they tried to escape a predator such as a sparrowhawk or become confused by traffic, light reflections or noise, experts at the VLA said.

The VLA also said the shingle on the drive was a similar colour to reed beds and the birds could have thought they were descending fast into tall reeds when they hit the ground. (Press Association)

During geologic spans of time, Earth's shifting tectonic plates, atmosphere, freezing water, thawing ice, flowing rivers, and evolving life have shaped Earth's surface features. The resulting hills, mountains, valleys, and plains shelter ecosystems that interact with all life and provide a record of Earth surface processes that extend back through Earth's history. Despite rapidly growing scientific knowledge of Earth surface interactions, and the increasing availability of new monitoring technologies, there is still little understanding of how these processes generate and degrade landscapes.

Landscapes on the Edge identifies nine grand challenges in this emerging field of study and proposes four high-priority research initiatives. The book poses questions about how our planet's past can tell us about its future, how landscapes record climate and tectonics, and how Earth surface science can contribute to developing a sustainable living surface for future generations. (NAP)

From the oceans to continental heartlands, human activities have altered the physical characteristics of Earth's surface. With Earth's population projected to peak at 8 to 12 billion people by 2050 and the additional stress of climate change, it is more important than ever to understand how and where these changes are happening. Innovation in the geographical sciences has the potential to advance knowledge of place-based environmental change, sustainability, and the impacts of a rapidly changing economy and society.

Understanding the Changing Planet outlines eleven strategic directions to focus research and leverage new technologies to harness the potential that the geographical sciences offer. (NAP)

The Italian firm building Africa's biggest hydropower dam in Ethiopia on Tuesday denied allegations that the dam would deprive 200,000 self-sufficient people of a living and make them dependent on aid.

The ethnic rights group Survival International said last week that the dam would disrupt fishing and farming and displace more than 200,000 people, among them the Kwegu and Hamar tribes.

"The project will not cause drought: the dam will not block the flow of water to the river indefinitely, but merely redistribute it during the course of the year," Salini Costruttori said in a statement.

"Activities connected to the local fishing trade will not be destroyed. Agriculture will be able to benefit from a constant supply of water through the year."

The Gibe 111 dam, costing 1.4 billion euros and expected to generate 1,800 megawatts, is one of five Ethiopia is building in a drive to beat power shortages and export electricity. It will almost double current Ethiopian capacity of just under 2,000 MW. (Reuters)

Move over, bacon. Here comes something greener.

A genetically engineered pig recently approved for limited production in Canada makes urine and feces that contain up to 65 percent less phosphorous, officials have announced.

That could be good news for lakes, rivers, and ocean deltas, where phosphorous from animal waste can play a role in causing algal blooms. These outbursts of algae rapidly deplete the water's oxygen, creating vast dead zones for fish and other aquatic life. (Related: "World's Largest Dead Zone Suffocating Sea.")

Dubbed Enviropig, the genetically altered animal cleared a major hurdle last month, when the government-run Environment Canada approved the animal for production in controlled research settings.

The new biotech pig could take years to pass U.S. and Canadian tests for commercial use and human consumption, noted Steven Liss, an environmental scientist at the University of Guelph in Ontario and a spokesperson for the project.

But the Enviropig's creators are hopeful the animal will eventually pass muster.

"This will be probably the most significant transgenic food to be approved. We're in new territory," Liss said. ( National Geographic News)

Nations of the Greater Mekong Subregion need to 'rethink' their agricultural industries to meet future food needs, given the social shifts and climate changes that are forecast for the coming decades. With better farming practices, and by managing agriculture within the wider context of natural ecosystems, nations could boost production and increase the wealth and resilience of poor people in rural communities. Demand for food is forecast to double by 2050, as populations swell and people's dietary choices change. If governments act now, they will be better placed to meet this target and withstand the more severe climatic changes likely to affect the GMS beyond 2050. (International Water Management Institute)

The El Nino warming the Pacific Ocean since June has peaked, but is expected to influence climate patterns worldwide up to mid-year before dying out, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.

However, the United Nations agency said that forecasting uncertainties meant it could not rule out the possibility that El Nino would persist beyond mid-year.

El Nino, driven by an abnormal warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean, can create havoc in weather patterns across the Asia-Pacific region, unleashing droughts in some places and heavy storms in others. It typically lasts from 9 to 12 months.

The most likely scenario is for sea surface temperatures across the tropical Pacific, which rose by 1.5 degrees Celsius at its peak last November-December, to return to normal by mid-2010, WMO said in a statement.

"El Nino is already in a decaying phase. We expect it to fully decay by mid-year and neutral conditions to be established," WMO climate expert Rupa Kumar Kolli told Reuters.

"But this is a period where the predictability of the system is very low. Things could happen very suddenly," he said. (Reuters)

When did Congress tell the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to license California and other states to adopt non-federal fuel economy standards within their borders? When did Congress tell EPA to act as co-equal or even senior partner with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in setting fuel-economy standards for the auto industry?

When did Congress tell EPA to establish climate and energy policy for the nation? And when did Congress tell EPA to “tailor,” that is amend, the Clean Air Act to avoid an administrative debacle of its own making?

The answer, of course, is never, never, never, and never. EPA is flouting federal law and the Constitution.

Congress may soon get its first real opportunity to rein in this rogue agency. Sometime between now and May 25th the Senate is expected to vote on Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s Congressional Review Act (CRA) Resolution of Disapproval. This measure would veto the legal force and effect of EPA’s endangerment finding – the agency’s official determination that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions endanger public health and welfare. If allowed to stand, the endangerment finding will trigger a regulatory cascade through multiple provisions of the Clean Air Act. As explained in previous posts (here, here, and here), America could end up with a regulatory regime far more costly than any climate bill Congress has either rejected or failed to pass, yet without the people’s elected representatives ever voting on it.

By EPA’s own admission, the endangerment finding leads to “absurd results” — administrative burdens that undermine environmental protection, economic growth, and congressional intent. [Read more →] (MasterResource)

Looming federal rules to stop global warming could affect restaurants, churches, schools, family farms and small businesses - and that's a problem, Sen. Lindsey Graham and state regulators said Monday.

Graham, R-S.C., a national leader in efforts to control greenhouse gas pollution, said federal regulations aren't the best way to attack global warming. (The State)

Tripartisan: After the failure of last year’s cap-and-trade bill, (Left to right) Sens. Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman and John Kerry hope new... View Enlarged Image

Energy Policy: Watch out when sweeping new legislation comes with a "bipartisan" label. Usually it's a bad, repackaged measure undeserving of passage. Case in point: the new energy bill.

Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are working feverishly to craft a "tripartisan" approach for a new cap-and-trade bill.

The goal reportedly is to slash carbon emissions 17% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. Unlike the past efforts, which relied on a one-size-fits-all approach, this one will have separate caps on carbon output for manufacturers and utilities. It also boosts offshore drilling and nuclear power.

Even business groups, notably the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have made favorable noises about the bill. But don't be fooled.

This will be another massive tax on consumers and industry. Industry foes, of course, will be bought off with rebates, subsidies, protectionist rules and other goodies. You'll be left holding the bag. (IBD)

Climate change represents a tough and complex policy issue. That's the reason U.S. lawmakers — more than 30 years since scientists first introduced the concept of global warming into the American political dialogue — continue to debate the best way to structure legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions without damaging the economy.

As Congress debates domestic legislation, the administration participates in an international process with similar objectives.

As this takes place, the Environmental Protection Agency is engaging in a form of political blackmail, threatening to push ahead on its own if elected officials don't move as quickly as the agency wants. It has already taken the first step toward leveraging the Clean Air Act to mandate GHG reductions.

Headed toward regulatory seppuku, the agency recently finalized a climate change determination that current concentrations of GHGs — about 435 parts per million (ppm) in CO2 equivalents — in the atmosphere endanger public health and welfare.

EPA makes this claim not because these emissions are toxic like pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act, but because of their heat-trapping capacity. EPA has accepted the theory that increasing emissions of these gases will lead to unprecedented increases in the earth's temperature and that a much warmer earth will mean health- and even life-threatening problems.

Although it has been as warm or warmer in the past, EPA wants to act assuming a worst-case scenario — even if the probability of occurrence is incredibly small. (William O'Keefe, IBD)

Illinois state Rep. Dan Reitz, a Democrat and a former coal miner, is worried that pending federal climate change rules will cripple the economy, and he wants Congress to step in and stop it.

Reitz, who represents the 116th District in southern Illinois, launched his own assault against U.S. EPA climate rules when he introduced a resolution urging Congress to postpone greenhouse gas regulations for factories, power plants and other so-called stationary emission sources. The Illinois House approved his resolution earlier this month. ( Greenwire)

The EPA ha begun finalising a timeline for greenhouse gas regulations. From SolveClimate, part of the Guardian Environment Network

The EPA began finalizing a timeline for greenhouse gas regulations today, starting with the formal determination that no power plants, industrial facilities or other stationary sources will be federally regulated for greenhouse gases before January 2011.

It's the start of a series of official measures related to greenhouse gas regulations expected this spring. Those include EPA's vehicle emissions standards, which could be finalized later this week; a determination on the size of industries that would be subject to greenhouse gas regulations; and a rule that could add the oil and gas industries to the 31 industries already required to report their greenhouse gas emissions.

To get the ball rolling, EPA did two things today. (The Guardian)

Environmentalists, unable to squeeze "cap and trade" rules through the U.S. Senate, have a new strategy for combating what they believe is man-made global warming: Lawsuits.

Environmentalists, unable to squeeze "cap and trade" rules through the U.S. Senate, have a new strategy for combating what they believe is man-made global warming:

They're going to sue.

They're revving up their briefs and getting ready to shop for judges who will be sympathetic to their novel claim that the companies they believe contribute to global warming are a "public nuisance."

The environmentalists allege that individual companies are responsible for climate change because they have emitted greenhouse gases during the course of their operations. Those gases, they say, have "harmed" them by fostering Hurricane Katrina, eroding the shorelines of America's coasts and causing global warming.

"People have a right to sue for redress of grievances," said Lee A. DeHihns III, a partner with law firm Alston & Bird's environmental and land development group and a former associate general counsel with the EPA. He said global warming is a "public nuisance," just like a neighbor with a loud stereo. "You can sue for an intentional infliction of harm, a nuisance," said DeHihns, whose firm is consulting with defendants in these types of cases.

The lawyers seek a "consent decree," an agreement from the defendants to stop causing global warming -- even though the theory that mankind causes global warming is hardly settled science.

"There is some dispute whether greenhouse gas is a source of global warming at all," said John Heintz, chairman of the Washington D.C. law firm Kelly Drye Warren. "Even if these defendants were to stop emitting greenhouse gases altogether, it is exceedingly unlikely that the severity or frequency of hurricanes will be affected. Or that the sea coasts of Alaska will change." (Gene J. Koprowski, FOXNews.com)

The UK climate change secretary Ed Miliband has written to the chairman of the IPCC. The nature of the letter signals that the concerns about public trust are taken seriously. Have other governments done similar things? (Die Klimazwiebel)

Last year, we were told, the most important issue for the country - for the planet - was greenhouse gas emissions. This meant the Senate had to pass the government's carbon pollution reduction scheme.

It was so urgent it had to be legislated before the end of the year, and before the summit in Copenhagen.

We were led to believe if the Senate refused to pass the legislation there would be a double dissolution of Parliament. The Liberal leader, Malcolm Turnbull, warned this would lead to a humiliating election defeat for the Coalition. Kevin Rudd declared climate change ''the great moral and economic challenge of our time''.

Now the legislation has become less important than getting 30 per cent of the GST from the states so the government can rearrange financing in the hospital system. Can a momentous moral challenge fizzle out like this? Or are you beginning to suspect all the crisis was politically driven? (Peter Costello, SMH)

Report identifies Koch Industries giving $73m to climate sceptic groups 'spreading inaccurate and misleading information' (John Vidal, The Guardian)

OSLO, March 30 - A goal to limit global warming to "below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) is opening a new rift for 2010 talks on a U.N. climate treaty as developing nations say it means the rich must deepen cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

An alliance of 101 developing nations and island states says the temperature target, endorsed by major emitters since the Copenhagen summit in December, is tougher than a previous goal by industrialised nations of 2 degrees as a maximum rise.

"2.0 degrees is unacceptable," said Dessima Williams, Grenada's ambassador to the United Nations who represents the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) which wants to limit temperatures to below 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial times.

But rich nations and some researchers say the Copenhagen Accord's "below" 2 is vague -- it can mean 1.999 degrees and so be indistinguishable for policy purposes from 2. The Accord does not lay down how the temperature goal will be reached.

"It can mean anything until we may agree on what it means concretely," European Union Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said of the temperature target.

"The good thing about saying 'below 2C' is that you then have a ceiling. A number of countries say 1.5 C and this has not been taken off the table," she said.

Senior officials meet in Bonn, Germany, from April 9-11 for the first U.N. talks since Copenhagen, trying to work out a new pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol after the U.N. summit failed. (Reuters)

A better world? You wish. As Karl Popper once remarked, “Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell “. (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)

[This article is a response to Paul Baer et al., "Greenhouse Development Rights: A Proposal for a Fair Global Climate Treaty," Ethics, Place & Environment, volume 12, issue 3 (2009).]

There are not one but rather two schools of thought on the environment and its challenges. For want of better nomenclature, I shall characterize them as the watermelons and the free-market environmentalists.

The first is far more well-known than the second. Here, the solution to all problems arising from this source is more government intervention into the economy, more (green) central planning, more denigration of private-property rights, new discoveries of "market failures."

Why call them "watermelons"? Because this fruit is green on the outside, but red on the inside. Advocates of this system are busybodies; their "philosophy" consists of do-gooding and ordering other people around: controlling property that does not belong to them, forcing others to cater to the latest political correctness emanating from who knows where. For a while, a long while, these people had hitched their intellectual wagon to the preeminent philosophy of the day, which promoted these goals: communism. But, then, in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and in 1991, with the dissolution of the USSR, socialism could no longer suit their purposes. A new vehicle was needed: ecology was chosen.

The second school of thought on these matters is free-market environmentalism (FME).[1] For adherents of the first view, this name is a contradiction in terms. In their view the marketplace is seen as the enemy of the planet and its flora and fauna. I was once in a debate with a professor of biology who espoused watermelonism, and when I mentioned FME, he burst out laughing. Nor was this a debater's trick. He honestly thought it was outrageously funny.

It is the perspective of FME that all environmental problems stem from either lack of private-property rights, or from government regulation of laissez-faire capitalism, or from state control of resources. With economic freedom, all such challenges would either disappear outright, or become far more manageable.

The article by Baer is an example of watermelonism. Let us, then, mention some of its shortcomings. (Mises Institute)

When ancient fossils of creatures that live on the ocean floor have been found in rock formations at the summit of Mount Everest, that ought to give us a clue that big changes in the earth are nothing new, and that huge changes have been going on long before human beings appeared on the scene.

The recent statement that the earth was warmer in the Middle Ages than it is today, made by the climate scientist who is at the heart of the recent scandal about "global warming" statistics, ought to at least give pause to those who are determined to believe that human beings must be the reason for "climate change."

Other climate scientists have pointed out before now that the earth has warmed and cooled many times over the centuries. Contrary to the impression created in much of the media and in politics, no one has denied that temperatures change, sometimes more than they are changing today. (Thomas Sowell, Townhall)

Regulators from around the country are backing away from an initiative steered by Wisconsin Insurance Commissioner Sean Dilweg to require large insurance companies to disclose the risks they may face because of climate change. (Journal Sentinel)

A surprise rebellion by a majority of insurance regulators Sunday reversed key elements of a landmark regulation requiring the nation's largest industry to publicly disclose its efforts to address climate change. Companies can now submit their answers confidentially in most states.

The upheaval rolls back the nation's maiden climate rule on corporations, casting environmentalists and investor advocates into confusion weeks before the 12-question survey was supposed to be enacted. The change, passed by a vote of 27-22 among state insurance commissioners, promises to make it more difficult for activists to pressure the sprawling industry to act more aggressively on global warming.

It also underscores the depth of concern that commissioners around the country have with a survey that asks about insurers' actions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and safeguard billions in investments from climatic impacts, and about efforts to spark activism among their customers. (ClimateWire)

Professor Phil Jones, the climate scientist at the centre of the scandal over the leak of sensitive emails from a university computer, has been largely exonerated by a powerful cross-party committee of MPs who said his scientific reputation remains intact. (The Independent)

Leaked emails from UK's Climate Research Unit show scientists withheld information - but inquiry blames university (The Guardian)

The parliamentary science and technology select committee has done its job on the East Anglia CRU "inquiry", finding that, "There was no evidence to challenge the 'scientific consensus' that global warming is induced by human activities."

It was not set up to do that, it was not competent to accomplish such a task, and the timescale afforded would have, in any case, rendered it impossible. But, despite that, the committee has found precisely that. It will be quoted endlessly by the "warmists" – all the rest is detail. And, in due course, that is what all the other CRU inquiries will find.

Thus, the establishment looks after its own. There are far too many with their fingers in the till for it to have been any different. (EU Referendum)

This is the final report, which has been embargoed until 5:01 PM PDT / 00:01 GMT March 31st.

Global warming alarmists are now alarmed because they cannot account for the cooling trend that has been evident since the late 1990s in contradiction to their climate models. In fact, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests the planet has entered a cooling cycle that could persist for decades. Dr. Don Easterbook, for instance, a geologist and professor emeritus at Western Washington University, has concluded that sea surface temperatures will experience a drop that could last for the next 25 to 30 years based on his observations of the Pacific Decadal Oscilliation or PDO, a weather phenomenon that reverts between warm and cool modes. ( Kevin Mooney, Big Government)

The debate over global warming has created predictable adversaries, pitting environmentalists against industry and coal-state Democrats against coastal liberals.

But it has also created tensions between two groups that might be expected to agree on the issue: climate scientists and meteorologists, especially those who serve as television weather forecasters.

Climatologists, who study weather patterns over time, almost universally endorse the view that the earth is warming and that humans have contributed to climate change. There is less of a consensus among meteorologists, who predict short-term weather patterns.

Joe Bastardi, for example, a senior forecaster and meteorologist with AccuWeather, maintains that it is more likely that the planet is cooling, and he distrusts the data put forward by climate scientists as evidence for rising global temperatures.

“There is a great deal of consternation among a lot of us over the readjustment of data that is going on and some of the portrayals that we are seeing,” Mr. Bastardi said in a video segment posted recently on AccuWeather’s Web site.

Such skepticism appears to be widespread among TV forecasters, about half of whom have a degree in meteorology. A study released on Monday by researchers at George Mason University and the University of Texas at Austin found that only about half of the 571 television weathercasters surveyed believed that global warming was occurring and fewer than a third believed that climate change was “caused mostly by human activities.”

More than a quarter of the weathercasters in the survey agreed with the statement “Global warming is a scam,” the researchers found.

The split between climate scientists and meteorologists is gaining attention in political and academic circles because polls show that public skepticism about global warming is increasing, and weather forecasters — especially those on television — dominate communications channels to the public. A study released this year by researchers at Yale and George Mason found that 56 percent of Americans trusted weathercasters to tell them about global warming far more than they trusted other news media or public figures like former Vice President Al Gore or Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential candidate. (NYT)

Opposition to “Crying Wolf” is growing. A report by a British MP claims the World Health Organisation and other public health bodies have “gambled away” public confidence by overstating the dangers of the flu pandemic.

False financial prophets are called ‘clowns’ by Nassim Taleb, I suppose in reference to the grotesque parody of reality, and their entertainment value only. He argues that excessive reliance on flawed Value-At-Risk models of portfolio risk directly contributed to the Great Financial Recession. How many are still suffering from this forecast failure?

By some reports, governments and others have been recklessly investing in green energy and projections of climate models that by objective criteria are useless. More costly consequences:

Some statements in the report have been heavily criticized, on the blogosphere at least, here and here and here. Moreover, there is a history of forecasts by CSIRO scientists of increasing drought due to global warming, here. But the issue is not settled, as shown by other CSIRO scientists who disagree.

The question can be asked whether scientific organizations issuing authoritative statements of “fact” are acting ultra vires — beyond their mandate. Putting aside the issue of whether the BoM and CSIRO’s fact sheet is misleading, by what right do they issue a document presenting controversial claims as settled fact?

Questions are also being asked about the undue influence of groups such as the WWF, renewable energy and carbon trading interests over policy decisions.

Or as Peter Berger said: “It seems plausible that folly and fools, like religion and magic, meet some deeply rooted needs in human society.” (Niche Modeling)

All public bodies should have a legal duty to protect their workers from climate change in the same way as institutions currently carry out health and safety checks, according to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. (TDT)

Report says hospitals and power station planners must pass 'climate adaptation test' akin to health and safety regulations (Sonia Van Gilder Cooke, The Guardian)

Marc Morano broke the Swift Boat story and effectively stalled John Kerry's presidential run. Now he is working against an even bigger enemy: belief in climate change. Somehow, he seems to be winning. (John H. Richardson, Esquire)

The Climate Debate Research Group (formerly the Kristen Byrnes Science Foundation) conducted an exhaustive two year analysis of the temperature monitoring network in the United States and concluded that detecting and correcting errors in the temperature record with methods currently used by climate scientists are highly improbable. CDRG researchers examined satellite photos, temperature station photos, as well as examining the complete field of temperature monitoring scientific literature.

"The entire network appears urbanized," said CDRG Trustee Michael Birdsall after reviewing satellite photographs and site survey photographs of temperature station sites and their surroundings. Aside from numerous errors in the station records which were "missed" by modern mathematical algorithms meant to correct station errors, those stations which are sited correctly to avoid micro-urban effects were usually biased by larger Urban Heat Islands. "We found maybe four or five good stations in the entire network of over 1,200, and those have other problems related to station moves, equipment changes and equipment failures." That is, when the entire network was surveyed there appear to be only a handful of stations that are both unbiased by urban extents and properly sited according to NOAA standards. (Press Release)

The rise in human emissions of carbon dioxide is driving fundamental and dangerous changes in the chemistry and ecosystems of the world’s oceans, international marine scientists warned today.

“Ocean conditions are already more extreme than those experienced by marine organisms and ecosystems for millions of years,” the researchers say in the latest issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution (TREE).

“This emphasises the urgent need to adopt policies that drastically reduce CO2 emissions.”

Ocean acidification, which the researchers call the ‘evil twin of global warming’, is caused when the CO2 emitted by human activity, mainly burning fossil fuels, dissolves into the oceans. It is happening independently of, but in combination with, global warming. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

Dr. Kiminori Itoh suggested I contact you to explain our recent work on misleading global warming predictions in reference to the comprehensive study on the Arctic Oscillation [AO]. As you have
experienced, the winter of 2009/2010 reminded us of the global cool weather rather than global warming. The occurrence of the extreme AO minus (3 sigma) provided us additional evidence that the AO controls a large fraction of global warming.

We have a paper that was published on 13 March 2010 with my student Mr. Ohashi in SOLA:

Masahiro Ohashi and H. L. Tanaka, 2010: Vol. 6A (2010) : Data Analysis of Recent Warming Pattern in the Arctic. Special Edition -Special Edition of the Fourth Japan China Korea Joint Conference on Meteorology- p.1-4

Professor Tanaka summarized the significance of their papers for us in the following:

(1) The most dominant trend in observation for 1950-1999 shows an AO pattern (natural variability), while the most dominant trend in the IPCC models shows an ice-albedo feedback pattern (anthropogenic forcing).

(2) In the observations, the AO pattern appears as the EOF-1. However, in the IPCC 10 model mean, the ice-albedo pattern appears as EOF-1 (which is not seen in the observation), and the AO pattern appears as EOF-2.

(3) In the EOF analysis, the ratio of variance for the ice-albedo and AO patterns are 5:2. Since the AO is a realization of a stochastic process, the variance of the AO pattern in the observations dominates the ice-albedo pattern (5:20 in theory).

(4) Multi-decadal trends of surface air temperatures [SAT] indicates that the AO was negative for 1950-1969, the AO was positive for 1969-1989, and the AO was negative for 1989-2008 (2010 is the extreme value). Those are realized as the natural variability superimposed on the general trend of global warming.

According to our result, the rapid warming during 1970-1990 contains a large fraction of unpredictable natural variability due to the AO. The subsequent period of 1990-2010 indicates a clear trend of the AO to be negative. The global warming has been stopped by natural variability superimposed on the gentle anthropogenic global warming. The important point is that the IPCC models have been tuned perfectly to fit the rapid warming during 1970-1990 by means of the ice-albedo feedback (anthropogenic forcing) which is not actually observed. IPCC models are justified with this wrong scientific basis and are applied to project the future global warming for 100 years in the future. Hence, we warn that the IPCC models overestimate the warming trend due to the mislead Arctic Oscillation. (Climate Science)

Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week:
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 815 individual scientists from 486 separate research institutions in 43 different countries ... and counting! This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Raffels Sø, Liverpool Land, East Greenland. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click here.

Subject Index Summary:
Range Expansion (Herbaceous Plants): Would the hoped-for phenomenon be able to save the bulk of earth's plants from extinction in an unprecedentedly-warming world?

Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature for: Common Cattail (Sullivan et al., 2010), Narrowleaf Cattail (Sullivan et al., 2010), Sugar Beet (Manderscheid et al., 2010), and White Cattail (Sullivan et al., 2010).

The Little Medieval Warm Period in the Cariaco Basin: It is the most striking feature of an 800-year record that also includes the latter part of the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age and 20th-century warming.

MADRID, March 30 - Spanish police on Tuesday said they had arrested nine people and charged two more with avoiding 50 million euros ($67.54 million) in tax linked to trading in carbon credits.

The arrests came after Spanish police announced last week they were investigating alleged tax fraud, which European police agency Europol estimates has cost governments around Europe up to 5 billion euros.

"The operation began due to a report issued by Europol, which had already undertaken similar investigations in countries like France and the United Kingdom," a Civil Guard statement said.

Norwegian police charged five men on Monday as part of a European-wide probe into so-called carousel fraud related to the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme.

Carousel fraud occurs when goods, in this case greenhouse gas emissions credits, are bought and imported tax-free from other EU countries, then sold to domestic buyers, charging them VAT.

The sellers then disappear without paying the tax to governments. (Reuters)

The Government should suspend its Climate Change Act to allow it to go ahead with a third runway at Heathrow, former Chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby said.

The prominent Tory global warming sceptic made his comments following a setback the Government received in the High Court last week.

Campaigners against the expansion plan claimed a legal victory after Lord Justice Carnwath said the Government's policy support for a third runway, made in 2003 and confirmed in January last year, will need to be looked at again, particularly in respect of climate change policy and surface access.

Lord Lawson said at question time on Tuesday: "The third runway at Heathrow has been kiboshed by the courts as the direct and predictable result of the Government's absurd Climate Change Act, which was passed with enthusiasm and complete thoughtlessness and acclaimed by all parties in this House and the Commons."

He asked Transport Secretary Lord Adonis: "Is not the only possible solution - if you think that a third runway is important and I agree with you - to put the Act in suspense not least because even the Government has admitted that it makes no sense without international agreement, which Copenhagen shows is not obtainable?" (UKPA)

The digital photos, shared videos, tweets and Facebook chatter that make up our online lives may appear to have no physical form, but they contribute to some very real environmental damage, the campaign group Greenpeace warns.

The vast amount of digital data that we upload and access via social networks and on websites such as YouTube is stored in what the internet industry calls the "cloud", by which it means a vast numbers of computers owned by the likes of Google, Yahoo and Apple.

These computers are housed in "data warehouses" across the world, and a Greenpeace report yesterday said that many of these power-guzzling sites had been built in parts of the US where electricity is generated mainly at coal-fired power stations. Coal, the most widely used source of energy in the US, is also the dirtiest, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the group says. (The Independent)

The Obama administration is expected to announce by Wednesday its updated plan for oil and natural gas drilling in U.S. waters, including whether to allow exploration for the first time along the U.S. East Coast.

The plan could pave the way for a significant new domestic source of energy, helping to reduce U.S. dependence on oil imports and boost supplies of natural gas used to displace coal in power plants as the country works to reduce emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases.

Last month, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he wanted to release the updated drilling plan by the end of March.

Two industry sources said on Monday President Barack Obama was expected to give a speech about energy security on Wednesday, which could include his views on expansion of offshore drilling. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

Under the plan, the coastline from New Jersey northward would remain closed to all oil and gas activity. So would the Pacific Coast, from Mexico to the Canadian border.

The environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska would be protected and no drilling would be allowed under the plan, officials said. But large tracts in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska — nearly 130 million acres — would be eligible for exploration and drilling after extensive studies.

The proposal is to be announced by President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Wednesday, but administration officials agreed to preview the details on the condition that they not be identified.

The proposal is intended to reduce dependence on oil imports, generate revenue from the sale of offshore leases and help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation.

But while Mr. Obama has staked out middle ground on other environmental matters — supporting nuclear power, for example — the sheer breadth of the offshore drilling decision will take some of his supporters aback. And it is no sure thing that it will win support for a climate bill from undecided senators close to the oil industry, like Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, or Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana. (NYT)

Millions of vulnerable people remain in fuel poverty despite a multi-billion spending scheme to help elderly people heat their homes, MPs have warned. (TDT)

Let's see now, we have a bunch of bureaucrats officiously developing schemes to make energy more expensive, all in a bid to force us to use less in the interests of saving the planet.

That, inevitably, means that an increasing number of people in low income groups cannot afford energy at all, or are forced to pay such a high proportion of their incomes on basic energy costs that they fall into the category defined as "fuel poverty".

To deal with that, we have another bunch of bureaucrats officiously developing schemes to compensate those people, in an attempt to ensure that these people are able to maintain at least a basic level of warmth and comfort.

Being bureaucrats, whose only real talents are in making thing more complicated and expensive, they fail dismally in their endeavours. We thus learn that the number of households in "fuel poverty" – or spending more than 10 per cent of their income on heating – has doubled to around 4.6 million this year.

Confronted with this predictable failure, what do our gifted MPs do? Ah! They suggest an even more complex and expensive scheme, better able to target the people who are missing out – one which will require even more bureaucrats and which will, in the scheme of things, prove no better than the system it replaces ... if indeed it is implemented.

But do they even consider the root cause of much of this "fuel poverty" – the fact that we have another part of the government making energy more expensive? Er ... Nooooooo. So the bureaucratic machine grinds on, the nearest thing to perpetual motion every invented, extracting more and more money from us while we get poorer and poorer – and not just "fuel poverty".

When we have a set of MPs who can put two and two together – or, more to the point, abolish two sets of bureaucrats instead of creating more – then we will have representatives worth voting for. Until then, we can only shake our heads in sorrow and wonderment, and wait for the unseasonable snow in what is, officially, British Summer Time. (EU Referendum)

European report "debunks" criticism of renewable energy supplies as unreliable and costly

Europe could generate all the electricity it needs from renewable sources by the middle of the century, according to a major new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) that rejects concerns about the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources.

The report – which was contributed to by researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the European Climate Forum – concludes it is technically feasible to produce a pan-continental supersmart grid powered by solar farms in North Africa, hydro electric plants in Scandinavia and the European Alps, onshore and offshore wind farms in the Baltic and North Sea, marine energy, and biomass power facilities. (James Murray, BusinessGreen)

Businesses are confused about and unprepared for the implementation of the Government's Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), the energy efficiency scheme which starts tomorrow.

Nearly half of companies surveyed by the power supplier Npower said official advice about the new legislation had been "inadequate". About 49 per cent said they did not understand how to buy the necessary carbon allowances and 44 per cent said they do not know how to forecast their carbon emissions, according to a report published this morning. (The Independent)

Politics: Rep. Henry Waxman vowed to haul CEOs into hearings after they revealed just how much ObamaCare will cost their firms. It's an absurd war on bookkeeping, from a Congress desperate to avoid heat for this fiasco.

In the wake of President Obama's presidential signature on the gargantuan Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act last Thursday, big companies have crunched their numbers and come up with an ugly picture.

In legally mandated filings, AT&T reported that ObamaCare will cost it $1 billion. Deere & Co. reported $150 million in new costs. Caterpillar must cough up $100 million. 3M must pay another $90 million. AK Steel gets to fork over $31 million. Valero Energy will pay $30 million. There'll be more as other companies report anticipated costs to fulfill their requirements to inform shareholders. What it shows is a huge wave of costs rolling over the private sector to pay for this bill.

It's the real cost of ObamaCare, a bill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had touted daily as "paid for" in her pitch for Congressional votes. (IBD)

No sooner had President Obama signed comprehensive health care reform than the attorneys general of 14 states scurried to the federal courts to challenge the law. Their claims range from far-fetched to arguable and look mostly like political posturing for the fall elections or a “Hail Mary” pass by disgruntled conservatives who cannot accept what Congress and the president have done.

They seem unlikely to succeed because the law was carefully drafted to withstand just this kind of challenge. (NYT)

WASHINGTON — Just days after President Obama signed the new health care law, insurance companies are already arguing that, at least for now, they do not have to provide one of the benefits that the president calls a centerpiece of the law: coverage for certain children with pre-existing conditions.

Mr. Obama, speaking at a health care rally in northern Virginia on March 19, said, “Starting this year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.”

The authors of the law say they meant to ban all forms of discrimination against children with pre-existing conditions like asthma, diabetes, birth defects, orthopedic problems, leukemia, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease. The goal, they say, was to provide those youngsters with access to insurance and to a full range of benefits once they are in a health plan.

To insurance companies, the language of the law is not so clear.

Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions. But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the “availability of coverage” for all until 2014. (NYT)

Entitlements: Social Security's chief actuary reports that the social safety net will run a deficit for 2010, nine years earlier than predicted. Put down that big gavel, Madam Speaker, we're about to hit the iceberg.

No sooner had House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, carrying the gavel used when Medicare was enacted, taken a victory lap around the Capitol Building after passage of the health care bill than did the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration report that his part of the social safety net had a big hole in it and would run a deficit for all of 2010.

Stephen C. Goss said that payments rose "unexpectedly" during the economic downturn as jobs disappeared and people feeling no hope and seeing little change opted to apply for benefits sooner than planned. Revenues also shrank due to fewer paychecks to tax.

Failure of the stimulus to keep unemployment under 8%, as the administration promised, has taken its toll on the entitlement. According to Goss, the administration expected a quicker, stronger recovery from the financial crisis. Officials foresaw an average unemployment rate of 8.2% in 2009 and 8.8% this year, though unemployment is hovering near 10%. (IBD)

Government: With the passage of health care reform and the ongoing boom in federal hiring, it's becoming increasingly clear that America is now run by a new, privileged class of bureaucrats.

For those who remember the old Soviet Union, it was a grim place — at least for average citizens. But not so for those in government. Contrary to the official ideals of equality and a classless society that the ruling communist regime espoused, the USSR created a privileged class of party members inside government — the nomenklatura.

This semipermanent bureaucracy earned higher incomes, got better health care, ate better food and had greater job security than average Russians, the much-despised proletarians. Today, our bloated federal government seems, in significant ways, to be creating this same dynamic.

Take the just-passed health care bill that carefully excluded the White House, congressional leaders and their staffs from having to live under the reforms' restrictions.

"President Obama will not have to live under the Obama health care reforms, and neither will the congressional staff who helped to write the overhaul," said Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley. "The message to the people at the grass roots is that it's good enough for you, but not for us."

The hypocrisy of these officials and the contempt they show for average Americans is bad enough. But Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public can also go to jail or be fined up to $250,000 for not buying insurance. And the government is spending $10 billion to hire 16,500 new IRS agents to make sure they don't escape the new system.

Under current budget plans, this won't end soon. With $45 trillion in new government spending planned over the next decade, this new privileged governing class can only grow. (IBD)

Loosening the grip of Keynesian thought

There is a video doing the rounds at the moment that can be found on Youtube under the name, the “Keynes-Hayek Rap” although more formally titled, “Fear the Boom and Bust”. It has had a million hits and if nothing else it has brought economics into households that would never likely pay the slightest attention to issues in the history of economic thought.

Keynes is, of course, the author of the twentieth century’s most influential book on economics – although it might be noted that the economist who has been most influential on the economies of the twentieth century is more likely to have been Karl Marx. But Marx wrote in the century before. In the twentieth century, the laurel goes to Keynes.

Hayek was the counterfoil to Keynes in the economics world of the 1930s (although he lived on into the 1990s while Keynes died in 1946). During the 1930s Hayek spent a good deal of his time demonstrating that Keynes’s ideas were unsound, but strangely, and much to his own regret, he never properly dealt with the General Theory when it first appeared in 1936 and I’m not sure he did so even after.

The economics of Hayek is described as “Austrian”, a school of thought that originated in the 1870s. The Austrian School is the single largest segment of pre-Keynesian economic thought that remains alive today.

If you have not seen the presentation, you should. It lays out the differences between Keynes and Hayek in ways that are not only unimaginably funny, but does so with Hayek as the unmistakeable winner of the argument. A sure sign of the times that Keynesian economics is now very definitely on trial. (Steven Kates, Quadrant)

Steven Kates presents the Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture at the 2010 Austrian Scholars Conference. Includes an introduction by Joseph T. Salerno. The ASC is the international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian School, and is for scholars interested or working in this intellectual tradition. Held at the Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama, March 11-13, 2010.

WASHINGTON - While swine flu has waned across much of the United States, the southeast is reporting an increase in cases of the H1N1 virus, U.S. health officials said on Monday.

"The flu season is not over yet ... H1N1 has remained persistent in the southeast and now those states are experiencing more local and regional activity," U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin told reporters in a conference call.

U.S. health officials said it was not clear why there were more swine flu cases in some regions and warned that many people were still vulnerable because they had not been immunized. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON - The H1N1 swine flu virus can develop resistance quickly to antivirals used to treat it, U.S. doctors reported on Friday.

Government researchers reported on the cases of two people with compromised immune systems who developed drug-resistant strains of virus after less than two weeks on therapy.

Bacteria quickly develop resistance to antibiotics, which must be used carefully. Viruses can do the same and doctors worried about resistance had recommended against using antivirals for flu except in patients who really needed them. (Reuters)

GENEVA - A group of independent experts will review how the H1N1 pandemic has been handled to ensure that the next global health emergency is dealt with better, a top World Health Organisation official said on Monday.

The H1N1 influenza outbreak, which began in April last year, was marked by controversies over whether the WHO and public health authorities had exaggerated the risks of H1N1 and created unnecessary alarm by declaring it a 'pandemic'.

The WHO has also been criticised for its pandemic alert system that focuses on geographical spread of the outbreak rather than its severity, and on alleged conflicts of interests between health officials and experts and vaccine makers. (Reuters)

How ironic it is that The Guardian, of all newspapers, should be picking up on the "flu pandemic" scare which afflicted the nation last year.

We touched on this in late January but now this newspaper is reporting the findings of a draft report to the Council of Europe. It asserts that the World Health Organisation and other public health bodies have "gambled away" public confidence by overstating the dangers.

Says Labour MP Paul Flynn, vice chair of the council's health committee, the loss of credibility could endanger lives.

As to the report, it declares that, "This decline in confidence could be risky in the future. When the next pandemic arises many persons may not give full credibility to recommendations put forward by WHO and other bodies. They may refuse to be vaccinated and may put their own health and lives at risk."

As we now know, the discrepancy between the estimate of the numbers of people who would die from flu and the reality was dramatic. In the United Kingdom, the Department of Health initially announced that around 65,000 deaths were to be expected.

By the start of 2010, this estimate was downgraded to only 1,000 fatalities. By January 2010, fewer than 5,000 persons had been registered as having caught the disease and about 360 deaths had been noted.

It cannot be stated often enough, or with sufficient emphasis, that we have been there before. This is exactly a parallel with the salmonella and BSE scares – the latter with the 500,000 deaths a year forecast, with senior medical officers and "scientists" solemnly pronouncing that we were all in mortal peril.

And, of course, the media lapped it up, giving short-shrift to the "sceptics" like myself, who said it wasn't happening, wasn't going to happen and that the "experts" were talking out of their backsides.

Here we are again with global warming – the same "consensus", the same certainty from a gang of so-called experts, the strident calls from the politicians and the media, all piling in to pronounce that we are all in mortal peril. But, with the lack of joined-up thinking that so profoundly affects papers like The Guardian, they cannot see the connections.

But all these experts can't be wrong, the experts bleat. Yet, history and recent experience tells us that experts are quite frequently wrong. When a madness such as the salmonella scare, BSE, swine flu and the rest, take hold, most likely the prevailing orthodoxy will always be wrong.

So it is with global warming – but this time the scaremongers have picked an unfalsifiable theory, and falsified the evidence, so that their dishonesty is concealed. Despite that, the dynamics are the same – there are huge parallels, and only the retarded and the self-interested can fail to see them. (EU Referendum)

THE less jurors know about DNA science, the more likely they are to be swayed by it and find an accused person guilty, research has shown.

Known as the ''white-coat syndrome'', this tendency to be overwhelmed by experts could mean there is a danger jurors place undue weight on scientific evidence.

But a 20-minute presentation to jurors significantly increases their understanding of DNA and its use in criminal trials, and will make them more sceptical and reduce the likelihood they will convict. These are the findings of a study to be released by the Australian Institute of Criminology today.

''The greater understanding increases their objectivity about the evidence of the experts. When there is greater understanding of the evidence, there are fewer miscarriages of justice,'' said the lead researcher, Jane Goodman-Delahunty.

Even defence lawyers and judges were caught by this, she said. ''I think because DNA evidence has attained a status where the underlying science is no longer so controversial that many defence lawyers no longer challenge it and show its fragilities,'' she said.

People failed to appreciate the potential for laboratory error or contamination and for DNA to be accidentally transferred, she said. (SMH)

WASHINGTON — Urgent warnings by government experts about the risks of routinely using powerful CT scans to screen patients for colon cancer were brushed aside by the Food and Drug Administration, according to agency documents and interviews with agency scientists.

After staying quiet for a year, the scientists say they plan to make their concerns public at a meeting of experts on Tuesday called by the F.D.A. to discuss how to protect patients from unnecessary radiation exposures. The two-day meeting is part of a growing reassessment of the risks of routine radiology. The average lifetime dose of diagnostic radiation has increased sevenfold since 1980, driven in part by the increasing popularity of CT scans. Such scans can deliver the radiation equivalent of 400 chest X-rays. (NYT)

NEW YORK - Many people take multivitamins in the hopes of thwarting disease, but a new study finds that older women who use multivitamins may be more likely than non-users to develop breast cancer.

The study, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, points only to an association between multivitamin use and breast cancer. It does not prove that the supplements directly contribute to the disease.

However, the researchers say, it's biologically plausible that multivitamins could have such an effect, and the potential link "merits further investigation." (Reuters Health)

WASHINGTON - Bingeing on high-calorie foods may be as addictive as cocaine or nicotine, and could cause compulsive eating and obesity, according to a study published on Sunday.

The findings in a study of animals cannot be directly applied to human obesity, but may help in understanding the condition and in developing therapies to treat it, researchers wrote in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

The study, involving rats, found that over consumption of high-calorie food can trigger addiction-like responses in the brain and that high-calorie food can turn rats into compulsive eaters in a laboratory setting, the article said. (Reuters)

NEW YORK - American kids aren't the only ones being couch potatoes these days, according to new study of more than 70,000 young teens from 34 countries.

From Argentina to Zambia, Regina Guthold of the World Health Organization in Geneva and her colleagues found, most kids aren't getting enough exercise, while nearly a third are sedentary.

And while thoughts of the "third world" may bring to mind long walks to school and heavy physical labor for children, this isn't what Guthold and her team found. "With regards to physical activity levels, we did not find much of a difference between poor and rich countries," the researcher told Reuters Health via email. "Growing up in a poor country does not necessarily mean that kids get more physical activity." Guthold noted. (Reuters Health)

An Australian panel called Review of Food Labeling and Policy is considering a recommendation of a required labeling of trans-fat in Australian foods or going a step further with a total ban for the country.

Trans-fats are widely considered one of the most dangerous fats in our diet, more dangerous than saturated fat. Due to this fact, many countries have looked into its adverse health consequences on its citizens.

Hidden within foods, consumers do not know these fats are there. Trans-fat is an unsaturated fat that contains trans-isomer fatty acids.

Partial hydrogenation is the chemical process that produces trans-fat. So it the label says "partially hydrogenated oils, you know trans-fats are used.

Currently in Australia, food companies are not required to list trans-fat as one of the ingredients in their foods, based on the Australian law. The consumption of trans-fat is known to increase the risk of coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and strokes by increasing the level of bad cholesterol, LDL and reducing the level of good cholesterol, HDL. (IBT)

Michael de Ridder, the head of the emergency ward at a Berlin hospital and author of a new book on dying, discusses how modern medical advances are making death more complicated for patients with little hope of living. His book makes a plea for doctors to allow people to die with greater dignity. (Spiegel Interview)

NEW YORK - Men who drink about a quart or more of cola every day could be causing harm to their sperm, results of a Danish study hint.

On average, these men's sperm counts were almost 30 percent lower than in men who didn't drink cola. While most of the sperm counts would still be considered normal by the World Health Organization, men with fewer sperm generally have a higher risk of being infertile.

The link is unlikely to be due to caffeine, the researchers say, because coffee did not have the same effect, even though its caffeine content is higher. Instead, other ingredients in the beverage or an unhealthy lifestyle could be involved.

"It's important to note that the men who drank a lot of cola were also different in many other ways," Dr. Tina Kold Jensen of Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, Denmark, told Reuters Health. (Reuters Health)

A DIRECTOR of the Victor Chang Foundation's board has written a long and detailed opinion piece promoting ''healthy smoking'' for The Jakarta Post, as the Indonesian government considers its first crackdown on cigarette advertising.

''The real argument is here in Indonesia some quite remarkable Indonesian scientists and doctors have discovered that cigarette smoking can, with specially treated cigarettes, significantly assist people's health and has the potential to cut health costs around the globe,'' wrote Murray Clapham, an Australian businessman and former diplomat who spends time in Indonesia and Singapore, as well as serving on the foundation's board.

''One thing we must do is learn from the ancient wisdom and find out how to grow healthy tobacco. Indonesia has made a start and it's a great place to do it. Unfortunately my country (Australia) has almost banned any private initiatives in this area.

''Tobacco is certainly not the key factor in many of the health issues attributed to it; the jury should remain out on that.

''These and other matters are still the subject of investigation. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water here in Indonesia now. To conclude, let's ban unhealthy cigarettes and promote healthy smoking.

''This will serve many purposes, the pro-smokers can have their cake and eat it without fear, the anti-smokers are likely to have a new cheap readily available healing tool.'' (SMH)

As a person who likes to stay abreast of our ever-expanding government in my areas of specialization (energy and environment), I periodically survey the website of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to see what they are funding with my taxpayer dollars.

Imagine my surprise when I encountered a novel Request for Proposals at their National Center for Environmental Research seeking to recruit people at non-profit institutions to dredge through EPA’s databases in order to gin up new new things for the agency to worry about and possibly regulate.

And, ever helpful, EPA gives some examples of what such data-dredging exercises might look like: [Read more →] (MasterResource)

THE decline in the US bee population, first observed in 2006, is continuing, a phenomenon that still baffles researchers and beekeepers.

Data from the US Department of Agriculture showed a 29 per cent drop in beehives in 2009, following a 36 per cent decline in 2008 and a 32 per cent fall in 2007.

This affected not only honey production but around $15 billion worth of crops that depended on bees for pollination.

Scientists call the phenomenon "colony collapse disorder", and it has led to the disappearance of millions of adult bees and beehives and occurred elsewhere in the world, including in Europe.

Researchers have looked at viruses, parasites, insecticides, malnutrition and other environmental factors but have been unable to pinpoint a specific cause for the population decline.

The rough winter in many parts of the United States will likely accentuate the problem, Jeff Pettis, lead researcher at Department of Agriculture's Bee Research Laboratory in Maryland, said. (AFP)

Editors' note: This piece is co-authored by Niger Innis

“I see Africa as a … partner with America on behalf of the future we want for all of our children,” President Obama declared in Ghana last July.

However, three months later, the President signed an executive order requiring that the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and other federal agencies reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with their projects by 30% over the next ten years. The order undermines the ability of Sub-Saharan African nations to achieve energy, economic and human rights progress. (Roy Innes, Townhall)

A new gate opens on the Great Barrier Reef

For the past half century the Great Barrier Reef has sustained a Queensland industry predicated on “saving” the reef from a never ending succession of purported “threats”. All have been declared as dire and of course, they require urgent funding. None have ever become manifest in any serious manner and the hundreds of millions of dollars spent in research has never resulted in a solution for any of these non-problems.

The reef today remains a vast area of pristine nature with the majority of its over 2500 individually named reefs seldom fished or even visited by anyone. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority headquartered in Townsville has grown into a 45 million dollar a year bureaucracy charged with “managing” the reef. This it does by remote control from air conditioned offices where it oversees the application of hypothetical solutions to imaginary problems and administers a morass of regulations which have effectively strangled most healthy productive activity on the reef. Starting with no problems and only their own assessment of results, they have declared great success. This has been proclaimed widely through their extensive “educational” activity which serves to promote the Authority and create a high public profile for it.

In 2004 they stumbled badly with a large expansion of no fishing areas (a.k.a. green zones) on the reef. This resulted in a devastating impact on the small but important commercial fishing industry in the region as well as over 300 mandatory criminal convictions for otherwise law abiding recreational fishermen almost all of whom were arrested for inadvertently crossing one of the complex maze of unmarked boundaries. The upshot has been a massive compensation payout for the commercial fishermen, considerable public resentment and replacement of the GBRMPA chairperson. (Walter Starck, Quadrant)

The Earth has entered a new age of geological time – the epoch of new man, scientists claim.

Humans have wrought such vast and unprecedented changes on the planet that we may be ushering in a new period of geological history.

Through pollution, population growth, urbanisation, travel, mining and use of fossil fuels we have altered the planet in ways which will be felt for millions of years, experts believe.

It is feared that the damage mankind has inflicted will lead to the sixth largest mass extinction in Earth’s history with thousands of plants and animals being wiped out.

The new epoch, called the Anthropocene – meaning new man – would be the first period of geological time shaped by the action of a single species. (TDT)

These amazing pictures show a killer whale attacking and killing a female dolphin and her pup in front of tourists on a nature watching cruise. (TDT)

Diplomats from Finland, Iceland and Sweden are upset; indigenous groups are furious. Five countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are meeting behind closed doors on Monday to discuss the region's future. Many of those who have interests in the Arctic have not been invited. (Der Spiegel)

Feeding a fast-growing global population in the face of climate change and stagnant funding for food aid and farm research will require a fundamental revamp of agriculture, agricultural experts said.

But unlike the "Green Revolution" that dramatically hiked agricultural output in Latin America and Asia from the 1950s, a new agricultural restructuring will need to focus as much on new seed varieties as on good governance, women's empowerment and things like curbing commodities speculation, they added.

"We cannot address world food security risks effectively only through a science and technology agenda," Joachim von Braun, former director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), told a conference Sunday. (Reuters)

A mutation in a single gene can turn hybrid tomato plants into super producers capable of generating more and much sweeter fruit without genetic engineering, scientists said in a study released on Sunday.

The study also showed that using classic plant-breeding techniques can boost yield as dramatically as using genetically modified organisms, said researcher Zachary Lippman of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.

The mutation in one copy of the gene boosted tomato yield by up to 60 percent and increased sugar content, Lippman and colleagues reported in the journal Nature Genetics. (Reuters)

U.S. power plants, industrial facilities and other stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming will not be required to have Clean Air Act permits until January 2011, giving industry more time to prepare for the regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday.

Agency head Lisa Jackson had signaled to Congress in February that the EPA would delay the permit requirements for this year, following concerns from U.S. lawmakers and state officials that more time was needed to ease burdens on industry and state environmental departments that would help enforce the regulations.

The EPA has said it will require big sources of greenhouse gas emissions, like power plants that run on coal or natural gas, and plants that make cement, steel and glass, to get permits proving they are using the best available technology to cut pollution. (Reuters)

A new poll shows the healthcare law is bad political medicine for Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, President Barack Obama and his domestic agenda.

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida voters dislike the new healthcare law so much that President Barack Obama and the state's top Democrat, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, are paying a hefty political price, according to a new survey and analysis by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research.

Only 34 percent of Florida voters support the new law while 54 percent are against it, according to the poll. Opposition is significantly strong among two crucial blocs: those older than 65 and voters with no party affiliation. Seniors disfavor the bill by a 65-25 percent margin, while independents oppose the law 62-34.

The poll, conducted last week, is the first to be taken in Florida since Obama signed the healthcare reform bill into law.

It shows that Floridians have a more negative than positive view of Obama by a margin of 15 percentage points. And they oppose his so-called ``cap-and-trade'' global warming legislation as well as the new healthcare law. (Miami Herald)

March 28 -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy was right to scrap a planned tax on carbon emissions, according to the majority of people in an Ipsos option poll.

The poll released today found 69 percent of those surveyed endorsed Sarkozy’s decision, while 21 percent said it was wrong. 948 people were surveyed on March 26 or 27 and no margin of error was given.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon told members of parliament of the Union for a Popular Movement on March 23 that any carbon tax should be imposed throughout the European Union to be effective.

A first version of the carbon tax was rejected in December by France’s constitutional court. It ruled that the tax penalized households too heavily and excluded many industrial polluters. The Medef business lobby had campaigned against it. (Bloomberg)

The European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is a success and its flaws have not harmed its basic aim of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, multi-national research showed on Friday.

Experts at French state bank Caisse des Depots, the Paris-Dauphine University, the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research in the United States and University College Dublin collaborated to evaluate the scheme's trial period, which has widely been viewed as a failure. (Reuters)

The carbon trading sector has dropped out of an HSBC index of 385 listed companies making money from tackling climate change, after lower expectation of global cap and trade expansion saw sharp share price falls.

Previously, two carbon trading companies were listed in the index, Trading Emissions and Climate Exchange, but neither now met the $400 million index threshold market capitalization after big drops in their share prices.

The HSBC index tracking the share price of those two firms fell 37 percent between September 1 2009 and March 19 2010. (Reuters)

Public support for global warming has declined in the past two years, according to a national survey released earlier this year.

The survey, conducted by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities and released in January, notes one in five people said they do not believe global warming exists. (Times Daily)

However, despite their interest in reporting more on this issue, the majority of weathercasters (61 percent) feel there is a lot of disagreement among scientists about the issue of global warming. Though 54 percent indicated that global warming is happening, 25 percent indicated it isn’t, and 21 percent say they don’t know yet. (GMU)

The legend goes that it all started innocently enough, in local politics. But then we sent Barbara Boxer to the Senate where she has taken root for the last 18 years as one the most liberal, partisan members more full of hot air than she is solutions to our real problems. Watch the movie to learn more - together we can STOP THE HOT AIR by replacing Barbara Boxer with a proven problem solver and true fiscal conservative in Carly Fiorina. Learn more at http://failedsenator.com (CarlyForCalifornia)

Survey reveals more than half of respondents believe "jury is still out" on the urgent need to tackle climate change

The corporate response to climate change has become increasingly fragmented in the past year as the combination of the "climategate" scandal, the disappointing conclusion to the Copenhagen summit and the global recession has led some firms to voice scepticism over the need to take action to curb carbon emissions.

That is the conclusion of a major new survey from the Economist Intelligence Unit, which polled more than 540 senior executives, and found that while a number of firms remain fully committed to increasing investment in low-carbon goods and services, many senior executives are unconvinced by the case for climate change policies.

The survey, which was sponsored by the Carbon Trust, IBM, Hitachi and software company 1E, found that just over half of respondents believe the "jury is still out" on the urgent need to tackle climate change, while 32 per cent of companies polled said they do not yet have a coherent strategy in place to address energy use, an increase of seven percentage points on last year.

Moreover, just 12 per cent of businesses said they were introducing new green products to keep up with rivals, and seven out of 10 respondents said that carbon reduction policies are primarily driven by public relations issues. (James Murray, BusinessGreen)

Excerpt from a Ford press release: “The blue oval atop Ford Motor Company's World Headquarters in Dearborn, Mich., will go dark for one hour Saturday evening in support of Earth Hour, a global initiative to raise awareness of energy conservation and climate change.”

If Ford’s management is serious about this, maybe it’s time to sell your Ford shares short.

Don't pander
Pandering to groups whose ultimate goal is to permanently turn out the lights at Ford Motor Company and other manufacturers is seriously misguided. These groups will never be satisfied. Even if Ford produced vehicles that grew on trees in enchanted forests and used tap water for fuel, the environmental lobby would find another reason to oppose auto manufacturing and the operation of automobiles.

The true environmental agenda
Everyone wants a clean, safe environment. While many people who support the environmental movement are sincere, the ringleaders of the international environmental movement have a different agenda: the dismantling of capitalism and redistribution of wealth. (Mike Karagozian, Examiner)

Few understand the extent of corrupted science produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Data was altered, or completely ignored and research deliberately directed to prove their claim that humans were causing global warming.

People identified in the leaked emails of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were primarily responsible through the Physical Science Basis Report of Working Group I of the IPCC and the Summary for Policymakers (SPM). Politics is clearly the motive for some scientists like James Hansen, Stephen Schneider and others, but this is not so clear for most at the CRU. Which begs the question how and why supposedly intelligent people became involved and continued to participate in such corruption? (Tim Ball, CFP)

London, Mar 29 Rajendra Pachauri, the embattled head of the UN's climate change panel who was under scrutiny for receiving alleged payments from private companies, has been cleared of the allegations by an independently conducted review, a media report has said.

Professional services company KPMG examined personal finances of Pachauri, chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, following allegations that he received money for advising several private sector companies, including Toyota and Credit Suisse.

"The review found these were all paid to Pachauri's non-profit organisation TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute), which commissioned KPMG," the Financial Times reported.

Pachauri, the newspaper said, was hoping another audit he had commissioned, to examine the practices of the IPCC and the science contained in its report, would put to rest allegations of flaws in climate science.

"That review will not be published until the autumn," said the report. (PTI)

Yvo De Boer, one of the world's leading authorities on climate change and sustainability, is leaving his international role with the United Nations to join KPMG, the global network of professional service firms, reports the KPMG website.

"Our global sustainability and climate change services network has more than 15 years experience in providing services to a wide range of clients from global to national businesses and government agencies. We offer business focused advice on a wide range of issues in the climate change sphere, from carbon foot printing and greenhouse gas inventories to carbon trading and corporate finance", says KPMG India.

The embattled head of the United Nations' scientific panel on climate change has been cleared of allegations of financial irregularity by an independently conducted review, reports The Financial Times. KPMG, the professional services company, examined the personal finances of Rajendra Pachauri ... after media suggested late last year that he received money for advising several private sector companies, including Toyota and Credit Suisse. The review found these were all paid to Mr Pachauri's non-profit organisation TERI, which commissioned KPMG.

All absolutely tickety boo chaps. Conflict of interest? What conflict of interest?

* Meaning: "Going smoothly, doing all right". May have originated in the British military. Possibly related to the Hindi expression "tickee babu", meaning "everything's alright, sir". (EU Referendum)

I have seen this happen before, of course. We should have been warned by the CFC/ozone affair because the corruption of science in that was so bad that something like 80% of the measurements being made during that time were either faked, or incompetently done. (Tom Nelson)

The original posting with responses to the top 60 talking points was released on March 25th. Now, you can think about all the 104 observations.

What State of Climate do we really have?

Over the past six months or so there has been a remarkable change at both official agencies and research institutions in attitudes of the believers in the dangerous warming thesis. Reflecting the Copenhagen flop and the Climategate exposure of uncertainties within research bodies, the previous out of hand dismissals of sceptical views have moved to an acknowledgement that those views should not be ignored and that uncertainty does exist. It has now become almost respectable to be a sceptic. Mind you the warmists are still quick to assure us either that the “basic” science remains valid or that we are now in an era of supposed Post-Normal science where the uncertainties are so great and the issues so important that conventional methods of first obtaining all relevant information before taking preventative action cannot wait but must rely on assessments by “knowledgeable” experts.

A major difficulty with either of the latter assurances is that whichever science is used is now showing marked problems in public (which many knew about but were not previously heard). The IPCC (which itself undertakes no scientific research) is now under an independent review instituted by the United Nations (for what that may be worth) and increasing numbers of individual scientists and groups of scientists are publicly revealing numerous possible explanations of the increase in temperatures other than increased greenhouse gas emissions. Evidence has also emerged suggesting that official agencies have made inappropriate additions to “raw” temperature data and have omitted to explain that some of the increase in temperatures is obviously due to natural causes. In short, claims of a scientific consensus behind the dangerous warming thesis are even less convincing than they were. Even a major supplier of analysis to the IPCC – Dr Jones, the (now suspended) head of the East Anglia University Climate Research Unit - recently acknowledged that the science is not settled. (Des Moore, Quadrant)

Art Robinson is a rare man. He’s risen above and laid bare the creeping failure in the infrastructure of modern science over the last 50 years. He describes how the control of the quest for knowledge itself has been usurped from individuals and private industry and taken over by the government.

At the end of the day, what does being a scientist mean if there is nothing other than a certificate? Where is the code of conduct? Where are the professional associations which stand up and decry those who breach the basic requirements? What sense of duty and honor is left in science when high ranking members can make statements that are dishonest and yet keep their jobs and their reputations?

I was struck with Art’s description of a true scientist–where the most important attribute is honesty, where humility is inevitable in anyone who understands how little we comprehend, and where being a scientist is a lifelong search, rather than a 9 – 5 job.

Isaac Newton was the greatest scientist who has ever lived, or in Albert Einstein’s words, the most “privileged” of all scientists because of the discoveries that Newton was permitted to make. Einstein describes Newton as “this brilliant genius”… Newton said of himself:

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

During most of its history, when it housed and sponsored the work of many of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, the California Institute of Technology proudly displayed its motto:

Today, Caltech’s bureaucrats furtively hide this motto, if they have not canceled it altogether – both its origins and its emphasis on the “truth” being counterproductive to the “business” of “science” in which they are now engaged. Today, the “truth” seems surrounded by “lies,” and those whom we have depended upon to tell the truth appear no longer to be reliable. Worst of all, many of our scientists whom we depend upon to know the truth are … silent. More » (Jo Nova)

A couple of days ago, I posted on the news that Dr Simon Lewis, a rainforest expert from the University of Leeds, has filed a complaint about an article written by Jonathan Leake at the Sunday Times. Leake's article concerned the IPCC's use of "grey" literature to support a claim that the Amazon is very sensitive to drops in rainfall and that as much as 40% was in danger of being wiped out by small reductions in precipitation.

Coincidentally, following on from my review of the first part of the Woods Hole letter yesterday, Bishop Hill follows the scent, looking at the underlying evidence cited in support of the IPCC claim of 40 percent of the Amazon forest being at risk from a slight reduction in rainfall.

This impacts directly on the second part of the letter, which I was planning to review today and forms the substance of this post. It is there, in that second part, that we see William Y Brown, president and CEO of the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC), assert that:

Climate science censorship in action at the American Geophysical Union

On Friday last week, ABC’s PM programme carried a report about criticisms that have been made of a peer-reviewed paper published last July in the Journal of Geophysical Research, by John McLean, Chris de Freitas and Bob Carter (hereafter MFC).

The original paper compared the global atmospheric temperature since 1958 with variations in the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climatic framework. This analysis supported earlier research that demonstrates a close link between these factors. It also indicated that ENSO variation accounts for a very large portion of the variability in global temperature, thus leaving little room for a substantial human influence on temperature.

ABC’s Sarah Clarke reported the story as “Another round in climate science wars”, and provided a balanced account of what she saw as the two science sides of the story. Unfortunately, in so doing she largely missed another significant aspect of the affair - the attempt by a number of scientists - who are known to be both alarmist and influential in advising on climate science policy - to stifle the results of a research paper that disagrees with their belief.

Those attempting this censorship include some with strong links to the IPCC, for example Phil Jones of the CRU and Michael Mann of hockey-stick notoriety, and remember that it is on the IPCC’s advice that the Rudd government relies in setting Australia’s national global warming policy. As the British press highlighted during January and February this year, it is a story of no small substance when corrupt, inaccurate or deliberately misleading advice emanates from the official United Nations advisory body on climate science or from scientists who are associated with it. Remember, too, that according to CEO Megan Clark no fewer than 40 CSIRO scientists have associations with the IPCC.

Few stories in science come bigger than deliberate censorship, and especially so when it concerns material that is relevant to the dangerous global warming debate. We present below, therefore, a brief outline of the events as they happened. (Bob Carter and John McLean, Quadrant)

Let me show you another simple way to see that the climate sensitivity can't really be close to the IPCC's mean value (and certainly not close to the upper end of their interval).

The reason I will be able to show that the IPCC figure contradicts the basic laws of physics is that we will look how the relevant theories behave at somewhat more extreme temperatures which are nevertheless physically possible - and not too extreme. We will see that the IPCC estimates require a behavior that contradicts some universal laws of Nature - namely the fact that the emissivity can't exceed one.

First, we must begin with some definitions. Let us distinguish two concepts, the climate sensitivity and the climate sensitivity parameter. The climate sensitivity is the expected increase of near-surface air temperature from a CO2 doubling. It will be claimed to be near 1.1 °C.

Evidence suggests changing environment can bring down a civilization

Decades of drought, interspersed with intense monsoon rains, may have helped bring about the fall of Cambodia's ancient Khmer civilization at Angkor nearly 600 years ago, according to an analysis of tree rings, archeological remains and other evidence. The study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may also shed light on what drives—and disrupts—the rainy season across much of Asia, which waters crops for nearly half the world's population.

Historians have offered various explanations for the fall of an empire that stretched across much of Southeast Asia between the 9th and 14th centuries, from deforestation to conflict with rival kingdoms. But the new study offers the strongest evidence yet that two severe droughts, punctuated by bouts of heavy monsoon rain, may have weakened the empire by shrinking water supplies for drinking and agriculture, and damaging Angkor's vast irrigation system, which was central to its economy. The kingdom is thought to have collapsed in 1431 after a raid by the Siamese from present-day Thailand. The carved stone temples of its religious center, Angkor Wat, are today a major tourist destination, but much of the rest of the civilization has sunk back into the landscape. (The Earth Institute at Columbia University)

Isoprene is a Jekyll-and-Hyde gas that is capable of both warming and cooling the Earth depending on the prevailing conditions. It is an important industrial gas, necessary for the manufacture of important compounds such as rubber and vitamins, but very little is known about how isoprene is cycled in the environment.

Today, at the Society for General Microbiology's spring meeting in Edinburgh, Dr Terry McGenity reveals the identity of some crucial players in the gas cycle; isoprene-degrading bacteria that are able to intercept the release of isoprene into the atmosphere.

After being released by plants and algae, isoprene reacts with molecules in the atmosphere to produce ozone. It can also prolong the lifetime of methane in the air. Both ozone and methane are potent greenhouse gases that lead to global warming. Conversely, in certain conditions, isoprene can undergo chemical reactions to form aerosols that can increase cloud cover leading to cooling of the Earth. (Society for General Microbiology)

To boost their diet of mineral nutrients and sunlight, small algae also feast on bacteria in order to grow and fix carbon dioxide (CO2). Understanding more about the lifestyle of small algae - which are major players in CO2 fixation in the ocean - could help to improve ecological models of oceanic and global changes. (Society for General Microbiology)

Environmentalists have long sought to use the threat of catastrophic global warming to persuade the public to embrace a low-carbon economy. But recent events, including the tainting of some climate research, have shown the risks of trying to link energy policy to climate science. (Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, e360)

The Environmental Protection Agency will soon begin a much-needed study of the effects on water quality and public health of a method of extracting natural gas called hydraulic fracturing. An E.P.A. investigation in 2004 was rightly seen as superficial and skewed toward industry, which provided much of the underlying data. This one must be comprehensive and transparent.

It must also be swift. The search for natural gas has widened beyond the usual venues like Texas and the Rocky Mountain West to Pennsylvania and New York State, site of a vast deposit called the Marcellus Shale.

Hydraulic fracturing involves blasting water, sand and chemicals into underground formations to unlock the gas. The technique has been implicated in a growing number of water pollution cases. New York State has been forced to review plans to allow exploratory drilling upstate, including New York City’s watershed, because of fears that an accidental release of toxic chemicals could poison the water supply for millions of people. (NYT)

New study indicates ethanol-gasoline blend also has no measurable impact on drivability

A new study by the Center for Integrated Manufacturing Studies at Rochester Institute of Technology indicates that the use of E20 fuel, which blends 20 percent ethanol with gasoline, reduces the tail pipe emissions of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, compared with traditional gasoline or E10 blends. In addition, the research team found no measurable impact to vehicle drivability or maintenance in conventional internal combustion engines.

The data illustrates the potential benefits of E20 as a tool in reducing overall vehicle emissions at a time when many states and the U.S. Department of Transportation are considering policies that would increase the ethanol percentage in standard gasoline. (RIT Press Release)

A surge in sea-based wind farms is likely to mean bigger turbines than on land, reaching 10 megawatts by 2020 with blades 85 meters (280 ft) long, the head of Norway's Det Norske Veritas said on Monday.

Veritas, which tests wind turbines until they snap as part of certification, reckons the industry will need subsidies for years since costs are about 40 to 60 percent above those for land-based wind, Chief Executive Henrik Madsen told Reuters.

China became the No. 1 wind turbine market in 2009, installing a record 13.75 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity, and three Chinese suppliers ranked among the Top-10 turbine manufacturers, Danish consultants BTM said.

"The most significant trend in the market was the booming Chinese wind industry," BTM Consult said in a summary of its annual wind power market review for paying subscribers.

China's new capacity accounted for more than a third of the world's total new wind energy capacity of 38 GW last year, which was a record despite the financial crisis, BTM Consult said. (Reuters)

With an oversupply of wind turbines, why are governments subsidizing new manufacturing plants?

In recent years, China has ramped up its efforts to become a world leader in manufacturing and installation of wind turbines.

But the other side of the story is that China has also idled 40 percent of its industrial wind turbine manufacturing capacity as a result of oversupply and plummeting prices.

In Europe, the world's largest turbine manufacturer, Vestas, announced a bond issue of 600 million euros ($807 million). This is the first bond issue in the company's history and it was due to slow growth.

Even with an oversupply of manufacturing capacity, and falling prices for wind turbines, taxpayer-funded investment in wind turbine manufacturing by foreign companies in North America has been moving ahead with great fanfare. (Reuters)

The Swedish government has asked parliament to undo a 30 year old ban on building new nuclear plants, just months ahead of national elections. [Read More] (Andres Cala, Energy Tribune)

As the night follows the day, the VAT cometh. With the passage of ObamaCare, creating a vast new middle-class entitlement, a national sales tax of the kind near-universal in Europe is inevitable.

We are now $8 trillion in debt. The Congressional Budget Office projects that another $12 trillion will be added over the next decade.

ObamaCare, when stripped of its budgetary gimmicks — the unfunded $200-billion-plus doctor fix, the double counting of Medicare cuts, the 10-6 sleight-of-hand (counting 10 years of revenue and only 6 years of outflows) — is at minimum a $2 trillion new entitlement. (Charles Krauthammer, IBD)

WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO - New battles are erupting over recently passed U.S. healthcare reforms, this time within the states, where leaders from both parties are clashing on whether to sue the U.S. government.

Only hours after President Barack Obama signed the healthcare plan into law this week, more than a dozen Republican attorneys general of U.S. states -- and one Democrat -- filed lawsuits saying it violated state and individual rights. Others began investigating possible lawsuits. (Reuters)

ON Thursday night, Congress sent to President Obama the reconciliation package to remove some of the embarrassing provisions in his signature legislative achievement, health care reform. But a serious fix for what ails health care in America will entail far more than merely tweaking the new law of the land; we will need to repeal the entire faulty architecture of the government behemoth and replace it with real reform.

To be clear: it is not sufficient for those of us in the opposition to await a reversal of political fortune months or years from now before we advance action on health care reform. Costs will continue their ascent as the debt burden squeezes life out of our economy. We are unapologetic advocates for the repeal of this costly misstep. But Republicans must also make the case for a reform agenda to take its place, and get to work on that effort now. (Paul Ryan, NYT)

In 2003, Washington blessed a grateful citizenry with the Medicare prescription drug benefit, it being generally agreed by all the experts that it was unfair to force seniors to choose between their monthly trip to Rite-Aid and Tony Danza in dinner theatre.

However, in order to discourage American businesses from immediately dumping all their drug plans for retirees, Congress gave them a modest tax break equivalent to 28% of the cost of the plan.

Fast forward to the dawn of the ObamaCare utopia. In one of a bazillion little clauses in a 2,000-page bill your legislators didn't bother reading (because, as Congressman Conyers explained, he wouldn't understand it even if he did), Congress voted to subject the 28% tax benefit to the regular good ol' American-as-apple-pie corporate tax rate of 35%.

For the purposes of comparison, Sweden's corporate tax rate is 26.3%, and Ireland's is 12.5%. But just because America already has the highest corporate tax in the OECD is no reason why we can't keep going until it's double Sweden's and quadruple Ireland's.

I refer you to the decision last year by the donut chain Tim Hortons, a Delaware corporation, to reorganize itself as a Canadian corporation "in order to take advantage of Canadian tax rates." Hold that thought: "In order to take advantage of Canadian tax rates" — a phrase hitherto unknown to American English outside the most fantastical futuristic science fiction. (Mark Steyn, IBD)

Health Reform: As major businesses lay out the impact of ObamaCare in dollars and jobs, two things are clear: the costs will be enormous, and the president's vow to focus on "jobs, jobs, jobs" can no longer be believed. (IBD)

“AT&T Inc. will take a $1 billion non-cash charge in the first quarter” the Associated Press reported today. And by “take a non-cash charge” what they really mean is that President Barack Obama’s health spending plan just ate $1 billion out of AT&T’s bottom line. And that’s to pay for just one of the tax hikes wrought by Obamacare.

AT&T is just one of many companies that subsidize Medicare drug coverage for their retirees. The new health law slaps a tax on those subsidies, effective next year. In addition to costing the communications giant a cool billion, the tax is likely to cost workers and retirees a cherished benefit. AP notes that, because of the legislation, AT&T is now “looking into changing the health care benefits it offers to active and retired workers.”

AT&T is not the first company warning stockholders to expect earnings to plunge due to the new law. Yesterday, as President Obama celebrated his health “triumph” by taking a victory lap in Des Moines, Iowa’s largest manufacturer, Deere & Co, announced it would have to take a first-quarter charge of $150 million. Caterpillar Inc. and AK Steel Holding Corp have announced similar charges as well. Continue reading... (The Foundry)

As soon as President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Health Care for America Act of 2010 into law, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed suit against the federal government, arguing that the legislation is unconstitutional.

Cuccinelli highlights the individual mandate as particularly offensive to the Constitution, emphasizing that “at no time in our history has the government mandated its citizens buy a good or service.”

If you've ever wondered just how much evidence has to be gathered up to put a stake through the heart of notorious junk science, what the formerly Golden State is doing with BPA can serve as a primer.

Last year, the far from chem industry friendly regulators in California decided not to put BPA on their notorious Prop 65 list. Admittedly, they had only done this after virtually every regulatory body in the civilized world had already granted the chemical a clean bill of health.

But, less than a week afterward, the fear entrepreneurs at NRDC—sensing that their golden goose was cooked—filed an amazingly amateurish petition that was enough to get the State to reconsider. Heck, what better for the elite in Sacramento to worry about as their state is rapidly headed from first to worst.

Read my complete HND piece, entitled "Raising Up The BPA Boogeyman Yet Again: A Scientific Disgrace." (Shaw's Eco-Logic)

NEW YORK - Breastfeeding is often advocated as a way to help prevent allergies in babies at high risk, but a new study finds that infants breastfed for longer periods may actually be more likely to develop the allergic skin condition eczema. (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK - Young women who eat a typical high protein Western diet need not worry that their protein consumption will harm their bone health.

According to research published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a higher intake of protein does not have a deleterious effect on bone density in premenopausal women.

There's conflicting evidence about the role protein plays in bone health, Jeannette Beasley from the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle, Washington and colleagues note in their report. Protein in the diet from animal and vegetable sources is important to the development of strong bones. Yet, when protein from animal sources is digested, chemicals known to lead to bone loss are produced. (Reuters Health)

A TENFOLD increase in hospital treatment for cannabis poisoning or dependence among people in their 30s and 40s suggests the habit has run out of control for a hard core of long-term users.

Australian research shows that while cannabis consumption overall decreased during the past decade, the rate of hospital treatment rose.

Treatment rates are highest among people in their 20s, but the steepest increase has been among older people, with those in their 30s only slightly less likely to seek help than younger people by 2007, the study shows.

Seven years earlier, people in their 30s were being treated at only half the rate of their younger counterparts, according to the findings of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of NSW. Their faster rise in cannabis-related health problems coincided with greater frequency of daily use. (SMH)

Proponents of carbon-dioxide emissions reductions, seeing the scientific basis for them as a means to reduce global warming collapsing in the wake of Climategate and the many other revelations of corruption of the scientific process by anthropogenic global warming alarmists, are looking for other justifications for their aims.

Many of them cheered when a Stanford scientist published a study that claimed that “Urban CO2 Domes” indirectly increase the risk of premature death for city dwellers. Science Daily reported prominently on the article. The ever-dependable wolf-crier Grist.org trumpeted the message. The Financial Times picked up the story. New Republic blogger Bradford Plumer sounded the alarm.

But what few of them stopped to do was to ask how credible the study’s findings were. Actually reading the study’s full text rather than just its summary (the journalist’s and advocate’s usual practice) might have given them pause--especially if the readers had even an elementary grasp of statistical significance. When I read it, I immediately wondered how robust its results were and suspected that there likely were problems of statistical significance involved. Sure enough, there were.

As scientists Sherwood Idso, Keith Idso, and Craig Idso--who have specialized for years in studying the effects of carbon dioxide on plant and animal life and published many peer-reviewed studies in the field--pointed out in their critique of the study, there are serious signs in the article itself that its findings are only weakly supported and, even if true, hardly of great significance. (Cornwall Alliance)

John Michael Wallace, professor and former chairman of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington, writes of the growing and serious environmental crisis in India.

We have allowed, he says, the IPCC assessment reports to become the dominant vehicle for representing the views of the scientific community on a widening range of environmental issues.

In the IPCC terminology, he adds, "symptoms of environmental degradation, regardless of their cause, are labelled as impacts of climate change, and the societal response to them is framed in terms of mitigating and adapting to climate change."

Thus, while scientists still write papers and speak to the media about environmental concerns outside of the purview of the IPCC, Wallace tells us that, "with so much of the world's attention riveted on climate change there is a lack of institutional infrastructure for calling attention to other issues."

The problem though is that labelling issues such as reduced agricultural productivity, loss of biodiversity, pollution and the looming shortage of fresh water as "impacts of global warming" leaves the public confused and susceptible to propaganda by groups who oppose environmental regulation of any kind.

The "denialists" can then trivialise the entire environmental crisis, says Wallace, simply by casting doubt on the scientific consensus on global warming.

However, this is more than, and not even, a question of "denialists". There is a strong constituency in India – not least the industrial complex – which does not want attention focused on broader environmental issues. It is quite content to see "climate change" in the frame, if only because this can be blamed on the white man, thereby providing absolution for local sins - and a source of income.

We touched on this in a piece earlier this month, arguing that India (and many other developing countries) have far more important things to concern themselves about than global warming.

Wallace does not go quite that far, but he does say that the current stalemate on seeking environmental improvement is likely to persist as long as scientists allow climate change to dominate the environmental policy agenda. The discussion of adaptation and mitigation options in the policy arena, he maintains, needs to be reframed so that it addresses environmental degradation and sustainability in the broad sense, not just the impacts of climate change.

That much alone is refreshing – but it is not enough. Wallace is touching on a massive problem. Warmism has hijacked the entire environmental agenda, setting the cause of real environmental improvement back decades.

So it is not a question of "reframing". The two agendas cannot live side-by-side. True environmentalists need to reclaim their ground from the warmists, who are the enemy of the environment, distorting and perverting a worthy cause for their own ends. (EU Referendum)

For all those Green morons calling on us to turn off our lights Saturday evening from 8:30 PM to 9:30 PM to celebrate "Earth Hour", this is what it looks like every night in North and South Korea. The North is in the grip of a Stalinist dictator and the South is a thriving democracy.

Like fire, electricity is truly a gift of the gods. It is the difference between the Dark Age and the present age...but not for everyone. Much of Africa is in darkness. too. People who hate civilization and the humans who created it are welcome to live out in the wilderness or in some primitive backward country where they burn dung to cook their meals.

If America doesn't start building more coal-fired plants, nuclear plants, and other generators of electricity, we too shall live in darkness when the sun goes down. Be warned, the present administration is doing everything possible to make that future happen.

-- Alan Caruba (Warning Signs)

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced a “major policy revision” that aims to give bicycling and walking the same policy and economic consideration as driving.

“Today I want to announce a sea change,” he wrote on his blog last week. “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized.” (Green Inc)

In Los Angeles, in the heart of California’s anemic economy, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Department of Water and Power (DWP) hope to massively raise energy rates by a whopping 21% next year, with other rate increases slated through 2014, for a total 37% hike.

Are the increased rates intended to pay for a budget shortfall? No. Are they going up because the cost of energy is going up, too? Not exclusively. The increased rates would raise money to “invest” in renewable energy. In fact, Villaraigosa thought the hike was so important that he invited former Vice President Al Gore to present at the city council meeting via satellite.

The good news is that some common sense remains in the L.A. city council chambers, and the rate increase has not yet been implemented.

With unemployment at 12.5% in California, it would seem like now is the worst possible time for a rate hike. That fact, though, will not stop the environmental left. They will stop at nothing to make sure people can’t afford essential things like electricity and heating oil, all in the name of unconfirmed science. Continue reading... (The Foundry)

Is Mo Ibrahim right to say that a growing population is necessary for future prosperity?

It was not absolutely clear whether it was a moment to cheer or cry. In December, shortly after the participants in a UN conference on family planning had broken up in Kampala, Africa's billionth baby was born. In a continent apparently wracked with all the ills of over-population – hunger, poverty and shocking maternal and neo-natal mortality – it might appear a harbinger of disaster.

For within 40 years, that number could almost double. How then could Africa hope to feed itself, let alone find work and livelihoods for so many? "Sexual and reproductive health" – aka population control – has been added to the Millennium Development Goals mainly because it is now understood that without it there is no hope that the other targets will be met.

Africa's billionth baby, the doom mongers predicted would, if he survived to adulthood, only perish in one of the coming resource wars fought over land or water or oil or minerals, or simply fall victim to the unvarying instability that trails in the wake of over-population.

But there is a counter argument: each new baby is another consumer – and modern economic growth is driven by demand. The billionth baby is the engine of future prosperity.

That's what Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-born British businessman and philanthropist, believes. "Africa is underpopulated. We have 20% of the world's landmass and 13% of its population." It is big, concentrated populations that have contributed to explosive economic growth rates in China and India. Get the policies right, he suggested (and his focus is on improving governance) and the billionth baby could yet enjoy a secure old age. (The Guardian)

WASHINGTON – Fifteen phony products — including a gasoline-powered alarm clock — won a label from the government certifying them as energy efficient in a test of the federal "Energy Star" program.

Investigators concluded the program is "vulnerable to fraud and abuse."

A report released Friday said government investigators tried to pass off 20 fake products as energy efficient, and only two were rejected. Three others didn't get a response.

The program run by the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to identify energy-efficient products to help consumers. Tax credits and rebates serve as incentives to buy Energy Star products.

But the General Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, said Energy Star doesn't verify claims made by manufacturers — which might explain the gasoline-powered alarm clock, not to mention a product billed as an air room cleaner that was actually a space heater with a feather duster and fly strips attached, and a computer monitor that won approval within 30 minutes of submission.

The alarm clock's size — 1 1/2-feet high and 15 inches wide — and model name "Black Gold" should have raised alarms with Energy Star, but the automated review system didn't catch on to the deception.

"EPA officials confirmed that because the energy-efficiency information was plausible, it was likely that no one read the product description information," GAO said.

In addition, the four phony GAO companies were able to become Energy Star partners, giving them access to the program's logos and other promotional resources. Energy Star didn't call any of the companies or visit the addresses, and sent only four of the 20 products to be verified by a third-party, GAO said.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee who requested the study, said that "taxpayers are shortchanged twice" when Energy Star products are not thoroughly vetted — when consumers are willing to pay more for the products, and when taxpayer dollars are spent encouraging the purchases. (Associated Press)

In response to Booker's piece last week on the £60 billion WWF "REDD" scam - amplified in my parallel post - we have today a thoroughly dishonest letter from William Y Brown, president and CEO of the Woods Hole Research Center.

There are two parts to the letter and in the first – which we deal with in this post – Brown complains of Booker describing the Center as a "global warming advocacy group". We are, he responds, "a widely respected scientific institution whose scientists publish dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles annually in the world's most prestigious scientific journals, including Science and Nature, with much of the work supported by the National Science Foundation and NASA."

The dishonesty of this claim is transparent, evident from the center's own website where it tells us that it is an "independent, non-profit institute focused on environmental science, education, and public policy." As to its "mission", it seeks to "conserve and sustain the planet's vegetation, soils, water, and climate by clarifying and communicating their interacting functions in support of human well-being and by promoting practical approaches to their management in the human interest."

Even the most dispassionate analysis cannot find in the center's own text any support for its proposition that it is a "scientific institution". It seeks to "conserve and sustain", thence by "clarifying and communicating". It does so "in support" of an objective, and it is concerned with "promoting" practical approaches. It is also focused on "public policy".

Laudable though these activities might be, they are not science. This is advocacy, where, effectively, scientific method and personnel described as "scientists" are used as tools to promote a "mission". And, even without that, the background of its founder, George M Woodwell and his links with other advocacy groups tell you exactly where it stands.

Woodwell is an ecologist "with broad interests in global environmental issues and policies." He was also a founding trustee and continues to serve on the board of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He is a former chairman of the board of trustees and currently a member of the National Council of the WWF, a founding trustee of the World Resources Institute, and a founder and currently an honorary member of the board of trustees of the Environmental Defense Fund.

Then, as regards its advocacy operation, it tells us:

Fragments of plastic in the ocean are not just unsightly but potentially lethal to marine life. Coastal microbes may offer a smart solution to clean up plastic contamination, according to Jesse Harrison presenting his research at the Society for General Microbiology's spring meeting in Edinburgh today.

The researchers from the University of Sheffield and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science have shown that the combination of marine microbes that can grow on plastic waste varies significantly from microbial groups that colonise surfaces in the wider environment. This raises the possibility that the plastic-associated marine microbes have different activities that could contribute to the breakdown of these plastics or the toxic chemicals associated with them. (Society for General Microbiology)

This is an excerpt from a one hour YouTube video of a presentation that Energy Secretary Steven Chu made at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory on March 23, 2010.

Chu:

So Chu says we don’t understand the cooling spells, but he spends a good portion of the rest of the lecture saying there’s no question what causes the warming – us. But, wouldn’t an inability to explain the cooling put the entire theory on ice? Sure, unless you’ve got a Progressive political agenda to shill. (Gore Lied)

If you have 2+ spare hours, here is a playlist with fifteen 10-minute parts of a fresh debate involving Christopher Monckton and the blogger at the Deltoid:

Press the "tape" next to the "play" button to choose the parts. If you care, Lambert appears mostly in parts 3,4.

They say many interesting things, agree about various issues, and Lord Monckton is better. However, they also make various errors that they agree upon.

Sceptics have not been surprised to find that almost all the members of the 'Climategate' inquiry are committed advocates of global warming

There has been a curious by-product of the attempts being made by the University of East Anglia to whitewash last November's embarrassing leak of documents from its Climatic Research Unit. Since it set up not one but two supposedly "independent" inquiries into the "Climategate" affair, climate sceptics were intrigued but not entirely surprised to find that almost all their members were committed, even fanatical advocates of global warming, and hence unlikely to be over-critical of the CRU's bizarre record.

Most recently, the sceptics have been particularly intrigued by the background of the man chosen by the university to chair an assessment of the CRU's scientific record. Lord Oxburgh declared on his appointment that he is linked to major wind-farm and renewable-energy companies. He admitted that he advises Climate Change Capital, which manages funds worth $1.5 billion, hoping to cash in on the "opportunities created by the transition to a low-carbon economy", in a world market potentially worth – its website boasts – $45 trilllion. (Christopher Booker, TDT)

Image: ClimateGate Tank arrives in Australia

I attribute much of the recent rapid rise of the skeptics to the ongoing effects of ClimateGate. Yet, in a sense, the e-mails that were sprung from East Anglia did nothing more than confirm what most skeptics already suspected. Lawrence Solomon, author of The Deniers, has written an unusually good summary in the form of a speech for the Colorado Mining Association.

The Climategate emails confirmed much of what the sceptics had been saying for years.

The scientists at the heart of the Climategate emails aren’t fringe players on some periphery. They operate what’s known as the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University in the UK. This is the group that collects temperature data, messages it, and then feeds it to the UN and others. This is the data that we have been relying on to tell us if the globe has been warming or not. This same data is then used by virtually everyone in the climate science field who is concerned with historical temperatures.

Without the raw data, it is impossible to confirm that the planet has been warming over the last 150 years. The only ones who now know by how much the planet has been warming, if at all, are the same people who have destroyed the raw data. There are now six separate investigations underway which have been spawned by the Climategate emails. One of those six is by the UK Met Office, which partnered with the Climatic Research Unit in producing the data sets.

The UK Met Office – this is the UK government’s meteorological department – says it will need three years to recreate the data that has been destroyed.

Penn State's Michael Mann, under fire in e-mails probe, says his global warming research passes test. He also has a regret.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. -

Penn State global warming scientist Michael E. Mann regrets he did not instantly object when a fellow climatologist asked him in 2008 to delete e-mails subject to Freedom of Information requests.

"I wish in retrospect I had told him, 'Hey, you shouldn't even be thinking about this,'" Mann told The Morning Call in his first interview since the university last month launched an investigation into his conduct. "I didn't think it was an appropriate request."

Despite the request by his British colleague Phil Jones, Mann did not delete e-mails, a Penn State University panel of inquiry found on Feb. 3. But the panel ordered further investigation, still in progress, over a general allegation of scientific misconduct by Mann.

Penn State officials said Friday they could not yet provide further information on the probe. (Morning Call)

One regrettable mistake about glaciers doesn't alter the vast evidence there is of climate change

To dismiss the implications of climate change based on an error about the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting is an act of astonishing intellectual legerdemain. Yet this is what some doubters of climate change are claiming. But the reality is that our understanding of climate change is based on a vast and remarkably sound body of science – and is something we distort and trivialise at our peril. (Rajendra Pachauri, The Guardian)

The outspoken chairman of the UN’s climate change body is to adopt a neutral advisory role and has agreed to stop making statements demanding new taxes and other radical policies on cutting emissions.

In an interview with The Times, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, apologised for his organisation’s handling of complaints about errors in its report.

He also apologised for describing as “voodoo science” an Indian Government report which challenged the IPCC’s claims about the rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers.

But Dr Pachauri, 70, rejected calls for his resignation and insisted he would remain as chairman until after publication of the IPCC’s next report in 2014.
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He claimed he had the support of all the world’s governments and denied that, by remaining in post, he was undermining the IPCC’s chances of regaining credibility with the public.

“It is not correct to say there are people who don’t trust me,” he said. (The Times)

Germans are losing their fear of climate change, according to a survey, with just 42 percent worried about global warming.

It seems the long and chilly winter has taken its toll on climate change sensibilities despite the fact that weather has nothing to do with climate.

The latest figure is a clear drop from the 62 percent of Germans who said they were scared of such changes just last autumn.

The new survey, carried out by polling company Infratest for Der Spiegel magazine, showed a quarter of those questioned thought Germany would profit from climate change rather than be badly affected by it.

Many people have little faith in the information and prognosis of climate researchers with a third questioned in the survey not giving them much credence. This is thought to be largely due to mistakes and exaggerations recently discovered in a report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, the IPCC.

Germany’s Leibniz Community, an umbrella organisation including many climate research institutes, broke ranks by calling for the resignation of IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri.

Climate research has been put, “in a difficult situation,” said Ernst Rietschel president of the Leibniz Community. He said sceptics have been given an easy target by the IPCC and said Pachauri should take on the responsibility and resign.

Last summer the glacier on Germany’s highest mountain, the Zugspitz in Bavaria, was covered over with plastic sheeting to try to protect it from warm rain which threatened to accelerate its melting. (The Local)

The London Science Museum has abandoned it’s fort-like barricade, the “No Debate Corral”, and many skeptics are rejoicing that it seems to have done an about-face. I remain highly skeptical.

Remember, this is the same museum that was blatantly telling you, the UK taxpayer, which policy you were supposed to vote and pay for:

See that phrase: Make their view count? Museum officials were hoping to use poll results to pressure politicians into “doing something”. But, the poll results shocked them, with skeptics outnumbering believers by 5 to 1 initially, and amassing thousands of votes. Though the museum has now made the minor concession of changing a gallery name from “Climate Change” to “Climate Science”, I remain very unconvinced that it has really shifted position. The new exhibition won’t open until just before the UNFCCC deals in Mexico, and we all know that these exhibits can be stacked with loaded questions and half-truths. If the museum were willing to get a consultant skeptical scientist, I’d be convinced this might be more than some token trick to appear impartial while set designers assemble camouflaged AGW guns in every display. More » (Jo Nova)

“Insuring against catastrophe“, proclaims The Economist after publishing an article that just a few weeks ago would have been at the receiving end of sorts of insults by climate talibans:

If you want to insure yourself against catastrophe, surely the very first thing you want to do is to make sure that the end result won’t be worse than the catastrophe you’re trying to avoid.

Take for example what happened with the unsinkable Titanic. It is very likely that, had the crew just slowed down the ship without trying to turn it to avoid the iceberg, four or fewer compartments would have been flooded, and the whole sinking avoided with everybody on board surviving the accident. First Officer Murdoch simply didn’t think about the consequences of some of his actions. The cost of trying to avert the iceberg was as high as losing more the fifteen hundred lives.

And so just like with the famous liner, even if we believe he environment is soon going to crush against some disaster of an iceberg, still we can’t simply decide to do something for the sake of doing something. Uncertainty doesn’t necessarily argue for action.

Now, if only we could get the climate debate to a reasonable level, things would be a tad simpler than they are. (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)

The reputation of a Kyoto Protocol carbon finance scheme was dealt another blow after a UN climate panel late on Friday suspended the third emissions cut verifier in 15 months, and partially suspended a fourth. (Reuters)

Are you worried about your carbon footprint hurting the earth? Don’t worry. Now climate doomsayers can sleep easy at night. For a fee a carbon offset provider will gladly funnel your money into earth friendly projects aimed to reduce greenhouse gases, such as planting trees in Ecuador or supporting a wind farm in Texas. But are carbon offset providers really delivering what they claim? Studies of international carbon offset schemes have revealed examples of widespread fraud and abuse. And now, investigations into two of the most prominent carbon offset providers in the U.S. have revealed that neither of them actually offers real reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. ( Todd Wynn, Cascade Policy Institute)

A firm accused of defrauding Australian investors of A$3.5 million ($3.2 million) in a carbon investment scam and blacklisted by the nation's securities regulator is still operating and may face legal claims.

The case risks denting the reputation of the unregulated voluntary carbon offset market, which has been damaged in the past by allegations of fraud and double-counting, although market players said its small size meant it wouldn't have a big impact. (Reuters)

A trillion dollars for the developing world, eh? That sounds like a hell of a lot. And indeed it is. Except when you do the math.

It is said that there are a billion people who live on less than a dollar a day. So a $100bn a year changes the lives of these billion people to the tune of one dollar a day, for a hundred days a year.

TRAVELING in India the past two months has impressed on me the breadth and urgency of the world's environmental crisis. After decades of sustained growth following the "green revolution" in the 1960s, Indian crop yields no longer keep up with population growth.

Topsoil is becoming depleted of natural chemical nutrients so that increasing applications of chemical fertilizers are required to sustain high crop yields. Cropland is being lost to urbanization and topsoil is being stripped from fields to make bricks. Excess nitrogen from fertilizers in the runoff is polluting rivers and wetlands. Water tables are plummeting in response to shortsighted management practices such as "water mining" from deep wells to increase yields of dry-season crops. ( John M. Wallace, Seattle Times)

Inspired by this thread over at Bishop Hill’s excellent blog, I thought I’d write about sea ice. Among the many catastrophic things claimed to be the result of “global warming”, declining sea ice is one of the most popular. We see scary graphics of this all the time, things that look like this:

FIgure 1. Terrifying computer projections showing that we may not have any Arctic sea ice before the end of this century. Clearly, the implication is that we should be very concerned … SOURCE

Europe can rest easy. A new analysis of data from satellites and drifting sensors finds no evidence that the Atlantic portion of the "Conveyor Belt"—the great warm current flowing ultimately from the Pacific toward the frigid far North Atlantic—is slowing. Scientists and the public had worried that global warming might be shutting down the conveyor flow and threatening a big chill for Europe. Now, judging by its behavior, the conveyor appears to be far less susceptible to throttling by climate change than once feared.

Headlines warning of Europe’s coming ice age first appeared 5 years ago. In a 2005 Nature paper, oceanographers analyzed temperature and salinity measurements made during five brief ship surveys between 1957 and 2004. These data suggested a 30% decline in the northward flow of the Atlantic conveyor near 26°N around the turn of the century. But continuous measurements by cable-moored instrument arrays soon revealed fluctuations in conveyor flow in the space of a year that would have swamped the once-a-decade surveys. Signs of an ice age evaporated, at least by scientists’ reckoning if not the public’s. (Science Now)

As a Democrat, I have asked myself how it is that the current administration could be so consistently wrong on energy policy. There was a time in the days of Bob Kerr, Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, and Bennett Johnson that energy policy was bipartisan. In fact, those Democratic wheel horses from the great Southwest made sure that the policy–particularly as regarded oil and gas– was somewhat rational.

The last Democratic President to acknowledge the need for exploration was Jimmy Carter, under whom I served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oil and Gas. Carter pushed both an offshore 5-year leasing plan and production from the Naval Petroleum Reserves. I know–I was in charge of both.

So despite the Windfall Profits Tax and much hyperbolic rhetoric, President Carter had a foot, or at least a few toes, in the pro-production camp. And it was none other than Carter who set up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for drilling (after adequate study) as one of his last acts in office.

The 39^th President also initiated both the decontrol of gas dating from the 1950’s and the (phased) decontrol of crude oil and oil products that began with Richard Nixon in 1971 which Reagan simply accelerated with his famous decontrol executive order of January 1981.

But no more! Democrats today seem to want to fly in the face of reality by espousing phantom sources of energy and working at cross purposes with American interests:

All this leads Democrats to support and subsidize trendy new sources of power (e.g. switchgrass!) without acknowledging how limited or how environmentally damaging they are when implemented on a large scale.

This has only a little to do with “free market” ideology. I assert that a centrist–or if you like a moderate liberal–who believes in moderate government intervention (securities regulation, social security, Medicare, single payer health, etc.) can: [Read more →] (MasterResource)

American leaders and news outlets often refer to American-company overseas oil field purchases, oil and gas discoveries, freedom from oil initiatives, and offshore drilling as vehicles towards energy security. These efforts do not, and cannot, enhance oil security for the U.S. without simultaneously increasing global oil security, defined as insulation from price and supply shocks. [Read More] (Kevin P. Kane, Energy Tribune)

After yesterday’s revelation about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s dismantling of his state’s global warming regulatory infrastructure, a grassroots citizens group said they would attack the renewables rent-seeking industry via a Colorado ballot initiative. The Western Tradition Partnership announced:

Of course the foundation for the passage of these measures has been the hyped fear from the threat of global warming, which has been proven fraudulent. WTP, which placed some fairly strict requirements in the measure’s language in order to trigger a utility customer election, reports that it is only trying to restore an opt-out provision that Colorado voters supported in a previous ballot initiative.

It has become so trendy now to challenge the crumbling global warming establishment. (Cooler Heads)

CAMPAIGNERS will seek to block airport expansion across Britain following a High Court judgment which criticised the government’s decision to build a third runway at Heathrow.

Environmental groups linked to Stansted, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and a string of other airports hope to use the ruling to launch fresh challenges against plans for mass growth in flights and passenger numbers.

The judgment on Friday found that ministers had failed to take account of new, legally binding targets to reduce carbon dioxide emissions when they approved the expansion of Heathrow. (Sunday Times)

The electricity grid is one of the great achievements of modern technology. It has been so well designed and developed that we take it for granted. Thanks to the dereliction of duty by ignorant and arrogant governments of the new political class, that will all come to an end when the power cuts start. The fact that the grid is so reliable is down to the skill of a relatively small number of engineers who have the responsibility to control it. That is also about to change as new uncontrollable devices are being attached to the grid for religious reasons. This is even more grotesquely in evidence with the encouragement of “microgeneration” by which consumers are encouraged to mike their own input into the grid. Imagine the situation if people were encouraged to pump the untreated output of the wells in their back gardens into the water supply. (Number Watch)

Plans to boost nuclear power hinge on overcoming intense public fears about radioactive waste -- and mistrust that the government can safely store it -- federal commissioners tasked to deal with the issue said on Friday.

There's little point in hammering out technical details about how to site a permanent nuclear waste dump without also convincing the public that storing waste won't be a risk to health or the environment, argued Commissioner Albert Carnesale of the University of California at Los Angeles. (Reuters)

BP will close its solar-panel manufacturing plant in Frederick, the final step in moving its solar business out of the United States to facilities in China, India and other countries.

Just 3 1/2 years ago, in an announcement widely hailed by Maryland officials and promoters of "green jobs," BP unveiled a $70 million plan to double output at the facility and erected a building to house the production lines.

But on Friday the company said it would lay off 320 workers and keep only a hundred people involved in research, sales and project development. BP said laid-off employees would receive full pay and benefits for three months, followed by severance packages and job-placement assistance. The company, unable to sell or lease the building, will tear it down. (Washington Post)

Rare earths refer to some 17 elements found in Earth’s crust by themselves or combined with other chemicals. Some are scarce and others abundant, but in most every case Rare earths create risk in the renewable energy supply chain under an “energy security” standard.

The metals and their compounds used in battery technologies, windmills, catalysts, and communications technologies are not mined in the U.S. The majority of commercially useful Rare earths come from mines in China, a country that is fickle toward the U.S. in many ways. This energy-security issue contradicts a rationale for taxpayer support for government-dependent energy technologies such as windpower and electric cars.

The Rare earths occupy 57th to 71st place on the periodic chart of the elements. Discovered largely in the 19th century, the minerals have proven useful for modern technologies because of their electrochemical properties. They are crucial to advanced, high-temperature superconducting technologies, in addition to being used in windmills, electric vehicles, and new lighting technologies.

China owns the market for the most important rare earth metals, producing almost 100% of dysprosium and terbium, both crucial to the advanced performance of electric motors and lighting (see figure). Today, demand for the rare metals is booming. But China has been exploiting its dominant monopoly of rare earths to manipulate the market, according to U.S. commodities analysts.

These are not internationally traded commodities on transparent markets, so sussing out market price trends is difficult. Analysts surveying the market assert that China is using its market power to control prices and benefit its domestic producers and users. [Read more →] (MasterResource)

Investors could soon be scratching their heads over a rumoured $1.5-billion IPO for Bloom Energy and its fuel cell, a gizmo the size of a CD that can provide power to a home without needing to be connected to the electric utility's power lines. Unveiled amid much hoopla on 60 Minutes last month, the Bloom fuel cell is touted for being able to run on natural gas or biofuels, for being more efficient than a conventional natural gas power station and for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And, the Bloom fuel cell doesn't just help homeowners -- if you stack a bunch of these CDs together, they can power businesses, too, even big businesses. As 60 Minutes showed, major players such as Google and eBay already use the Bloom technology, dubbed the Bloom Box, to power their operations.

But the Bloom Box has its critics. They say it is nothing revolutionary, merely another version of fuel cell technology, which many companies have pursued over the decades, and which many continue to pursue. While the Bloom Box may be more efficient than a conventional natural gas power plant in converting natural gas to electricity, from the little that Bloom Energy has disclosed it seems less efficient than the high efficiency natural gas plants now in use around the world. And the critics question whether the Bloom Box's high costs of today can be reduced enough in future to make it economical.

Who's right? The answer now is wildly unknowable, mostly because the political needs of governments, rather than the energy needs of consumers, are likely to be calling the shots.

Health Reform: Should Americans feel ashamed for being angry that those who rule Washington thwarted the popular will? No more than colonial Americans at the trampling of their freedoms.

If the president and the leaders of his party in Congress think the American people are going to roll over and play dead after the biggest government power grab in history, they don't know this country.

And if they think those on the side of economic freedom will be intimidated by their attempts to caricature them as a bloodthirsty mob of Timothy McVeighs, they underestimate the powers of a free people.

A new CBS News poll finds that 62% of Americans want Republicans to keep fighting the Democrats' health legislation even now that it has passed. (IBD)

Meet Donna Simpson, of Old Bridge, N.J. Donna is a 42-year-old, presumably unemployed single mother with specific medical issues related to obesity. It is unclear whether she has health insurance. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid probably think of Donna Simpson as a victim of the American health insurance system, which didn't provide her automatic coverage -- and if it did provide her coverage, that coverage was probably increasingly expensive.

There's a reason that Obama, Biden, Pelosi and Reid don't use Simpson as one of their typical sob stories: Simpson weighs 604 pounds, and she's trying to work her way up to 1,000 pounds so that she can make the "Guinness Book of World Records." "This is a fantasy of mine," Simpson told the New York Post. According to the Post, Simpson would love to hit 1,000 pounds by 2012, consuming a diet of 12,000 calories per day. (Ben Shapiro, Townhall)

Repeal: Some say trying to repeal ObamaCare is a futile dream once people get used to its benefits, such as covering kids with pre-existing conditions. Once before, government was slapped down. It can be done.

Entitlements can be addictive, and it's certainly the purpose of this administration to make as many Americans as possible as dependent on government as possible.

That's partly why a health care bill put student loans under the Department of Education. The government needed the revenues, but it also needed the power over yet another class of citizens.

Unlike Medicare and Social Security, this nationalization of one-sixth of the U.S. economy and placing of bureaucrats and IRS agents between you and your doctor was unpopular from the beginning. (IBD)

We live in a fundamentally different country from that which existed only days ago. The government now requires every American to buy health insurance. The Constitution has been attacked, interpreted in a way beyond its original intent. Therefore, we must change it. (Larry Elder, IBD)

WASHINGTON - The H1N1 swine flu virus may have been new to humanity in many ways but in one key feature its closest relative was the 1918 pandemic virus, researchers reported on Wednesday.

Their findings could point to better ways to design vaccines and help explain why the swine flu pandemic largely spared the elderly.

"This study defines an unexpected similarity between two pandemic-causing strains of influenza," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement. (Reuters)

The email conversations at the heart of 'Climategate' suggest a campaign to nobble journals, marginalise climate-change sceptics and withhold data from other researchers, says Andrew Montford

The leaking, or perhaps hacking, of hundreds of emails from the servers of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia late last year has thrown the already turbulent world of climatology into turmoil. The significance of the emails is hotly disputed, but sceptics of the so-called consensus position allege that they contain evidence of the undermining of the peer-review process, attempts to pressurise journals, the withholding of data and code from outsiders, and at least one episode of the manipulation of results.

The accusations and denials will fly for months to come. So far, no fewer than five inquiries have been announced into various aspects of what has come to be known as Climategate, and some of these will not report until the middle of the year. However, regardless of the outcome, the affair raises ethical issues that will be of interest far beyond the narrow confines of climate science. Some of the most important concern the world of academic publishing. (Times Higher Education)

SAN FRANCISCO (Private Equity Week) - Startups focused on treatments for metabolic disorders - one of the key contributing factors in obesity - have raised significant sums of venture capital in recent months.

For these startups, developing treatments for weight disorders is less about controlling the calories consumed and more about focusing on the metabolic systems that regulate how the body uses food. (Reuters)

Up to a third of breast cancer cases could be avoided if women ate less and exercised more, researchers claim.

Experts believe more than 14,000 women a year would probably not develop the disease if they had adopted healthier behaviour from an early age.

Modern lifestyles which feature regular drinking, lack of exercise and increased obesity are fuelling the rise of the disease, the European Breast Cancer Conference heard yesterday. (Daily Mail)

NEW YORK - Obesity compounds the harmful effects of heavy drinking on the liver, new research in more than 9,000 Scottish men shows.

Based on the findings, the investigators argue that lower limits for "safe" alcohol consumption in heavier people may be necessary. (Reuters Health)

ROCHESTER, N.Y., March 25 -- Chronic job stress and lack of physical activity are strongly associated with being overweight or obese, U.S. researchers said.

However, researchers also found that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables did little to offset the effect of chronic job stress on weight gain among the employees, who were mostly sedentary. (UPI)

Bad news for the high fructose corn syrup industry. A new study led by a Princeton University research team suggests that high fructose corn syrup may be at least partially responsible for the increase in the obesity rate in the United States.

The study published online March 18 by the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior showed consumption of high fructose corn syrup caused more weight gain in lab animals than table sugar when both sweeteners were consumed in equal quantity.

In addition, long term consumption of high fructose corn syrup caused abnormal increases in body fat, particularly in the abdomen, and an increase in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. Both are signs of metabolic syndrome. (foodconsumer)

A research team at Princeton University demonstrated that “rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup [HFCS] gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.”

“This is contrary to many other studies that show that the metabolism of HFCS is the same as that of sucrose,” says Dr. Ross. “It isn’t even concordant with other animal studies.”

“There seems to be a campaign to show that HFCS is a major cause of obesity and that obesity will somehow cease to be a problem if we just switch to sugar,” says Dr. Whelan. “Of course, that’s completely false. Even Dr. Marion Nestle, who is often a critic of the food industry, is skeptical about this study.”

“If people want to switch from HFCS to lose weight, they should switch to non-nutritive sweeteners such as Sweet & Low, NutraSweet, Splenda, and other safe alternatives available in diet sodas,” says Stier. “If your goal is to lose weight, do not switch to sugar, since it has the same number of calories as HFCS.” (Curtis Porter, ACSH)

It seems like everywhere we turn — whether it’s bans on school bake sales, required calorie counts in fast food chains, or First Lady Michelle Obama toiling in her White House garden — we are being told to watch our weight. There’s even the national Campaign to End Obesity, which is “dedicated to reversing America’s costliest medical condition” and advocates for “federal policies that promote healthy weight.”

Encouraging healthy lifestyles is important, but are these campaigns placing more stress and even a stigma on the obese? What sorts of public initiatives can promote good eating habits without possibly resulting in discrimination against overweight people? (New York Times)

LONDON - Teenagers are programed to take risks because they enjoy the thrill of dangerous situations more than others, British scientists said on Wednesday.

The findings may explain why adolescents engage in activities like drug-taking, fighting and unsafe sex.

"The onset of adolescence marks an explosion in 'risky' activities - from dangerous driving, unsafe sex and experimentation with alcohol, to poor dietary habits and physical inactivity," said Sarah-Jayne Blakemore of University College London's Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, a co-author of the study.

She said these types of behaviors contribute to the so-called "health paradox" of adolescence, when a lifetime peak in physical health coincides with a period of relatively high health risks and death rates. (Reuters)

NEW YORK - Some studies have suggested that moderate drinkers have a lower risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, and now new findings link the habit to a slower progression of the joint disease. (Reuters Health)

BOULDER -- The economic growth across much of Asia comes with a troubling side effect: pollutants from the region are being wafted up to the stratosphere during monsoon season. The new finding, in a study led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, provides additional evidence of the global nature of air pollution and its effects far above Earth's surface.

The international study is being published Thursday in Science Express. It was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor, together with NASA and the Canadian Space Agency.

Using satellite observations and computer models, the research team determined that vigorous summertime circulation patterns associated with the Asian monsoon rapidly transport air upward from the Earth's surface. Those vertical movements provide a pathway for black carbon, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and other pollutants to ascend into the stratosphere, about 20-25 miles above the Earth's surface.

"The monsoon is one of the most powerful atmospheric circulation systems on the planet, and it happens to form right over a heavily polluted region," says NCAR scientist William Randel, the lead author. "As a result, the monsoon provides a pathway for transporting pollutants up to the stratosphere."

Once in the stratosphere, the pollutants circulate around the globe for several years. Some eventually descend back into the lower atmosphere, while others break apart.

The study suggests that the impact of Asian pollutants on the stratosphere may increase in coming decades because of the growing industrial activity in China and other rapidly developing nations. In addition, climate change could alter the Asian monsoon, although it remains uncertain whether the result would be to strengthen or weaken vertical movements of air that transport pollutants into the stratosphere.

Randel says more research is needed into the possible effects of the pollutants. When sulfur rises into the stratosphere, it can lead to the creation of small particles called aerosols that are known to influence the ozone layer. The monsoon transport pathway may also have effects on other gases in the stratosphere, such as water vapor, that affect global climate by influencing the amount of solar heat that reaches Earth. (NCAR/UCAR)

Agriculture needs revolutionary change to confront threats such as global warming and end hunger in developing nations without adding to the ranks of the obese, an international study showed on Thursday.

The report said South Asia and Africa were "battlegrounds for poverty reduction" as the world population rose to a peak in 2050. Prospects for quick advances in curbing hunger are better for India and Bangladesh than sub-Saharan Africa, it said.

Funded by groups including the World Bank and the European Commission, the report said agricultural research needed reforms "as radical as those that occurred during industrial and agricultural revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries."

Research needs to be increased, and a fragmented "seed-to-table" food production system needs to be overhauled to improve cooperation between small-scale farmers, governments, companies, scientists, civil society groups and others.

The report noted estimates that net investments of $83 billion a year, at 2009 prices, were needed in developing countries to meet U.N. projections of 2050 food demand. "That is an increase of almost 50 percent over current levels," it said.

The world population is projected to rise to 9 billion by 2050 from 6.8 billion now. Between 1.0 and 1.5 billion people now live in poverty. (Reuters)

Scientists may have made an "a-maize-ing" discovery that could lead to higher corn yields in the United States. In a new research report published in the March 2010 issue of the journal Genetics scientists used tropical maize from Mexico and Thailand to discover chromosome regions responsible for detecting seasonal changes in flowering time (called the "photoperiod response"). This discovery may lead to higher crop yields, improved disease resistance, and heartier plants able to withstand severe weather. As one of the United States' largest crops, corn is used for food, feed, sweetener, fuel, plastics, and more. (ScienceDaily)

Republican Sen. James Inhofe today threw cold water on plans to put a new carbon fee on transportation fuels as part of climate change legislation being negotiated in the Senate.

The idea -- advocated by ConocoPhillips and other oil companies -- has gained traction with the three senators writing a new climate change bill.

They have abandoned a House-passed plan to force refiners to buy pollution permits to cover the carbon dioxide released when consumers burn transportation fuels in cars, trucks and planes. Instead, they are considering a so-called "linked carbon fee" on jet fuels and gasoline that consumers would pay to airlines and at pumping stations.

"What they're talking about is an increased gas tax," said Inhofe, R-Okla., who used an Environment and Public Works hearing on transportation to press administration officials on the issue.

John D. Porcari, the deputy secretary of transportation, stood by the administration's position that a gas tax would suppress the nation's economic recovery.

"As we are in the beginning stages of a recovery, it is as important as ever to make sure that recovery is accelerated in every way possible," Porcari said. (Houston Chronicle)

E&E Daily reports this morning that Obama administration officials have met with Kerry-Graham-Lieberman to prepare an April push for the-tax-formerly-known-as-cap-and-trade.

That’s very good timing for reasons I’ll explain as the moment nears. Also timing well, on the heels of this report, is a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal-Europe which, in the words of Open Europe’s daily update, “looks at the EU’s emissions trading scheme for carbon and argues that it is "a cautionary tale in how quickly environmental policy engineering degrades into rent-seeking for the fortunate few.”

You Gamecocks need to explain to your neighbors the bag of magic beans that their senior senator is chasing. I’m not claiming that Senator Graham is listening to his constituents of late, just that it may be worth one last effort to educate him and his staff.

Then again, maybe this explains what he is up to: he's been cuddling up with GE. (Chris Horner, Planet Gore)

In response to GE's recent announcement of its sponsorship commemorating the Centennial Celebration of President Ronald Reagan's birth, today the Free Enterprise Project of the National Center for Public Policy Research is criticizing GE CEO Jeff Immelt for exploiting Reagan's legacy to curry favor with conservatives.

"I'm outraged over Immelt's shameless exploitation of President Reagan's historic presidency to improve GE's reputation among conservatives. Reagan is the champion of conservatives because he fought for liberty and limited government. In contrast, Immelt uses GE's vast lobbying resources to expand the size and role of government in order to create markets for its products and loot Americans of their liberty," said Tom Borelli, Ph.D., Director of the National Center for Public Research's Free Enterprise Project.

Borelli notes that GE is an aggressive supporter of cap-and-trade legislation and that the company played a key role in passing the Waxman-Markey climate change bill last year. GE hopes the capping of carbon emissions would force demand for its renewable energy products such as wind turbines and solar panels. With cap-and-trade currently stalled in the Senate, GE lobbyists are now writing energy legislation for Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that would mandate that an increasing amount of electricity be derived from renewable energy sources. (National Center)

WASHINGTON — Less than a year ago, cap and trade was the policy of choice for tackling climate change.

Environmental groups and their foes in industry joined hands to embrace the approach, a market-driven system that sets a ceiling on global warming pollution while allowing companies to trade permits to meet it. President Obama praised it by name in his first budget, and the authors of the House climate and energy bill passed last June largely built their measure around it.

Today, the concept is in wide disrepute, with opponents effectively branding it “cap and tax,” and Tea Party followers using it as a symbol of much of what they say is wrong with Washington.

Mr. Obama dropped all mention of cap and trade from his current budget. And the sponsors of a Senate climate bill likely to be introduced in April, now that Congress is moving past health care, dare not speak its name. (John M. Broder, NYT)

TRENTON, N.J. - March 25 - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has taken a wrecking ball to the state's touted Global Warming Response Act, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In recent weeks, the Christie administration has blocked required reporting from greenhouse gas sources, diverted $300 million in Clean Energy Funds dedicated to energy efficiency and proposed to zero out the state's Office of Climate Change and Energy. (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER))

As climate change emerged as a top issue on the national scene a few years ago, it had one unusual quality: The response to it showed surprising signs of bipartisan support.

Two or three years ago, Republicans such as Sen. John McCain and Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Charlie Crist played nearly as prominent a role as Al Gore in advocating a robust regulatory response.

No more. Climate hasn't yet become as partisan an issue as, say, health care and taxes. But it's getting there. (NPR)

Economic contraction and move away from fossil fuels saw overall emissions fall from 533m tonnes to 481m tonnes in 2009

The recession and a switch from coal to nuclear power helped produce a dramatic drop in Britain's greenhouse gas emissions over the last year, new government figures show. (The Guardian)

Each household has ended up paying £45 for the free energy saving light bulbs that have been sent to them by their electricity supplier, according to a leading watchdog,

More than 200 million free energy-saving light bulbs have been sent to households over the last two years by energy suppliers. The mass mail-out was caused by gas and electricity suppliers trying to hit Government targets to reduce carbon emissions.

However, Which?, the consumer watchdog has calculated that each household has ended paying £45 each through higher energy bills to fund the scheme, even though many consumers objected to being sent the bulbs. Many complained about having to go to the Post Office to collect what they thought was a parcel, only to find it was a bulb that did not even fit any of their lamps.

"Consumers unwittingly paid for them to help energy companies avoid fines," the Which? report said.

The bulbs were sent by all of the big six suppliers: British Gas, EDF, Eon, Npower, Scottish & Southern and Scottish Power. They were sent out because they all had to sign up to the Carbon Emissions Reduction Taget (CERT), set by the Government in an attempt to force companies to improve their green credentials.

Companies had various options of how they hit their targets to reduce carbon emissions, but if they failed to hit their targets they could be fined 10 per cent of their turnover. The companies were, crucially, allowed to pass on the costs of the scheme to customers. (TDT)

Current efforts to deny climate science are part of an organized campaign that dates back 20 years, when the fossil fuel industry first formed a lobbying apparatus to stifle action on global warming, the environment group Greenpeace said on Wednesday.

In a report titled "Dealing in Doubt: The Climate Denial Industry and Climate Science," the group accused ExxonMobil of being the ringleader of what it called a "campaign of denial." (solveclimate)

In the wake of the Oxfam/Prefero report, we now have Greenpeace weighing in with a report headed: "Dealing in Doubt: The Climate Denial Industry and Climate Science. A Brief History of Attacks on Climate Science, Climate Scientists and the IPCC."

It would seem from the warmist obsession with such events that they are hurting grievously. They seem to be devoting far more attention to this issue than on the other side of the fence, where the debate is still largely on the science and related matters.

However, despite our criticisms of the Prefero report (what we know of it), it shines out as a paragon of virtue compared with the Greenpeace effort, which could best be described as a lengthy rant against the Machiavellian machinations of "Big Oil".

Purporting to describe "20 years of organised attacks on climate science, scientists and the IPCC", it offers what it believes to be "some of the key moments in this campaign of denial started by the fossil fuel industry, and traces them to their sources" – then concluding that "the correct response to attacks on climate science is scepticism."

Fixated by a fictional network of influence (pictured above) and especially Exxon Mobile money and its payments to a range of think-tanks, it picks on, amongst others, the Canadian-based Fraser Institute, delivering this commentary which demonstrates quite how far off-beam the analysis really is:

Unlike the IPCC, which receives funding only from the UN system and relies almost totally on voluntary input from the majority of those who work on it, the Fraser Institute’s team of "experts" included several scientists with direct connections with industry front groups and conservative think tanks, none of whom appear to have published any peer-reviewed articles on global warming.

The issue here is its complete misperception of the nature of the funding of IPCC personnel, some insight to which was given in our earlier post. There we noted that, amongst other payments., £330,187 had been given by Defra to Professor Martin Parry personally, to fund his work as Co-chair of Working group II.

The department had also paid £1,436,162 to "provide the scientific and administrative Technical Support Unit (TSU) for Working Group II (WGII), and an entirely separate sum of £1,144,738 to WGII TSU as part of the UK's " international commitment to provide technical support on climate change."

In all, this meant that the scientists and experts who "volunteered their time" on WGII were paid to the tune of nearly £3 million (£2,921,777) by British taxpayers alone – which does not of course include the sums paid by other nations and the production costs, or the payments by the IPCC directly.

Therein lies a puzzle. The arrangement where national governments – and especially the US government – pays its people quite healthy amounts to attend the IPCC, is hardly a secret. These scientists may have volunteered, but very few of the key writers are doing it for nothing. It is, therefore, very difficult to believe that the authors of this Greenpeace report are unaware of what is happening.

On the other hand, though, we are seeing clues from an increasing number of sources – this report included - which seem to indicate something amazing. The warmists could really be as ignorant as they appear to be. (EU Referendum)

'Dracula's in charge of the blood bank'

Exclusive The peer leading the second Climategate enquiry at the University of East Anglia serves as a director of one of the most powerful environmental networks in the world, according to Companies House documents - and has failed to declare it.

Lord Oxburgh, a geologist by training and the former scientific advisor to the Ministry of Defence, was appointed to lead the enquiry into the scientific aspects of the Climategate scandal on Monday. But Oxburgh is also a director of GLOBE, the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment. (Andrew Orlowski, The Register)

Unfortunately, I had to miss this week’s biennial Globe Foundation conference on business and the environment. Set in Vancouver, Globe is the greatest show on Earth (or at least in North America) for green policy wonks, eco consultants, aggressively growth-oriented NGOs and corporate rent seekers (all delegates carbon-neutralized). There’s no more beautiful place to bask in the notion that the world is going to environmental hell without more government regulation and subsidy, or to reflect on how much money is to be made from promoting and exploiting undefinable “sustainability.”

I attended my first Globe shindig ten years ago. The highlight (at least for me) was the announcement by Alberta utility TransAlta that it would be seeking carbon dioxide emission credits by corking cattle farts in Uganda.

Two items conspicuously absent from the agenda were whether climate science was sound and whether Kyoto commitments to slash emissions (none more rigorous and unreachable than those made by Canada) made any sense.

It is becoming difficult to keep pace with the speed at which the global warming scam is now unravelling. The latest reversal of scientific “consensus” is on livestock and the meat trade as a major cause of global warming – one-fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions, according to eco-vegetarian cranks. Now a scientific report delivered to the American Chemical Society says it is nonsense. The Washington Times has called it “Cowgate”. (Gerald Warner, TDT))

NEW DELHI: The government might have backed R K Pachauri, the beleaguered chairman of UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but it has also sent a long and detailed advisory on how the panel could improve its operations.

The note is bound to be seen as a veiled criticism of the panel that has been under attack for producing sub-standard reports. (Times of India)

Perhaps the scientists of the XXII century will have learned that reputation means truly nothing, in the realms of proper science. Especially after the invention of marketing. (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)

The next parliament is the last one that can meet the 80% cut by 2050 target. Whoever wins the general election must tackle climate change immediately ( Jonathon Porritt, The Guardian)

Attack of the Killer Orange Groves? The Day of The Palm Triffids? London’s California Horror?

People are spending thousands of pounds every year to get from Britain to somewhere sunny, and the thought of having it all at home might as well entice a good increase in GHG emissions…

National Trust: Heavenly (?) Britain today

National Trust: Hellish (??) Britain +2C

National Trust: Hellish (????) Britain +4C

Given the huge amount of money at stake in the Amazon forest, it is entirely unsurprising that the warmists have been more than usually strident in defending their turf, as I noted in a recent post.

Such is their desperation though that they have now fronted Simon Lewis, the scientist cited by Jonathan Leake in his "Amazongate" article in The Sunday Times of 31 January, to make a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission.

The complaint is very publicly aired in The Guardian and more fully in a warmist blog, setting out the casus belli.

As readers will recall, the essence of the story was that the IPCC made the unsubstantiated claim that up to 40 percent of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to "even a slight reduction in precipitation" and had thereby overstated the threat of climate change to the rainforest.

Bizarrely, Lewis is not complaining about the fact that the claim is unsubstantiated in the IPCC report. Rather, he asserts that, despite the lack of a supporting reference, the claim is still correct, something he drew to Leake's attention prior to the publication of the article. And it is Leake's failure to inform the readers of that assertion that forms the substance of the complaint.

Lewis thus says in his PCC complaint that "the IPCC statement itself was scientifically defensible and correct, merely that [it used] the incorrect reference... To state otherwise is to materially mislead the reader." Leake is being censured not for what he did write, but what he didn't.

The sin is compounded, according to Lewis, by Leake's failure to acknowledge a pre-publication claim by WWF that their report, on which the IPCC had based its claim, was missing an essential reference – left out by error. Had that been included, the claim would have been supported.

And here we begin to descend into low farce. As it turns out, the missing WWF reference - they tell us is to a publication called Fire in the Amazon, itself not peer-reviewed and produced by another advocacy group, the Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (IPAM).

Thus, there are a series of errors here. First, the IPCC cited a study by an advocacy group (WWF) to support its claim. Second, it failed to notice that the claim in the study was unreferenced. Thirdly, the actual reference, had it been used, was to a non-peer-reviewed source.

As to Lewis's claim that the IPCC statement itself was "scientifically defensible and correct", if that is the case, then he seems to be having extraordinary difficulty in proving it.

For sure, as he says, "there is a wealth of scientific evidence suggesting that the Amazon is vulnerable to reductions in rainfall". There are also numerous papers which suggest all manner of figures as to the areas of forest at risk, from diverse causes. But nowhere is there a peer-reviewed paper, or any combination of papers, that supports the very specific IPCC claim, in its entirety.

Without a definitive paper, therefore, all that is left for Lewis to do is point us to a press release or ... a press release. "As a professional scientist I have to clear this mess up, it's important to protect my reputation in terms of providing accurate scientific information to the public," he adds.

And that is what it has come to - death by press release, the arbiter of choice becoming the press complaints commission. (EU Referendum)

I feel embarrassment for John Cook, Skeptical Science author, for two reasons (neither concerning his rather disturbing photograph). First of all the very existence of such a site seems to be a loud scream at all that has gone wrong with the IPCC. If Mr Cook feels it necessary to spend as much time as he does on the topic, obviously he should be the first one to agree that the IPCC has been a communication failure.

(not that he’s really any better himself at that: by stating that “eventually, the scientific reality will be so in our faces that inaction will be impossible“, Cook is confirming that “the scientific reality” is currently not “so in our faces” as his scholarly lists of scientific papers appear to suggest)

The second reason I find Skeptical Science a disaster is that all it is ever going to tell us is that AGW is a self-consistent theory and there has been plenty of papers written on the topic. That can only highlight what will forever be missing: the science that was prevented to be published, the open questions, the competing claims within AGW orthodoxy.

In fact, one of the comments at dotEarth (#15) pretty much reveals the kind of person that would find the Skeptical Science site of high interest. The point is not to understand the world as it is, but to accumulate evidence for one’s own rationalization of what the world is presumed to be. Hence no space for any doubt whatsoever of any sort, not even for competing AGW interpretations, let alone for non-orthodox scientists (by definition, their work is “crap“).

Picasso-Brain-Strikes-the-Climate-Debate: Can't think. Can't reason.

Stefan Lewandowsky’s ABC article on climate change is headlined “Opinion Versus Evidence”. Then with dead-pan delivery, he lists the “evidence”, but it’s all…opinions.

The question of delusion is looming. I mean really, is this a cry for help? There are not many laws of reason that Stefan leaves unbroken. He appeals to authority, attacks the “man”, and talks about everything bar the evidence on climate change. Is he serious? “Trust me”, he says, the world is warming because AIDS is real, mass-murderer Ivan Milat was guilty, Lord Monckton is only a non-voting member of the House of Lords, a few skeptics are burko, 97% of paid climate scientists agree that we ought to be worried and keep paying them, someone has discussed the actual money that climate scientists earn (how could he!), and to top it off, the IPCC report is 3,000 pages long !

Not to mention that Google Scholar (“I’m so technical”) finds lots of hits (thanks to Vice President Al Gore, who arranged for the US Government to pay billions of dollars to his favorite researchers, and who also is on the Google advisory team), plus the world has got warmer in the last 150 years. So carbon must have done it, eh?

Shock me. This is science by smear, confusion, obtuse topic, and irrelevant points. Not that we haven’t seen it all before, but it’s coming from a professor. He’s really going a long long way out on a limb with baseless, unsubstantiated bluster, and lighting up in a neon sign that says: “Reason-Free Zone”. More » (Jo Nova)

Imagine another IPCC mistake. Where's the outrage when the agency lowballs the threat? ( Sharon Begley, Newsweek Web Exclusive)

Al Gore upsets nerds and pervs in one week, we discover that eco-terrorists are Riverdance fans and dirty hippies want you to stop bathing, of course.

This Saturday is Earth hour, so be a good skeptic and turn all the lights on and show the world you’re no hippie. (Daily Bayonet)

New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged. Photo - Das/AP

Note in the map below that the island was a river estuary, meaning it wasn’t made out of rock as claimed. It was made out of mud and sand. From Wikipedia:

The AP claim (probably from Seth Borenstein) is that global warming induced sea level rise has submerged the island, and that is complete nonsense.

Let’s look at sea level trends in the region. Here’s the NOAA Tides and Currents map of the area from their interactive web site. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

Inspired by this thread on the lack of data in the Arctic Ocean, I looked into how GISS creates data when there is no data.

GISS is the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a part of NASA. The Director of GISS is Dr. James Hansen. Dr. Hansen is an impartial scientist who thinks people who don’t believe in his apocalyptic visions of the future should be put on trial for “high crimes against humanity”. GISS produces a surface temperature record called GISTEMP. Here is their record of the temperature anomaly for Dec-Jan-Feb 2010 :

Figure 1. GISS temperature anomalies DJF 2010. Grey areas are where there is no temperature data.

Atmospheric CO₂ mixing ratios vary with latitude, regional specificities (as sea-side, continental or urban location) and time. Daily values may differ by more than 40%, as can be seen in the first figure showing CO₂ and wind speed time series at the meteorological station “meteoLCD” in Diekirch, Luxembourg (semi-rural environment).

Figure 1: CO₂ and wind speed values from 14 to 21 March 2010 in Diekirch, Luxembourg.

The causes of these hefty variations are many: magnitude of wind speed, periods of boundary layer inversions, changing plant behavior (photosynthetic CO₂ absorption or CO₂ emissions by plant respiration) and human activity. When the boundary layer is well mixed up, CO₂ levels tend to a reproducible minimum, which represents the regional background level and may even be close to the published global mean CO₂ mixing ratio. The mixing up of the near ground layer is essentially caused by the wind: a plot of CO₂ versus wind speed often has a typical boomerang shape, as shown in the second figure.

The background level can be thought as being the CO₂ mixing ratio that would exist if wind speed was infinite. Simple visual inspection, or better, fitting the data to an exponential function of the type CO₂ = a + b*exp(-c*windspeed) delivers this asymptotic CO₂ level. In the example above, the model is statistically significant (R² = 0.64) and suggests a regional background of 390 ppm (to be compared for instance to the 2009 seasonal corrected mean Mauna Loa level of approx. 388 ppm).

The CO₂ versus wind speed plot can also be used as a first step to validate historic CO₂ measurements, made by chemical methods. One example is the very careful measurements done from 1939 to 1940 by W. Kreutz in the town of Giessen, Germany. Kreutz used a chemical gas analyzer having an accuracy better than 1.5% and also recorded the wind speed. The exponential fit points to a very high asymptotic level of 398 ppm, well in excess to the consensus value of 310 ppm derived from the ice-cores.

This CO₂ background problem is studied in a peer reviewed paper I presented with E. Beck as coauthor (Beck is a specialist of historical CO₂ measurements) at the online conference Klima2009 organized in Nov. 2009 by the University of Applied Sciences of Hamburg, Germany. Our paper “Accurate estimation of CO₂background level from near-ground measurements at non-mixed environments” was rewarded “Best Paper” among the 103 contributions. A slightly edited version will be published in an upcoming book “Social, Economic and Political Aspects of Climate Change” (editor: Prof. Walter Leal, Springer Verlag).

Britain must increase its efforts to adapt infrastructure and homes to cope with the effects of climate change, parliamentary committee warns ( Press Association)

Globe conference panellists optimistic that technology works

VANCOUVER - The cost of electricity generated from coal will increase relative to renewable energy as the world develops and implements technologies that curtail carbon dioxide emissions at coal-fired generating plants, international experts said on Thursday in Vancouver.

Panellists at Globe 2010 sessions on carbon capture and storage said the cost of removing CO2 from the emission stacks at coal plants adds to the price of power production — and that it’s important for both government and the public to accept higher energy costs as part of the price for managing climate change.

The International Energy Agency wants to see 20 carbon capture and storage facilities in place by 2020, on the premise that the technology is essential to curtailing CO2 emissions that are believed by most of the world’s scientists to be a primary cause of global warming — and to slow the pace at which the greenhouse gas is accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere. ( Vancouver Sun)

Semi-annual magazine-style directory lists companies doing business in the Far North

Anchorage, Alaska – March 25, 2010 – Anchorage-based Petroleum News has published its first edition of the Arctic Oil & Gas Directory for 2010. The 64-page publication can be viewed online.

Published twice a year, the full color magazine contains news, profiles, standalone photos, and listings that describe the companies doing business in the Arctic have to offer the oil and gas industry in this remote part of the world.

The latest directory cover shows three muskox next to a drilling rig in northern Alaska. The photo was taken by Judy Patrick while on a photo shoot east of the Sag River near the western border of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the winter of 2009.

Alaska’s original muskoxen, a stocky, long-haired animal with cloven hooves, originally disappeared in the mid to late 1800s as a result of overhunting. The animals were re-introduced in ANWR in 1969.

A comprehensive desk reference for anyone wanting information on companies doing business in the Arctic, the directory is offered free online, as well as distributed to Petroleum News subscribers and handed out at conferences in Alaska, Canada and the U.S. Lower 48 states.

As debates about energy grow more intense, Americans need dependable, objective, and authoritative energy information. The National Academies, advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine, provide the facts about energy—a complex issue that affects us as individuals and as a nation. (National Academies)

Energy touches our lives in countless ways and its costs are felt when we fill up at the gas pump, pay our home heating bills, and keep businesses both large and small running. There are long-term costs as well: to the environment, as natural resources are depleted and pollution contributes to global climate change, and to national security and independence, as many of the world's current energy sources are increasingly concentrated in geopolitically unstable regions. The country's challenge is to develop an energy portfolio that addresses these concerns while still providing sufficient, affordable energy reserves for the nation.

The United States has enormous resources to put behind solutions to this energy challenge; the dilemma is to identify which solutions are the right ones. Before deciding which energy technologies to develop, and on what timeline, we need to understand them better.

America's Energy Future analyzes the potential of a wide range of technologies for generation, distribution, and conservation of energy. This book considers technologies to increase energy efficiency, coal-fired power generation, nuclear power, renewable energy, oil and natural gas, and alternative transportation fuels. It offers a detailed assessment of the associated impacts and projected costs of implementing each technology and categorizes them into three time frames for implementation. (NAP) Summary Edition

There is a growing sense of national urgency about the role of energy in long-term U.S. economic vitality, national security, and climate change. This urgency is the consequence of many factors, including the rising global demand for energy; the need for long-term security of energy supplies, especially oil; growing global concerns about carbon dioxide emissions; and many other factors affected to a great degree by government policies both here and abroad.

On March 13, 2008, the National Academies brought together many of the most knowledgeable and influential people working on energy issues today to discuss how we can meet the need for energy without irreparably damaging Earth's environment or compromising U.S. economic and national security-a complex problem that will require technological and social changes that have few parallels in human history.

The National Academies Summit on America's Energy Future: Summary of a Meeting chronicles that 2-day summit and serves as a current and far-reaching foundation for examining energy policy. The summit is part of the ongoing project 'America's Energy Future: Technology Opportunities, Risks, and Tradeoffs,' which will produce a series of reports providing authoritative estimates and analysis of the current and future supply of and demand for energy; new and existing technologies to meet those demands; their associated impacts; and their projected costs. The National Academies Summit on America's Energy Future: Summary of a Meeting is an essential base for anyone with an interest in strategic, tactical, and policy issues. Federal and state policy makers will find this book invaluable, as will industry leaders, investors, and others willing to convert concern into action to solve the energy problem. (NAP)

Despite the many benefits of energy, most of which are reflected in energy market prices, the production, distribution, and use of energy causes negative effects. Many of these negative effects are not reflected in energy market prices. When market failures like this occur, there may be a case for government interventions in the form of regulations, taxes, fees, tradable permits, or other instruments that will motivate recognition of these external or hidden costs.

The Hidden Costs of Energy defines and evaluates key external costs and benefits that are associated with the production, distribution, and use of energy, but are not reflected in market prices. The damage estimates presented are substantial and reflect damages from air pollution associated with electricity generation, motor vehicle transportation, and heat generation. The book also considers other effects not quantified in dollar amounts, such as damages from climate change, effects of some air pollutants such as mercury, and risks to national security.

While not a comprehensive guide to policy, this analysis indicates that major initiatives to further reduce other emissions, improve energy efficiency, or shift to a cleaner electricity generating mix could substantially reduce the damages of external effects. A first step in minimizing the adverse consequences of new energy technologies is to better understand these external effects and damages. The Hidden Costs of Energy will therefore be a vital informational tool for government policy makers, scientists, and economists in even the earliest stages of research and development on energy technologies. (NAP)

Hydro fracturing is a profitable method of natural gas extraction that uses large quantities of water and chemicals to free gas from underground rock formations. But New York City’s concerns that the practice would threaten its water supply have slowed a juggernaut that has been sweeping across parts of the northeastern United States. (Bruce Stutz, e360)

The transportation sector cannot continue on its current path: The volatility of oil prices threatens the U.S. economy, the large proportion of oil importation threatens U.S. energy security, and the massive contribution of greenhouse gases threatens the environment. The development of domestic sources of alternative transportation fuels with lower greenhouse emissions is now a national imperative.

Coal and biomass are in abundant supply in the United States and can be converted to liquid fuels that can be combusted in existing and future vehicles. Their abundant supply makes them attractive candidates to provide non-oil-based liquid fuels to the U.S. transportation system. However, there are important questions about the economic viability, carbon impact, and technology status of these options.

Liquid Transportation Fuels from Coal and Biomass provides a snapshot of the potential costs of liquid fuels from biomass by biochemical conversion and from biomass and coal by thermochemical conversion. Policy makers, investors, leaders in industry, the transportation sector, and others with a concern for the environment, economy, and energy security will look to this book as a roadmap to independence from foreign oil. With immediate action and sustained effort, alternative liquid fuels can be available in the 2020 time frame, if or when the nation needs them. (NAP)

By Pravin Gordhan
Monday, March 22, 2010

Today, the South African economy is two-thirds larger than it was in 1994, when Nelson Mandela took office as the country's first democratically elected president. With this growth has come strong new demand for electricity. Millions of previously marginalized South Africans are now on the grid. Unfortunately, as in other major emerging economies, supply has not kept pace.

Reserve margins are increasingly tight -- too tight for an energy-intensive economy such as South Africa's, whose mines and factories rely on steady supplies of competitively priced power. South Africa has weathered the global downturn better than many richer countries, but the majority of our people remain poor and unemployment stands at an unacceptable 24 percent. To sustain the growth rates we need to create jobs, we have no choice but to build new generating capacity -- relying on what, for now, remains our most abundant and affordable energy source: coal.

Because this is not the most auspicious time for our energy utility, Eskom, to be looking to finance a $50 billion capital program, we are approaching sources of funding we have hitherto left untapped, including the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank. But our application for a $3.75 billion World Bank loan faces stiff opposition. A strong body of opinion holds that multilateral development banks should be discouraged from funding coal-burning power projects with carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change. We share this concern but, after careful consideration, have concluded that the course we have chosen is the only responsible way forward. (Washington Post)

America's economy and lifestyles have been shaped by the low prices and availability of energy. In the last decade, however, the prices of oil, natural gas, and coal have increased dramatically, leaving consumers and the industrial and service sectors looking for ways to reduce energy use. To achieve greater energy efficiency, we need technology, more informed consumers and producers, and investments in more energy-efficient industrial processes, businesses, residences, and transportation.

As part of the America's Energy Future project, Real Prospects for Energy Efficiency in the United States examines the potential for reducing energy demand through improving efficiency by using existing technologies, technologies developed but not yet utilized widely, and prospective technologies. The book evaluates technologies based on their estimated times to initial commercial deployment, and provides an analysis of costs, barriers, and research needs. This quantitative characterization of technologies will guide policy makers toward planning the future of energy use in America. This book will also have much to offer to industry leaders, investors, environmentalists, and others looking for a practical diagnosis of energy efficiency possibilities. (NAP)

A component in the America's Energy Future study, Electricity from Renewable Resources examines the technical potential for electric power generation with alternative sources such as wind, solar-photovoltaic, geothermal, solar-thermal, hydroelectric, and other renewable sources. The book focuses on those renewable sources that show the most promise for initial commercial deployment within 10 years and will lead to a substantial impact on the U.S. energy system.

A quantitative characterization of technologies, this book lays out expectations of costs, performance, and impacts, as well as barriers and research and development needs. In addition to a principal focus on renewable energy technologies for power generation, the book addresses the challenges of incorporating such technologies into the power grid, as well as potential improvements in the national electricity grid that could enable better and more extensive utilization of wind, solar-thermal, solar photovoltaics, and other renewable technologies. (NAP)

Biofuel mandates in the U.S. suffer from a high-octane blend of politics and special interest agendas that have corrupted physical science, economic analysis, and the policy prescriptions alike. This is the predictable outcome when process and policy are de-linked from basic economics and marketplace realities. Unintended consequences and distortions always result.

Historian, professor and author Burton Folsom in his book, The Myth of the Robber Barons, makes an important distinction between “market entrepreneurs” and “political entrepreneurs.” Market entrepreneurs compete by utilizing their own funds, resources and private investment in an effort to create and market a superior product. Political entrepreneurs, on the other hand, fund their business models off of government subsidies, federal protections and vote buying.

This is a useful distinction to keep in mind when evaluating the perverse outcomes of the subsidized U.S. ethanol industry where the participants consist mainly of political entrepreneurs.

Corn-based ethanol and other U.S. feedstock biofuels programs are not supportable on economic, environmental nor logistical grounds. That is the conclusion of a recent comprehensive study by Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Fundamentals of a Sustainable Biofuels Policy. This report was previously cited by Ms. Caroline Boin in her recent post, in which she correctly labels the U.S. biofuels program a “scam” and little more than a sop to farm lobbies and corporate agri-business interests. In short, the Baker Institute study represents a clear indictment of the nonsense that passes for federal energy policy.

EISA called for production targets of 9 billion gal/year of biofuels in 2008 increasing to 36 billion gal/year by 2022. Corn ethanol is capped at 15 billion gal/year of this total but even that will be nearly impossible to reach due to significant logistical and commercial barriers that exist (aside from the fact that virtually no environmental benefits are derived from ethanol).

The Baker study identifies multiple reasons to question achievability of mandated volumes, claims of energy independence and alleged environmental benefits cited by ethanol advocates. A few are outlined below. [Read more →] (MasterResource)

The U.S. government would extend ethanol tax breaks and a hefty tariff on imports until 2016 under a bill unveiled by two dozen lawmakers on Thursday, reigniting the "food vs. fuel" debate.

Unless Congress acts, three of the four incentives will expire at the end of 2010. Sponsors say a long-term extension will assure a home-grown fuel supply and bring cellulosic ethanol, tabbed as the new-generation biofuel, into commercial production.

Foodmakers, meatpackers, environmentalists and budget hawks attacked the bill as a wasteful subsidy and a contribution to higher food prices by using food crops to make fuel. Brazilians said they can make ethanol cheaper and deserve a shot at the U.S. market. (Reuters)

Indonesia would have to clear about 700,000 hectares of forest, an area 10 times the size of Singapore, if it proceeds with plans for a vast agricultural estate in Papua province, an activist group said on Thursday.

Indonesia wants to develop the 1.2 million hectare (3 million acres) food estate in the Papua district of Merauke, the eastern-most part of Indonesia, to shore up supplies of rice, sugar, corn, soybean and beef and ensure more stable food prices.

The country has a rapidly growing population estimated at 240 million and wants to avoid rising food import bills. The government is trying to use more land for agricultural purposes to be self-sufficient. (Reuters)

Wampanoag Indians, citing cultural grounds, mount a spirited fight against America's first planned offshore wind turbine development.

Reporting from Oak Bluffs, Mass. - The Wampanoag Indians of southeastern Massachusetts welcomed the Pilgrims when they arrived on the Mayflower nearly 400 years ago. But now they're trying to stop another newcomer -- wind turbines.

Citing customs and religious practices recorded since the earliest contact with Europeans, two local tribes have blocked, at least for now, America's first planned offshore wind farm and the Obama administration's efforts to promote renewable sources of energy.

At issue is a private developer's plan to erect 130 wind turbine generators on a sandy shoal in the middle of Nantucket Sound, the scenic channel between Cape Cod and the resort islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.

Federal approval for Cape Wind, as the project is known, finally appeared on the horizon last fall after nine years of political battles, court challenges and regulatory reviews.

But then the indigenous tribes won an unexpected victory. On Jan. 4, the National Park Service ruled in favor of the Wampanoags that Nantucket Sound is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places as a "traditional cultural property," and thus is worthy of preservation.

The park service said the 440-foot-high towers would interfere with Wampanoag spiritual ceremonies, including greeting the sunrise with unobstructed views of the water.

The ruling also said excavations for the towers could disturb presumed Indian burial grounds that began to disappear under rising seas about 6,000 years ago. The shoal is now 30 feet beneath the waves.

The tribes, the Mashpee Wampanoag of Cape Cod and the Aquinnah Wampanoag of Martha's Vineyard, "emphasize that they believe that their people traversed, lived on and buried their dead, and otherwise used the land . . . before the land was submerged," the park service said. (Los Angeles Times)

General Electric Co. will invest 340 million euros ($453 million) in offshore wind technology in Europe until 2020, it said on Thursday.

Around 110 million euros will be invested in British turbine manufacturing and 105 million euros in engineering and production facilities in Germany, with a target of mass producing GE's new 4 megawatt (MW) offshore wind turbine as early as 2012. (Reuters)

The wind energy lobbyists love to claim that installing new wind turbines is the cheapest form of new electricity generation capacity. In fact, I heard that very claim while at a party here in Austin a few weeks ago. But as usual, there’s the hype and there’s the reality. [Read More] (Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune)

The nation has compelling reasons to reduce its consumption of oil and emissions of carbon dioxide. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) promise to contribute to both goals by allowing some miles to be driven on electricity drawn from the grid, with an internal combustion engine that kicks in when the batteries are discharged. However, while battery technology has made great strides in recent years, batteries are still very expensive.

Transitions to Alternative Transportation Technologies--Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles builds on a 2008 National Research Council report on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The present volume reviews the current and projected technology status of PHEVs; considers the factors that will affect how rapidly PHEVs could enter the marketplace, including the interface with the electric transmission and distribution system; determines a maximum practical penetration rate for PHEVs consistent with the time frame and factors considered in the 2008 Hydrogen report; and incorporates PHEVs into the models used in the hydrogen study to estimate the costs and impacts on petroleum consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. (NAP)

QUEENSLAND'S emerging coal seam gas industry is expected to produce potentially the biggest pollution issue faced in Australia, say farmers and conservationists.

To get to the gas, mining companies propose to drill as many as 20,000 wells across the state's best farm land over the next 10 years.

Premier Anna Bligh announced on Wednesday that a world-first $60 billion deal had been signed between the British BG Group and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation to draw 72 million tonnes of gas from the Surat Basin over the next 20 years.

Ms Bligh said it would boost the Darling Downs, with up to 4900 jobs in the Chinchilla-Miles area.

Wayne Newton, who farms near Dalby, said the industry would raise millions of tonnes of salt over the next 30 years.

Major environmental issues were not being addressed, including the potential depletion of Murray Darling Basin artesian aquifers and surface supplies.

"All the towns out here such as Dalby, Miles and Roma draw their drinking water from underground supplies," Mr Newton said.

"What is going to happen to that?" (Courier-Mail)

For all the political and economic uncertainties about health reform, at least one thing seems clear: The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago.

Over most of that period, government policy and market forces have been moving in the same direction, both increasing inequality. The pretax incomes of the wealthy have soared since the late 1970s, while their tax rates have fallen more than rates for the middle class and poor.

Nearly every major aspect of the health bill pushes in the other direction. This fact helps explain why Mr. Obama was willing to spend so much political capital on the issue, even though it did not appear to be his top priority as a presidential candidate. Beyond the health reform’s effect on the medical system, it is the centerpiece of his deliberate effort to end what historians have called the age of Reagan.

Speaking to an ebullient audience of Democratic legislators and White House aides at the bill-signing ceremony on Tuesday, Mr. Obama claimed that health reform would “mark a new season in America.” He added, “We have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care.”

The bill is the most sweeping piece of federal legislation since Medicare was passed in 1965. It aims to smooth out one of the roughest edges in American society — the inability of many people to afford medical care after they lose a job or get sick. And it would do so in large measure by taxing the rich. (NYT)

ATLANTA - The head of the U.N. World Health Organization on Wednesday praised U.S. healthcare reforms signed by President Barack Obama this week as a breakthrough, stepping into a sharp domestic political debate.

"The people in this country and their leaders are courageous. That (healthcare reform) is an unprecedented achievement," WHO Director General Margaret Chan said.

She was speaking to reporters after a lecture in which she argued that unrestricted market forces were limited as a means of redressing imbalances in global health care.

The reforms of the $2.5 trillion healthcare sector passed by Congress after months of heated debate will extend health insurance to 32 million Americans who currently have none.

It will also bar insurers from refusing coverage to people with preexisting medical conditions, expand the Medicaid government health insurance program for the poor and impose new taxes on the wealthy. (Reuters)

President Obama declared that the new health care law "is going to be affecting every American family." Except his own, of course.

The new health care law exempts the president from having to participate in it. Leadership and committee staffers in the House and Senate who wrote the bill are exempted as well. A weasel-worded definition of "staff" includes only the members' personal staff in the new system; the committee staff that drafted the legislation opted themselves out. Because they were more familiar with the contents of the law than anyone in the country, it says a lot that they carved out their own special loophole. Anyway, the law is intended to affect "ordinary Americans," according to Vice President Joe Biden (who - being a heartbeat away from the presidency - also is not covered), not Washington insiders. (The Washington Times)

Yesterday, President Obama signed his health spending bill into law promising the American people: “These reforms won’t give the government more control over your health care.” This statement is simply untrue, otherwise over 16,000 new IRS agents wouldn’t need to be hired to enforce the mandates. And if this was the case, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) wouldn’t need to introduce an amendment to the reconciliation bill that would “limit the amount of discretion given to the Secretary of Health and Human Services under the current bill to determine acceptable levels of coverage and services.” Continue reading... (The Foundry)

First: Congratulations to President Obama and the Democratic leadership. You won dirty against bipartisan opposition from both Congress and the majority of Americans. You've definitely polarized the country even more, and quite possibly bankrupted us, too. But hey, you won. Bubbly for everyone.

Simply, you have nationalized health care by proxy. Insurance companies are now heavily regulated government contractors. Way to get big business out of Washington and our lives! These giant corporations will clear a small, government-approved profit on top of their government-approved fees. Then, when health care costs rise -- and they will -- Democrats will insist, yet again, that the profit motive is to blame, and out from this ObamaCare Trojan horse will pour another army of liberals demanding a more honest version of single-payer.

The Obama administration has turned the insurance industry into the Blackwater of socialized medicine. (Jonah Goldberg, Townhall)

It's springtime, and with the enactment of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid health care monstrosity, repeal is in the air. And why not?

Supported by substantial popular majorities now energized as never before, congressional Republicans opposed the legislation unanimously, and the polls point unambiguously to substantial gains for the GOP this November.

And so we have several Republican members of Congress promising that the first bill to be taken up in 2011 by a Republican House of Representatives will repeal the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act."

Forget that Orwellian title of the ObamaCare law. Ignore the eternal truth that central planning — that's what the new law is, and no amount of obfuscation can change that reality — has never and cannot reduce costs or expand access to health care services. And shunt aside the fact that Mr. Obama will remain ensconced in the Oval Office, and that the Democrats are likely to retain a majority in the Senate.

The problem is that not all parts of the legislation are unpopular, and indeed several are supported by substantial majorities in the polls, and thus by Republicans. Moreover, repeal of some parts of the new law will exacerbate the already-massive adverse effects of those that remain, and there is little evidence that anyone has thought through how a partial repeal would work.

Consider the (clearly unconstitutional) individual mandate forcing everyone to buy health coverage. Republicans along with substantial majorities of the electorate oppose it. But the mandate is an implicit tax on the young and healthy, imposed so as to subsidize coverage for everyone else. (IBD)

Bernie Madoff took money from people who thought he'd invested it, gave some to others who thought it was a partial return on their earlier investments and kept much for himself. That's called a Ponzi scheme, and his $50 billion fraud was called the biggest ever. But it wasn't the biggest. Social Security and Medicare are much bigger ones.

These are trillion-dollar scams. Medicare has a $36 trillion unfunded liability. Social Security's is $8 trillion. There's no money to keep those promises. ( ohn Stossel, Townhall)

Kilotons of breathtaking imbeciles, mostly gathering around the environmentalist cult, claim that it is possible - or desirable - to build science upon 2-sigma observations.

If you don't know what it is, it is an observation where the "signal" is only twice as large as "noise", using a proper definition of their magnitude - yet it is claimed that the "signal" is real and means something. The probability that it is not real and the deviation arose by chance is 5% or so. (In reality, it may be much higher because of various biases, but let's generously assume it's 5%.) The idealized figure is actually closer to 4% but let us use the conventional figure 5%.

NEW YORK - Rates of certain birth defects appear higher than normal in one of the Ukraine regions most affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, according to a new study.

The findings, reported in the journal Pediatrics, stand in contrast to a 2005 U.N. report stating that there is no evidence of an increased risk of birth defects or other reproductive effects in areas contaminated by radiation from the Chernobyl accident.

The results point to a need for continuing research into birth defects in regions affected by chronic low-dose radiation from Chernobyl, according to researcher Dr. Wladimir Wertelecki of the University of Southern Alabama in Mobile.

"There has been a tendency to imply that the question is closed as far as the prenatal effects (of Chernobyl)," Wertelecki said in an interview. (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK - A salty diet may increase the risk of stomach cancer by 10 percent, South Korean researchers found in a study of more than 2 million people.

They found a "weak but positive" association between a preference for salt and an increased risk of stomach cancer.

Although the mechanisms by which salt may be involved in the development of stomach cancer remain unclear, "restricting salt intake is thought to be beneficial for preventing gastric cancer," Jeongseon Kim and colleagues from the National Cancer Center Research Institute in Goyang-si, South Korea, note in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Stomach cancer (or gastric cancer) is a major cancer in much of the world but not the United States. While gastric cancer is declining, it is still the most common cancer in Korea. Past studies have yielded conflicting results as to whether a salty diet causes gastric cancer, though most found an association between salt use and gastric cancer. (Reuters Health)

Whether due to advocacy or sloth, the failure of both academia and the MSM pose grave risks to the decision-making process of our country on food safety and all public policy matters.

If universities are biased and the media is lazy, how are we supposed to develop intelligent public policy? Food safety is a case in point.

The paper causing all the hullabaloo is titled “Health-Related Costs From Foodborne Illness In The United States,” and whatever the merits of the paper, the whole enterprise shows the utter collapse of both academic and journalistic standards and the difficulty this poses for the making of public policy. (Jim Prevor, PJM)

LONDON - Nordic scientists said on Wednesday they had found no evidence that screening women for breast cancer has any effect on death rates, adding to an already fierce international debate about routine testing.

In a study published in the British Medical Journal, researchers from Denmark and Norway said reductions in breast cancer death rates in regions with screening were the same or actually smaller than in areas where no women were screened.

"Our results are similar to what has been observed in other countries with nationally organised programmes," said Karsten Jorgensen of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen, who led the research.

"It is time to question whether screening has delivered the promised effect on breast cancer mortality."

A row blew up in the United States in last November after public health officials on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force questioned the value of screening mammograms for women under 40 and suggested raising the annual screening age to 50. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON - Women who eat lots of tuna, salmon and other foods rich in essential omega-3 oils might be less likely to develop endometriosis than those whose diets are loaded with trans fats, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

Endometriosis, which has no cure, can cause infertility. In endometriosis, pieces of the uterine lining grow outside the womb, sometimes sticking to other organs.

The type of fat in a woman's diet, rather than the total amount, may be a risk factor for endometriosis, an often debilitating and painful condition, researchers said in a study published online in the journal Human Reproduction. (Reuters)

NEW YORK - China now has more people with diabetes than any other country, a new report shows, making it clear that the nation's soaring economic growth is taking a toll on public health.

According to the report, more than 92 million adults in China have diabetes, and nearly 150 million more are well on their way to developing it. The disease is more common in people with large waistlines and in those who live in cities, the report indicates. (Reuters Health)

A survey of 200 sites in 20 countries around the world has found that bisphenol A, a synthetic compound that mimics estrogen and is linked to developmental disorders, is ubiquitous in Earth’s oceans.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is found mostly in shatter-proof plastics and epoxy resins. Most people have trace amounts in their bodies, likely absorbed from food containers. Its hormone-mimicking properties make it a potent endocrine system disruptor. (Brandon Keim, Wired)

THE Great Barrier Reef faces an environmental disaster if marine debris is swept out to sea, turning the cyclone-ravaged Whitsundays into a junkyard. ( Courier-Mail)

Biologists study whether sea creatures could be used to counteract damage to ecosystems

New designs for fish farms could keep them in the ocean and help restore damaged marine environments at the same time, says a biologist working on a five-year nationwide aquaculture project.

Marine biologists in New Brunswick and in B.C. are employing mussels, oysters, sea cucumbers, urchins and seaweed to dramatically increase the amount of food created by salmon farms, and they believe they can extract excess carbon and nitrogen pollution from the sea in the process.

Taking the aquaculture industry onto land could be a missed opportunity to do the Earth some good and help mitigate the impacts of global warming, according to Thierry Chopin, a marine biologist at the University of New Brunswick. Nitrogen from agricultural sources contributes to oxygen depletion in the world's oceans, resulting in huge dead zones in which nothing can grow. Fixing and storing carbon is believed to be key to fighting global warming.

"We have to think of extractive species as having a cleansing function in the ecosystem," Chopin explained. (Vancouver Sun)

More than 200,000 Ethiopians who rely on fishing and farming could become reliant on aid to survive if the government goes ahead with building Africa's biggest hydropower dam, an advocacy group said.

Ethiopia is building the 1.4 billion euro dam as part of a campaign to beat power shortages and become a power exporter.

The dam - Gibe III -- is expected to generate 1,800MW, almost doubling Ethiopia's current capacity of just under 2,000MW. (Reuters)

The environmentalists fighting to stop the construction of a huge dam in Ethiopia must have no regard for human life.

The Gibe III dam on the Omo River in Ethiopa, once completed, will be Africa’s second largest hydroelectric dam. The third stage in a five-part dam project, Gibe III is expected to extend electricity access to large swathes of the Ethiopian population, to raise per capita income levels, and to save lives by reducing the impact of droughts and floods. And yet, some environmentalists are not happy about this income-generating, life-changing and life-saving project, and have this week renewed their campaign to bring it to a halt.

Greens have opposed the Gibe III dam project from the outset, when construction first started in 2006. Now, a group of international campaigners has launched an online petition, urging Western donors and banks to withdraw their funding for the dam. They say it will negatively effect ecosystems and, in the words of International Rivers, one of the groups opposed to the dam, it will disrupt the livelihoods of ‘hundreds of thousands of indigenous farmers, herders and fishermen, who depend on [the Omo River’s] nourishing floods to sustain their most reliable sources of food’.

One such ‘nourishing flood’, in 2006, killed nearly 400 people and thousands of livestock. And according to the United Nations World Food Programme, the floods regularly inundate crops and have displaced over 20,000 people. The NGOs who are up in arms about the Gibe III dam, ostensibly because it will displace indigenous people, overlook the fact that the river itself will keep ruining lives unless human beings tame it. (Nathalie Rothschild, spiked)

Two U.S. senators who have been part of negotiations on climate change legislation this year said on Wednesday they disagree with the carbon emissions reduction approach being developed in a compromise bill.

Barack Obama | Green Business | COP15

Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell and Republican Senator Susan Collins late last year offered a streamlined "cap and dividend" bill to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

It is competing against a more complex "cap and trade" bill passed by the House of Representatives last June and a more limited cap and trade compromise being worked on by a bipartisan group of senators.

"We probably still have a difference of opinion on creation of trading platforms," Cantwell told reporters. "There are some who believe that you actually have to have trading to have liquidity," she added. "I think a clear price market signal without volatility will unleash the investment."

But Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican working on the cap and trade bill, expressed strong opposition to the Cantwell-Collins approach for pricing carbon.

"If you're a southeastern state or a midwestern state where you're coal heavy, their approach basically collects money from your constituents and sends it to hydropower states and other states. It's sort of a redistribution of wealth I don't think people in my part of the world would accept," Graham said.

If the standoff continues it could further delay the climate bill. Democratic Senator John Kerry, the leading proponent of the compromise legislation, needs every vote he can get amid concerns from lawmakers from states whose economies are heavily reliant on fossil fuels. (Reuters)

California's economy will not be damaged by the state's 2006 climate change law and some sectors could thrive, a state agency said in a report on Wednesday that counters fears in the business community that the measure will kill jobs and economic growth.

The report from the state Air Resources Board, the chief regulator of the law, forecast higher energy costs but said these would be offset by greater overall energy efficiency. (Reuters)

Dr. Art Robinson, President of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, has put his hat in the ring to run against Peter DeFazio in the 4th Congressional District in Oregon. He will put forth energy issues in this campaign and may draw national attention. Here is a chance to put a knowledgeable scientist in Congress and put a stop to all this nonsense.

Environmental Regulations: While U.S. politicians try to keep the idea alive here, the French have announced cancellation of their version of cap-and-trade. They say it will hurt their competitiveness. Vive la France. (IBD)

French president accused of pandering to eco-scepticism after government backs down over carbon tax (The Guardian)

The Register is reporting that Lord Oxburgh forgot to declare another competing interest:

Reader, Cumbrian Lad, has been doing a sterling job researching the GLOBE organisation mentioned in earlier postings today, and which counts Lord Oxburgh as a director. It was a bit of an oversight for Lord O not to mention this, as GLOBE turns out to be quite an interesting body.

GLOVE's corporate structure and funding are not clear from its website, but Cumbrian Lad has discovered that it is a private limited company. Interesting that - an organisation of legislators, run as a private company. He has also obtained copies of its accounts and other information from Companies House.

The longtime Al Gore adviser, with his taxpayer-funded salary, finds the public's right to know how their money is spent to be unacceptable.

A “tipping point” appears to be at hand for James Hansen, the longtime Al Gore adviser and godfather of the modern global warming movement.

Hansen now seems so disgusted with the conditions of his employment — on the taxpayer dime — that he no longer sees the conditions as acceptable.

As PJM readers know, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) got caught sexing up the post-2000 U.S. temperatures. I asked NASA for emails and other documents regarding their discussions about this. After more than two years, NASA coughed up some emails under the Freedom of Information Act, revealing internal discussions (and one particularly revealing external conversation) about losing data and other credibility issues. They also revealed discussion about NASA’s data being less reliable than — and indeed reliant upon — the non-existent Climategate temperature history from Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU).

These existed among other revelations (affirmations?), such as absurdly chummy relationships with establishment media and the ducking of questions from the less friendly reporters. (Additionally, there were some other discoveries which we will explore here at PJM and PJTV in coming weeks.)

Now, our FOIAs and those of others are apparently overwhelming Dr. Hansen’s media appearance and screed-writing time. He has taken to NASA’s website for yet another display of angst over his being one of the few honest visionaries fending off the dark forces working to subvert global salvation. Though this time, he doesn’t condemn those such as myself for crimes against humanity, a pleasant surprise.

As the FOIA emails show, Hansen, et al spend a significant amount of time spinning the press and massaging posts for the RealClimate website (which was established to defend the indefensible “Hockey Stick” and to attack author Michael Crichton), in addition to dealing with FOIA requests.

Only one of these activities is a required condition of Hansen’s employment. (PJM will be publishing some upcoming additional examples of GISS wasting taxpayer time and money.)

I’m curious what Hansen refers to with his statements regarding how to access Makiko Sato’s password-protected research directory.

Hansen says his team, followed by NASA’s FOIA team, inadvertently let some information slip that they didn’t want to be public. (And naturally, he does not blame his people for the error). I believe Hansen here — it probably wasn’t a conscious act to turn over the admission that NASA’s data set no longer exists for any legal or policy purpose.

However, given Hansen’s history and his use of the speculative “most if not all,” is this just another attempt by Hansen to equate those who disagree with or annoy him with the criminal and unethical?

How exactly was the described material accessed? Is Hansen’s claim regarding the event true, or a fabrication? He does have a history of moonbattery, including his insistence that presidents named George Bush have muzzled him — even as he gave countless interviews, and numerous FOIA emails pay homage to him as a media king.

Further, recall the spin, post-Climategate, was that the scientists caught subverting transparency statutes — among other transgressions — merely had to learn to “communicate better.” This spin continues here, as does the persistent claim that their messages are “out of context.” This was demonstrably untrue in the case of the “Climategate” emails — posted in their entirety within their relevant email thread — as it is with the GISS emails which we posted in full.

Analyses are available at GISS’s website, but admissions about the unreliability of those analyses were only available through FOIA, which seems to be what has Hansen’s attention.

My advice to Hansen: if this condition of your lucrative public employment is, in hindsight and amid all of the revelations, now no longer acceptable to you, you are the person best positioned to do something about that.

Christopher Horner is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

UN specialists are to look again at the contribution of meat production to climate change, after claims that an earlier report exaggerated the link.

A 2006 report concluded meat production was responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions - more than transport.

The report has been cited by people campaigning for a more vegetable-based diet, including Sir Paul McCartney.

But a new analysis, presented at a major US science meeting, says the transport comparison was flawed.

Sir Paul was one of the figures launching a campaign late last year centred on the slogan "Less meat = less heat".

But curbing meat production and consumption would be less beneficial for the climate than has been claimed, said Frank Mitloehner from the University of California at Davis (UCD).

"Smarter animal farming, not less farming, will equal less heat," he told delegates to the American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting in San Francisco.

"Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries."

Leading figures in the climate change establishment, such as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chairman Rajendra Pachauri and Lord (Nicholas) Stern, have also quoted the 18% figure as a reason why people should consider eating less meat. (BBC News)

Bloggers and sceptics leaping all over a UN report that 'exaggerated' the link between meat and climate change are not revealing that the scientist challenging the figures has been funded by the livestock industry (The Guardian)

The UN has admitted a report linking livestock to global warming exaggerated the impact of eating meat on climate change. (TDT)

Press Complaints Commission told that newspaper story gives impression that IPCC made false Amazon rainfall claim (David Adam, The Guardian)

Can anyone tell me how The Economist got its title? I’m guessing it was probably founded in the early 18th century by some crazed charlatan called, perhaps, Zachariah Economist, who, because of the unfortunate coincidence of his surname managed to persuade thousands of gullible fools to part with their shirts on one of the South Sea Bubble companies. The one whose prospectus read “A company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.”

One thing I know for sure: The Economist’s name can have no relationship whatsoever with the “dismal science” of economics because if it did then never in a million years could it have run an editorial (and feature) as lame, wrong-headed, intellectually dishonest and positively dangerous as the one it produced this week on the subject of Climate Change.

Here is its conclusion at the end of a long article – unsigned, as is traditional on The Economist to convey its weightiness, self-importance and authority – purporting to sift through the science behind AGW. (James Delingpole)

Icecap has an interesting new article by three sceptic scientists - John McLean, Chris de Freitas and Bob Carter - describing the successful attempts to deny them a right of reply in the peer-reviewed literature.

NEW DELHI: In an unusual example of the effects of global climate change, rising sea levels in the Bay of Bengal have helped resolve a troublesome territorial dispute between two of the world's most populated countries, a leading Indian oceanographer says.

Sugata Hazra, the head of oceanography at Kolkata's Jadavpur University, says a flat muddy patch of land known as South Talpatti in Bangladesh and New Moore Island in India has disappeared under the Bay of Bengal. The landmass had been claimed by both countries but Professor Hazra says satellite images prove it has gone.

''It is now a submerged landmass, not an island,'' Professor Hazra told the Herald.

''Only small parts can be seen in very, very low tide conditions.''

Sea-level rise caused by climate change was ''surely'' a factor in the island's inundation, Professor Hazra said.

''The rate of sea-level rise in this part of the northern Bay of Bengal is definitely attributable to climate change,'' he said. (SMH)

Natural carbon cycle larger than thought: Even soil feels the heat - Soils release more carbon dioxide as globe warms

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Twenty years of field studies reveal that as the Earth has gotten warmer, plants and microbes in the soil have given off more carbon dioxide. So-called soil respiration has increased about one-tenth of 1 percent per year since 1989, according to an analysis of past studies in today's issue of Nature.

The scientists also calculated the total amount of carbon dioxide flowing from soils, which is about 10-15 percent higher than previous measurements. That number -- about 98 petagrams of carbon a year (or 98 billion metric tons) -- will help scientists build a better overall model of how carbon in its many forms cycles throughout the Earth. Understanding soil respiration is central to understanding how the global carbon cycle affects climate.

"There's a big pulse of carbon dioxide coming off of the surface of the soil everywhere in the world," said ecologist Ben Bond-Lamberty of the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "We weren't sure if we'd be able to measure it going into this analysis, but we did find a response to temperature."

The increase in carbon dioxide given off by soils -- about 0.1 petagram (100 million metric tons) per year since 1989 -- won't contribute to the greenhouse effect unless it comes from carbon that had been locked away out of the system for a long time, such as in Arctic tundra. This analysis could not distinguish whether the carbon was coming from old stores or from vegetation growing faster due to a warmer climate. But other lines of evidence suggest warming is unlocking old carbon, said Bond-Lamberty, so it will be important to determine the sources of extra carbon. (DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

Model Could be Used to Forecast Climate Impacts for Other Fisheries

A new climate-population model developed by NOAA scientists to study rising ocean temperatures and fishing rates on one East Coast fish population could also forecast the impact of climate change and fishing on other fisheries. The model is one of the first to directly link a specific fish stock with climate change.

In a paper in the March 2010 issue of the journal Ecology Applications published online today by the Ecological Society of America, NOAA researchers forecast the future of the Atlantic croaker fishery in the mid-Atlantic under various climate and fishing scenarios. Atlantic croaker (Micropogonias undulatus) is a coastal marine fish inhabiting the east coast of the United States with an $8 million annual commercial fishery. Previous studies have shown a strong link between croaker abundance and winter temperatures.

“Some fish populations will increase and others decrease as a result of climate change,” said lead author Jon Hare of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) laboratory in Narragansett, R.I. “Our results demonstrate that climate effects on fisheries must be identified and understood, included in the scientific advice to managers, and factored into fishery management plans if sustainable exploitation is to be achieved.”

For various temperature and fish population scenarios over the next 90 years to 2100, the researchers forecast that at current levels of fishing, the spawning population of Atlantic croaker would increase between 60 and 100%, the center of the population would shift 50 to 100 kilometers (roughly 30 to 65 miles) northward, and the maximum sustainable yield would increase 30 to 100%. (NFSC)

Oxygen minimum zones

Some regions of the deep ocean floor support abundant populations of organisms, despite being overlain by water that contains very little oxygen, according to an international study led by scientists at the United Kingdom's National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. But global warming is likely to exacerbate oxygen depletion and thereby reduce biodiversity in these regions, they warn. (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK))

Tamino, virtually all champions of the climate panic, and even most skeptics tend to think that the fluctuations and noise of the temperature graphs only exist at the short time scales.

They think that when we compute the average over sufficiently long timescales, i.e. many years or a few decades, the signal becomes bigger than the noise and the trends show up. For example, they think that if you look at more than 15 years, the warming trend becomes visible and very different from the noise.

However, this assumption is completely wrong.

The graphs of temperature anomalies - between weeks and millennia - actually look like some kind of pink noise. Much like red noise, the pink noise has the property that if you focus on a part of it and you scale the picture to fill the whole screen, both in the horizontal (time) and vertical (temperature) direction (these two scale factors may differ), you always get the same qualitative picture. The signal-to-noise ratio is actually pretty much independent of the time scale you choose - a typical behavior that people know from "critical phenomena" or "conformal field theories".

Using a simple adjective, the graphs are self-similar.

Here is my homework problem that will explain you what I mean.

There is quite an informative article in the January 2010 issue of the SPARC [stratospheric processes and their role in climate] Newsletter. The article is

In Section “Part IV: Radiative, chemical and dynamical response to volcanic eruptions”, there is the text

“G.Stenchikov showed with CM2.1, the recent GFDL coupled climate model (Delworth et al., 2006), that the accumulated averaged volcanic ocean heat content anomaly reaches about 1023 J, and offsets about 1/3 of the anthropogenic warming. After the Tambora and Mt. Pinatubo eruptions, the heat content below 300 m was reduced for decades (see Figure 5). Deep ocean temperature, sea level, salinity, and MOC (meridional overturning circulation) have a relaxation time of several decades to a century. This suggests that the Tambora subsurface temperature and sea level perturbations could have lasted well into the 20th century.”

This multi-decadal climate system memory to the radiative forcing of a volcanic eruption is quite an important conclusion. This would, of course, also apply to all other types of radiative forcing. Climate prediction is clearly an initial value problem as I wrote about in

My second comment is with respect to the clear evidence of a negative radiative feedback (i.e. an adjustment back to a zero anomaly) when the volcanic eruptions produce a cooling radiative forcing (see the two figures below). This is clearly seen in the two figures below from the Stenchikov et al study reported on above. The obvious question is whether this negative feedback, for example, is due to changes in cloud cover in response to the volcanic emissions, and if such a feedback also operates when there is a warming radiative forcing.

(Don’t miss out on the bonus atmospheric reference at the bottom of this blog)

Should computer modeling be banned from NASA premises? Recent grandiose public statements may suggest as much. (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)

SAN FRANCISCO, March 24, 2010 — Relatives of ingredients in hair-conditioning shampoos and fabric softeners show promise as a long-sought material to fight global warming by "scrubbing" carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the flue gases from coal-burning electric power generating stations, scientists reported today at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Their report, the first on use of these so-called aminosilicones in carbon dioxide capture, concluded that the material has the potential to remove 90 percent of CO2 from simulated flue gas. The new "scrubber" material may be less expensive and more efficient than current technologies for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, the main "greenhouse" gas linked to global warming, the scientists say. (American Chemical Society)

Researchers from the South West are working on a £1.4 million project that could take carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into car fuel.

Scientists and engineers from the University of the West of England are collaborating with colleagues from the University of Bath, who are leading the research, and colleagues from the University of Bristol.

The project aims to develop porous materials that can absorb the gas that causes global warming and convert it into chemicals that can be used to make car fuel or plastics in a process powered by renewable solar energy.

The researchers hope that in the future the porous materials could be used to line factory chimneys to take carbon dioxide pollutants from the air, reducing the effects of climate change. (ScienceDaily)

Now into its 15th month, the administration of President Obama appears to have lost touch with political and economic reality.

A full year's political capital was spent passing the health care overhaul act, despite the fact that poll after poll showed that up to 80% of the population was quite happy with the status quo.

The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has produced neither economic recovery nor reinvestment. Indeed, the strong gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter can be attributed almost entirely to business inventory rebuilding.

The most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that construction spending in January — including the infrastructure outlays that were supposed to be the centerpiece of the ARRA — was more than 9% below its "pre-stimulus" level.

The Obama administration has now turned its attention to energy policy. But rather than looking at the energy sector as a vehicle for reinvigorating the American economy, the president has proposed hiking the tax burden on oil and gas companies by $45 billion.

At the same time, a new report from the Gas Technology Institute finds that drilling restrictions in Alaska and offshore are blocking access to nine years' worth of oil and gas.

Specifically, the administration is seeking to raise $36.5 billion from fiscal 2011 to 2020 by ending certain tax credits and deductions for domestic oil and gas production. An additional $8.5 billion would be raised by eliminating the credit for taxes paid by oil and gas companies overseas. (Bernard L. Weinstein, IBD)

The European Union has yielded to Canadian demands it remove possible trade barriers to polluting oil sands to avoid further damage to ties, according to sources and leaked documents.

Relations are already strained after the European Union banned imports of seal products last July on animal welfare grounds, a move Canada is challenging at the World Trade Organization.

Canada warns that draft EU standards to promote greener fuels are too unwieldy and will harm the market for its oil sands -- tar-like oil that is trapped in sediment and forms the world's second-largest proven crude reserves after Saudi Arabia. (Reuters)

Canada's oil sands producers have pledged to improve their environmental records and do a better job communicating their efforts to the public, but environmentalists say they see no commitment to real change.

The diverging views point to continued tough sell around the world for producers of the massive energy resource in northern Alberta, the world's second biggest oil reserve, and for the Alberta and Canadian governments.

Executives at the Reuters Canadian Oil Sands Summit in Calgary this week gave details of some technological advances they are banking on to reduce the impact of development on land, air and water while trying to stay competitive as the world economy rebounds. (Reuters)

Saudi Arabia’s booming economy and soaring demand for electricity is increasing the kingdom’s reliance on oil to produce power. By 2012, it may be using 1.2 million barrels a day, nearly two times current levels, to meet its electricity needs. This increasing use of oil is occurring because the Saudis’ natural gas production cannot keep up with power demand. [Read More] (Andres Cala, Energy Tribune)

AUSTRALIA last night signed its single biggest ever trade deal to sell gas to China.

The contract could be worth $60 billion to $80 billion over the 20-year life of the project, although the volatile oil price will ultimately determine whether it will be more or less.

China will buy 72 million tonnes of gas from Gladstone in Queensland. (Herald Sun)

Aside from the peripheral and most decidedly ephemeral pre-occupations of today, an event is heralded in The Times which signals that the geo-political tectonic plates are moving – with profound repercussions in the short and medium-term.

That event is the imminent completion of a $40 billion deal between the Australian oil and gas producer, the BG Group, to supply natural gas to China. This amounts to 3.6 million tons of LNG a year for 20 years, shipped from BG's proposed export terminal in Queensland.

This is by no means the first of the giant Australian gas deals but what makes this very different and very special is that this is coal bed methane, providing further evidence that this hitherto untapped resource is poised to make a significant contribution to the world's energy supply.

Alongside shale gas, it helps re-draw the global energy map, positioning huge reserves of cheap energy in easily accessible, democratic countries. By so doing, it marginalises some of the more inaccessible and unstable regimes, reducing their ability to disrupt the global economy and their political clout.

In political terms, the significance of this cannot be over-estimated. Not least, the impact on Russia and the central Asian republics is likely to be profound. Their high-cost product is proving to be less attractive and necessary, to the extent that plans to exploit some of the Siberian gas fields are already on hold.

The news today of the TNK-BP conglomerate walking away from the vast Kovykta gas field development is not entirely unrelated. The Russian market has been severely dented by the increased availability of LNG and its failure to clinch an important supply deal with China.

As importantly, emerging economies such as China (and, to an extent India) are winning the race to secure supplies of cheap energy – thus underpinning their future prosperity and stability. By contrast, Western economies – and especially the UK together with other European nations – are saddling themselves with high-cost, unreliable cul-de-sac technologies such as wind power, creating a huge drag on their productive economies.

This is what our politicians do not seem to understand. While Clinton (or whoever) might have said, "it's the economy stoopid", underpinning every modern economy is cheap and reliable energy. Thus, it comes down to "It's the energy stoopid". It really is that important, that fundamental.

Yet, as we see today, we have serried ranks of politicians seemingly determined to undermine the very basis of our economy, our prosperity and stability, throwing away the advantages which made our nation great and which we need to exploit to ensure our continued prosperity.

Collectively, they conspire to engineer what amounts to economic suicide, while they prattle endlessly over their mindless trivia. There cannot be a more desperate, deadly betrayal than this, other than the wider failure of the political classes and the media to alert us to the importance of what is going on and to mobilise protest and dissent. We deserve better than this. (EU Referendum)

BP, ConocoPhillips and Shell Oil Co. have provided Senate lawmakers with language to include in a pending climate change bill that essentially would block federal oversight of hydraulic fracturing, a technology that's key to the current natural gas drilling boom.

The companies prepared the document, according to sources familiar with it, at the request of the Senate team that is drafting climate change law, which includes Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn.

If incorporated into the climate change law, it would keep the Environmental Protection Agency from imposing regulations on fracturing, which is now regulated at the state level.

The document recommends that states adopt standards for disclosing the contents of hydraulic fracturing chemicals “to health professionals or state agencies” in order to protect health or environmental safety but maintain “the confidentiality of trade secret information” in the fluids.

It also encourages states to evaluate drilling practices to see if they comply with new American Petroleum Institute standards for well construction and integrity.

Hydraulic fracturing involves drilling into a formation and injecting water mixed with sand and chemicals under high pressure. The mixture cracks open the shale while the sand holds open the fractures, allowing the natural gas to flow more freely to the surface.

Some environmentalists have raised concerns about the enormous amounts of water used in the process, and about possible chemical contamination of water supplies near fracturing sites. (Houston Chronicle)

The U.S. Energy Department's push to scrap a long-planned national nuclear waste dump in Nevada has run into stiff opposition as lawmakers on Wednesday questioned the Obama administration's decision.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers unveiled a resolution of disapproval in the House of Representatives on Tuesday aimed at making the department stop efforts to shelve the project and maintain all records relating to the proposed storage site.

Lawmakers on a House Appropriations subcommittee grilled Energy Secretary Steven Chu about plans to cancel the repository at Yucca Mountain.

These moves may signal trouble for the administration's pledge to scrap the Yucca site, fiercely opposed in Nevada and by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who represents the state. (Reuters)

Alistair Darling's low-carbon commitments were slim, but Treasury figures show plans for biomass and electric cars amount to big emissions savings ( John Vidal, The Guardian)

A new green investment bank has been set up by the Government to encourage investment in wind farms and solar panels.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, said the new bank would control £2 billion in assets and "unlock billions more" from the private sector for green energy and transport development.

He said the money would go towards improving railways and creating thousands of jobs in manufacturing turbines and installing solar panels.

But environmental groups said the money was "peanuts" compared to what is needed to keep the lights on while cutting carbon. (TDT)

Green Government: Acting on a proposal by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles is hiking electric power bills to fund environmental initiatives. And what will customers get for their money? Nothing.

Because of the increase, approved 4-0 last week by the mayor's appointees on the Department of Water and Power board, 58% of the utility's customers will see their bills increase by an average of 8.8%. Some will be 28.4% higher. Businesses — and their customers and employees — will be hit hard, as commercial bills will run 20% to 26% higher. It all adds up to nearly a $650-million-a-year windfall for the city.

While the plan is not without opposition, and the City Council has voted 15-0 to review the rate hike, Villaraigosa has a politically correct wind at his back.

The promise that the proposal will bring green jobs — he estimates 16,000 — and boost the DWP's use of renewable energy — 20% by the end of this year and 40% by 2020 — is good enough for trendy Los Angelenos. They'll be glad to make sacrifices for the environment, even if it means forcing those who can see through the political haze to make sacrifices, as well.

There is no substance to the mayor's plan. It's all about politics and raising revenues for the city. (IBD)

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama hopes his famous health care victory will mark him as a transformative president. History, however, may judge it to have been his missed opportunity to be one.

Health care will not be seriously revisited for at least a generation, so the system's costliest defect -- untaxed employer-provided insurance, which entangles a high-inflation commodity, health care, with the wage system -- remains. Obama could not challenge this without adopting measures -- e.g., tax credits for individuals, enabling them to shop for their own insurance -- that empower individuals and therefore conflict with his party's agenda of spreading dependency. (George Will, Townhall)

You've really got to hand it to President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Saddled with a majority of both houses and a hold on the White House, they somehow managed to pass the Senate health care bill in the House. It's practically a miracle.

And because Washington loves a victory, Pelosi is now seen as stronger, not as a Democrat who unconscionably lost 34 Dems and every Republican.

Monday, conservative radio talk-show Rush Limbaugh was having a field day playing audio clips of then-Sen. Barack Obama promising that the health care package he envisioned would reduce health care premiums "by up to as much as $2,500" per family per year. (Debra J. Saunders, Townhall)

You won’t have seen this on the news, I’m sure. But if George Bush had perpetrated this mathematical howler, how many times do you think this footage would have been aired by the media?

The Democrats' passage of socialized medicine Sunday night will spell either the beginning of the end of this great nation or the beginning of the rebirth of its freedom. The choice is still in the hands of Americans.

To borrow a phrase from President Barack Obama, "let's be clear" on a couple of things:

First, it's not an exaggeration to say Obamacare is socialized medicine; in fact, it doesn't go far enough simply to say it represents the government takeover of our entire health care system. It is also a major step (begun long ago) in the complete dismantling of the unique American constitutional experiment and of the social compact between Americans and their government. Obama's now-realized goal of fundamental change is to make the government the people's master instead of their servant. (David Limbaugh, Townhall)

Pork is the preferred metaphor in Washington for misspending. But last weekend, pork took a backseat to baloney, which was present in abundance as President Obama and House Democrats tried to convince the public -- and themselves -- that their takeover of one-sixth of the economy is going to improve health insurance and the availability of medical treatment. (Cal Thomas, Townhall)

It is America's misfortune that at a moment in history that required sober, grown-up stewardship and a realistic appraisal of our fiscal trajectory, we elected (by large margins) the party of supplicants and whiners. How appropriate that one of the selling points of Obamacare was the guarantee that children up to the age of 26 can remain on their parents' insurance plans -- because the Democrats' whole program is about extending adolescence. (Mona Charen, Townhall)

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted for the first time last month that it is facing a crisis of confidence. But the IPCC’s failings go far beyond the recent spate of errors identified in its reports. The problem began with the global political climate that led to the formation of the IPCC two decades ago.

Contrary to popular perception, the IPCC is not a scientific organization. It does no research of its own. Composed of scientists nominated by different governments, its key function is to collate evidence of human-induced climate change, not just changes in climate.

It is hardly surprising that with such an inherently biased objective the scientists lost their objectivity. Many of them went on a crusade to support the political goal of proving anthropogenic global warming. Concerns about scientific objectivity and critical discourse were thrown overboard. Why did political masters set such a nonscientific mandate for their scientists at the IPCC? Because over the past half century, governments have often ridden the green bandwagon to justify public-sector expansion.

Almost every decade we have witnessed the birth of a new green scare, apparently based on new scientific findings. First came the campaign against the pesticide DDT in the 1960s, followed by the population bomb in the 1970s. Then we had the campaign to protect forests and species in the 1980s, the ozone hole in the 1990s, and most recently the crescendo over climate change leading up to last year’s Copenhagen summit. Each time, the scare was shown to be false or overhyped. For instance, millions of people in the developing world died of malaria because DDT was wrongly vilified. It took decades to overcome the blanket ban of the chemical, and now it is once again being used to control mosquitoes in Africa.

Predictions of a rising population depleting the world’s resources have proven equally false and destructive. India today is enjoying the demographic dividend of a young workforce, while China is getting worried at the prospect that it may become the first society in history to grow old before it becomes rich. Likewise, forests are making a surprising comeback in many parts of the world, as the rise in agricultural productivity and economic growth are lowering demand for agricultural land.

Clearly, the track record of green prophecies has been pathetic. And with the collapse of the Soviet empire, and periodic economic turmoil, (such as the Asian economic crisis in 1997, and the dot-com bust in 2000), the public’s confidence in their leaders’ capacity to make effective economic policies has been shaken. It is in this context that climate change provided a new opportunity for many governments to legitimize their role, and expand their scope. The formation of the IPCC and its apparent focus on the science of climate change allowed the political establishments to claim science as the basis for proposed climate policies that increased the power of government and curtailed the private sector. The time frame of the projected climate change was longer than earlier green crusades, typically from 50 to 100 years. This will allow policy makers to escape accountability for their misguided policies since they would be out of office by the time the consequences became apparent.

The relationship between a section of political leaders and scientists turned out to be mutually reinforcing. Policy makers justified their empire building on the basis of “scientific consensus,” and scientists found a very profitable avenue for political influence and access to funding. To sell this climate strategy, political leaders and scientists adopted the classic carrot-and-stick approach. The rich countries offered money to the poor ones in an attempt to buy support for the climate policies. More recently there is the threat of trade sanctions, which reflect the stick.

This approach was apparent in the build-up to the Copenhagen summit last December. The distinction between scientists and activists virtually disappeared as the scaremongering reached a new depth. The rich countries’ carrots virtually broke the Group of 77 developing-world nations, as some of the poorest countries found the lure of easy money in hand more attractive than the fruits of economic growth in the future.

The grand design failed on three counts, and the world was saved from the onslaught of the climate crusade. Copenhagen coincided with the global economic slowdown, and therefore the promise of money seemed more like a mirage. Second, the scientific authority of the IPCC collapsed. And finally, deepening developmental aspirations in some of the major developing countries, such as Brazil, China, India and South Africa, meant that the leadership in these countries could not afford to barter their economic future for the sake of some small change today.

The current crisis in the environmental movement is not limited to a few leading climate scientists; its root lies in the political shifts taking place in many countries. Leaders are being forced to take their responsibilities more seriously, and not to outsource it to scientists. And scientists will have to regain public confidence by returning to their traditional values of objectivity and intellectual rigor.

Mr. Mitra is director of the Liberty Institute, an independent think tank in New Delhi, and a columnist for WSJ.com.

The Natural Products Expo West concluded last weekend in Anaheim, Calif., and once again many businesses were able to celebrate what they learned a long time ago: That they can make a fortune by marketing almost anything as "natural." Crayola-colored gummy worms? Lipstick laden with lead? Detergents and soaps that contain questionnable phthalates? Yes, these are all being sold as "natural" - even though they resemble nothing Mother Nature ever made.

How do goods like these slide by as "natural?" It's simple: There "ain't no law against it," as one of the Little Rascals might say. The term "organic" is strictly defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture; its use is policed by both the federal government and consumer groups. But not so the word "natural." That's why I and many other consumer advocates encourage shoppers to ignore it when they shop. There's no way to know what it really means. (Diane MacEachern, Greener World Media)

NEW YORK - One or two alcoholic drinks a day can help healthy people-and heart patients-live longer, new research confirms.

But the two new studies-one of nearly 250,000 US adults, the other an analysis of eight previous studies of more than 16,000 people with heart disease and other problems related to clogged arteries-also show that drinkers who exceeded recommended limits for alcohol consumption saw no heart health benefits.

"No question, heavy or binge drinking can have adverse health outcomes," Dr. Simona Costanzo and colleagues from Catholic University in Campobasso, Italy, warn in their report.

However, they add, doctors should tell their patients with heart disease and other clogged artery-related problems, together known as cardiovascular disease, that moderate alcohol consumption-a drink a day for women, two for men-"should not be harmful to their health."

There is considerable evidence that moderate drinking helps reduce the risk of heart disease and death from heart-related causes, likely due to the fact that drinking alcohol is linked to higher levels of "good" cholesterol. (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK - Raising prices on cheap alcoholic beverages could prevent thousands of deaths and hospital admissions every year, British researchers reported on Wednesday in the Lancet.

Countries around the world are considering or testing so-called "fat taxes" in an attempt to change unhealthy behavior. The new study provides the most detailed estimates so far of the public-health effects of different alcohol-pricing policies under consideration by the UK government.

For instance, charging at least 1.14 GBP ($1.70) for a pint of beer -- or $6.60 for a bottle of wine -- would be expected to prevent 49,000 cases of illness after 10 years. Those prices would nearly double the price of some discount beer and wine. (Reuters Health)

Cruise companies are balking at a proposal to create a low-emissions buffer zone around the United States and Canada, saying it sets arbitrary boundaries based on faulty science that overstates the health benefits.

The proposed Emissions Control Area would extend 200 nautical miles, which is 230 statute miles, around the coast of the two nations and set stringent new limits on air pollution from ocean-going ships beginning in 2015.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO), the U.N. agency that sets regulations for ships operating internationally, is expected to adopt the proposal at its weeklong meeting that begins on Monday in London.

Cruise executives at an industry meeting in Miami said the plan would force them to switch to low-sulfur fuels that would dramatically drive up costs.

"Our estimate is that in today's market it's probably 40 percent more expensive," said Michael Crye, executive vice president of technical and regulatory affairs for the Cruise Lines International Association, known as CLIA.

It "essentially means all the current fuel that we burn cannot be burned within 200 miles," Stein Kruse, chief executive of Holland America Line, told the Cruise Shipping Miami conference.

Proponents, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, say the plan would clear the air around polluted port cities and save up to 8,300 lives a year in the United States and Canada. It would limit emissions of sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, pollutants that are linked to asthma and cancer. (Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO, March 23, 2010 — As you stroll down restaurant row and catch the wonderful aroma of food — steaks, burgers, and grilled veggies — keep this in mind: You may be in an air pollution zone. Scientists in Minnesota are reporting that commercial cooking is a surprisingly large source of a range of air pollutants that could pose risks to human health and the environment. They discussed the topic here today at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Tetrachloroethylene is a volatile, chlorinated organic hydrocarbon that is widely used as a solvent in the dry-cleaning and textile-processing industries and as an agent for degreasing metal parts. It is an environmental contaminant that has been detected in the air, groundwater, surface waters, and soil. In June 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its draft Toxicological Review of Tetrachloroethylene (Perchloroethylene) (CAS No. 127-18-4) in Support of Summary Information on the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). The draft IRIS assessment provides quantitative estimates of cancer and noncancer effects of exposure to tetrachloreothylene, which will be used to establish airquality and water-quality standards to protect public health and to set cleanup standards for hazardous waste sites.

At the request of EPA, the National Research Council conducted an independent scientific review of the draft IRIS assessment of tetrachloroethylene from toxicologic, epidemiologic, and human clinical perspectives. The resulting book evaluates the adequacy of the EPA assessment, the data and methods used for deriving the noncancer values for inhalation and oral exposures and the oral and inhalation cancer unit risks posed by tetrachloroethylene; evaluates whether the key studies underlying the draft IRIS assessment are of requisite quality, reliability, and relevance to support the derivation of the reference values and cancer risks; evaluates whether the uncertainties in EPA's risk assessment were adequately described and, where possible, quantified; and identifies research that could reduce the uncertainty in the current understanding of human health effects associated with tetrachloroethylene exposure. (NAP)

This book is the eighth volume in the series Acute Exposure Guideline Levels for Selected Airborne Chemicals, and reviews AEGLs for acrolein, carbon monoxide, 1,2-dichloroethene, ethylenimine, fluorine, hydrazine, peracetic acid, propylenimine, and sulfur dioxide for scientific accuracy, completeness, and consistency with the NRC guideline reports. (NAP)

Regulators take closer look at design of electronics

WASHINGTON -- It may sound far-fetched, but federal regulators are studying whether sudden acceleration in Toyotas is linked to cosmic rays.

Radiation from space long has affected airplanes and spacecraft, and is known for triggering errors in computer systems, but has received scant attention in the auto industry. (Free Press)

For three days, James Sikes held America's highest honor: victim. The nation had been transfixed by his almost half-hour-long 94-mph horror ride in his runaway Toyota Prius. He burned his brakes right down to the metal, unable to even slow the vehicle. Only his prescience in calling 911, followed by a highway patrol officer providing assistance, saved his life.

Then my article "Toyota Hybrid Horror Hoax" at Forbes.com brought it crashing down. But lest you get false impressions from that title, the real hoaxter wasn't Jim Sikes, but the media. Red flags about his story were popping up from the start. Yet the entire Fourth Estate systematically ignored them. Here were some of the biggest. (Michael Fumento, IBD)

Paul Krugman, an American economist, wants to start a trade war with China. It would be worse than the 1930s, says Jeremy Warner. (TDT)

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected another request by the state of Michigan for an order to close two Chicago-area waterway locks to keep Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes.

The high court turned down Michigan's initial request on January 19 but the state filed a new motion after the discovery of carp DNA in water samples taken from the Calumet Harbor on Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Calumet River. (Reuters)

At least 431 manatees have died in Florida waters so far this year, exceeding in less than three months the total for any full calendar year on record, authorities said on Tuesday.

A preliminary report from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission attributed most of the deaths of the marine mammals to "cold stress syndrome" during this year's unusually harsh winter. (Reuters)

You drive a hybrid, eat organic, and are passionate about recycling. But how green is your love life. (Reuters)

California's Bay-Delta estuary is a biologically diverse estuarine ecosystem that plays a central role in the distribution of California's water from the state's wetter northern regions to its southern, arid, and populous cities and agricultural areas. Recently, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service required changes (reasonable and prudent alternatives, or RPAs) in water operations and related actions to avoid jeopardizing the continued existence and potential for recovery of threatened species of fish. Those changes have reduced the amount of water available for other uses, and the tensions that resulted have been exacerbated by recent dry years.

The complexity of the problem of the decline of the listed species and the difficulty of identifying viable solutions have led to disagreements, including concerns that some of the actions in the RPAs might be ineffective and might cause harm and economic disruptions to water users, and that some of the actions specified in the RPAs to help one or more of the listed species might harm others. In addition, some have suggested that the agencies might be able to meet their legal obligation to protect species with less economic disruptions to other water users.

The National Research Council examines the issue in the present volume to conclude that most of the actions proposed by two federal agencies to protect endangered and threatened fish species through water diversions in the California Bay-Delta are "scientifically justified." But less well-supported by scientific analyses is the basis for the specific environmental triggers that would indicate when to reduce the water diversions required by the actions. (NAP)

Bangladesh must act quickly to combat arsenic contamination in water and food affecting at least 20 million people, a U.N. agency said Monday, decades after a well-meant plan for clean water became a public health disaster.

A recent survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and the United Nations children's fund (UNICEF) showed that 12.6 percent of Bangladesh households, or about 20 million people, still drink water containing arsenic above the government's recommendation of no more than 50 micrograms per liter. (Reuters)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A new approach to desalination being developed by researchers at MIT and in Korea could lead to small, portable desalination units that could be powered by solar cells or batteries and could deliver enough fresh water to supply the needs of a family or small village. As an added bonus, the system would also remove many contaminants, viruses and bacteria at the same time. (MIT Press Release)

Conventional wisdom is that the health care process was so ugly and unpopular that members of Congress would be loath to take up other political hot potatoes in an election year. This line of thinking couldn't be more wrong.

While no one can predict what's going to happen in the November elections, it's not looking good for Democrats. In addition to the traditional midterm curse of the party in power, Democrats will be faced with an energized conservative base and the antagonized independent voters who helped elect Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

Hurt by President Obama's partisanship, Nancy Pelosi's strong-arm tactics, the failed $787 billion stimulus package, the House vote for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill and now the unpopular health care bill with all its related shenanigans, Democrats could easily lose their large majorities in Congress.

Since there may be no tomorrow — that is, 2011 — for a Democrat-controlled Congress, time is of the essence for the Obama agenda of transforming America into a socialist paradise. (Steve Milloy, IBD)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a new proposal on Tuesday that would expand existing rules on reporting greenhouse gas emissions to include oil and natural gas production facilities and add methane gas for the first time. (Reuters)

PARIS — France's government Tuesday put on hold a key carbon tax plan as workers held mass strikes over pensions and jobs, turning up the heat on President Nicolas Sarkozy after an election humiliation.

The government shelved the proposed carbon tax, one of Sarkozy's key reforms, a day after the president replaced a top minister in a reshuffle after his UMP party's defeat by left-wing rivals in regional elections.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched in the streets and teachers, train drivers and other public workers stayed off work to protest job cuts and plans for pension reform.

The president has vowed to press on with changes to state pensions. But the carbon tax, a major plank of his environmental policy touted as France's leading contribution to anti-global warming efforts, was put on hold.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in a statement that the government still aimed to implement a carbon tax but this could only be done "in common with other European countries" and France would push the EU to take a common position. (AFP)

Sen. James Inhofe cites flawed data on global warming and the deceit of climategate

James Inhofe is an Oklahoma Republican and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Call it the global warming crackup, an unfolding proc ess of contradictory claims about glaciers, weather, and scientists asserting a consensus when none exists. Global warming alarmists can't make up their minds because the entire basis for their energy rationing project has collapsed into a mess of errors, exaggerations, and deceit. Let me explain. (James Inhofe, US News)

A guest post by Richard Tol

The Fourth Assessment Report of Working Group 2 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been widely criticised for being overly pessimistic about the impacts of climate change. The IPCC has admitted that errors were made, but argues that the mistakes were just that. However, all errors point in one direction: alarmism about climate change. This suggests, at least, an inadvertent bias.

In the previous guest posts, I (in one case jointly with Chris Green) argue that Working Group 3 also contains mistakes, and that most errors point in one direction: optimism about the impacts of climate policy. The other mistakes reveal the inability of the IPCC to constructively engage with valid criticism. I also looked at the reviewer comments and the responses. The errors were identified during the review process, but made it into the final report nonetheless.

In the post about population projections, I show that the IPCC misquotes a paper that cast doubt on the IPCC SRES scenarios. In the post about exchange rates, I demonstrate that the IPCC misrepresents or omits papers that criticise the IPCC SRES scenarios. These two cases suggest that the IPCC has lost the ability to be self-critical.

In the post about double dividends, I show that the IPCC’s claims that climate policy would stimulate economic growth and create jobs are not based on peer-reviewed literature. Furthermore, the IPCC fails in its role as policy advisor. Ecological tax reform could promote growth and employment – but only under very narrow conditions. An honest broker would spell out those conditions. A stealth advocate would suggest that those conditions are rather easily met – as does the IPCC.

In the post about technological progress, I show that the IPCC emphasizes the results of studies that show that the costs of emission reduction are lower than previously thought, while suppressing or misquoting studies that show the opposite – despite credible evidence that the latter papers are closer to the truth. The IPCC assessment is certainly incomplete, but I would argue it is biased.

In the post about selection bias, I demonstrate that the IPCC summarises the results of multiple abatement studies in a misleading way, failing to alert the reader to the fact that the estimates of the costs of stringent emission reduction are unrepresentative of the literature and severely biased downwards. This is deception pure and simple.

In the post about double-counting, we show that the IPCC confuses carbon savings due to “market forces” with carbon savings by “climate policy”. This again would suggest to the unsuspecting reader that emission reduction is cheaper than it really is. The IPCC again did this in spite of protests by the referees. The IPCC deliberately puts the reader on the wrong foot.

In sum, the review process of the IPCC failed miserably. AR4 of WG3 substantially and knowingly misrepresents the state of the art in our understanding of the costs of emission reduction. It leads the reader to the conclusion that emission reduction is much cheaper and easier than it will be in real life.

Dr Ottmar Edenhofer of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research was one of the lead authors of Chapter 11 where most of the “errors” originate. He has since been appointed as the co-chairperson of WG3 for the Fifth Assessment Report of 2014. (Roger Pielke Jr)

Fiona Harvey, the Financial Times' environment correspondent weighs in to the debate over Lord Oxburgh's appointment at the head of the Royal Society panel looking into the CRU-science, and the fact that the noble lord has a financial conflict of interest.

And roughly speaking, this is where we are coming from. So, what's Fiona's take on this argument?

Daniel Cressey at Nature's Great Beyond blog seems to be adding his voice to those who support the idea of Lord Oxburgh being a suitable chairman for the Royal Society panel despite the noble lord's conflict of interest.

Daniel's case for the defence is almost as obscure as Fiona Harvey's but seems to consist of a belief that since Bob Ward, the public relations officer at the Grantham Institute, predicted that the appointment would be criticised, we should shrug our shoulders and move on. I hope I'm not misjudging Daniel's position here, because he doesn't make his position very clear. I do sense, however, that his article carries an air of criticism of those who are pointing out the conflict of interest rather than those who are behind it.

The world's nations are moving toward agreements that will bind us together in an effort to limit future greenhouse gas emissions. With such agreements will come the need for all nations to make accurate estimates of greenhouse gas emissions and to monitor changes over time. In this context, the present book focuses on the greenhouse gases that result from human activities, have long lifetimes in the atmosphere and thus will change global climate for decades to millennia or more, and are currently included in international agreements. The book devotes considerably more space to CO2 than to the other gases because CO2 is the largest single contributor to global climate change and is thus the focus of many mitigation efforts. Only data in the public domain were considered because public access and transparency are necessary to build trust in a climate treaty.

The book concludes that each country could estimate fossil-fuel CO2 emissions accurately enough to support monitoring of a climate treaty. However, current methods are not sufficiently accurate to check these self-reported estimates against independent data or to estimate other greenhouse gas emissions. Strategic investments would, within 5 years, improve reporting of emissions by countries and yield a useful capability for independent verification of greenhouse gas emissions reported by countries. (NAP)

Last week, Gallup released the findings of a survey which found that just 28 percent of Americans worry “a great deal” about global warming. [Read More] (Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune)

The Science Museum is revising the contents of its new climate science gallery to reflect the wave of scepticism that has engulfed the issue in recent months.

The decision by the 100-year-old London museum reveals how deeply scientific institutions have been shaken by the public’s reaction to revelations of malpractice by climate scientists.

The museum is abandoning its previous practice of trying to persuade visitors of the dangers of global warming. It is instead adopting a neutral position, acknowledging that there are legitimate doubts about the impact of man-made emissions on the climate.

Even the title of the £4 million gallery has been changed to reflect the museum’s more circumspect approach. The museum had intended to call it the Climate Change Gallery, but has decided to change this to Climate Science Gallery to avoid being accused of presuming that emissions would change the temperature. (The Times)

Venture a doubt about climate change politics or ethics, and you’ll likely be asked, “Don’t you believe in global warming?” If you express suspicion about the prominence and function served by alarm and catastrophe in arguments for political responses to climate change, it will be assumed that you don’t understand “the science”, or you simply aren’t aware of “the science”, or you are denying “the science”. As we’ve observed before, the debate is presented as one between sides attached to either the proposition “climate change is happening” or its denial, “climate change isn’t happening”.

It is a mistake to see the debate in this way for a number of reasons – most of which we’ve discussed here before. The point of this blog post is to stress what is interesting about the statement “climate change is happening”. For a statement with such huge implications, it is entirely devoid of meaning or content. (Climate Resistance)

Proponents of human-caused global warming claim that "cognitive" brain function prevents conservatives from accepting the science that says "climate change" is an imminent threat to planet Earth and its inhabitants.

George Lakoff, a professor of cognitive science and linguistics at the University of California-Berkeley and author of the book "The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist's Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics," says his scientific research shows that how one perceives the world depends on one’s bodily experience and how one functions in the everyday world. Reason is shaped by the body, he says.

Lakoff told CNSNews.com that “metaphors” shape a person's understanding of the world, along with one’s values and political beliefs -- including what they think about global warming. (CNSNews.com)

In the 1970s (I am not saying, for the whole decade) there was a consensus about global cooling. How is such a conclusion reached? By asking the right question.

In fact, the very reason the question is asked is because it is relevant to the world of today. Some have publicly declared that their skepticism on catastrophical Global Warming is based on their memories about catastrophical Global Cooling sometimes in the 1970s. Much is being done about Newsweek or New York Times articles of the time. The issue concerns therefore what we of 2010 would call a meme, and a popular one at that since it appeared and was propagated in general-interest newspapers and magazines.

That pretty much invalidates nerdy analyses of the scientific literature of the time, hardly a primary source of popular memes. Besides, one suspects it was far easier to publish a work on warming despite the underlying acceptance by prominent scientists of global cooling: surely at the time there was nothing remotely resembling the climategate gang, bent on preventing publication to anything challenging their beliefs. Fabricated unanimities just did not exist.

Hence the right question to ask is: did people sometimes in the 1970s live under the impression that there was a scientific consensus on Global Cooling? Note once again: it is a matter of impressions, not of some kind of unperceived reality.

Was there in 1814 a consensus that Napoleon was a defeated man? Yes. Was he? No, as far as we understand. Yes, as far as contemporaries understood.

Likewise for Global Cooling…we have for a fact that world temperatures have not been declining in the last 30-40 years (rather, the opposite has happened). We also know that not every scientist in the 1970s believed in Global Cooling. And yet…for a person of 1974/1975 with an average scientific interest for example, the consensus on Global Cooling was a fact of life. Why, even the CIA did not hesitate to describe such a consensus, and to organize a scientific conference about it.

History is like a foreign country…the only way to understand it is to respect it, and to be careful when dealing with it. Unfortunately, in the heated world of the AGW believer, respect and care are seldom to be found. (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)

Forecasts for a sizzling summer are as uncertain as predictions of climate change, argues Roger Highfield (TDT)

The traditional British garden could be ravaged by climate change, the National Trust said yesterday, as it produced paintings showing how hotter summers may fry herbaceous borders, while wet winters could rot spring bulbs.

It released a picture showing what 2C hotter could look like — orange trees replace rose bushes, while palms push out foxgloves.

The trust, which today is launching an exhibition about what could be lost if temperatures rise significantly, said that lupins, delphiniums, hyacinths and tulips were most at risk.

The trust cites research from the Met Office suggesting that a 2C rise could make the climate in southern England similar to south west France, while a 4C rise could expose gardens to conditions more like southern Portugal. (The Times)

In the coming decades, climate change is set to produce worldwide changes in the living conditions for plants, whereby major regional differences may be expected to occur. Thus today´s cool, moist regions could in future provide habitats for additional species, and in arid and hot regions the climatic prerequisites for a high degree of plant diversity will deteriorate. This is the conclusion reached in a new study by scientists at the Universities of Bonn, Göttingen and Yale, and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society London. The study was funded by the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz and the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). (University of Bonn)

If it is darn warm, how come there is so much sea ice? (Joe Bastardi, AccuWeather)

Ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet, which has been increasing during the past decade over its southern region, is now moving up its northwest coast, according to a new international study.

Led by the Denmark Technical Institute's National Space Institute in Copenhagen and involving the University of Colorado at Boulder, the study indicated the ice-loss acceleration began moving up the northwest coast of Greenland starting in late 2005. The team drew their conclusions by comparing data from NASA's Gravity and Recovery Climate Experiment satellite system, or GRACE, with continuous GPS measurements made from long-term sites on bedrock on the edges of the ice sheet. (University of Colorado at Boulder)

I am indebted to Dr Jarl Ahlbeck, from Abo Akademi University, Finland, who contacted me about his fascinating new piece of research relating to this winters severe cold across much of Europe, and a possible link to the very low solar activity we have been experiencing.

I am aware that there is a hugely varied readership of my blog; those who are very well informed about weather and climate, and others that have an interest in the subject but would struggle with some of the details contained in scientific papers. I have thus asked the author to summarize the main points of the research, and will include a link to the paper for those that feel brave enough to look into it themselves. (Paul Hudson, BBC)

New interagency program to generate high-resolution tools for addressing climate change

On March 22 at 11 a.m., EDT, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture held a webcast announcing the launch of a joint research program to produce high-resolution models for predicting climate change and its resulting impacts.

Called Decadal and Regional Climate Prediction Using Earth System Models (EaSM), the program is designed to generate models that--significantly more powerful than existing models--can help decision-makers develop adaptation strategies addressing climate change. These models will be developed through a joint, interagency solicitation for proposals. (NSF)

Churchville, VA—“Radical New Direction Needed in Food Production to Deal with Climate Change!” says the press release. Crop yields may fall 20-30 percent by 2100 because the earth will be too warm for optimum photosynthesis, warns a February 12, 2010 “Perspectives” article in the journal Science. (“Radically Rethinking Ag for the 21^st Century”).

Hunger is one of the scare-words always attached to global warming. But a warming world isn’t likely to starve, even with the larger human population expected in 2100.

Start with our knowledge that the Medieval Warming was warmer than today. Ice core data show the Greenland ice sheet then was 2.5 degrees C warmer then, which means most of the world’s current grain belts had significantly longer growing seasons and fewer untimely frosts. Also, lots of sunshine, in contract to the cloudy “little ice ages.”

Most of Europe’s famous castles and cathedrals were built during the Medieval Warming. So were the 10,000 temples at Angkor Watt in Cambodia. Meaning that the Medieval Warming’s longer growing seasons produced enough extra food to pay hundreds of thousands of non-farm workers top wages to construct “luxury” buildings.

Second, we know that added CO₂ in the atmosphere stimulates plant growth. Hundreds of agricultural test plots have demonstrated this, world-wide. CO2 acts like fertilizer, and also increases plants’ water use efficiency. Thus, doubling the concentration of CO₂ in the air raises the productivity of herbaceous plants by 30-50 percent. Fortunately, we’re going to have lots of CO₂ in the air.

A new Chinese report says that Chinese rice production is likely to rise 3–19 percent by 2100, because of CO₂’s fertilization effect—and because farmers will increase their northern crop production. The report says rice production would push further north, with lucrative double-cropping over the whole Yangtze Basin, not just the southern part. Other studies confirm that Chinese farmers would move corn and potato crops farther north into Manchuria with all the crop yields benefitting from higher CO₂ levels.

Most of the world’s recent 0.7 C temperature increase occurred before 1940. Thus, it must be ‘blamed” on the moderate, solar-linked 1,500-year climate cycle that also produced the Medieval Warming. That natural warming pattern indicates that tropical temperatures may not even rise much during the coming centuries.

The cycle implies a further temperature rise of 0.5 degree C over the next 300 years, rather than the 5–8 degrees C by 2100 claimed in the computerized models. Remember that we’ve never seen real-world evidence of the runaway warming. The Arctic ice is on a 70-year cycle, and the Antarctic has record amounts of ice and sea-ice. Even the man-made warming believers admit there’s been no warming for 15 years.

We shouldn’t even have to give up meat. Most of the fodder for our livestock comes from the natural grasslands, and from massive consumption of peanut hulls, citrus pulp, feather meal and other “wastes.” A pound of meat costs 1.4 pounds of human-edible protein—and delivers 1.4 pounds worth of human-edible protein.

The climate models deliberately claim famine and flooding—because you would not otherwise give up 87 percent of your current energy and go voluntarily back to the Stone Age. But the lack of any massive warming over recent decades; and, most of all, the declining heat in the world’s oceans has proven the climate models wrong.

Meanwhile, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have pledged a billion dollars to help create a “second green revolution” for Africa and other marginal farming regions. Expect to eat well during our Modern Warming— unless governments are foolish enough to tax-away the energy sources needed for truly sustainable production.

DENNIS T. AVERY is a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He is an environmental economist and was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421 or email to cgfi@hughes.net

Record-breaking rain means huge Australian arid-land lakes are visible from space.

Australia has one of the most unpredictable rainfall patterns in the world, and this is one of those unpredictable years. For the past few months, the repeated downfalls have left large pools of water lying in arid lands in Western Queensland. It’s great news for farmers. The water will, over the next year, flow south through the Darling River system, restoring parched watercourses, swamps, and dams. The Darling River system flows from Queensland through New South Wales and into South Australia.

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Meteorology announced that the rains were “exceptional”:

But, this year, the widespread repeated rainfall has filled up floodplains. Note the scale. The image is almost 1500 km (900 miles) wide. Photo taken March 14, 2010.

Craig Loehle sends word of a new publication that looks at CO2 trajectories in the context of Hoffman et al. Excerpt posted below. A link to the full paper follows.

THE ESTIMATION OF HISTORICAL CO₂ TRAJECTORIES IS INDETERMINATE: COMMENT ON “A NEW LOOK AT ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE”

Craig Loehle, PhD, National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, Inc., Naperville, Illinois

Figure 2: Projected exponential, quadratic, and saturating models compared to IPCC scenario values. Over the calibration period 1958-2009 the 3 models and data are indistinguishable from each other, but then diverge.

A paper by Hofmann et al. (2009, this journal) is critiqued. It is shown that their exponential model for characterizing CO₂ trajectories for historical data is not estimated properly. An exponential model is properly estimated and is shown to fit over the entire 51 year period of available data. Further, the entire problem of estimating models for the CO₂ historical data is shown to be ill-posed because alternate model forms fit the data equally well. To illustrate this point the past 51 years of CO₂ data were analyzed using three different time-dependent models that capture the historical pattern of CO₂ increase. All three fit with R² > 0.98, are visually indistinguishable when overlaid, and match each other during the calibration period with R² > 0.999. Projecting the models forward to 2100, the exponential model comes quite close to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) best estimate of 836 ppmv. The other two models project values far below the IPCC low estimates. The problem of characterizing historical CO₂ levels is thus indeterminate, because multiple models fit the data equally well but forecast very different future trajectories. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

Wired has an interesting story on a meeting being held this week at Asilomar on the governance of geoengineering. Several of my colleagues are in attendance. I was invited but decided to spend my spring break otherwise ;-)

The meeting is interesting because it is sponsored by a group with a financial interest in geoengineering. From the Wired story:

My view is that geoengineering using technologies such as solar radiation management is never going to emerge as a viable policy option -- much more on this forthcoming in The Climate Fix this summer. We can expect that far-from-disinterested scientists will be using the issue to advance agendas, and often hiding behind the fig leaf of pure science. Asimolar is just a start. (Roger Pielke Jr)

Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week:
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 813 individual scientists from 485 separate research institutions in 43 different countries ... and counting! This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Eastern Gotland Basin, Baltic Sea. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click here.

Subject Index Summary:
Little Ice Age (Regional - South America: Bolivia): Evidence continues to accumulate, almost to redundant proportions, for the global extent of a significant cooling during the Little Ice Age.

Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature for: Narrowleaf Cattail (Sullivan et al., 2010), Reed Grass (Zhao et al., 2009), Thale Cress (Teng et al., 2009), and White Cattail (Sullivan et al., 2010).

Thanks for your note. You certainly do flatter me with your expectation that I could produce a “solution to the energy situation here in the US.” (But I suspect that was not your purpose.)

As you may know, U.S. political leaders and government officials at both the federal and state levels — not to mention hundreds of smart people in universities, business and non-profit organizations — have been seeking that solution for at least 35 years.

The U.S. Department of Energy and its predecessors have spent over $150 Billion (2006$) on “energy R&D” and, unfortunately, have little to show for it. That doesn’t include more billions in federal and state tax credits, credit programs and other subsidies of various kinds (e.g., cash, regulatory, government official lobbying) to promote energy technologies selected by government officials.

Numerous “promising,” government-selected energy technologies have emerged and retreated during the past 35 years. (You can find references to dozens of them in Presidential messages, the Congressional Record, or in hundreds of press releases.)

Looking back, it’s now quite clear that these “promising” technologies that were selected for government support always

The world's oil reserves have been exaggerated by up to a third, according to Sir David King, Britain's former chief scientist, who has warned of shortages and price spikes within years. (SMH)

Peak Oil theorist Richard Heinberg doesn’t believe that civilization has gone wrong, but that it was a mistake. He traces the rot back to the invention of agriculture

This paper’s main editorial page carried a piece last week by Peak-Oil promoter Richard Heinberg of the California-based Post Carbon Institute. It noted that Mr. Heinberg was due to speak in Toronto on Monday night. Call me a masochist, but I decided to attend. To say that I did so with an open mind would be untrue. But then I don’t approach astrology or Fidel Castro with an open mind either.

The problem with Peak Oil the theory isn’t that it’s wrong in noting that industry depletes resources, and that oil may, sooner or later, reach a production plateau, it’s that it sees those facts through a moralistically-charged and economically-challenged lens. It also embodies extraordinary faith in Big Government and grass roots activism.

Aboriginal groups on Canada's Pacific Coast vowed on Tuesday to block Enbridge Inc's proposed Gateway pipeline to carry oil sands crude to export markets including China.

The groups said the environmental danger of oil tankers traveling through the coastal waters of British Columbia is too great, and the announcement could set the stage for a protracted legal and political fight over the pipeline.

"Some people are saying (the pipeline) is a done deal. It's not," Art Sterritt, executive director of the Coastal First Nations, a coalition of native Indian communities in the area, often called the Great Bear Rainforest.

The proposed project would carry crude from the oil sands in northern Alberta to a port facility in Kitimat, British Columbia. (Reuters)

With just five words quietly slipped into legislation, Illinois lawmakers are moving to include tire burning in the state's definition of renewable energy, a change that would benefit a south suburban incinerator with a long history of pollution problems.

Adding the "incineration or burning of tires" to a measure intended to boost wind and solar energy would clear the way for Geneva Energy to reap lucrative green energy credits for its troubled incinerator in Ford Heights, one of the poorest suburbs in the U.S.

The legislative change also would make the tire burner a player in the growing market for renewable energy in Illinois, where power companies must get at least 10 percent of their electricity from green sources by 2015 and 25 percent by 2025.

Originally sponsored by Rep. David Miller a Dolton Democrat running for state comptroller, the measure would give tire burning, which generates large amounts of toxic air pollution, the same status as pollution-free wind and solar power. It apparently is designed to benefit the state's sole tire incinerator, in Miller's district. (Chicago Tribune)

The majority of Americans who favor nuclear-generated electricity hit a new high this year, according to a poll on Monday that suggests growing support for President Barack Obama's aid to the nuclear industry.

Sixty-two percent of 1,014 U.S. adults, who were surveyed March 4-7 by Gallup, said they favored nuclear energy as one way to meet national electricity needs. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON - Reviving the U.S. nuclear industry could get hung up on the political minefield of how to handle the security, legal and environmental risks posed by a growing mountain of radioactive waste.

The Obama administration, which sees nuclear power as a key part of its policy to meet America's energy needs with more fuels that do not add to global warming, has said it plans to scrap a long-delayed permanent dump site for nuclear waste.

The move probably won't stop new nuclear plants from being built, but could limit the pace of growth in the sector, which has been stagnant since the 1970s. (Reuters)

The Government's sale of British Energy to France's EDF was a good price but a bad deal, an influential committee of MPs will conclude this morning. (The Independent)

Worries over energy security will drive India's goal to slow the growth of its carbon emissions, the head of a government panel tasked with developing the country's low-carbon strategy said on Monday. (Reuters)

VELDUR, India — “Wherever there is a lamp, there is darkness below it,” said Bava Bhalekar, a fisherman and local leader in this village roughly a hundred miles south of Mumbai. “The tragedy is that while our village has this project, we ourselves don’t have electricity.”

“This project” is the power plant that Enron built.

A decade after Enron withdrew from the project, the Indian government and two Indian companies are promising to bring the plant to full capacity. The tragedy, as Mr. Bhalekar and his fellow villagers see it, is that even after the plant is fully operational, their daily blackouts — now from 3 to 7:30 p.m. — will still occur, with just slightly fewer hours without electricity.

State authorities promise to have the plant running at 100 percent by the end of the month. But, so far, this plant remains a monument not to the problems of Enron, but to India’s own corruption, cronyism and weak economic policies — some of the reasons that India remains a perpetual second fiddle to China, its increasingly powerful rival.

For all the progress India has made in information technology and service-sector jobs, the country is still unable to provide reliable power, water, roads and other basic infrastructure to most of its 1.2 billion people. For instance, about 40 percent of the country’s population is not connected to the electricity grid.

This energy deficit is also an impediment to development. Here in Maharashtra, India’s most industrialized state and the home of its commercial capital, Mumbai, formerly Bombay, the demand for electricity will exceed supply by about 30 percent this year, up from 4.5 percent in 1992. (NYT)

Energy firms taking part in a North Sea boom for offshore wind farms will have to watch out for remains of Stone Age villages submerged for thousands of years, an expert said on Tuesday.

A region dubbed "Doggerland" connected Britain to mainland Europe across what is now the southern North Sea until about 8,000 years ago, when seas rose after the last Ice Age.

It is now the site of a planned vast expansion of offshore wind power by 2020 to help combat climate change.

"We've begun to think about how we'd tackle any archaeological finds," Adrian Fox, supply chain manager of the Crown Estate which leases land off Britain, told Reuters during a conference in Oslo about offshore wind. (Reuters)

All 140 turbines at the Whitelee windfarm on Eaglesham Moor near Glasgow are being inspected by engineers following Friday's incident.

ScottishPower Renewables said mechanical failure or a lightning strike could be to blame for the breakage, which it described as ''highly unusual''.

The 150ft, 14-tonne, fibreglass blade broke off in the early hours in windy conditions and landed at the base of its tower. (TDT)

Innovators are racing to glean heat, power and fuel from waste, seeking big rewards and subsidies for technologies which have a history of failed projects, drawing skepticism from some analysts.

Governments are sweetening waste-to-energy technologies with incentives, to try and cut carbon emissions, boost domestic renewable energy supplies and dispose of waste more cleanly.

The subsidies are encouraging entrepreneurs to push the boundaries of what is possible, whether to find new uses for established technologies or invent altogether new processes.

Some critics fear a hype which could encourage companies to make claims they may struggle to meet, and subsidies for technologies which could fail. (Reuters)

During my years at socialist schools, 1980-1989, less than one-half of my teachers actively supported socialism - and many of them were heroes who actively opposed it.

Those who were pushing the official communist propaganda would usually emphasize that the evil capitalist countries don't have education and healthcare for free - and there are unemployed people.

A part of the propaganda would no longer work. And by the way, even Harry Reid confirms Stalin's proposition that even the Americans have been waiting for socialist medicine for five decades. ;-)

Last night, the Democrat Party voted 219-212 to approve the new socialist healthcare by the House: all Republicans (plus 34 Democrats) opposed the bill - and so does the majority of the U.S. population. But tell it to the liberal Democrats: they always act as if they speak on behalf of the majority, if not everyone, even if the evidence shows this not to be the case.

Health Overhaul: Sunday's vote exposed the ugly truth that ObamaCare is not really about health care at all. It's all about who pays for it and who controls it — in effect a massive wealth-redistribution scheme.

Those who believe this will lead to some medical nirvana will likely be disappointed. Fact is, this poorly designed monstrosity will lead to lower-quality care, higher costs, fewer practicing physicians, higher taxes and fewer jobs.

We've done more than 150 editorials in the past year or so documenting these problems. Democrats surely understand them. Yet, despite a recent CNN poll showing that 59% of Americans oppose ObamaCare, Congress approved it anyway.

Why? Because it's not really about health care. It's the largest wealth grab in American history, masquerading as health care "reform," another step in the socialization of Americans' income in the name of "fairness" and "spread(ing) the wealth around," as Obama himself has put it.

That's why we call the program a lie. (IBD)

After the health care vote last night, Reverend Al Sharpton told Fox News: “I think that this began the transforming of the country where the President had promised. This is what he ran on.” When the interviewer interjected that many view the vote as a step towards socialism, Sharpton didn’t skip a beat, responding:

With the passage of the legislation letting the federal government take control of the country's medical care system, a major turning point has been reached in the dismantling of America's values and institutions.

Even the massive transfer of crucial decisions from millions of doctors and patients to Washington bureaucrats and advisory panels — as momentous as that is — does not measure the full impact of this largely unread and certainly unscrutinized legislation.

If the current legislation does not entail the transmission of all our individual medical records to Washington, it will take only an administrative regulation or, at most, an executive order of the president to do that. (Thomas Sowell, IBD)

ObamaCare would force insurers to behave as slumlords, much like rent control does.
March 21, 2010
- by Brian T. Schwartz

If you dislike your health insurer now, just wait until politicians impose price controls that make your insurer act like a slumlord. Expect worse customer service, skimpier plans, and more claim denials.

Price controls on rental properties encourage landlords to become slumlords. Forbidden from making a profit by renting at market rates, to make a living landlords must skimp on quality and service rather than please customers. The same will result from insurance price controls: lousy policies for people with preexisting conditions or for anyone who might get sick.

That is, everyone. (PJM)

Recall Jimmy Carter gas lines? Artificial control of health care prices must end the same way.
March 22, 2010
- by Tom Bowler

When President Obama spoke to House Democrats the day before the House voted on his health care reform bill, he said:

I am convinced that when you go out there and you are standing tall and you are saying I believe that this is the right thing to do for my constituents and the right thing to do for America, that ultimately the truth will out.

Now that Congress has voted to approve his bill, the truth will out. We can only hope that it won’t be too late to repair all the damage that will have occurred by the time it finally does.

A topic noticeably absent from public discussions of bending the health care cost curve down has been the economics of health care supply and demand. The phrase “supply and demand” is often misunderstood. What supply and demand curves measure is the effect of price changes on quantity supplied and quantity demanded. Higher prices encourage greater quantity supplied, while lower prices encourage greater quantity demanded. A professor might illustrate this in an economics class by posing a couple of hypothetical situations. (PJM)

A new CNN Opinion Research poll, conducted over the weekend as the House debated Obamacare, finds that 59 percent of Americans now stand opposed to the health care legislation in Congress. Just 39 percent of the poll’s 1,030 respondents said they favored the bill.

These numbers shouldn’t come as a surprise — even to the White House. In fact, The Washington Post reported this morning that “President Obama is set to begin an immediate public relations blitz aimed at turning around Americans’ opinion of the health-care bill.” The White House plan will be both a short-term strategy to shore up political supporters of the legislation and a long-term effort to bolster Obama’s legacy. Continue reading... (The Foundry)

The Vote: Conned by the promise of an ephemeral executive order, the last holdouts cave and ObamaCare advances. It doesn't add a single doctor or hospital room, but needs 17,000 new IRS agents to enforce it. (IBD)

At issue is the provision in Obamacare that forces Americans to buy health insurance or face an annual $750 fine. Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli plans to sue the federal government on grounds that the mandate violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution:

“At no time in our history has the government mandated its citizens buy a good or service,” Cuccinelli said.

Constitution: Republicans vow to repeal health care reform. But no social entitlement, once signed into law, has ever been overturned. The way to stop this federal overreach is through the courts.

Fox pundit Bill Kristol predicts that Republicans will repeal the law in 2013. Rep. Jim DeMint and other GOP leaders have already pledged to do so.

But that assumes a lot. Republicans must first regain control of both houses of Congress, which will require sustaining the current level of public outrage for six months after the fact.

That won't be easy. While additional negative details about the 2,074-page bill will come out over the coming months, the worst parts won't go into effect for years. And the White House is already reselling the few positives, such as covering pre-existing conditions, which go into effect right away.

Yes, Republicans won Congress for the first time in 50 years after Clinton tried to socialize medicine. And yes, this bill is arguably worse, with 732 more pages, 109 more bureaucracies and just as many new taxes.

But HillaryCare failed, and was cast as a major Democrat defeat. ObamaCare, on the other hand, will be hailed as a big Democrat win. Even in the off chance that they do take back Congress, Republicans seeking repeal will have to fend off all the lobbyists who will cement around new health care rules, programs and benefits.

Then they'll have to override President Obama's veto.

The nation's best chance to kill this monstrosity before it can ruin the best health care system in the world is to get the courts to declare it unconstitutional. (IBD)

President Obama has crossed the Rubicon with the health care vote. The bill was not really about medicine; after all, a moderately priced, relatively small federal program could offer the poorer not now insured, presently not on Medicare or state programs like Medicaid or Medical, a basic medical plan.

We have no interest in stopping trial lawyers from milking the system for billions. And we don’t want to address in any meaningful way the individual’s responsibility in some cases (drink, drugs, violence, dangerous sex, bad diet, sloth, etc.) for costly and chronic health procedures.

No, instead, the bill was about assuming a massive portion of the private sector, hiring tens of thousands of loyal, compliant new employees, staffing new departments with new technocrats, and feeling wonderful that we “are leveling the playing field” and have achieved another Civil Rights landmark law. (NB: do the math: add higher state income taxes in most states; the new Clinton-era federal income tax rates to come; the proposed lifting of limits on income exposed to FICA taxes; and now new health care charges — and I think you can reach in some cases a bite of 65%to 70% of one’s income.)

So we are in revolutionary times in which the government will grow to assume everything from energy use to student loans, while abroad we are a revolutionary sort of power, eager to mend fences with Syria and Iran, more eager still to distance ourselves from old Western allies like Israel and Britain.

There won’t be any more soaring rhetoric from Obama about purple-state America, “reaching across the aisle,” or healing our wounds. That was so 2008. Instead, we are in the most partisan age since Vietnam, ushered into it by the self-acclaimed “non-partisan.” But how could it be anything else? (Victor Davis Hanson, PJM)

[I originally published this essay in December of last year, before I started blogging for PJM. I was planning to write a new last-minute plea for sanity as we approach the zero hour for the health care vote in Congress -- but I inevitably ended up just re-phrasing the ideas contained in my original essay. So rather than repeat myself, I present below a reprise of what many have said is the one and only essay you'll ever need to read about universal health care.]

I watch the debate over health care with amazement. A million words are spoken on the topic with every passing minute, and as far as I can tell no one has ever addressed the real issue that’s upsetting everyone.

So, rather than wait in vain for someone else to finally speak the honest truth about the single-payer system, I’ll just have to do it myself. (Zombie, PJM)

America’s current predicament is that it borrows money from countries or individuals to finance many of its expensive obligations, including financing the $862 billion stimulus bill as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But what would happen if America had to pay higher interest rates on all future borrowing? This is the question that some people in the federal government have to ponder, as influential rating agencies such as Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s have both recently voiced their view that America’s AAA rating is not guaranteed or in fact even assured. The massive and growing debt obligation makes some professionals question whether this country’s rating may soon be lowered.

A downgrade in America’s credit risk would mean paying higher interest on additional borrowing, thus making borrowing much more expensive. Just as importantly, it would signify a change in perception of quality about the American economy and by extension of the world economy.

Moody’s softened the impact of their statement by being clear that a downgrade is not likely but just a possibility, and similarly Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that he is confident that that will not happen. The purpose of talking about this unpleasant possibility is to remind policymakers in Washington that it is important to address America’s fiscal deficit and debt. However, the fact that this possibility is being talked about and discussed should be seen as a warning, if not an ebbing sign for concern. Continue reading... (The Foundry)

If there is anything good to say about Democrat control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives, it's that their extraordinarily brazen, heavy-handed acts have aroused a level of constitutional interest among the American people that has been dormant for far too long.

Part of this heightened interest is seen in the strength of the Tea Party movement around the nation. Another is the angry reception that many congressmen received at their district town hall meetings.

Yet another is seen by the exchanges on the nation's most popular radio talk shows such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and others. Then there's the rising popularity of conservative/libertarian television shows such as Glenn Beck, John Stossel and Fox News.

While the odds-on favorite is that the Republicans will do well in the fall elections, Americans who want constitutional government should not see Republican control as a solution to what our founders would have called "a long train of abuses and usurpations."

Solutions to our nation's problems require correct diagnostics and answers to questions like: Why did 2008 presidential and congressional candidates spend over $5 billion campaigning for office? Why did special interests pay Washington lobbyists over $3 billion that same year? What are reasons why corporations, unions and other interest groups fork over these billions of dollars to lobbyists and into the campaign coffers of politicians? (Walter Williams, IBD)

MADISON — For more than 30 years, scientists have known that multiple sclerosis (MS) is much more common in higher latitudes than in the tropics. Because sunlight is more abundant near the equator, many researchers have wondered if the high levels of vitamin D engendered by sunlight could explain this unusual pattern of prevalence.

Vitamin D may reduce the symptoms of MS, says Hector DeLuca, Steenbock Research Professor of Biochemistry at University of Wisconsin-Madison, but in a study published in PNAS this week, he and first author Bryan Becklund suggest that the ultraviolet portion of sunlight may play a bigger role than vitamin D in controlling MS.

Multiple sclerosis is a painful neurological disease caused by a deterioration in the nerve's electrical conduction; an estimated 400,000 people have the disabling condition in the United States. In recent years, it's become clear the patients' immune systems are destroying the electrical insulation on the nerve fibers.

The ultraviolet (UV) portion of sunlight stimulates the body to produce vitamin D, and both vitamin D and UV can regulate the immune system and perhaps slow MS. But does the immune regulation result directly from the UV, indirectly from the creation of vitamin D, or both?

The study was designed to distinguish the role of vitamin D and UV light in explaining the high rate of MS away from the equator, says DeLuca, a world authority on vitamin D. (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

NEW YORK - Children with a history of food-induced allergic reactions may need more than one shot of epinephrine to halt a severe reaction, a study has confirmed.

Among a group of children treated for food-related "anaphylactic" reactions over 6 years, 12 percent needed a second epinephrine dose, according to a report out today in the journal Pediatrics. Anaphylaxis is a severe allergic reaction that develops quickly, within seconds or minutes of exposure, causing potentially life-threatening symptoms like difficulty breathing.

Prior studies found similar results. One found that nearly one in five severe food-induced allergic reactions will require more than one epinephrine shots.

Taken together, these studies add weight to the recommendation that children at risk for severe food-related allergic reactions carry two doses of epinephrine, note Dr. Susan A. Rudders of Children's Hospital Boston and colleagues. (Reuters Health)

Schools have banned cupcakes, issued obesity report cards and cleared space in cafeterias for salad bars. Just last month, Michelle Obama’s campaign to end childhood obesity promised to get young people moving more and revamp school lunch, and beverage makers said they had cut the sheer number of liquid calories shipped to schools by almost 90 percent in the past five years.

But new research suggests that interventions aimed at school-aged children may be, if not too little, too late.

More and more evidence points to pivotal events very early in life — during the toddler years, infancy and even before birth, in the womb — that can set young children on an obesity trajectory that is hard to alter by the time they’re in kindergarten. The evidence is not ironclad, but it suggests that prevention efforts should start very early. (NYT)

PHILADELPHIA - PepsiCo Inc said on Sunday it would cut the levels of salt, sugar and saturated fats in its top-selling products.

The company, which owns the Pepsi, Frito-Lay and Quaker brands, said it plans a reduction of 25 per cent the average sodium per serving in major global food brands in key markets by 2015.

It also would reduce the average saturated fat per serving by 15 percent by 2020, and cut the average added sugar per serving in key global beverage brands by 25 percent by 2020.

Meanwhile, it will increase whole grains, fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds and low-fat dairy in its product portfolio.

"We believe that a healthier future for all people and our planet means a more successful future for PepsiCo," said Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo chairman and chief executive officer. (Reuters)

Seaweed could be the answer to the obesity epidemic, potentially reducing the body's fat retention by more than 75 percent.

A fibrous material in sea kelp called alginate was better at preventing fat absorption than most over-the-counter slimming treatments, researchers at Newcastle University in the U.K. found.

"This suggests that if we can add the natural fiber to products commonly eaten daily — such as bread, biscuits and yogurts — up to three quarters of the fat contained in that meal could simply pass through the body," said team leader Dr. Iain Brownlee.

"We have already added the alginate to bread and initial taste tests have been extremely encouraging. Now, the next step is to carry out clinical trials to find out how effective it is when eaten as part of a normal diet," he added.

Alginates not only have great potential for weight management — adding them to food also has the added advantage of boosting overall fiber content. (Sky News)

An obesity researcher analyzed dozens of famous paintings of the Last Supper and found that food portions have grown larger in more recent ones.

Cornell University's Brian Wansink (WAHN-sink) studied 52 paintings depicting Jesus Christ's last meal with his disciples. The paintings were done at various times during the last 1,000 years.

He found that over that time period, the size of the main dish grew 69 percent, the size of the plate grew 66 percent, and bread portions grew 23 percent in the images.

The study was released Tuesday and is published in the April issue of the International Journal of Obesity. ( Associated Press)

This sort of stuff could only be written by someone on full academic tenure and who has never had to worry about feeding his family.

It would take many hours to rebut all of the idiocies contained in the full article, but for now I will just say: Yes, it is true that U.S. government subsidies for corn, for example, cause environmental damage in the Gulf of Mexico (Cato scholars have in fact covered this before as part of our ongoing campaign to eliminate farm subsidies). And yes, poor farmers abroad have suffered because of government intervention in food markets. But those are problems stemming from government intervention, not the free market. (Sallie James, Cato @ liberty)

NEW YORK - You may not need to worry as much about young kids body-checking each other on the ice, according to a new study.

Allowing kids as young as 9 years old to use body-checking during ice hockey may be safe if rules are strictly enforced, Canadian researchers said Monday in a report that adds to a long-standing controversy.

The researchers looked at injury rates before and after a rule change allowed the forceful technique to be used by nine- and 10-year-old players in Ontario. Until 2002, only those from 12 and up could use it.

There were slightly more injuries in 10- and 11-year-olds due to checking after the rule change. However, the overall injury rate among 7- to 14-year-olds fell by about 20 percent. And for 12-year-olds, checking injuries halved.

Based on the findings, before the rule change, if 100 kids played hockey for one year, the researchers would expect to find 6 injuries. After the rule change, that number would have dropped to about 5.

"Frankly," the researchers write in the journal Pediatrics, "the overall decline in rates of injury after the introduction of the rule change was unexpected." (Reuters Health)

Sometimes dozens of pesticides turn up in a single sample of wax or pollen

SAN FRANCISCO For years the news has been the same: Honey bees are being hammered by some mysterious environmental plague that has a name -- colony collapse disorder – but no established cause. A two-year study now provides evidence indicting one likely group of suspects: pesticides. It found “unprecedented levels” of mite-killing chemicals and crop pesticides in hives across the United States and parts of Canada.

Scientists here at the American Chemical Society spring annual meeting, which kicked off today, will report on the findings of this study later in the week. But if you want an early peak at their results, or can’t make it to the meeting, check out a 19-page synopsis of the data that has just been published online in the March PLoS ONE. (Science News)

A class-action lawsuit filed last week in a southern Illinois court is threatening to change a long-standing Kansas farming practice.

The suit, organized and filed by a Texas law firm, represents nearly 100 cities, counties and water systems —including 16 water systems in Kansas— that feel their drinking water has been compromised by farmers’ use of one of the most common herbicides, atrazine.

The suit’s plaintiffs say they are simply asking for funds to clean their water systems but those in the agriculture industry believe the lawsuit could lead to a change in farming practices and is the first in a potentially long series of lawsuits aimed at changing the farming industry.

“I think there is a good chance of change in use regulations because of this lawsuit,” said Kansas Corn Growers Association spokesperson Sue Schulte. “I believe there is a good chance our farmers won’t be able to use (atrazine) if this lawsuit is successful.” (Katie Stockstill, McPherson Sentinel)

Alex Avery, Director of Research and Education at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Food Issues, released a video criticizing new research by University of California Berkeley professor Dr. Tyrone Hayes alleging endocrine disruption in amphibians caused by the popular herbicide atrazine.

“For the last ten years I’ve been watching closely the research and activism of Dr. Tyrone Hayes from the University of California – Berkley. And for ten years Dr. Hayes has tried to claim that atrazine is an eminent threat to amphibian populations because it feminizes frogs at some, but not all, concentrations,” says Avery.

Avery points out that Dr. Hayes’ research is flawed due to the small sample size of the experiment. He cites several recent papers that have used sample sizes much larger and allowed the EPA full access to their research that contradict Hayes’ research, finding no impact on feminization of males. Avery goes on to criticize Dr. Hayes for releasing his findings “via press release orchestrated by environmental organizations” instead of doing research by the book without bias.

“We have to weigh one or the other. I don’t think Dr. Hayes has really stepped up to the plate. He continues to do research that according to the EPA is ‘insufficient’ and ‘scientifically flawed.’…They [the EPA] also complain that Dr. Hayes would not share his raw data.”

Finally Avery addresses Dr. Hayes research directly, asking if his research is correct then frog populations in areas where atrazine has long been used would not be thriving as many are today. He also refers to a Yale University study which found frogs in urban areas having more of a feminization problem than rural areas, where atrazine is used. (CGFI)

On Thursday, March 18, John Stossel’s show on the Fox Business News network will feature a discussion of how taxes and regulation have prevented urban areas like Cleveland from recovering from the decline of the industries that once supported those regions.

While the “stars” of the show were Drew Carey and Reason Magazine’s Nick Gillespie, Stossel spent a few minutes on zoning and land-use regulation. When searching for someone to advocate such land-use regulation, they happened to ask James Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere, a critique of suburbia.

Kunstler’s response was emphatic. First, he called one of Stossel’s other guests (okay, it was me) “a shill for the sprawl-builders.” Then he added, “Please tell Stoessel [sic] he can kiss my ass.” He was so proud of this response that he posted it on his blog (look for it in the archive if it has disappeared from his home page).

Kunstler is biased against mobility and low-density housing, but he must be a good writer because he has lots of fans. As soon as he posted his rude reply, the blogosphere lit up with arguments from progressive, conservative, and even libertarian writers claiming that sprawl is the result of central planning and zoning and therefore libertarians such as Stossel and Cato should support smart-growth policies aimed at containing sprawl.

Sprawl is “mandated by a vast and seemingly intractable network of government regulations, from zoning laws and building codes to street design regulations,” claims conservative Austin Bramwell. As a result, “government planning makes sprawl ubiquitous.”

Anarcho-libertarian Kevin Carson quotes The Geography of Nowhere as the authority for how planners like Robert Moses forced people to live in sprawl. “Local governments have been almost universally dominated by an unholy alliance of real estate developers and other commercial interests” that insisted on urban sprawl, says Carson.

Progressive Matthew Yglesias describes sprawl as “centrally planned suburbia” and accuses libertarians of being hypocrites because they don’t oppose zoning codes that mandate sprawl. He adds that “People sometimes cite Houston as an example of a libertarian-style ‘no zoning’ city, but this is mostly a myth” (citing a paper that finds that Houston “regulates land use almost as intricately as cities with zoning”).

This is all balderdash and poppycock. People who believe it should get their noses out of Kunstler’s biased diatribes and look at some real data and see how zoning actually worked before it was hijacked by authoritarian urban planners. It doesn’t take much to show that areas without any zoning or regulation will — if developed today — end up as what planners call “sprawl.” Until recently, all that zoning has done has been to affirm the kind of development that people want. ... (Randal O'Toole, Cato @ liberty)

Scientist Charles Moore has worked tirelessly to raise awareness about the insidious plastic soup swirling in the North Pacific, but he has said that cleaning it up is impossible. A scientific mission is under way now to see if it's not only possible, but an opportunity for recycling.

Project Kaisei, a diverse team of marine scientists, environmentalists and entrepreneurs sponsored in part by recycling businesses, is working in collaboration with researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Over the weekend, the Kaisei brigatine and Scripps's converted fishing vessel New Horizon reached the gyre, where an estimated four million tons of plastic has gathered due to ocean currents.

Moore has pointed out that some of the plastic pellets are so small that there's no way to remove them without damaging marine life. Plus, it would undoubtedly be an expensive, fuel-intensive endeavor.

Kaisei cofounder Mary Crowley told AOL News that her team is looking into ways to remove the plastic debris and turn it into fuel.

"We're working on capture technology, all in our effort to figure out the most energy efficient way to collect the debris in the ocean," she told reporter Christine Riedel.

The team is testing out different kinds of active and passive capture methods, including a new barrel-capture technology that might be scalable. In addition, the scientists want to learn more about exactly what all the plastic is, where it is, and what's in it. Once they do, the plastic could go from ocean trash to recyclable treasure. (Discovery News)

What nonsense: Whaling: the great betrayal - Outrage as secret deal set to sweep away international moratorium

The moratorium on commercial whaling, one of the environmental movement's greatest achievements, looks likely to be swept away this summer by a new international deal being negotiated behind closed doors. The new arrangement would legitimise the whaling activities of the three countries which have continued to hunt whales in defiance of the ban – Japan, Norway and Iceland – and would allow commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary set up by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1994.

Conservationists regard it as catastrophic, but fear there is a very real chance of its being accepted at the next IWC meeting in Morocco in June, not least because it is being strongly supported by the US – previously one of whaling's most determined opponents.

Should the deal go ahead, it would represent one of the most significant setbacks ever for conservation, and as big a failure for wildlife protection as December's Copenhagen conference was for action on climate change. ( The Independent)

The tiny caterpillars belong to the moth genus Hyposmocoma which includes an enormously diverse group of at least 350 species found only on Hawaii.

Entomologist Professor Daniel Rubinoff and colleagues observed larvae feeding and breathing in streams and on dry rocks - a newly discovered phenomenon.

Many insects can withstand extreme conditions in a dormant state, but never before has one been known to survive an entire life cycle above and below the water's surface. (TDT)

The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Monday that it would overhaul drinking water regulations so that officials could police dozens of contaminants simultaneously and tighten rules on the chemicals used by industries.

The new policies, which are still being drawn up, will probably force some local water systems to use more effective cleaning technologies, but may raise water rates.

“There are a range of chemicals that have become more prevalent in our products, our water and our bodies in the last 50 years,” the E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, said in a speech on Monday. Regulations have not kept pace with scientific discoveries, and so the agency is issuing “a new vision for providing clean, safe drinking water.”

Along with its other steps, Ms. Jackson said the E.P.A. was readying stricter regulations on four carcinogens often detected in drinking water, including a chemical commonly used in dry cleaning. (NYT)

Contaminated and polluted water now kills more people than all forms of violence including wars, according to a United Nations report released Monday that calls for turning unsanitary wastewater into an environmentally safe economic resource.

"At the beginning of the 21st century, the world faces a water crisis, both of quantity and quality, caused by continuous population growth, industrialization, food production practices, increased living standards and poor water use strategies," the report by the U.N. Environmental Program says.

As a result, "it is essential that wastewater management is considered as part of integrated, ecosystem-based management that operates across sectors and borders, freshwater and marine."

The report defines wastewater as a combination of fertilizer runoff, sewage disposal and other animal, agricultural and industrial wastes.

According to the report -- titled "Sick Water?" -- 90 percent of wastewater discharged daily in developing countries is untreated, contributing to the deaths of some 2.2 million people a year from diarrheal diseases caused by unsafe drinking water and poor hygiene. At least 1.8 million children younger than 5 die every year from water-related diseases, the report says.

But with proper management, the report notes, "wastewater can be an essential resource for supporting livelihoods." (CNN)

Water is the life-blood of agriculture; it is the liquid elixir that nurtures the growth of billions of hectares of crops needed to feed the world. The ample supply of water for farming and agriculture often means the difference between feast and famine. Many parts of the world, however, suffer from the opposite - the growing scarcity of water available for agriculture. The reasons can range from drought and desertification to climate change and climate variability, pollution, over-use and poor water management practices.

Acutely aware of the seriousness of this problem, affected countries are implementing measures to ensure adequate water supplies for farming. Some of these measures involve the use of nuclear techniques to better understand, analyse and mitigate the root causes of the problem.

With technical help from the IAEA, countries from Africa, the Middle East and Asia are reporting successes in water resource management. Some notable examples: (IAEA)

As I previously noted, one of the areas where enforcement of the right to keep and bear arms will impact states and localities is in the carrying of handguns, either open or concealed. Until then, handgun carry proponents will be forced to comply with state laws that mandate open carry where concealed handgun permits are not issued or are only issued to those who happen to have fame, money, or political connections.

Wisconsin is one of two states with no provision for concealed carry (Illinois is the other). Frank Hannon-Rock, a member of Wisconsin Carry, a pro-gun rights organization, was arrested for open carrying on his front porch. He filed suit and was recently awarded $10,000 by a federal district court.

This parallels (but does not equal) the experience of Danladi Moore, an open carry advocate in Virginia who has been harassed repeatedly by Norfolk police. Moore’s case is worse; he is black, and police behavior took a predictable turn:

Reader Mac notes Kerry Emmanuel's comments on the Climategate emails, delivered at an MIT debate on the subject:

I'm speechless. Even after the debacle of Philip Campbell's resignation from the Russell panel, no lessons appear to have been learned. (Bishop Hill)

The Royal Society panel that is going to examine the scientific aspects on the Climategate affair has been announced. This is the press release from UEA (via a reader - it doesn't appear on the UEA website at the moment).

Lord Oxburgh FRS, a former chair of the Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, is to chair an independent Scientific Assessment Panel to examine important elements of the published science of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia.

His appointment has been made on the recommendation of the Royal Society, which has also been consulted on the choice of the six distinguished scientists who have been invited to be members of the panel.

A member of the House of Lords appointed to investigate the veracity of climate science has close links to businesses that stand to make billions of pounds from low-carbon technology.

Lord Oxburgh is to chair a scientific assessment panel that will examine the published science of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

The CRU has been accused of manipulating and suppressing data to overstate the dangers from climate change. Professor Phil Jones, its director, has stood down from his post while a separate inquiry, chaired by Sir Muir Russell, takes place into the leaking of e-mails sent by him and his colleagues.

Climate sceptics questioned whether Lord Oxburgh, chairman of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and the wind energy company Falck Renewables, was truly independent because he led organisations that depended on climate change being seen as an urgent problem. (The Times)

There's no getting away from the fact that those who are deniers of climate change have been lying in wait, having been organising themselves, and the moment this opportunity arose they've decided to strike and since then they've been on a rampage.

See the rest here. (EU Referendum)

'What can be said about future climate? Using observations to constrain the forecast and the implications for climate policy.'

Myles Allen introduced himself as a member of an endangered species, a climate scientist. He agreed that energy measures will be needed regardless of climate change, but wanted to argue that climate change is important. He said that climate scientists have recently been faced by many questions, both from sceptics and from the policy community, and said that most people are asking the wrong questions. It is clear, he said, that CO₂ is rising and temperatures are trending upwards.

LONDON -- Apocalyptic visions and the muscular language of religious fervor are invading the climate arena, replacing issues of fact with those of faith and bringing high emotion into science -- an area where it should have no place -- politicians and religious leaders complain.

People who say human-induced climate change is a fact that demands urgent action are described as "believers" or "climate evangelists," while those who reject the concept are "deniers," "skeptics" or "atheists." Those in the middle who say they are unconvinced either way are "agnostics."

"The use of this language has become increasingly an issue," said Colin Challen, chairman of the United Kingdom's All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group, a committee of U.K. lawmakers studying the global climate phenomenon.

"Some people would like that to happen, because in some eyes proving that climate change is man-made becomes as difficult as proving the existence of God," he told E&E.

The contagious, semi-religious linguistic brew is further fueled by climate alarmists, from environmentalists to politicians, warning of looming apocalyptic disasters or seeing themselves pitted in an Armageddon-like struggle between the forces of good and evil. (ClimateWire)

By conflating creationism with climate skepticism, creationists can only harm their fellow man by greasing the skids for draconian climate policies.

To my dismay, creationists have decided to hitch their religious crusade to secular skepticism of climate science and policy. As the New York Times reports:

Critics of the teaching of evolution in the nation’s classrooms are gaining ground in some states by linking the issue to global warming, arguing that dissenting views on both scientific subjects should be taught in public schools. In Kentucky, a bill recently introduced in the Legislature would encourage teachers to discuss “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”

The linkage of evolution and global warming is partly a legal strategy: courts have found that singling out evolution for criticism in public schools is a violation of the separation of church and state. By insisting that global warming also be debated, deniers of evolution can argue that they are simply championing academic freedom in general. Yet they are also capitalizing on rising public resistance in some quarters to accepting the science of global warming, particularly among political conservatives who oppose efforts to rein in emissions of greenhouse gases.

As a public policy analyst trained in biology and environmental science, I would like to sound “repel boarders” and kick these would-be policy pirates off the back of the ship. Not only do I reject equating climate-science skepticism with creationism, but I believe that the efforts of these new conflationists will only give proponents of draconian greenhouse gas controls a new stick with which to beat climate-science skeptics as well as climate-policy skeptics. (Kenneth P. Green, The American)

We don't have to believe that our house will burn down to take out insurance. So why delay taking action to reduce emissions? ( Tim Palmer, The Guardian)

SAN FRANCISCO, March 22, 2010 — Cutting back on consumption of meat and dairy products will not have a major impact in combating global warming — despite repeated claims that link diets rich in animal products to production of greenhouse gases. That's the conclusion of a report presented here today at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Air quality expert Frank Mitloehner, Ph.D., who made the presentation, said that giving cows and pigs a bum rap is not only scientifically inaccurate, but also distracts society from embracing effective solutions to global climate change. He noted that the notion is becoming deeply rooted in efforts to curb global warming, citing campaigns for "meatless Mondays" and a European campaign, called "Less Meat = Less Heat," launched late last year.

"We certainly can reduce our greenhouse-gas production, but not by consuming less meat and milk," said Mitloehner, who is with the University of California-Davis. "Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries."

The focus of confronting climate change, he said, should be on smarter farming, not less farming. "The developed world should focus on increasing efficient meat production in developing countries where growing populations need more nutritious food. In developing countries, we should adopt more efficient, Western-style farming practices to make more food with less greenhouse gas production," Mitloehner said. (American Chemical Society)

Back in November, Sesame Street celebrated its 40 anniversary, and the show featured First Lady Michelle Obama talking to vegetable puppets about helping curb childhood obesity. The First Lady explained to three young children and two somewhat old muppets the logistics of planting and growing tomatoes, lettuce and carrots as part of her initiative to promote healthy eating. She mentioned that eating these vegetables can make the children big and strong. At the end of the show, the cabbage puppet told her “We think you’re great too” and then led the children in three cheers for the First Lady. Mrs. Obama said at the time of recording her appearance was “probably the best thing I’ve done so far in the White House.”

We at World Climate Report were so moved by this show that we decided to ask the vegetable puppets what would make them big and strong, and the answer we got in our exclusive interview was resoundingly … “higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2)!”

There are 1,000s of articles in the professional literature showing the incredible biological benefits of CO2, so in honor of the Sesame Street’s 40th Anniversary, here is the latest on tomatoes, cabbage, lettuce and carrots. (WCR)

Second I’m pleased to see the Guardian finally catching on. You can watch wind patterns in this time lapse animation:

Animation of Arctic sea-ice being pushed by wind patterns - CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW ANIMATION- Above image is not part of original story, but included to demonstrate the issue. Note that the animation is large, about 7 MB and may take awhile to load on your computer. It is worth the wait Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center

New research does not question climate change is also melting ice in the Arctic, but finds wind patterns explain steep decline.

Much of the record breaking loss of ice in the Arctic ocean in recent years is down to the region’s swirling winds and is not a direct result of global warming, a new study reveals.

As the world warms, sea levels could easily rise three to six feet this century. But increases will vary widely by region, with prevailing winds, powerful ocean currents, and even the gravitational pull of the polar ice sheets determining whether some coastal areas will be inundated while others stay dry. (Michael D. Lemonick, e360)

Are milder winters good for wildlife? Yes? No? Who knows? Certainly, nobody would know it were the BBC the main source of information…

The overall impression is of course that few at the BBC (or amongst the esteemed scientists and various interviewees for several years) understand about the topic they are writing about, so they end up contributing to an absolutely confused mess where too much uncritical reporting demonstrates everything and its opposite.

If one waits long enough, literally anything will appear on the BBC News website on matters of climate.

QUESTION: You’ve talked about potential distortions of temperature measurements from natural temperature cycles in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and from changes in the way land is used. How does that work?

JUDITH CURRY’S ANSWER: Land use changes the temperature quite a bit in complex ways—everything from cutting down forests or changing agriculture to building up cities and creating air pollution. All of these have big impacts on regional surface temperature, which isn’t always accounted for adequately, in my opinion. The other issue is these big ocean oscillations, like the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and particularly, how these influenced temperatures in the latter half of the 20th century. I think there was a big bump at the end of the 20th century, especially starting in the mid-1990s. We got a big bump from going into the warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation was warm until about 2002. Now we’re in the cool phase. This is probably why we’ve seen a leveling-off [of global average temperatures] in the past five or so years. My point is that at the end of the 1980s and in the ’90s, both of the ocean oscillations were chiming in together to give some extra warmth.

Judy’s reply reinforces that we need a broader perspective on the climate issue, as we emphasized in

Pielke Sr., R., K. Beven, G. Brasseur, J. Calvert, M. Chahine, R. Dickerson, D. Entekhabi, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, H. Gupta, V. Gupta, W. Krajewski, E. Philip Krider, W. K.M. Lau, J. McDonnell, W. Rossow, J. Schaake, J. Smith, S. Sorooshian, and E. Wood, 2009: Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases. Eos, Vol. 90, No. 45, 10 November 2009, 413. Copyright (2009) American Geophysical Union.

This includes both the need to include land use/and cover change as a first order human climate forcing and the more significant role of natural atmospheric/ocean circulations in modulating the climate system. (Climate Science)

A word to the BBC’s Sydney reporter Nick Bryant. Mate, Australians now have the Internet and can check the bizarre reports you file back home, like this one:

And here are the current storage levels on these cities that “confront the major possibility of running out of water daily”:

An international team led by the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR) has produced MOPREDAS, the most complete database to date on monthly precipitations in the Iberian Peninsula. This has been used to analyse monthly rainfall trends between 1945 and 2005 in the Spanish part of the Iberian Peninsula.

The aim of this study is "to respond to a request in the ministerial report about the impacts of climate change in Spain, which highlights the lack of detailed studies into rainfall in Spain or a database that covers the entire country", José Carlos González-Hidalgo, lead author of the study and a tenured professor of Physical Geography in the Faculty of Geography at UNIZAR, tells SINC.

The study, which has just been published online in the International Journal of Climatology, shows that March, June and October are the months that show significant changes in precipitation trends across large areas of the Iberian Peninsula.

Precipitation has declined in quantity in March and June (above all in the centre, south and west of the country), but over large parts of the country in general, affecting more than 60% of the peninsula in March.

"We can't say categorically that annual precipitation has increased or decreased overall, but there are marked variations in different areas", says the geographer.

For the period between October and March, rainfall has increased in October while there has been a widespread decrease in March, "which is important information for the management of water resources". (FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology) [em added]

Earth's climate history includes numerous incidents of rapid warming and cooling. While Pleistocene ice-age glacial terminations are arguably the most dramatic recent examples of sudden climate change, during the last glacial period the climate of the Northern Hemisphere experienced several other significant episodes when the climate rapidly warmed. Scientists call these episodes Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) events after the Danish and Swiss researchers who documented them using ice-core studies. These rapid oscillations are marked by rapid warming, followed by slower cooling. The most prominent coolings are associated with massive iceberg discharge into the North Atlantic Ocean known as Heinrich events (HE). The melting icebergs add large volumes of cold fresh water to the ocean, disrupting circulation patterns and causing further climate changes. Scientists look to past events like these to help us understand how Earth's climate system functions—what causes our planet to cool or suddenly warm. Recently, new data on past climate changes have led one commentator to predict the end of winter skiing in the American Southwest.

In an attempt to better understand the impact of such events on the American Southwest, Asmerom et al. examined oxygen isotopic data from a well-dated stalagmite recovered from central New Mexico. It seems that speleothems are providing scientists a wealth of new paleoclimate data these days. The data presented in this report, “Variable winter moisture in the southwestern United States linked to rapid glacial climate shifts,” utilizes a new analysis technique, different from the one used to identify ancient sea-level changes I reported on earlier (see “Ancient Sea-levels Rewrite Ice Age Transitions”). Here researchers were trying to fill in a gap in our knowledge regarding precipitation changes in days gone by. As they explain in the article:

This lack of data has been particularly true for arid regions, but the authors used speleothems and new multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometric techniques to analyze U-series isotopes, providing a new look at the climate history of the American Southwest. The ratio of oxygen isotopes in the calcite that makes up the speleothems from the sample site is a proxy for the relative amounts of summer and winter precipitation in the past. The researchers obtained 68 high-precision uranium-series dates using mass spectrometry with typical age uncertainties of less than 1%, providing a way to precisely date the precipitation proxy data from the oxygen isotopes.

These techniques showed that the stalagmite they collected from approximately 1 km into the Fort Stanton Cave in central New Mexico had grown continuously from 55.9 to 11.4 thousand years ago. Along with the date measurements, they took 1209 δ¹⁸O measurements. The authors found a close match between precipitation changes and the record of DO events, which they interpret as a result of a shift of the polar jet stream and intertropical convergence zone to the north during warm periods. This change in turn causes a reduction in winter precipitation.

The theory is that during warming periods, the pole-to-Equator temperature gradient decreases, shifting the polar jet stream and the Northern Hemisphere summer ITCZ further north. The opposite changes would be expected during cold swings. Analysis of later Holocene climate and historical data show that years of severe droughts are primarily the result of deficit in winter precipitation. Because of all of these factors the authors state “global warming may result in profound changes in precipitation,” which prompted Science writer H. Jesse Smith to quip “Ski While You Can,” a reference to expected temperature increases due to global warming. But that is not the full story.

According to the authors: “The poleward shift during DO events occurred at a time when the earth was in a glacial state. An example of ‘extra’ warming during an interglacial, expressed as a +4 to +6 m rise in sea level relative to today, at the end of the last interglacial 125,000 yr ago has been reported.” As was seen from the Mallorcan sea-level study reported earlier on this blog, such higher sea-levels did occur during the Eemian interglacial and the DO events following it. This implies that the bouts of “extra” global warming can and do occur naturally. And when this paper's authors menacingly pronounce, “rapid DO-like warming due to greenhouse-gas forcing during the present interglacial stage could push SWNA into an even more arid phase, unseen since the early Holocene, or even go beyond this, into conditions not represented since 125,000 yr ago,” it is pure speculation.

By contrast, Heinrich events, named after German oceanographer Hartmut Heinrich, are relatively brief and occur on average every seven-thousand years during glacial periods. Abrupt shifts to warmer climate follow immediately after Heinrich events, the last event (HE1) marked the onset of the termination which ended the last glacial. The events seem to occur only when the ice volume is relatively large, the temperatures are relatively cold, and the sea level is 130-250 feet (40-60 meters) below present values. The cause of Heinrich events—internal ice dynamics or external climate change—is not fully understood but it is pretty safe to say we are not threatened by them during the current interglacial.

The data presented by Asmerom et al. in no way show a causal connection between CO₂ or anthropogenic global warming and DO events. In fact, a connection to the latter could not exist, since the humans that were around back then had no factories or SUVs. The gratuitous comments at the end of this paper and the fatuous remark from Mr. Smith show how pervasive the AGW mindset has become among climate scientists. As I reported in “Modeling Ice Age's End Lessens Climate Change Worries,” it may not be possible to induce an abrupt onset warming under a gradual forcing.

The time before the Cambrian explosion of life, the Neoproterozoic, was an era of great environmental and biological change. Unfortunately, direct and precise knowledge about the age of strata from this time has prevented accurately linking the early development of complex life with changes in the Precambrian environment. In a study of rocks in northwestern Canada, Francis A. Macdonald et al. have linked large perturbations in the carbon cycle, a major diversification and depletion in the microfossil record, and the onset of the Sturtian glaciation. The researchers set the scene and motivation for their work at the begining of their paper “Calibrating the Cryogenian”:

Some of the most dramatic climate events of this period are the so called “Snowball Earth” super ice ages. Snowball Earth refers to the hypothesis that Earth's surface became nearly or entirely frozen over at least once during three ice age periods between 650 and 750 million years ago. The snowball Earth hypothesis, originally put forth by W. Brian Harland, was developed in response to strong paleomagnetic evidence for low-latitude glaciation from the Elatina Formation in Australia.

In 1964, Harland published a paper in which he presented data showing that glacial tillites in Svalbard and Greenland were deposited at tropical latitudes. Since continents drift over time, it is difficult to figure out exactly where they were positioned on the globe at a given point in Earth's past. When sedimentary rocks form, magnetic minerals within them tend to align themselves with the Earth's magnetic field. Through the precise measurement of this palaeomagnetism, it is possible to estimate the latitude (but not the longitude) where the rock was deposited.

One of the things that may have contributed to the several periods of Neoproterozoic ice-house conditions was the configuration of the continents. During the time period in question the ancient supercontinent Rodinia was in the process of breaking up into a number of smaller land masses. It has been suggested that when there is a large land mass over either of the polar regions conditions become favorable to an ice age. One reconstruction of the geography of the late Precambrian is shown below.

The Sturtian snowball earth is linked to sedimentary deposits found on virtually every continent some evidence suggests that it lasted for millions of years. It is commonly called the “Sturtian,” after glacial sediments in South Australia described in 1908 by the geologist Walter Howchin. It is uncertain whether the Sturtian glacial epoch consisted of one discrete glaciation that lasted tens of millions of years, or multiple glacial episodes including the low-latitude glaciation at ~716.5 Ma. “Prior to this study, minimum and maximum age constraints on the Sturtian glaciation were provided by a sample from South China dated at 662.9 ± 4.3 Ma and the Leger Granite in Oman dated at 726 ± 1 Ma, respectively,” state the authors. They suggest that 717.43 ± 0.14 Ma is the maximum age constraint on the low-latitude glaciation.

Models suggest extremely rapid ice advance once ice extends below 30° latitude, implying that such glaciation of equatorial latitudes should be synchronous around the globe. According to the authors “we conclude that the Sturtian glaciation at ~716.5 Ma was global in nature.” Even so, there remain a number of unanswered questions, including whether the Earth was a full snowball or a “slushball” with a thin equatorial band of open water during these episodes.

In the 1960s Martin J. S. Rudwick, working with Brian Harland, proposed that the climate recovery following a huge Neoproterozoic glaciation paved the way for the explosive radiation of multi-cellular animal life during the following Cambrian period. In a 2000 article in Scientific American, Paul F. Hoffman and Daniel P. Schrag conjectured: “It has always been a mystery why it took so long for these primitive organisms to diversify into the 11 animal body plans that show up suddenly in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion. A series of global freeze-fry events would have imposed an environmental filter on the evolution of life. All extant eukaryotes would thus stem from the survivors of the Neoproterozoic calamity.” Indeed, Hoffman (no relation) and colleagues had previously reported on evidence of this freeze then bake cycle:

Could complex life on Earth owe its existence to the evolutionary pressure exerted by these global freeze overs? According to Macdonald et al., “It is clear that a diverse biosphere persisted through the Neoproterozoic glaciations, but the impact of global glaciation on eukaryotic evolution remains unresolved.” Though Earth has not frozen solid since the advent of truly complex life, ice ages have occurred throughout the Phanerozoic.

A geographic configuration similar to the Middle Neoproterozoic existed during the Permian, when the continents once again had clustered together to form another supercontinent—Pangaea. During this period the great Karoo Ice Age occurred, ending around 260 mya. This was followed by the worst of all the mass extinction events, the Permian-Triassic at 251 mya. Following that catastrophe life almost had to begin anew and Earth soon entered the age of the dinosaurs. And of course, H. sapiens bounced back from the edge of extinction and exploded across the globe following the last deglaciation only 14,000 years ago.

What impact these new findings will have on thinking regarding our current ice age remains to be seen. Considering the geographic dispersal of the continental land masses today it is unlikely that Earth will be cast into another snowball earth episode any time soon. There as been, however, another new report in Nature Geoscience that casts doubt on at least one theory about CO₂ and the end of the glacial period just prior to the current Holocene warm period.

Over the past 500,000 years, each of the five identified glacial periods ended abruptly. Rapid warming caused continental ice-sheets retreated in roughly one-tenth of the time it took for the Earth's climate to cool and for ice sheets to reach to their maximum extent. Ice-core records from Greenland and Antarctica show that atmospheric CO₂ levels rise by ~80 ppm during such deglaciations, leading scientists to seek a source for the carbon dioxide. According to current thinking the Southern Ocean as the main area of exchange with reservoirs of deep old water, which then makes its way to lower-latitude waters. Ricardo De Pol-Holz et al. investigated the hypotheses that an injection of carbon dioxide with low radiocarbon activity from an oceanic abyssal reservoir was the source of the increase (see “No signature of abyssal carbon in intermediate waters off Chile during deglaciation”).

“The fundamentals behind the atmospheric CO₂ increase and Δ¹⁴C decrease during the so-called mystery interval (17.5–14.5 kyr BP) and the contemporaneous deglaciation have remained elusive,” state De Pol-Holz et al. Ice-core records show that the overall increase in atmospheric CO₂ was ~100 ppm (parts per million) during the deglaciation. At the same time, the concentration of radioactive carbon 14 (¹⁴C) decreased without any record of a decrease in cosmic ray activity that would explain the drop. The proposed source for the upsurge in depleted CO₂ is an upwelling of old water from the deep.

Supposedly, the deep ocean water had remained isolated from the atmosphere for several thousand years during the last ice age, becoming progressively depleted in ¹⁴C because of radioactive decay. Previous work by Marchitto et al. had documented two pulses of extremely depleted water coinciding with the mystery interval and the Younger Dryas (11,500–12,900 years ago). This resulted in changes to the radiocarbon content of Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) because of mixing with old abyssal water south of the subantarctic frontal zone. To test for the presence of such water a number of cores were taken from ocean bottom sediment. What they found was unexpected—the upwelling of deep, carbon 14 deplete water could not have come from the depths off Chile.

“Increasing evidence from the Atlantic, both in observations and in models, and from the West Pacific indicates a re-invigoration of AAIW production during the deglaciation,” the researchers concluded, “We therefore believe that the idea of a deglacial AAIW being formed elsewhere and routed in a completely different way so as to not affect the intermediate waters off Chile is unlikely.” What does this mean for science's understanding of ocean water movement during a deglaciation? It means that we do not really understand the conditions that prevailed during the “mystery interval” more than 14 thousand years ago. Unless an alternative formation mechanism is found for the young intermediate waters observed in the record, the upwelling intensity proxy for the Southern Ocean may need further revision. The paper concludes this way:

Science continues to refine the knowledge we have of Earth's climate, whether it be from 14,000 years ago or half a billion, new discoveries are constantly being made. Despite centuries of study, we still do not know what makes conditions right for Ice Ages to come and go: some special combination of the size and shapes of the continents; the circulation patterns of ocean waters and the atmosphere; the wobbling, subtly changing path of Earth around its star; and changes in the Sun's output may all have to come into convergence to trigger radical climate change. Meanwhile, the link between radical climate change and CO₂ remains fuzzy at best. What we do know is that to rebound from a Snowball Earth took CO₂ levels 350 times those of today. Those who claim that human activity will trigger a sudden warming or a sudden cooling are just blowing hot air.

As for the threat to skiing in the American Southwest, consider what has happened this year. One of the things that happens during an El Niño is an increase in snowfall across the southern Rockies and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. Many have speculated that a warming climate could enter a phase of nearly continuous El Niño. Though this sounds like good news for snow skiers, not bad, I wouldn't count on it either way. After all, the climate change prognosticators haven't been right yet.

Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)

MOSS LANDING, Calif. — It seems like alchemy: a Silicon Valley start-up says it has found a way to capture the carbon dioxide emissions from coal and gas power plants and lock them into cement.

If it works on a mass scale, the company, Calera, could turn that carbon into gold.

Cement production is a large source of carbon emissions in the United States, and coal-fired electricity plants are the biggest source. As nations around the world press companies to curb their greenhouse-gas emissions, a technology that makes it profitable to do so could be very popular. Indeed, Calera’s marketing materials may be one of the rare places where glowing quotes from a coal company and the Sierra Club appear together.

“With this technology, coal can be cleaner than solar and wind, because they can only be carbon-neutral,” said Vinod Khosla, the Silicon Valley billionaire. His venture capital firm, Khosla Ventures, has invested about $50 million in Calera. On Monday, Calera is set to announce that Peabody Energy, the world’s biggest coal company, has invested $15 million.

Although Calera has a pilot project up and running, it is still not clear that the process can be used on a large scale or that anyone will buy the cement it makes. (NYT)

The Texas Public Utility Commission (TPUC) is in the midst of a rulemaking that would expand Texas’s energy efficiency program. Questions of administrative overreach aside (the state legislature rejected the program last session), a sober look at costs versus benefits indicates it is a very questionable deal for ratepayers.

Some will argue that more government-directed conservation (or conservationism) is a good thing. After all, it is frequently claimed that the existing efficiency program is cost-effective based on 2001–2009 data.

In reality, however, the record provides no such justification. Actual expenses for the program in 2008 were at least $57.9 million, and projected expenses for 2010 are $105 million. These costs are paid for by residential and commercial electricity consumers. The PUC says the benefits of this program outweighs its cost. But the commission currently uses a cost-benefit method that does not accurately measure the program. (MasterResource)

On the first of February, 2010, Dr. John A. Shanahan sent a letter regarding the future of American energy policy to Dr. John P. Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy and President Obama's Science Advisor. Attached to the letter were more than thirty pages of signatories—309 scientists, engineers and citizens from 22 countries and 36 US states. The purpose of the letter was to ask for a clarification of the Obama administration's stand on nuclear energy policy. Dr. Shanahan's conclusion: if anyone thinks that the current administration's nuclear policy solves America's energy problems, they have no idea what they are talking about.

The entire world in engaged in efforts to build a secure and ecologically sound energy future, yet the US government continues to dither over energy policy. With the exception of grandstanding sound bite events, like the announcement by President Obama that the Federal Government would offer secure loans to build the first new American nuclear power plant in the nearly four decades, nothing has been done to secure the future or craft a coherent US energy policy.

John Shanahan, a Denver-based civil engineer who has worked on numerous nuclear power plant projects, wrote a letter to President Obama's Science Advisor John Holdren about the administration’s support for nuclear energy. Shanahan met Holdren in California, forty years ago, and they had kept in touch since then. Frustrated with America's lack of progress on the energy front, John contacted a number of his nuclear friends, and they drew up a letter to the President's Science Advisor. This is how the letter starts:

A pdf of the entire text of the letter and a list of the signatories can be downloaded here. To summarize the main points of the letter, it goes on to make three “urgent” recommendations to get America into the Nuclear Renaissance that is engulfing the rest of the world.

Shanahan is a supporter of the IFR (Integral Fast Reactor), a system which takes the "nuclear waste" from current nuclear power plants, and uses it as fuel to burn. This type of reactor also converts non-fissionable uranium and transuranic isotopes into fuel, while making electricity. A US development program was killed 30 years ago by the Carter administration for political reasons. With the rest of the world now rapidly building new nuclear plants, America is falling behind.

John P. Holdren is on leave from Harvard University, where he is Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School, as well as Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. He is also the Director of the Woods Hole Research Center and from 2005 to 2008 served as President-Elect, President, and Chair of the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His work focuses on causes and consequences of global environmental change, analysis of energy technologies and policies, ways to reduce the dangers from nuclear weapons and materials, and the interaction of content and process in science and technology policy.

As might be gathered from this brief curriculum vitae, Dr. Holdren leans green, fears nuclear proliferation and is politically active. In testimony before the US Congress, Holdren is on record as saying: “Reprocessing spent fuel for recycle of its plutonium -- and breeder reactors that depend on this -- go in the wrong direction in all of these respects: they make fission energy more complex, costlier, riskier, more proliferation-prone, and, correspondingly, more controversial. And there will be no sound economic or resource-availability justification for reprocessing or breeding for the next few decades, at least.”

It has now been reported that Dr. Holdren has replied to Dr. Shanahan's letter. At first blush, the response from the Science Advisor seemed positive. “In brief, Dr. Holdren says that our government is working positively on all three points,” said Shanahan in an email announcing the reply. “At least Dr. Holdren is saying that he is working on these three problems and is giving you recognition of your support for this letter,” reported Shanahan to those on the signatory list (among them your reporter).

That was the initial reaction but like so much that comes out of Washington, it should not be accepted at first glance. Indeed, after reading the reply in detail, the impression one gets is quite different. Here are a number of points made by Shanahan in a follow up email :

As you can tell, Dr. Shanahan is less than pleased with Holdren's response on behalf of the Obama Administration. In true political fashion, the administration's energy plan consists of false claims, platitudes and evasion. This type of business-as-usual Washington bovine excreta is what motivated Al Simmons and myself to write a second book, soon to be released, on the topic of the growing world wide energy gap. In it we offer positive solutions, not meaningless political babble.

Dr. Shanahan's final take on the Holdren letter, contained in advice to a high school debating team, is as follows: “In conclusion, if anyone in the debates suggests that the Holdren Response dated March 5, 2010 solves nuclear energy's problems, they have no idea what they are talking about. They are hiding behind Illusions and Masks. ” And don't forget the smoke and mirrors either.

Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)

"An average of 500 jobs will be created every month until 2020 in sectors ranging from offshore wind power to carbon capture technology," writes The Scotsman, heralding a report which supposedly highlights how Scotland can capitalise on its natural advantages to make the most of the potential economic benefits of green business.

The report was "unveiled" yesterday by Scottish finance secretary John Swinney, who, without batting an eyelid, proclaims the opportunities as "vast". "Scotland's future," he says, "lies in low-carbon technologies and greener business." And what is more, "8,000 jobs will be provided by environmental management opportunities, such as consultancy work or pollution control."

All you now need to know is that Dr Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland, welcomed the report. But, if there is any doubt, Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, says the paper is a "big step forward for Scotland". "We have long argued that greater investment and support for the environment could be good for jobs too," he adds.

Both are speaking of a territorial area which likes to think itself as a country but which is an impoverished Euro-region, kept solvent by the charity of English taxpayers, who are forced to tolerate this high-level stupidity for no other reason than it is the Scottish vote which keeps the current government in power.

With the limited powers afforded it, this self-important Scottish "government" seems determined to drive its peoples further into poverty and dependency, frittering away its natural wealth over a mad obsession, wholly unable to understand that its raft of non-jobs are simply another drag on an already over-burdened economy.

All one can hope for is that, when the money finally runs out, the 8,000 environmental managers and consultants turn on their masters and slaughter them, curing us once and for all of that terminal disease afflicting our political classes – an unredeemable and incurable stupidity.

"Can he be that stupid?", I ask. On the basis of the evidence, this hardly requires an answer. But, like the contagion it is, the disease in not confined to Scotland - otherwise we could simply quarantine this benighted province. From England to the USA, to Australia and India, the disease is afflicting the political classes throughout the world. Drastic, the disease is. The cure is going to have to be similarly drastic. (EU Referendum)

China will not agree to abide by any mandatory carbon emissions reduction scheme any time in the foreseeable future. [Read More] (Michael J. Economides and Xina Xie, Energy Tribune)

The industry has long recognized the Barnett Shale natural gas field in North Texas as a model for drilling techniques that produce gas while reducing the environmental footprint. But now oil and gas executives are defending themselves against concerns over air quality and potentially high emission levels in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The area spanning 12 counties is becoming the centerpiece to an argument over whether natural gas exploration companies do enough to contain harmful emissions. It’s driven largely by a recent state study that has some community leaders concerned about emissions such as benzene.

Benzene is a carcinogen that has been linked to leukemia among those with prolonged exposure; in this case, oil and gas workers.

Industry leaders say they take special steps that not only contain emissions but also enable them to produce more gas, a win-win situation. And research is also ongoing to further reduce the impact to air quality; steps like running a rig off a power grid rather than diesel fuel. (GoO)

The World Bank has announced $400 million to help double Indonesia's geothermal energy capacity, part of a broad effort at the bank to ramp up climate change spending in the developing world. (ClimateWire)

The wind may not make the bird choppers go round as fast as the greenies would like, but it does move the ice in the Arctic. That, at last, Geoffrey Lean is conceding, catching up with the rest of us.

Meanwhile, from an excellent report on the wind experience in Ontario, it seems that the bird choppers there are just as useless as they are here – which does not exactly come as a surprise. Once again, also, we see the familiar refrain about the need for back-up, thus duplicating the network at huge expense.

Another death knell for this useless fantasy comes with the news on developments in coal-bed methane (CBM), which is now being taken so seriously that Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina have purchased technology pioneers Arrow Energy for £2.1 billion.

With coal seams that stretch from the Pennines to the Irish Sea rich in methane gas, work is also in progress to exploit this resource in the UK, with suggestions that there is enough gas to generate electricity to supply seven percent of UK domestic needs for 15 years. A pilot plant already operating at a site between Widnes and Warrington.

With shale gas, this technology is another "game changer" which will take the edge off energy shortage problems – at the very least buying enough time to get the much-delayed nuclear estate renewal in hand. The crisis that might be is very much beginning to take on the mantle of the crisis that never was.

As always though, it takes non-specialists a while to catch up – and the greenies even longer, who must hate the idea that their doom-laden projections of energy shortages are not going to materialise. And, as new supplies flow, renewable energies becomes less and less attractive. The wind not only bloweth, but changeth. The bird choppers are doomed (or would be if the politicians had any sense). (EU Referendum)

A bloc of pro-life Democrats turned out to be the linchpin to passage of the Senate's massive health insurance overhaul Sunday night, as President Obama cemented a 219-212 victory with a pledge to issue an executive order "clarifying" abortion language in the Senate bill. (FOXNews.com)

Democrats in Congress who passed historic legislation on Sunday to revamp the U.S. healthcare system face a new challenge over the next seven months: convincing voters it's a good deal. (Reuters)

Republicans suffered a major defeat last night in the House as Democrats passed a sweeping health care bill, but GOP leaders warned they had not finished fighting and planned to fiercely challenge parts of the package that must still win approval in the Senate.

Republicans are preparing a last-minute battle plan designed to tie up the voting in procedural knots in the days ahead and, ideally, force yet another House vote on the reconciliation part of the package. They also hope to rally their base and weaken vulnerable Democrats in the midterm elections by hammering home forceful arguments against the measure.

“We owe it to the American people to do the very best we can to keep this bill from passing so that we can start over and get it right,’’ the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said yesterday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.’’

Senate Republicans are compiling dozens of amendments designed to underscore their contention the health care bill is too expensive, involves too much government, and cuts too much out of Medicare. In many cases they hope to force Senate Democrats to vote against popular ideas they would otherwise support for the sake of keeping the bill intact.

Democrats must resist any temptation to amend the reconciliation bill or the House will have to vote on it again before it can become law. That could create enormous political consternation, intensifying a simmering feud between House and Senate Democrats. (Boston Globe)

Well, it seems to be in the bag now. I try to be a sunny the-glass-is-one-sixteenth-full kinda guy, but it's hard to overestimate the magnitude of what the Democrats have accomplished. Whatever is in the bill is an intermediate stage: As the graph posted earlier shows, the governmentalization of health care will accelerate, private insurers will no longer be free to be "insurers" in any meaningful sense of that term (ie, evaluators of risk), and once that's clear we'll be on the fast track to Obama's desired destination of single payer as a fait accomplis.

If Barack Obama does nothing else in his term in office, this will make him one of the most consequential presidents in history. It's a huge transformative event in Americans' view of themselves and of the role of government. You can say, oh, well, the polls show most people opposed to it, but, if that mattered, the Dems wouldn't be doing what they're doing. Their bet is that it can't be undone, and that over time, as I've been saying for years now, governmentalized health care not only changes the relationship of the citizen to the state but the very character of the people. As I wrote in NR recently, there's plenty of evidence to support that from Britain, Canada, and elsewhere.

More prosaically, it's also unaffordable. That's why one of the first things that middle-rank powers abandon once they go down this road is a global military capability. If you take the view that the U.S. is an imperialist aggressor, congratulations: You can cease worrying. But, if you think that America has been the ultimate guarantor of the post-war global order, it's less cheery. Five years from now, just as in Canada and Europe two generations ago, we'll be getting used to announcements of defense cuts to prop up the unsustainable costs of big government at home. And, as the superpower retrenches, America's enemies will be quick to scent opportunity.

Longer wait times, fewer doctors, more bureaucracy, massive IRS expansion, explosive debt, the end of the Pax Americana, and global Armageddon. Must try to look on the bright side . . . (Mark Steyn, NRO)

Health Reform: Not since the heyday of Bill Clinton have we had a leader play so fast and loose with the facts as President Obama. And as the health care debate reaches a crescendo, he's been especially reckless.

Tired of waiting for the major media to take note, here's a small sampling of whoppers we took from the president's speeches last week in Ohio and Virginia, plus his interview with Fox News' Bret Baier:

• "We have incorporated the best ideas from Democrats and from Republicans." Far from it. Some of the biggest omissions include tort reform, health savings accounts, portable insurance, expanding consumer access to plans across state lines and posting provider prices for services so patients can shop around.

Republicans were almost completely shut out from the process and at the early stages last summer, were not even permitted to read the bill. In an atmosphere like this, it's little wonder the bill isn't drawing a single vote of support from Republicans of either house. It's fully a creature of the Democratic Party.

• ("This is not a) government takeover of health care." How is it that government can dictate to private insurance companies what they can offer, to whom, under what circumstances and at what prices, and yet still not own it? Every basic business decision a private company can make has effectively been expropriated.

Even as Obama denied his health care plan was a government takeover, his vice president, Joe Biden, laid out the real deal: "You know we're going to control the insurance companies." We'll take him at his word.

• "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." That's if your doctor chooses to remain in the profession. Unfortunately, our own IBD/TIPP Poll found that up to 45% would consider quitting if they're going to be dictated to by unaccountable bureaucrats who couldn't get into medical school.

... (IBD)

Last Thursday, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted to set up a committee to examine whether condoms should be required on all pornographic film shoots.

California has run out of money, but it hasn't yet run out of things to regulate.

For a government regulatory hearing, the testimony was livelier than usual. Porn star Madelyne Hernandez recalled an especially grueling scene in which she had been obliged to have sex with 75 men. The bureaucrats nodded thoughtfully, no doubt contemplating another languorous 18-month committee assignment looking into capping the number of group-sex participants at 60 per scene.

The committee will also make recommendations on whether the "adult" movie industry should be subject to the same regulatory regime and hygiene procedures as hospitals and doctors' surgeries. You mean with everyone in surgical masks? Kinky.

If you've ever been in the filthy wards of Britain's National Health Service, it may make more sense after the passage of ObamaCare to require hospitals to bring themselves up to the same hygiene standards as the average Bangkok porn shoot.

One can make arguments for permitting porn and banning porn, but there isn't a lot to be said for the bureaucratization of porn. Hard to believe there will be California bureaucrats looking forward to early retirement on gold-plated pensions who'll be getting home, sinking into the La-Z-Boy and complaining to the missus about a tough day at the office working on the permits for "Debbie Does The Fresno OSHA Office."

Meanwhile, ObamaCare will result in the creation of at least 16,500 new jobs. Doctors? Nurses? Ha! Dream on, suckers. That's 16,500 new IRS agents, who'll be needed to check whether you — yes, you, Mr. and Mrs. Hopendope of 27 Hopeychangey Gardens — comply with the 15 tax increases and dozens of new federal mandates about to be "deemed" into existence.

This will be the biggest expansion of the IRS since World War Two — and that's change you can believe in. This is what "health" "care" "reform" boils down to: fewer doctors, longer wait times, but more bureaucrats. And, when you walk into the Health Care Enforcement Division of the IRS the staffing levels will make Madelyne Hernandez's group sex scene look like an equity-minimum one-man play. (Mark Steyn)

States' Rights: Idaho requires its attorney general to sue the feds if ObamaCare passes while Virginia, the cradle of liberty, heads the line of states in front of the federal courtroom. Somewhere Patrick Henry is smiling.

As the second coming of King George III seeks to impose the leftist mandate of national health insurance on the unwilling American people, the states are once again in revolt. This time they're unwilling to be the colonies of an imperial federal government determined to spend and tax us into bankruptcy while treating the Constitution as if it were bird cage liner.

Is this what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they risked being hanged by the British crown because they said we shouldn't be taxed without representation? Well, we have representation, and they care not about the people they represent. We can now pass laws by not voting on them, almost as if by imperial decree. We have become the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez.

Not amused is Idaho, the latest state to jump into the fray last Wednesday, with Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter signing into law a measure requiring the state attorney general to sue the federal government if residents are forced to buy health insurance. (IBD)

Taxes: If ObamaCare becomes permanent, no one will suffer more than U.S. businesses. They'll face higher taxes, more regulations and a higher cost of capital. But don't take our word for it. Go ask Caterpillar.

The heavy-equipment giant reckons its insurance costs will go up 20%, or $100 million, the first year after the health care system is overhauled, and may go even higher. Multiply that by literally tens of thousands of companies nationwide, large and small, and you can see how costs will soar.

"We can ill-afford cost increases that place us at a disadvantage versus our global competitors," said Greg Folley, a Caterpillar vice president. "We are disappointed that efforts at reform have not addressed the cost concerns we've raised throughout the year."

If you don't care how this affects businesses, you should. Some 15 million people in this country don't have jobs — and another 12 million work part-time but want full-time positions.

If America's major employers are hit with huge, government-mandated cost increases during an economic downturn, do you really think they'll hire more when the economy starts growing on its own again? Of course not. (IBD)

Ever since Kant, liberal thinkers have dreamed of another kind of citizenship—world citizenship, in which national loyalties would be extinguished in an all-embracing legal order free from the causes of belligerence ... in which the warm relations of membership [of a nation-state] would be replaced by a cool adherence to a scheme of abstract duties and rights.

—Roger Scruton, The West and the Rest

Less than three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Left demonstrated its resilience with an astonishing show of strength. In June 1992, the UN’s Earth Summit was held at Rio de Janeiro. It was largest international conference ever, attended by representatives of 172 governments, including 108 heads of government or heads of state. US President George H.W. Bush, after first resisting the idea, finally gave in under pressure from the American environmentalist movement and attended. Australia was represented by Environment Minister Ros Kelly. There were 2400 officially recognised NGO representatives, and 17,000 attended the parallel NGO forum.

Rio was the brainchild of Canadian oil entrepreneur and left-wing international political fixer Maurice Strong. In writing about Strong, the New Yorker commented, “The survival of civilization in something like its present form might depend significantly on the efforts of a single man.” The New York Times hailed Strong as the “Custodian of the Planet”.

It was at Rio that the audacious Green strategy of turning the UN into an instrument of “global governance”, run by the environmentalists of Europe and North America, began to get traction. The vehicle chosen to provide the motive power for their strategy was the global warming scam, which took off in the USA under the energetic vice-presidential patronage of Al Gore, and in the UK had had the prime ministerial patronage of Margaret Thatcher, something she later came to regret (“it provides a marvellous excuse for worldwide, supranational socialism”).

As a consequence of Rio, the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) came into effect on March 21, 1994. The UNFCCC was a key pillar of Imperium Viridis, the Green Empire. It has generated more jobs, trips, conferences and rent-seekers than anything else in world history. It is founded on a scam—that by reducing anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide, mankind can control the world’s climate—and this article of faith would provide the foundation for the Greens’ imperial ambitions. (Ray Evans, Quadrant)

They’re at it again. The world-government wannabes of the UN have summoned 192 nations to meet in Bonn, Germany, in the second week of April to plan another attempt to impose an unelected global government on us in the specious name of Saving The Planet.

The Planet, of course, was Saved 2000 years ago, and it does not need to be Saved again. But the international corporatists, fascists, communists – call them what you will, but they are certainly not believers in democracy in any shape or form – know that they cannot get away with setting up their long-planned dismal bureaucratic-centralist dictatorship unless they pretend that a global emergency demands it.

At the very moment when the science behind the “global warming” scare has abjectly collapsed, and “global warming” profiteers and data-fabricators around the world are facing prosecution for false accounting, scientific and financial fraud, and outright racketeering, the fraudsters and racketeers will be in Bonn planning to give themselves a free pardon as they inflict upon us a ruthless and monstrously expensive regime of taxation without representation, regulation without election, and economic interference without democracy. Read the rest of this entry » (SPPI)

Newswise — If global warming is a scientific fact, then you better be prepared for the earth to become a more violent place. That's because new Iowa State University research shows that as the earth's average temperature rises, so too does human "heat" in the form of violent tendencies.

Co-authored by Craig Anderson, a Distinguished Professor of psychology and director of Iowa State's Center for the Study of Violence; and Matt DeLisi, an associate professor of sociology and director of ISU's criminal justice program, the paper was presented by Anderson this week (March 15-19) at the Sydney (Australia) Symposium of Social Psychology.

Using U.S. government data on average yearly temperatures and the number of violent crimes between 1950 and 2008, the researchers estimate that if the annual average temperature in the U.S. increases by 8°F (4.4°C), the yearly murder and assault rate will increase by 34 per 100,000 people -- or 100,000 more per year in a population of 305 million.

And while the global warming science has recently come under fire, the main premise behind the Iowa State researchers' paper is irrefutable. (Iowa State University)

The hominin fossil record documents a history of critical evolutionary events that have ultimately shaped and defined what it means to be human, including the origins of bipedalism; the emergence of our genus Homo; the first use of stone tools; increases in brain size; and the emergence of Homo sapiens, tools, and culture. The Earth's geological record suggests that some evolutionary events were coincident with substantial changes in African and Eurasian climate, raising the possibility that critical junctures in human evolution and behavioral development may have been affected by the environmental characteristics of the areas where hominins evolved. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution explores the opportunities of using scientific research to improve our understanding of how climate may have helped shape our species.

Improved climate records for specific regions will be required before it is possible to evaluate how critical resources for hominins, especially water and vegetation, would have been distributed on the landscape during key intervals of hominin history. Existing records contain substantial temporal gaps. The book's initiatives are presented in two major research themes: first, determining the impacts of climate change and climate variability on human evolution and dispersal; and second, integrating climate modeling, environmental records, and biotic responses.

Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution suggests a new scientific program for international climate and human evolution studies that involve an exploration initiative to locate new fossil sites and to broaden the geographic and temporal sampling of the fossil and archeological record; a comprehensive and integrative scientific drilling program in lakes, lake bed outcrops, and ocean basins surrounding the regions where hominins evolved and a major investment in climate modeling experiments for key time intervals and regions that are critical to understanding human evolution. (NAP)

HONG KONG - Bacterial infections, hepatitis B and C, and possibly even HIV are being transmitted via acupuncture through the use of contaminated needles, cotton swabs and hot packs, experts warned on Friday.

In an editorial published in the British Medical Journal, microbiologists at the University of Hong Kong said the number of reported acupuncture-related infections worldwide was the tip of an iceberg and they called for tighter infection control measures.

"To prevent infections transmitted by acupuncture, infection control measures should be implemented, such as use of disposable needles, skin disinfection procedures and aseptic techniques," wrote the researchers, led by Patrick Woo, microbiology professor at the University of Hong Kong.

"Stricter regulation and accreditation requirements are also needed," they added. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON - Extreme obesity among American children is much worse than previously believed, putting them at greater risk of serious health problems as they age, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

A study of more than 700,000 children and teens in southern California found that more than 6 percent, or 45,000, were extremely obese and more boys than girls were far too heavy, the researchers reported in the Journal of Pediatrics.

"This study is unique because it is the first time that we've had a large up-to-date snapshot of what's happening with obesity in our children," co-author Dr. Amy Porter of Kaiser Permanente health care system said in a video statement.

"The prevalence of obesity in children is much higher than we ever thought it was" Porter said. She said the study also showed that extreme obesity was rising in almost every group. (Reuters)

LEADING bread and cereal manufacturers have agreed to reduce the sodium content of their products in response to rising concern about Australians' high salt intake and heart disease.

The parliamentary secretary for health, Mark Butler, told the Herald yesterday that George Weston Foods, Goodman Fielder Baking, Allied Mills and Cripps Nubake, as well as Woolworths, Coles and Aldi, had agreed to reduce sodium in bread products to 400 milligrams per 100 grams by the end of 2013.

Other manufacturers of cereals, including Kelloggs, Sanitarium and Cereal Partners Worldwide, have also agreed to reduce sodium content by 15 per cent over four years, he said. (SMH)

NEW YORK - Exercise may help older women maintain their bone density, but adding the supplement black cohosh to the routine does not bring any extra benefits, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that among 128 postmenopausal women they studied for one year, those who were randomly assigned to regularly exercise generally maintained their bone density. In contrast, women who were assigned to a "wellness" group that got only light, infrequent exercise showed a decline in their bone density, on average.

But while exercise appeared to help women hang on to their bone mass, the herb black cohosh showed no added effects. Among exercisers, those who were randomly assigned to take the supplement each day showed no bone-density advantage after one year.

Black cohosh extracts are marketed as a "natural" form of hormone replacement therapy and most commonly used to treat hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause. Some lab research, but not all, suggests the herb may have estrogen-like activity in the body. (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK - In a study of Japanese schoolchildren, vitamin D supplements taken during the winter and early spring helped prevent seasonal flu and asthma attacks.

The idea for the study, study chief Dr. Mitsuyoshi Urashima, told Reuters Health, came from an earlier study looking at whether vitamin D could help prevent the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis. The researchers in that study noticed that people taking vitamin D were three times less likely to report cold and flu symptoms.

This led Urashima, of Jikei University School of Medicine, Tokyo, and colleagues to randomly assign a group of 6- to 15-year-old children to take vitamin D3 supplements (1,200 international units daily) or inactive placebo during a cold and flu season.

Vitamin D3, or cholecalciferol, is more readily absorbed by the body and more potent than vitamin D2, or ergocalciferol, the form often found in multivitamins. (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK - There isn't enough evidence to back or debunk the claim that vitamin D can help reduce the risk of ovarian cancer, despite several recent studies making this claim, the authors of a new review of the scientific literature conclude.

"Based on the current evidence, it is premature to make any definitive claims for or against the role of vitamin D in ovarian cancer," Dr. Dr. Linda S. Cook of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and her colleagues conclude.

Nevertheless, they add, because an association between vitamin D and the disease is "biologically plausible," and there were problems with the studies that they reviewed, "this is an area worthy of further primary research." (Reuters Health)

The UK faces £300m in fines after failing to meet EU pollution targets, but Britons also pay the price with heart disease, asthma and cancer

More than 50,000 people are dying prematurely in the UK every year, and thousands more suffer serious illness because of man-made air pollution, according to a parliamentary report published tomorrow. The UK now faces the threat of £300m in fines after it failed to meet legally binding EU targets to reduce pollution to safe levels. ( The Independent)

Plastics surround us. A vital manufacturing ingredient for nearly every existing industry, these materials appear in a high percentage of the products we use every day. Although modern life would be hard to imagine without this versatile chemistry, products composed of plastics also have a dark side, due in part to the very characteristics that make them so desirable—their durability and longevity.

Now Rolf Halden, associate professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University and assistant director of Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute has undertaken a survey of existing scientific literature concerning the hazards of plastics to human health and to the ecosystems we depend on. His findings, which appear in the latest issue of the Annual Review of Public Health, are sobering. (Arizona State University)

The desire that things be “ethical” has developed in the same era as climate change anxiety. Naturally, there is some convergence. Things which promise to lessen ‘environmental impact’ are considered ‘ethical’, and the implication is that things that aren’t clearly labelled ‘ethical’ are therefore ‘unethical’.

This is unusual because “ethical” seems to have replaced the word “good” in the discussion about what is good. This is nonsense for two main reasons. “Ethical” does not mean “good”. Al-Qaida has ethics. The Nazi Party had ethics – It had a very “ethical foreign policy”. Ethics is about determining a moral framework, within which can be established, in any instance, right from wrong, good from bad. So at the same time, those who use the word “ethical” in the place of the word ‘good’ reveal their own lack of confidence in the concept of good, and yet pretend to be the only people to ever think about what is right and what is wrong. Ethics is now what you buy, not what you think. (Climate Resistance)

What if Darwin's theory of natural selection is inaccurate? What if the way you live now affects the life expectancy of your descendants? Evolutionary thinking is having a revolution... (Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian)

PORTLAND, OR, March 5, 2010 --/WORLD-WIRE/-- The last time you bought a car, especially in the current economy, you probably paid close attention to the fuel efficiency by looking at the mile-per-gallon ratings and comparing similar vehicles. Now home buyers in certain states may soon be able to do the same with homes, and it looks like the trend will go national.

Earth Advantage Institute, a leading nonprofit green building resource that has certified more than 11,000 homes, has played a key role in the conceptualization, promotion, and adoption of the Energy Performance Score (EPS), currently the only residential energy labeling system that enables buyers to directly compare home energy consumption. The tool provides homeowners with both an energy consumption score and an associated carbon emission score. The number is based on in-home measurements and diagnostics data, as well as your utility’s energy source, which are entered into online software for calculation. (Press Release)

WASHINGTON -- Most of the actions proposed by two federal agencies to reduce water diversions in the California Bay-Delta in order to protect endangered and threatened fish species are "scientifically justified," but the basis for the specific environmental triggers that would indicate when water diversions should be reduced is less well-supported by scientific analyses, says a new report from the National Research Council that was requested by Congress and the U.S. Department of the Interior. (NAS)

Protected wildlife havens that are home to rare birds, plants and insects, are to be lost to the sea under government plans to abandon coastal flood defences.

It is the quintessential coastal holiday destination, complete with a historic harbour popular with yacht owners and idyllic countryside that offers visitors a glimpse of a more traditional, genteel way of life.

Such is the charm of Southwold, on the Suffolk coast, that Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah took their two sons on a family holiday there and each summer the town attracts thousands of music fans who come to enjoy the Latitude Festival.

But now large areas of the popular beauty spot are to be lost under government plans to abandon the flood defences that have protected the town and its surrounding countryside from the sea for more than 400 years.

The clay embankments that have kept the sea at bay around the Blyth Estuary have been condemned as unsustainable by the Environment Agency because of rising sea levels and will now be left to crumble. (TDT)

The Government will this week commit to its first deliberate direct involvement in state banking since the 1970s when the Chancellor launches a "green investment bank" to channel cash towards environmental projects. (TDT)

Neil McDougall of Modern Water says taking seawater and making it drinkable could be the answer to a looming shortage (Sunday Times)

After ten years of tinkering with DNA in a Rhode Island lab, a top fish boffin claims he has created a genetically enhanced mutant supertrout.

"Our findings are quite stunning," says Professor Terry Bradley, an expert on trout, salmon, flounder and tuna. "The results have significant implications."

Bradley says he has managed to modify the genetic pattern of rainbow trout so that the tasty fish become hugely more muscular and powerful than normal. Apparently the process is similar to that which occurs in a type of "double muscled" blue cow produced in Belgium.

"Belgian blue cattle have a natural mutation in myostatin causing increased muscle mass, and mice overexpressing myostatin exhibit a two-fold increase in skeletal muscle mass. But fish have a very different mechanism of muscle growth than mammals, so we weren't certain it was going to work," says Bradley. (Lewis Page, The Register)

A submission from The Carbon Sense Coalition to the Australian Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration in response to their requests for submissions on the “Inquiry into Native Vegetation Laws, Greenhouse Gas Abatement and Climate Change Measures”.

http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/grass-trees-climate-food.pdf [PDF, 653 KB] (Carbon Sense Coalition)

By Mark F. Bernstein ’83

The issue of climate change, or global warming, has become a rallying cry: The Earth’s surface temperatures are rising due to increased levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, much of it produced by human activity. Unless action is taken, and soon, global warming could cause crops to fail and sea levels to rise, leading to widespread social disruptions and endangering many species of life on the planet. President Obama, who has renewed the American commitment to combating this problem, declared at the recent United Nations climate-change conference in Copenhagen: “Climate change threatens us all.”

That’s one thing scientists agree on, right? Well, not everyone. (Princeton Alumni Weekly)

Scientists find themselves fighting science when it comes to the highly unsettled physical basis of climate change. An example of this is the March 7th Houston Chronicle op-ed by two Texas A&M climate scientists (and four colleagues from other universities), “On Global Warming, the Science is Solid.”

I took general exception to their piece in Part I in this series, titled “Andrew Dessler and Gerald North on Climategate, Climate Alarmism, and the State of Texas’s Challenge to the U.S. EPA’s Endangerment Finding.” Chip Knappenberger yesterday took issue with their claim that the Texas Petition was flawed because it “contains very little science.”

This post critically reconsiders the op-ed, which argued, in effect, that the science behind climate alarmism is settled and that Climategate is a distraction from the core issues. Just the opposite may well be true.

Evidently, Dr. Dessler wrote this op-ed and got sign-on from other Texas scientists to make it a ‘consensus’ statement. Here is how the Houston Chronicle attributed it:

I refer to the piece as Dessler/North because the activist-oriented Dr. Dessler is the leader, and the most distinguished climate scientist of the six named authors is Dr. North.

A critique follows with the exact language of the (entire) op-ed in quotation and black and my comments in blue for ease of reading. [Read more →] (MasterResource)

Where the climate change debate is concerned, the temptation to use military metaphors is sometimes irresistible. Until recently, the vastly superior forces of the IPCC and its allies in the scientific establishment have prevailed against the guerrilla warfare of the sceptics, who have sometimes done localised damage but never threatened the monolith. However, as a series of weaknesses in their campaign have become increasingly public, those who are currently in the scientific mainstream are being forced to conduct a more vigorous defence of their position. But the various groups of dissenting and sceptical irregulars, though they have gained ground, are far from having won the war. Both camps are now digging in for the long haul. Whether there will ever be a decisive victory for one side or the other is doubtful, but for now the battlefield is at least more even. (Scientific Alliance)

By Edwin X Berry, PhD
Atmospheric Physicist

Also to appear on Climate Depot

Will the 2000 signers of the UCS declaration appear to defend their statement at the International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago on May 16-18?

Some 2000 scientists signed the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) declaration calling for “swift and deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.”

Yet, these same scientists have yet to prove there is any danger whatsoever from human emissions of carbon dioxide. Worse, they ignore the direct challenge to them by thousands of climate scientists, most recently in the “Open Letter to UN Secretary-General” of December 8, 2009, which states as follows:

“We the undersigned, being qualified in climate-related scientific disciplines, challenge the UNFCCC and supporters of the United Nations Climate Change Conference to produce convincing OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE for their claims of dangerous human-caused global warming and other changes in climate. Projections of possible future scenarios from unproven computer models of climate are not acceptable substitutes for real world data obtained through unbiased and rigorous scientific investigation. (Stand Up America)

History may see the interview of CRU’s Professor Phil Jones by the BBC’s Roger Harrabin on 12 February 2010 as the opening of the end-phase of the long-running “alarmists versus sceptics” debate.

The gap between these two schools has never yawned as widely as media reports often suggest. Both agree that climate is always changing, that we have recently been in a warming period (with tiny temperature changes), that “greenhouse theory” has some validity, and that human activities are capable of impacting climate. The core dispute lies in the detection and attribution of ‘anthropogenic global warming’ (AGW), and is brought out in the following exchange:

Harrabin – How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?

Jones - I’m 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 – there’s evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.

Sceptics say any human causation was trivial. This dispute was addressed directly:

Harrabin - what factors convince you that recent warming has been largely man-made?
Jones - The fact that we can’t explain the warming from the 1950s by solar and volcanic forcing.

“The warming from the 1950s” didn’t actually commence until 1975, and the 1975-2009 warming is identified by Professor Jones as a trend-rate of temperature increase of 0.161C per decade.

This decadal figure is significant, but only just. In the second interview question, Jones says a trend of “0.12C per decade is not significant at the 95% significance level”.

The world has been experiencing a long-term gentle warming since the end of the Little Ice Age. Professor Jones has said elsewhere that this natural variability has averaged 0.11C per decade. So, the “extraordinary” recent warming that calls for explanation is the balance of 0.051C per decade.

This is the smoking gun. It is the sole evidence that a measurable but unexplained increase in global temperatures has coincided with the post-1950 increase in human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Jones says that this correlation is evidence of causation, because the IPCC has no other explanation. (Quadrant)

The Environmental Protection Agency is on a course that will damage the environment, not protect it. Just observe EPA’s willingness to do so while spouting false statements to make its case on regulating greenhouse gases.

EPA’s Secretary Lisa Jackson says that if the House and Senate will not pass a cap-and-trade bill, then the agency will move forward to enact ways to reduce greenhouse gases, including CO2.

Unfortunately, she is still clinging to the “science is settled” statement that is now widely known to be false. There are tens of thousands of scientists who have signed a petition belittling the catastrophic global warming forecasts. Even Phil Jones, former Director of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University which has been the gold standard of global temperatures, has now publically admitted that the science is not settled. What does Secretary Jackson know that Phil Jones, a 34-year veteran of climate research, does not know? What about EPA climate scientist Alan Carlin who notified the agency he could not find the science to back up the EPA’s claims on man-made global warming?

Secretary Jackson’s pronouncements are not factual, but are purely political and will give the current administration a hefty stream of tax dollars. Those dollars will come out of your pocket if you use electricity, transportation or food. (H. Leighton Steward, Daily Caller)

WASHINGTON, March 19 - At least 15 U.S. states have sued the Environmental Protection Agency seeking to stop it from issuing rules controlling greenhouse gas emissions until it reexamines whether the pollution harms human health.

Florida, Indiana, South Carolina and at least nine other states filed the petitions in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, states said.

They joined petitions filed last month by Virginia, Texas and Alabama.

The Obama administration has long said it would attack greenhouse gas emissions with EPA regulation if Congress failed to pass a climate bill. (Reuters)

by John Izzard
March 22, 2010

Jack and Jill and a bucket of weather

It is rather sad, and pathetic, that we have to go to the British press to find robust investigative reporting about the theory of man-made global warming. Apart from this country’s national newspaper, The Australian, you could almost believe that the mantra that “the science is settled”, is true. If you follow the line of the ABC and much of the mainstream press, to question the science of climate-change is to be un-Australian and un-Earth. Well, the science isn’t settled — not by a long shot — and the battle continues.

Having been mugged at Copenhagen, embarrassed out of their wits by the scandal that was Himalaya-glacier-Gate, and facing a planet that doesn’t seem to want to respond to the dire predictions of the most learned — the lads and lasses at the IPCC have been desperate in their attempts to block the rising tide of public sceptisism. So we have waited, with our breath bated, for a indication as to how they will deal with a growing, non-believing public.

Apart from the “science is settled” spin, which is code for “don’t question us”, the other side of the debate has been the “Outrageous-Claims Department”. This is where the dedicated followers of climate let pass for science any outrageous claim made by any of their front-line “experts”. Al Gore, Tim Flannery, James Hansen, Penny Wong, Kevin Rudd and Dr Pachauri. What do you do when scientists and political leaders blindly allow false claims to go uncorrected. When they must know that there isn’t a “new” change-in-climate because the climate has always changed. It’s what climate does. Sea-levels have always risen or dropped, ice-caps have always built up or shrunk, river systems have always developed, and in certain periods in history, just simply disappeared.

Living things on planet Earth have done what the have always done as climate changes naturally— adapted. (Quadrant)

From Warren Meyer, who was discussing the recent announcement from the White House Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force.

Ken Stewart has scanned the trend maps at BOM (Bureau of Meteorology), and his point is spot on. As soon as I saw the neat joint 6 page advertising pamphlet for the climate-theory-that’s-backed-by-bankers, I wondered what happened to the first 60 years of last century, and Ken found it. Did the BOM forget they have hundreds of data points from back then? Did they forget to use their own website, where you can pick-a-trend, any-trend, and choose the one with err…more convenient results? Or is the case that their collective mission is not necessarily to provide Australians with the most complete and appropriate information available, but to provide them with what the bureaucracy needs them to know? (And what they need to know apparently is the carefully censored version of the truth that will keep government ministers happy–let me tax them more; keep department heads smiling–let the climate cash cow continue, and last but not least, help staff “feel good”–I’m sure I’m helping the environment?)

The trendmap page works exquisitely well (I am happy to praise the BOM web-site team). Compare these two trend maps.

Australian Rainfall Trends 1960-2009

The brown bits are the parts that used to get lots more rain in the 1960’s. The Dark Green bits are areas which are quite a lot wetter at the moment, than what they used to be. But if we go back past 1960, back to when records started to come together, the trends are decidedly less scary, and all in all, you’d think Australia might be getting a bit more rain than it was a century ago (and you’d be right) More » (Jo Nova)

From a 2002 publication showing the Topex/Posiedon satellite altimetry sea level data for the eight years from 9/92-9/00, the global map shows stable to declining sea levels in most areas with the exception of the western Pacific, which is strongly influenced by periodic ENSO/El Nino/La Nina conditions.

The accompanying data below shows declining sea levels throughout most of the Pacific Ocean. The mean of the sea level changes (first number in each column) for each of the bands of the 3 major oceans shows a mean global sea level decrease of .4 mm/year. Yes, the bands for the 3 oceans are not the same size, but since the largest bands by far are in the Pacific Ocean and show the largest declines, the mean for the 3 oceans by area would therefore show an even greater decrease in mean sea level over the 8 year period. This is despite the fact that this period was also marked by the largest El Nino in the 20th century, which resulted in a large increase in the global mean.

But that's not what the TOPEX/POSEIDON data show today, as somehow a global decrease in mean sea level evolved into a global increase of 3.1 mm/yr. This appears to be further confirmation of Dr. Nils Axel Morner's claim that the TOPEX satellite data was ex-post adjusted upward many years after the fact to show a false positive trend. The data was further adjusted upward between 2005 and 2010 (almost 20 years after the start of the satellite record). (HockeySchtick)

Roy Spencer and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville have reported in their Global Temperature Report that February 2010 was the 2nd warmest February in 32 years (e.g. see Roy’s summary). [UPDATE: Thanks to Phillip Gentry for providing this figure!]

Their spatial map of the anomalies, however, shows that most of the relative warmth was in a focused geographic area; see

The global average is based on the summation of large areas of positive and negative temperature anomalies.

it is the regional tropospheric temperature anomalies that determine the locations of development and movement of weather systems [which are the actual determinants of such climate events as drought, floods, ect] not a global average temperature anomaly. (Climate Science)

Background

Each morning, I turn on my computer and check to see how the sun is doing. For the past several years I was normally greeted with the message "The sun is blank - no sunspots." We are at the verge of the next sunspot cycle, Solar Cycle 24. How intense will this cycle be? Why is this question important? Because there are “Danger Signposts” ahead!

Sunspots are dark spots that appear on the surface of the sun. They are the location of intense magnetic activity and they are the sites of very violent explosions that produce solar storms.

The sun goes through a cycle lasting approximately 11 years. It starts at a solar minimum when there are very few sunspots and builds to a solar maximum when hundreds of sunspots are present on the surface of the sun and then returns back to a solar quiet minimum. This cycle is called a solar cycle. We are currently in a solar minimum leading up to Solar Cycle 24, so named because it is the 24th consecutive cycle that astronomers have observed and listed. The first cycle began in March 1755. (James A. Marusek, Paradigms and Demographics)

The carbon credits scheme would make WWF and its partners much richer, but with no lowering of overall CO₂ emissions, writes Christopher Booker.

by Marlo Lewis
March 19, 2010 @ 3:49 pm

A new Harvard University study (Analysis of Policies to Reduce Oil Consumption and Greenhouse-Gas Emissions from the U.S. Transportation Sector) offers a sobering assessment of what it will take to meet the emission reduction targets proposed by President Obama and the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.

Saruman’s rebuke to Gandalf — “You have elected the way of pain!” – nicely captures the key policy implication of this study (although the researchers, of course, do not put it that way). (Open Market)

THE Rudd government has warned of brown-outs and national power shortages akin to the water crisis if $100 billion is not spent on generators in the next 10 years, guaranteeing steep rises in electricity bills.

Power price rises have also been linked to the cost of connecting renewable energy sources, such as wind turbines, to the national electricity grid and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said at the weekend that the investment required to avoid power rationing and increase renewable energy "can only be paid for with higher electricity prices".

"It is high time we started telling the truth about electricity prices," he told a meeting of business people in Queensland on Saturday.

"We simply cannot maintain supply reliability for households and businesses if we don't invest in electricity supply infrastructure. That investment can only be paid for with higher electricity prices.

"Australia now needs to invest at least $100bn in electricity infrastructure over the next decade just to meet growing demand and replace ageing infrastructure. And the community also expects us to invest in climate change energy efficiency measures, renewables and other clean energy technologies." ( The Australian)

The Ehrlichs’ angst about the energy future was rife with forecasts that have been proven false–and embarrassingly so. As mentioned in Part I, the Ehrlichs’ protégé John Holdren has made similar radical pronouncements and wild exaggerations (see here and here) and even joined Stephen Schneider and other climate scientists in the global cooling scare.

Writing in 1974, the Ehrlichs predicted that “we can be reasonably sure . . . that within the next quarter of a century mankind will be looking elsewhere than in oil wells for its main source of energy.” [1] Consequently, “we can also be reasonably sure that the search for alternatives will be a frantic one.” [2] He predicted that proved world oil reserves were no more than 35 years of supply at current demand levels. [3]

“The energy mini-crisis [of the 1970s],” the Ehrlichs confidently concluded, “illuminated once and for all the hopeless incompetence of our political leaders and our institutions when it comes to coping with fundamental change.” [4] More generally, the Ehrlichs predicted that “America’s economic joyride is coming to an end: there will be no more cheap, abundant energy, no more cheap abundant food.” [5] Thus, “continuing to increase our dependence on petroleum consumption is clearly a suicidal course of action.” [6] [Read more →] (MasterResource)

And so it comes to pass that The Sunday Times is picking up that which anti-wind campaigners have been pointing out since the dawn of time – that "some treasured landscapes may have been blighted for only small gains in green energy."

However, so often does the media publish the entirely meaningless capacity figure for new wind developments that it is a real change to have Jonathan Leake write that an analyses of data released by Ofgem "reveals that more than 20 wind farms produce less than a fifth of their potential maximum power output."

One site, at Blyth Harbour in Northumberland (pictured), is thought to be the worst in Britain, operating at just 7.9 percent of its maximum capacity. Another at Chelker reservoir in North Yorkshire operates at only 8.7 percent of capacity. Both are relatively small and old, but larger and newer sites fared badly, too.

Siddick wind farm in Cumbria, now operated by Eon, achieved only 15.8 percent of capacity. The two turbines at High Volts 2, Co Durham, the largest and most powerful wind farm in Britain when it was commissioned in 2004, achieved 18.7 percent. Thus does Leake write that the best achieve only about 50 percent efficiency and the norm is 25-30 percent.

Such is common knowledge so we hardly needed Michael Jefferson, professor of international business and sustainability at London Metropolitan Business School, to tell us that the subsidy encourages the construction of wind farms. "Too many developments are underperforming," he says. "It's because developers grossly exaggerate the potential. The subsidies make it viable for developers to put turbines on sites they would not touch if the money was not available."

Nevertheless, the story is picked up by The Daily Mail (online) and it also provokes a splendid leader in The Sunday Times, which declares: "Too much wind and not enough puff". And, after a reference to onshore wind as "disappointing", we are told that "solar power is likely to be even more so, especially in Britain."

Helpfully, the paper then tells us that this kind of problem arises when renewable targets are set from on high, in this case from the European Union: "It wants 20 percent of energy across Europe to be generated from renewable sources by 2020," a situation which is described as "folly of the highest order", if the only way it can be done is inefficiently and expensively and at the cost of damaging our environment. Far better, says the paper, "to push on with technologies we know can deliver, such as nuclear and clean coal."

The answer, sadly, it concludes, "is not blowing in the wind."

Even sadder, perhaps, is that this is not entirely an EU issue. Agreeing to the target in the mad days of the end of his premiership was Tony Blair, caught up in the collective hysteria of the European Council of March 2007, when the colleagues were outbidding each other to ramp up the targets to the absurd levels at which they currently stand.

And, as The Guardian informed us at the time, these targets were so unrealistic as to be unreachable. Thus does the cold wind blow, not the wind that will give us power via these useless bird choppers, but the cold wind of reality, as it gradually dawns on a wider constituency that they've been had.

That, of course, doesn't stop the likes of Dr Sue Armstrong-Brown, of the RSPB, defending her dire organisation against Booker's attack last week.

She tells us in a letter today that "as a charity concerned with the future fortunes of wildlife, we can't hide from the fact that climate change is the single biggest threat biodiversity faces. Renewable energy, such as that provided by wind, must play a part in the nation's future energy mix, as must tidal and solar energies."

The only joy to be got out of that bit of self-serving stupidity is the news that RWE is considering turning the wind farm at Haverigg in Cumbria into a site for a nuclear power station, requiring the demolition of the bird choppers. Where the RSPB fails, nuclear leads the way.

Needless to say though, Sky News describes this site as "efficient", even though it averages a load factor of a mere 35 percent. That just goes to show how far that cold wind of reality must blow before it reaches the sterile brains of the broadcast media. (EU Referendum)

The water spigots are back on, at least temporarily, in California's Central Valley. Turned off to protect a tiny fish, they happen to be in the districts of two congressmen "undecided" on health care reform.

One could chalk it up to good fortune or just good constituent service. But in the middle of a contentious health care debate marked by Cornhusker Kickbacks and Louisiana Purchases, we may be forgiven if we find an announcement by the Department of the Interior regarding California's water supply a tad too coincidental. (IBD)

Whether it is cigarettes, booze or soda, it’s not the place of the taxman to dissuade us from our enjoyable bad habits.

They are nutritionally valueless, apparently. They rot your teeth. They make you fat. They may cause diabetes, heart disease and even pancreatic cancer. So who could possibly object to taxing fizzy drinks? I could. The idea may be gaining fans on both sides of the Atlantic, but the last thing we need is the taxman deciding what we eat and drink. (Rob Lyons, spiked)

NEW YORK - Supplements containing the dietary fat conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) may help overweight kids curb the amount of fat they gain over time, a small study suggests.

Researchers found that overweight and obese children who took the CLA supplement for seven months showed less fat accumulation than a comparison group of children given a placebo.

However, children on the supplement also showed a dip in their blood levels of "good" HDL cholesterol and a lesser gain in bone mass over time.

The findings suggest that while CLA might help slow body fat gain, its overall safety and effectiveness for children needs to be studied further, the researchers note in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

CLA is an unsaturated fatty acid found in beef, lamb and dairy products; the CLA in supplements is generally derived from vegetable oils that are rich in linoleic acids.

Animal research has found that CLA can help melt away body fat, and some studies have suggested the same may hold true in humans. One recent study, for example, found that obese women with diabetes shed a couple pounds of body fat, on average, after taking CLA for four months.

Lab research on the fatty acid has suggested that it may be particularly effective at preventing fat accumulation in young animals. But the effects on overweight children have been largely unknown. (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK - People with high blood pressure who want to reduce their risk of having a stroke or dying prematurely should get their prescriptions filled and see their doctor regularly.

In a large study of Medicaid patients, researchers found that the more closely a person adhered to his or her doctor's recommendations for filling their blood pressure medication prescription, the lower his or her risk of stroke and death.

Taking just one more pill as recommended each week (from a one-a-day regimen) cut stroke risk by 9 percent and death risk by 7 percent, Dr. James E. Bailey of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis and colleagues report in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

They looked at the medical records of about 49,000 Tennessee Medicaid patients for 1994 to 2000 to determine if blood pressure medication refill adherence or frequency of physician visits influenced risk of stroke or death. The researchers also investigated whether the type of blood pressure-lowering drugs a patient took was associated with stroke or risk of dying.

Patients were taking two different types of blood pressure drug on average, although some were taking as many as six. Sixty percent of the patients filled their prescriptions less than 80 percent of the time, and were classified as non-adherent to their medication.

During follow-up, which ranged from 3 to 7 years, 619 study participants had a stroke and 2,051 died.

Patients who were non-adherent were a half-percent more likely to die over a five-year period compared to adherent patients. Blood pressure drugs known as thiazide diuretics, ACE inhibitors, calcium channel blockers and beta blockers all cut death risk by 3 to 4 percent, while thiazide diuretics also cut stroke risk. (Reuters Health)

CHICAGO - Instead of killing off cancer cells with toxic drugs, scientists have discovered a molecular pathway that forces them to grow old and die, they said on Wednesday.

Cancer cells spread and grow because they can divide indefinitely, without going through the normal aging process known as senescence.

But a study in mice showed that blocking a gene in this pathway called Skp2 triggered the aging process, causing cancer cells to stop dividing and halting tumor growth.

The finding may offer a new strategy for fighting cancer, Pier Paolo Pandolfi of Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues reported in the journal Nature. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON - Multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis killed 150,000 people in 2008 and infects between 400,000 and 500,000 people globally, according to World Health Organization estimates released on Thursday.

WHO said the numbers suggest the hard-to-treat infection is spreading and said there is an urgent need for countries to set up labs to fight it.

So-called MDR-TB is especially common in Russia, Tajikistan, China and India, WHO said in a report. It said an especially hard-to-treat form called extensively drug resistant TB or XDR-TB is also growing.

"Almost 50 percent of MDR-TB cases worldwide are estimated to occur in China and India. In 2008, MDR-TB caused an estimated 150,000 deaths," the WHO report said.

The report uses new methods and new surveillance data from countries around the world, so the figures cannot be compared to older surveys of MDR-TB. But WHO said the findings are startling and show a need to find infected patients and treat them promptly. (Reuters)

BOSTON - Studying genes linked to breast cancer may someday lead to better treatments, but they do little to improve a doctor's ability to predict who is likely to develop a tumor, researchers reported on Wednesday.

Their study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that testing for 10 errant bits of genetic code linked to breast cancer was no better for screening than asking old-fashioned questions involving a woman's conventional risk factors. These include family history, age of fertility and age when a first child was born.

Only when these questions were combined with genetic testing did the ability to predict a tumor improve. "It was not enough improvement to matter for the great majority of women," team leader Sholom Wacholder of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, said in a statement. (Reuters)

PARIS - Funding to combat malaria must be more than tripled if the mosquito-borne disease which kills nearly a million people a year is to be fought effectively, health campaigners said on Thursday.

Presenting a report covering the past decade, the Roll Back Malaria Partnership said a jump in financing had helped to contain the disease but more needed to be done.

"In all the countries where there is sufficient financing, we are reaching our goals," said Awa Marie Coll-Seck, executive director of the partnership, which is backed by the World Health Organisation.

Total annual global funding was about $2 billion at the end of 2009, far short of the estimated $6 billion required annually to expand the campaign, the partnership said. (Reuters)

Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, has said one of her priorities is to improve the information on food package labels. Her new crackdown on dishonest nutritional claims by food manufacturers is a welcome sign that she means business.

Earlier this month, the agency made public 17 letters it had sent to food companies, accusing them of inflating nutritional claims or masking undesirable ingredients. Several products, including Gorton’s Fish Fillets and Dreyer’s bite-size Dibs ice cream snacks, were cited for labels boasting that they contained no trans fat, even though they had high levels of saturated fat. POM pomegranate juice was cited for misleading claims on the company’s Web site, which is listed on juice bottles, that said the juice could prevent or cure disease like hypertension, diabetes and cancer. (NYT)

Our thoughts: this figure has been greatly affected by the highly embarrassing ClimateGate (and all its aftershocks) and the downturn in the economy. It’s fairly likely that a return to focus on “environmental protection” will occur when wallets are fat again, though it’s not clear whether that will include a return to caring about Global Warming or whether there will be a new cause celebre. (The Chilling Effect)

Householders could be forced to recycle virtually everything they throw away or face fines under new government proposals to cut landfill.

Under the plans, paper and card, food, garden waste and plastics would have to recycled, composted or burned for energy.

A 12 week consultation on the proposals will be announced by Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, on Thursday.

Traditional black bins would be scrapped and replaced with a number of recycling containers including slop buckets for food.

Residents who persistently flout the rules by not sorting rubbish properly or refusing to recycle could be hit with penalties of hundreds of pounds. (TDT)

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- With large and growing economies and populations, China and India will strongly influence the quality of the global environment for years to come. While their political relationship is strained, it's critical the two countries work together to slow global warming, deforestation, water shortages and other environmental issues, says a Michigan State University scientist and colleagues. (Michigan State University)

Their sheer size and strength have made them among the most celebrated of endangered species, yet they have all been betrayed — by vested interests at a UN meeting on wildlife protection.

Proposals to ban trade in bluefin tuna and polar bears were overwhelmingly rejected yesterday at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), meeting in Doha, Qatar. (The Times)

It is the most mysterious wildflower in Britain, the strangest, the rarest, the hardest to see, and it was given up for lost. But like a wandering phantom, the ghost orchid has reappeared.

After an absence of 23 years, during which it was declared extinct, this pale, diminutive flower, the most enigmatic of all Britain's wild plants, rematerialised last autumn in an oak wood in Herefordshire. (The Independent)

Under pressure to quickly produce a bill, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) yesterday shared an eight-page outline of their draft plan in a closed-door meeting with major industry groups.

The senators also hope to send their proposal to EPA and the Congressional Budget Office by the end of next week for a five-to six-week analysis, although the timing on that depends in part on two legislative counsel staffers who are out on maternity leave.

Last month, the State of Texas filed a petition for reconsideration in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (summary here) against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Petition lays out why the EPA’s reliance on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide an assessment of climate change science was a very bad idea.

After documenting flaws in the scientific literature, flaws in scientific behavior, flaws in the IPCC process, and flaws in the IPCC’s conclusions, Texas asks the EPA to re-examine its conclusions regarding climate change and its potential impacts on human health and welfare, and this time, not to rest its conclusions on the biased opinion of the IPCC.

In other words, Texas asks the EPA to do the work themselves—something they are mandated to do anyway.

The complete Texas Petition is available here in a single pdf file. But for easier navigation, we have broken the full Petition up into its individual sections, and linked them into the Table of Contents page, which is reproduced below.

Hopefully, this will enable you to read through it in a more directed fashion so that you can go straight to which ever section you may be most interested in and see how Texas lays out its case for Reconsideration. [Read more →] (MasterResource)

Why can’t the LA Times be fair about the costs of AB 32, California’s global warming law?

Last week, the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office found that the “net jobs impact” of AB 32 is “likely to be negative.” No surprises there-AB 32 is designed to raise the price of energy, and expensive energy hinders economic growth.

The LA Times, however, was unconvinced. The editorial board juxtaposed the LAO analysis with a report from the California Air Resources Board asserting that AB 32 would create 120,000 jobs. The LA Times asked, “Which is right?”

There’s a more important question: Why is the LA Times citing a discredited report? CARB’s rosy economic analysis of AB 32 was eviscerated by…

A little-known group called the InterAcademy Council has been made the voice of authority on the credibility of climate change, leaving critics scratching their heads -- and some key questions unanswered. (Gene J. Koprowski, FOXNews.com)

An open letter to Mr Maurice Newman, Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Scientists are fairly measured in their public statements. Years of training instils a care with words, and avoidance of value judgements. Well, sod that, I'm angry.

What has me fuming is your speech last week to ABC staff in which you accuse your senior journalists of "group-think" in favouring the scientific consensus on climate change. You refer to "a growing number of distinguished scientists [that are] challenging the conventional wisdom with alternative theories and peer reviewed research" and you claim that these poor folk are being suppressed in the mainstream media.

Who are these distinguished scientists? I don't know of a single credible climate scientist who doubts human-induced climate change. (SMH)

It's a safe bet that the millions of Americans who have recently changed their minds about global warming—deciding it isn't happening, or isn't due to human activities such as burning coal and oil, or isn't a serious threat—didn't just spend an intense few days poring over climate-change studies and decide, holy cow, the discretization of continuous equations in general circulation models is completely wrong! Instead, the backlash (an 18-point rise since 2006 in the percentage who say the risk of climate change is exaggerated, Gallup found this month) has been stoked by scientists' abysmal communication skills, plus some peculiarly American attitudes, both brought into play now by how critics have spun the "Climategate" e-mails to make it seem as if scientists have pulled a fast one. (Sharon Begley, Newsweek)

Little Rajendra can't even make up his mind whether the IPCC has made "mistakes" (plural) or a "mistake" (singular). And this is the man whom the BBC and others cast as the world's leading "climate scientist".

Hillariously, Sharon Begley of Newsweek then offers us a piece headed, "Their Own Worst Enemies", with the strap: "Why scientists are losing the PR wars."

I say "hillariously" because la Begley goes on to cite, with evident agreement, a certain Randy Olson, who tells us: "Scientists think of themselves as guardians of truth ... Once they have spewed it out, they feel the burden is on the audience to understand it" and agree.

Clearly, that is the driving assumption behind erstwhile railway engineers and self-proclaimed "climate scientist" Rajendra Pachauri. La Begley might care to reconsider her thesis that climate scientists have problems because they are poor communicators and because have failed to master "truthiness".

Another, possibly more plausible explanation is that many of the lead figures – like Pachauri – are pathological liars and they have been caught out.

But what is also a massive turn-off is the airy arrogance of so many of the warmists, such as Chris Smith, chairman of the UK's Environment Agency. He tells us, in what is obviously an agreed line, often repeated, that "we cannot allow a few errors to undermine the overwhelming strength of evidence that has been painstakingly accumulated, peer-reviewed, tested and tested again."

Yet, almost in the same breath he tells us, "We need to take the argument back to the sceptics, and make the powerful, convincing and necessary case about climate change much clearer to everyone." Compare the two statements and what is on offer is neither powerful nor convincing.

And that is their problem ... and they don't have the first idea of how to fix it. (EU Referendum)

There are lots of uncertainties in climate science. But that does not mean it is fundamentally wrong

FOR anyone who thinks that climate science must be unimpeachable to be useful, the past few months have been a depressing time. A large stash of e-mails from and to investigators at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia provided more than enough evidence for concern about the way some climate science is done. That the picture they painted, when seen in the round—or as much of the round as the incomplete selection available allows—was not as alarming as the most damning quotes taken out of context is little comfort. They offered plenty of grounds for both shame and blame.

At about the same time, glaciologists pointed out that a statement concerning Himalayan glaciers in the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was wrong. This led to the discovery of other poorly worded or poorly sourced claims made by the IPCC, which seeks to create a scientific consensus for the world’s politicians, and to more general worries about the panel’s partiality, transparency and leadership. Taken together, and buttressed by previous criticisms, these two revelations have raised levels of scepticism about the consensus on climate change to new heights.

Increased antsiness about action on climate change can also be traced to the recession, the unedifying spectacle of last December’s climate-change summit in Copenhagen, the political realities of the American Senate and an abnormally cold winter in much of the northern hemisphere. The new doubts about the science, though, are clearly also a part of that story. Should they be? (The Economist)

Action on climate is justified, not because the science is certain, but precisely because it is not

CLIMATE-change legislation, dormant for six months, is showing signs of life again in Washington, DC. This week senators and industrial groups have been discussing a compromise bill to introduce mandatory controls on carbon (see article). Yet although green activists around the world have been waiting for 20 years for American action, nobody is cheering. Even if discussion ever turns into legislation, it will be a pale shadow of what was once hoped for.

The mess at Copenhagen is one reason. So much effort went into the event, with so little result. The recession is another. However much bosses may care about the planet, they usually mind more about their bottom line, and when times are hard they are unwilling to incur new costs. The bilious argument over American health care has not helped: this is not a good time for any bill that needs bipartisan support. Even the northern hemisphere’s cold winter has hurt. When two feet of snow lies on the ground, the threat from warming seems far off. But climate science is also responsible. A series of controversies over the past year have provided heavy ammunition to those who doubt the seriousness of the problem.

Three questions arise from this. How bad is the science? Should policy be changed? And what can be done to ensure such confusion does not happen again? Behind all three lies a common story. The problem lies not with the science itself, but with the way the science has been used by politicians to imply certainty when, as often with science, no certainty exists. (The Economist)

IN THE 1990s cap-and-trade—the idea of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions by auctioning off a set number of pollution permits, which could then be traded in a market—was the darling of the green policy circuit. A similar approach to sulphur dioxide emissions, introduced under the 1990 Clean Air Act, was credited with having helped solve acid-rain problems quickly and cheaply. And its great advantage was that it hardly looked like a tax at all, though it would bring in a lot of money.

The cap-and-trade provision expected in the climate legislation that Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham have been working on, which may be unveiled shortly, will be a poor shadow of that once alluring idea. Cap-and-trade will not be the centrepiece of the legislation (as it was of last year’s House climate bill, Waxman-Markey), but is instead likely to apply only to electrical utilities, at least for the time being. Transport fuels will probably be approached with some sort of tax or fee; industrial emissions will be tackled with regulation and possibly, later on, carbon trading. The hope will be to cobble together cuts in emissions similar in scope to those foreseen under the House bill, in which the vast majority of domestic cuts in emissions came from utilities. (The Economist)

A380 airliner to feature official logo for UN, despite aviation being a major source of emissions that threaten biodiversity

Who do you think might just have been granted the right to display the official logo of the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity? A conservation body, perhaps. Or a new brand of organic food?

Well, no. It's an aircraft manufacturer, actually. The world's largest aircraft manufacturer: Airbus Industries. The European company that is doing more than anyone else, Boeing included, to increase the number of flights we take, and thus the airline industry's contribution to climate change. ( Fred Pearce, The Guardian)

Canada's climate researchers are being muzzled, their funding slashed, research stations closed, findings ignored and advice on the critical issue of the century unsought by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government, according to a 40-page report by a coalition of 60 non-governmental organisations.

"This government says they take climate change seriously but they do nothing and try to hide the truth about climate change," said Graham Saul, representing Climate Action Network Canada (CAN), which produced the report "Troubling Evidence".

"We want Canadians to understand what's going on with this government," Saul told IPS.

Climate change is not an abstract concept. It already results in the deaths of 300,000 people a year, virtually all in the world's poorest countries. Some 325 million people are being seriously affected, with economic losses averaging 125 billion dollars a year, according to "The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis", the first detailed look at climate change and the human impacts.

Released last fall by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum, the report notes that these deaths and losses are not just from the rise in severe weather events but mainly from the gradual environmental degradation due to climate change. ( Stephen Leahy for IPS, part of the Guardian Environment Network)

Some of the most beautiful areas of England are releasing millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year because of damage to peat bogs, environment watchdogs have warned. (TDT)

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/images/mfl/history/kutchenreuter1.jpg

A Rawinsone being prepared for release at the Miami, FL airport - Image: NOAA

Jo Nova has more from Frank Lansner on what older records, this time from weather balloons, tell us about recent adjustments to the temperature record. WUWT readers may recall Rewriting the decline where the graph from National Geographic below raises some questions about temperature graphs today.

Frank Lansner has done some excellent follow-up on the missing “decline” in temperatures from 1940 to 1975, and things get even more interesting. Recall that the original “hide the decline” statement comes from the ClimateGate emails and refers to “hiding” the tree ring data that shows a decline in temperatures after 1960. It’s known as the “divergence problem” because tree rings diverge from the measured temperatures. But Frank shows that the peer reviewed data supports the original graphs and that measured temperature did decline from 1960 onwards, sharply. But in the GISS version of that time-period, temperatures from the cold 1970’s period were repeatedly “adjusted” years after the event, and progressively got warmer. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

London has a new building that can shred birds, appropriately called ‘The Razor’, the green mask slips to reveal some very inconvenient truths and we learn about the missing link between cargo cults and global warming science. (Daily Bayonet)

THE CSIRO, once our top scientific institution, this week showed how shoddy and politicised it’s become.

It’s issued State of the Climate, a pamphlet it drew up with the Bureau of Meteorology, to silence the sceptics of catastrophic man-made warming.

“Climate change is real,” it announced. The proof was that Australia’s mean temperature went up 0.7 [°C] since 1960, seas were rising in some places by 3mm a year, and less rain now fell on our most settled areas.

Phew. That’s put me in my place. Or so you’d think from the uncritical coverage this propaganda got from the ABC, The Age and even the Herald Sun.

But the document, barely even six pages, despite its big graphs, is a testament not to the truth of man-made warming, but to the CSIRO’s decline.

First, no one doubts “climate change is real”. Climate changes all the time. For the CSIRO to suggest this is the debate is dishonest.

We’re also talking about global warming, so why does the CSIRO give only Australian temperatures? (Andrew Bolt)

Matt Nisbet, a communications scholar at American University, has a thoughtful and hard-hitting essay at Slate arguing that climate scientists need to step back from a war footing, because they are waging a battle for public opinion that they've already won. The most likely casualty of continued open warfare on climate skeptics will be science itself.

Here is an excerpt:

Abstract:

The observed winter temperatures for Turku, Finland (and also generally for North America, Europe and Russia) for the past 60 winters have been strongly dependent on the Arctic Oscillation index (AO). When the Arctic Oscillation index is in "positive phase", high atmospheric pressure persists south of the North Pole, and lower pressures on the North Pole. In the positive phase, very cold winter air does not extend as far south into the middle of North America as it would during the negative phase. The AO positive phase is often called the "Warm" phase in North America. In this report I analyzed the statistical relation between the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation index (QBO is a measure of the direction and strength of the stratospheric wind in the Tropics), the solar activity, and the Arctic Oscillation index and obtained a statistically significant regression equation. According to this equation, during negative (easterly) values of the QBO, low solar activity causes a negative Arctic Oscillation index and cold winters in North America, Europe and Russia, but during positive (westerly) values of the QBO the relation reverses. However, the influence of the combination of an easterly value of the QBO and low solar activity on the AO is stronger and this combination is much more probable than the opposite. Therefore, prolonged low solar activity periods in the future may cause the domination of a strongly negative AO and extremely cold winters in North America, Europe and Russia. (Jarl R. Ahlbeck)

Bankers may not be the world's most popular people, but at HSBC they have the good of the planet at heart – the bank has invested $35 million in sending employees to assess the potential effects of climate change and preach the green gospel to colleagues back at the office. Serena Allott joins a group of volunteers in India. (TDT)

Resale of surrendered Certified Emission Reduction credits by Hungarian government prompts warning that "double counting" could damage the integrity of the EU emissions trading scheme. From BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network

The Climate Response Fund (www.climateresponsefund.org), in collaboration with the Climate Institute (www.climate.org), has developed this international conference to propose norms and guidelines for experimentation on climate engineering or intervention techniques. The Conference has the overall goal of minimizing risk associated with scientific experimentation on climate intervention or climate geoengineering, and will focus exclusively on the development of risk reduction guidelines for climate intervention experiments. (CRF)

The Obama administration is poised to ban offshore oil drilling on the outer continental shelf until 2012 or beyond. Meanwhile, Russia is making a bold strategic leap to begin drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. While the United States attempts to shift gears to alternative fuels to battle the purported evils of carbon emissions, Russia will erect oil derricks off the Cuban coast.

Offshore oil production makes economic sense. It creates jobs and helps fulfill America's vast energy needs. It contributes to the gross domestic product and does not increase the trade deficit. Higher oil supply helps keep a lid on rising prices, and greater American production gives the United States more influence over the global market.

Drilling is also wildly popular with the public. A Pew Research Center poll from February showed 63 percent support for offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. Americans understand the fundamental points: The oil is there, and we need it. If we don't drill it out, we have to buy it from other countries. Last year, the U.S. government even helped Brazil underwrite offshore drilling in the Tupi oil field near Rio de Janeiro. The current price of oil makes drilling economically feasible, so why not let the private sector go ahead and get our oil? (The Washington Times)

At last Thursday's Summit on Virginia's Energy Future in Richmond, Governor Robert McDonnell delivered a detailed talk on the state's energy opportunities and the bi-partisan commitment of the legislature and Virginia's US Senators and Congressional delegation to capitalize on them, including its offshore oil, gas and wind resources. [Read More] (Geoffrey Styles, Energy Tribune)

Petrobras’ search for a compact GTL plant that fits on a FPSO might be at an end

Two gas-to-liquids plant developers will soon be testing competing modular GTL designs for Brazil’s largest oil company, government-controlled Petrobras. The GTL process results in an unrefined synthetic oil, or syncrude, that can be blended back in with a field’s mainstream oil.

If at least one of the two modular GTL plants proves successful—i.e. economically feasible—it could go a long way to reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions caused by the flaring of unwanted natural gas from remote oil fields. (GoO)

As a few dozen dot-com billionaires gathered in a Palo Alto living room one evening in early 2007, then-Senator Obama rallied potential new donors over the speakerphone. After the call, host John Roos, a prominent lawyer, emphasized what most of his guests already knew. The clean-energy revolution was gaining momentum. The election in 2008 would be the critical moment. The ethics-based green revolution could be passed into law, and Obama was their guy. Roos raised much money and opened many doors for Obama that evening. In May 2009, despite initial criticism from Japan, Roos was given the plum appointment of U.S. Ambassador.

Roos, who had handpicked his guest list carefully, was a kingmaker in the progressive, green, and Bay Area billionaires club. The polls showing America's rising concerns about ocean levels reflected the hard work of Silicon Valley hedge fund managers and venture capitalists. (Patti Villacorta, American Thinker)

WASHINGTON – U.S. companies are getting squeezed out of the big Chinese wind-power market even as Dallas investors are bringing Chinese firms here via a big wind farm in Texas, according to a new industry report.

"They've used every measure you could possibly think of to enhance production of renewable energy equipment in China," said report author Alan Wolff of the trade law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk won a pledge from the Chinese last fall to drop rules giving preference to Chinese makers of wind-power equipment. But Kirk's office hasn't seen any evidence that the pledge has been carried out, said spokeswoman Carol Guthrie.

Meanwhile, Chinese manufacturers are entering the U.S. wind market under a joint venture led by Dallas investor Cappy McGarr. (Dallas Morning News)

As I wrote in December and January, Greenpeace CZ has been trying to find primitive tribes all over the world that would help Greenpeace CZ to harm the Czech energy industry by following the template envisioned by Michael Crichton in State of Fear.

In the book, eco-terrorist groups initiate lawsuits against industrial corporations based on claims of sunk islands due to global warming. To make their case stronger, they also engineer some artificial disasters themselves. Greenpeace CZ has brutally stolen Crichton's copyrights and started with this stunning unethical manipulation in the real world.

Climate change kills Greenpeace. Similar pictures convinced the Micronesian chieftains. Not sure whether the Greenpeace activists realize that they may deserve what they're training.

After dozens of failed attempts, Micronesia agreed to be guided by Greenpeace CZ which was a surprise even for the non-violent yet deeply obnoxious advocacy group itself. So Greenpeace CZ has prepared some dirty propaganda against the coal power plant in Prunéřov, sent them to Micronesia, and the Micronesia officials sent them back to the Czech ministry of environment.

The latter agreed to investigate the statements that the Czech power plants would raise the sea levels and sink the islands of Micronesia. ;-) So the minister and his allies chose an independent Norwegian panel that would try to find problems with the upgrade plans for Prunéřov.

Of course, if someone wants to look for problems, he will find them. The Czech media reported today that the Norwegian folks found out that ČEZ, the key Czech electric utility, is not planning to use the "best available technology" on the market.

Why the hell should it be using the "best available technology"? Every sane company has to decide - and has both the duty and the basic right to decide - about a trade-off between quality and price. Different companies choose different technologies. Clearly, the environmental standards in Norway are more strict because Norway is an extremely rich country and most of its citizens are mollycoddled sissies. Our GDP per capita (PPP) is $24,400 a year, slightly less than one-half of the Norwegian one ($53,000 a year) and it does make some difference when it comes to the luxury we require.

Every car on the road will need to be electric and there will be solar panels on every home, 10,000 wind turbines onshore and 40 new nuclear power stations if the Government is to stand a chance of meeting strict climate change targets, engineers have warned. (TDT)

You can tell that civilisation as we know it is coming to an end when they call a car "The Leaf", the new Nissan electric fantasy which is going to cost the British taxpayer £20.7 million in grants, topped up with a soft loan from the European Investment Bank of £197.3 million.

We are told that this thing will have an average range of 100 miles and a top speed of 90mph, although the egregious hacks writing this stuff forget to tell us that it is one or the other – not both. They don't tell either that you need a calendar rather than a speedometer to gauge the acceleration.

Nor, of course, do they tell you that, in terms of net efficiency, the electric car performs far less well than a petrol-driven motor, by the time you have taken into account the power station and transmission losses, to say nothing of the conversion losses in charging the batteries.

And then, since about 40 percent of our electricity comes from coal, and will do so until it is replaced by gas generation, the odds are that this wonderful "green" car will be driven by fossil fuels, only very inefficiently at one stage removed.

None of this, of course, will impinge in the slightest on the greenie brain – or that of Mr Brown who is so proud of this exercise in applied fatuity. But, not only – as we saw yesterday – do green issues bring out the meanness, they make you stupid as well.

A far better option – in terms of energy efficiency, thus reducing your "carbon footprint", if that's what turns you on – is to use gas power directly. Or, rather than use coal to produce electricity, use it to produce petrol and drive a sensible car.

That is certainly an option the being looked at. According to the Globe and Mail, researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington have developed an economic and clean way to turn lignite, the cheapest kind of coal, into synthetic crude which can then be refined into petrol.

This is the answer to a gas-guzzler's prayer. Canada, for instance, has more energy in its "proven, recoverable" reserves of coal than it has in all of its oil, natural gas and oil sands combined: 10 billion tons. The world has 100 times more: one trillion tons. These reserves hold the energy equivalent of more than four trillion barrels of oil. They are scattered in 70 countries, mostly in relatively easy-to-mine locations and mostly in democratic countries.

The United States alone has 30 percent of the world's reserves, and if the technology can be scaled up successfully, this could represent a historic moment in energy production – a secure supply of petroleum and liberation from the tyranny of the Middle East and other unstable regions.

What with the promise of shale gas and the potential for thorium-powered nuclear reactors – and access to a plentiful supply of fuel – there is no prospect of an energy shortage some time soon, not for a hundred years or more. And by that time, we will doubtless have other technological solutions, not that any of us will be around to care.

But, of course, that does not account for today's greenies, who are intent on driving us back into the economic dark ages, saddling us with dead-end technology, all in pursuit of their mad obsession over global warming. Thus, do we see public money frittered away on "The Leaf". I cannot wait for autumn. ((EU Referendum)

The Senate subcommittee overseeing environmental policy failed in holding accountable key activities of the Obama administration in 2009.

The conclusion is from a Minority Staff Report released by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), ranking member of the Oversight Subcommittee in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. (Christopher Guzman, Human Events)

Ethylene oxide (EtO) is an essential sterilant, used for all sorts of devices that can't take steam processing. For some years, it has been fashionable to pile on this compound. Yet, pesky data—tracing morbidity and mortality of EtO-exposed workers and comparing it to the non-exposed population—shows essentially no difference (beginning in the OSHA era).

Older EtO sterilizers were used in conjunction with separate aerators, so that workers had to unload the sterilizer and place the load into the aerator. Technically, this provided an additional exposure, compared to more modern sterilizers that have built-in aerators.

One would think that such practices would logically come under OSHA, but since ethylene oxide is considered a pesticide, EPA enters the picture.

Pesticides have to be registered and re-registered, so certain new guidelines for EtO came into effect on March 1, 2010, the most important of which is to prohibit the use of separate aerators. Or, to put it more positively, only single chamber sterilizers are now to be used.

Interscan has posted a Knowledge Base article on this matter, and I would encourage all in health care who might be affected by the new regs, to surf on over. (Shaw's Eco-Logic)

Models that predict thousands of smog-related hospitalizations in Toronto don’t hold up

For many years we have heard that air pollution in Canada is responsible for thousands of annual deaths and hospitalizations. In 2004 Toronto Public Health claimed that 1,700 premature deaths and 6,000 hospitalizations occur each year in Toronto alone, due to air pollution. The Ontario Medical Association, provincial and federal governments, lung associations and other groups regularly cite these kinds of figures in support of calls for new regulatory initiatives. These death and hospitalization rates are astonishing. It is like suffering a 9/11-sized terrorist attack every 10 months.

But is it really true?

NEW YORK - Women who had radiation to the abdomen in childhood to treat cancer may experience excessive bleeding after giving birth, new study findings suggest.

The study evaluated pregnancy and birth outcomes in 40 women who were 30 years old on average and had been treated when about 7 years old for cancers of the blood, kidney, bone, and other locations.

Twenty-eight of the women were pregnant with their first child, eight with their second, and the rest were on their third, fourth or fifth pregnancies.

In general, these women had outcomes similar to more than 9000 women who never had cancer, Dr. Sharon Lie Fong, at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and her colleagues found.

However, the six women previously treated with abdominal radiation appear to be the exception.

Although just two of the six bled severely after childbirth, percentage-wise this represents a higher rate (33 percent) of severe bleeding cases relative to that seen in the general population where just 5 percent bled after childbirth. (Reuters Health)

Despite huge advances in prevention and treatment, cancer is poised to become the leading cause of death worldwide as people refuse to ditch bad habits and the population ages, experts said. (AFP)

LONDON - Triplet births are on the increase, even when IVF pregnancies are discounted, and the death rate for triplets is 10 times higher than for single births, Norwegian scientists said on Wednesday.

The researchers, who said their findings were likely to be similar in other parts of Europe, said the increase in triplet pregnancies was probably due to use of hormone drugs to stimulate ovulation and a rise in the average age of mothers.

The results mean more effort is needed to control such treatments to cut the number of triplet pregnancies, they said.

The study analysed more than 2 million pregnancies between 1967 and 2006 in Norway and found that although death rates have fallen for singles, twins and triplets in the past 40 years, the rate for triplets is still 10 times higher than for single births. (Reuters)

A new research has shown that obesity limits the body’s ability to develop immunity to influenza viruses, particularly secondary infections, by inhibiting the immune system’s ability to ‘remember’ how it fought off previous similar bouts of illness. (Times of India)

Obesity has been shown to have many adverse health effects, including an increased susceptibility to infection. The CDC has listed obesity as a risk factor for pandemic flu strains, such as the H1N1 virus. In new research using laboratory mice, scientists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have found that obesity may limit the body’s ability to fight infection, but may also decrease its ability to develop immunity against secondary influenza viruses. (eMaxHealth)

A little advice for the trim and healthy: Never be smug.

A study presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Atlanta this week adds another bit of striking evidence to what doctors call the obesity paradox -- the notion that being very heavy may come with some health advantages as well as risks.

The University of Rochester researchers were looking at people with chronic heart failure who'd already had one heart attack. They found that those who were obese were much less likely to drop dead from sudden cardiac arrest than skinny, chubby, or even normal weight folks.

Now, it's still true that a beer belly, love handles, and other extra layers of fat boost your risk of developing diabetes, clogged arteries and high blood pressure. And if you're very fat, you're more likely to develop an enlarged, weakened heart that struggles to pump blood efficiently -- the physical condition known as heart failure. But, paradoxically, in this study of more than 1,200 heart failure patients, that excess weight seemed protective against sudden death. (NPR)

NEW YORK, March 17 - Kraft Foods, the maker of Oreo cookies and Velveeta cheese, plans to cut sodium levels in its North American products by about 10 percent over the next two years, making it the latest food maker trying to address health concerns as pressure mounts from government. (Reuters)

I have been depressed lately and Why Did You Kill My Dad? (BBC1, Monday) wasn’t what I needed at all. In it award-winning film-maker Julian Hendy interviewed the families of some of the 100 innocents who are randomly murdered each year by psychopaths. Hendy’s dad was one of them. It was all so sensitively, movingly done, and the ‘Why us?’ testimonies of the bereaved parents, wives and children were so heartbreaking that it made you want to cry.

The villain of the piece was the psychiatric establishment. Throughout the 1980s, we learnt — perhaps it’s the case still — it was standard practice for trainee psychiatrists to be taught that there was no connection between violence and mental illness. This means that many of the consultants running our regional Mental Health Trusts are basing important decisions about public safety on a politically correct lie. (James Delingpole, Spectator)

National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins, who previously led the National Human Genome Research Institute, talks with Editorial Board Editor Fred Hiatt about genetic testing and how it could change our behavior, as it has his. (Washington Post)

The director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, talks about his work with the National Human Genome Research Institute, his belief in God and the progress of AIDS research in the last 20 years. (Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

Holland is a miniature kingdom in the Northwest corner of Europe. Latitude 52 degrees north: as far north as the town of Red Deer in Alberta, Canada, midway between Calgary and Edmonton. Consequently in wintertime, our days are short and our nights are long. Our kids have their breakfast in artificial light. It dawns when they hike to school; twilight starts when they come back. They do their homework in the warm light of incandescent bulbs. Like we did …. and our parents.

Not for long anymore. An unholy alliance (discovered by Elsevier journalist Syp Wynia – see footnote) between a large multinational company and a multinational environmental organization succeeded in their lobby to phase out, and ultimately by 2012 forbid, the sale of incandescent bulbs, because of their low watt-to-lumen efficiency – not only in the Netherlands but in the whole of the European Union. The multinational company wanted to develop a new market for products with a high profit margin, and the environmental multinational wanted to impress the citizens of Europe with the imminent catastrophe caused by anthropogenic climate change. That would also be of benefit to its battered public image.

Philips, the company involved, started in 1891 with the mass production of Edison lamps, at its home base, Eindhoven, Netherlands. There existed no international court of justice at the time, so they could infringe on US patent law with impunity. In the past 120 years it has expanded continuously, to become the multinational electronics giant it is today. Because nostalgia seldom agrees with the aims of private enterprise, Philips started lobbying to phase out the very product on which its original success is based. They started this campaign around the turn of the century, ten years ago.

Their line of thought is clear: banning incandescent bulbs creates an interesting market for new kinds of home lighting, such as “energy savers” (CFL’s, compact fluorescent lamps) and LED’s (light emitting diodes). The mark-up on these new products is substantially higher than that on old-fashioned incandescent bulbs. The rapid expansion of the lighting industry in China makes the profit margin on ordinary bulbs from factories in Europe smaller yet.

Energy savers (CFL’s) were introduced on the market in 1980, but they never succeeded in gaining wide acceptance from consumers. Notwithstanding their long life expectancy and reduced power consumption, most of us find their light unnatural, too “cold” as it were. On top of that, the early types were far too heavy. They also were slow starters and often did not fit in standard armatures. These days, warmer CFL’s are on the market, but they are twice as expensive as the earlier types. Multiple government campaigns, aimed at promoting the idea that energy savers contribute to the well-intentioned goal of reducing the energy consumption of households, failed to convince citizens.

The spectre of catastrophic climate change offered a new opportunity for the strategists and marketing specialists at Philips headquarters. They changed their marketing concept and jumped on the Global Warming band wagon. From that moment on, energy-saving bulbs could be put on the market as icons of responsibility toward climate change. This would give Philips a head start in the CFL end LED business. The competition would be left far behind by aggressive use of European patent law. That strategy fitted like a glove with that of the environmental movement. For them, ordinary light bulbs had become the ultimate symbol of energy waste and excessive CO2 emissions. Seeing the opportunity, Greenpeace immediately made a forward pass with the ball thrown by Philips’ pitchers. The incandescent bulb would serve as an ideal vehicle for ramming Global Warming down people’s throats. No abstract discussions about CO2-emissions any more: a ban on bulbs would suffice. Not unlike the misguided banning of DDT in the name of environmentalism, which leads to the loss of countless lives due to malaria.

Come to think of it, banning incandescent bulbs makes only marginal sense. The energy savings of CFL’s are small. They are somewhat more efficient when you take into account only the number of lumens per watt of electrical power, but they cost a lot more to produce. Also, their real life expectancy often is much less than the 7,000 hours promised in the ads. And don’t forget that they contain a few milligrams of mercury, which contaminates the environment when they are not disposed of properly. Most of them aren’t – a scary thought.

Is it fair to judge light bulbs on the efficiency with which they convert watts into lumens? The combined lobby from Big Business and Big Environment has attempted to convince us that old-fashioned bulbs waste a lot of energy. They ignore the inconvenient truth that the efficiency of common light bulbs is in fact a full 100%. All the “waste heat” helps to heat the house. In wintertime, when days are short and cold, every contribution to home heating is welcome. In summertime the days are long and there is hardly any need for artificial lights. The incandescent bulb may give only a little bit of light, but it also produces a lot of useful heating.

There is yet another problem: the quality of the light produced by CFL’s and LED’s. Their light is unnatural; it is unsuitable for an atmosphere of coziness in living rooms, not to mention bedrooms. The directors of art museums in Europe worry a lot about this. The famous landscape paintings of Dutch Masters such as Rembrandt and Ruysdael lose their brilliance in the harsh lights that have to replace incandescent bulbs. For the next few years they can switch to high-intensity halogen bulbs, like we did in our homes. But those will be banned by 2016. In the struggle for attention (and for profit) no holds are barred. Everything is fair in war – love is not involved here.

In 2006, Dutch legislators caved in under the combined lobbying pressure by Philips and Greenpeace. A parliamentary majority in The Hague embraced the idea of banning incandescent bulbs and ordered the Dutch Environment Minister, Jacqueline Cramer, to lobby for an extension of the ban to all states in the European Union. That task proved simple enough. Top politicians in Europe, Germany’s Angela Merkel up front, deeply impressed by Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, were only too eager to project an image of strength and will power concerning imagined threats to the planet. ”Save the Earth, ban the bulb” was an effective campaign strategy.

To make a long story short, it took less than one year to issue a binding European Union Edict ordering the phasing out of incandescent bulbs, starting with a ban on bulbs of 100 watts and more effective March 1, 2009, and leading to a complete ban of all incandescent lighting on September 1, 2012. The spin doctors at Philips headquarters have got it made. And if this scam backfires on them in consumer protests all over Europe, they can cover their backsides by claiming that politicians and the green movement are responsible, not they.

Backfire it will. There exist no decent alternatives to incandescent light. None.

Elsevier, the Dutch weekly, is the local equivalent of TIME magazine. On August 8, 2009 it ran a revealing cover story by Syp Wynia, entitled “How war was declared against the incandescent bulb.” Other sources of information include an article by James Kanter in the New York Times of August 31, 2009 and many others, easily found by googling “incandescent bulbs” and “banned.”

Henk Tennekes is an aeronautical engineer. From 1965 to 1977 he was a professor of Aerospace Engineering at Penn State. He is co-author of A First Course in Turbulence (MIT Press, 1972 – still in print) and author of The Simple Science of Flight, recently (2009) released in a revised and expanded edition. Joost van Kasteren is a senior writer on technology and science in Holland. He covers energy, housing, water management, agriculture, food technology, innovation, science policy, and related issues. (Climate Science)

Although environmental harm is disproportionately concentrated in low-income communities and communities of color, so far the green movement has largely been one of white people. The EPA’s latest top gun, Lisa Jackson, is its first African American administrator and also the first EPA administrator unafraid to speak frankly about the important overlap between environmentalism and race. (triple pundit)

If you find yourself in a hole, the old adage advises, the first thing you should do is stop digging.

California is buried in a deep economic and fiscal hole, but our politicians seem bent on burrowing even deeper.

The state has tens of billions of dollars in unsold bonds, and Treasurer Bill Lockyer has warned that with the state's lowest-in-the-nation credit rating he may market new debt only sporadically.

Lockyer warned against a big water bond issue last year, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators ignored him. They approved an $11.2 billion bond issue, loaded with pork, that will tap the deficit-ridden budget for more than $20 billion in principal and interest.

Why should taxpayers spend $250 million to finance removal of dams on the Klamath River by PacifiCorp, a utility owned by billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.? Or $20 million for "economic development" in Siskiyou County? The Klamath flows through Siskiyou en route to the sea, but contributes nothing to our water supply.

Nearly $10 billion in unsold bonds would finance a fraction of the proposed bullet train linking Northern and Southern California. But the project's "business plan" is ludicrously inadequate, with cost, ridership and fare projections that defy reality, and full financing is so far an illusion. (Fresno Bee)

BRITAIN was forced by the EU yesterday to reject plans to give threatened polar bears greater protection.

The British delegation at crucial talks in Qatar on safeguarding endangered species wanted to back an American proposal to ban the international trade in polar bear products such as bear-skin rugs.

But Britain had to vote as part of an EU bloc at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) – and the EU decided to reject the deal. (Express)

WASHINGTON - Congress will pass a new law to overhaul the antiquated U.S. food safety system by the end of the year, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, an influential House lawmaker, said on Wednesday.

"I have every confidence that we are going to pass food safety legislation and this legislation is going to get to the president for a signature and that that's going to happen this year," said DeLauro, chairman of the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee.

The House passed its bill last July. But a companion Senate bill has been held up by work on healthcare and financial regulatory reform, and has also been stalled by the U.S. Trade Representative's office, which wants to ensure reforms do not contravene trade agreements, DeLauro said.

The Connecticut Democrat was speaking at the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit. (Reuters)

As you’ll shortly see, it was a little more aggressive than that. The woman was essentially belted in the head – despite her holding views that on almost every other issue besides food align Keith with her attackers.

Observe as the revolutionary piemen of vegetal justice take down their prey:

Note the immediate non-response of the assembled anarchists, who sit there like a pod of narcoleptic flatheads while a 45-year-old woman is bashed. Solidarity, comrades. Note, too, the Yakety Sax soundtrack. It helpfully conceals further audience reaction:

March 16 - Chairman of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), R K Pachauri, said he would not resign for making claims that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by the year 2035, which he termed as "one mistake".

Some climate researchers have criticized the IPCC in recent days for over-stating the speed of shrinking of Himalayan glaciers, whose seasonal thaw helps to supply water to many nations including India and China.

An ANI Report.

Stephen Dinan's Washington Times article "Climate Scientist to Fight Back at Skeptics," [March 5] tells of a forthcoming campaign that one global warmer said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics. "Climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of 'being treated like political pawns' and need to fight back ..." Part of their strategy is to form a nonprofit organization and use donations to run newspaper ads to criticize critics. Stanford professor and environmentalist Paul Erlich, in one of the e-mails obtained by the Washington Times said, "Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules."

Professor Thomas Sowell's most recent book, "Intellectuals and Society," has a quote from Eric Hoffer, "One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputation." Environmentalist Professor Paul Erlich, who's giving advice to the warmers, is an excellent example of Hoffer's observation. Ehrlich in his widely read 1968 book, "The Population Bomb," predicted, "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer." Erlich also predicted the earth's then-5 billion population would starve back to 2 billion people by 2025. In 1969, Dr. Erlich warned Britain's Institute of Biology, "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." Despite these asinine predictions, Erlich has won no less than 16 awards, including the 1980 Crafoord Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' highest award. (Orange County Register)

On March 7th, the Houston Chronicle published an editorial by two Texas A&M climate scientists, Andrew Dessler and Gerald North (et al.): “On Global Warming, the Science is Solid.” The op-ed argued that Climategate was a mere distraction and that climate science was settled in favor of alarm–both points being intended to challenge the State of Texas’s Petition for Rehearing to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s endangerment finding, which was based on a belief of “settled science.”

A week later, a response/defense followed in the Chronicle, written by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott: “State Suing for Responsible Scientific Conclusions.” His argument was that significant scientific uncertainties (nonsettled science) were tweaked away at Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England, and major errors in the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have come to light.

The general problem of the Dessler opinion piece was oversimplification and the use of half-truths. I took issue with it in this (unpublished) letter-to-the-editor that I sent to the Chronicle:

There are strong arguments against a Climategate-is-small, science-is-settled rationale behind climate alarm and policy activism–and thus against the U.S. EPA’s finding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and a danger to human health. A scientific case can be made that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are positive, not negative, for the environment and society. Part of this conclusion has come from my decade-plus interaction with Gerald North, a co-author of the piece in question. [Read more →] (MasterResource)

In Nature this week I review books by Al Gore, Jim Hansen, Steve Schneider and Dieter Helm and Cameron Hepburn. It looks like the full review is freely available here. Here is an excerpt to whet your appetite:

I am an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society and a co-organizer of a Petition drive to the APS Council to modify or withdraw the published APS Statement on Climate Change [see Nature 460:457, 23 July 2009]. Some 250 members and Fellows of the APS have now joined in signing this Petition, including members of the US National Academy of Sciences, a Nobelist, and many other prize winners.

I urge you to ignore all of the insubstantial criticisms leveled against your submission to the House of Commons’ inquiry into ClimateGate. All scientists should applaud your call for openness and sharing of data – even without the legal requirements of the Freedom of Information Act, and regardless of one’s position on the causes of global warming. To echo Margaret Thatcher’s admonition to President George Bush: “Don’t go wobbly!” Read the rest of this entry » (SPPI blog)

The Times write about a meeting at the Royal Society last week (or somewhat earlier?). Several famous scholars, including string theorist Michael Green, came to listen what others had to say.

James Lovelock may have said the most interesting stuff. Recall that he is the father of Gaia theory, the idea that the biosphere of the Earth actively conspires to keep the Earth more hospitable for life.

And may I tell you something? I actually think that statistically speaking, this is the case. The individual organisms are trying to do things that are good for them. In most cases, they do just a short-sighted planning. But in a few cases, they're able to detect what's indirectly good for life, and support the changes in the environment that indirectly lead to this outcome. In effect, this has similar consequences as the idea that the biosphere is one super-organism.

While I think that this "super-macroscopic" aspect of the dynamics is far less important than the individual lives of the organisms, it seems to me that there exist both theoretical and experimental evidence that the Gaia negative feedbacks exist.

BOULDER--The use of prescribed burns to manage Western forests may help the United States reduce its carbon footprint. A new study finds that such burns, often used by forest managers to reduce underbrush and protect bigger trees, release substantially less carbon dioxide emissions than wildfires of the same size.

"It appears that prescribed burns can be an important piece of a climate change strategy," says Christine Wiedinmyer, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and lead author of the new study. "If we reintroduce fires into our ecosystems, we may be able to protect larger trees and significantly reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere by major wildfires." (NCAR/UCAR)

CLICO Project 25.02.2010 Research - The European research project CLICO -Climate Change, Water Conflict and Human Security- devoted to the study of climate change and its social dimensions begins in February with conferences that take place from 25 to 27 February in Bellaterra. During the next three years, researchers from 14 institutes, under the direction of the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) at UAB will be analysing the effects hydro-climatic phenomena -drought, flooding and rise of sea levels- have on the intensification of social tension and conflicts in eleven regions of the Mediterranean, Maghreb, Middle East and Sahel, and will propose specific actions to guarantee the peace and security of the population in each area.

The unprecedented speed at which changes in the climate are taking place all over the planet represents a threat to human security, especially in regions greatly affected by droughts, flooding or rise of sea levels which can cause or worsen violent conflicts and humanitarian disasters such as hunger or hordes of climate refugees. (UAB)

Still trying this nonsense too? Miami Waterworld? It Could Happen - World's top Arctic scientists meeting in Miami: Ground Zero for sea level rise

And you thought the down economy made it hard to sell your home?

New scientific data says the sea is rising faster than anyone thought and under worst-case scenarios, much of Miami and South Florida could be under water by the end of the century, unless drastic measures are taken soon.

Some of the world’s leading experts on Arctic climate change are meeting in Miami this week to share the newest science and plot the course for future science. (NBC Miami)

Department stands by climate change campaign as ASA bans press adverts that 'should have been phrased more tentatively' (The Guardian)

A funny thing happened on the way to a global conspiracy. Reality killed it. Funny how that happens.

Not long ago people like Al Gore were jetting around the globe taking in vast speaking fees, winning awards, telling everyone that they must give up the things they enjoy to save the planet. These doomsayers all told us we were stupid if we doubted them. They knew better, you see. These people claimed all “real” scientists agreed that mankind was destroying the planet with global warming. That we humans were at fault and the only way to save ourselves is bow down to a world government, pay lots of taxes and give up our cars, our electricity, air travel, light bulbs, blah blah blah. (James Hudnall, Big Hollywood)

Here is just one more indication that despite what some would like you to believe, the MWP was not a regional “non event”.

From a University of Arizona press release,

Giant Sequoias Yield Longest Fire History from Tree Rings

California’s western Sierra Nevada had more frequent fires between 800 and 1300 than at any time in the past 3,000 years, according to a new study led by Thomas W. Swetnam, director of UA’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.

This cross-section of a giant sequoia tree shows some of the tree-rings and fire scars. The numbers indicate the year that a particular ring was laid down by the tree. (Credit: Tom Swetnam)

A 3,000-year record from 52 of the world’s oldest trees shows that California’s western Sierra Nevada was droughty and often fiery from 800 to 1300, according to a new study led by University of Arizona researchers.

Scientists reconstructed the 3,000-year history of fire by dating fire scars on ancient giant sequoia trees, Sequoiadendron giganteum, in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park. Individual giant sequoias can live more than 3,000 years.

“It’s the longest tree-ring fire history in the world, and it’s from this amazing place with these amazing trees.” said lead author Thomas W. Swetnam of the UA. “This is an epic collection of tree rings.”

The new research extends Swetnam’s previous tree-ring fire history for giant sequoias another 1,000 years into the past. In addition, he and his colleagues used tree-ring records from other species of trees to reconstruct the region’s past climate.

The scientists found the years from 800 to 1300, known as the Medieval Warm Period, had the most frequent fires in the 3,000 years studied. Other research has found that the period from 800 to 1300 was warm and dry. Read the rest of this entry »

The March-April edition of WeatherWise magazine has an interesting article in it regarding UHI (Urban Heat Island) effects of enhancing thunderstorm formation in the downwind heat plume. It Stems from this paper (PDF) published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. I saw a similar study presented in August 2007 when I attended Dr. Roger Pielke’s land use conference presented by Dr. William Cotton on the enhancements modeled in St. Louis, MO. Read that paper here

Radar reflectivity image of the March, 14, 2008 Atlanta, Georgia thunderstorm. Image from Weather Underground

Although nearly everyone is fascinated by lightning, some of us are terrified, while others are drawn to its elusive beauty. Lightning is one of the most photogenic of all atmospheric phenomena, but also one of the least understood. For all of its beauty, lightning is a major cause of weather-related deaths in the United States and accounts for more deaths than hurricanes and tornadoes combined. Nearly 40 percent of all lightning deaths occur when a person is involved in some form of outdoor recreation.

Now, new evidence suggests that lightning and its parent thunderstorms might actually be enhanced by cities. Urban areas are literally hotbeds for producing heat and lift, two important ingredients for thunderstorm formation. At the same time, throughout the world people are continuing to migrate to cities for employment opportunities and the search for a better life. Eighty percent of the U.S. population now lives in cities. City growth has increased the amount of urbanized land cover in the United States to nearly the size of Ohio! In the United States, many of our cities in the south are growing rapidly due to their location in a more temperate climate. However, a temperate climate also means cities are more prone to thunderstorms. Could all of these factors together combine to increase risk of lightning and other thunderstorm hazards to urban communities around the world? Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

You’ve heard it a thousand times before – greenhouse gases are causing the Earth to warm, there is more warming in the Arctic than other parts of the planet, and the permafrost is melting away. Remind the world that permafrost holds carbon and methane that can be released into the atmosphere, throw in some pictures of a drunken forest, claim that the permafrost melting is some type of global warming time bomb, and you will be embraced by the global warming alarmists. Do a web search on the subject of global warming and permafrost melting for 1,000s of additional ideas. (WCR)

EUROPE'S emissions trading system was in uproar yesterday amid a mounting scandal over "recycled" carbon permits.

Two carbon exchanges were forced to suspend trading as panic hit investors fearful that they had bought invalid permits.

BlueNext and Nord Pool, the French and Nordic exchanges, suspended trading in certificates of emission reduction (CERs) when it emerged that some had been illegally reused.

Concern that used and worthless permits were circulating caused the spot price of the certificates to collapse, from €12 ($17.87) a tonne of carbon to less than €1.

The scare erupted after Hungary said last week that it had sold two million CERs submitted by Hungarian companies to satisfy their carbon emission allowances under the EU's emission trading system (ETS).

Carbon permits submitted by companies every year to the national register are usually cancelled.

However, Hungary exploited a loophole that allows CERs - which are issued not by European Union governments but by the United Nations under its Clean Development Mechanism - to be traded.

Investors in the carbon market took fright as it emerged that some of the Hungarian CERs had found their way back into the market, despite having been used to meet the carbon targets of Hungarian companies.

The double counting is threatening confidence in the ETS, according to staff at one energy consultancy. Icis Heren said: "For companies obliged by law to buy carbon credits ... government-led carbon credit recycling means they risk buying a worthless asset." (Carl Mortished, The Times)

Ed Miliband unveils strategy to encourage growth of unproven technology for next generation of coal-fired power stations ( Press Association)

Mountaintop removal is without a doubt the world's worst coal mining -- responsible for landscape destruction, habitat loss and water pollution throughout Appalachia. As if all that weren't bad enough, new research suggests that the global warming pollution from conventional (dirty) coal-fired power plants are up to 17% higher when greenhouse gas emissions relating to mountaintop mining operations are factored in. (NRDC)

Steam-driven projects to extract crude from Canada's oil sands, often held up as more environmentally friendly than mining, have major drawbacks of their own that require more stringent regulation to fix, an environmental think tank said on Wednesday.

The Alberta-based Pembina Institute compared nine projects that employ "in situ" extraction methods -- where steam is pumped into the earth to liquefy the extra-heavy crude so it can be pumped to the surface -- and found all need to make improvements to varying degrees.

"The impacts of in situ have sort of been framed as low-impact oil sands development, but when you look at the data that isn't actually borne out," said Simon Dyer, one of the authors of the report, called "Drilling Deeper: the In Situ Oil Sands Report Card".

"Some of them indicate actually higher impact on a per-barrel basis than mining, for instance greenhouse gas emissions and sulfur-dioxide emissions and some of the cumulative impacts on land." (Reuters)

It was up to Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, to declare the beginning of the electric car era when it launched its ambitious plan to revolutionize the transport sector, the top threat to meet binding climate change targets. [Read More] (Andres Cala, Energy Tribune)

Shares of Timminco Ltd dropped 13.3 percent on Wednesday after the company said it was suspending solar-grade silicon production and would not resume operations until customer demand recovered.

Timminco said after markets closed on Tuesday that it expects gloomy solar energy market conditions to continue hurting demand for its products and financial results in the foreseeable future.

The Toronto-based company has developed its own method of purifying silicon metal into solar-grade silicon to make solar power cells.

Depressed solar-grade silicon prices are one effect of a global slump in the solar power market, which is beset by tight project funding and an oversupply of panels and parts.

Timminco said its average selling price of solar-grade silicon in the fourth quarter fell to C$36 per kilogram from C$65 at the same time last year. (Reuters)

Using a parliamentary trick ironically known as the "self-executing rule," Democrats plan on passing their massive health bill without voting. In November, they'll learn just how "self-executing" it was.

Just when you thought Washington couldn't get more corrupt, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week seems intent on trampling representative government itself. Unable to get the votes to pass their U.S. health care revolution, she and her fellow Democratic leaders have figured out a way to pass it without a vote. (IBD)

Democrats are considering a scheme that would “deem” the Senate health care bill to have passed the House if a separate event occurs (specifically: House passage of a budget reconciliation bill). That strategy has been named after its contriver, House Rules Committee chair Louise Slaughter (D-NY). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says of this scheme: “I like it because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill” (emphasis added).

Keynesian economics is mostly a fraud and always has been. It has little theoretical basis and no empirical support, as I have previous explained.

Our school system has convinced the public that government is the source of most good and can solve all problems. Generations of children have been taught that Franklin Delano Roosevelt "saved" us from the Great Depression. History textbooks proclaim this. Yet Roosevelt's Treasury Secretary clearly contradicted this myth:

Morganthau's statement is the equivalent of Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner stating that "everything we have done has done no good." When the architect and manager of the program admits it failed, on what basis can honest historians claim that it was successful?

If only current political appointees could be as honest as Morgenthau. But the Keynesian myth is too important and must survive at all costs. It is a source of government power and an inspiration for more government spending. It is a source of many economists' income and prestige. Keynesian economics is the bedrock supporting the entire myth of expansive government. If it is debunked, then so is the twentieth-century conception of government. ( Monty Pelerin, American Thinker)

Few medical scare campaigns have done as much harm as the one claiming to link autism to vaccines for children. So parents and doctors alike should welcome the latest emphatic ruling by a special Washington court dismissing such allegations.

On Friday, special masters in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled against the claims of parents of autistic children in three separate cases. The parents alleged that vaccines with thimerosal—a preservative containing mercury—had triggered autism in their children, and they were seeking compensation from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The vaccine court was established to require a lower standard of proof than civil courts, so the forceful rejection of the vaccine-autism link is especially notable.

Special Master George Hastings wrote, for example, that "The overall weight of the evidence is overwhelming contrary to the petitioners' causation theories." Another ruling noted that many parents had "relied upon practitioners and researchers who peddled hope, not opinions grounded in science and medicine." The court also rejected claims that certain children are genetically predisposed to be more susceptible to mercury.

The rulings follow the same court's judgment last year against claims that measles-mumps-rubella shots in combination with other thimerosal-containing vaccines cause autism. And they reinforce many comprehensive scientific studies, including one from the Institute of Medicine, that have ruled out any causal link.

Autism is a frightening diagnosis that puts enormous burdens on families, but blaming vaccines without evidence only harms other families who might be frightened enough not to immunize their children. The fate of children with autism would be far better served if the activists who have devoted their resources to lawsuits would support research to discover its true causes, and to helping those children realize their full human potential. (WSJ)

NEW YORK - Melanoma survivors are at increased risk of other cancers as well as the return of their skin cancers, according to a new study, leading National Cancer Institute researchers to urge lifelong follow-up of such survivors. (Reuters Health)

LOS ANGELES - Popcorn and soda has filled the stomachs of generations of moviegoers, but with childhood obesity on the rise one studio head has a hankering to see yogurt and veggies at the concession stand, too.

The message came on Monday from Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman and CEO Michael Lynton, who addressed theater owners on the first day of their ShoWest convention in Las Vegas.

"I suggest you consider adding a few healthier items to your existing menu," Lynton said in prepared remarks.

"I believe it's the right thing to do for your industry, for our audiences ... and for America," he said. (Reuters)

Could added incentives and other changes to the federal food stamp program trim rampant obesity rates among low-income groups? (SciAm)

A campaign by state and local lawmakers to tax sugary beverages to cover obesity-related health costs could revive a national debate successfully snuffed last year by the $110 billion soft drink industry.

In California and New York -- states with big budget deficits and experience taking public health issues into their own hands -- legislators are backing efforts to tax sugary drinks, now a focus of the national debate on obesity.

They are not alone. Roughly a dozen more states, including Kansas and Colorado, and cities like Philadelphia, are gearing up for battle or enacting new taxes on sweetened beverages. (Reuters)

A proposed new tax on sugary drinks appears unlikely to pass the state Senate, despite passionate campaigning by New York Gov. David Paterson and his health commissioner.

Supporters have pushed the tax as a way to combat obesity while bolstering funding for state health programs. But a number of Democratic senators are opposed, along with the entire Republican conference. With a 31-30 Democrat-Republican split in the chamber, the measure isn't expected to draw the minimum 32 votes needed for passage. (Associated Press)

PepsiCo Inc. said Tuesday it will remove full-calorie sweetened drinks from schools in more than 200 countries by 2012, marking the first such move by a major soft-drink producer.

PepsiCo announced its plan the same day first lady Michelle Obama urged major companies to put less fat, salt and sugar in foods and reduce marketing of unhealthy products to children. Pepsi, the world's second-biggest soft-drink maker, and Coca-Cola Co., the biggest, adopted guidelines to stop selling sugary drinks in U.S. schools in 2006.

The World Heart Federation has been urging soft-drink makers for the past year to remove sugary beverages from schools. The group is looking to fight a rise in childhood obesity, which can lead to diabetes and other ailments. (Associated Press)

Despite the best efforts of the soda industry to keep a lid on any discussion of a soda tax, the concept keeps bubbling up. It rose to the surface again last month when State Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez introduced soda tax legislation for California. (Harold Goldstein, Mercury News)

As a woman whose height and weight put me in the obese category on the body-mass-index chart, I cringed when Michelle Obama recently spoke of putting her daughters on a diet. While I’m sure the first lady’s intentions are good, I’m also sure that her comments about childhood obesity will add yet another layer to the stigma of being overweight in America. (Harriet Brown, NYT)

LONDON - Cases of tuberculosis (TB) in Britain rose by 5.5 percent in the past year and are at their highest levels since the 1980s, health authorities said on Tuesday.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said there were more than 9,150 cases of TB in 2009, most of them among immigrants.

The main burden of infection was in London with 3,476 cases reported in 2009, accounting for 38 percent of the nationwide total. Nearly three-quarters of all cases were in people born outside Britain, the figures showed.

"The increase we have seen this year is the biggest rise in the number of cases since 2005," said Ibrahim Abubakar, a TB expert at the HPA. An official said infection rates were at their highest since the 1980s.

TB is caused by bacteria and usually affects the lungs. Antibiotics can cure it, but about 1.7 million people around the world die from it every year. (Reuters)

Research into people's reactions to emergencies aims to make sure there are more survivors in future ( The Guardian)

NASA scientists analyzing 30 years of satellite data have found that the amount of ultraviolet (UV) radiation reaching Earth's surface has increased markedly over the last three decades. Most of the increase has occurred in the mid-and-high latitudes, and there's been little or no increase in tropical regions.

The new analysis shows, for example, that at one line of latitude — 32.5 degrees — a line that runs through central Texas in the northern hemisphere and the country of Uruguay in the southern hemisphere, 305 nanometer UV levels have gone up by some 6 percent on average since 1979.

The primary culprit: decreasing levels of stratospheric ozone, a colorless gas that acts as Earth’s natural sunscreen by shielding the surface from damaging UV radiation. (NASA)

USA Today just informed about the newest figures from Gallup. They have been asking the question "do you worry a great deal" about various issues to the Americans since 1989.

The percentages that worry a big deal are:

Judy Hoy’s lonely crusade to determine if farm chemicals are deforming deer boosted by falling populations (Miller-McCune)

Is "green" investing dead?

A series of high-profile blunders involving manipulated global warming data has the green movement on its heels and may be hurting investment in green technology.

The green movement has come under fire recently after a report by the United Nation’s climate change panel erroneously stated that certain Himalayan glaciers would melt by the year 2035. The faulty data was put into the UN’s climate report without any oversight, raising important questions about the credibility of the climate change panel.

So, is now the time to invest in green technology? Investor Matt McCall from Penn Financial is not convinced. “The environment for this investment has changed,” said McCall on Varney and Company. “There have been holes poked in the global warming debate. These green companies are not as hot as they once were”

While the push for green investment has stalled, not everyone is ready to write off the potential profits in green technology.

Peter Fusaro, founder of the Wall Street Green Trading Summit, defended green investments on Varney and Company, but admitted that there is a lull in opportunities.

“It’s in a pause,” said Fusaro. “It’s been impacted by the financial crisis, but the reality is we’re still moving forward on climate change globally”

Fusaro also said that no investor should be going totally green with their portfolios, stating, “You should only have about 10% of your portfolio in these risky investments.” (FoxBusiness)

The coal industry in the Hunter is booming again, thanks to higher prices and expanding port capacity. Coal exports from Newcastle – already the world's largest coal export port – are predicted nearly to double over the next decade.

It is NSW's own slice of the minerals boom more commonly ascribed to the states of Western Australia and Queensland. It is the same boom that helped Australia outperform every other advanced economy during the global financial crisis.

Our natural gifts of beauty rich and rare are paying out handsomely once again. We rode high on the gold rush, then the wool boom. Now it is our coal and iron ore feeding the furnaces of rapidly developing economies such as China and India. NSW alone exported $13billion worth of coal last financial year – the state's biggest export.

But what price success? (Jessica Irvine, SMH)

A new report by an international research team explores the impact of the global livestock industry on the environment, the economy and human health. (Stanford Report)

Swifts could be running out of places to build their nests as older homes are given 'eco-upgrades', the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has warned. (TDT)

Of course this will soon to be shown to mean scientists have grossly overestimated the amount of CO2 in the past, that it’s worse than we thought, and that climate change is pushing curious shrimps and foot-long jellyfish on the edge of extinction. (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)

AN ELECTRONICS manufacturer with a history of making false environmental claims has been caught doctoring fridges to make them appear more energy efficient.

LG Electronics has agreed to compensate potentially thousands of consumers after two of its fridges - models L197NFS and P197WFS - were found to contain an illegal device that activates an energy-saving mode when it detects room conditions similar to those in a test laboratory.

The so-called circumvention device was discovered last month by the consumer advocacy group, Choice.

The device detects test conditions - typically 22 degrees - and activates the energy-saving mode, creating the impression of lower running costs and energy usage. The devices have been banned in Australia since 2007. (SMH)

PHILADELPHIA –- An interdisciplinary team of physicists and geologists led by the University of Pennsylvania has made a major step toward predicting where and how large floods occur on river deltas and alluvial fans.

In a laboratory, researchers created a miniature river delta that replicates flooding patterns seen in natural rivers, resulting in a mathematical model capable of aiding in the prediction of the next catastrophic flood. (Penn State)

Phosphorus is just as important to agriculture as water. But a lack of availability and accessibility of phosphorus is an emerging problem that threatens our capacity to feed the global population. Like nitrogen and potassium, it is a nutrient that plants take up from the soil and it is crucial to soil fertility and crop growth. (ScienceDaily)

Mammals could be enabled to regrow lost limbs after scientists identified a single gene which prevents regeneration. (TDT)

Former vice president points toward weather events as evidence of climate change during 'strategy conference call' for supporters.

If there’s a drought – it’s global warming. When there’s a hurricane – it’s global warming. If there are heavy snows or even blizzards – it’s somehow global warming. And amazingly, the latest round of rainy and windy weather in the Northeast, well that’s consistent with this phenomenon as well, so says former Vice President Al Gore.

Gore, the self-anointed climate change alarmist-in-chief, told supporters on a March 15 conference call that severe weather in certain regions of the country could be attributed to carbon in the atmosphere – including the recent rash of rainy weather.

“[T]he odds have shifted toward much larger downpours,” Gore said. “And we have seen that happen in the Northeast, we’ve seen it happen in the Northwest – in both of those regions are among those that scientists have predicted for a long time would begin to experience much larger downpours.”

But Gore had a specific example in mind. He explained this recent soaking in the Northeastern United States was “consistent” with what global warming alarmists were projecting.

“Just look at what has been happening for the last three days,” Gore said. “The so-called skeptics haven’t noted it because it’s not snow. But the downpours and heavy winds are consistent with what the scientists have long warned about.” (Jeff Poor, Business & Media Institute)

Improved risk assessments, more scientific study and better coordination between federal and local governments are needed, the report says. (Jim Tankersley, LA Times)

WASHINGTON, March 15 - A compromise climate control bill that could be sketched out next week in the U.S. Senate will be anchored by a "cap and trade" plan for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from utilities such as power plants, a key senator said on Monday.

"That's not to say there are not some details left to be resolved with utilities but the overall approach is that," the senator said during an interview with Reuters. (Reuters)

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general on Tuesday appeared to be at odds with his own climate change envoy over the role the UN should play in securing international agreement on tackling global warming.

Gro Harlem Bruntland, UN climate change envoy, was quoted as telling a conference in Amsterdam that there was likely to be a shift towards more contacts among key players in the climate change debate in view of the UN’s Copenhangen summit in December failing to produce the desired binding agreement.

“You will have more of a double track system” in addition to the UN framework, Associated Press quoted her as saying.

Asked about Ms Brundtland’s comments a few hours later, Mr Ban told a press conference in New York: “Double track is not desirable at this time.” He said he had not read the reports of the former Norwegian prime minister’s remarks but added: “That I regard as her personal views.”

The centrality of the UN to the climate change process has been challenged by some member states who believe a forum of 192 members is too unwieldy to deal with such complex negotiations. (Financial Times)

Everyone knows that carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas driving climate change, is a global problem. Now a Stanford study has shown it is also a local problem, hurting city dwellers' health much more than rural residents', because of the carbon dioxide "domes" that develop over urban areas. That finding, said researcher Mark Z. Jacobson, exposes a serious oversight in current cap-and-trade proposals for reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases, which make no distinction based on a pollutant's point of origin. The finding also provides the first scientific basis for controlling local carbon dioxide emissions based on their local health impacts.

"Not all carbon dioxide emissions are equal," said Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering. "As in real estate, location matters."

His results also support the case that California presented to the Environmental Protection Agency in March, 2009, asking that the state be allowed to establish its own CO2 emission standards for vehicles.

Jacobson, director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford, testified on behalf of California's waiver application in March, 2009. The waiver had previously been denied, but was reconsidered and granted subsequently. The waiver is currently being challenged in court by industry interests seeking to overturn it.

Jacobson found that domes of increased carbon dioxide concentrations – discovered to form above cities more than a decade ago – cause local temperature increases that in turn increase the amounts of local air pollutants, raising concentrations of health-damaging ground-level ozone, as well as particles in urban air. (Stanford University)

Human emissions of carbon dioxide began a sharp rise from 1945. But, temperatures, it seems, may have plummeted over half the globe during the next few decades. Just how large or how insignificant was that decline?

Frank Lansner has found an historical graph of northern hemisphere temperatures from the mid 70’s, and it shows a serious decline in temperatures from 1940 to 1975. It’s a decline so large that it wipes out the gains made in the first half of the century, and brings temperatures right back to what they were circa 1910. The graph was not peer reviewed, but presumably it was based on the best information available at the time. In any case, if all the global records are not available to check, it’s impossible to know how accurate or not this graph is. The decline apparently recorded was a whopping 0.5°C.

But, three decades later, by the time Brohan and the CRU graphed temperatures in 2006 from the same old time period, the data had been adjusted (surprise), so that what was a fall of 0.5°C had become just a drop of 0.15°C. Seventy percent of the cooling was gone.

Maybe they had good reasons for making these adjustments. But, as usual, the adjustments were in favor of the Big Scare Campaign, and the reasons and the original data are not easy to find.

Matthews 1976, National Geographic, Temperatures 1880-1976

The blue line is the adjusted CRU average from 2006

Keeping the public looped in on what scientists are discovering has never been easy. For one thing, the traditional explainers - journalists - can distort, hype, or oversimplify the latest breakthroughs. But the need to communicate science broadly and clearly has never been more urgent.

Understanding science helps people know "where the truth speakers are on an issue" such as climate change, says Robert Semper, the executive associate director of the Exploratorium, a hands-on science center in San Francisco.

"The more educated and knowledgeable the public is about science ... the more responsible they can be when it comes time for voting or expressing opinions about public policy," adds Leslie Fink, a public affairs specialist at the National Science Foundation in Washington.

The importance of getting the word out has science organizations scrambling to explore new channels, from souped up websites to asking Hollywood for help.

The current climate-change furor has become the poster child for what happens when there's a communications gap between scientists and the public. The vast majority of scientists see compelling evidence that the world's climate is about to change significantly, and that the change is largely driven by human activity. Yet polls show public opinion becoming more skeptical about climate change. (Gregory M. Lamb, CSMonitor)

According to M. Mitchell Waldrop, editorial page editor for Nature, “global-warming deniers . . . are sowing doubts about the fundamental [climate change] science.” Further, Waldrop argues in his op-ed “Climate of Fear, “scientists’ reputations have taken a hit.”

Let’s ignore the snarky reference to “deniers” and ask: is science and are scientists under attack? The answer is Yes. But in an intellectual sense, isn’t this the essence of falsifiable, non-verifiable physical science?

Climategate (et al.) is not simply about “deniers” and Waldrop’s complaint that skeptics are “stok[ing] the angry fires of talk radio, cable news, the blogosphere and the like.” It’s much more nuanced than that.

As a quick aside, perhaps Dr. Waldrop can be forgiven for failing to see the big picture. To critics (can he tolerate them?), he is a deer in the headlights of universal, Internet-quick scientific scrutiny. And there are a lot of smart ‘amateurs’ mixing it up with the pros (who likes competition?). Consider the view of his colleague-in-arms Paul Ehrlich, who profoundly stated in the same March 10th editorial: “Everyone is scared shitless, but they don’t know what to do.”

The third questions is by far the most interesting, but let us first dispose of questions one and two. [Read more →] (MasterResource)

Hans von Storch reports that Edinburgh University's Tom Crowley has been doing some auditing himself, writing to Ross McKitrick to find out how much loot the Canadian is receiving from Big Oil.

Unfortunately it appears that the well-organised denier movement forgot to fund one of the most prominent sceptics of all.

U.S. environmental groups are trying to expand a climate change bill being written in the Senate to help foreign countries pay for enforcing laws they already have in place for protecting forests as one way of reducing carbon pollution.

Global warming legislation passed in the U.S. House of Representatives last year would set up financial incentives encouraging new steps in the United States and abroad for reducing greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

But there are doubts it would let those financial incentives flow to foreign countries, such as Brazil and Indonesia, with forest protection laws on the books but few resources to enforce them. (Reuters)

Poland will ask the European Commission for a new carbon dioxide emission permits quota of 208.5 million tons a year, it said in a statement on Tuesday, in a compromise likely to help end a long dispute with Brussels.

Poland had originally requested 284.6 million a year of the permits, called EUAs, under the bloc's scheme to fight global warming. But it was only given 208.5 million by the European Commission.

A European tribunal then ruled that the decision to grant Warsaw the lower amount was unjustified, opening the way for new negotiations.

"We were arguing for more, but the Commission was arguing for an even tighter limit than 208.5 and that's what we have settled for," a Polish source close to the negotiations told Reuters.

Call to Release All Documents Surrounding $90 Million Stimulus Dollars Allocated for Tom Carnahan’s Wind Farm

(ST. LOUIS, MO.) March 5, 2010 – The National Environmental Scorecard just gave Rep. Russ Carnahan a top score but didn’t delve into his incentive for going green. The public deserves to know and today 3rd district Congressional candidate Ed Martin sent Carnahan a letter requesting he release all documents regarding the $90 million stimulus dollars allocated for his brother’s windmill farm in DeKalb County, Missouri.

“In what reads like a fictional account of nepotism and corruption, Congressman Russ Carnahan voted for a so-called “stimulus” bill that not only did not create jobs in his district but allowed his brother to receive $90 million in taxpayer money for his company to then purchase foreign parts,” said Ed Martin.

Tom Carnahan’s $300 million wind farm “was on hold” Vice President Joe Biden told reporters while visiting a mid-Missouri factory last spring. But Biden went on say thanks to the Federal Economic Recovery Act, “We’re going to get companies like this windmill company to be able to move forward.” Interesting how it all magically changed, after his brother Russ cast his vote for the Federal Stimulus bill. ”We never really liked to say it out loud,” said Tom Carnahan, president/founder of Wind Capital Group. “A few months ago, the banks were closed. Banks now have confidence to move forward … The stimulus changed everything.” (St. Joseph News, Alyson E. Raletz, April 17, 2009)

Boy did it! The stimulus funneled $90 million taxpayer’s dollars into Tom Carnahan’s project. The Democratic Policy Committee acknowledged and even touted the earmark stating, “Missouri’s largest wind energy development, funded by the Recovery Act…” (DPC, website Nov. 5, 2009)

So let’s get this straight – A proposed $300 million wind farm couldn’t even get banks to call them back for two years, but then Rep. Russ Carnahan votes to approve the Stimulus bill, and out of the blue his brother’s company is notified it will get $90 million in stimulus funds and now banks are lining up. Hmmm…pardon us for saying so but something seems a bit fishy. Should we conclude that if you need money all it takes is a family member in power? (Press Release)

There is an interesting set of interviews in Discover with Judy Curry, of Georgia Tech, and Michael Mann, of Penn State. It is worth reading in full to see two very different views of climate science and how it should engage with the broader community. One of these voices represents the future of climate science, and the other, its recent past.

Here are some excerpts from the interview with Curry:

Oops! There go another two bricks, tumbling out of the IPCC wall of deceit on man-made global warming – there is not a lot left now; even the Berlin Wall (to which the AGW construct is ideologically allied) has survived better. Unhappily for Al, Phil, Michael, George and the rest of the scare-mongers, these two discredited components are among the most totemic in the AGW religion. ( Gerald Warner, TDT)

WASHINGTON, DC, March 16, 2010 – A new study involving scientists from 13 different organizations, universities and research institutions states that forest protection offers one of the most effective, practical, and immediate strategies to combat climate change. The study, "Indigenous Lands, Protected Areas, and Slowing Climate Change," was published in PLoS Biology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and makes specific recommendations for incorporating protected areas into overall strategies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses from deforestation and degradation (nicknamed REDD).

"Deforestation leads to about 15 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, more than all the cars, trucks, trains, ships, and planes on earth. If we fail to reduce it, we'll fail to stabilize our climate," said Taylor Ricketts, director of World Wildlife Fund's science program and lead author of the study. "Our paper emphasizes that creating and strengthening indigenous lands and other protected areas can offer an effective means to cut emissions while garnering numerous additional benefits for local people and wildlife." (World Wildlife Fund)

PETER Coaldrake has chosen a hot topic for Universities Australia's first public forum as the peak lobby group seeks to cast off its image as a club of vice-chancellors who blow a "foghorn for funding".

Tomorrow at a UA-hosted forum in Parliament House, Canberra, a senior scientist from the Bureau of Meteorology, Blair Trewin, will defend its century-long climate science record.

This week the bureau released a statement characterising Australia's climate as more extremely hot days, fewer cold ones, wetter in the north and drier in the south. This was a snapshot of today's climate, not a forecast, the bureau explained. (The Australian)

Britain's usually green and pleasant land has been turned a shade of brown this spring after the coldest winter in 31 years.

Cerne Abbas the way it usually looks (L) Cerne Abbas giant is almost invisible in Dorset this year (R) Photo: BNPS

Aerial pictures of famous beauty spots show a dull landscape compared to the normal lush spring colours.

Experts said the grass is still suffering from freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall over the winter, but it will grow back in the next few weeks.

The photographs show some of the worst-affected areas during the big freeze earlier in the year. Southern Britain, that is usually much warmer, saw up to 10 inches of snow and temperatures well below freezing. (Louise Gray, TDT)

Australian honours student 'indignant' over charges of organising violence and disorder at climate summit as trial opens (The Guardian)

Churchville, VA—A new study by Dr. Shahal Abbo of Israel says the invention of farming wasn’t due to climate change because farming depends on a relatively stable climate. Dr. Abbo isn’t looking at the picture broadly enough.

The ice cores tell us the invention of farming came about not long after the end of the last Ice Age, one of the earth’s key climate changes. Modern Homo sapiens had been around for over 100,000 years—but we’ve found no evidence of farming until after the last big ice sheets melted about 10,700 years ago

Before then, humans had been stealing birds’ eggs, digging clams, gathering seeds and picking berries. Stone Age man also learned that his hunting bands could drive big carnivores away from their kills with stone-tipped spears, then feasting on meat they couldn’t catch themselves.

Wondrously, the ice disappeared. The earth’s climate warmed more than 10 degrees C. Chicago, for example, shifted from mile-thick glacier to sunny Corn Belt. That’s certainly climate change in my book. And since the big ice sheets have been gone, the earth’s climate has indeed been relatively stable. (CGFI)

Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week:
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 811 individual scientists from 483 separate research institutions in 43 different countries ... and counting! This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Southwest Greenland. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click here.

Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature for: Cattail (Sullivan et al., 2010), Reed Grass (Zhao et al., 2009), and Thale Cress (Teng et al., 2009).

INTRODUCTION
My last few posts have described a new method for quantifying the average Urban Heat Island (UHI) warming effect as a function of population density, using thousands of pairs of temperature measuring stations within 150 km of each other. The results supported previous work which had shown that UHI warming increases logarithmically with population, with the greatest rate of warming occurring at the lowest population densities as population density increases.

But how does this help us determine whether global warming trends have been spuriously inflated by such effects remaining in the leading surface temperature datasets, like those produced by Phil Jones (CRU) and Jim Hansen (NASA/GISS)?

While my quantifying the UHI effect is an interesting exercise, the existence of such an effect spatially (with distance between stations) does not necessarily prove that there has been a spurious warming in the thermometer measurements at those stations over time. The reason why it doesn’t is that, to the extent that the population density of each thermometer site does not change over time, then various levels of UHI contamination at different thermometer sites would probably have little influence on long-term temperature trends. Urbanized locations would indeed be warmer on average, but “global warming” would affect them in about the same way as the more rural locations.

This hypothetical situation seems unlikely, though, since population does indeed increase over time. If we had sufficient truly-rural stations to rely on, we could just throw all the other UHI-contaminated data away. Unfortunately, there are very few long-term records from thermometers that have not experienced some sort of change in their exposure…usually the addition of manmade structures and surfaces that lead to spurious warming.

Thus, we are forced to use data from sites with at least some level of UHI contamination. So the question becomes, how does one adjust for such effects?

As the provider of the officially-blessed GHCN temperature dataset that both Hansen and Jones depend upon, NOAA has chosen a rather painstaking approach where the long-term temperature records from individual thermometer sites have undergone homogeneity “corrections” to their data, mainly based upon (presumably spurious) abrupt temperature changes over time. The coming and going of some stations over the years further complicates the construction of temperature records back 100 years or more.

All of these problems (among others) have led to a hodgepodge of complex adjustments.

I like simplicity of analysis — whenever possible, anyway. Complexity in data analysis should only be added when it is required to elucidate something that is not obvious from a simpler analysis. And it turns out that a simple analysis of publicly available raw (not adjusted) temperature data from ~~NOAA/NESDIS~~ NOAA/NCDC, combined with high-resolution population density data for those temperature monitoring sites, shows clear evidence of UHI warming contaminating the GHCN data for the United States.

I will restrict the analysis to 1973 and later since (1) this is the primary period of warming allegedly due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions; (2) the period having the largest number of monitoring sites has been since 1973; and (3) a relatively short 37-year record maximizes the number of continuously operating stations, avoiding the need to handle transitions as older stations stop operating and newer ones are added.

Similar to my previous posts, for each U.S. station I average together four temperature measurements per day (00, 06, 12, and 18 UTC) to get a daily average temperature (GHCN uses daily max/min data). There must be at least 20 days of such data for a monthly average to be computed. I then include only those stations having at least 90% complete monthly data from 1973 through 2009. Annual cycles in temperature and anomalies are computed from each station separately.

I then compute multi-station average anomalies in 5×5 deg. latitude/longitude boxes, and then compare the temperature trends for the represented regions to those in the CRUTem3 (Phil Jones’) dataset for the same regions. But to determine whether the CRUTem3 dataset has any spurious trends, I further divide my averages into 4 population density classes: 0 to 25; 25 to 100; 100 to 400; and greater than 400 persons per sq. km. The population density data is at a nominal 1 km resolution, available for 1990 and 2000…I use the 2000 data.

All of these restrictions then result in ~~thirteen~~ 24 to 26 5-deg grid boxes over the U.S. having all population classes represented over the 37-year period of record. In comparison, the entire U.S. covers about 31 40 grid boxes in the CRUTem3 dataset. While the following results are therefore for a regional subset (at least 60%) of the U.S., we will see that the CRUTem3 temperature variations for the entire U.S. do not change substantially when all 31 40 grids are included in the CRUTem3 averaging.

The following chart shows yearly area-averaged temperature anomalies from 1973 through 2009 for the 13 24 to 26 5-deg. grid squares over the U.S. having all four population classes represented (as well as a CRUTem3 average temperature measurement). All anomalies have been recomputed relative to the 30-year period, 1973-2002.

The heavy red line is from the CRUTem3 dataset, and so might be considered one of the “official” estimates. The heavy blue curve is the lowest population class. (The other 3 population classes clutter the figure too much to show, but we will soon see those results in a more useful form.)

Significantly, the warming trend in the lowest population class is only 47% of the CRUTem3 trend, a factor of two difference.

Also interesting is that in the CRUTem3 data, 1998 and 2006 would be the two warmest years during this period of record. But in the lowest population class data, the two warmest years are 1987 and 1990. When the CRUTem3 data for the whole U.S. are analyzed (the lighter red line) the two warmest years are swapped, 2006 is 1st and then 1998 2nd.

From looking at the warmest years in the CRUTem3 data, one gets the impression that each new high-temperature year supersedes the previous one in intensity. But the low-population stations show just the opposite: the intensity of the warmest years is actually decreasing over time.

To get a better idea of how the calculated warming trend depends upon population density for all 4 classes, the following graph shows – just like the spatial UHI effect on temperatures I have previously reported on – that the warming trend goes down nonlinearly as population density of the stations decrease. In fact, extrapolation of these results to zero population density might produce little warming at all!

This is a very significant result. It suggests the possibility that there has been essentially no warming in the U.S. since the 1970s.

Also, note that the highest population class actually exhibits slightly more warming than that seen in the CRUTem3 dataset. This provides additional confidence that the effects demonstrated here are real.

Finally, the next graph shows the difference between the lowest population density class results seen in the first graph above. This provides a better idea of which years contribute to the large difference in warming trends.

Taken together, I believe these results provide powerful and direct evidence that the GHCN data still has a substantial spurious warming component, at least for the period (since 1973) and region (U.S.) addressed here.

There is a clear need for new, independent analyses of the global temperature data…the raw data, that is. As I have mentioned before, we need independent groups doing new and independent global temperature analyses — not international committees of Nobel laureates passing down opinions on tablets of stone.

But, as always, the analysis presented above is meant more for stimulating thought and discussion, and does not equal a peer-reviewed paper. Caveat emptor. (Roy W. Spencer)

OK, a quick pop quiz. The average temperature of the planet is about 14°C (57°F). If the earth had no atmosphere, and if it were a blackbody at the same distance from the sun, how much cooler would it be than at present?

The answer may come as a surprise. If the earth were a blackbody at its present distance from the sun, it would be only 8°C cooler than it is now. That is to say, the net gain from our entire complete system, including clouds, surface albedo, aerosols, evaporation losses, and all the rest, is only 8°C above blackbody no-atmosphere conditions.

Figure 1. Global energy budget, adapted and expanded from Kiehl/Trenberth. Values are in Watts per square metre (W/m2). Note the top of atmosphere (TOA) emission of 147 W/m2. Tropopause is the altitude where temperature stops decreasing with altitude. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

Ecosystem, Vegetation Affect Intensity of Urban Heat Island Effect by Mike Carlowicz, ofNASA’s Earth Science News Team. The Earth Observer. Volume 22 Issue 1. pages 36-37.

“Goddard researchers including [Marc] Imhoff, Lahouari Bounoua, Ping Zhang, and Robert Wolfe presented their findings at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, CA on December 16.”

“When examining cities in arid and semi-arid regions —such as North Africa and the American Southwest—scientists found that they are only slightly warmer than surrounding areas in summer and sometimes cooler than surrounding areas in winter. In the U.S., the summertime urban heat island (UHI) for desert cities like Las Vegas was 0.83°F (0.46°C) lower than surrounding areas, compared to 18°F (10°C) higher for cities like Baltimore. Globally, the differences were not as large, with a summertime UHI of -0.38°F (-0.21°C) for desert cities compared to +6.8°F (+3.8°C) for cities in forested regions.”

“The open question is: do changes in land cover and urbanization affect global temperatures and climate?” Imhoff [Marc Imhoff added. “Urbanization is perceived as a relatively small effect, and most climate models focus on how the oceans and atmosphere store and balance heat. Urban heat islands are a lot of small, local changes, but do they add up? Studies of the land input are still in early stages.” (Climate Science)

Adding iron to the world's oceans to capture carbon and fight global warming could do more harm than good, as the mineral appears to boost the growth of a plankton that produces a deadly neurotoxin, a study published Monday shows. (University of Western Ontario)

It's a given among Peak Oilers and New Urbanists alike that the imminent and permanent return of high oil prices will send convulsions through the suburban American landscape. But it's one thing when professional Jeremiahs like James Howard Kunstler preach this to the converted week after week, and something else when the Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers advise commercial real estate investors to "shy away from fringe places in the exurbs and places with long car commutes or where getting a quart of milk takes a 15-minute drive." Oil shocks will do what urban planners can't seem to and the government won't (through sharply higher gas taxes or putting a price on carbon): force people to live at greater densities.

In books like $20 Per Gallon and Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller--both published last year, in the wake of 2008's real estate bubble-burst--the end of cheap oil is presented as a good thing, a chance to press the reset button on civilization and live more locally and sustainably. Kunstler goes further in 2005's The Long Emergency and in subsequent blog posts and novels, painting peak oil as a cleansing fire that will burn away exurban places like Pasco County, Florida. Last Wednesday, I drove for hours through the ground zero of Florida's foreclosure crisis, a scrolling landscape of strip malls, auto dealerships and billboards promising motorists that their stock market losses had been someone else's fault (and that you should sue them). The apocalypse would be a small price to pay for no more of this.

How else to explain the hostility directed at Amory Lovins by Kunstler and others? Lovins identified the hard and soft paths of fossil fuels versus conservation and renewables thirty-four years ago, and has since written books like Winning the Oil Endgame and Small is Beautiful, in which he called for a massively distributed, solar-powered But Lovins earned ridicule for his still-unrealized vision of a "hypercar" made of composites and electric drive trains three-to-five times more efficient than existing models. The hypercar, Kunstler wrote, "Would have only promoted the unhelpful idea that Americans can continue to lead urban lives in the rural setting." (To add insult to injury, Lovins' Rocky Mountain Institute is accessible only by car.)

Why unhelpful? In a phrase: Jevons' Paradox. Nearly a century before the geologist M. King Hubbert began calculating peak oil, the economist William Stanley Jevons discovered, to his horror, peak coal. In The Coal Question, published in 1865, Jevons raised the questions which haunt sustainability advocates to this day: "Are we wise in allowing the commerce of this country to rise beyond the point at which we can long maintain it?" He estimated Britain's coal production would reach a peak in less than a hundred years, with calamitous economic and Malthusian consequences. The engine of coal's demise would be the same invention that was created to conserve it: the steam engine. But it made burning coal so efficient, that instead of conserving coal, it drove the price down until everyone was burning it. This is Jevons' Paradox: the more efficiently you use a resource, the more of it you will use. Put another way: the better the machine--or fuel--the broader its adoption.

A corollary is the Piggy Principle: instead of saving the energy conserved through efficiency, we find new ways to spend it, leading to greater consumption than before. No wonder Kunstler is alarmed that a hyper-efficient hypercar would lead to hyper-sprawl--it's only been the pattern throughout all of human history. Maybe the worst thing that could happen to new urbanism would be an incredibly efficient new car (or fuel) that allows Americans (and, increasingly, the Chinese) to carry on as before, as an oil glut allowed us to do between 1979 and 2001. Crisis is on their side. (Fast Company) "microgrid."

Two scholars at Leeds and NYU have placed online a very interesting draft analysis of projected demand for oil. The figure above comes from their analysis.

Ayrshire Power starts planning process for power station which would be UK's first to use carbon capture and storage (The Guardian)

At first glance, Maine’s wind energy business may seem to bear little resemblance to the plot of the movie “The Shawshank Redemption” but stick with me for just a minute.

The movie, based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, focuses on Andy Dufree (played by Tim Robbins) who is convicted -- on circumstantial evidence -- of murdering his wife. Dufree is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at Shawshank State Penitentiary, a fictional prison in Maine. After much noble suffering and struggle, Andy Dufree breaks out, leaving behind evidence of the warden’s corruption and brutality.

The wind industry’s strategy in Maine and in the rest of the US parallels the plot in the movie: Americans have been falsely condemned for global warming on circumstantial evidence by a stacked jury and without due process. The jury was stacked with biased climatologists, environmental groups, bureaucrat enforcers, and industry insiders. The verdict, declared without trial by the Environmental Protection Agency was something like this: “carbon dioxide is pollution. Since you can’t control yourselves, we will.”

We have been promised freedom, independence, and a “green” redemption, if we just put in the years and of course, payments. Only through renewable energy and wind power, they say, will come salvation.

Wind turbines are hailed as free, clean, and a provider of “green jobs.” In addition, they will provide “freedom and independence from foreigners who hate us!”.

But, those same turbines bring decades of torture and servitude, high cost and debt. America is headed to such a prison replete with sleep deprivation, heavy chains of cost on the “inmates,” and corrupt “jailers and wardens.”

Today, the Governor’s Wind Energy Coalition, a group that represents governors from 29 states, will send a report to Congress and the White House urging the federal government to increase use of wind energy and to require utilities to derive 10% or more of their electricity from renewable sources no later than 2012. [Read More] (Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune)

The Czech Republic does not spring to mind as one of Europe's hot spots, yet an over-used subsidy scheme has created a bonanza for solar power that has ignited fears of a spike in energy prices and grid instability.

Lawmakers are now gearing up to cut the country's generous solar incentives, which investors say is needed to cool off the boom that made the Czechs the third-largest builders of solar capacity behind Germany and Italy last year.

This year, new projects will dwarf those of last year before cuts in feed-in tariffs -- which are currently up to 469 euros per megawatt hour -- push some investors further south to sunnier places than the central Euroepan Czech Republic, such as Bulgaria, investors said.

The generous tariffs have, together with falling prices of solar panels, led to a spike in returns in parts of the sector to around 30 percent per year. (Reuters)

Multi-billion pound investment in Britain's energy sector, particularly in nuclear plants, could be under threat in the event of a hung parliament, an executive from a utility planning to build them said on Tuesday.

Opinion polls suggest no political party may win an overall majority in the British elections, which are just weeks away, making the investment climate too risky for developers to push ahead with their plans.

"It could possibly make some investment inconceivable, for instance nuclear," RWE npower designate chief executive, Volker Beckers, told reporters on the sidelines of the Future of Utilities conference in London.

He said although the opposition Conservative Party supported the ruling Labour government's push to replace Britain's aging nuclear fleet with new reactors, it was unclear what stance a new government, that might include the Liberal Democrat Party, would take on nuclear power. (Reuters)

An open letter signed by more than 300 Australian doctors and scientists has warned of the threat to civilisation posed by man's preoccupation with consumerism, "exertion-free living'' and a growing economy and population.

The letter, co-signed by a former Australian of the Year, said these forces were now "seriously damaging our planet'' and had spawned two great threats - in rising obesity rates and climate change.

A dedicated task force and new public forum was needed to drive discussion and development of “post-growth alternatives to unsustainable, consumption-based growth as the economic norm''.

“As health professionals, we urge Australian politicians (and the public) to recognise the overlap in the underlying cause of two great health threats that our population now faces,'' the experts wrote.

''... the rise of obesity and its life-threatening disease consequences and the great threats to health from global climate change.

“We are now seeing the emergence of health risks caused by excesses in market driven consumerism (including the consumption of energy dense processed foods), energy subsidised exertion-free living, an over-arching pre-occupation with gross domestic product and ... population growth.'' (AAP)

ATLANTA - Adding a drug that lowers blood fats known as triglycerides to cholesterol-fighting statins provided no additional protection from heart attack, stroke and death from heart disease in patients with Type 2 diabetes, according to data from a large study.

The study run by the National Institutes of Health, dubbed Accord, aimed to see if the dual-drug therapy could reduce heart disease and stroke-related events in diabetes patients at particularly high risk of serious heart problems due to additional risk factors, such as obesity and high blood pressure.

All subjects in the 5,518-patient trial took Zocor, which is available generically as simvastatin.

One group also received TriCor, which is designed to lower the blood fats known as triglycerides and raise "good" HDL cholesterol. TriCor belongs to a class of drugs called fibrates.

There was an 8 percent risk reduction from the combination therapy compared with the statin plus dummy pill, but researchers said the result could have been a statistical fluke. (Reuters)

CHICAGO - U.S. researchers looking for genetic changes linked to autism reported on Monday an advanced gene test that searches for deleted or extra DNA in chromosomes worked three times better than standard tests.

They said the test, known as a chromosomal microarray analysis or CMA, should be used in the first round of testing done to look for a genetic cause for a child's autism.

Autism is a mysterious condition that affects as many as one in 110 U.S. children. The so-called spectrum ranges from mild Asperger's syndrome to severe mental retardation and social disability, and there is no cure or widely accepted good treatment. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON — One recent morning, George S. Hawkins, a long-haired environmentalist who now leads one of the largest and most prominent water and sewer systems, trudged to a street corner here where water was gushing into the air.

A cold snap had ruptured a major pipe installed the same year the light bulb was invented. Homes near the fashionable Dupont Circle neighborhood were quickly going dry, and Mr. Hawkins, who had recently taken over the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority despite having no experience running a major utility, was responsible for fixing the problem.

As city employees searched for underground valves, a growing crowd started asking angry questions. Pipes were breaking across town, and fire hydrants weren’t working, they complained. Why couldn’t the city deliver water, one man yelled at Mr. Hawkins.

Such questions are becoming common across the nation as water and sewer systems break down. Today, a significant water line bursts on average every two minutes somewhere in the country, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.

In Washington alone there is a pipe break every day, on average, and this weekend’s intense rains overwhelmed the city’s system, causing untreated sewage to flow into the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.

State and federal studies indicate that thousands of water and sewer systems may be too old to function properly. (NYT)

An estimated three to four million people – about one in every eight Canadians –drink water from private supplies.

Infrequent testing and maintenance puts consumers of these water supplies at greater risk of contamination than public systems, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). It goes on to state people need to take personal responsibility for their water quality and governments need to provide better oversight and resources in order to improve the case.

Water-borne disease outbreaks are common in the developing world but can also occur in affluent countries. In the United States, 19.5 million water-borne illnesses occur every year (all sources) and three quarters (76%) of drinking water outbreaks are associated with groundwater sources. A study from the United Kingdom found outbreaks of water-borne infectious diseases among people with private water supplies were 35 times greater than among consumers of publicly-supplied water. (Canadian Medical Association Journal)

WASHINGTON - Americans have grown more content about current environmental quality over the past year, though 53 percent still rate conditions as only fair to poor, according to a Gallup poll released on Monday.

Forty-six percent of the 1,014 adults surveyed March 4 to 7 described current U.S. environmental conditions as excellent or good. That was up from 39 percent in March 2009 and was the highest positive environmental rating measured by Gallup since 2002. (Reuters)

This is Kumi Naidoo, described as the head of Greenpeace. He – or so we are told – argues that it is justifiable to break the law in order to alert people to the threat of climate change.

He is speaking in defence of his activists, 54 of whom have been charged with trespass after spending the night on the roof of the Houses of Parliament in October last year, and says his organisation has no intention of scaling back its tactics.

Actually, I have no problem with the idea of breaking (mad-made) laws. The concept of civil disobedience is honourable and well-established. Much of the progress in what passes for civilisation has been made by men and women of principle refusing to be bound by outdated or unjust laws. And I have personally broken too many such laws in my time to be able to sit on my high horse and condemn anyone else for doing what they believe to be right.

However, there is a distinct and unwholesome tinge to Mr Naidoo's brand of civil disobedience. In the general run of things, the tactic is normally employed by individuals or groups who believe their rights are being infringed or that they are being oppressed by the state. In Mr Naidoo's case, he is seeking to impose his belief system on the rest of humanity, enlisting the state in his cause, to impose expensive and oppressive measures on us all.

Thus, if Mr Naidoo believes that breaking the law is justifiable – as a matter of principle - in pursuit of his beliefs, he can have no reasonable objection if those who wholeheartedly disagree with him adopt exactly the same tactic, in opposition to him and his followers.

And if down that slippery slope we must all travel, he must not be surprised if civil disobedience then extends to refusing to obey any laws that are passed as a result of his activism. "It's only when decent men and women are willing to stand up, put their lives on the line and take strong, vibrant action that the agenda can move forward," he says.

Quite. (EU Referendum)

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (03/15/2010) —Environmentally friendly products are everywhere one looks. Energy efficient dishwashers, bamboo towels, the paperless Kindle and, of course, the ubiquitous Prius are all around. But why do people buy these "green" products? Do they care about the environment or is there something else at play? "Green purchases are often motivated by status," says Vladas Griskevicius, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. "People want to be seen as being altruistic. Nothing communicates that better than by buying green products that often cost more and are of lower quality but benefit the environment for everyone."

In the recently published paper "Going Green to Be Seen: Status, Reputation, and Conspicuous Conservation," Griskevicius and co-authors find that people will forgo luxury and comfort for a green item. The catch? People will forgo indulging for themselves only when others can see it. "Many green purchases are rooted in the evolutionary idea of competitive altruism, the notion that people compete for status by trying to appear more altruistic," says Griskevicius. His research finds that when people shop alone online, they choose products that are luxurious and enhance comfort. But when in public, people's preferences for green products increases because most people want to be seen as caring altruists.

Nowhere is this clearer than the highly visible and easily identifiable Toyota Prius, which essentially functions as a mobile, self-promoting billboard for pro-environmentalism. "A reputation for being a caring individual gives you status and prestige. When you publicly display your environmentally friendly nature, you send the signal that you care," states Griskevicius. (Science Codex) | The paper and more information on Professor Griskevicius can be found at http://www.carlsonschool.umn.edu/marketinginstitute/vgriskevicius

Picking up in the news story yesterday that the government was considering such a move, George Pitcher in The Daily Telegraph thinks that lowering the drink-drive limit is an "absurd" idea.

In December, however, the same newspaper found it "puzzling" that Lord Adonis wanted to re-open the debate on the issue.

But, as we remarked at the time, it wasn't puzzling at all. This is part and parcel of a covert attempt at harmonising traffic laws in the EU, which made an appearance in May 2004, based on an agenda set out in 2002. The drink-drive limit is part of it - random testing is another.

What we are seeing is a graphic example of the way the system works. Knowing that an overt "in-your-face" harmonising directive would be hugely unpopular – and underline quite how much power we have given away – the EU works in the shadows, getting member states, apparently voluntarily, to bring their own laws closer into line with the European "ideal".

Each time this is done, it comes out without reference to the EU – presented, as is the case here, as if it was a UK initiative. Then, in the fullness of time, when our laws are so close to the rest of the other member states that it makes no difference, the EU brings out a directive to "regularise" the position. By that time, the differences are so slight that the EU law is entirely uncontentious.

This dynamic counters the popular myth that member state governments are somehow unwillingly forced into line by the EU. This is a process of active collusion between governments against their own peoples. It is sly, dishonest gradualism which recognises that, if it was done openly, it would be opposed.

In avoiding any mention of the EU, as do the newspapers today (and yesterday), the media also collude in the process. And so do the opposition parties. You will not hear from Boy Dave's merry little men that this is an EU-inspired measure. If there is any criticism, it will be because it is a "Labour" measure. The fact that road safety became an EU competence in the Maastricht treaty, under John Major, is neither here nor there.

Thus are our liberties and national distinctiveness eroded, all in the name of European political integration, and we are not even allowed to know why it is happening. (EU Referendum)

An international team of scientists has managed to transfer disease resistance from one plant family to another, offering broader protection from potentially costly and destructive pests.

A team led by Cyril Zipfel at Britain's Sainsbury Laboratory found that transferring a single gene from a wild plant to disease-susceptible crop plants made them more robust against infections like bacterial wilt and other diseases.

If the results can be duplicated more widely, they could help prevent massive crop losses and avoid environmental, health and financial costs associated with using pesticides, the researchers wrote in the Nature Biotechnology journal on Sunday.

"The implications for engineering crop plants with enhanced resistance to infectious diseases are very promising," Sophien Kamoun, head of the Sainsbury Laboratory, said in a commentary. (Reuters)

The New York Times says the EPA should use its authority to regulate our very breath if a Democratic Congress isn't "goaded" into action. Whatever happened to government of the people?

It's been a pattern of this administration that if the American people are adamantly opposed to it, ram it through anyway. So it's been with the health care overhaul, offshore drilling restrictions and now the Environmental Protection Agency threatening to become the uber-regulator of the air we breathe.

The New York Times says in a Saturday editorial regarding that last item that if Congress fails to enact cap-and-trade legislation such as Waxman-Markey or Kerry-Boxer, the EPA should jam it down our throats.

After all, the Supreme Court said the EPA had the power, even the obligation, to impose draconian restrictions on so-called greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. The elected representatives of the American people should just get out of the way.

We've heard this argument before. Last April, Time magazine ran a piece titled "EPA'S CO2 Finding: Putting A Gun To Congress' Head." This isn't the government structure the Founding Fathers envisioned.

They had in mind a system of checks and balances between the three branches of government, and the EPA was not one of them. The only gun that should be held to Congress' head is the vote of the American people.

The paper of distorted record objects to a "resolution of disapproval" originated by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Republican from Alaska, an energy-producing state forced to keep vast stores of energy locked up underground or under offshore sea beds. This the newspaper says is a "destructive idea" that "would reject the EPA's recent scientific finding that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health."

Yes, that's right. The product of your breathing, the carbon dioxide you exhale and that every plant, even in the rain forest, breathes in is a danger to your health and the planet. (IBD)

Sceptic or realist? Bjorn Lomborg speaks to Tom Levitt about why his ideas on tackling climate change will actually help to solve the crisis (The Ecologist)

Senator John Barrasso M.D., in an exclusive interview with Pajamas Media, discusses science oversight — or the lack of it — in the Democratic Congress.

Senator John Barrasso M.D. (R-WY), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, recently released a report [PDF]on the subcommittee’s work in the first year of the Obama Administration. The report has less to it than might be imagined — in the first year, the subcommittee has failed to meet or to hold a single hearing of its own. “There were exactly two hearings in 2009,” Barrasso said, “a joint hearing with the full committee on June 9th, and a joint hearing with the Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife on July 8th.”

The subcommittee was chartered by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, to perform oversight on the science involved with environmental issues. “Senator Boxer wanted the subcommittee to perform oversight on the Bush Administration, not the current administration,” Senator Barrasso said. “We have made repeated requests to the chairman of the subcommittee [Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)] to hold hearings [in the past year] but no hearings have been held. It has been a lost year for science oversight in the Senate.”

“There have been plenty of reasons to hold hearings,” Barrasso said. “For example, in April 2009, Shawn McGibbon, a career attorney with Small Business Administration, wrote part of a memo saying the EPA had not considered the economic consequences of an Endangerment Finding for carbon dioxide.” When the memo became known, McGibbons was “smeared as a ‘Bush holdover’” even though she was hired during the Clinton Administration. Later, McGibbons was replaced by President Obama.

In another incident, Dr. Alan Carlin, a 39-year veteran of the EPA, prepared a report skeptical of the real human impact on the climate. Carlin (who has since written several articles for Pajamas Media) was instructed not to disseminate the report and, as Kim Strassel reported in the Wall Street Journal, was denounced by “unnamed EPA officials” as a “climate change denier.” Dr. Carlin eventually left the EPA. (Charlie Martin, PJM)

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) attacked former Vice President Al Gore on the Senate floor Monday, calling climate change "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" and claiming that Gore is now "running for cover."

The “hoax” line is an Inhofe standby, but he raised the level of attack on Monday.

In front of the backdrop of a blown up Weekly Standard cover featuring Gore, Inhofe railed on the former vice president.

"After weeks of the global warming scandal, the world's first climate billionaire is running for cover. Yes, I'm talking about Al Gore," Inhofe charged. "He's under siege these days. The credibility of the IPCC is eroding. The EPA's endangerment finding is collapsing. And belief that global warming is leading to catastrophe is evaporating. Gore seems to be drowning in a sea of his own global warming illusions nevertheless. He's desperately trying to keep global warming alarmism alive today." (Politico)

In his book “True Enough: Learning to live in a Post-Fact Society” Farhad Manjoo claims: “Facts no longer matter. We simply decide how we want to see the world and then go out and find experts and evidence to back our beliefs.” I am not sure this is a modern phenomenon. There are more experts and evidence available but people always seek confirmation of their prejudice. Expectation of a positive response is jarred when the answer is no. Consider what happens when you ask someone to pass the salt and the answer is no. At a conference of elected officials I was asked, “What is the one piece of advice you would give us?” I replied, “Stop hiring the consultants that tell you what you want to hear.” They responded with silence, so I added, “But that is not what you wanted to hear.”

The Post-Fact society is very active with environmental and climate issues. The media, which has generally abandoned the concept of fair and balanced, amplifies it. There’s a constant search for examples to buttress the idea that global warming and climate change are caused by humans. Even after evidence is proven inaccurate, inappropriate or wrong, the idea is pushed and new ‘facts’ found. Central requirements are to blame humans for the change and imply planetary destruction will result. (Tim Ball, CFP)

One of the things that often emerge from the climate debate is the problem that few people have a sufficient grasp of any aspect of the climate issue to speak with any authority. As far as some are concerned, the fact that we are not climate scientists hangs over anything we say here on this blog, for instance, even though what we’re really interested in are the moral and political dimensions of the debate. Does every debate about the climate outside of the science academy consist of nothing more than a battle of received wisdoms? Are our views about the climate debate formed from nothing more than what the people we trust say?

That the climate debate is very complicated and seemingly predicated on scientific theory and empirical observation looks like a good reason to exclude non-qualified opinion from the debate. Yet the desire to exclude non-qualified opinion from the debate about what to do may well be the motivation for such an argument. Such elitism is everywhere in this debate. It begins with arguments like George Monbiot’s in Heat…

… And it ends with undemocratic political institutions such as the UK’s Climate Change Committee and (if it had succeeded) the COP15 treaty.

Climate science was the source of all moral authority in the world. Impeccably well-behaved, selfless and incorruptible scientists laboured tirelessly to understand what Objective Truth Herself said. Meanwhile, evil, self-interested and unqualified parties had been paid by huge corporations vast sums of money to distort the message that had been spoken by Objective Truth to scientists through Science. Then Climategate happened, and messed the whole thing up.

Now, of course, George Monbiot has had to apologise because he invested his trust so heavily in “climate science”. When he felt this trust had been broken, he had to call for Phil Jones’ head. But as we’ve been arguing all along, you didn’t need to see what was going on at CRU – which was probably perfectly normal – to know that the arguments produced by every green poseur between Monbiot and Miliband was unsound. What happens now things aren’t so clear-cut? (Climate Resistance)

Jon Krosnick of Stanford University argues that the recent issues in climate science have done very little to alter public opinion in the United States on climate change. Watch Krosnick above and read the report here. Here is the opening to the media release.

Those wanting to continue to argue politics through science will find Krosnick's analysis unwelcome. However, the fact of the matter is that the battle over public opinion on climate change has long been won by those arguing for a human influence and a need for action. Those still battling over the science should consider the wisdom of Walter Lippmann, who argued that the role of politics in a democracy is not to get people to think alike, but to get people who think differently to act alike. (Roger Pielke Jr)

Mumbai: Cautioning against “environmental propaganda” Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh told journalists here on Saturday that the West was using the science of climate change for political gains. (The Hindu)

Instead of having his Nobel Prize rescinded for espousing climate fraud, the prophet of doom is set to receive an honorary doctorate of laws and humane letters from the University of Tennessee for his work.

'Vice President Gore's career has been marked by visionary leadership, and his work has quite literally changed our planet for the better," UT Knoxville Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek said in a prepared statement.

We are not making this up, though we will not dispute Gore's having had visions. (IBD editorial)

An omigosh moment, this. Read Judith Curry's interview with Discover magazine. (Judith is a senior climatologist, from Georgia Tech).

Thank you very much for showing your true, climate-integralist colours in the cringe-inducing “Climate of fear” editorial (Nature 464, 141 (11 March 2010) | doi :10.1038/464141a; Published online 10 March 2010).

We can’t but take notice that at the time when some scientists have apparently managed for years to keep non-orthodox climate science papers away from printed and online peer-reviewed journals, one of those very journals has remarkably decided to join the “street fight”, as if that represented any change for the better from the previous routine.

Go ahead then, pick up your worthy opponents. Will there be any good coming out of Nature becoming the home of motivational speeches for climate hooligans? What an undignified spectacle that would be. Luckily, the planet will not take much notice, and hopefully neither will the general public, and those scientists and people interested like us all in learning the world as it is, rather than through the distorting lenses of misdirected, alarmist activisms.

“Scientists must not be so naive as to assume that the data speak for themselves”. Indeed. Neither should they fall for the hubris of drowning and disregarding those very same data in a sea of pre-packaged ideologies. In Canto XXVI of Inferno in Dante’s Divine Comedy, the character of Ulysses is made to describe what the quest for knowledge should be about:

Ye were not form’d to live the life of brutes,
But virtue to pursue and knowledge high.

Teodoro Georgiadis – senior scientist – biometeorology
Luigi Mariani – professor – agrometeorology
Guido Guidi – meteorologist
Alessandra Nucci – journalist
Tore Cocco
Maurizio Morabito – blogger – Omniclimate

Sir John Houghton, an ex-boss of the IPCC, and the hockey stick graph, visually demonstrating that the flawed hockey stick graph has "never" played any important role for the IPCC statements. Picture via AP and BBC

John Houghton wrote an article for the U.K. Times:

In my book, The Honest Broker, I argue that "stealth issue advocacy" occurs when scientists claim to be focusing on science but are really seeking to advance a political agenda. When such claims are made, the authority of science is used to hide a political agenda, under an assumption that science commands that which politics does not. However, when stealth issue advocacy takes place, it threatens the legitimacy of scientific advice, as people will see it simply as politics, and lose sight of the value that science does offer policy making .

Here is an example of stealth issue advocacy that I came across today: From an AP article, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco explains a need for better communication related to climate change (emphasis added):

Now someone will have to explain that last sentence to me, because it makes no sense. Of course Lubchenco wants to convince people of something. In the first highlighted passage she is referring to an "effort underway to confuse." She doesn't specify who that is doing the confusing, but I have a good idea who she is referring to (and I am sure, so do you).

Lubchenco wants to counter an unnamed well-orchestrated campaign, but she doesn't want to convince people of something? Right.

Waging a political battle through science is a losing proposition for advocates to begin with -- not admitting that is your strategy, when it obviously is, makes things even worse. Why not just admit the obvious? (Roger Pielke Jr)

An Open Letter from Scientists in the United States on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Errors Contained in the Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007

[Note: More than 250 scientists have already signed this open letter and signatures are still being collected. On Friday, March 12, 2010, when the letter has been delivered to federal agencies, a list of signers will be posted. The vast majority of the signers are climate change scientists who work at leading U.S. universities and institutions. They include both IPCC and non-IPCC authors. Additional signers include professionals from related disciplines, including physical, biological and social scientists. If you are a scientist wishing to sign the letter, please see the note below. If you have any questions, please contact the letter's authors, contact information is below.]

... Thanks to the energy-efficiency provisions, consumer spending on utility bills would go down by 7 percent by 2020. That's right: on average, Americans would pay less for electricity, not more. The cap-and-trade program would reduce emissions 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, but, according to a study (PDF) by the World Resources Institute, when all complementary policies are taken into account, that target more than doubles, to 33 percent. That's 18 percent more -- even without the cap, enough to meet Obama's Copenhagen target of 17 percent by 2020. (David Roberts, Grist)

This morning, the Times reports on the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s refusal to answer our Freedom of Information request for their estimate of the cost of meeting a target of a 42% cut in emissions by 2020.

If Britain continues a strong performance relative to other advanced economies in cutting emissions intensity, the number of tonnes of carbon dioxide produced per million pounds of GDP, we can expect emissions intensity to fall by nearly 30 per cent by 2020.

With economic growth in line with Treasury expectations, that will mean that carbon dioxide emissions can be expected to fall to around 489 Mt by 2020. That means the cut from 1990 emissions levels will be nearly 18 per cent (the current target requires a 34 per cent cut in British emissions).

To meet a 42 per cent target at the present rate of improvements in emissions intensity, the size of the economy in 2020 would need to be cut by 30 per cent from expected levels, or nearly £507 billion (2005 prices). That would leave GDP lower than it was in 2004.

The rate of carbon intensity improvement would need to nearly double to meet a 42 per cent target without compromising national income. That is highly unlikely given that even existing technologies such as nuclear and tidal power, or carbon capture and storage, are unlikely to be able to make a major contribution by 2020.

Following on from that research, we submitted the following FOI request in order to find out the projected cost that the Government was basing its decisions on: (CRN)

U.N. climate scientists attacked by skeptics after they published an erroneous global warming forecast won support Monday from European Union environment ministers.

Climate skepticism has gathered pace since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admitted in January that its latest report in 2007 had exaggerated the pace at which Himalayan glaciers were melting.

Last month, it also said it had overstated how much of the Netherlands was prone to sea flooding.

The EU ministers said they considered the IPCC's science "solid and robust" despite the errors, and were convinced it offered the most authoritative assessment of climate change.

In their conclusions, the ministers also called for the rapid mobilization of the $10 billion a year that rich countries have promised to give poor nations to help them tackle climate effects in 2010-2012. (Reuters)

Untouched by even a scintilla of doubt about global warming, the EU has abandoned all restraint and decided to table a proposal which will bind member states to cutting CO2 emissions by 30 percent on 1990 levels by 2020.

Hitherto, the target has been 20 percent, with an offer made at Copenhagen to go for the higher figure "if an international agreement on emissions reductions is secured". But, according to The Times, that agreement is no longer a pre-condition. By contrast, the US is debating whether to cut emissions by 4 percent on 1990 levels by 2020 but is unlikely to make a decision this year.

Needless to say, the British government is right in there, supporting the proposal, meanwhile refusing to publish research it has commissioned on the cost of achieving this target. The EU commission is also carrying out a study of the policies, working out the levels of tax increases that will be needed on fuel and flights in order to achieve the target.

Bizarrely, the new climate change commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, is claiming that EU member states could lose jobs to China unless it adopts the higher target. It is, the commission tells us, in the EU's self-interest because cutting emissions more quickly than anywhere else would help create low-carbon industries which could sell their technologies to other parts of the world.

How our rulers could be capable of subscribing to such a fantasy is beyond mortal comprehension. That we should saddle our economies with multi-billion costs to support industries such as wind farming, which actually contribute to making us less efficient, is simply the economics of the madhouse.

The only consolation, perhaps, is that the peoples of Europe are unlikely to rise up and throw off the yoke of their tormentors until their economies are well and truly wrecked, and they are looking at starvation. The dismal Ms Hedegaard has just brought that day closer. (EU Referendum)

LONDON: The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is the world's leading climate change group, is expected to backtrack over its claims about how rainforests would be devastated by rising temperatures, as one of its own scientists has said that the claim is "totally wrong". (Times of India)

Australia's pension funds industry, the fifth largest in the world with A$1.2 trillion ($1.1 trillion) under management, is dragging its feet on climate change risk when making investment decisions, a survey has found.

Distracted by the global financial crisis, the failure to agree on a new climate pact in Copenhagen and a delayed emissions trading scheme have contributed to reduced interest in climate change risks, said the survey released on Tuesday.

The second annual survey by the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) and the independent Climate Institute think tank had a low response with just over 30 percent of the invited funds responding. (Reuters)

Levels of the main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere have risen to new highs in 2010 despite an economic slowdown in many nations that braked industrial output, data showed on Monday.

Carbon dioxide, measured at Norway's Zeppelin station on the Arctic Svalbard archipelago, rose to a median 393.71 parts per million of the atmosphere in the first two weeks of March from 393.17 in the same period of 2009, extending years of gains. (Reuters)

The climate always changes and Earth's temperature has been both hotter and colder in the past, compared to the present. Since the Earth is emerging from the last ice age of 18,000 years ago, it has been steadily warming, by definition. Therefore, any current period of time can be said to be the warmest in the past 18,000 years, again by definition.

Making such a warming claim, as global warmers always do, is a trick and simply states an obvious truth that tells us nothing about what the cause of the warming is.

In the debate about anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (AGW), the real question is: Do man-made greenhouse gases (particularly carbon dioxide) cause any current warming?

It really is not an issue about whether polar ice is melting, whether the temperature is rising, whether a glacier is receding, whether 1998 was hot, whether hurricane Katrina occurred, or whether some polar bears are swimming more. These arguments are a pointless diversion since they do not address whether man-made CO₂ causes warming.

Furthermore, if man-made CO₂ emissions are shown not to cause the current warming, then mitigating CO₂ emissions is also pointless. (Martin Mangino, Richmond Times-Dispatch)

In a recent New York Times article, economist Robert H. Frank–“The Economic Naturalist”–argues that fighting global warming through government intervention entails a small cost and promises a large benefit. Yet to cast serious doubts on his claim, all we need do is quote from U.S. government and IPCC reports. We find that even in a textbook implementation, it’s not obvious that government mitigation efforts deliver net benefits.

Of course in the real world, if the politicians and/or EPA starts intervening in the energy sector, their actions will be far from the economist’s theoretical ideal. Then the case for such policy activism falls apart.

Frank goes on to quote a new MIT study, which paints an alarming scenario of damages from warming if world governments sit on their hands. In contrast, Frank argues that the cost to the economy of limiting greenhouse gases is not in the same ballpark. He sums up with, “In short, the cost of preventing catastrophic climate change is astonishingly small, and it involves just a few simple changes in behavior.”

So if the risks of inaction are potentially catastrophic, while the costs of preventive government measures are relatively trivial, then who but a fool or a stooge for Big Oil would question the need for immediate intervention? [Read more →] (MasterResource)

Australian Cities Must Transform For Population Growth Photo: Arup's proposal for The Australian Institute of Architects' Venice Biennale exhibition/Handout
A computer-generated image file released by Australian Institute of Architects' Venice Biennale exhibition shows a futuristic Gold Coast in Queensland.

Australia circa 2050, population 35 million, climate change induced rising sea levels have flooded the Gold Coast resort region, apartment blocks are now used to grow food and people commute in monorail pods above the sea.

In another city, Australians live on floating island pods with apartments both below and above sea level, the population has shifted from land to the sea because of the sky-rocketing value of disappearing arable land.

Climate change has also forced many Australians to move inland and create new cities in the outback, relying on solar power to exist in the inhospitable interior.

These are just a few urban scenarios by some of Australia's leading architects shortlisted for "Ideas for Australian Cities 2050+" to be staged at this year's Venice Architecture Biennale. (Reuters)

This post continues Richard Tol's series looking at Working Group III of the 2007 IPCC report. Here he is joined by Chris Green, professor of economics at McGill University.

In this Part VI Tol and Green conclude that,

Across western North America, huge tracts of forest are dying off at an extraordinary rate, mostly because of outbreaks of insects. Scientists are now seeing such forest die-offs around the world and are linking them to changes in climate. (Jim Robbins, e360)

Observations on Growth of Reef Corals and Sea Grass Around Shallow Water Geothermal Vents in Papua New Guinea

Australian and US scientists have discovered how changes in winds blowing on the Southern Ocean drive variations in the depth of the surface layer of sea water responsible for regulating exchanges of heat and carbon dioxide between the ocean and the atmosphere.

The researchers’ findings – published on-line today in Nature Geoscience – provide new insights into natural processes which have a major influence on the rate of climate change. (CSIRO press release)

A vast network of under-sea volcanoes pumping out nutrient-rich water in the Southern Ocean plays a key role in soaking up large amounts of carbon dioxide, acting as a brake on climate change, scientists say.

A group of Australian and French scientists have shown for the first time that the volcanoes are a major source of iron that single-celled plants called phytoplankton need to bloom and in the process soak up CO2, the main greenhouse gas.

Oceans absorb about a quarter of mankind's CO2 from burning fossil fuels and deforestation, with the Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica among the largest ocean "carbon sinks."

Phytoplankton underpin the ocean's food chain. When they die or are eaten, they carry large amounts of carbon that they absorb to the bottom of the ocean, locking up the carbon for centuries.

There have been a number of studies showing iron is released from deep-sea volcanoes, said Andrew Bowie, a senior research scientist with the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center in Hobart, Tasmania.

"But no study has considered that on a global level and considered its importance on Southern Ocean carbon storage," Bowie, one of the authors, told Reuters.

Our secretary of energy pushes bio-refineries and windmills to oil executives at an energy conference as the administration announces a three-year offshore drilling ban. This is a policy for economic suicide.

They don't qualify as an official group of victims, but carbon-Americans, as they have been called, did not have much to cheer about last week, when Energy Secretary Steven Chu addressed CERAWeek 2010, a premier industry conference hosted by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

With an economy struggling to regain sound footing, Chu advocated a starvation diet devoid of additional fossil fuels that are to remain under the ground and seabed. Instead, he supports 53% more funding for wind research and a 22% jump for solar research.

Subsidizing alternative energy fits the classic definition of insanity. Despite huge subsidies, it has proved to be neither cost-effective nor a reliable, significant contributor to our national power grid. Yet we keep subsidizing it, expecting a different result. (IBD)

A run of articles over the last week, most notably from The Economist and The Financial Times, highlighted the transformation in the energy industry, as increasing amounts of shale gas reach the market.

That, with other unconventional sources of gas, seem set to banish the nightmare prospects of energy shortages for the foreseeable future, providing a substantial source of new fuel for electricity generation.

We are on the verge of moving to an era of shortage to one of plenty. The geo-political and economic ramifications of this are substantial, and the longer-term impact on our energy policy is, to say the very least, interesting.

We picked this up over 18 months ago in a piece written in August 2008, although I should have read my own work more carefully before writing this and this.

In an online briefing, however, energy expert Nick Grealy tells us that the very recent changes in natural gas extraction technologies must lead to an update of UK energy thinking. The only uncertainty lies in how up-to-date UK policy will be, he writes.

While the overall impact will be positive, it must be emphasised that there will be a period of disruption. Widely, strongly and long held opinions over key issues will be found to be no longer applicable in a world where accessible natural gas reserves have grown so rapidly. All current assumptions on UK energy policy, therefore, need to be revisited and updated according to new realities, not past dogma.

Not least, several assumptions underlying the 2007 Energy White Paper are no longer valid, simply because it was predicated on a natural gas shortage that no longer exists. Most energy experts, and the general public have been told for many years that UK natural gas is in terminal decline, prices will inevitably rise and that "security of supply" will be a continuing issue.

But, Grealy says, UK natural gas production levels will be increasingly irrelevant in an over-supplied globalised market. Over supply will lead to lower prices which in turn may make carbon taxes to tackle carbon production and use a more palatable alternative.

Natural gas is not a "low carbon alternative", we are told. But the public will be aware that it is a least carbon intense and more economical alternative to oil and coal. Who will make the case? None of the political parties and few energy or environment professionals appear to have the knowledge about the new gas paradigm and an up-to-date view.

The potential is for natural gas to be a bridge to a no carbon future, even as it provides a substantial reduction in carbon use in the short to medium term. This is a positive good news message that all should welcome. Any energy actors who act in an overly sceptical or obstructive manner will simply be swept away by events.

Not everyone shares Grealy's optimism, viz this piece in The Times at the end of last year. But Grealy is unrepentant. He is convinced that the good times are about to roll.

This is definitely one to watch. What price renewable energy when gas is plentiful and far cheaper? (EU Referendum)

Spain exposed the boondoggle of wind power in 2009, discrediting an idea touted by the Obama administration. In response, U.S. officials banded with trade lobbyists to hide the facts.

It was a cold day at the Energy Department when researchers at King Juan Carlos University in Spain released a study showing that every "green job" created by the wind industry killed off 4.27 other jobs elsewhere in the Spanish economy.

Research director Gabriel Calzada Alvarez didn't object to wind power itself, but found that when a government artificially props up this industry with subsidies, higher electrical costs (31%), tax hikes (5%) and government debt follow. Fact is, these subsidies have the same "Cuisinart" effect on jobs as wind-generating propeller blades have on birds. Every green job costs $800,000 to create and 90% of them are temporary, he found.

Alvarez made no bones about the lessons of Spain for the Obama administration, which has big plans for "green jobs." His report warned of "considerable employment consequences" from "self-inflicted economic wounds." It forecast that the U.S. could lose 6.6 million jobs if it followed Spain, and it "should certainly expect its results to follow such a tendency."

A few months later, Danish researchers at the Center for Politiske Studier came to the same conclusion about subsidized wind power from their own country's experience.

"It is fair to assess that no wind energy to speak of would exist if it had to compete on market terms," their report said.

Straightforward experience, facts and the logical conclusions about policy failure in Europe should be de rigueur in science, and the reports coming from nations with long experience in wind power ought to be taken seriously.

But they had no place in the Obama administration, which had declared a "green jobs" agenda with $2.3 billion in tax credits to create 17,000 "high-quality green jobs." (IBD)

Wind turbines are extraordinarily unreliable. Because wind speeds are so inconsistent, the average output of a turbine is only about a quarter of its capacity (known as the ‘load factor’). Also, due to the vagaries of the wind, wind turbines are unpredictable. This means that in order to guarantee a continuous supply of electricity, alternative sources of power have to be kept permanently on standby or ‘spinning reserve’, ready to step in at a moment’s notice to make up for the lack of supply from the windfarms.

Even when the wind is blowing, these backup power stations, usually coal-fired, have to be kept running, using fuel, generating steam, emitting carbon dioxide and ready to ramp up their turbines the moment the supply from the wind machines stops coming. As Christopher Booker and Richard North report, “This remained one of the best kept secrets of the wind power lobby, because what it meant was that wind turbines were not saving anything like the amount of carbon dioxide they liked to claim.” (Jack Dini, Hawaii Reporter)

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics published a new paper by C. Wang and R.G. Prinn (MIT) called

They look at the effects of the wind turbines on the atmosphere. The wind speed is generally reduced which lowers both the horizontal and vertical heat exchange which is normally responsible for cooling of the surface. As a consequence, the wind turbines produce warming. How much is it?

A red kite, one of approximately 1 million birds that die in Spain every year because of collisions with wind turbines.

Their result is kind of impressive. Even if wind turbines produce only 10% of the electricity consumed in 2100, their effect will translate to 1 °C of warming locally but, because of the extended effect of the local changes, it will also add 0.15 °C to the global mean temperature.

The sign could be reverted - to cooling - if the wind turbines were built on the ocean. By the way, the paper also discusses some required backup of wind energy by reliable sources such as fossil fuels.

You can see that the temperature increase per one dollar obtained in this way is much greater than the increase linked the greenhouse effect coming from CO2 produced by the burning of fossil fuels that produces the same 1 dollar. Also, if you decided to cover all your electricity needs by the wind turbines, the resulting warming of the surface would approximately match the warming expected from the fossil fuels via the greenhouse effect.

And I am neglecting the millions of birds that are killed every year. At any rate, if the paper is right, this effect itself makes it nonsensical to switch to wind turbines because of global warming because one doesn't avoid any.

This is just another example showing how marginal the CO2 greenhouse effect is. When we start to investigate temperature changes that are as small as tenths of a degree per century, there are simply very many effects that contribute - and some of them may be quite unexpected.

As I have been arguing, eliminating the ethanol credit (VEETC) wouldn't absolve gasoline blenders from their obligations under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). If the credit was eliminated today, gasoline blenders must still blend 12 billion gallons of ethanol in 2010, and 15 billion gallons by 2015. They just wouldn't get paid to comply with the law. [Read More] (Robert Rapier, Energy Tribune)

The notion of objective truth has been abandoned and the peer review process gives scholars ample opportunity to reward friends and punish enemies.

Last fall, emails revealed that scientists at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England and colleagues in the U.S. and around the globe deliberately distorted data to support dire global warming scenarios and sought to block scholars with a different view from getting published. What does this scandal say generally about the intellectual habits and norms at our universities?

This is a legitimate question, because our universities, which above all should be cultivating intellectual virtue, are in their day-to-day operations fostering the opposite. Fashionable ideas, the convenience of professors, and the bureaucratic structures of academic life combine to encourage students and faculty alike to defend arguments for which they lack vital information. They pretend to knowledge they don't possess and invoke the authority of rank and status instead of reasoned debate.

Consider the undergraduate curriculum. Over the last several decades, departments have watered down the requirements needed to complete a major, while core curricula have been hollowed out or abandoned. Only a handful of the nation's leading universities—Columbia and the University of Chicago at the forefront—insist that all undergraduates must read a common set of books and become conversant with the main ideas and events that shaped Western history and the larger world. (Peter Berkowitz, WSJ)

THE vaccine additive thimerosal is not to blame for autism, a special US court has ruled in a long-running battle by parents convinced there is a connection.

While expressing sympathy for the parents involved in the emotionally charged cases, the court concluded the parents had failed to show a connection between the mercury-containing preservative and autism.

Worry about a vaccine link arose in 1998 when British physician Dr Andrew Wakefield published an article linking a particular type of autism and bowel disease to the measles vaccine.

The study was later discredited.

"Such families must cope every day with tremendous challenges in caring for their autistic children and all are deserving of sympathy and admiration," Special Master George Hastings jnr wrote.

But, he added, Congress designed the victim compensation program only for families whose injuries or deaths can be shown to be linked to a vaccine and that had not been done in this case.

The ruling came in the so-called vaccine court, a special branch of the US Court of Federal Claims established to handle claims of injury from vaccines. It can be appealed in federal court.

Friday's decision that autism is not caused by thimerosal alone follows a parallel ruling in 2009 that autism is not caused by the combination of vaccines with thimerosal and other vaccines. (SMH)

A settlement of up to $657.5 million has been reached in the cases of thousands of rescue and cleanup workers at ground zero who sued the city over damage to their health, according to city officials and lawyers for the plaintiffs.

They said that the settlement would compensate about 10,000 plaintiffs according to the severity of their illnesses and the level of their exposure to contaminants at the World Trade Center site.

Lawyers from both sides met on Thursday to discuss the terms of the settlement with Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. (NYT)

THE unjustified use of potentially cancer-causing CT scans has alarmed the Medicare watchdog and prompted calls from senior radiologists for doctors to stop the indiscriminate ordering of scans.

More than 400 new cases of cancer a year in Australia are attributable to diagnostic radiology, medical research has found. Despite this, the number of computerised tomography scans, which generate far more radiation than X-rays, is growing about 12 per cent a year. (SMH)

Scientist Tyrone Hayes says it is and will share research results Thursday at ISU (Journal Star)

THE Queensland Government's proposal to see the alcohol limit cut to 0.02 across Australia has been labelled as "nonsense" by alcohol and accident experts.

Motoring groups, police, accident research centres and hotelliers all rejected moves to slash the drink-driving limit outlined in a Queensland Government discussion paper released yesterday, arguing it would make little difference in reducing the number of accidents.

Transport Minister Rachel Nolan acknowledged not all ideas in the paper were feasible, and a 0.02 limit would have to be part of a national push. (news.com.au)

I chanced upon this abstract, which somehow seems very pertinent to the discussions we've been having on this site. If anyone can lay their hands on the full paper I'd be interested.

An early day motion claims shortcomings in the committee's recent homeopathy "evidence check" (The Guardian)

Our favourite foods are making us fat, yet we can't resist, because eating them is changing our minds as well as bodies (David A Kessler, The Guardian)

WHEN most people think of hunger in America, the images that leap to mind are of ragged toddlers in Appalachia or rail-thin children in dingy apartments reaching for empty bottles of milk.

Once, maybe.

But a recent survey found that the most severe hunger-related problems in the nation are in the South Bronx, long one of the country’s capitals of obesity. Experts say these are not parallel problems persisting in side-by-side neighborhoods, but plagues often seen in the same households, even the same person: the hungriest people in America today, statistically speaking, may well be not sickly skinny, but excessively fat.

Call it the Bronx Paradox.

“Hunger and obesity are often flip sides to the same malnutrition coin,” said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. “Hunger is certainly almost an exclusive symptom of poverty. And extra obesity is one of the symptoms of poverty.” (NYT)

"On the very day Toyota was making a high-profile defense of its cars, one of them was speeding out of control," said CBS News--and a vast number of other media outlets worldwide. The driver of a 2008 Toyota Prius, James Sikes, called 911 to say his accelerator was stuck, he was zooming faster than 90 miles per hour and absolutely couldn't slow down.

It got far more dramatic, though. The California Highway Patrol responded and "To get the runaway car to stop, they actually had to put their patrol car in front of the Prius and step on the brakes." During over 20 harrowing minutes, according to NBC's report, Sikes "did everything he could to try to slow down that Prius." Others said, "Radio traffic indicated the driver was unable to turn off the engine or shift the car into neutral."

In fact, almost none of this was true. Virtually every aspect of Sikes's story as told to reporters makes no sense. His claim that he'd tried to yank up the accelerator could be falsified, with his help, in half a minute. And now we even have an explanation for why he'd pull such a stunt, beyond the all-American desire to have 15 minutes of fame (recall the "Balloon Boy Hoax" from October) and the aching need to be perceived as a victim.

The lack of skepticism from the beginning was stunning. I combed through haystacks of articles without producing such needles as the words "alleges" or "claims." When Sikes said he brought his car to a Toyota dealer two weeks earlier, recall notice in hand, and they just turned him away, the media bought that, too. In Sikes We Trust. Then the pundits deluged us with a tsunami of an anti-Toyota sanctimony .

Where to begin? (Michael Fumento, Forbes)

I spoke with Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) today, the top-rated conservative in the US Senate according to National Journal. Senator Inhofe discussed earmarks, Barack Obama’s runaway spending, Al Gore’s millions, and his pal, Senator Barbara Boxer.

(Mar. 12, 2010) — A new NASA-funded study has concluded that Amazon rain forests were remarkably unaffected in the face of once-in-a-century drought in 2005, neither dying nor thriving, contrary to a previously published report and claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"We found no big differences in the greenness level of these forests between drought and non-drought years, which suggests that these forests may be more tolerant of droughts than we previously thought," said Arindam Samanta, the study's lead author from Boston University.

The comprehensive study published in the current issue of the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters used the latest version of the NASA MODIS satellite data to measure the greenness of these vast pristine forests over the past decade. (ScienceDaily)

British fishermen are facing a two-pronged attack from Brussels and successive British governments.

For years this column has been reporting the gradual destruction of Britain 's fishing industry, hit by a double whammy. One was Edward Heath’s handing over control of our fishing waters to Brussels, which today means that the EU’s fisheries commissioner, Maria Damanaki, a one-time student revolutionary from Crete, has far more power over our waters than anyone in Britain. The other has been the ruthless war waged on our fishermen by successive British governments. (Christopher Booker, TDT)

THOUSANDS of brumbies will be killed as humanely as possible in western Queensland by a new government squad trained to shoot the horses in the heart and head.

The cull in Carnarvon National Park follows expert advice that Queensland's most fragile ecosystems are under siege from animal pests including horses, camels, pigs, dingoes, deer, rabbits, foxes, cats and even feral cattle.

Many thousands have been shot, trapped and baited.

Fears of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease prompted a war on feral pigs, which are also destroying the habitats of endangered birds and marsupials. (Courier-Mail)

After serious setbacks to sensible gun control, the top court in Massachusetts on Wednesday made it clear that the Second Amendment does not bar states from protecting children and others against the risk posed by unsecured guns in the home.

The unanimous ruling by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court upheld the constitutionality of a state law that requires guns to be kept in a locked container or equipped with a trigger lock when not under the owner’s control. The law allows for unlocking a weapon kept at home if needed for self-defense.

That makes the law significantly different from the District of Columbia’s ban on unlocked guns in the home, which included no such exception. That law was overturned, wrongly in our view, by the United States Supreme Court’s conservative majority in 2008. The decision asserted that the Constitution creates an individual right to bear arms beyond the context of state militias.

As the Massachusetts ruling also noted, the Supreme Court has yet to hold that the Second Amendment applies against city and state governments, not just against the federal government and the federal enclave of the District of Columbia. That issue, known as “selective incorporation,” was the subject of a lively oral argument in the nation’s highest court just last week.

That case involves a Chicago law that makes it extremely difficult to own a handgun within Chicago’s city limits. The city’s unusually broad law may not survive Supreme Court muster. But there were heartening comments from the justices indicating that the forthcoming ruling will not foreclose the enactment of strong gun regulations for public safety. (NYT)

No response whatsoever from the agencies, who appear to have no good way out of this. (This is a three-part series. Read Parts One and Two.)

Even though the replicas often strive to be as realistic as possible, most people intuitively grasp that a toy gun made to fire plastic BBs measured in tenths of grams is not remotely a lethal threat.

Unfortunately for Brad and Ben Martin of Airsoft Outlet Northwest, a contingent of surly U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers have focused an inordinate amount of time and taxpayer dollars to repeatedly raid and hold their imported shipments of Airsoft toys and accessories, apparently without legal justification for doing so.

The 16 WE TTI (WE Tech) M4A1 and 14 WE TTI (WE Tech) M4 CQBR gas blowback Airsoft rifles currently being called “machine guns” and facing destruction aren’t the only Airsoft rifles that Customs is withholding from their rightful owners. In addition to the toys at the center of this controversy, Customs has 10 M1911-style pistols, 15 SCAR rifles, 4 revolvers, and 20 bolt-action rifles belonging to Airsoft Outlet Northwest. This is a total of roughly $20,000 in merchandise, $12,000 of which is slated to be destroyed. In addition to the Airsoft guns, Customs officers nabbed a shipment of 500 Airsoft magazines and held them for two months without providing Airsoft Outlet NW with any sort of explanation or legal justification for the seizure.

All of these Airsoft toys and accessories are carried by other Airsoft dealers throughout the United States and overseas, without any known importation issues. (Bob Owens, PJM)

The Obama administration has always had a backup plan in case Congress failed to pass a broad climate change bill. The Environmental Protection Agency would use its Clean Air Act authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Regulation, or the threat of it, would goad Congress to act or provide a backstop if it did not.

The House passed a bill last year seeking an economywide cap on emissions, but there has been no progress in the Senate. Now some senators seem determined to undercut the E.P.A.’s regulatory authority. These include not only Republicans who panic at any regulation, but also Democrats who say they worry about climate change but insist that the executive branch stand aside until Congress gets around to dealing with it.

The most destructive idea is a “resolution of disapproval” concocted by Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. It would reject the E.P.A.’s recent scientific finding that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health and welfare, effectively repudiating the agency’s authority — granted to it by the Supreme Court — to regulate these gases. As a practical matter, it would also stop last year’s widely applauded agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. (NYT)

MAN-MADE carbon emissions are staving off a new ice age, says a leading environmental scientist.

Climate-change expert Dr James Lovelock says the greenhouse gases that have warmed the planet are likely to prevent a big freeze that could last millions of years.

In a talk at London’s Science Museum Dr Lovelock said the balance of nature was in charge of the environment.

He said: “We’re just fiddling around. It is worth thinking that what we are doing in creating all these carbon emissions, far from being something frightful, is stopping the onset of a new ice age.

“If we hadn’t appeared on the earth, it would be due to go through another ice age and we can look at our part as holding that up.

“I hate all this business about feeling guilty about what we’re doing.

“We’re not guilty, we never intended to pump CO2 into the atmosphere, it’s just something we did.”

Dr Lovelock’s comments come in the wake of the scandal at the University of East Anglia where leaked emails suggested climate change data had been manipulated.

The 90-year-old British scientist, who has worked for Nasa and paved the way for the detection of man-made aerosol and refrigerant gases in the atmosphere, called for greater caution in climate research.

He compared the recent controversy to the “wildly inaccurate” early work on aerosol gases and their alleged role in depletion of the ozone layer.

He said: “Quite often, observations done by hand are accurate but all the theoretical stuff in between tends to be very dodgy and I think they are seeing this with climate change. We haven’t learned the lessons of the ozone-hole debate. It’s important to know just how much you have got to be careful.” (Daily Express)

One of Australia's most outspoken scientists has this week rubbished the team behind the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, describing the project as nothing more than a "nuclear billiards machine" and saying the money should be devoted to paying for more climate change research instead.

Ian Lowe, emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University in Brisbane, has been in New Zealand for a low-profile crisis meeting on how to get climate change back on top of the public list of concerns.

The meeting brought together not just climate scientists from New Zealand and Australia, but also social scientists who've been asked to come up with strategies on how to manipulate public opinion. Additionally, key sympathetic business leaders like Air New Zealand's Rob Fyfe are understood to have attended.

As part of the conference, the NZ Government funded Science Media Centre, a climate change propaganda unit, organised for select invited media to attend a briefing from Professor Lowe, and NZ government social scientist Karen Cronin.

The briefing is a unique insight not just into the mindset of the climate science propaganda units, but in the sychophantic media willing to push their message unquestioningly.

NZ Press Association reporter Kent Atkinson asked this leading question, "I’d like to hear about the fickleness of public opinion, it will surely take only one or two major catastrophes directly attributed to climate change to change public opinion and the willingness of politicians to take a longer term view of sustainability and issues such as climate change?"

This prompted Lowe to agree, arguing weather is climate, for the purposes of propaganda, and that Katrina was definitely caused by climate change, click here: Lowekatrina1

Given that Katrina was not caused by climate change, and that peer reviewed studies have shown Saharan dust has a much bigger role on Atlantic hurricane activity (and I quoted those studies in Air Con ), one can only surmise Lowe is either woefully misinformed or he doesn't care about the facts that get in the way of his fairy stories.

To hear Lowe's conspiracy theory about Anglo-Celtic males, and the media buy-in courtesy of NZPA reporter Kent Atkinson, click here: LoweAnglo

To hear Lowe and NZ government scientist Karen Cronin advocating some kind of people-power revolution if necessary, click here: LoweRevolution

Staggering stuff. Not content with merely doing the science and presenting facts, inconvenient or otherwise, these people are now actively trying to brainwash the public into a "Berlin Wall" type of political backlash against politicians who stand in the way of the new climate order.

It has often been said that allowing people like this access to schoolchildren in the name of "environmental education" was a stupid idea. Evidence of that can also be found in this clip where a Dunedin climate educator admits her students are now exhibiting "climate rage" that needs to be harnessed: FlemingRage

That such a discussion can come out of taxpayer-funded Government scientists and communicators is incredible. They seem to forget that we elect politicians to make policy, we have no power to elect scientists. Their jobs are safe from public whim precisely because they are supposed to be non-political, in the sense of not abusing public position to advance a political agenda.

If they want to change that...then let's see what the public mood really is... (The Briefing Room)

If the IPCC has a fault, it is that its reports have been too cautious, not alarmist

In the UK only about 26 per cent of the population believe the scientific consensus that climate change is happening and is man-made. Many feel they are being steamrollered into believing something false or flakey that will make them poorer or stop them flying.

Given this dangerous mood of scepticism, it is no surprise that the IPCC — the body that represents the integrity of climate-change scientists across the world — is being attacked.

Let’s be honest, sometimes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does get it wrong. It was an error to include a poorly sourced claim in its 2007 report about the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting; but this mistake was marginal — it did not influence any of the IPCC’s main conclusions or appear in the summaries of the report. The great body of the IPCC’s work represents science at its best — and it needs defending from its detractors.

The IPCC is not a self-selected group of scientists with a political agenda. It was founded in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation and the UN Environment Programme with a mandate to produce accurate, balanced assessments about human-induced climate change. (John Houghton, The Times)

"Let us condemn them to reading out their own editorials to each other until they realize how silly they are, or for all eternity, whichever be the sooner."

The once-respected science journal Nature recently published a whining editorial to the effect that climate scientists are not criminals, really; that attacks on them by increasingly-skeptical news media are soooo unfair; and that the fundamental science showing that the planet is doomed unless the economies of the West are shut down at once is unchallengeable.

No doubt most climate scientists are not criminals. However, some are. Many of the two dozen Climategate emailers, who have for years driven the IPCC process, tampered with peer review in the learned journals, and fabricated, altered, concealed, or destroyed scientific data are criminals. Whether they or Nature like it or not, they will eventually stand trial, and deservedly so.

After all, the biofuel scam that is one of many disfiguring spin-offs from the “global warming” scare — driven by the poisonous clique of mad scientists whom Nature so uncritically defends — has taken millions of acres of farmland away from growing food for people who need it and towards growing biofuels for clunkers that don’t. Result: a doubling of world food prices, mass starvation, and death, leading to food riots in a dozen major regions of the globe.

You won’t have seen much about these riots in the Western news media: they are too busy reporting on every putative icicle putatively dribbling in putatively melting Greenland.

Where was Nature when James Hansen — a publicly funded “scientist” and political agitator “working” for NASA — publicly demanded that anyone who disagreed with his climate-extremist views be put on trial for “high crimes against humanity”?

Did Nature write a pompous, pietistic editorial drawing attention to the fact that the penalty for crimes against humanity is death, and asking whether demands that one’s scientific opponents should face potential execution constitute an appropriate contribution to scientific discourse? Did it heck! Nature was sullenly, culpably silent.

Hansen wrote a characteristically overblown op-ed in the British Marxist newspaper the Guardian last year, saying that sea level was about to rise by 246 feet.

Should I face trial and execution for pointing out, mildly, that Hansen knows no more about sea-level rise than a hedgehog, and that even the excitable UN climate panel puts 21st-century sea-level rise at a maximum of 2 feet? (Christopher Monckton, PJM)

Climate scientists attached to the rickety Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change structure raise two key interchangeable arguments in their defense. The first is to deny that anything of significance has been found in the various IPCC scandals. Climategate? Nothing there but a few emails that display intemperate behaviour and typical charmless chat among scientists doing their jobs.

“Scientists are not public relations experts,” say the apologists. Glaciergate and the melting Himalayan ice? Insignificant — barely a footnote in the official IPCC reports, and a minor mistake in any case; there’s nothing here to cast doubt on the thousands of pages of good work by thousands of scientists.

A poster child of the warmist creed, the Amazon rainforest is back in the news today, with an article in a Sunday newspaper. It asserts that a new study, funded by NASA, "has found that the most serious drought in the Amazon for more than a century had little impact on the rainforest's vegetation."

This is a reference to the Samanta paper which we reviewed yesterday, on which basis we are told today that the findings appear to disprove claims by the IPCC that up to 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest could react drastically to even a small reduction in rainfall and could see the trees replaced by tropical grassland.

Certainly, the IPCC claim is damaged by Samanta, but the findings cannot be taken to support assertions that the 2005 drought had little impact on the forest. Insofar as he can be relied upon at all, Nepstad demonstrated in a 2008 paper published by The Royal Society that significant damage did occur. This is reinforced by a later paper summarised here.

However, these findings can hardly be unexpected of an exceptional drought. Moreover, it was undoubtedly more damaging than it might otherwise have been as it occurred after a run of below average precipitation, not least in 2003 when the ground water was not fully recharged in large areas of the Amazon basin.

The Samanta paper, therefore, leaves open the wider debate on the fate of the Amazon. But, for reasons which will become apparent by the end of this week, it is becoming more and more important that it should be resolved. There are political issues here which have major ramifications for Western policy and potentially huge economic consequences. Thus, we are revisiting the issue, exploring wider aspects of this ongoing controversy. (EU Referendum)

What marvellous news to learn that the UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon is to launch a thorough investigation into the science behind climate change! It’s the equivalent of Kenneth Lay promising to organise a full and frank investigation into the accounts at Enron, or Herod ordering an urgent inquiry into the appalling and mysterious slaughter of infants in Judaea: all it will do is end up confirming the prejudices of the person who commissioned the report. (James Delingpole)

It looks as if the tottering IPCC has just made its biggest mistake yet. Twenty-four hours after the announcement of an “independent” inquiry into certain aspects of its activities it is possible to make a considered assessment of its significance. By any reasoned analysis, it is not only a whitewash but one in which the paint is spread so thinly as to be transparent. (Gerald Warner, TDT)

If the survival of the planet is in peril and the campaign to save it lies in the hands of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s chairman, can we replace the incumbent as a matter of urgency?

The news that the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has ordered a review of the IPCC’s methods and in particular its disastrous last report which falsely claimed that the Himalayan glaciers will be tepid water by 2035, is a welcome first step. But it’s not enough. (Dean Nelson, TDT)

When asked for the data behind one study ‘proving’ global warming, CRU scientists instead planned to sue. Following the release of the Climategate emails from East Anglia University`s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), the U.K.’s House of Commons Science and Technology Committee decided to investigate its implications “for the integrity of scientific research.” Benny Peiser of the Faculty of Science at Liverpool John Moores University submitted a memorandum, which appears below in edited form.

I am the editor of CCNet and the co-editor of the journal Energy & Environment (E&E).

I will outline the chronology of the CRU-Keenan affair as documented in the published CRU emails and according to unpublished email correspondence between me and Dr. Jones. [at CRU].

On Aug. 29, 2007, I received an email from Doug Keenan with his paper titled “The Fraud Allegations against Wei-Chyung Wang.” In this paper, Keenan accused Wei-Chyung Wang (State University of Albany, SUNY, New York) of scientific fraud. In his paper, Keenan documented evidence that Wang had fabricated information about Chinese meteorological weather stations.

A statement submitted by the Institute of Physics (IOP) to a parliamentary inquiry on climate change continues to draw criticism, with one senior physicist saying that it is “not worthy” of the organization. Others have complained that the statement appears to play into the hands of climate “sceptics”, as it criticizes scientists for withholding climate data when requested using the UK’s Freedom of Information Act. The IOP, which owns the company that publishes physicsworld.com, has responded by making it clear that it believes in man-made climate change and that its submission was criticizing instead the practices of the climate scientists at the centre of the inquiry. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

WASHINGTON — Climate change is here and scientists need to do a better job of explaining it to the public, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday.

"We are no longer constrained by talking about some possible future. Climate change is happening now and it's happening in people's back yards," Jane Lubchenco told reporters at a briefing.

"Scientists have seriously underestimated the importance of explaining what we know about climate in a way people can understand," she said.

The effects of climate change are being felt from melting Arctic sea ice to threats to birds and forests and the spread of disease. Worldwide, 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on record. (Associated Press)

Hadi Dowlatabadi is Canada research chair and professor in Applied Mathematics and Global Change at the University of British Columbia.

Richard Lindzen is a professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For more information see Professor Lindzen's bio. (The Agenda)

AUSTRALIA'S leading scientists have hit back at climate change sceptics, accusing them of creating a "smokescreen of denial".

The CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology will today release a State of the Climate document, a snapshot of Australia's climate data and trend predictions.

The apolitical science organisations have weighed into the debate as they believe Australians are not being told the correct information about temperatures, rainfall, ocean levels and changes to atmospheric conditions.

The State of the Climate report offers Australians an easy-to-understand snapshot of data.

"Modelling results show that it is extremely unlikely that the observed warming is due to natural causes alone," it states.

"Evidence of human influence has been detected in ocean warming, sea-level rise, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns." (Daily Telegraph)

First, no one is doubting that “climate change is real”. Climate changes all the time. This is not the debate.

Second, we’re talking about global warming, so why does the CSIRO and BOM’s pamphlet give only Australian temperatures? Is that because it knows that to show world temperatures stayed flat since 2001 actually casts doubt on just how much man’s gases are driving the post-mini-ice-age warming?

Fourth, the CSIRO and BOM’s document does not address any of the recent challenges to the processes which produced the concensus that man is almost certainly to blame for most of the recent warming. Nor does it mention recent debate about adjustments made to Australian temperature records of the kind that increase the reported warming trend.

Fifth, what’s most at issue (other than man’s contribution to any warming) is whether any warming will in fact be disastrous, and something we must spend billions to help avert. The record so far of alarmists such as Al Gore, Tim Flannery, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the IPCC and even the CSIRO itself is that the catastrophism is wildly exaggerated and we might often do better to keep our money in our pockets for the day that we’re called on to cope with whatever happens in the far-off future. But on this, again, this document adds zero to our understanding.

But, of course, this brazenly political document got the unquestioning hero treatment on the ABC’s AM program, in what sounded like the two fingers to its chairman.

How much can this propaganda sheet be trusted to tell you the let-the-card-sfall-where-they-may truth? Judge from this example:

Stable? Why didn’t the CSIRO and BOM tell the reassuring truth - that total rainfall has in fact increased?

More CSIRO cherrypicking. Its pamphlet shows a steep and alarming rise in methane concentrations over the past century:

Why did the CSIRO and BOM not note that the failure of methane emissions to rise as predicted in the past decade also challenges the theory that man’s gasses are most to blame for recent warming?

In fact, where in the pamphlet is any attempt to address what IPCC lead author Kevin Trenberth privately confessed to in one of the Climategate emails:

Paul Ehrlich is back in the news regarding Climategate and the IPCC controversy. How ironic! Dr. Ehrlich’s multi-decadal over-the-top pronouncements of doom-and-gloom, and his arrogant behavior towards his critics (Julian Simon in particular), might qualify as Malthusgate.

And part of Malthusgate is Dr. Ehrlich’s protégé on energy, John Holdren, who has been prone to radical pronouncements and wild exaggeration time and again (and even joining in on the global cooling scare)–and with little remorse.

I do not know of any mainstream scientist who has been more errant in his worldview predictions and who has gotten away with more sub-intellectual behavior. When the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) dared publish an essay by Simon, Ehrlich fumed: “Could the editors have found someone to review Simon’s manuscript who had to take off his shoes to count to 20?”

Julian Simon (1932-98) tirelessly examined the statistical record relating to human welfare[1] to conclude, “Malthusian diminishing returns theory does not fit these observed facts and is not compelling intellectually; a theory of endogenous invention is more persuasive, in my view.”[2] Elsewhere he added, “I’m not an optimist, I’m a realist.”[3]

For three decades, Paul Ehrlich (1932- ), a biologist at Stanford University, has been the arch foe of Julian Simon’s views of natural resource scarcity, population growth, and the future human condition. Ehrlich’s dissatisfaction with Simon carried over to the personal realm. He likened Simon to “an imbecile,” a “flat earther,” and a “fringe character.”[4] As late as 1991 Paul and Anne Ehrlich belittled Simon as “an economist specializing in mail-order marketing.”[5] Only in their 1996 book did the Ehrlichs refer to Simon by his professional affiliation—Professor of Business Administration at the University of Maryland.[6]

Ehrlich’s doomsayer worldview proved popular, drowning out Simon’s optimistic but less newsworthy view from the late 1960s until the early 1990s. Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s books attracted a variety of top publishing houses and sold in the millions. Simon’s empirically laden books, confined to the academic market, sold in the thousands. Paul Ehrlich appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson over a dozen times, reaching millions more with his message of impending crises. Simon was able to give some major lectures, but he was never able to share his views with a national audience in any medium.[7] Ehrlich, meanwhile, refused to give Simon an opportunity to debate him.[8] [Read more →] (MasterResource)

Gleick’s argument could be classified as a form of “weak thought“. However, the history of Science should have taught him better. For example, the same identical words could have been uttered for most of the 18th century about the now-rejected theory of phlogiston. There really was nothing better to explain why things would burn: and so the whole field of Chemistry was held back for a century by a false scientific theory.

Another highly risky and wholly wrong theory threatened to slow down the progress of Physics and Astronomy a hundred years later: luminiferous aether. We should just be thankful to Einstein for having got rid of it, but obviously by his time the vast majority of scientists did not believe in aether any longer despite the absence of “an alternative scientific argument” coming “close to explaining the evidence“.

Another issue with Gleick’s argument is that is says nothing at all about the gravity and urgency of the Global Warming issue: and that is exactly where the discussion is, among reasonable people that don’t want to follow extremists like Romm or Monckton.

Two geologists explain.

Ice is extremely heavy, and glaciers are massive sheets of ice. Professor Patrick Wu (Univ of Alberta) says that the weight of the ice suppresses the earthquakes, but when glaciers begin to melt, that pressure is released, and "earthquakes get triggered," as well as tsunamis (which are underwater earthquakes). He adds that melting ice in Antarctica is already triggering earthquakes and "underwater landslides."

Prof. Bill McGuire (Univ. College of London) says, "All over the world, evidence is stacking up that changes in global climate can and do affect the frequencies of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and catastrophic seafloor landslides."

This is only the tip of the iceberg, folks, if you'll excuse the expression. What's happening in Haiti and Chile will be routine news items ten years from now. (NRDC)

U.S. EPA settled a lawsuit yesterday by agreeing to use the Clean Water Act to address ocean acidification, a move that some see as opening a side door to federal curbs on greenhouse gases that scientists link to problems in the marine environment.

The settlement with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity directly addresses EPA's failure to require Washington state to list its marine waters as impaired by rising acidity. The deal requires EPA to begin a rulemaking aimed at helping states identify and address acidic coastal waters.

The effort could lead to the first Clean Water Act effort to protect acidifying marine waters -- a move the center sees leading to restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions, just as the water law led to regulation of air emissions of mercury and pollution that causes acid rain.

Oceans absorb about a third of the carbon dioxide produced by human activities and are becoming more acidic as they absorb more carbon, said Miyoko Sakashita, a senior attorney at the center's San Francisco office.

Ocean acidification, Sakashita said, is "global warming's evil twin." ( Greenwire)

The Victorian Bar is forming a panel of barristers to specialise in cases involving climate change.

It is expecting to have a heavy workload, testing out new government regulations likely to be introduced to deal with global warming.

Melbourne barrister Adrian Finanzio says, like it or not, climate change and lawyers have a lot in common. (ABC News)

Leaked adjudication largely clears government over campaign that some thought 'scary, inaccurate and too political' (The Guardian)

Multiple indicators show less concern, more feelings that global warming is exaggerated (Gallup)

It has taken a perfect storm of snow, scientific doubt and political failure to dent public acceptance of the reality of global warming - but these factors will pass (Damian Carrington, The Guardian)

Back in 1974, the late Richard Feynman wrote an essay based on the address he gave at Caltech's commencement that year. He titled the essay “Cargo Cult Science,” a reference to the practice of sympathetic magic by South Sea Islanders following World War II. The central point of his lecture was how science should and should not be practiced. His thoughts are well worth reviewing in light of the string of troubling revelations that have surfaced regarding climate science. In the face of what Gallup calls a sharp decline in the public's belief in global warming, it looks like many of the IPCC's scientists are practicing Cargo Cult Climate Science. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)

Will global empathy save us from the catch-22 of climate change? John Gray is sceptical (John Gray, The Guardian)

Best-known for her role as Xena in Xena: Warrior Princess, New Zealand native Lucy Lawless is speaking out about the environment and global warming. Famous for sword play in skimpy outfits, Ms Lawless has no-doubt been the center of many a fan's personal fantasy. Her latest fantasy is saving the planet. In a recent interview the former warrior princess was asked what she would say to those who do not believe in global warming to get them to change their minds. “I think the people running climate change denial campaigns are sociopaths,” Lawless answered. Obviously her persuasive technique has not progressed much beyond the use of sharp edged weapons.

“I believe there is a catastrophic change coming if we don't do something now,” declares eco-advocate Lucy Lawless, an ambassador for New Zealand Greenpeace who has an organic garden, recycles, and switched to CFL light bulbs at home. Lawless, named one of the “50 Most Beautiful People in the World” by People magazine in 1997, showed a less attractive side when talking about climate change and the environment. “They don't want you to get off the grid in any sense because then you'd be autonomous and they couldn't make you buy their poison.” If by poison she means electricity, we bet most people would rather stay connected. Getting off the grid may work for a big time actress but not everyone has her money. (The Resilient Earth)

Rahmstorf explains that he sees this error as being worse than the 2035 glacier error (emphasis added):

A few weeks ago Robert Watson, former director of the IPCC, suggested that some might ask a question about the issues raised in the IPCC:

After Richard Tol's guest posts here over the past two weeks (more to come next week) on issues in WG III and now an IPCC contributor taking the IPCC AR4 WG I to task, I don't think that the hypothetical "some" would continue to be asking whether there really is a problem. (Roger Pielke Jr)

ALBANY-- The state has raised more than $213 million under a multi-state program intended to fight global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

The state held its fifth auction earlier this week of carbon dioxide credits under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and received another $33 million to reach that total. (Times Union)

The Environmental Protection Agency recently concluded that man-made greenhouse gas emissions — including carbon dioxide — are harmful pollutants and must be regulated. The lawsuit I filed challenging that finding does not address the disputed science surrounding global warming. Instead, it focuses on the indisputable fact that the EPA relied on information that has been discredited, manipulated, lost or destroyed, and sometimes evaded peer review. The lawsuit does not attempt to show that the globe is not warming. It does, however, show that the process used by the EPA in deciding to regulate greenhouse gases is riddled with errors that render its conclusion untrustworthy. (Greg Abbott, Houston Chronicle)

China's Premier Wen Jiabao hit back on Sunday at critics who blamed China for the feeble outcome of the Copenhagen climate conference, saying he was not even invited to a key meeting he was accused of skipping.

Wen's defensive comments on climate change focused on last year's contentious summit, but his prickly tone suggested China will remain a demanding negotiator in resumed negotiations aiming to reach a global climate change pact in Mexico at the end of this year. (Reuters)

Japan faces a rocky path to launching an emissions trading system after the government approved legislation on Friday that was vague on how the scheme would set limits on emissions.

The proposed climate bill, set to be enacted in parliament by mid-June, set a one-year deadline for the world's fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter to draft legislation outlining details for a mandatory trading scheme.

A national scheme setting emissions targets could be a major boost for carbon trading in Japan, which only has a voluntary carbon market at the national level based on companies' pledged goals.

But designing the new market risks becoming complicated as the climate bill leaves room for the trading system to set caps on emissions per unit of production, which would allow rises in emissions when output grows. (Reuters)

Six months ago, Deutsche Bank was overcome with concern about the planet—bless its soul–and launched this 70 ft. vision of climate doom opposite Madison Square Gardens, New York. You can feel relieved. The bank paid for the carbon credits (no doubt through one of its own funds), so the 40,960 low-energy light-emitting diodes are “carbon-neutral.”

Kevin Parker for Deutsche Asset Management said: “We hope with this sign that it is going to foster a sense of urgency about the problem, raise public awareness, create a need for education and really spur a call for action”

Spurring action indeed. “Sign Copenhagen; Sign Cap N Trade; Give us that $2 trillion dollar market based on meaningless paper permits, and funded by consumers everywhere. Please!”

In a more candid moment, Parker said: “Well, what we’d like to see is a price on carbon. That is absolutely foremost in everyone’s minds involved in the climate change debate. The governments around the world have to get on with regulations…”

Yes, the real agenda is the legislation: forced payments from citizens. We all know we aren’t going to see the Deutsche Bank Top-Soil Clock coming soon highlighting the problem of erosion, or the Deutsche Bank Falling Fish Stock Clock…or the Deutsche Bank program to save the spotted quoll.

In a brazen ambit, Parker suggested we all might like to invest more in renewable energy: $45 trillion more (over 40 years), and that’s only going to solve half the problem”. There is no end to the audacity.

Is this anything other than blatant advertising for a Cap N Trade scheme? Ponder if Exxon launched a similar billboard with the “costs” of carbon mitigation, it would be vandalized, scorned, and disparaged even by august associations like the Royal Society.

A NASA official would call for corporate heads to be jailed for crimes against humanity.

It’s ok for bankers managing $695 billion-dollar funds to take sides in a science debate…. That’s not the same as corporations trying to influence policy. More » (Jo Nova)

Maybe Mr. Odum got his marching orders from The Hague (Netherlands), or maybe he really believes cap-and-trade is good for the oil (and natural gas) business. These are strange times. Confusion abounds in high places.

In this post, I provide a running commentary on Odum’s column. Odum’s verbiage is indented; my comments follow in bold type.

A rather amazing statement, considering that the party of cap-and-trade controls the White House and the leadership of both the House and Senate. Saint Barack, Czarina Browner, Lisa Endangerment-Finding Jackson, General Boxer, and Inquisitor Waxman occupy the commanding heights of energy and climate policy in the nation’s capital, yet “Washington is having the wrong energy and climate debate.” How did they let that happen? Odum offers no explanation.

Yep, move along, nothing to see here. “Snowball fight” indeed. Top IPCC-affiliated scientists conspired to bias the peer-reviewed literature they would assess, ignored research that did not fit into the “nice tidy story” they wanted to tell, and violated the UK freedom of information act to prevent independent researchers from checking their data and methods. These IPCC insiders repeatedly flouted U.S. Government standards of openness and transparency, rendering the IPCC reports unsuitable as basis for policymaking, as Peabody Energy documents in its 240-page examination of the Climategate files. [Read more →] (MasterResource)

In today’s issue of Science, NASA solar physicist David Hathaway reports that the top of the sun’s Great Conveyor Belt has been running at record-high speeds for the past five years.

“I believe this could explain the unusually deep solar minimum we’ve been experiencing,” says Hathaway. “The high speed of the conveyor belt challenges existing models of the solar cycle and it has forced us back to the drawing board for new ideas.”

The Great Conveyor Belt is a massive circulating current of fire (hot plasma) within the sun. It has two branches, north and south, each taking about 40 years to complete one circuit. Researchers believe the turning of the belt controls the sunspot cycle.

Hathaway has been monitoring the conveyor belt using data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). The top of the belt skims the surface of the sun, sweeping up knots of solar magnetism and carrying them toward the poles. SOHO is able to track those knots—Hathaway calls them “magnetic elements”–and thus reveal the speed of the underlying flow. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

Dear friends in the blogosphere, I have another sermon on my shelves that you may want to listen to. In 1993, IPCC chairman Bert Bolin was invited to the Netherlands to give a speech on risk assessment in the climate system. Wim Hutter, the director of NWO (the Dutch NSF), asked me to write a speech that would challenge the technological optimism Professor Bolin was expected to promote. My mind jumped at this opportunity. With the help of several people in the humanities and the social sciences, including Professor Kazuko Tsurumi, the famous Japanese sociologist, and Mary Catherine Bateson, the daughter of Gregory Bateson and co-author of Angels Fear, I wrote the text that follows. It is abbreviated; click here for the full text. (Climate Science)

The White House is finalizing rules on the first U.S. greenhouse gas emission standard for automobiles, which would raise average fuel economy 42 percent by 2016 in a bid to slash oil imports and fight climate change.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department sent the final rules this week to the White House's Office of Management and Budget, according to a notice posted on the OMB website.

The higher mileage requirements will reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 900 million metric tons and save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the life of vehicles built during the 2012-2016 model years, according to the EPA. (Reuters)

A CARBON credits company, Prime Carbon, has been found guilty by the Federal Court of Australia of making misleading green claims.

Prime Carbon is a private company that produces and trades carbon credits created through soil enhancement and carbon sequestration programs.

Justice Jeffrey Spender found it was in breach of the Trade Practices Act between July 2008 and last December by claiming an association with the National Stock Exchange of Australia that it did not have.

He also found that between July and December 2008 Prime Carbon had made misrepresentations concerning the National Environment Registry. Those claims included that the registry was regulated by the federal government, which it is not, and that the registry had an arrangement with the Chicago Environment Registry, which it does not. (SMH)

Hoping to create jobs and reduce carbon emissions, lawmakers used the stimulus package to expand a tax break to encourage homeowners to make energy efficiency improvements.

The change was a potential windfall for window manufacturers, because the larger break would likely spur the installation of new windows, the most popular way of accessing the credit. The break, in place since 2005, had been capped at $200 of the total cost to purchase replacement windows, and $500 for making more expensive efficiency upgrades like replacing an old furnace. The stimulus raised the cap per home to $1,500 for all products.

But the credit also came with a catch: Congress raised the eligibility requirements for products that would qualify, which left some window manufacturers outside looking in. Environmental groups pushed for the change, arguing that only the most efficient products, which are usually more expensive, should be eligible for the higher tax credit.

But a group of window makers has lobbied to change the standard to the measurement the Department of Energy uses, called Energy Star, to rate windows and skylights. AGC Flat Glass North America said the new standard shut out the U.S. market, forcing it to close a facility in Michigan. ( Jim Snyder, E² Wire)

"God is Brazilian," was the patriotic declaration of the country's president, after the true potential of the South American nation's oil wealth began to emerge in 2007.

Since he uttered this effusive thanks for Brazil's good hydrocarbon fortune, the oil majors have been jostling with its national company Petrobras for a sliver of the excitement.

The country's largest fields are bursting with up to 13bn proven barrels of the black stuff, but it is the unproven potential of the Campos and Santos basins offshore that mean Brazil's abundance of oil could approach that of Russia and Saudi Arabia

It is therefore no surprise that BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, has chosen the Campos basin for his biggest acquisition since taking the helm almost three years ago. (TDT)

New York environmental regulators this week released a plan to protect aquatic life in the state's rivers that could cost power generators billions to upgrade their facilities.

The plan, which still needs final approval, would affect most of the state's six nuclear power plants and several facilities powered by fossil fuels that use water for cooling. The state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) wants the facilities to recycle and reuse the water in a closed-cycle cooling system rather than discharging the heated water into rivers.

One of the first plants to face the proposed regulations would be Entergy Corp's 1,910-MW Indian Point, located about 45 miles north of New York City where it draws water from the Hudson River. Entergy has already asked the DEC for a new water permit and requested that the federal government renew the license for both of its reactors.

The DEC, which is accepting comment on its proposal through May 9, said it would require closed-cycle systems -- like cooling towers -- unless "an operator can demonstrate that closed-cycle cooling technology cannot physically be implemented at a particular location."

In February, Entergy filed a report with the DEC that found it would be better to add new underwater screens to the plant's existing cooling water intake system rather than install expensive cooling towers. (Reuters)

China and Russia have reached an initial agreement on pricing of natural gas from Russia. According to a recent statement by Zhang Guobao, the deputy director of China’s powerful National Reform and Development Commission, Russia will supply China about 2.5 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas per year, starting in 2015. [Read More] (Michael Economides, Xina Xie and Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune)

Two characteristics of industrial wind power crucially inform the public policy debate.

First, wind turbines have little or no “capacity value”; i.e., they are unlikely to be producing electricity at the time of peak electricity demand. Therefore, wind turbines cannot substitute for conventional generating capacity responsible for providing reliable electricity to customers.

Second, a kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity from wind has less value than a kWh of electricity from a reliable (“dispatchable”) generating unit; i.e., from a unit that can be called upon to produce electricity whenever the electricity is needed by electric customers.

These issues are important because “wind farm” developers and lobbyists have misled the public, media and government officials by making false claims and by using terms intended to confuse their listeners.

To address this problem, this post explains a few key electric industry terms that are important in understanding the critically important differences between the quality and value of

Failure to understand the terms has led to faulty decisions by government officials and misunderstanding and incorrect reporting by media officials.

Generating capacity, measured in kilowatts (kW) or megawatts (MW), is a unit’s ability to produce electricity at an instant in time. This term can be confusing because there are two very different measures of generating capacity:

It is a criminal offence to kill bats and golden eagles, writes Booker today in his column – unless of course you are a windmill owner.

The main objection to these bird choppers is, of course, their outrageous expense – machines for producing derisory amounts of electricity at colossal cost. That is why the government wants us to spend £100 billion on building thousands more of them which, even were it technically possible, would do virtually nothing to fill the fast-looming 40 percent gap in our electricity supply.

But, in all the time spent railing against these useless machines, Booker has never mentioned their devastating effect on wildlife, notably on large birds of prey, such as eagles and red kites. And particularly disturbing, he says, is the extent to which the disaster has been downplayed by professional bodies.

Two of those who are notably muted in their protests are the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Britain and the Audubon Society in the US. They should be at the forefront of exposing this outrage, but which have often been drawn into a conflict of interest by the large sums of money they derive from the wind industry itself.

Booker goes on to outline some of the evidence for the worldwide scale of this carnage. The world's largest and most carefully monitored wind farm, Altamont Pass in California, he says, is estimated to have killed between 2,000 and 3,000 golden eagles alone in the past 20 years.

Since turbines were erected on the isle of Smola, off Norway, home to an important population of white-tailed sea eagles, destruction is so great that last year only one chick survived. Thanks to wind farms in Tasmania, a unique sub-species of wedge-tailed eagles faces extinction.

And here in Britain, plans to build eight wind farms on the Hebridean islands, among Scotland’s largest concentration of golden eagles, now pose a major threat to the species' survival in the UK.

The real problem, we are told, is that birds of prey and wind developers are both drawn, for similar reasons, to the same sites – hills and ridges where the wind provides lift for soaring birds and heavily subsidised profits for developers.

Eagles may thus be drawn from hundreds of square miles to particular wind farms. And, as can be seen from the YouTube video of a vulture circling above a turbine in Crete, the vortices created by blade tips revolving at up to 200mph can destabilise such large birds, plunging them into a fatal collision with the blades.

What has been particularly helpful to Booker in detailing this problem is the emergence of Mark Duchamp, a retired French businessman and now campaigner living in Alicante. Through his website Iberica 2000, he has documented multiple episodes of bird-kill, including at Spanish sites where they may be killing up to a million birds a year.

Duchamp also focuses his campaign on what he sees as the disturbing failure to protect birds by the bodies whose job it is to do so, from the RSPB to the European Commission. The RSPB claims to keep a critical eye on those effects, but nevertheless urges a major expansion of wind farms, on the grounds that "climate change is the most significant threat to biodiversity on the planet".

As always, money talks – not least to the RSPB which receives £10 from the wind-farm builder Scottish & Southern Energy for every customer signing up for electricity under its "RSPB Energy" scheme. Ornithologists also derive a good income from developers for providing impact assessments for planning applications or for monitoring existing wind farms for bird collisions.

So it goes on. Conflict of interest, petty corruption and downright abrogation of responsibilities mean absolutely nothing when you can convince yourself that you are saving the planet – then anything goes. And when it comes to the EU commission, their Birds and Habitats Directives - which they are usually so zealous in ensuring are enforced throughout the member states – suddenly becomes rather inconvenient.

Just in case you ask, Booker does mention power lines. Large birds of prey are far from being the only victims of wind farms, and the thousands of miles of power lines needed to connect them to the grid. A study cited by Birdlife International shows that, each year, power lines can be responsible for up to 800 bird kills per mile. And wind farms, with their new grid, will ensure that the carnage increases.

The bizarre thing is that these "greenies" are supposed to be pro-nature. Yet, time and time again, it is they who are the ones supporting the degradation of the natural environment, then relying on convoluted arguments and deception to cover up their inconsistencies. In time, we could tie them to the blades of their windmills, as ad hoc bird scarers, at which point we will finally have found a use for them. (EU Referendum)

The debate over nuclear power in recent months has revolved around taxpayer backed loan guarantees for new nuclear projects. Not only has the President announced $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees for a two-reactor project in Burke County, Georgia, his budget proposal includes tripling the nuclear loan guarantee program from $18.5 billion to over $54 billion.

Unfortunately, some groups have used this debate to disguise their anti-nuclear agenda in anti-loan guarantee rhetoric. The basic construct of their argument is that nuclear energy is so risky and so expensive that using government backed financing subjects the taxpayer to unreasonable risk. The problem is that they often not only misrepresent facts about loan guarantees and what risks they pose, but also about nuclear energy broadly to make their case. Misrepresenting the facts not only undermines the legitimacy of their argument but takes away from a very important debate over whether or not loan guarantees are an appropriate tool for financing new nuclear (or any other energy source) projects.

While The Heritage Foundation is opposed to expanding the nuclear loan guarantee program, we believe that it is critical that the debate be informed by facts. The Nuclear Energy Institute’s 13-page report in response to some of the misleading rhetoric helps do exactly that. By answering in detail many of the unfounded criticisms used to advance the anti-nuclear agenda, NEI sets the stage nicely for where the debate should be: on the efficacy of loan guarantees. Continue reading... (The Foundry)

MELBOURNE scientists have achieved a world-first breakthrough in solar power technology that promises to revolutionise renewable energy and put Melbourne at the heart of the $30 billion global industry.

Former RMIT Professor Ian Bates and his team have developed solar panels four times more efficient and three times cheaper than available models. (Laurie Nowell, Sunday Herald Sun)

THE Obama administration has said that it may require automakers to install “smart pedals” on all new cars. This kind of system — already used in BMWs, Chryslers, Volkswagens and some of the newest Toyotas — deactivates the car’s accelerator when the brake pedal is pressed so that the car can stop safely even if its throttle sticks open.

The idea is to prevent the kind of sudden acceleration that has recently led to the recall of millions of Toyotas. Federal safety regulators have received complaints asserting that this problem has caused accidents resulting in 52 deaths in Toyotas since 2000. Smart pedals might help prevent more such accidents if the cause of unintended acceleration turns out to be some vehicle defect.

But based on my experience in the 1980s helping investigate unintended acceleration in the Audi 5000, I suspect that smart pedals cannot solve the problem. The trouble, unbelievable as it may seem, is that sudden acceleration is very often caused by drivers who press the gas pedal when they intend to press the brake. (Richard A. Schmidt, NYT)

NEW YORK - Needle-exchange programs designed to cut injection drug users' risk of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and other infections do seem to reduce needle sharing, but there is only limited evidence that they lower disease transmission, a new research review concludes.

Reporting in the journal Addiction, researchers say that based on their study -- an analysis of five previous reviews of needle-exchange programs -- the evidence for the programs' effectiveness is weaker than generally thought.

However, they also stress that their review did not find needle-exchange programs to be ineffective either.

"The findings of this review should not be used as a justification to close NSPs (needle and syringe programs) or hinder their introduction," write the researchers, led by Norah Palmateer, of Health Protection Scotland, part of the UK National Health Service.

"Insufficient or weak evidence of an effect is not evidence of no effect," Palmateer told Reuters Health in an email. "It is more a reflection of the studies and evidence available."

It is not that studies on needle-exchange programs have been "poor," Palmateer said, but they are limited by the nature of their design. (Reuters Health)

LONDON - Only half of patients at high risk of heart disease are given the right targets for cutting their cholesterol and millions may suffer heart attack or stroke due to doctors' poor advice, scientists said on Thursday.

German researchers said that over 10 years, around 50 to 80 heart attacks, strokes and heart disease-related deaths per 1,000 patients could be averted if all doctors correctly followed guidelines on cholesterol-lowering targets.

"The numbers highlight the enormous health implications ... in our findings," said Heribert Schunkert, who led the study into more than 25,000 patients in Germany.

Drugs called statins, like Pfizer's Lipitor or AstraZeneca's Crestor, which lower cholesterol and have been credited with preventing millions of heart attacks and strokes, are often prescribed to patients with high heart risk.

But Schunkert, of the University Clinic of Schleswig Holstein in Luebeck, said guidelines on how much cholesterol should be brought down in each type of patient may be too complex. Doctors often failed, especially with women patients, to recognise the risk and set the right goals, he said. (Reuters)

NANOPARTICLES used to make some sunscreens transparent may also be toxic, according to Australian research.

A study by Amanda Barnard, of the CSIRO, found the nanoparticles that provided the best transparency and sun protection also had the highest risk of producing free radicals.

Using computer modelling, Dr Barnard analysed the properties of the man-made titanium dioxide nanoparticles found in some sunscreens, testing them in three areas: sun protection, transparency and potential for producing free radicals.

Studying various sizes of particles, she found that the smaller the nanoparticle, the better the sun protection and transparency. ''Unfortunately the small ones also have a high surface-to-volume ratio and the surfaces are where the free radicals are produced through a photochemical, or light induced reaction.'' (SMH)

WASHINGTON - More 12-year-olds in the United States admit to using potentially deadly inhalants to get high than have used marijuana, cocaine and hallucinogens combined, U.S. health officials said on Thursday.

Among this age group, alcohol was the only intoxicating substance used more than inhalants, according to data from 2006-2008 surveys on drug use and health compiled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Sniffing common household products, such as gasoline, nail polish, bleach, paint solvents and cleaning spray is like taking poison and many people do not understand the risks or consequences, the health officials said.

Inhaling vapors to get high, or "huffing," can cause cardiac arrest. It can lead to brain, heart, liver and kidney damage and can be addictive.

"It's frustrating because the danger comes from a variety of very common household products that are legal, they're easy to get, they're laying around the home and it's easy for kids to buy them," Pamela Hyde, of the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) said. (Reuters)

NEW YORK - Getting a bit more calcium in your diet could help you live longer, new research suggests.

Swedish researchers found that men who consumed the most calcium in food were 25 percent less likely to die over the next decade than their peers who took in the least calcium from food. None of the men took calcium supplements.

The findings are in line with previous research linking higher calcium intake with lower mortality in both men and women, the researchers point out in a report in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

While many researchers have looked at calcium and magnesium intake and the risk of chronic disease, less is known about the association between consumption of these nutrients in food and mortality.

To investigate, Dr. Joanna Kaluza of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and her colleagues looked at more than 23,000 Swedish men who were 45 to 79 years old at the study's outset and were followed for 10 years. All had reported on their diet at the beginning of the study. During follow-up, about 2,358 died.

The top calcium consumers had a 25 percent lower risk of dying from any cause and a 23 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease during follow-up relative to men that had the least amount of calcium in their diet. Calcium intake didn't significantly influence the risk of dying from cancer.

Men in the top third based on their calcium intake were getting nearly 2,000 milligrams a day, on average, compared to about 1,000 milligrams for men in the bottom third. The US Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for calcium intake is 1,000 milligrams for men 19 to 50 years old and 1,200 milligrams for men 50 and over.

"Intake of calcium above that recommended daily may reduce all-cause mortality," Kaluza and her colleagues conclude. (Reuters Health)

LONDON - Scientists have found the "mother", or origin, of all skin cells and say their discovery could dramatically improve skin treatments for victims of serious wounds and burns.

Hans Clevers and a team of Dutch and Swedish researchers conducted a study in mice and found that the stem cell that gives produces all the different cells of the skin actually lives in hair follicles.

The findings, which they say will translate for human use, mean it may be possible to harness these stem cells to help with wound repair or skin transplants for burns victims, they said in a study in the journal Science on Thursday.

"This is the mother of all the stem cells in the skin -- it makes all the other stem cells," Clevers, of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Utrecht, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"The same stem cells exist in humans, we can see them, and the promise is that these cells are probably going to be much better than anything we have had to date at making new skin."

The skin has three different populations of cells -- hair follicles, moisturising sebaceous glands, and the tissue in between, known as the interfollicular epidermis. Stem cells are original cells, or drivers, from which all human cells develop.

Scientists had previously thought that stem cells in each of these three skin populations were capable of producing their own cell type, but until now, a "mother" stem cell which produces all three types had not been found. (Reuters)

LONDON - Several drug firms have agreed on a landmark deal to supply up to 200 million doses a year of cut-price pneumococcal vaccines to developing nations, according to the global immunisation alliance that is overseeing the deal.

Leading manufacturers of such vaccines include GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer.

The agreement is the first under a new scheme called an Advance Market Commitment (AMC), which provides a guaranteed market for vaccines supplied to poor nations but sets a maximum price that drugmakers can expect to receive.

It is likely to pave the way for future deals on recently introduced vaccines against rotavirus, which causes severe diarrhoea, and an experimental one against malaria, which combined kill millions in poor countries each year.

The GAVI Alliance (Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunisation) said details of the pneumococcal deal would be announced in the coming weeks.

"Decisions have been made and we are hoping for an announcement very shortly -- in the next couple of weeks," GAVI's deputy chief executive officer Helen Evans told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

"It's very exciting news because they are going to make long-term commitments." (Reuters)

Erlich, incidentally is the author of the wrong-wrong-wrong The Population Bomb, and is now a warming worrier. (Andrew Bolt)

BATON ROUGE – According to a study recently completed by an LSU group charged with conducting studies on improving hurricane crisis communication in coastal communities, many families have a well-developed hurricane response plan of their own but have little faith in the preparation developed at higher government levels.

Titled "Hurricanes, Institutional Procedures, and Information Processing, or HIPIP: Engagement with Decision-Makers and Coastal Residents," the project contains two distinct studies on the topic, both designed to create more effective hurricane communication among forecasters, government officials, media representatives and ultimately the public.

"Clearly, the perceived inadequacy of the federal response to Katrina still lingers in the minds of many residents," said David Brown, HPIP investigator and assistant professor in LSU's Department of Geography and Anthropology. (Louisiana State University)

''Biodegradable'' plastic bags used by major supermarkets do not break down as quickly as believed and may not be as environmentally-friendly as they sound, according to Government-funded research. (TDT)

Chevron Corp may pursue an international arbitration claim over environmental pollution allegations in Ecuador, a judge ruled on Thursday, part of a long-running case that carries a potential $27 billion liability for the second-largest U.S. oil company.

The government of Ecuador had asked Manhattan federal court Judge Leonard Sand to prevent Chevron from taking the 17-year-old case to arbitration under the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty.

U.S. courts had previously sent the litigation to be heard in Ecuador, where Chevron said last year that it had uncovered a $3 million bribery plot linked to the case. A lawyer for the government said Thursday's ruling does not halt the litigation in the South American country, where a court has yet to render a judgment.

Chevron has complained of government interference in the case, in which indigenous communities accused Texaco, bought by Chevron in 2001, of damaging their health and the Amazon rain forest and causing river pollution while operating petroleum facilities in the region. (Reuters)

The integrity of climate research has taken a very public battering in recent months. Scientists must now emphasize the science, while acknowledging that they are in a street fight.

Climate scientists are on the defensive, knocked off balance by a re-energized community of global-warming deniers who, by dominating the media agenda, are sowing doubts about the fundamental science. Most researchers find themselves completely out of their league in this kind of battle because it's only superficially about the science. The real goal is to stoke the angry fires of talk radio, cable news, the blogosphere and the like, all of which feed off of contrarian story lines and seldom make the time to assess facts and weigh evidence. Civility, honesty, fact and perspective are irrelevant.

Worse, the onslaught seems to be working: some polls in the United States and abroad suggest that it is eroding public confidence in climate science at a time when the fundamental understanding of the climate system, although far from complete, is stronger than ever. Ecologist Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University in California says that his climate colleagues are at a loss about how to counter the attacks. “Everyone is scared shitless, but they don't know what to do,” he says.

Scientists must not be so naive as to assume that the data speak for themselves.

Researchers should not despair. For all the public's confusion about climate science, polls consistently show that people trust scientists more than almost anybody else to give honest advice. Yes, scientists' reputations have taken a hit thanks to headlines about the leaked climate e-mails at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, and an acknowledged mistake about the retreat of Himalayan glaciers in a recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But these wounds are not necessarily fatal. (Nature Editorial)

The higher-ups of the AGW movement, aka Goliath, sense that something is amiss.

A new editorial in Nature is startling for what it reveals, especially the fact Paul Ehrlich is a go-to figure about how hard scientists have it when it comes to media access.

Ehrlich is an individual who became an international celebrity by spinning one frightening story after another (about the death of the oceans, for one thing) who maintains, with a straight face, that he and his fellow scientists have an unfair disadvantage in communicating their side of the climate debate.

He is quoted by Nature as saying, regarding the aftermath of Climategate and the fact that skeptic scientists are finally getting a hearing,:

People often forget: Goliath, right before the end, sensed that something was amiss.

For, ironically, among the most pervasive myths attending global warming is the one pitching David against Goliath, in which those touting the risks of damaging climate change are cast as David and Big Oil is Goliath. Read the rest of this entry »

An outside review of a U.N. panel -- promised after flaws were uncovered in the panel's most recent report on climate change -- will not recheck that report's conclusions and will instead focus on improving procedures for the future, officials said Wednesday.

U.N. officials defended their decision, saying that there is still no reason to doubt the most important conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In a landmark report in 2007, the panel found "unequivocal" evidence that the climate was warming. (Washington Post)

‘No, no!’ said the Queen. “Sentence first — verdict afterwards.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly. “The idea of having the sentence first!’”

“Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.

“I won’t!” said Alice.

“Off with her head!” the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.

“Who cares for you?” said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!”

The UN has decided to follow the Red Queen’s approach when it comes to recent mounting scandals over its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Exoneration first — review afterwards!

On Wednesday, the UN and the IPCC announced an “independent” review of the IPCC’s operations by the InterAcademy Council (IAC). Never heard of it? Doesn’t matter.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The violent threats are not what bother Michael Mann the most. He's used to them.

Instead, it's the fact that his life's work — the effort to stop global warming — has been under siege since last fall. That's when Mann suddenly found himself in the middle of the so-called "climategate" scandal, in which more than 1,000 e-mails among top climate scientists — including Mann — were obtained illegally by hackers and published on the Internet.

The e-mails showed some of the scientists sharing doubts about just how fast the Earth's temperature is rising, questioning the work of other researchers and refusing to share data with the public. Critics, including Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., have seized on the e-mails as proof that Mann and his colleagues deliberately exaggerated the scientific case behind global warming.

In a rare extended interview, Mann acknowledges "minor" errors but says he has been bewildered by the criticism — including a deluge of correspondence sent to his Pennsylvania State University office that, he says, occasionally has turned ugly.

"I've developed a thick skin," Mann says. "Frankly, I'm more worried that these people are succeeding in creating doubt in the minds of the public, when there really shouldn't be any." ( Brian Winter, USA TODAY)

From PRI's Living on Earth
11 March, 2010 11:43:00

Scientists' efforts to defend the integrity of climate studies thwarted by unbalanced media coverage.

This story is adapted from a broadcast audio segment; use audio player to listen to story in its entirety. (PRI)

Climate scientists are now in a maelstrom of competing caricatures. In the Post last week, Patrick Keeney (“Trust us, we’re experts,” March 5) described them as schemers, cooking the books, using PR and spin. Those who wish to believe the climate crisis is not the result of human activity herald as heroes scientists who disagree with the consensus view, while others deride them as corrupt. (National Post)

Eight Nobel-prize winning economists and scientists have joined more than 2,000 others in signing a letter today that urges the Senate to take swift action on climate change.

"The longer we wait, the harder and more costly it will be to limit climate change and to adapt to those impacts that will not be avoided," reads the letter, which is available on the Union of Concerned Scientists' website here. "Many emissions reduction strategies can be adopted today that would save consumers and industry money while providing benefits for air quality, energy security, public health, balance of trade, and employment." (USA Today)

It’s been a crummy year for environmentalists. First it was the leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit showing some questionable discussions among scientists about climate-change research. Then the Copenhagen summit ended with a big thud. And then Congress indicated it would trade an aggressive climate-change mitigation measure for a more diluted energy bill.

Piling on, Gallup is out with new numbers today showing that concern over climate change continues to recede. According to one of its surveys from earlier this month, almost half of the country (48 percent) is unmoved by climate-change warnings. A growing number are also newly skeptical that humans are causing the planet to change and think that the science isn’t as concrete as they once believed. (Newsweek)

The Amazon, Brazil - Credit Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

(Boston) — A new NASA-funded study has concluded that Amazon rain forests were remarkably unaffected in the face of once-in-a-century drought in 2005, neither dying nor thriving, contrary to a previously published report and claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“We found no big differences in the greenness level of these forests between drought and non-drought years, which suggests that these forests may be more tolerant of droughts than we previously thought,” said Arindam Samanta, the study’s lead author from Boston University.

The comprehensive study published in the current issue of the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters used the latest version of the NASA MODIS satellite data to measure the greenness of these vast pristine forests over the past decade. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

It might not be the Rolling Stone, but Al Gore made the cover of the Weekly Standard and he’s… naked. Pass the eye bleach. Methane is the latest deadly thing in the atmosphere, an ABC head accuses the media of groupthink on global warming and the Internet never forgets what warmists once said. (The Daily Bayonet)

It’s time to wrap up The Heretics series. We haven’t come close to covering all of the scientists and researchers who question the tenets of global warming alarmism, but the small sampling of prominent skeptics featured on these pages should be enough to make it obvious that significant, sincere and scientifically valid arguments exist that refute the Gorethodoxy of so-called “climate change.” (Rich Trzupek, Front Page)

SEATTLE – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it will consider ways the states can address rising acidity levels in oceans, which pose a serious threat to shellfish and other marine life.

The agency's decision was announced in a legal settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity. The environmental group sued the EPA last year for not requiring Washington state to list its coastal waters as impaired by rising acidity under the Clean Water Act. Such a listing would have

"It's one of the most important threats to water quality right now," said Miyoko Sakashita, a senior attorney at the group's San Francisco office. "It's affecting waters around the world, and it's particularly stark in the waters off the West Coast."

Oceans are becoming more acidic as they absorb excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — a problem Sakashita referred to as "global warming's evil twin." (Associated Press)

With the “science” of global warming collapsing like a house of cards, the Copenhagen “climate change” conference accomplishing absolutely nothing and a massive energy tax hike going nowhere in the U.S. Senate, President Barack Obama is now faced with a conundrum. He can either read the handwriting on the wall, or seek to accomplish through regulation what he couldn’t accomplish through legislation: the handover of U.S. environmental policy to radical environmentalists.

Does any of this sound familiar? This is frankly the same dynamic we are witnessing in the health care debate. There, Obama says he will use procedural loopholes to ram his version of a socialized medicine proposal through the U.S. Congress against the expressed will of the American people.

Once again, it appears that Obama simply cannot comprehend the meaning of a word understood by literally millions of toddlers: “No.” (Howard Rich, Townhall)

France will push the Group of 20 countries to impose a tax on financial transactions to raise billions of dollars to help developing nations fight climate change, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday.

Speaking at a conference on forests, Sarkozy repeated his call for a renewed effort on climate change after the "frustrating" Copenhagen conference in December, aiming his fire at "all those who, behind their fine words, want to do nothing."

"Those who don't want to do anything are those who don't want to pay. If the money isn't there, the ones who will pay for the consequences are the poor," he said in a speech. (Reuters)

A perfect storm consisting of the EPA, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and investors is pressuring companies to come clean on their environmental risks and performance.

I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about FaceBook’s decision to use a primarily coal-burning utility to power its new data center where I asked should FaceBook’s investors be worried about the decision. ( Tom Raftery, Enterprise Irregulars)

Cutting-edge development in pipeline as islands plan for effects of climate change

The Islands of the Maldives, confronted by rising oceans and a landscape that is just a few feet above sea level, is poised to build a floating golf course and convention centre in what could be the first of a series of futuristic off-shore developments designed to counter the threat of global warming.

The country's government has signed a deal with a Dutch firm to investigate the feasibility of developing facilities that would be located among the 26 main atolls. It is likely the company, Dutch Docklands, which has built floating islands in Dubai, will also look into the possibility of floating homes in the Maldives.

"The methods and procedures developed by the company for floating developments reduce the impact on underwater life, and minimise the changes to coastal morphology," said a statement issued by the office of President Mohamed Nasheed. Since coming to office in late 2008, Mr Nasheed, a former political prisoner, has been quick to prioritise climate change as one of the most pressing threats to his nation, which is made up of a total of 1,200 islands. (The Independent)

With today’s revelation on Pajamas Media, only the Japan Meteorological Agency is left to save the warmists. Don’t bet on it. (Click here to see Horner discuss this article on PJTV.)

The warmist response to Climategate — the discovery of the thoroughly corrupt practices of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) — was that the tainted CRU dataset was just one of four independent data sets. You know. So really there’s no big deal.

Thanks to a FOIA request, the document production of which I am presently plowing through — and before that, thanks to the great work of Steve McIntyre, and particularly in their recent, comprehensive work, Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts — we know that NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) passed no one’s test for credibility. Not even NASA’s.

In fact, CRU’s former head, Phil Jones, even told his buddies that while people may think his dataset — which required all of those “fudge factors” (their words) — is troubled, “GISS is inferior” to CRU.

NASA’s temperature data is so woeful that James Hansen’s colleague Reto Ruedy told the USA Today weather editor:

To reiterate, NASA’s temperature data is worse than the Climategate temperature data. According to NASA.

And apparently, although these points were never stressed publicly before, NASA GISS is just “basically a modeling group forced into rudimentary analysis of global observed data.” But now, however, NASA GISS “happily [combines the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) data] and Hadley Center’s data” for the purpose of evaluating NASA’s models.

So — Climategate’s CRU was just “one of four organizations worldwide that have independently compiled thermometer measurements of local temperatures from around the world to reconstruct the history of average global surface temperature.”

But one of the three remaining sets is not credible either, and definitely not independent.

Reto Ruedy refers his inquiring (ok, credulous) reporter to NCDC — the third of the four data sets — as being the gold standard for U.S. temperatures.

But NCDC has been thoroughly debunked elsewhere — Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts have found NCDC completely incredible, having made a practice out of not including cooler temperature stations over time, exaggerating the warming illusion.

Three out of the four temperature datasets stink, with corroboration from the alarmists. Second-sourced, no less.

Christopher Horner is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. (Christopher Horner, PJM)

The Institute of Physics blog has a posting on the furore over its submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee. Among the gems are this:

"Widely accepted" is an, ahem, interesting way of putting it, given that Michael Mann himself says that nobody has ever grafted instrumental temperatures onto proxy records.

Throw out evidence that doesn't match your hypothesis? Can he really have said that? (Bishop Hill)

As oxygen-deprived waters increase, they emit more greenhouse gasses into atmosphere

Cambridge, Md. (March 11, 2010) – The increased frequency and intensity of oxygen-deprived "dead zones" along the world's coasts can negatively impact environmental conditions in far more than just local waters. In the March 12 edition of the journal Science, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science oceanographer Dr. Lou Codispoti explains that the increased amount of nitrous oxide (N2O) produced in low-oxygen (hypoxic) waters can elevate concentrations in the atmosphere, further exacerbating the impacts of global warming and contributing to ozone "holes" that cause an increase in our exposure to harmful UV radiation.

"As the volume of hypoxic waters move towards the sea surface and expands along our coasts, their ability to produce the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide increases," explains Dr. Codispoti of the UMCES Horn Point Laboratory. "With low-oxygen waters currently producing about half of the ocean's net nitrous oxide, we could see an additional significant atmospheric increase if these 'dead zones' continue to expand." (University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science)

It’s just such a pity the figures provided don’t show much beyond scientists being vaguely able to devise models where Arctic sea ice decreases as it has been doing for a while (hardly the information you need to have a PhD to understand). Read the rest of this entry » (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)

This post is Part V of Richard Tol's look at the IPCC AR4 WGIII. The first four posts looked at Chapter 11. Part I is here. Part II is here. Part III is here. Part IV is here. Parts I, II and II looked at Chapter 11 in AR4 WGIII. This installment, like Part IV looks at Chapter 3.

Richard Tol is a research professor at ESRI in Ireland, one of the top 175 economists in the world and a contributor to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where his work is widely cited. In this guest post, the fourth of a series, Richard takes a look at parts of the IPCC AR4 Working Group III, which has largely escaped scrutiny in recent months. In this Part V he concludes that,

Saved permits can be used to meet future targets to cut emissions without reducing pollution

Companies across Europe are hoarding permits to produce greenhouse gas emissions worth hundreds of millions of pounds, the Guardian can reveal.

The surplus credits have been amassed from over-allocation of permits to pollute from the European emissions trading scheme, and by buying cheap credits from carbon-cutting projects in developing countries and holding on to their more expensive official EU allowances.

The saved permits can be used to meet future targets to cut the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming and climate change without actually reducing pollution, or sold for a profit in the future. (The Guardian)

European carbon futures nudged lower in early trade on Thursday, likely on speculative selling before next week's UK auction, one trader said.

EU Allowances (EUAs) for Dec-10 delivery were down 11 cents at 1200 GMT, at 13.12 euros a tonne.

"I think people are selling ahead of the auction, it feels like its going short," said one trader.

"There's very little industrials activity," he added, referring to buyers who have to buy carbon permits to balance their emissions under the European Union's emissions trading scheme. (Reuters)

Wall Street was supposed to become the capital of a global carbon trading market worth a trillion dollars a year but now many who thought green trading desks would be the next big thing are fearing the pink slip.

U.S. banks had looked forward to a huge "cap-and-trade market" a system where companies would buy and sell the right to emit gases blamed for warming the planet. Many hired carbon traders, picked up assets, and trained members of energy desks to deal in emissions markets.

But prospects for a broad U.S. carbon market have dimmed. U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican working on a compromise climate bill, declared economy-wide cap-and-trade "dead" this month.

At least one bank with carbon trade assets has already been hit. EcoSecurities, a clean energy project developer and carbon trader, bought by JP Morgan Chase last year has closed its New York-based U.S. office leading to a loss of up to 20 jobs.

JP Morgan has said a senior carbon trader, who had recently moved to Washington, is leaving the bank this month. Banks that that did not expand in advance of a cap-and-trade bill may not have to cut much staff, but long-anticipated expansions will not happen either. (Reuters)

Supporters of generating electricity with nuclear power cheered after learning that President Obama had included federal guarantees in next fiscal year’s budget to clear the way for starting work on the first two new US nuclear power plant in decades. The same people jeered when they also saw that the president proposed eliminating funding for a national nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, originally scheduled to open this year, but delayed by congressional diversions of monies appropriated for the site to other spending programs.

So with one hand, Washington plans to facilitate the construction of a new nuclear power plant by shielding owners from liability for future accidents, but with its other hand, doesn’t want to finish building a repository to safely store nuclear waste. By taking such action, the president essentially said “Never mind!” to the nation’s public utility customers, who for more than 25 years have paid one-tenth of a cent per kilowatt hour to finance the digging of the hole at Yucca Mountain, which now will be filled in.

John Maynard Keynes would be proud of Mr. Obama. After all, Keynes advised building pyramids and burying money in bottles for people to dig up as economic pump-priming policies during the Great Depression.

Schizophrenia likewise afflicts the administration’s approach to America’s oil and gas industry. The president, as have all White House occupants since the 1970s, wants to promote American “energy independence,” especially so of unfriendly countries like Iran and Venezuela. He also presides over an economy plagued by a 10 percent unemployment rate and a federal budget deficit exceeding $1.5 trillion. (William F. Shughart II, Energy Tribune)

Many states have adopted a Jeopardy like approach in their energy policies. They are imposing detailed renewable energy mandates that prescribe how much of which renewable energy types must be installed by specific dates. But as in the game show, these renewable energy policies are the correct answers only in response to the right questions. [Read More] (Jonathan Lesser, Energy Tribune)

The wind industry is showing increasing signs of desperation as some unpleasant realities are emerging despite the unending propaganda storm from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

Not only has it come out that Big Wind lobbied (and helped produce!) a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory that slagged a Spanish study showing the epic failure of wind economics in Spain, but now, wind energy executives are admitting that they can’t obtain parts to build wind plantations unless they’re built abroad.

And, showing that hubris knows no bounds, they’re also lobbying for the U.S. to up the ante on wind, passing a renewable energy standard that would guarantee wind energy profits into the indefinite future.

According to The Hill, wind executives are engaging in a lobbying-flurry on Capitol Hill this week, going after the “Buy American” agenda that Senator Chuck Schumer is pushing with regard to renewable power projects funded with stimulus grants. Schumer has become somewhat agitated to learn that most (79%) of the US stimulus money spent on renewable energy has gone overseas creating manufacturing jobs abroad, but creating little but taxpayer debt here in the U.S.

The Hill quotes Donald Furman, senior vice president with Iberdrola Renewables as admitting that Schumer’s buy-American plan “will cause my company not to build the number of projects that it was going to build simply because we can’t get the equipment that would satisfy the requirement.”

This admission is only surprising because it was made in public. Anyone who knows that China’s labor rate is under $1.00 per hour, and that China holds 95% of the rare earth elements needed to produce most renewable energy systems could have told you that manufacturing of renewable equipment is going to happen mostly in China.

A second major focus of the industry lobbying this week is pushing Congress to approve a Renewable Electricity Standard, which would require utilities to supply ever greater amounts of electricity from renewable sources. The windmongers are pushing for a standard that would require 25 percent renewable energy in the US supply by 2025, a level that is not only more aggressive than existing House and Senate targets, but is almost certainly completely unattainable, and would be both expensive, and detrimental to energy system stability.

All of this comes atop a burgeoning wind power scandal uncovered by Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Through Freedom of Information requests, Horner has obtained evidence that a report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory which bashed a high-profile Spanish study of wind power’s many failings was ginned up by lobbyists from the AWEA, the Global Wind Energy Council, and the uber-liberal Center for American Progress, all with the cooperation of the EPA, and the DOE.

Renewables have their place (such as off-grid solar), but the only way to determine what that place is would be through removing subsidies and regulatory mandates from all energy sources and letting the market sort it out. Setting that utopian wish aside, it’s hard to argue that wind power is a good investment if you have to gin up lame government reports to slam your critics; build your parts in China; subsidize the energy at historic levels; and still have to adopt mandates to force your wind power onto an unwilling market. (MasterResource)

For anyone with any residual doubts about the wave of madness about to engulf us with the introduction of the feed-in tariff on 1 April, they need go no further than read a recent report from the Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, entitled: "Economic impacts from the promotion of renewable energies: The German experience".

Packed with detail and well-argued, its conclusions are unequivocal and coruscating. "Although Germany's promotion of renewable energies is commonly portrayed in the media as setting a shining example in providing a harvest for the world," the authors write, "we would instead regard the country's experience as a cautionary tale of massively expensive environmental and energy policy that is devoid of economic and environmental benefits."

You really cannot get much clearer than that, the result of a failed experiment based on an aggressive policy of "generously subsidising and effectively mandating renewable electricity generation" in Germany that has led to a doubling of the renewable contribution to electricity generation in recent years.

In this narrative, taken directly from the executive summary, we are told that the preference for renewables came primarily in the form of a subsidy policy based on feed-in tariffs, established in 1991 by the Electricity Feed-in Law.

A subsequent law passed in 2000 guaranteed continued support for 20 years. This required utilities to accept the delivery of power from independent producers of renewable electricity into their own grid, paying technology-specific feed-in tariffs far above their production cost of 2 to 7 euro-cents per kilowatt hour (kWh).

With a feed-in tariff of 43 euro-cents per kWh in 2009, solar electricity generated from photovoltaics (PV) is guaranteed by far the largest financial support among all renewable energy technologies. Currently, the feed-in tariff for PV is more than eight times higher than the wholesale electricity price at the power exchange and more than four times the feed-in tariff paid for electricity produced by on-shore wind turbines.

Even on-shore wind, widely regarded as a mature technology, requires feed-in tariffs that exceed the per-kWh cost of conventional electricity by up to 300 percent to remain competitive. By 2008 this had led to Germany having the second-largest installed wind capacity in the world, behind the United States, and the largest installed PV capacity in the world, ahead of Spain. This explains the claims that Germany's feed-in tariff is a great success. EU Referendum)

New forecasts suggest the European Union will exceed its target of getting 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources in 2020, the European Commission said Thursday.

The latest national projections submitted by governments to the EU executive suggest the 27-nation bloc could reach an overall renewable share of 20.3 percent by the end of the decade. (Reuters)

New economic analysis confirms that maize-based biofuel is unlikely to reduce global production of carbon dioxide

In the March issue of BioScience, researchers present a sophisticated new analysis of the effects of boosting use of maize-derived ethanol on greenhouse gas emissions. The study, conducted by Thomas W. Hertel of Purdue University and five co-authors, focuses on how mandated increases in production of the biofuel in the United States will trigger land-use changes domestically and elsewhere. In response to the increased demand for maize, farmers convert additional land to crops, and this conversion can boost carbon dioxide emissions.

The analysis combines ecological data with a global economic commodity and trade model to project the effects of US maize ethanol production on carbon dioxide emissions resulting from land-use changes in 18 regions across the globe. The researchers' main conclusion is stark: these indirect, market-mediated effects on greenhouse gas emissions "are enough to cancel out the benefits the corn ethanol has on global warming." (American Institute of Biological Sciences)

Despite strong evidence that growing food crops to produce ethanol is harmful to the environment and the world’s poor, the Obama administration is backing subsidies and programs that will ensure that half of the U.S.’s corn crop will soon go to biofuel production. It’s time to recognize that biofuels are anything but green. (C. Ford Runge, e360)

Emory University chemists have developed the most potent homogeneous catalyst known for water oxidation, considered a crucial component for generating clean hydrogen fuel using only water and sunlight. The breakthrough, published March 11 in the journal Science, was made in collaboration with the Paris Institute of Molecular Chemistry.

The fastest, carbon-free molecular water oxidation catalyst (WOC) to date "has really upped the standard from the other known homogeneous WOCs," said Emory inorganic chemist Craig Hill, whose lab led the effort. "It's like a home run compared to a base hit."

In order to be viable, a WOC needs selectivity, stability and speed. Homogeneity is also a desired trait, since it boosts efficiency and makes the WOC easer to study and optimize. The new WOC has all of these qualities, and it is based on the cheap and abundant element cobalt, adding to its potential to help solar energy go mainstream. (Emory University)

EACH year some 30 million American men undergo testing for prostate-specific antigen, an enzyme made by the prostate. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1994, the P.S.A. test is the most commonly used tool for detecting prostate cancer.

The test’s popularity has led to a hugely expensive public health disaster. It’s an issue I am painfully familiar with — I discovered P.S.A. in 1970. As Congress searches for ways to cut costs in our health care system, a significant savings could come from changing the way the antigen is used to screen for prostate cancer.

Americans spend an enormous amount testing for prostate cancer. The annual bill for P.S.A. screening is at least $3 billion, with much of it paid for by Medicare and the Veterans Administration.

Prostate cancer may get a lot of press, but consider the numbers: American men have a 16 percent lifetime chance of receiving a diagnosis of prostate cancer, but only a 3 percent chance of dying from it. That’s because the majority of prostate cancers grow slowly. In other words, men lucky enough to reach old age are much more likely to die with prostate cancer than to die of it.

Even then, the test is hardly more effective than a coin toss. As I’ve been trying to make clear for many years now, P.S.A. testing can’t detect prostate cancer and, more important, it can’t distinguish between the two types of prostate cancer — the one that will kill you and the one that won’t. (Richard J. Ablin, NYT)

A woman with a petition went among the crowds attending a state fair, asking people to sign her petition demanding the banning of dihydroxymonoxide. She said it was in our lakes and streams, and now it was in our sweat and urine and tears.

She collected hundreds of signatures to ban dihydroxymonoxide -- a fancy chemical name for water. A couple of comedians were behind this ploy. But there is nothing funny about its implications. It is one of the grim and dangerous signs of our times.

This little episode revealed how conditioned we have become, responding like Pavlov's dog when we hear a certain sound-- in this case, the sound of some politically correct crusade. (Thomas Sowell, Townhall)

Despite the sales pitch, "going green" is not remotely about you or your children's future.
March 10, 2010
- by Art Horn

It’s omnipresent now, appearing in every form of media, in grocery stores, on any sort of product. Smiles and earth tone images greet us as we are told over and over again to “go green,” it’s the right thing to do. Don’t be left out, everyone’s doing it! Green is in, save the earth. It’s in all the schools — green is good, kind, and moral. Green is our future. Without it there will be no future.

To “go green” is a metaphor for a cause, but the cause is not the one you might think it is. Green is not about saving energy. It is not about conservation or living more efficiently by recycling. It’s not about electric cars or hydrogen power or solar panels.

Green is not about you. Green is about saving nature. From you. (PJM)

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has today published proposals to identify eight chemicals as Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC) and possible candidates for authorisation. The detailed proposals are available on the ECHA website using the link at the end of this press release. Interested parties are invited to comment on the eight proposals by 22 April 2010. (Press Release)

A pinch of methylmercury is just ducky for mallard reproduction, according to a new federal study. The findings are counterintuitive, since methylmercury is ordinarily a potent neurotoxic pollutant.

Over a two-month feeding trial, treated adults produced more offspring — and young that at least initially grew faster — than did mallards dining mercury free.

No one was more surprised at the data than Gary Heinz, who led the study for the U.S. Geological Survey at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Beltsville, Md. Especially since the new data fly in the face of a study he conducted three decades ago — also with mallards and diets that had been laced with the same concentration of mercury: half a part per mllion.

Writing in the March Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry, his team concedes its findings represent “an apparent case of hormesis.” That’s a poorly understood but well-recognized phenomenon whereby trace concentrations of a poison sometimes prove beneficial. (ScienceNews) | Enhanced reproduction in mallards fed a low level of methylmercury: An apparent case of hormesis (ET)

ST. LOUIS, March 10 // -- After plaintiffs' attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Monday in the Southern District of Illinois, Kurtis B. Reeg, attorney for defendant Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc., said another frivolous atrazine lawsuit only harms U.S. farmers.

"In these tough economic times, one may wonder why anyone – other than class action lawyers – would seek to destroy what EPA estimates is a $2 billion annual economic benefit to the nation, and all of the jobs that go with it," Reeg said. "This lawsuit has no merit because we know from EPA-mandated testing that no water systems since 2005 have exceeded the annual average guidance for atrazine. We intend to defend ourselves vigorously."

Atrazine is a widely-used herbicide in the U.S. and 60 countries around the world to help grow safe, affordable and abundant crops, including corn, sorghum, and sugar cane. EPA re-registered atrazine in 2006, stating it would cause no harm to the general population. (PRNewswire)

The smell of sea salt in the air is a romanticized feature of life along a seacoast. Wind and waves kick up spray, and bits of sodium chloride – common table salt – can permeate the air.

It is believed that as much as 10 billion metric tons of chloride enters the air mass through this process each year, but just a tiny fraction – perhaps one-third of 1 percent – does anything but fall back to the surface.

The bit of chloride lingering in the air can react with nitrogen oxides, formed when fuel is burned at high temperature, to form nitryl chloride, a forerunner of chlorine atoms, the most reactive form of chlorine. Those atoms can contribute to smog formation in coastal areas.

Now, in a surprise, researchers have found that this chemistry thought to be restricted to sea spray occurs at similar rates in air above Boulder, Colo., nearly 900 miles away from any ocean. What's more, local air quality measurements taken in a number of national parks across the United States imply similar conditions in or near other non-coastal metropolitan areas.

"It's there. We know it's there. But we don't have a good handle on where that chloride comes from," said Joel Thornton, a University of Washington associate professor of atmospheric sciences and lead author of a paper documenting the findings, published March 11 in Nature.

After sea spray, the largest global source of chlorides is coal burning, with biomass burning not far behind. Thornton said potential sources of chloride in the Boulder-Denver area include smoke from fireplaces, chemicals used on icy winter roads or even air drifting in from giant salt flats in Nevada and Utah, but there currently is no sure way to know the source. (University of Washington)

As a Toyota Prius with a stuck accelerator races down a California freeway, no one mourns the victims of the fuel economy standards imposed by Congress. Forced into smaller cars, thousands have died.

We can barely imagine the panic felt by James Sikes, 61, as his Toyota Prius accelerated uncontrollably while he drove down Interstate 8 in San Diego County. We can imagine the continuation of the grandstanding by the owners of "government motors" as they further browbeat a competitor of government-run GM and Chrysler.

We do not minimize the safety issues here that need to be addressed, but we feel a sense of perspective is sorely needed. Toyota has been accused of cutting corners in the name of profit. The Congress that now huffs and puffs in righteous indignation can be accused of increasing the carnage on the nation's highways in the name of saving gasoline. (IBD)

VIENNA - Motorists under the influence of drugs are a growing threat on U.S. roads, while the number who drink and drive has fallen thanks to education and law enforcement, a top U.S. drug control official said on Tuesday.

The United States is calling for discussions at United Nations level to tackle "drugged driving" and says it wants to collect data to gauge the scale of the problem among public sector drivers and commercial truckers.

"If you think about driving on an American road on a Friday or Saturday evening about 16 percent of the vehicles - one in six of the cars - (the driver) will be under the influence of an illicit or licit drug," Gil Kerlikowske, director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, said. (Reuters)

NEW YORK - Several studies have shown that smokers have a lower risk of developing Parkinson's disease. A new study shows that it's how many years of smoking a person has under their belt -- rather than how much they smoke every day -- that matters.

"Smoking is bad for you and no one should advocate smoking just for prevention of Parkinson's," Dr. Honglei Chen of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, one of the study's authors, emphasized in comments to Reuters Health. But the findings could help researchers who are trying to figure out the underlying cause of the disease, Chen added. "Ultimately it's going to take a multidisciplinary approach to understand this question." (Reuters Health)

BOSTON - U.S. regulators said on Wednesday they have found no link between oral bisphosphonate osteoporosis medications such as Merck & Co Inc's Fosamax and certain thigh bone fractures.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued its statement following the publication of case reports of atypical subtrochanteric femur fractures - or fractures in the bone just below the hip joint - in women with osteoporosis using oral bisphosphonates.

Bisphosphonates are a class of drug aimed at preventing bone fractures and offsetting bone loss associated with menopause.

They include Fosamax, Roche Holding AG's Boniva, Novartis AG's Reclast and Procter and Gamble Co's Actonel. (Reuters)

NEW YORK - A serious bout with a stomach bug can raise a child's risk of having irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) later on, new research shows.

People with IBS often have stomach pain, bloating, gas and altered bowel habits such as diarrhea and constipation. While the root cause of the condition isn't known, adults who have had stomach infections are known to be at greater risk. The relationship between these infections and IBS in children is not as clear. (Reuters Health)

Corporate America needs to track its use of energy and resources as closely as it does its hiring and cash flow if it wants to keep pace with social concern about climate change and other sustainability issues, an activist U.S. investor group argues in a new report.

Population growth and a rising standard of living across the world will bring opportunities -- but also risks of higher energy costs, scarcer water and other possible consequences of climate change, the Ceres coalition of socially concerned investors, companies and public interest groups said. (Reuters)

Remember the promise that green jobs would flourish in California? Well, here's the reality: The cost of going green is actually lost jobs.

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, Californians were told that their state would become a font of green jobs churned out by the growing green economy.

The law, a kind of mini-Kyoto Accord that requires the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, was supposed to create 120,000 new jobs by 2020, according to a state Air Resources Board estimate.

At the time of the signing, Schwarzenegger said the law was "unquestionably" good for businesses and the environment.

"Not only large, well-established businesses," he said, "but small businesses that will harness their entrepreneurial spirit to help us achieve our climate goals."

Three years later, he was saying the same things. (IBD)

The Policy Network has, very helpfully, partially updated the work we did on 18 July 2007 when we first discovered that the EU was paying environmental groups such as the Friends of the Earth Europe to lobby itself.

To that effect, we are offered report which analyses one programme of funding, in which DG Environment distributed over €66 million to environmental NGOs between 1998-2009.

Specifically, the report examines funds allocated to the so-called "Green 10" – a coalition of ten NGOs pushing for an "environmental" agenda in EU policy-making. It finds that nine out of the ten receive funds from the commission, eight receive one-third or more of their income from the commission, and five of those rely on the commission for more than half their funding.

We also learn that, from 1998 to 2009, there was a substantial increase in funds given by the Commission to environmental groups: from €2,337,924 (1998) to €8,749,940 (2009) – an average increase of 13 percent every year.

Details of some of the payments are given, and it transpires that in 2008, DG Environment provided the European Environmental Bureau with nearly €900,000, 52 percent of its income that year. Similarly in 2008. Friends of the Earth Europe received €790,020. This is compared with €635,000 (from all EU sources) in 2006.

From the EU register of lobbyists, we see that FoE Europe actually got money from DG Employment and Social Affairs, to the tune of €37,292, as well as €92,113 from DG Development.

FoE Europe also got finance from the German and Dutch ministries of environment, respectively €61,527 and €79,632, bringing its public sector income to €1,064,529 out of its total income of €2,143,893. Other donors included the Oak Foundation, which gave €330,274, and the James M Goldsmith Foundation which donated €55,811.

Bringing it up to date, we have an EU parliamentary answer which gave some of the 2009 figures. The WWF European Policy Office gets €661,878, Climate Action Network Europe gets €259,762 and FoE Europe gets €813,721. FoE also gets two grants totalling just under €94,000 for the EU's "Youth in Action" programme, one for a project on "building capacity for youth participation in Friends of the Earth Europe".

The authors of the Policy Network report, however, seems somewhat surprised to discover what we were calling two years ago a vast nexus of influence. Environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have enormous influence in the European Union, they write, then telling us that the primary function of EU funding for the Green 10, it appears, is to support self-justifying propaganda, rather than to promote the wider public good.

Yet, that is in fact only a part of it – a small part. The Commission staff working document of October 2008 could not make this clearer.

EU legislation, it tells us, itself acknowledges that NGOs "contribute to the development and implementation of Community environmental policy and legislation." Thus, it (the legislation), "provides for funding of operational activities of environmental NGOs that are primarily active in protecting and enhancing the environment at European level".

What, in effect, therefore, has happened is that the NGOs have become an arm of the state, contributing to "the development and implementation of Community environmental policy and legislation." They are part of our system of government, subsumed in much the same way that trades unions became part of the Soviet Union.

This, of course, goes back to the White Paper on European Governance of 27 July 2001, which specifically targeted "civil society" – of which NGOs are part – as a means of getting "more people and organisations involved in shaping and delivering EU policy." This built on an initiative started in December 1997 when payments to environmental NGOs were first authorised.

However, what is really interesting is a point not made by the Policy Network authors. They assert that the majority of Green 10 members now receive considerably more money from the Commission than in previous years, but the amount allocated to the NGO funding programme increased at its greatest rate in 2003 and 2004. After 2006 the total amount has only increased in line with inflation.

By contrast, some environmental NGOs have enjoyed a considerable increase in their incomes, far above the inflation rate, with FoE Europe enjoying an increase from €1,377,430 in 2006 to €2,143,893 in 2008.

Thus can be partly explained by the emergence of shadowy groups such as the European Climate Foundation, bringing a new line of money from outside the EU budget, aimed at helping "Europe play an even stronger international leadership role in mitigating climate change." Then there is the equally shadowy role of the giant charitable foundations, in the FoE's case, the Oak Foundation being a substantial donor.

This money is being used as what amounts to a force multiplier, adding to the EU's reach and extending its influence at no cost to itself. To some extent, therefore, this sinister nexus is even more worrying than the EU itself, which at least doffs its hat to the idea of accountability. Not so these organisations, which are spending money on influence and we have no idea as to its true origin.

Once again, we have "powerful vested interests" at work, and we are not even close to finding out who is really pulling the strings. (EU Referendum)

The people of Louisiana must sleep soundly knowing that their state protects them from ... unlicensed florists.

That's right. In Louisiana, you can't sell flower arrangements unless you have permission from the government. How do you get permission? You must pass a test that is graded by a board of florists who already have licenses. To prepare for the test, you might have to spend $2,000 on a special course. (John Stossel, Townhall)

As much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants and local United Nations staff members, according to a new Security Council report.

The report, which has not yet been made public but was shown to The New York Times by diplomats, outlines a host of problems so grave that it recommends that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon open an independent investigation into the World Food Program’s Somalia operations. It suggests that the program rebuild the food distribution system — which serves at least 2.5 million people and whose aid was worth about $485 million in 2009 — from scratch to break what it describes as a corrupt cartel of Somali distributors.

In addition to the diversion of food aid, regional Somali authorities are collaborating with pirates who hijack ships along the lawless coast, the report says, and Somali government ministers have auctioned off diplomatic visas for trips to Europe to the highest bidders, some of whom may have been pirates or insurgents.

Somali officials denied that the visa problem was widespread, and officials for the World Food Program said they had not yet seen the report but would investigate its conclusions once it was presented to the Security Council next Tuesday.

The report comes as Somalia’s transitional government is preparing for a major military offensive to retake the capital, Mogadishu, and combat an Islamist insurgency with connections to Al Qaeda.

The United States is providing military aid, as the United Nations tries to roll back two decades of anarchy in the country.

But it may be an uphill battle. According to the report, Somalia’s security forces “remain ineffective, disorganized and corrupt — a composite of independent militias loyal to senior government officials and military officers who profit from the business of war.” (NYT)

The idea that growing human numbers will destroy the planet is nonsense. But over-consumption will

Many of today’s most-respected thinkers, from Stephen Hawking to David Attenborough, argue that our efforts to fight climate change and other environmental perils will all fail unless we “do something” about population growth. In the Universe in a Nutshell, Hawking declares that, “in the last 200 years, population growth has become exponential… The world population doubles every forty years.”

But this is nonsense. For a start, there is no exponential growth. In fact, population growth is slowing. For more than three decades now, the average number of babies being born to women in most of the world has been in decline. Globally, women today have half as many babies as their mothers did, mostly out of choice. They are doing it for their own good, the good of their families, and, if it helps the planet too, then so much the better. (Fred Pearce, Prospect)

Sweeping changes could affect the United States' management of oceans, including offshore energy development.

With demands on US ocean resources control growing quickly, the Obama administration today outlined a new comprehensive ocean management plan [PDF] to guide federal agencies in restoring and protecting a badly stressed US coastal and ocean environment.

Today's policy shift proposed by the president's Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force holds enormous potential for sweeping changes in how the nation's oceans are managed, including energy development, experts say.

At its core, the plan would set up a new National Ocean Council to guide a holistic "ecosystem-based" approach intended to elevate and unify what has long been a piecemeal approach by US agencies toward ocean policy and development -- from oil and gas exploration to fisheries management to ship transportation to recreation. (CSM)

If passed, Bill C-300 would open up Canadian companies to attacks by those who believe mining should stop

‘Kill the Avatar bill!" That’s the cry at this week’s annual meeting of the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada in Toronto. Not quite in those words, mind you, but the private member’s bill in question, C-300, is based on the same lurid anti-capitalist, anti-mining fantasies that provided the psychic substructure for James Cameron’s mega-grossing but Oscar-short movie.

Activists last week bought an ad in Hollywood organ Variety to suggest analogies between oilsands development and the sci-fi epic’s tale of interplanetary resource rape and alien cultural genocide. So far, C-300’s supporters don’t seem to have followed that tack, but then perhaps that’s because they include the Catholic Church, which has condemned Avatar for its mystic eco-mumbo jumbo (I know. Pot. Kettle. Etc.)

This week, the PDAC opened a campaign to bombard MPs with letters opposing this potentially disastrous piece of legislation.

A survey by scientists found that the big chill of January led to a widespread die-off of corals in the Florida Keys.

January's big chill led to widespread death of corals in many near shore and mid-channel reefs from Biscayne Bay to Summerland Key, but most of the popular offshore diving and fishing reefs in the Florida Keys were spared.

A survey conducted at 78 sites throughout the Florida Reef tract from Martin County to the Keys also found that corals fared well north of Miami and in the Lower Keys west to the Dry Tortugas.

Analysis of the data collected by 31 scientists from 13 organizations has not been completed to determine the amount of coral damage throughout the island chain. But James Byrne of The Nature Conservancy said it is more severe than the die-off from South Florida's last cold-water event in 1977 that killed hundreds of acres of staghorn and elkhorn coral.

Microbiologist Kim Ritchie of Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota saw many casualties of the recent cold, including boulder-sized star and brain corals that she estimated were growing when Henry Flagler built Florida's overseas railroad a century ago.

``It's very sad,'' she said. (Miami Herald)

The RSPCA is investigating the sudden death of more than 100 starlings that witnesses claim simply fell from the sky and landed in a front garden.

Julie Knight, a nurse, returned home from a shift at Glastonbury hospital in Somerset to find her small lawn in Coxley littered with scores of dead and dying birds.

The RSPCA has so far failed to find a reason for the birds’ deaths. Disease, toxic chemicals, poison gas clouds and flying into a building or power lines are all considered unlikely or have been discounted.

The birds were close together when they died as most of the corpses fell within the 12ft diameter of Mrs Knight’s garden. Several were still alive and had to be put down when a vet arrived.

Mrs Knight was told by a neighbour that the flock “fell” from the sky at 4pm on Sunday, half an hour before she arrived home. She said: “One of my neighbours said they literally seemed to just fall out of the sky. About 70 were dead straight away.

“She said it was like something out of a horror film. It was absolutely terrifying. The sky was raining starlings.” RSPCA animal welfare officer Alison Sparkes was alerted by police and discovered that most of the birds had broken beaks, broken legs and wings and abdominal injuries consistent with impact, but were otherwise in a healthy condition. (The Times)

Slovenia will this year allow hunters to kill 75 brown bears and 12 wolves to limit the damage they do to crops and livestock and prevent numbers growing, the environment ministry said on Wednesday.

Slovenia, which has the highest density of brown bears in Europe, has seen the mammals moving closer to villages and cities in search of food.

"Our expert studies show that the population of wolves is on the rise while the population of bears would also be growing without this measure," Mladen Berginc, head of the sector for nature conservation policy, told Reuters.

Last year hunters killed 79 bears and 7 wolves, while damage caused by bears and wolves amounted to some 430,000 euros ($583,500), down from about 450,000 euros in 2008.

Euro zone member Slovenia has between 450 and 500 brown bears, among the highest population for any European country, while the number of wolves is estimated at 70 to 100.

"We want to keep both populations in steady numbers," Berginc said.

Last year a brown bear wandered into the capital Ljubljana. The police caught him and moved him to his natural environment but the same bear was later killed in Austria, close to the Slovenian border. (Reuters)

SCIENTISTS believe they have unlocked another clue that will help save the Tasmanian devil from extinction.

Some devils from the northwest of the state are genetically different from their peers and potentially resistant to cancer.

The discovery could mean the difference in the race to find a cure to the terrible facial tumour disease that threatens to wipe out the species, the University of Sydney's Kathy Belov said yesterday.

"The majority of devils in Tasmania are immunological clones and, therefore, susceptible to the disease," she said. "But this study has identified a group of devils that may be able to see the cancer cells as foreign and mount an immune response against them.

"We think more animals might survive in the wild than we initially thought."

The research opens the door to possibly breeding the more-resistant devils in captivity before releasing them into the wild. Scientists have given the iconic marsupial as little as 25 years as a species if efforts are not made to solve the riddle.

The population has dwindled by 70 per cent since the first reported case of devil facial tumour disease in 1996.

Professor Belov said the current breeding program should continue unchanged. ( Courier-Mail)

LUSAKA - Zambia is lobbying for support to sell its ivory stockpile to Japan and China and use the funds towards conservation, an industry official said on Tuesday.

The southern Africa country wants the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to approve its intended auction at its meeting that starts on March 13.

A nine-year ban on ivory sales was agreed in 2007 under CITES, but Tanzania and Zambia -- want to reclassify their elephant populations, as a first step to resuming the trade, a leaked letter from the 23 countries said last week.

The African countries oppose relaxing the ban on the ivory trade.

Francesca Chisangano-Zyambo, head of CITES in Zambia told Reuters the country needs to sell its 21 tonnes stockpile of ivory, partly because it was costly to maintain.

The ivory mainly consists of tusks from elephants that died of natural causes. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON - March 9 - The Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network (TIRN) today sued the Obama administration for illegally delaying protection of penguins under the Endangered Species Act. The Interior Department failed to meet its December 19, 2009 deadline to list seven penguin species at risk of extinction due to climate change and commercial fisheries. These penguins will not receive desperately needed Endangered Species Act protections until Interior finalizes the listings.

“While sea ice melts and oceans warm, the Obama administration is stuck like a deer in the headlights. Instead of saving penguins from the leviathan of global warming while it still can,” said Catherine Kilduff, a Center attorney, “our government is dragging its feet.” (Press Release)

The prize-winning American novelist talks about why it's weird to eat meat, his move from fiction to journalism, and why eliminating ignorance will lead to more vegetarianism (Prospect)

Green members of the European parliament stood en masse and held up placards Tuesday in protest against the EU Commission approval of the cultivation of genetically modified potatoes.

The deputies help up placards that read "For a GMO free Europe" as one of their number, Rebecca Harms, berated European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso for last week's decision.

German MEP Harms called it a "risky strategy that will not find support" among EU citizens.

"There is no reason to authorise this GMO potato, we don't need it," she said in the protest during question-time in the parliament.

Barroso congratulated the Greens for their "enthusiasm".

"You have a position very strongly against GMOs, that is your right," he said, sometimes shouting over the howls of protest.

He said he had "no prejudice in favour or against GMOs" and merely took advice on their safety from the European Food Safety Agency.

The commission last week approved the cultivation of the Amflora potato, developed by German chemical giant BASF, for industrial use in paper making but not for human consumption.

Modified vegetables and cereals, so-called "Frankenfoods", have long been a matter of fierce debate in Europe.

Some genetically modified products have been approved for sale in Europe but before the BASF potato only MON 810, a strain of genetically modified maize made by Monsanto, had been authorised for cultivation. (The Independent)

I recently appeared on the Patt Morrison Show in southern California opposite Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence in a segment that begs the question of what gun control laws will look like if the Supreme Court incorporates the Second Amendment with the McDonald v. Chicago case. The audio of the program is here, but the issue merits a more detailed discussion than I could get into on the radio.

The litigation over the boundaries of the Second Amendment in the District of Columbia previews the kinds of gun laws that will face court scrutiny.

First, certain restrictions on the purchase of firearms will likely be overturned. California maintains a “safe gun roster” of handguns that manufacturers have successfully submitted for safety testing. Following the Heller decision, the District adopted California’s roster. The roster is very specific, and handgun models are certified “safe” right down to the color. The District rejected applications to register two-tone guns, discontinued models, and guns not on the California roster. Three plaintiffs filed suit, alleging that this policy violated constitutional protections against irrational administrative regulations. The District relented, expanding its roster to include the “safe handguns” listings for Maryland and Massachusetts.

California courts are likely to reach similar conclusions. The Calguns Foundation has a plaintiff who wants to register a Glock handgun. The state has certified the right-handed but not the ambidextrous version, and the Calguns plaintiff was born without a right arm below the elbow. This compelling case, along with others parallel to the DC plaintiffs, will force California to open up its roster.

Second, jurisdictions will be forced to allow some form of handgun carry, either open or concealed. Outright bans on concealed carry cited in cases from the mid-1800’s come from a time when it was assumed that only brigands carried handguns concealed, and it was an unquestioned right of the people to carry arms openly wherever they went. States and localities will not be able to delete the right to bear arms from the right to keep and bear arms.

My colleague Tom Palmer is currently litigating this issue in the District of Columbia (complaint here), and states will have to confront the plain text of the Second Amendment and clear historical recognition of a right to be armed outside the home. (David Rittgers, Cato @ liberty)

Amid a pitched battle over her agency's planned climate regulations, U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said environmental regulators are losing a public relations war to industry lobbyists.

"The people in my line of work have not done the best job in communicating our side of the debate. We've lost the messaging war," Jackson said yesterday at the National Press Club.

The statement comes as Jackson faces bipartisan efforts in both chambers of Congress to either curtail or eliminate her agency's authority to tackle climate change. Industry groups and several states have also lined up legal challenges to EPA's ruling that greenhouse gases should be regulated pollutants. (Jessica Leber, E&E News)

Closed-door talks extended to both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue yesterday as President Obama, key senators and industry officials searched for an elusive agreement on comprehensive energy and climate change legislation.

At the White House, Obama implored 14 Democrats and Republicans to reach consensus before the end of this year on a bill that puts a first-ever price on carbon emissions, rather than settle for the energy-only approach favored by some moderates.

Back on Capitol Hill, the three senators at the center of the legislative effort presented their broad ideas to some of the country's largest trade associations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Petroleum Institute and the American Farm Bureau.

The rush of activity underscored the last-ditch push to produce a draft Senate bill before the spring recess that begins March 26.

"We're on a very short fuse," said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a lead author of the bill with Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), while talking with reporters on the White House driveway. "We're moving very rapidly. ... We're now down to dealing with specific language and negotiating with various interested parties."

Those talks occupied 70 minutes of Obama's time as eight Democrats and six Republicans went around the Cabinet Room describing their demands. Obama opened the meeting by insisting the Senate stick to his plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions, and in return pledged to make concessions on oil and gas drilling and nuclear power. (Greenwire)

As the Senate ponders a new path to a climate bill, lawmakers who sweated over the House cap-and-trade legislation aren’t happy.

In early March, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) dropped some surprising news: The effort to tackle global warming via a cap-and-trade scheme is officially "dead." Graham, John Kerry (D-Mass.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) will soon release details of an alternative plan for a bill to curb carbon emissions, which is expected to cobble together policy proposals from various lawmakers in the hopes of picking up a filibuster-proof 60 supporters. So, where does that leave the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation that squeaked through the House last summer by a single vote after months of convoluted dealmaking? No one really knows—and some House Democrats are none too happy about the Senate's change of direction.

For almost a decade, cap and trade has been viewed as the approach with the best shot of making it into law. The idea is that the government imposes a cap on polluters, and those companies who emit too much can buy permits from companies that produce less than their limit. Nearly a year ago, Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) introduced legislation to the House that sought to enact such a system. Months of torturous negotiations followed, in which major energy interests scrambled to grab a piece of the pie. (Mother Jones)

The recent Securities and Exchange Commission "interpretive guidance" on climate change says companies should disclose not only potential risks from climate change, but also risks from climate-related legislation, regulation, international accords and effects on business trends.

Socially responsible companies will seize the opportunity to educate citizens, protect the interests of investors, employees and customers, and safeguard the well-being of communities they serve. Here are some of the questions they should be examining: (Paul Driessen, IBD)

ABC chairman Maurice Newman has attacked the media for being too willing to accept the conventional wisdom on climate change.

In a speech to senior ABC staff on Wednesday morning, Mr Newman said climate change was an example of "group think".

He says contrary views on climate change have not been tolerated and those who express them have been labelled and mocked.

"It's really been the question of what is wisdom and consensus rather than listening perhaps to other points of view that may be sceptical," he said. (Australian Broadcasting Corp.)

Today the Chairman of “our ABC” (it’s paid for by Australian taxpayers) said the unthinkable.

It’s not that he said man-made global warming was a scam, and he didn’t announce that carbon wasn’t a pollutant; he just asked for journalists to listen to other points of view.

In a speech to senior ABC staff, he said that climate change was an example of “group-think”, and that they should listen perhaps “to other points of view that may be sceptical.”

Christine Milne of the Australian Greens responded, and in the true spirit of an open democracy and a free press, urged ABC journalists to ignore him. Fully 40% of Australians might be sceptical,* but Christine Milne wants to make sure that information that aligns with their opinions is not represented by our national government-funded broadcaster. Like Clive Hamilton, she hides in the dark… don’t let them speak. Where is the compassion and tolerance the Greens claim to defend? We’ll defend you if you agree with us, but if you come from a different culture (one that respects data more than “doctorates” and logic over bluster), we’ll use every tool at our disposal to suppress you. More » (Jo Nova)

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Mar 9 - Climate change science has come under full-scale attack in a last-ditch effort to delay or prevent action by the U.S. government against global warming, experts warn.

U.S. Senator James Inhofe, Republican from Oklahoma and climate change denier, in late February released a list of leading climate scientists he wants prosecuted as criminals for misleading the government. Those scientists are receiving hate mail and death threats.

”I have hundreds” of threatening emails, Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University in California, told Tierramérica.

He believes scientists will be killed over this. ”I'm not going to let it worry me... but you know it's going to happen,” said Schneider, one of the most respected climate scientists in the world. ”They shoot abortion doctors here.”

This backlash against the evidence of climate change and the scientists themselves is not just a U.S. phenomenon. It is happening in Canada, Australia, Britain, and, to a lesser extent, in other European countries.

On the surface, this campaign is about a few errors in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 2,800-page report released in 2007 and some 10-year-old personal emails stolen from Britain's University of East Anglia.

But deeper down, this is the last big effort by the fossil fuel industry to delay action on fighting climate change, just as the tobacco industry successfully delayed understanding of the harmful effects of smoking for several decades, says Schneider.

”We're up against the multi-billion-dollar fossil fuel industry and the haters of government. They spin and spin and cast doubt on the credibility of science,” he said.

The media are an accomplice in this, he said, because they have failed to put wild claims into context and continue to interview people like Inhofe and others who have no evidence or credibility on these issues.

”I'm pretty damn angry that media companies are putting profits ahead of truth. The media are deeply broken... That's a real threat to democracy,” Schneider said. (Stephen Leahy, IPS)

The climate science community is beginning to push back in the face of concerted attacks on the integrity of climate science. In a recent interview with science writer Chris Mooney, one of the most frequently attacked researchers—Penn State University climatologist Michael Mann—defended the fundamental scientific evidence on human-caused climate change and addressed issues of the ‘Climategate’ e-mail controversy. He pulled no punches in characterizing the problem of the global warming disinformation campaign and the dilemma with which it confronts the science community. See Details for partial transcript and links. (Climate Science Watch)

New emails from James Hansen and Reto Ruedy (download PDF here) show that NASA's temperature data was doubted within NASA itself, and was not independent of CRU's embattled data, as has been claimed.
March 10, 2010
- by Charlie Martin

Email messages obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute via a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) climate dataset was considered — by the top climate scientists within NASA itself — to be inferior to the data maintained by the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU).

The NASA scientists also felt that NASA GISS data was inferior to the National Climate Data Center Global Historical Climate Network (NCDC GHCN) database.

These emails, obtained by Christopher Horner, also show that the NASA GISS dataset was not independent of CRU data.

Further, all of this information regarding the accuracy and independence of NASA GISS data was directly communicated to a reporter from USA Today in August, 2007.

The reporter never published it. (Charlie Martin, PJM)

The head of the United Nations (UN) has announced a review of how the world examines the risk of global warming following a series of scandals around the science of climate change. (Louise Gray, TDT)

UN chief Ban Ki Moon has announced what the media is calling a "mistakes review" but is actually a review of IPCC procedures prior to the Fifth Assessment Report.

The review is going to be performed by an umbrella body for national science academies, which frankly doesn't inspire much confidence and it will be interesting to see just how independent the panel turns out to be. A sixth independent-but-entirely-free-of-sceptics review might cause eyebrows to be raised, I would say.

The "hockey stick" temperature graph is a mainstay of global warming science. A new book tells of one man's efforts to dismantle it—and deserves to win prizes

Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion is one of the best science books in years. It exposes in delicious detail, datum by datum, how a great scientific mistake of immense political weight was perpetrated, defended and camouflaged by a scientific establishment that should now be red with shame. It is a book about principal components, data mining and confidence intervals—subjects that have never before been made thrilling. It is the biography of a graph. (Matt Ridley, Prospect)

These are notes of a lecture given by Prof Tim Palmer on some of the fundamentals of weather prediction. The notes were taken by Simon Anthony. This is well worth a read, and I'm certainly struck by how little we know about how to forecast the climate.

If we can't forecast next month's weather, what hope for predicting climate 100 years from now?

Lecture at Dept of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford by Professor Tim Palmer, Royal Society Professor at Oxford, previously at European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts.

[In contrast to simplistic fixed view of climate change preferred by journalists and politicians, TP adopts more traditional scientific view: create and develop models, make predictions, compare predictions with actual measurements, revise/replace models, try to understand models’ limitations. He seems happy to talk about uncertainties. That said, he did sign the Met Office “Statement from the UK Science Community”… http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6950783.ece . Taken together with his final suggestion of the need for a “CERN for Climate”, I’d say he seems like a good scientist who believes in the importance of his science, trying to argue the best case for that science but not necessarily too concerned about “collateral damage”.]

Why ask this question?

Following Climategate, Glaciergate and the repeated failure of Met Office’s seasonal forecasts, this is a question the public and commentators often ask rhetorically to argue that long-term climate predictions must be nothing more than guesswork.

This post is Part IV of Richard Tol's look at the IPCC AR4 WGIII. The first three posts looked at Chapter 11. Part I is here. Part II is here. Part III is here. This installment looks at Chapter 3.

Richard Tol is a research professor at ESRI in Ireland, one of the top 175 economists in the world and a contributor to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where his work is widely cited. In this guest post, the fourth of a series, Richard takes a look at parts of the IPCC AR4 Working Group III, which has largely escaped scrutiny in recent months. In this Part IV he concludes that a peer reviewed paper,

Big business is now free to blitz the airwaves to attack politicians who support action against climate change, which could smother messages from environmentalists.

But it is not yet clear whether corporations have the will or the budgets to use the advertising weapon the climate change wars that emerged in January when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the same right as individuals to free political speech, including spending on advertising.

The decision could affect every issue and every political race in this congressional election year, but those pushing for a federal law to limit greenhouse gas emissions say it will hit them harder because business interests have much more money to spend on these campaigns. (Reuters)

These are times straight out of Alice in Wonderland, as everything becomes an “un-birthday” and definitions are turned on their head. Climate change scientists, according to The Washington Times this last weekend, are turning to PR, rather than data, to defend their work. Then there’s Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, who yesterday continued to make patently false job-creation claims to sell the administration’s radical environmental agenda. His timing was unerringly bad, as his statements came on heels of further evidence that two front-runners—California and Europe—are discovering that their “green” policies are producing more red (ink) and less green(backs).

It is not very often that scientists need to resort to crisis communications, but we’ll take it as further confirmation that the whole world of global warming has hit a crisis point. Among the strategies being considered figure taking out a back-page ad in the New York Times. What is of more than passing interest is the defensiveness with which these scientists have met criticism. One of them groused to the Times that climate scientists were facing nothing less than “well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules.”

Developing countries are expected to be most severely affected by the impacts of climate change, in terms of physical impacts such as increased severity of droughts and floods and in terms of potential adverse effects of policy measures taken by developed countries to mitigate climate change, such as renewable energy and carbon trading policies. The task of factoring these implications into development co-operation poses new problems for the development co-operation agenda.

The Copenhagen outcome results in practical consequences which have to be incorporated into ongoing international politics of climate change. At the start of 2010, the international climate process, the EU and the world are all at different cross-roads. The direction of development strategies and projects will have a profound outcome on the success of dealing with climate change. (European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes)

According to the Government-appointed Klima21 forum, Norwegian climate research needs a boost of NOK 1 billion by 2015, and the prime minister should establish a scientific advisory board on climate to facilitate dialogue between politicians and researchers. (Research Council of Norway)

China's top climate negotiator said on Wednesday that the cause of global warming was still not clear but the problems it was creating were so serious that the world must anyway act to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Xie Zhenhua, vice-chairman of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, also warned the United States it should not use domestic divisions over climate change as an excuse to pass its responsibilities off onto other countries.

"There are still two different viewpoints in the scientific field about the cause of warming," Xie told a news conference on the sidelines of the annual session of China's largely rubber-stamp parliament.

"At present, many people, or the most mainstream view, is that the combustion of large amounts of fossil fuel over the process of industrialization caused an increase in greenhouse gases, which caused climate warming."

"Another point of view holds that the main reason is changes in sunspots, or natural changes in the environment. There is an even more extreme point of view, that human influence on changes in nature can only be miniscule," he added. (Reuters)

Measures like the clean energy tax demonstrate India’s commitment to vigorous domestic action. As Prime Minister Singh emphasized during TERI’s 10th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit, India “fully support[s]” the Copenhagen Accord.” (NRDC)

THE Rudd government ramped up the environmental benefits of its botched $2.45 billion home insulation scheme by grossly overstating the cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that could be achieved by households, expert independent analysis says. (The Australian)

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has just published an op-ed of mine on the implications of proposed emissions reduction policies on the decarbonization of Australia's economy. Here is an excerpt:

OSLO - A dimming of the sun to match conditions in the "Little Ice Age" of the 17th century would only slightly slow global warming, a study indicated on Wednesday.

A weakening of solar activity in recent years, linked to fewer sunspots, would cut at most 0.3 degree Celsius (0.5 F) from a projected rise in temperatures by 2100 if it becomes a long-lasting "Grand Minimum" of brightness, they said.

"The notion that we are heading for a new Little Ice Age if the sun actually entered a Grand Minimum is wrong," Georg Feulner, lead author of the study at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said in a statement.

World temperatures are likely to rise by between 3.7 and 4.5 degrees Celsius by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions keep building up -- far more than the impact of known shifts in solar output, the study showed. (Reuters)

The golden toad of Costa Rica was declared extinct in 1994, five years after it was last sighted in the wild. The unfortunate toad's was the first extinction to be blamed on anthropogenic global warming and it has often been cited as an example of things to come if mankind doesn't change its CO₂ spewing ways. But humanity's conviction of toadacide was premature and based on circumstantial evidence. After years of study scientists have a new finding: humans were not at fault after all.

A new online report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences identifies El Niño, which caused an unusually severe dry season at about the time the golden toad was wiped out, as the proximate cause for the toad's demise. Not that those who dearly wish to blame the extinction on global warming are rushing to accept the new conclusion. As reported in a news article in Science, here is the conventional wisdom regarding the fate of the golden toad:

The new research was done by Columbia University climate scientist Kevin Anchukaitis and University of Maryland paleoclimatologist Michael Evans. They took samples from two trees in the region and then sliced the samples just 200 microns thick—about the width of a human hair. The slices were then analyzed in a mass spectrometer to measure the oxygen isotopes they contained. Isotope ratios associated with dry conditions alternated with wetter conditions, allowing the researchers to establish a history of the annual moisture cycle in the toad's habitat. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)

IPCC changed viewpoint on the MWP in 2001 – did this have effect on scientific results?

A brief check indicates a “warm MWP-consensus” before IPCC published the Mann hockey stick graph in 2001. But after 2001, results on MWP seems to approach the IPCC viewpoint.

In April 2009 I collected a series of results concerning Holocene, Historic and recent temperatures for an article on WattsUpWithThat.

Here I found approximately 54 datasets (almost 100% peer reviewed results) that I used for analyzing the claimed difference on MWP on the Northern vs. the Southern hemisphere. I also used the 54 datasets to see if the tree ring method has an impact on MWP results.

It is often debated how IPCC changed its viewpoint concerning the Medieval Warm Period in 2001. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

This is an update to my previous post describing a new technique for estimating the average amount of urban heat island (UHI) warming accompanying an increase in population density. The analysis is based upon 4x per day temperature observations in the NOAA International Surface Hourly (ISH) dataset, and on 1 km population density data for the year 2000.

I’m providing a couple of charts with new results, below. The first chart shows the global yearly average warming-vs-population density increase from each year from 2000 to 2009. They all show clear evidence of UHI warming, even for small population density increases at very low population density. A population density of only 100 persons per sq. km exhibits average warming of about 0.8 deg. C compared to a nearby unpopulated temperature monitoring location.

In this analysis, the number of independent temperature monitoring stations having at least 1 neighboring station with a lower population density within 150 km of it, increased from 2,183 in 2000, to 4,290 in 2009…an increase by a factor of 2 in ten years. The number of all resulting station pairs increased from 9,832 in 2000 to 30,761 in 2009, an increase of 3X.

The next chart shows how the results for the U.S. differ from non-US stations. In order to beat down the noise for the US-only results, I included all ten years (2000 thru 2009) in the analysis. The US results are obviously different from the non-US stations, with much less warming with an increase in population density, and even evidence of an actual slight cooling for the lowest population categories.

The cooling signal appeared in 5 of the 10 years, not all of them, a fact I am mentioning just in case someone asks whether it existed in all 10 years. I don’t know the reason for this, but I suspect that a little thought from Anthony Watts, Joe D’Aleo & others will help figure it out.

John Christy has agreed to co-author a paper on this new technique, since he has some experience publishing in this area of research (UHI & land use change effects on thermometer data) than me. We have not yet decided what journal to submit to. (Roy W. Spencer)

President Barack Obama's top environmental adviser urged the natural gas industry on Tuesday to disclose the chemicals it uses in drilling, warning that the development of massive U.S. shale gas reserves could be held back otherwise.

Joseph Aldy, special assistant to the president for energy and the environment, said concerns about water contamination from drilling chemicals could lead to states requiring disclosure and that could deter additional investment.

"You can't leave this in the status quo if you think we are going to have significant shale gas development in the United States," Aldy told Reuters after a natural gas conference.

Some energy companies decline to publish lists of toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, a technique used to extract natural gas from shale beds far underground. (Reuters)

The natural gas shale boom in North America has more than doubled discovered gas resources and can supply more than a century of consumption at current rates, an IHS CERA study released Wednesday said.

"As recently at 2007 it was widely thought that natural gas was in tight supply and the U.S. was going to become an importer of gas," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS CERA. "But this outlook has been turned on its head by the shale gale."

Shale gas is not new, but technology like hydraulic fracturing to release it from thick rock far underground has vastly improved producers' ability to tap it. Production involves injecting water and sand under high pressure into the rock to fracture it to release the gas. (Reuters)

To mitigate against future Russian-Ukrainian gas crises and as part of a broader recovery package, the EC will offer $3.1 billion in support for energy linkups (EU Observer)

WASHINGTON — Congressional proposals to limit carbon dioxide and encourage technology to capture greenhouse gases could be a boon for both the environment and domestic oil producers, energy analysts said Wednesday.

House-passed climate change legislation would put new limits on carbon dioxide emissions nationwide, making it financially attractive to capture the gas. Senators are considering adding proposals to promote the rapid deployment of carbon capture and storage technology.

Captured C02 could then be used to glean residual oil from developed reservoirs nationwide and potentially boost U.S. oil production as much as 3.6 million barrels daily, according to a report released Wednesday by the energy research firm Advanced Resources International. (Houston Chronicle)

Spring is approaching, and gasoline prices are once again climbing. But you may not know that this ritual of climbing prices happens almost every year about this time. If you check the history of gasoline prices at the Energy Information Administration's (EIA) website you can see that gasoline prices almost always rise between January and May. [Read More] (Robert Rapier, Energy Tribune)

In a finding that may speed efforts to conserve oil and intensify the search for alternative fuel sources, scientists in Kuwait predict that world conventional crude oil production will peak in 2014 — almost a decade earlier than some other predictions. Their study is in ACS' Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly journal.

Ibrahim Nashawi and colleagues point out that rapid growth in global oil consumption has sparked a growing interest in predicting "peak oil" — the point where oil production reaches a maximum and then declines. Scientists have developed several models to forecast this point, and some put the date at 2020 or later. One of the most famous forecast models, called the Hubbert model, accurately predicted that oil production would peak in the United States in 1970. The model has since gained in popularity and has been used to forecast oil production worldwide. However, recent studies show that the model is insufficient to account for more complex oil production cycles of some countries. Those cycles can be heavily influenced by technology changes, politics, and other factors, the scientists say.

The new study describe development of a new version of the Hubbert model that accounts for these individual production trends to provide a more realistic and accurate oil production forecast. Using the new model, the scientists evaluated the oil production trends of 47 major oil-producing countries, which supply most of the world's conventional crude oil. They estimated that worldwide conventional crude oil production will peak in 2014, years earlier than anticipated. The scientists also showed that the world's oil reserves are being depleted at a rate of 2.1 percent a year. The new model could help inform energy-related decisions and public policy debate, they suggest. (ACS) | DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT ARTICLE http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/ef901240p

All interconnected transmission and distribution (T&D) grids have one thing in common. Their operators must continually dispatch generators to keep the network’s supply and demand in balance at all times and to maintain its voltage and frequency within very tight tolerances.

The “simultaneity problem” is not shared by oil or natural gas or coal. It is a tough reality for electricity that Thomas Edison and countless inventors since him have tried to solve via affordable battery storage.

So where are we today in terms of cost per kWh to use batteries to store power and, in the case of intermittent technologies, firm power? For utility scale battery systems, expect to pay between $1,000/kW and $4,000/kW, according to the Electricity Storage Association. The DOE’s optimistic assessment estimates those costs will drop to around $500/kW by 2012.

There are about a dozen technologies vying for a piece of the utility-scale energy storage market, especially advanced battery technologies such as lithium ion and sodium sulfur batteries, pumped hydro, and compressed air energy storage. In this post, we’ll review the state-of-the-art of battery technology, a few interesting projects, and get a glimpse of the next generation of utility-scale batteries.

You should also note the few U.S. projects over the past few years and the large number number of battery technology companies chasing those projects. Several companies have since left the battery market or redefined their products. Little data on installed costs is available but included when available. Expect a major market shake-out over the next year or two.

The ongoing dissolution of the traditional electricity sector structure also seems to call for increased reliance on big batteries wherever feasible. One consequence of deregulation is that, in many states, generation and T&D are no longer planned in an integrated fashion by one entity—the local utility. Energy storage in general, and batteries in particular, can help stabilize the intermittent nature of nondispatchable renewable energy sources, for load leveling and peak shaving, substation standby power, or as fast acting reserves for system regulation control (ancillary services). Storage also has a critical role to play in securing the nation’s energy infrastructure, much as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve does for oil, and bulk gas storage does for balancing seasonal natural gas demand and supply. [Read more →] (MasterResource)

For many years, few metals drew bigger yawns from mining executives than lithium, a lightweight element long associated mostly with mood-stabilizing drugs.

Suddenly, the yawns are being replaced by eurekas. As awareness spreads that lithium is a crucial ingredient for hybrid and electric cars, a global hunt is under way for new supplies of the metal.

Toyota Tsusho, the material supplier for the big Japanese automaker, announced a joint venture in January with the Australian miner Orocobre to develop a $100 million lithium project in Argentina. That deal came only days after Magna International, the Canadian car parts company that is helping develop a battery-powered version of the Ford Focus, announced that it was investing $10 million in a small Canadian lithium firm that also has projects in Argentina.

They were the latest in a series of deals and projects announced over the last year, reflecting a new urgency among companies to assure themselves future supplies of the metal.

“There is a sea change under way,” James D. Calaway, the chairman of Orocobre, said. “We are at the front end potentially of a very significant increase in the demand for lithium for the emerging electric transportation sector.”

Mr. Calaway added, however, that the timing of any increase in lithium supply and demand was difficult to predict in large part because electric cars had yet to take off in any big way.

About 60 mining companies have begun feasibility studies in Argentina, Serbia and Nevada that could lead to more than $1 billion in new lithium projects in the next several years, while dozens of smaller projects are being proposed in China, Finland, Mexico and Canada.

The companies are competing for construction financing, and the future of most of the projects will depend on how popular electric cars eventually become. That is an open question since batteries remain expensive, recharging stations need to be developed, and consumer taste for cars that depend on regular stops at electric outlets remains untested.

“It’s moving so fast,” said Edward R. Anderson, president of TRU Group, a consultancy firm that specializes in the lithium industry. “There are a lot of people throwing money into this, and a lot of people are going to lose their money.” (NYT)

That eerie hissing you hear may well be the air beginning to seep out of the green energy bubble. The sound is similar to the pfffffft and sshhhhsssssp noises we heard in the early days of the dot.com bubble collapse or the subprime mortgage meltdown. If you can’t hear it, you are not alone.

While investment analysts are telling their clients to get out of solar power firms and warning about the continuing risks in wind and bioenergy schemes, Ottawa and the provinces are on a mad populist stampede to throw billions of dollars at the green energy monster. The politicians don’t seem to be keeping up with the trends. “Don’t try to catch a falling knife,” warned J.P. Morgan this week in a report that told investors the market continues to fall out of the solar panel module market.

Recognising a bargain when they see it, the investment firm Low Carbon Accelerator (LCA) has invested £500,000 in wind and solar power project developer Vigor Renewables in order to cash-in on UK feed-in tariffs (FITs).

Vigor, we are told, is a new company formed to take advantage of changes to UK FITs, which aims to partner with land-owners, as well as commercial property owners and managers, to build and operate renewable power generating assets across the UK.

Each of the solar and wind energy sites they build will be designed to qualify for the FITs which come into effect in the UK on 1 April 2010 and "guarantee an inflation linked income for sub-5MW renewable energy projects." For solar projects, the incentives are available for 25 years and for wind 20 years.

In an unfortunate turn of phrase, Vigor managing director Oliver Hughes says the FIT has created a "wealth of opportunity" for renewable energy developers in the UK. "We are pleased that LCA, as a pioneer in clean-tech investment, has recognised this opportunity and the return potential for investors and for property and land-owners," Hughes said.

So it starts ... the pigs rush to the trough, scooping up the cash by the handfuls. They would be mad not to do so. The government has devised an utterly mad system designed to put £8.6 billon a year into the kitty, available for anyone able to afford the initial investment. AND THE REST OF US PAY.

This one, like so many, has crept in under the radar, a perverted, distorted reverse Robin Hood scheme where the poor are robbed to give to the rich. And even with today's debauched currency, £8 billion plus A YEAR is a lot of money – you could build four aircraft carriers a year with that, every year.

This is money which is going to be siphoned out of our pockets, all to produce electricity in one of the least efficient and most expensive ways known to man. On our backs, will arise a vast, bloated "green" industry, milking the poor and the less-well-off, just to pay homage to a mad obsession. In Zimbabwe, runaway inflation produced scenes such as the one shown. If you see something similar in Britain, you are looking at a solar energy developer.

AND IT IS OUR MONEY. (EU Referendum)

Moonbat's spat over feed-in tariffs continues with a repost from his nemesis, Jeremy Leggett, defender of the solar industry.

For once, though, we are completely on Moonbat's side. Only now is the enormity of the government's proposal beginning to sink in, with its intention to have a full two percent of UK electricity supplied from micro-generation by 2020. This will largely be delivered by solar panels, the most profitable option for small installations.

Actually, solar panels are one of the least cost-effective ways of producing electricity, costing £4,000-6,000 per kilowatt of installed capacity. Without massive government support, payback times (with interest) could be a hundred years or more to recoup the typical installation costs of between £3,000 and £20,000. Given that the devices have a maximum lifetime of 30 years, that would never have happened.

However, from 1 April, the government is offering 41.3p per kWh produced – a supposed "feed-in" tariff although it is paid even if the owner uses all the electricity produced. From this, it estimates that a typical 2.5kW well sited installation could earn £900 a year and save £140 a year on the electricity not used – the subsidies calculated to give a 5-8 percent return on investment.

The income from the electricity sales is not taxed so, for a higher bracket taxpayer – who would have to pay for the electricity out of earned income, the payback time can be reduced to as little as 15 years. By 2020, however, the government estimates that the subsidy – paid by electricity users – will be costing £8.6 billion annually. Since only the better off will be able to afford the installation costs, this amounts to a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to those fortunate enough to be able to buy the equipment.

To get to this state, the number of installations, currently approximately 100,000 and, up from an estimated 82,000 at the end of 2004, will need to increase to something like 7-10 million. And, as a rough estimate, the capital cost could be in the region of £100 billion – for two percent of our electricity production – with which we could buy 100 percent of our requirement in the form of brand new nuclear power stations.

It is this capital expenditure which will be defrayed by the feed-in tariff, replacing a composite scheme which included installation grants.

There was an inkling of how profitable solar was becoming last year when Guardian journalist Ashley Seager spent £8,500 on solar roof panels (having got a 50 percent grant for a system that cost £17,500) and claimed the experience to be financially rewarding.

That was before the government's feed-in tariff came into force and, when it does the owners will be able to sell all the electricity they produce at 41.3p per kWh, even if they use it all themselves.

Just how insane this really is can be seen from a similar scheme introduced in Germany in 2004 – with a 57.4 euro cent/kWh subsidy for domestic users. This pushed solar power capacity to about 9GW, delivering about 1.35 GW, or about one percent of total German production - including some massive industrial installations, which get a slightly lower subsidy rate.

But the cost has been massive. German electricity consumers last year paid more than £10 billion in subsidies, forcing chancellor Merkel to cut the tariff by 15 percent this month, with more cuts in the pipeline.

With the UK feed-in tariff – and other tax incentives – solar panels are now a good investment for anyone who can afford them, which means that there will almost certainly be a massive uptake. The government may well reach its 2020 target of two percent but the rest of us will be paying dearly for the privilege.

Even allowing for a low end installation cost of £4,000 per kW installed, the load capacity of domestic panels in the UK rarely exceeds 10 percent. This means that the 2GW needed by 2020 to make up 2 percent of our electrical production would still cost in the region of £80 billion. At this rate, no wonder Merkel finds the subsidies unaffordable. And yet, David Cameron wants not 2 but 15 percent, jacking up capital costs to a potential £600 billion.

If the current scheme is already insane, what the Tories are proposing is a multiple of insanity. And we can afford neither. (EU Referendum)

Dale Klein, Commissioner and former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) challenged the premise on which President Obama based his move to withdraw the application to permit the geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. At a conference in Bethesda, Maryland yesterday Commissioner Klein emphasized that it was politics, not science, which led to this decision. Klein said,

Supporters of tort reform — and late-night comedians — like to make fun of what they say are frivolous lawsuits. One they particularly like to lampoon is the case of the woman who sued McDonald’s after she was scalded by too-hot coffee. What they don’t talk much about is just how hot the coffee was or that the 79-year-old woman was hospitalized with severe injuries. The two sides ultimately settled.

Now another patron has sued McDonald’s after his lips were burned when he bit into an extremely hot fried-chicken sandwich. A federal appeals court, ruling out of Virginia, has rightly decided to let his case go forward. (NYT)

Collaboration, or working in groups, is a favorite pedagogical strategy of hung-over graduate teaching assistants, soviet indoctrinators, educators with advanced degrees, and social studies teachers too dumb to do anything else.

Unfortunately, by what I saw at the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) conference here in Atlanta, most social studies teachers are either wicked indoctrinators or too dumb to know that they are carrying out the wishes of the Dr. Evils in education, i.e., those with Ed.D.s who are administrators, curriculum devisers, and education professors.

Teachers seem to love “group work.” It gives them a sense of power over children and allows them to catch up on Facebook or their nails.

I have college students coming to class expecting to spend class time sitting in little groups to discuss their “feelings.”

Today, students don’t expect to learn—especially from a teacher or professor. (Mary Grabar, Townhall)

Extremely hazardous substances (EHSs) can be released accidentally as a result of chemical spills, industrial explosions, and other accidents, or intentionally through terrorist activities. Workers and residents in communities surrounding industrial facilities where EHSs are manufactured, used, or stored and in communities along the nation's railways and highways are potentially at risk of being exposed to airborne EHSs during accidental or intentional releases.

To help understand the risk involved with EHSs, the National Advisory Committee (NAC) on Acute Exposure Guideline Levels for Hazardous Substances developed Acute Exposure Guideline Levels (AEGLs) for approximately 200 EHSs.

The present volume is the seventeenth interim report evaluating the AEGLs (NAP) | Download free pdf

Stormwater runoff is the main source of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon pollutants to the NY/NJ Harbor.

MADISON, WI, MARCH 8, 2010--Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are components of petroleum products such as gasoline, coal, and oil. They are also produced as by-products of the combustion of fuels including petroleum and fire wood. PAHs can cause cancer and other health effects. Because they are produced during combustion, they are ubiquitous, and their levels are high enough to be a concern in all urban waterways. However, because there are so many potential sources of PAHs in the environment, it is not clear which of these sources are most responsible for the contamination in the water. Knowing what the major sources are would help states formulate more effective strategies to control them. (American Society of Agronomy)

Abraham Lincoln once asked an audience how many legs a dog has, if you called the tail a leg? When the audience said "five," Lincoln corrected them, saying that the answer was four. "The fact that you call a tail a leg does not make it a leg."

That same principle applies today. The fact that politicians call something a "stimulus" does not make it a stimulus. The fact that they call something a "jobs bill" does not mean there will be more jobs.

What have been the actual consequences of all the hundreds of billions of dollars that the government has spent? The idea behind the spending is that it will cause investors to invest, lenders to lend and employers to employ. (Thomas Sowell, Townhall)

Here’s my problem with NBC political correspondent Chuck Todd’s blast against “Drudge driven journalism:” the alternative that Todd attempts to defend isn’t actually journalism. If Chuck Todd’s network and the rest of the MSM really had been practicing journalism all along, there would never have been a vacuum for people like Matt Drudge, Andrew Breitbart, etc. to fill.

Many people would like to define the term “journalism” as the unbiased dissemination of information, but it’s never been that. For a very long time publications made no secret of their political points of view. Historically, America had Whig newspapers, Republican newspapers and Democratic newspapers. All of them spun the news in a particular direction and readers knew it. The situation has not changed, except that the legacy media desperately and unconvincingly clings to the notion that it is detached from any ideology and therefore the sole arbiter of truth. No matter where they fall on the the political spectrum, Americans know better. That’s the reason the Drudge Report, Breitbart’s “Big” sites and, to put a point on it, liberal outlets like Huff Po and the Daily Kos thrive. (Rich Trzupek, Big Journalism)

CHICAGO - Inoculating children against flu protects more people of all ages in the larger community, probably because young people tend to spread viruses through physical play, Canadian researchers said on Tuesday.

Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario found there were 61 percent fewer flu cases in isolated communities where children and adolescents received the seasonal influenza vaccine, compared to communities where children received an unrelated vaccine.

Targeting children with a vaccine could protect the wider population, researcher Mark Loeb and colleagues concluded in their report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Influenza struck 2,326 unvaccinated participants in the 46 religious Hutterite communities in western Canada that were chosen for study because they have limited outside contacts.

In communities where roughly four out of five children aged 3 to 15 were vaccinated, 3.1 percent of the people got the flu compared to a 7.6 percent infection rate in communities where no one was vaccinated against flu.

This demonstrated the widely-accepted concept of "herd immunity" - that vaccination programs can still be effective even if not everyone is vaccinated - which could have public health implications, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (Reuters)

I'm talking about food-borne illnesses. For some reason, everyone is still quoting from a report that came out more than ten years ago, and included these delightful findings:

The smart money says that based on increased globalization of the food supply, the current numbers are probably far worse. Just as disturbing is that the methods food companies use to screen for microbes have not really changed in the past 100 years.

Which brings us to San Clemente, CA based Micro Identification Technologies Inc., a company that gets the job done utilizing the well-established principle of light scattering.

Two distinct advantages of this method are the very quick identification time (less than 10 minutes), and the low cost ($0.10 per test). 23 species can now be identified with this technique. An upcoming improvement in the system, according to John Ricardi—the company's executive vice president and chief operating officer—is a single-click facility for immediately identifying Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli.

Irving's plans to demolish Texas Stadium – and let macaroni and cheese maker Kraft Foods sponsor the event – touched off a debate Monday on America's childhood obesity epidemic.

A national medical nonprofit group criticized the city for its deal with Kraft, saying the April 11 implosion shouldn't be used to market cheese products.

"I don't think it's appropriate for the city of Irving to lock arms with them and promote unhealthful foods, especially to children," said Susan Levin, director of nutritional education for Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

The group offered $75,000 for Irving to drop Kraft and instead use the implosion to highlight childhood obesity. As part of the agreement approved in December, Kraft will give $75,000 in sponsorship fees for Irving to distribute to local charities. The company will also provide $75,000 worth of food to area food banks.

Mayor Herbert Gears said the city is happy with its arrangement with Kraft. He said it didn't make sense to use the implosion to highlight childhood obesity. Gears said the medical nonprofit should give its proposed $75,000 cash donation to existing childhood obesity programs in the city. ( Dallas Morning News)

PHILADELPHIA – Obese patients with colon cancer are at greater risk for death or recurrent disease compared to those who are within a normal weight range, according to a report in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

"Obesity has long been established as a risk factor for cancer, but our study in colon cancer patients shows that obesity predicts a poorer prognosis after the cancer is surgically removed," said Frank A. Sinicrope, M.D., professor of medicine and oncology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

There are approximately 150,000 new cases of colon cancer diagnosed each year in the United States, and colon cancer tends to affect men and women equally, said James Abbruzzese, M.D., chairman of the Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and an editorial board member of Clinical Cancer Research.

"More studies are now demonstrating that obesity plays a role as an independent risk factor for poorer patient prognosis that is unrelated to stroke or heart disease," said Abbruzzese. (American Association for Cancer Research)

The collection of symptoms that is the metabolic syndrome—insulin resistance, high cholesterol, fatty liver, and a greater risk for diabetes, heart disease, and stroke—are all related to obesity, but, according to a review in the March 9th issue of the Cell Press publication Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism, not in the way you probably think they are.

In fact, says Roger Unger of the University of Texas Southwestern at Dallas, obesity is the body's way of storing lipids where they belong, in fat tissue, in an effort to protect our other organs from lipids' toxic effects. It's when the surplus of calories coming in gets to be too much for our fat tissue to handle that those lipids wind up in other places they shouldn't be, and the cascade of symptoms known as metabolic syndrome sets in.

It comes down to simple facts that all of us know on some level or another: Americans since the 1950s eat too much high-calorie food loaded with carbs and fat (what Unger calls "potent adipogenic nutrient mixtures") and, thanks to modern technology, we move far too little. Until that changes, Unger doesn't see any end to the growing epidemic of metabolic syndrome. Still, our metabolisms aren't broken; the pathways that squirrel fat away as an energy source for use in lean times are just completely overwhelmed. "We are pushing our homeostatic capability to the maximum," says Unger, who coined the term "lipotoxicity" in 1994. "Overnutrition used to be rare—reserved for those in the castle. Today, it's just the opposite. Bad calories are so cheap that anyone can afford to get overweight."

Unger cites plenty of evidence in support of a protective role for obesity. Genetic manipulations in mice that increase or decrease fat formation have provided evidence that adipogenesis, meaning the generation of fat cells, delays other metabolic consequences of overeating. The reverse is also true, he writes. Obesity-resistant mice have in some cases been found to develop severe diabetes upon eating too much, as a result of lipid accumulation in tissues other than fat. (Cell Press)

For years, we've heard that Americans are getting fatter. Two-thirds of adults are now classified as either overweight or obese, and we don't know how to reduce that number. Standard "treatments"—nutritional advice, exhortations to visit the gym, products from a $60 billion weight-loss industry—don't do much good over the long term, and more ambitious plans, like soda taxes and menu-labeling laws, might not work, either.

Faced with these disheartening facts, health officials have realized it's time for a new strategy. In an effort to win the war on obesity—the spoils of which include an estimated tens or hundreds of thousands of lives per year, and billions of dollars in health care savings—they've shifted their target. Leave the adults alone; aim for the children. ( Daniel Engber, Slate)

Childhood obesity continues to spread in the U.S. and elsewhere. A new study finds excessive snacking is the main culprit.

One in three children in the United States is overweight or obese. A new study shows that some obese children as young as three have early warning signs for heart disease. Other studies show that obese children are more likely to stay obese as adults.

The study also says American children eat an average of three snacks a day on top of three regular meals, and the snacks account for almost one third of their daily calories. (VOA News)

Seldom does one idea help fix two important problems, but a proposal to tax sugary soft drinks in New York State is just that sort of 2-for-1 solution. The penny-per-ounce tax on sodas and other sweetened drinks is a way to raise desperately needed money for the city and state in a bad economy. It also could help lower obesity rates, which have soared in recent years.

The Legislature in Albany should adopt this tax quickly. (NYT)

Washington continues to focus on health care, but more recently some prominent political figures have narrowed in on the health-care issue of obesity. While it may seem like the topic du jour, obesity has long been a national obsession. Weight-loss reality shows are hit programs on network and cable television. Trashy pop culture rags regularly feature pictures of pin thin actresses on their covers accompanying the hurtful headline “packing on the pounds.” Numerous infomercials tout miracle exercise routines and equipment and diet products crowd grocery store shelves, proving that Americans are already plenty concerned about fat. Now Washington is embracing the anti-fat obsession. Unfortunately, the solutions politicians are pushing are no more likely to work than are the diet pills sold on the back pages of magazines. Instead of shrinking waistlines, these efforts are more likely to shrink Americans’ wallets and grow government. (Julie Gunlock, Townhall)

"Stop messing with Texas!" That was the message Gov. Rick Perry bellowed on election night as he celebrated his victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary for governor. In his reference to Texas' anti-littering slogan, Perry was making a point applicable to national as well as Texas politics and addressed to Democratic politicians as well as Republicans.

His point was that the big government policies of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders are resented and fiercely opposed not just because of their dire fiscal effects but also as an intrusion on voters' independence and ability to make decisions for themselves.

No one would include Perry on a list of serious presidential candidates, including himself, even in the flush of victory. But in his 10 years as governor, the longest in the state's history, Texas has been teaching some lessons to which the rest of the nation should pay heed. (Michael Barone, Townhall)

Maryland officials have agreed to make developer-friendly changes in a law that requires new building projects to reduce the pollution that rain washes off their roofs and parking lots.

The changes -- which provide a loophole for some incomplete projects -- are the result of a compromise between environmental groups, developers and local government officials. The deal, brokered by state legislators, appeared to head off attempts in Annapolis to weaken the rules even further.

The battle over storm-water pollution opens a potentially critical year for the Chesapeake Bay. In Washington and in state capitals, ambitious plans to overhaul the cleanup of the estuary already have met strong objections about their costs to governments and the region's economy. (Washington Post)

Two billion people worldwide do their cooking on open fires, producing sooty pollution that shortens millions of lives and exacerbates global warming. If widely adopted, a new generation of inexpensive, durable cook stoves could go a long way toward alleviating this problem. (Jon R. Luoma, e360)

Perhaps nowhere are we surrounded by more environmental claims than in the modern supermarket. Going “green” is popular these days, and now products brandish more labels, certifications and claims than ever.

According to a report released last April by TerraChoice, an environmental marketing firm, the in-store availability of “green” products increased between 40 percent and 176 percent between 2007 and 2009, with 98 percent of products surveyed making misleading claims, a practice known as “greenwashing.” (GoO)

Have you ever wondered why the eco-lobby is so pro-EU? Now you have your answer. Green pressure groups are becoming financially dependent on Brussels. Ten years ago, they received €2,337,924 from the European Commission; last year, it was €8,749,940.

A study by the International Policy Network reveals the extent to which Green lobbyists look to the EU for their income: Climate Action Network, Friends of the Earth, WWF, they’re all at it. Much of this money, the paper shows, is then recycled into lobbying the EU.

You see how the system works? The EU pays eco-lobbyists to tell it what it wants to hear. Its clients, naturally enough, tell it that the EU ought to increase its powers. A similar racket goes on between Brussels and the mega-charities (see here).

This isn’t just bad for democracy; it’s bad for the environment, because it equates conservation with state intervention and supranationalism. One of these Brussels-funded organisations recently produced a league of which MEPs were greenest. I like to think that I am pretty eco-conscious. I try never to fly or drive when trains are an option; Mrs H sources food locally, and reuses and recycles meticulously; we even had washable nappies for our children. But I came near the bottom of the table because I had voted consistently against giving more power to Brussels.

At least one benefit has resulted from the worst winter to grip the Highlands in decades. Billions of midges have frozen to death hibernating in the ground, according to the world’s leading expert on the biting beastie.

The news will be greeted with joy by the country’s tourist operators. The Scottish tourism industry is estimated to lose about £300 million a year in badly bitten vistors who swear never to return after being breakfasted upon by the voracious and swarming insects.

This winter, however, when at places such as at Altnaharra, in Sutherland — a midge hot spot — temperatures have plunged to as low as -22.3C, “billions” of the blood-sucking insects have frozen to death in the ground, according to Alison Blackwell, of Edinburgh University’s Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine, who is a leading authority on the Highland midge.

Indeed, so comprehensive is the big freeze that it is believed that the coming summer may be one of the best, midge-quiet Scottish summers on record. Better still, the harsh winter has followed last year’s record low recordings at the 15 official midge traps around the country. The cool spring of 2009, followed by a spell of hot summer weather and backed-up by strong winds at key hatching times helped to beat down numbers of the biting insect. (The Times)

Humans rather than magpies are killing Britain's songbirds, according to a new study.

Species like yellowhammer and bullfinch have seen numbers drop by around half in the last 40 years. There has also been a decline in song thrushes, blackbirds and house sparrows.

At the same time birds and mammals that prey on the eggs of others have seen numbers soar, prompting conservationists to call for a cull of magpies, grey squirrels and other predators.

However the first large scale study of the relationship between predators and songbirds found that in fact a higher number of animals further up the food chain means a healthy population overall.

For the majority of species there is no evidence of a link between predators and songbird decline, although this may be an issue on a local level.

The study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology ends a long standing row over whether to cull magpies and other corvids in order to protect song birds.

The collection of more than 2,000 observations by volunteers around the country found no evidence for 22 species of songbird that numbers declined as predators increased over the last ten years.

Dr Stuart Newson, a Senior Research Ecologist at the British Trust for Ornithology, said the decline in songbirds could be being driven by more human factors like woodland management, changing farming practices and urbanisation. (Louise Gray, TDT) [em added]

The world’s animals and plants are being killed off by humans faster than new ones can evolve, for the first time since dinosaurs became extinct, experts have warned.

Despite hope that nature was fighting back, it appeared that the global wipeout of species was accelerating, they said.

Speaking ahead of two next week on the state of British and European wildlife, Simon Stuart, from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, admitted that the rate of extinction had not slowed.

Previously research has shown that world was currently in the midst of a "sixth great extinction" of species, which was being driven by natural habitat destruction, hunting, increasing number of alien predators, disease and climate change.

Some conservationists had hoped that rate of loss had been stemmed by the natural evolution of species.

But on Monday Mr Stuart, chairman of IUCN's species survival commission, admitted that point had now "almost certainly" been crossed. (Andrew Hough, TDT)

Wild elephants rampaged through a southern village in Angola last weekend, destroying farms and dozens of houses and prompting most of its 4,000 residents to flee to neighboring Namibia, a local official said Tuesday.

No one was killed in what the Mucusso village's local administrator said was "a fight between man and beast," just eight years after Angola's three-decade long civil war almost wiped out all of the African nation's wildlife.

"The situation in Mucusso is worrying. What we are witnessing is a conflict between the population and the animals," said Manuel Jamba in comments broadcast on Radio Nacional de Angola.

"The population is doing all it can to survive."

He said the wild elephants had come from Botswana, one of the world's premier wildlife viewing destinations, and urged the Angolan government to contain animals returning to the war-torn nation.

The civil war's impact on Angola's elephant population was so devastating that it now relies on South Africa to restock its elephant population in some of its once-thriving national parks.

More than 100,000 elephants, thousands of rhinoceros and buffalo are thought to have been killed during clashes between Angola government troops and rebels from the main opposition Unita party during a 27-year war that ended in 2002.

Animals not killed by landmines or military fire fell prey to poachers or locals villagers trying to stave off starvation. Even the country's national symbol, the Giant Black Sable antelope, almost became extinct in what is considered to be one of the biggest wildlife slaughters of the past century.

"The final solution to this conflict between man and beast would be to have the government implement some mechanisms to end this situation. To contain these animals in parks," said Jamba. (Reuters)

There several different fish swim around in the waters around Greenland, than researchers previously assumed. The whole 57 species have come to in a recount.

Increased fishing in deep water and rising sea temperatures are probably the cause of that Greenland can welcome a new strip of fish.

Since the last census in 1992 are all 57 species appeared. It shows a new survey carried out by fish curator Peter Rask Møller of the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen, in cooperation with Danish and Greenlandic scientists.

We are cautious to announce that many new species due to climate change, but there are about five new species, which appear likely to have come because of increased temperatures. These are the salmon herring, whiting, Rosefishes, monkfish and Snipe - all species which also occur in Danish waters, "said Peter Rask Moller said in a statement.

The 57 new species of Greenland are "new" in different ways. The 47 species are known species worldwide, but is new in Greenland waters. In contrast, 10 species completely new and not previously described by science. (Berlingske Tidende)

Canada's Conservative government says it will fight the EU ban, which was imposed last July on the grounds that the annual seal hunt off the east coast was cruel and inhumane.

A dish of double-smoked bacon-wrapped seal loin in a port reduction will be on the menu on Wednesday, the office of Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette said on Monday.

"All political parties will have the opportunity to demonstrate to the international community the solidarity of the Canadian Parliament behind those who earn a living from the seal hunt," she said in a statement.

Ottawa says the hunt -- which takes place in March and April -- provides valuable income for Atlantic fishing communities. The seals are either shot or hit over the head with a spiked club called a hakapik.

An aide to Hervieux-Payette said that, depending on supplies, seal meat could be available once a week when in season. (Reuters)

Two teams of experts test the ATF's assertion that the seized toys can be converted into automatic weapons. (Read Part One of this three-part series here.)

It is quite a stretch for U.S. Customs inspectors at the Port of Tacoma to declare that they recently intercepted machine guns, especially when the devices they confiscated were two models of a well-known brand of high-end Airsoft toys. To make such a claim, Customs relied upon a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) determination that these toys could have parts replaced or modified to turn it into a weapon capable of firing real bullets in automatic mode.

Both Airsoft Outlet Northwest (the retailer/importer the Airsoft guns were seized from) and AirSplat (the nation’s largest Airsoft retailer) stock and have experience with the various configurations of the WE Tech Airsoft gas blowback systems, and both claim to have had experts attempt see how these toys could possibly be converted into functioning firearms. Airsoft Outlet Northwest took a previously delivered (without incident) WE Tech to a gunsmith that specializes in the AR platform. The gunsmith determined the following: (Bob Owens, PJM)

That’s the topic of this week’s National Journal energy blog. In my contribution, I argue that EPA has been playing a mischievous game that endangers democracy, and that Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s legislation to veto the agency’s endangerment finding would remove this threat.

In a Feb. 22 letter to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson warns that enactment of the Murkowski legislation would scuttle the joint EPA/National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) greenhouse gas/fuel economy rulemaking, which in turn would compel the struggling auto industry to operate under a “patchwork quilt” of state-level fuel-economy regulations.

Ms. Jackson neglects to mention that the patchwork threat exists only because she, reversing Bush EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson’s decision, granted California a waiver to implement its own GHG/fuel economy program. Had Jackson reaffirmed Johnson’s denial, there would be no danger…

President Barack Obama inserted himself into Senate efforts to pass a climate change bill on Tuesday, gathering Republican and Democratic lawmakers at the White House to jumpstart efforts to overhaul U.S. energy policy.

Obama called the meeting with influential senators and members of his cabinet to reinvigorate one of his top domestic and foreign policy priorities, which advisers admit has suffered from the president's focus on healthcare reform. (Reuters)

The White House hosted a meeting Tuesday with 14 key senators, many from coal- and oil-producing states, who oppose curbs on carbon emissions. Obama appears to be making a big push to win Senate passage of revamped climate-energy legislation. (CSM)

Like a savvy Madison Avenue advertising team, senators pushing climate-control legislation have decided to scrap the name "cap and trade" and rebrand their product as "pollution reduction targets."

A clunky and difficult term to define for laymen and some politicians, "cap and trade" had become dirty words on Capitol Hill in recent months.

Republicans called the plan nothing more than "cap and tax" and one influential senator took great pains last week to declare cap and trade "dead."

Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent trying to draft a bipartisan bill, said, "We don't use that term anymore."

Instead Lieberman said, laughing: "We will have pollution reduction targets." (Reuters)

Reporting from Washington - It wasn't long ago that Marco Rubio and Tim Pawlenty -- two rising Republican stars -- supported legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions. But in recent weeks, both have begun to express doubts about whether cars, factories and power plants have anything to do with global warming.

The shift by Rubio and Pawlenty -- as well as other prominent Republicans -- reflects the rising power of climate change skeptics in the GOP, where global warming is becoming a litmus test for conservatives. (Jim Tankersley, LA Times)

The Department of Energy's scientific conclusions were instigated — even dictated — by Big Wind's lobbyists and leftists. Read here for the timeline and the key figures involved. (Click here to read the emails and the FOIA request.)

Emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the Obama Department of Energy is using the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) — the lobbying arm of “Big Wind” in the U.S. — to coordinate political responses with two strongly ideological activist groups: the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and the George Soros funded Center for American Progress (CAP).

This is further proof that Obama has betrayed his promise to ban lobbyists. Further, this incident suggests yet another questionable appointment — Cathy Zoi, assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy at the DoE, injected politics into public policy. Cathy Zoi also happens to be the former CEO of Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection.

This incident began when an economic paper published by a Spanish university concluded that Spain’s “green jobs” program has cost the country about $800,000 and 2.2 jobs per each job created. Spain’s program had been cited eight times by the Obama administration as being the model for its vision of a U.S. “green jobs” program.

The emails expose active coordination between the Obama administration, the DoE and its National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the AWEA. These emails show the Obama DoE using the AWEA as a conduit to both the CAP and the UCS, and taking steps to ensure that aspects of its coordination were not committed to paper (or email) because the emails might be revealed later.

The emails reveal three principal issues in the 900 pages received so far. (“So far,” because the Competitive Enterprise Institute is appealing NREL’s withholding of many more pages, and reviewing the DoE’s recent production to see if those withholdings should be challenged.) (Christopher Horner, PJM)

In the few short months since its launch last November, the GWPF has already been able to make a considerable impact on the climate debate. As a result of growing interest and support, the GWPF can announce today that it is expanding its Academic Advisory Council with the addition of seven eminent scientists and economists from Europe, North America and Asia. This brings the total membership of the Council to 22. (GWPF)

The United Nations is to announce an independent review of errors made by its climate change advisory body in an attempt to restore its credibility.

A team of the world’s leading scientists will investigate the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and ask why its supposedly rigorous procedures failed to detect at least three serious overstatements of the risk from global warming.

The review will be overseen by the InterAcademy Council, whose members are drawn from the world’s leading national science academies, including Britain’s Royal Society, the United States National Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The review will be led by Robbert Dijkgraaf, co-chairman of the Interacademy Council and president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He has been asked to investigate the internal processes of the IPCC and will not consider the overarching question of whether it was right to claim that human activities were very likely to be causing global warming.

The review, which will be announced in New York by Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary General, and Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, is expected to recommend stricter checking of sources and much more careful wording to reflect the uncertainties in many areas of climate science. (The Times)

Robyn Williams is Australia’s science communication guru in the sense that he’s one of the few in our country who’s been making a living at it with a regular radio program (or two) for decades. He’s been doing this so long he was proclaimed a National Living Treasure, and that was twenty three years ago.

He’s been passionately defending science for years, sharing curious points, and explaining how things work, and yet in the upside down world we live in in 2010–after all these years, he and (nearly everyone else in our profession) have lost sight of the most important things in science and have somehow ended up defending science-the-bureaucracy, instead of science-the-philosophy.

It sounds like I’m splitting hairs, but instead, I’m exposing a grievous flaw. For science-the-bureaucracy is not science at all, it’s just another cluster of committees run by six or ten people, who discuss articles published in niche magazines owned by mega-conglomerate financial houses which are ultimately controlled by a few editors, and who print articles reviewed by a couple of anonymous busy and unpaid people. Occasionally a really big committee forms to issue a really long report, but in the end, the few pages that everything else hinges on is only assessed by 4 dozen names, most of whom are reviewing their own work, and most of whom collect grants that would be smaller if they … discovered less of a crisis.

Meanwhile giant banking corporations have already factored in billion dollar profits from the “science”, and thousands upon thousands of concerned citizens have been coached into thinking that if they insult the scientists who disagree then they are somehow “helping the planet”.

Who better to expose all this than the few people who understand the science, who know how the process of science ought to work, and who don’t have a major vested interest in the outcome? This is exactly what science communicators ought to be doing. There is no more appropriate specialty to interview scientists on both sides of the story, to see who makes sense, to ask hard questions of both teams and point out the flaws in the reports. Instead science communicators take the side of the mediocre committees, the scientists with the well-paid and high-status positions, the power hungry bureaucracies, and the calculating world of high finance. Then these same science communicators throw insults at the unpaid whistleblower scientists. Ouch. More » (Jo Nova)

The ICO's office has issued a response to an FoI request enquiring about the legal status of the six-month statute of limitations that is apparently preventing them from prosecuting anyone at UEA over breaches of the FoI Act. Alongside their statement, the ICO has also released a lot of their correspondence on the matter, including an interesting exchange with Jonathan Leake of the Sunday Times over the legal niceties. The ICO certainly seems pretty convinced that prosecution under the FoI Act is indeed time barred. This, for example, seems to be an internal email on the subject:

Sad news: George Monbiot, the high priest of the AGW cult, is feeling frustrated and depressed. He is oppressed by the realisation that, as the politicians phrase it, he is not getting his message across. And this blog, at least in a small way, bears some part of the responsibility. From his pontifical throne in the Vatican of global warming – The Guardian – he has issued an anathema. Quoting from a recent anti-AGW scam posting by me, he observes: “The attack on climate scientists is now widening to an all-out war on science.”

Don’t get carried away, George. It is only an all-out war on bogus science, such as the global warming superstition you champion. The good guys can carry on inventing antibiotics and curing diseases with our whole-hearted support. It is the con men who have taken Al Gore’s shilling that we distrust and despise. Monbiot even has some insight into this. Of the perception of scientists as sinister schemers he concedes: “Sometimes this isn’t far from the truth.” (Gerald Warner, TDT)

News has just reached me that the great Professor Ian Plimer, scourge of climate-fear-promoters everywhere, has been suddenly disinvited by the Royal Society of Artists (RSA) from a lecture he was due to give in May before an audience including the Duke of Edinburgh. (James Delingpole)

Many of the self-appointed defenders of science are in fact asking science for the impossible. Consider this expectation from Peter Preston, writing in the Guardian:

For those really wanting to support the scientific community, I would suggest that asking scientists to be the leaders of a political campaign for action on climate change is certainly not the right way to go about it. I'd further venture that looking for prophets in the scientific community to convince unbelievers is distinctly unhelpful. (Roger Pielke Jr)

This week, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South Africa’s tourism minister, was nominated to head the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC). Van Schalkwyk is a former apartheid operative who bartered his way into the black majority government by helping it smear its democratic opposition. He is a statist bureaucrat who is one of the most unpopular political figures in the new South Africa. He is just right for the job.

There is no one better to put in charge of the entire political enterprise of climate change as it is collapsing amidst failed negotiations and accusations of fraud. Van Schalkwyk will be sure to hasten the end. He did the same when he took over the rump of South Africa’s National Party, the party of apartheid, and led it to crushing defeat. He gave up and joined the African National Congress (ANC) government in return for his ministry.

Europe's new climate chief sought to reinvigorate international climate talks on Tuesday, laying out a strategy for the EU to lead the world by example.

With talks blocked by inaction in the United States, the global economic crisis and mounting skepticism over climate science, Connie Hedegaard said the EU would demonstrate how to meet its green goals while creating jobs and boosting economies.

"The EU must continue to take leadership," she told the European Parliament. "The most convincing way Europe can do so is by taking tangible and determined action domestically to become the most climate-friendly region in the world." (Reuters)

One baulks slightly at the dire Connie Hedegaard, EU commissioner on climate change, being called a "climate chief", although that rather puts her in the same league as Rajendra Pachauri – and that hasn't done him a great deal of good.

Anyhow, said "chief", according to the Financial Times and sundry others, is playing down the prospects of it brokering a new, all embracing climate treaty at the global conference this December in Mexico. Given the general incompetence of the EU in everything it touches, it is comforting to see this institution recognising its own limitations, although the obduracy of India and China might have something to do with the pessimism.

Hedegaard is being remarkably candid on this issue – not that she has much choice. "To get every detail set in the next nine months looks very difficult," she said. "Europe would love that to happen, and I would love that to happen . ... but my feeling is that it is going to be very difficult to get a treaty."

Her pessimism is shared by the outgoing Yvo de Boer, but far more important is German chancellor Angela Merkel. Wholly in tune with the mood music, she too is downplaying the prospects. But she is actually going further, expressing doubts that a new deal can be made in time to replace Kyoto by the time it runs out in 2012.

With Obama's "cap 'n' fade" running into problems and the Aussies having little local difficulties with their attempts to commit economic suicide, things are not looking too good for the warmists. However, their Lemming-like tendencies are not to be under-rated and they may yet pull something out of the bag ... even if the occasional one is wearing a lifebelt. (Richard North, EU Referendum)

China and India formally endorse the last-minute climate agreement struck at the Copenhagen summit

The head of the Chinese delegation, Xie Zhenhua, (standing left) and the Indian environment minister, Jairam Ramesh (seated) during an inter-governmental preparatory meeting at the Copenhagen summit. Photograph: Martin Argles

China and India wrote to the UN's climate secretariat today agreeing to be "listed" as a parties to the Copenhagen accord, the last-minute agreement that emerged from the chaos of the UN's summit in Copenhagen.

The action falls short of full "association" and highlights the gulf between the US – the strongest backer of the accord – and the other key nations on how to deliver a global deal to combat climate change.

Since Copenhagen, there has been confusion over how a legally binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved. All observers, including the UN's top climate official, Yvo de Boer, are now clear that no such deal will be signed in 2010, with a meeting in South Africa in December 2011 now seen as the earliest date. (Damian Carrington, John Vidal and David Adam, The Guardian)

In a previous post I mentioned that the IPCC's claim of reduced tourism due to wildfires (section 14.2.7 of WGII) didn't match their source. They claimed there were millions of dollars in tourism losses, but their source did not make that claim. One of the reasons the claim was false was explained in their own source, a British Columbia Tourism newsletter. It said:

Had the IPCC read this, they would have not used it as their source for the claim of lost tourism revenue. I don't know if they read the source at all, but perhaps if they did they simply overlooked this important point. Shouldn't we give them the benefit of the doubt?

No. Because this particular issue was brought up in the review. Not once, not twice, but three times. From the Second Order Draft, Expert reviewers comment E-14-255 (page 42): (Climate Quotes)

Hans von Storch has posted up a letter from Martin Parry, the largely silent former-chair of IPCC AR4 WGII, to WGII authors on the various errors and sloppiness found in the report that he led. In short, Parry finds that there is not much wrong in the report:

This statement, as readers here will know is highly misleading. Prior to Parry writing this letter, IPCC Lead Author Robert Muir-Wood explained that he thought that the IPCC should not have included a misleading graph showing a relationship between rising temperatures and disaster losses. One hopes that the attitude displayed by Parry reflects the IPCC of the past and not its future. (Roger Pielke Jr)

(Mar. 9, 2010) The recently observed reduction in air pollution implies that more solar radiation reaches the Earth’s surface. This could lead to a far more rapid increase in the Earth’s temperature in the coming decades than has previously been expected based on calculations of CO2 emissions

In order to successfully combat global warming, it is crucial that scientists incorporate both effects — reductions in air pollution and increases in CO2 emissions — in the calculations. These are the claims of econometricians Jan Magnus, Bertrand Melenberg, and Chris Muris from Tilburg University based on unique solar radiation data collected from weather stations between 1959 and 2002. Their calculations show that in order to prevent an increase in global temperatures of more than two degrees we will have to reduce CO2 emissions by an additional 50 million tonnes to compensate for the increased solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface.

Everyone is familiar with the effect of CO2 emissions on the Earth’s temperature: the greenhouse effect. Less well known is the effect of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface, and its development over time. Besides solar fluctuations, the amount of radiation is also affected by small particles called aerosols. The more aerosols are present in the atmosphere, the less solar radiation reaches the Earth. Large quantities of aerosols actually help to cool down the Earth and to temper (‘dim’) the greenhouse effect. Without this reduction in solar radiation, the Earth’s temperature would have increased by an additional one degree during the last fifty years. (ScienceDaily)

Unfortunately, the econometricians concerned didn't read the instructions on the tin before use. Most amusing.

Land of fruits and nuts... California to amend 'cool cars' rule - Police warn new window glazing standards may block cell phone, electronic tether signals

Washington -- California's "cool cars" rules -- facing new criticism from the state's police chiefs, sheriffs and crime victims advocates -- will be amended in the coming weeks before a final version is issued, the state's top regulator said.

The state, which gave initial approval of the new rules in June, aims to sharply reduce solar energy in vehicles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The California Air Resources Board is working to finalize the regulations in the coming weeks. The final rules must be in place by May 7.

But the California Police Chiefs Association, California State Sheriffs Association, Crime Victims United of California and other groups warn that the new standards, requiring window glazing to keep car interiors cool, could degrade signals from cell phones, and from ankle monitoring bracelets worn by felons.

The chiefs, along with associations representing police officers and narcotics officers, "have grave concerns" about the "cool cars" rules, especially that the glazing could degrade signals from the ankle bracelets in rural or mountainous areas.

"The 'cool car' technology threatens to undermine an already imperfect monitoring tool," the chiefs said in a recent letter, warning that the state is likely to release many more felons because of prison overcrowding.

The sheriffs said the possible impact on 911 calls in some remote areas is a "significant risk to the safety of the caller." They urged CARB take more time and flexibility in phasing in the requirements "to consider alternative solutions to reflective glazing."

These are only the latest concerns. California toll booth collectors worry that the technology may make it impossible to use "EZ pass" systems and the cell phone industry believes glazing will hurt signals.

Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols acknowledged that the panel stepped on the toes of groups that "don't feel they were heard when the rule was developed."

"We don't enjoy the kind of broad support for the specific rule that we've generally been able to achieve," Nichols said. "We're not quite there yet with this rule. So I think that there's going to need to be additional work done." (Detroit News)

An article in the Western Mail gives a clue as to what is going on.

Under the heading, "House cattle – or we will have to sharply cut herds", we learn of recommendations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farming by permanently housing cattle, delivered to the Welsh rural affairs minister Elin Jones. They come from the Land Use Climate Change Group, established last year "to consider how agriculture and land use can reduce greenhouse gases and adapt to climate change."

The Welsh Assembly Government has saddled itself with a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2040 and, having virtually destroyed any productive industry in the province, the government is casting around for ways of making this madness happen.

Up pops Professor Gareth Wyn Jones, who chaired the Land Use Climate Change Group, obligingly offering a "road map" to help them on their way to complete their economic suicide – in a region where the majority of the working-age population is either employed by the state or on benefits.

Jones is picking on probably the only productive enterprise left in Wales, proposing "a range of initiatives" including the introduction of anaerobic digestion to reduce methane emissions, improving farm productivity, including more efficient use of manure, fertilisers and energy, expanding woodlands and developing renewable energy sources.

His emphasis, however, is on maintaining intensive dairy, sheep and beef farming while diversifying and increasing vegetable crops. In the longer term, he recommends developing a more radical approach where much of the cattle herd is housed and methane emissions are captured.

In shroud-waving mode, Wyn Jones warns: "If we don't go down this road you are really into the scenario where people will say we have got to get rid of 60 to 70 percent of our animals and move away from livestock farming completely."

There is, of course, a delicious irony here, with the "green" agenda now pushing intensive animal husbandry as a means of saving the planet, putting the global warming alarmists on a collision course with the open-toed sandaled organic brigade which wants their animals au naturel.

The trouble is that the "planet savers" are serious. They have latched onto methane emissions from farming – arguing that the gas is 20-times more potent than CO2 – and onto nitrous oxide, which is approximately 250 to 300 times more "effective" as a greenhouse gas than CO2.

Of course, the current enthusiasm for this issue may have something to do with Welsh universities being awarded £4 million last year to set up the Climate Change Consortium of Wales, aiming to build their fund to £10.2 million over five years.

But, as we noted yesterday, agriculture seems to be becoming the new target for the warmists, who are looking for a quick fix to kickstart their efforts to meet emission targets.

Even Rajendra Pachauri's private cash machine, TERI, is getting in the act, last year hosting a "workshop" in Delhi on methane reduction, managing to extract a $100,000 grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency to finance it.

Methane, it seems, is the new poster child, hence Geoffrey Lean's recent hyperventilation. And, although he gets a hard time from the comments, the money stacking up behind this obsession suggests that the warmists are not going to let go of it any time soon.

The only minor problem is that they are also set to stack up costs to such an extent that food - like energy - is likely to become an unaffordable luxury for an increasing proportion of the world's population. (Richard North, EU Referendum)

“Climate science is baffled by clouds. Not enough is understood yet about clouds to state whether they have a cooling or warming effect on the Earth. A change in cloud cover by 1% can produce changes as great as the most exaggerated claims that are meant to derive from humans adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Climate models do not do clouds well and don’t consider fog and mist which have the same effect as clouds,” reports Ian Plimer. (Jack Dini, Hawaii Reporter)

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the warming alarmist who keeps predicting catastrophe for the Great Barrier Reef, finds his own university now publishing news to puncture his scares (while, of course, going out of its way to still talk of the “huge stresses” caused by “human activity"):

There is an informative article by Madhav Khandekar on the prediction of the monsoon. It is

“The Indian Monsoon and by extension the Asian Monsoon which impact about 4 billion people (70% of world’s humanity) today is perhaps the most complex feature of the earth’s climate system. Climate models have achieved only a limited success so far in simulating many features of this complex system.”

“Despite significant advances in Monsoon meteorology, predicting onset and overall intensity and distribution of Monsoon rainfall during the four summer months (June- September) is still a daunting task and considerable research efforts are needed at present to improve predictability of Indian/Asian Monsoon. Since the Indian/Asian Monsoon system transfers sufficient energy across the entire climate system, any future projection of earth’s climate must include an improved modelling of the Monsoon system than what is available at present.”

“Accurate simulation and prediction of Monsoon rains with a lead time of few weeks to few months still remains an intractable problem in climate science.”

This excellent and well presented article by Madhav is worth reading. (Climate Science)

Nature News reports on a new PNAS paper by Patterson et al that uses clamshells in order to reconstruct temperatures in Northwest Iceland over a 2000 year period up to the year 1660:

Most measures of palaeoclimate provide data on only average annual temperatures, says William Patterson, an isotope chemist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and lead author of the study1. But molluscs grow continually, and the levels of different oxygen isotopes in their shells vary with the temperature of the water in which they live. The colder the water, the higher the proportion of the heavy oxygen isotope, oxygen-18.

The study used 26 shells obtained from sediment cores taken from an Icelandic bay. Because clams typically live from two to nine years, isotope ratios in each of these shells provided a two-to-nine-year window onto the environmental conditions in which they lived.

Patterson’s team used a robotic sampling device to shave thin slices from each layer of the shells’ growth bands. These were then fed into a mass spectrometer, which measured the isotopes in each layer. From those, the scientists could calculate the conditions under which each layer formed.

“What we’re getting to here is palaeoweather,” Patterson says. “We can reconstruct temperatures on a sub-weekly resolution, using these techniques. For larger clams we could do daily.”

The data shows the Roman Warm Period, a cooling in the Dark Ages, the Medieval Warm Period, and the Little Ice Age.

All we need now is for ‘Michael Clam’ to use his special methodology in order to create a straightish line, and then add some instrumental data in order to create a ‘hockey stick.’

The interval from ∼230 B:C: to A.D. 40 was one of exceptional warmth in Iceland, coinciding with a period of general warmth and dryness in Europe known as the Roman Warm Period, from ∼200 B:C: to A.D. 400 (23). On the basis of δ18O data, reconstructed water temperatures for the Roman Warm Period in Iceland are higher than any temperatures recorded in modern times.

That should provide some comfort for those who worry about the current Arctic warming and sea ice etc.

One can envision a tree-ring-like continuous history, given a lot more effort. If he can find the funding, that is exactly what Patterson would like to establish next. “We have what may be the world’s oldest clam,” he says, “that might give a continuous record going back 400 years.” He also wants to push the study back towards the end of the last ice age. “We have 11,000 years worth of material,” he says. (CRN)

Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week:
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 809 individual scientists from 482 separate research institutions in 43 different countries ... and counting! This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from the Southern Canadian Tundra, Southwestern Keewatin, Nunavut, Canada. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click here.

Subject Index Summary:
Little Ice Age (Regional - South America: Chile): The narrow strip of land running down the southwest coast of South America has provided a wealth of data pertaining to the climatic oscillation responsible for both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, and which has likely also been responsible for the development of the Current Warm Period.

Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature for: Corn (Imai and Murata, 1979), Reed Grass (Zhao et al., 2009), Soybean (Imai and Murata, 1979), and White Millet (Imai and Murata, 1979).

THE owner of Britain's biggest coal-fired power station has embarked on feasibility studies into the use of carbon capture and storage after joining talks with the regional development agency to help develop its £2bn carbon cluster project.

Yorkshire Forward wants to create a network of major industrial CO2 emitters in East Yorkshire which would use CCS technology to capture harmful emissions.

These would be transported eastwards and offshore via a pipeline or ship and stored safely under the seabed of the North Sea. (Yorkshire Post)

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today a $154 million investment by the U.S. government in a carbon-capture and sequestration project to be developed by electric utility NRG in Texas. NRG will match the federal funds and build a 60 mw power plant--the carbon dioxide from which will be injected into an oil field with the intention of trapping the carbon underground while coaxing out additional oil.

Speaking to a crowd of oil industry executives at the CERAweek conference in Houston, Chu insisted that investment in such projects was vital because soon the U.S. will have some form of federal carbon regulation and, "we will live in a carbon-constrained world." (Christopher Helman, Forbes)

HOUSTON — Crude oil and gasoline prices are inching up again.

Various factors combined Monday to lift the prices of crude oil and gasoline. Here, fuel is delivered to gas pumps in Lynnfield, Mass.

Optimism about the economy, new tensions in oil-producing Nigeria and reports that China intends to build up its strategic reserves lifted crude prices to around $82 on Monday, about a $10 increase in the last month.

Prices at the pump are rising, too, with the average national price for a gallon of gasoline jumping 5 cents in the last week, to just above $2.75.

“That’s a drag on the economy,” said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, who estimated that consumers were paying just over $1 billion a day at the pump, about $250 million more than this time a year ago. (NYT)

PUERTOLLANO, Spain — Two years ago, this gritty mining city hosted a brief 21st-century gold rush. Long famous for coal, Puertollano discovered another energy source it had overlooked: the relentless, scorching sun.

Armed with generous incentives from the Spanish government to jump-start a national solar energy industry, the city set out to replace its failing coal economy by attracting solar companies, with a campaign slogan: “The Sun Moves Us.”

Soon, Puertollano, home to the Museum of the Mining Industry, had two enormous solar power plants, factories making solar panels and silicon wafers, and clean energy research institutes. Half the solar power installed globally in 2008 was installed in Spain.

Farmers sold land for solar plants. Boutiques opened. And people from all over the world, seeing business opportunities, moved to the city, which had suffered from 20 percent unemployment and a population exodus.

But as low-quality, poorly designed solar plants sprang up on Spain’s plateaus, Spanish officials came to realize that they would have to subsidize many of them indefinitely, and that the industry they had created might never produce efficient green energy on its own.

In September the government abruptly changed course, cutting payments and capping solar construction. Puertollano’s brief boom turned bust. Factories and stores shut, thousands of workers lost jobs, foreign companies and banks abandoned contracts that had already been negotiated.

“We lost the opportunity to be at the vanguard of renewables — we were not only generating electricity, but also a strong economy,” said Joaquín Carlos Hermoso Murillo, Puertollano’s mayor since 2004. “Why are they limiting solar power, when the sun is unlimited?”

Puertollano’s wrenching fall points to the delicate policy calculations needed to stimulate nascent solar industries and create green jobs, and might serve as a cautionary tale for the United States, where a similar exercise is now under way. (NYT)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has estimated that one quarter of America’s corn cereal production in 2009 went to biofuels, which in effect turned cheap food into expensive fuel.

Despite pushing up food prices and having unintended consequences for the environment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) recently reiterated its support for ethanol. President Obama also promised continued investment in advanced biofuels in his recent State of the Union address.

A leaked paper on the 2007/2008 food crisis by the World Bank Development Prospect Group estimated that U.S. and European Union biofuel production was responsible for 75% of the price rises–a far cry from the 3% estimate by USDA.

Biofuels from crops like corn, sugar, and palm oil have more than tripled since 2000. In accordance with its 2007 energy bill, America is targeted to increase biofuels production to 15 billion gallons by 2012 and 36 billion by 2022, up from the current 10.6 billion. Of that 36 billion, ethanol is capped at 15 billion gallons.

Just last month, US EPA announced that despite doubts as to its energy and environmental record, they would still support further ethanol production. The new guidelines will allow for the production of an additional 2 billion gallons of corn ethanol and potentially much more.

The EPA admitted that a considerable amount of current ethanol production would, as a result, fail to meet the 20% reduction criteria. It is difficult to see on what grounds these subsidies to biofuels can be justified–if not outright agricultural protectionism. [Read more →] (MasterResource)

LONDON - Europe is unlikely to see another wave of pandemic H1N1 flu soon but local epidemics are likely as winter returns to the Northern hemisphere, health officials said on Monday.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said the H1N1 swine flu virus would probably spread at low levels during 2010's spring and summer, and be the dominant and threatening strain in the winter flu season.

"It seems unlikely that there will be another spring/summer pandemic wave in Europe unless there are significant unrecognised uninfected populations or the virus changes and becomes more transmissible," the ECDC, which monitors disease in the European Union, said in its latest flu risk assessment. (Reuters)

We have known for several years that Hepatitis C, a common cause of liver cirrhosis and cancer, also makes people three to four times more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes.

In studying the insulin resistance of 29 people with Hepatitis C, Australian researchers have confirmed that they have high insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. However, almost all insulin resistance occurs in muscle, with little or none in the liver, a very surprising finding given that Hepatitis C is a liver disease.

Dr Kerry Lee Milner and Professor Don Chisholm from Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research, in collaboration with Professor Jacob George from the Storr Liver Unit, University of Sydney at Westmead Hospital, have published their study in the prestigious international journal, Gastroenterology, now online.

Insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas, helps the body use glucose for energy. The two most important organs that respond to insulin are the liver and muscle. A healthy liver responds to insulin by not producing glucose, while healthy muscle responds by using glucose. An insulin resistant liver produces unwanted glucose, while insulin resistant muscle cannot absorb it from the bloodstream, leading to high levels of sugar in the blood.

“Contrary to all expectations, not only did we find no significant insulin resistance in the liver of the patients in the study, half of them suffered from a strain of Hepatitis C that causes about three times the normal level of fat to accumulate in the liver,” said Professor Chisholm.

“The fifteen people with very high levels of fat in the liver had the same degree of insulin resistance as the fourteen that didn’t have fatty livers.”

“A number of important investigators around the world have been arguing that fat in the liver is an extremely important determinant of insulin resistance, perhaps the most important. At least in this context, we’ve shown that not to be the case.”

“Before you get Type 2 diabetes, you must become insulin resistant and your insulin producing cells must also fail to compensate. Insulin resistance alone will not give you diabetes.” (InSciences)

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said on Monday that it would decide whether a federal law protects vaccine manufacturers from lawsuits in state court seeking damages for alleged design defects.

The high court agreed to hear a Pennsylvania case involving a lawsuit by the parents of a child who suffered seizures after her third dose of a diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine. They sued the vaccine manufacturer, Wyeth, which Pfizer Inc purchased last year.

At issue was the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. It says no manufacturer "shall be liable in any civil action" for any injury that "resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings."

The justices agreed to decide the issue after conflicting lower-court rulings.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled the federal law allows some design defect claims against vaccine manufacturers while a U.S. appeals court based in Philadelphia ruled Congress expressly prohibited such lawsuits in an effort to shield manufacturers from liability.

The Obama administration said the federal law expressly prevented design defect lawsuits in state court, but said the uncertainty caused by the conflicting rulings warranted the Supreme Court getting involved. (Reuters)

LONDON - Vitamin D is vital in activating human defences and low levels suffered by around half the world's population may mean their immune systems' killer T cells are poor at fighting infection, scientists said on Sunday.

The findings by Danish researchers could help the fight against infectious diseases and global epidemics, they said, and could be particularly useful in the search for new vaccines.

The researchers found that immune systems' killer cells, known as T cells, rely on vitamin D to become active and remain dormant and unaware of the possibility of threat from an infection or pathogen if vitamin D is lacking in the blood. (Reuters)

MIAMI BEACH, FL - Golfers playing in Vail, Colorado, at 2500 meters (roughly 8200 feet) above sea level, got significantly more burn protection from sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 70+ compared to one with an SPF of 15.

"The SPF 70+ formulation was...very effective in protecting skin from sunburns under extreme ultraviolet light and real sporting conditions," study chief Dr. Darrell Rigel from New York University Medical Center said at AAD 2010, the 68th annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology.

"You have to be extra careful at protecting yourself at high altitudes," Rigel told Reuters Health. "People don't realize how much additional sun you get at higher altitudes. It's anywhere from an 8 percent to a 10 percent increase for every thousand feet of elevation. In the summertime, you can get anywhere from 40 percent to 50 percent greater sun intensity than at sea level." (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK - Middle-aged adults who were born at a relatively low weight may have more breathing difficulties than those who were bigger newborns, a new study suggests.

In a study of 627 Chinese men and women in their 40s, researchers found that participants' scores on standard lung-function tests generally lined up with their birth weights. The lowest average scores were recorded among adults who had been born weighing less than 5.5 pounds, while the highest scores were seen among those whose birth weights topped 7 pounds.

The findings do not prove that low birth weight itself is the reason for the discrepancy, the researchers note in the journal Pediatrics.

But they do support the so-called "fetal origins hypothesis" that impaired growth in the womb might ultimately affect adult lung function, write Dr. Lijun Pei and colleagues at Peking University in Beijing. (Reuters Health)

GENEVA - Malaria could be eliminated as a public health problem within a decade in most countries where it is now endemic, an international organization that funds the treatment and prevention of killer diseases said on Monday.

The elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - is within reach by 2015, the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said.

And the prevalence of tuberculosis is also declining in many countries, the fund said in its 2010 report.

"A world where no children are born with HIV is truly possible by 2015, the fund's executive director, Michel Kazatchkine, said in a statement.

"It is also possible now to imagine a world with no more malaria deaths," he said.

The fund says its programs have saved 4.9 million lives since it was set up in 2002.

The fund's report celebrates the advances against the diseases, particular scourges in developing countries, since it was set up as a public/private partnership to mobilize resources for their prevention and treatment.

The three diseases are among the largest killers of women and children, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa where 52 percent of deaths of women of childbearing age are due to HIV, TB and malaria and malaria accounts for 16-18 percent of child deaths.

But the report also comes with a call for more money. (Reuters)

CHICAGO - U.S. researchers estimate that an 18 percent tax on pizza and soda can push down U.S. adults' calorie intake enough to lower their average weight by 5 pounds (2 kg) per year.

The researchers, writing in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine on Monday, suggested taxing could be used as a weapon in the fight against obesity, which costs the United States an estimated $147 billion a year in health costs.

"While such policies will not solve the obesity epidemic in its entirety and may face considerable opposition from food manufacturers and sellers, they could prove an important strategy to address over consumption, help reduce energy intake and potentially aid in weight loss and reduced rates of diabetes among U.S. adults," wrote the team led by Kiyah Duffey of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Reuters)

NEW YORK, March 8 - New York State should tax sugary soft drinks to curb obesity and recoup some of the billions of dollars it spends each year to treat people with diabetes and other diseases, Governor David Paterson said on Monday.

"Someone has got to contribute to the $7.6 billion the state spends every year to treat diseases from obesity," Paterson told reporters after speaking at a symposium in Albany about a tax on sweetened soft drinks.

In January, Paterson included a proposed soda tax in his budget plan for the second year in a row. Legislators rejected the measure last year. New York bottlers and vendors have protested it again this year. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON - An initiative to get sugary drinks out of U.S. schools has begun to work, with diet beverages and smaller portions replacing some full-size, full-calorie varieties in school vending machines, organizers said on Monday.

The American Beverage Association said an agreement with the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation had cut shipments of full-calorie soft drinks to schools by 95 percent since 2004.

It added that "the shift toward more lower-calorie, smaller-portion beverages is also contributing to the overall reduction in calories available from beverages in schools."

The agreement, brokered in 2006 by the groups working together as the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, included The Coca-Cola Co, Dr Pepper Snapple Group and PepsiCo.

The guidelines allow 100 percent juice drinks, low-fat milk and bottled water in elementary and middle schools, and diet beverages and calorie-capped sports drinks, flavored waters and teas in high schools.

A progress report, prepared by Keybridge Research LLC, was unable to show if the changes meant children actually consumed fewer calories from the drinks available to them. But it suggested they bought fewer drinks. (Reuters)

It's such a widely accepted idea it's virtually dieting dogma, pushed with almost religious zeal: You can't lose weight without exercising more.

But the story of Francina Kehoe, a B.C. woman who has battled obesity for years, highlights a growing body of research that shows what matters far more is how much we eat - not how much we move. (Sharon Kirkey, Canwest News Service)

NEW YORK - Breaking up your fitness routine is hard to do. But it's crucial for avoiding the bigger heartache of overuse injury, fitness experts say.

"People tend to do the same thing over and over again, without varying it, without taking adequate rest, without building slowly, and they end up with an overuse injury," said Geralyn Coopersmith, national manager for the Equinox Fitness Training Institute.

"Tendonitis, bursitis, fasciitis, these kinds of inflammations are pretty much guaranteed if you don't' vary your training," said Coopersmith, who oversees the training of 1400 personal trainers in 48 Equinox clubs nationwide.

Yet she concedes that even clients who complain of nagging aches and pains are loath to change their routine.

"People get terrified. They'll say, 'The treadmill made me lose weight.' Well, exercise made you lose weight. The treadmill was the modality. That doesn't' mean it's the only way or the best way," she explained. (Reuters Life!)

8 March 2010 — A team of scientists has discovered that the drastic decline in Arctic musk ox populations that began roughly 12,000 years ago was due to a warming climate rather than to human hunting. "This is the first study to use ancient musk ox DNA collected from across the animal's former geographic range to test for human impacts on musk ox populations," said Beth Shapiro, the Shaffer Career Development assistant professor of biology at Penn State University and one of the team's leaders. "We found that, although human and musk ox populations overlapped in many regions across the globe, humans probably were not responsible for the decline and eventual extinction of musk oxen across much of their former range." The team's findings will be published in the 8 March 2010 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Musk oxen once were plentiful across the entire Northern Hemisphere, but they now exist almost solely in Greenland and number only about 80,000 to 125,000. According to the researchers, musk oxen are not the only animals to suffer during the late Pleistocene Epoch. "The late Pleistocene was marked by rapid environmental change as well as the beginning of the spread of humans across the Northern Hemisphere," said Shapiro. "During that time several animals became extinct, including mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses, while others, including horses, caribou, and bison, survived into the present. The reasons for these drastically different survival patterns have been debated widely, with some scientists claiming that the extinctions were due largely to human hunting. Musk oxen provide a unique opportunity to study this question because they suffered from a decline in their population that coincided with the Pleistocene extinctions, yet they still exist today, which allows us to compare the genetic diversity of today's individuals with those individuals that lived up to 60,000 years ago." (Penn State)

Faced with diminishing numbers, a threatening ballot measure and the perpetual challenge of being a small third party in a two-party system, the California Green Party may be fading to chartreuse.

But that won't happen if a hardy core of delegates, who gathered in San Jose over the weekend for a semiannual state meeting, have their way. Still, the Greens couldn't even hold the attention of their own members. By Sunday, the meeting had shrunk by half to 40 people.

Even its two candidates for governor, Laura Wells of Oakland and Deacon Alexander of Los Angeles, skipped Sunday's talks on platform and procedures.

Five years ago, there were 158,000 registered Greens, or 0.95 percent of California voters. By January this year, the number had shrunk to 111,000, or 0.66 percent of the electorate. (Mercury News)

PHOTO CREDIT: ERIKA SCHULTZ/THE SEATTLE TIMES; Seasonal coffee workers unload baskets of coffee cherries into a transport truck at Santa Eduviges in Costa Rica.

Ezra Fieser, who wrote an insightful article for Time magazine last fall about the limitations of Fair Trade coffee, wrote a story for our paper this weekend on the limitations of organic coffee.

Growers are giving up on organic because it costs more to grow than it's worth, Fieser found. Some roasters won't buy the beans at all, and even when they do, the price doesn't cover farmers' costs.

"Although organic still pays a premium of as much as 25 percent over conventional coffee," he wrote, "it's not enough to cover the added cost of production and make up for the smaller yields."

The market appears to be validating what a 2005 study predicted about organic coffee -- that it would not be sustainable. The rewards are not worth growers' efforts, including the need to buy large amounts of composted organic matter to keep yields high, that study said.

The organic article is getting lots of attention on the paper's web site, but I think Fieser's other story from the World Coffee Conference in Guatemala City is even more shocking. Demand for coffee next year is expected to be just 10 million sacks short of production, the International Coffee Organization estimates.

"We're nearing the razor's edge of danger where supply can't meet demand," Ric Rhinehart, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, says in that article.

There's more demand from places like Russia and India, and supply has been threatened by things like higher fuel prices and global warming, according to Fieser's report. "Weather was a major factor in the 28 percent drop in Latin American coffee production in the initial three months of the current harvest," coffee representatives told him. (Melissa Allison, Seattle Times)

Shock-doc Dirty Oil wants us to hate the massive oil operation in Alberta, Canada. But I couldn’t help feeling awestruck.

Michael Moore and Al Gore have a lot to answer for. They popularised the campaigning documentary, with films such as Roger and Me, Fahrenheit 9/11 and An Inconvenient Truth, and now new docs are being pumped out faster than Saudi crude. And ‘crude’ is a decent summation of the ideas contained in most of them. (Rob Lyons, spiked)

For years, being able to carry a concealed handgun has been a sacred right for many gun enthusiasts. In defending it, Charlton Heston, the actor and former president of the National Rifle Association, used to say that the flock is safer when the wolves cannot tell the difference between the lions and the lambs.

But a grass-roots effort among some gun rights advocates is shifting attention to a different goal: exercising the right to carry unconcealed weapons in the 38 or more states that have so-called open-carry laws allowing guns to be carried in public view with little or no restrictions. The movement is not only raising alarm among gun control proponents but also exposing rifts among gun rights advocates.

The call for gun owners to carry their guns openly in the normal course of business first drew broad attention last summer, when opponents of the Obama administration’s health care overhaul began appearing at town-hall-style meetings wearing sidearms. But in recent weeks, the practice has expanded as gun owners in California and other states that allow guns to be openly carried have tested the law by showing up at so-called meet-ups, in which gun owners appear at Starbucks, pizza parlors and other businesses openly bearing their weapons.

“Our point is to do the same thing that concealed carriers do,” said Mike Stollenwerk, a co-founder of OpenCarry.org, which serves as a national forum. “We’re just taking off our jackets.”

The goal, at least in part, is to make the case for liberalized concealed weapon laws by demonstrating how uncomfortable many people are with publicly displayed guns. The tactic has startled many business owners like Peet’s Coffee and Tea and California Pizza Kitchen, which forbid guns at their establishments. So far, Starbucks has resisted doing the same.

The open-carry movement is a wild card in gun rights advocacy and in some ways is to the N.R.A. and other mainstream gun rights advocacy groups what the Tea Party movement is to the Republican Party.

Newer, more driven by grass-roots and the Internet than the N.R.A., open-carry groups are also less centralized, less predictable and often more confrontational in their push for gun rights. In the last year, there have been at least 140 formal and informal meet-ups at coffee shops and restaurants in California alone, organizers say.

Some gun rights advocates see risks in the approach.

“I’m all for open-carry laws,” said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, a gun rights advocacy organization in Washington State. “But I don’t think flaunting it is very productive for our cause. It just scares people.”

Robert Weisberg, a gun law expert and a criminal justice professor at Stanford University, described the open-carry activists as “a liability” for the N.R.A., in particular.

While the N.R.A. is almost always going to support the increased deregulation of guns, Professor Weisberg said, the organization keeps its distance from open-carry advocacy because it does not want to distract attention from its higher priority of promoting the right to carry concealed weapons.

“Add to this that the N.R.A. is a very disciplined, on-message organization,” he said, contrasting the N.R.A.’s approach with the free-wheeling nature of some open-carry advocates. (NYT)

How could the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives not be able to recognize air rifles? And then make the ridiculous claim that they could be converted to actual firearms? (This is Part One of a three-part series.)

Working from a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) press release entitled “Tacoma Seaport U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers Seize Shipment of Machineguns,” these news organizations had every reason to feel that they were just reporting the news, especially when Customs and Border Protection Area Port Director Rolando Suliveras Jr. claimed:

But there was much, much more to the story that Suliveras and the CBP failed to mention, starting with the fact that the 30 “machine guns” seized in the raid really were toys. (Bob Owens, PJM)

he Environmental Protection Agency chief fought back on Monday against Senate attempts to challenge the agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, saying delaying action would be bad for the economy. (Reuters)

Last week, Václav Klaus was on his business trip to Florida. He gave a talk in front of the Club for Growth, a pro-market think tank. Here is the transcript:

NAIROBI, Kenya — The head of the International Monetary Fund on Monday proposed a plan for the world's governments to pool together to raise money needed to adapt to climate change, a rare step for an organization that normally does not develop environmental policies.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the Fund is concerned about the huge amount of funding needed and the effect that will have on the global economy. He added that the proposal may help efforts to reach a binding agreement on climate change later this year.

Strauss-Kahn proposed that countries adopt a quota system similar to the one the Fund uses to raise its own money, which could bring in money faster than proposals to increase carbon taxes or other fundraising methods. He only provided a broad outline of the plan, as the organization will release a paper later this week with full details. It is unclear how the proposal will be received.

The IMF raises funds from its 185 members mainly through a quota system that is based broadly on each country's economic size. The United States is currently the largest shareholder.

"We all know that (carbon taxes and other fundraising methods) will take time and we don't have this time. So we need something which looks like an interim solution, which will bridge the gap between now and the time when those carbon taxes will be big enough to solve the problem," Strauss-Kahn said. "And that is exactly what the IMF proposal is dealing with." (Associated Press)

The three senators writing compromise climate legislation are lobbying business groups in hopes of winning their support for the effort. One obstacle: the absence of an actual bill.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) briefed a group of electric utility executives this week on a broad outline of the plan. Kerry and his cohorts, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), have also reached out to Tom Donohue, the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who has been among the harshest critics of a climate bill stalled in the Senate. (The Hill)

In an already challenging election year for the majority, Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) rush to pass a climate change bill has many Democrats scratching their heads and charging that their 2004 presidential nominee could further imperil vulnerable Members this fall.

Climate change had been considered all but dead this year, and Senate Democrats have little appetite to take up the controversial issue after the beating that they have endured over their as-yet-unfinished health care reform efforts.

“The United States Senate is not going to transition from doing health care to a [global warming] bill,” one Democratic Senator said. “It’s not going to happen.”

But that’s not what Kerry believes. He said last week that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is “determined to bring it to the floor.”

The divide in the Democratic caucus reared its head last Wednesday when Kerry — who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee — gave a presentation to his fellow chairmen on his progress in drafting a new bill with Sens. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). (Roll Call)

With more people expressing doubts about global warming, passing climate legislation in Congress will be more difficult.

A recent poll suggests that high-profile controversies regarding climate science are weakening public confidence in the validity of global warming, And that could endanger congressional efforts to pass climate legislation. (CSM)

The same ethical advice for doctors also makes sense for Congress as it considers several pending global warming bills – first do no harm. Given serious questions about global warming science as well as the efficacy of costly proposals to address it, the best choice for Washington is none of the above.

With economy-wide cap and trade stalled in the Senate, a number of slightly scaled back variants have been proposed, including measures targeting selected industries or a carbon tax. All threaten to do more harm than good. Continue reading...

The world will almost certainly fail to draw up a new treaty on climate change this year, the minister in charge of last year's Copenhagen summit has admitted, delivering a heavy blow to the barely flickering hopes for a swift global -settlement.

Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister who masterminded the summit of world leaders on global warming last year and is now the European commissioner for climate change, told the Financial Times that negotiations were not progressing fast enough for a treaty to be signed soon.

She also gave a warning that pushing too hard for a treaty this year could be counterproductive.

"To get every detail set in the next nine months looks very difficult," she said. "Europe would love that to happen, and I would love that to happen . . . but my feeling is that it is going to be very difficult to get a treaty."

Her pessimism echoed that of the outgoing United Nations climate change chief, Yvo de Boer. He told the FT as he resigned last month after four years of seeking an agreement that he could not see a treaty being signed this year. (Financial Times)

BRUSSELS - Loopholes in the United Nations climate treaties could actually amount to an increase in global climate-warming emissions and the chance to rein in temperatures may be slipping away, a draft European Union report showed.

"Optimistic assessments...indicate that a pathway toward limiting the global temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius is still feasible, but more pessimistic assessments indicate this chance is disappearing fast," it added.

European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard will announce her strategy on Tuesday for advancing international climate talks after the conclusion of a weak deal in Copenhagen in December.

She is expected to outline a roadmap toward a legally-binding global climate treaty, and focus on strengthening the integrity of U.N. rules. (Reuters)

Connie Hedegaard, the newly appointed EU commissioner for climate change is waking up to the realities of the carbon trading scam set up under the Kyoto agreement, which could permit an overall increase in developed world emissions.

According to a report from Reuters, the commission is about to announce that "loopholes" in the system mean that the world is awash with surplus carbon credits which can be bought up by manufacturers in developed countries who can then avoid having to make emission cats.

The main problem, it seems, is the collapse of heavy industry in former communist countries during the transition to a free market economy, leading to sharp falls in carbon emissions and a huge surplus of emissions rights. Russia and Ukraine are the main problem, with Russia alone on track to under-cut its Kyoto target by about 1.4 billion tons.

These spare credits could cover up to 6.8 percent of current developed world emissions, which means that they need only reduce actual emissions by 6.4 percent below 1990 levels over the next decade. Furthermore, loose rules for allowing credits for forestry and agriculture could erode another nine percentage points from the agreed emission cuts.

In all, this actually means that real cuts could amount to as little as 2 percent but, if all the scams are taken into account, developed countries could increase emissions by 2.6 percent above 1990 levels and still meet Kyoto obligation. This falls far short of the real 25-40 percent cut recommended by the IPCC.

In fact, it points to the enormity of the fraud perpetrated, which is now worth $128 billion annually, in traded credits, to the great benefit of traders, financiers and brokers. Having ripped of this huge sum, they make Bernie Madoff – who only took $18 billion – look like a rank amateur.

The difference is, of course, that Madoff went to jail, while the perpetrators of this scam are still roaming free, supported by the UN and all the governments of the world, including the EU. But then, the best way to rip off the public has always been to get government approval first. All you have to do is cry "global warming" and the world is your oyster. (EU Referendum)

Palo Alto, CA— A new study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution finds that over a third of carbon dioxide emissions associated with consumption of goods and services in many developed countries are actually emitted outside their borders. Some countries, such as Switzerland, "outsource" over half of their carbon dioxide emissions, primarily to developing countries. The study finds that, per person, about 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide are consumed in the U.S. but produced somewhere else. For Europeans, the figure can exceed four tons per person. Most of these emissions are outsourced to developing countries, especially China.

"Instead of looking at carbon dioxide emissions only in terms of what is released inside our borders, we also looked at the amount of carbon dioxide released during the production of the things that we consume," says co-author Ken Caldeira, a researcher in the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology.

Caldeira and lead author Steven Davis, also at Carnegie, used published trade data from 2004 to create a global model of the flow of products across 57 industry sectors and 113 countries or regions. By allocating carbon emissions to particular products and sources, the researchers were able to calculate the net emissions "imported" or "exported" by specific countries.

"Just like the electricity that you use in your home probably causes CO2 emissions at a coal-burning power plant somewhere else, we found that the products imported by the developed countries of western Europe, Japan, and the United States cause substantial emissions in other countries, especially China," says Davis. "On the flip side, nearly a quarter of the emissions produced in China are ultimately exported." (Science Codex)

South Africa, India and Indonesia are vying to win the U.N.'s top climate change job, a key post to build trust between poor and rich in 2010 after the U.N.'s Copenhagen summit which set few binding targets.

Many analysts expect a developing nation candidate will succeed Yvo de Boer, a Dutch citizen who said last month he would step down as head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat on July 1 after a grueling four years. (Reuters)

Another error in the influential reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports has been identified. This one concerns the rate of expansion of sea ice around Antarctica.

While not an issue for estimates of future sea level rise (sea ice is floating ice which does not influence sea level), a significant expansion of Antarctic sea ice runs counter to climate model projections. As the errors in the climate change “assessment” reports from the IPCC mount, its aura of scientific authority erodes, and with it, the justification for using their findings to underpin national and international efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.

Some climate scientists have distanced themselves from the IPCC Working Group II’s (WGII’s) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, prefering instead the stronger hard science in the Working Group I (WGI) Report—The Physical Science Basis. Some folks have even gone as far as saying that no errors have been found in the WGI Report and the process in creating it was exemplary.

As I document below, WGI did a poor job in regard to Antarctic sea ice trends. Somehow, the IPCC specialists assessed away a plethora of evidence showing that the sea ice around Antarctica has been significantly increasing—a behavior that runs counter to climate model projections of sea ice declines—and instead documented only a slight, statistically insignificant rise.

How did this happen? The evidence suggests that IPCC authors were either being territorial in defending and promoting their own work in lieu of other equally legitimate (and ultimately more correct) findings, were being guided by IPCC brass to produce a specific IPCC point-of-view, or both.

The handling of Antarctic sea ice is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident in the IPCC reports, but is simply one of many examples in which portions of the peer-reviewed scientific literature were cast aside, or ignored, so that a particular point of view—the preconceived IPCC point of view—could be either maintained or forwarded.

The problems with the IPCC’s handling of the trends in Antarctic sea ice was first uncovered and presented a week or two ago in an article posted over at the World Climate Report—another blog with which I have been involved with for a long time. [Read more →] (MasterResource)

But NSIDC seems to be thinking differently in their March 3, 2010 newsletter. They say Antarctica is cooling and sea ice is increasing (makes sense – ice is associated with cold.) Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

Scientists at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) built a dam to contain a lake full of dirty water. Someone behind the dam drilled a hole and sprang a leak. The flow is small but growing and the color of the water gets dirtier and dirtier and the size of the hole will increase as the extent of the corruption expands. Now a second major leak has developed in a different area as people dig through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports. The structure of the organization made this almost inevitable. However, the structure was necessary to achieve the political rather than a scientific goal.

Bureaucratic Structure
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was specifically designed by Maurice Strong as a political vehicle to further his objective of crippling the industrial nations. An acknowledged master of bureaucratic systems he set up every segment of the organization for the maximum public relations effect. This meant emphasis on emotional impact, especially by exploiting fear. The first need was to direct and control the science. It was achieved at the 1985 meeting in Villach Austria chaired by Canadian bureaucrat Gordon McBean with Phil Jones and Tom Wigley from CRU in attendance. The second need was for maximizing the fear factor to force political action. (Tim Ball, CFP)

Women hit hard by the effects of climate change -- drought, floods, sea level rise and crop failure -- gathered on Monday to plan a Capitol Hill push for U.S. legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions. (Reuters)

This post is Part III of Richard Tol's look at Chapter 11 of the IPCC AR4 WGIII. Part I is here. Part II is here.

Richard Tol is a research professor at ESRI in Ireland, one of the top 175 economists in the world and a contributor to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where his work is widely cited. In this guest post, the third of a series, Richard takes a look at parts of the IPCC AR4 Working Group III, which has largely escaped scrutiny in recent months. In this Part III he discusses "cherry-picked results" and "misleading" tables.

Please have a look at Richard's full discussion below. If you have questions or criticisms of Richard's analysis please submit them in the comments, I am sure that Richard will be happy to engage.

Wanted: an eco prophet - People are drifting into a lethal slumber on climate change. More of the same won't wake them up

It's an exceptionally inconvenient truth. Only one American in three believes that human beings are responsible for climate change: a polling result 10% down on where opinion rested the year before. Worse, the number of Americans who believe that climate change is a hoax or a scientific conspiracy – not doubting, just damned blank certain – has doubled since 2008. Add in those who assert that the changes, if any, are of "no significant concern", and you've got 30% of the US denying, scoffing and just walking on by.

Are the issues clearer, the people more committed, here in Britain? Call for the latest evidence from Ipsos Mori – and find that the proportion of UK adults who believe that global warming is "definitely" a reality has plummeted from 44% to 31% in the last 12 months. Figures like these, on both sides of the Atlantic, are getting more sceptical week by week. The real change of electoral climate is that fewer and fewer voters pay any heed to scientists and politicians.

It isn't hard to collate the factors that drive disillusion. Professors with a colloquial touch writing "awful" emails; a recession so tough that it blows future shock away; a cold, cold winter the Met Office didn't forecast; scientific angst about swine flu revealed as way over the top; dodgy figures, dodgy reporting, dodgy issues way up to UN level. (Peter Preston)

As Al Gore’s global governance effort via global warming fraud collapses on itself under the heavy burden of Climategate and assorted other scientific scandals, Team Gore has made a laughable announcement:

In other words, as the size and influence of these two progressive advocacy groups continues to shrink into nothingness, Team Gore has decided to combine the two in the hopes that it will lend some perception of lingering heft to their faltering movement. (Gore Lied)

There is no simple way to battle public hostility to climate research. As the psychologists show, facts barely sway us anyway (George Monbiot, The Guardian)

The greenhouse gasses keep the Earth 30° C warmer than it would otherwise be without them in the atmosphere, so instead of the average surface temperature being -15° C, it is 15° C. Carbon dioxide contributes 10% of the effect so that is 3° C. The pre-industrial level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 280 ppm. So roughly, if the heating effect was a linear relationship, each 100 ppm contributes 1° C. With the atmospheric concentration rising by 2 ppm annually, it would go up by 100 ppm every 50 years and we would all fry as per the IPCC predictions.

But the relationship isn’t linear, it is logarithmic. In 2006, Willis Eschenbach posted this graph on Climate Audit showing the logarithmic heating effect of carbon dioxide relative to atmospheric concentration:

I received a comment by Peter Benkendorff which requested Jennifer Wolchansky and Peter Blanken to reply to. The Comment and Reply are reproduced with their permission below. (Climate Science)

Today's Financial Times has a generally optimistic article about the vast quantities of unconventional natural gas that are now apparently within reach around the world:

Not all are convinced. Over the weekend, John Dizard's FT column took a highly skeptical look at the prospects for abundant and cheap natural gas, and is worth excerpting at length:

Cheap and abundant natural gas as far as the eye can see? Maybe not. (Roger Pielke Jr)

The Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson said she was "very concerned" about the composition of fluids used to extract natural gas from shale deposits.

Jackson said she hopes the EPA will launch a study this year into the nature of fluids used in the hydraulic fracturing process of natural gas drilling.

"We are going to look at what the fluids are, what's in them. We are very concerned about that," she said.

Jackson told Reuters that the study will examine any environmental impact from the fracturing fluids. Jackson said the study would depend on "reprogramming" money because the current budget has no provision to pay for it.

Critics say chemicals used in fracturing can contaminate water supplies, while industry maintains its processes are safe. (Reuters)

GreenJobsGate? The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy coordinated with "green" lobbyists when trying to fend off a damning report.
March 8, 2010
- by Charlie Martin

Emails recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act — seen here for the first time — show how political influence and lobbyists are shaping Obama administration policy and public relations. (PJM)

Barack Obama promised many things on his way into office. Key among these was transparency and a vow to banish lobbyists from insider roles in the policy process.

Using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Competitive Enterprise Institute has confirmed that both promises are being aggressively violated.

In 2008 and 2009, Mr. Obama told Americans on no fewer than eight occasions to "think about what's happening in countries like Spain [and] Germany" to see his model for successful "green jobs" policies, and what we should expect here.

Some Spanish academics and experts on that country's wind- and solar-energy policies and outcomes took Mr. Obama up on his invitation, revealing Spain's policies to be economic and employment disasters. The political embarrassment to the administration was obvious, with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs asked about the Spanish study at a press conference, and the president hurriedly substituted Denmark for Spain in his stump speech.

Team Obama was not amused, and they decided to do something about it. The crew that campaigned on change pulled out the oldest plan in the book - attack the messenger. The U.S. government's response to foreign academics, assessing the impact in their own country of that foreign government's policies, was to come after them in a move that internal e-mails say was unprecedented. They also show it was coordinated with the lobbyists for "Big Wind" and the left-wing Center for American Progress (CAP).

What emerged was an ideological hodgepodge of curious and unsupported claims published under the name of two young non-economist wind advocates. These taxpayer-funded employees offered green dogma in oddly strident terms and, along the way, a senior Obama political appointee may well have misled Congress. ( Chris Horner, Washington Times)

Generating Britain's electricity from offshore wind farms is likely to be at least twice as expensive as nuclear power, according to a new report by engineering consultants Parsons Brinckerhoff.

Britain plans to build up over 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power capacity by 2020 and wants to build new nuclear power plants to replace old reactors.

The government's nuclear plans are opposed by some environmental groups as being too costly.

But analysis by Parsons Brinckerhoff, a company backing plans for an offshore wind grid, estimates nuclear generation costs to be 6-8 pence per kilowatt hour (p/KWh), including decommissioning and waste disposal, compared to 15-21 p/KWh for offshore wind. (Reuters)

The fantastic success of the movie “Avatar,” in which an interplanetary Stone Age species of people overcomes an expeditionary force that looks suspiciously like the U.S. Army, is convincing millions of Americans that the secret of success in the modern world is to “go back to nature.”

President Barack Obama mirrored this in his Inaugural address when he said, “We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.” It all sounds so easy — free energy all around us, waiting to be harvested at little or no environmental cost, putting us back in tune with nature.

Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it sounds. The rhythms of nature are not always our rhythms. The sun shines only 10 to 14 hours a day, while we consume electricity around the clock. We don’t want our TVs and refrigerators running only when the wind blows. Until electricity can be stored in large quantities, we will need something that can provide electrical power on demand.

So far, fossil fuels and hydroelectricity have filled the bill, but each has its limitations. We’ve already developed all the good hydroelectric sites and people object to the way they drown valleys and interrupt fish migrations. There are more old dams being torn down these days than new ones being built.

Despite new natural gas finds and new technologies for coal, oil, and natural gas exploration, the supply restrictions of fossil fuels are also well known.

These are limited resources. We already import two-thirds of our oil. Coal, oil and gas also have an enormous environmental impact. They cause pollution and are widely considered to be major contributors to global warming.

Make no mistake — solar, wind and other “renewables” have their own environmental impact as well. Solar and wind farms will occupy dozens — even hundreds — of square miles to produce ordinary amounts of electricity. The Nature Conservancy has labeled this “Energy Sprawl.” Even geothermal energy — tapping the Earth’s heat — is creating problems. In December a long-term project in Switzerland was called off because it was causing earthquakes. The developer is facing criminal charges for causing property damages. The next day an almost identical project in California was called off, also because of fear of earthquakes.

So what other options does America have? Republicans have proposed building 100 new nuclear reactors in the next 20 years, just as we built 100 reactors between 1970 and 1990. Americans have been using nuclear power for a half-century and are quite familiar with the technology. We have worked out the kinks and established an impressive record for reliability that no other power source is able to match. The average American nuclear reactor now produces electricity 90 percent of the time, as opposed to 70 percent for coal and 20 to 30 percent for wind and solar. And no member of the American public has ever been killed by commercial nuclear power — a record unmatched by other fuels. (Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Theodore Rockwell, The Hill)

PARIS - Poor countries need nuclear power, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday, urging rich lenders to help pay for a global nuclear expansion in the interests of fighting climate change and feeding the growing world hunger for energy.

Sarkozy recognized the danger of meltdowns or proliferation - and international worries about Iran's nuclear program. He stood firmly against those who "cheat" and use nuclear technology to make weapons.

His tantalizing vision of nuclear reactors dotting the horizon won over international energy officials from India to Brussels and French executives eager to market their expertise abroad, all present at a Paris conference Monday. (Associated Press)

What a difference a question makes. A couple of weeks ago, we exposed the biased and misleading questions behind a widely-cited Washington Post poll, which supposedly found broad, bipartisan support for legislative limits on speech following the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Citizens United case. The Center for Competitive Politics, however, has now released a poll with dramatically different findings.

Based on much more accurate and objective questions, the Center’s findings reiterate our call for caution on the part of lawmakers, who appear ready to rush through legislative measures that would curtail the First Amendment rights of free speech and free association.

The Peepoo is an anytime on-the-go toilet created to give the world's poorest people a single-use, self-sanitizing and biodegradable mobile toilet. Cholera, a devastating disease, is transmitted via poor sanitation practices; the implementation of the Peepoo could alleviate this global health burden.

The Peepoo is essentially a slim biodegradable plastic bag (14 x 38 cm) with separate, green gauze lining (26 x 24 cm), similar in shape to a single wine bottle bag. It weighs less than 10 grams and odor-free up to 24-hours after use.

"Peepoople's mission is to provide hygienic and dignified sanitation for all," Karin Ruiz, CEO of Peepoople, told Relaxnews. In the process Peepoo is also empowering communities with a necessary resource, fertilizer. Two to four weeks after use, the remnants of the Peepoo deposit become a fertilizer filled with soil nutrients and nitrogen, improving agri-production and livelihoods. (The Independent)

Until three months ago, Thomas M. Dukes was a vigorous, healthy executive at a California plastics company. Then, over the course of a few days in December as he was planning his Christmas shopping, E. coli bacteria ravaged his body and tore his life apart.

Mr. Dukes is a reminder that as long as we’re examining our health care system, we need to scrutinize more than insurance companies. We also need to curb the way modern agribusiness madly overuses antibiotics, leaving them ineffective for sick humans.

Antibacterial drugs were revolutionary when they were introduced in the United States in 1936, virtually eliminating diseases like tuberculosis here and making surgery and childbirth far safer. But now we’re seeing increasing numbers of superbugs that survive antibiotics. One of the best-known — MRSA, a kind of staph infection — kills about 18,000 Americans annually. That’s more than die of AIDS.

Mr. Dukes, 52, picked up a kind of bacteria called ESBL-producing E. coli. While it’s conceivable that he touched a contaminated surface, a likely scenario is that he ate tainted meat, said Dr. Brad Spellberg, an infectious-diseases specialist and the author of “Rising Plague,” a book about antibiotic resistance.

Vegetarians are also vulnerable to antibiotic resistance nurtured in hog barns. Microbes swap genes, so antibiotic resistance developed in pigs can jump to microbes that infect humans in hospitals, locker rooms, schools or homes.

Routine use of antibiotics to raise livestock is widely seen as a major reason for the rise of superbugs. But Congress and the Obama administration have refused to curb agriculture’s addiction to antibiotics, apparently because of the power of the agribusiness lobby. (NYT)

WOMEN who like a glass of wine after work can relax: they are likely to gain less weight than those who stick to mineral water.

Moderate female drinkers also have a lower risk of obesity than teetotallers, according to new research. The findings, from a study of more than 19,000 women, is at odds with most dietary advice: that alcohol consumption leads to weight gain.

The research suggests that a calorie from alcohol has less impact on weight than a calorie from other foods and that the way the body deals with alcohol is more complex than realised. One theory is that in regular drinkers the liver develops a separate metabolic pathway to break down alcohol, with surplus energy turned mainly into heat, not fat. (Sunday Times)

The Washington Legislature should enact a law that would tax sugar-sweetened beverages, write these guest columnists and health-care professionals. Childhood obesity has increased dramatically and can be linked to the increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. (David Fleming, Benjamin Danielson and Lenna L. Liu, Seattle Times)

The key to avoid getting fat may be in your ability to taste it.

A Deakin University study has found that humans can detect a sixth taste - fat - and this may hold the key to reducing obesity.

Building on US research that used animal models to discover fat taste, researchers tested the ability of humans to identify fatty acids commonly found in food.

Subjects were asked to taste three samples of a modified milk drink, one of which contained a concentration of fat.

By using this method, researchers found that humans have a taste threshold for fat that varies from person to person.

Those who were ''sensitive'' - and could taste it relatively easily during the tests - were found to have a lower body mass index than those with lower sensitivity.

''When we broke it down even further and looked at their diets, we found that they were actually consuming less fat,'' said lead researcher Russell Keast.

''We are now interested in understanding why some people are sensitive and others are not, which we believe will lead to ways of helping people lower their fat intakes and aid development of new low-fat foods and diets.'' (The Age)

PARIS — Could U.S.-style diet coaching offer a solution to the rising tide of obesity in Europe?

Nestlé, the Swiss food goliath, hopes so. It is bringing Jenny Craig, its quintessentially American line of consultant-driven diet programs, to Europe, starting in France on March 9.

The product will then move to Britain during the second quarter, followed by other major European markets. Eventually, Nestlé plans to take Jenny Craig to urban centers in emerging markets, including India and China.

Nestlé is betting that Europeans are ready to embrace a concept that has proved very successful in North America. (NYT)

The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority will examine new research from the United States which found the herbicide atrazine can chemically castrate male frogs.

The authority is currently of the view the widely-used weed killer doesn't pose a risk to human health and the environment.

But University of California researchers have raised fresh concerns. (Australian Broadcasting Corp.)

Environmentalists aim to hitch their stars to James Cameron's "Avatar" by trying to draw parallels between the sci-fi blockbuster and Canada's oil sands industry ahead of Sunday's Academy Awards.

In a full-page ad in the show business trade publication "Variety," a coalition of green groups endorsed the film, which is nominated for nine Oscars, saying the predatory grab for resources it portrays on the fictional planet Pandora is similar to methods used in northern Alberta. (Reuters)

We can't let any Oscars go to Avatar on Sunday without first taking another look at the greatest killer review of James Cameron's ideological epic.

As Peter Foster wrote here earlier today, Avatar’s most outspoken critic may well be activist filmmaker Ann McElhinney. "At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington two weeks ago, Ms. McElhinney noted — to Tea Party cheers — that Avatar might be both beautiful and compelling, but it was also an 'anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-mining rant.'" Aside from that, it was a brilliant extemporaneous example of blow-the-audience-away Irish oratorical form.

Watch Ann below, read Peter's column. Even if Avatar wins, Oscar night might become bearable just knowing that Ann McElhinney is not likely to let up on her criticisms. And who knows? Maybe the Oscar will go to The Hurt Locker.

The much-hyped Oscar fight between Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" and James Cameron's "Avatar" turned out to be a knockout Sunday night (March 7), as "Hurt Locker" won Best Picture and Bigelow became the first woman in Academy Award history to win for Best Directing.

Those wins were two of six "Hurt Locker" took home from its nine nominations during the live ceremony at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, including Film Editing, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Shut out of the major categories, "Avatar" nabbed a total of three wins — out of nine noms — in categories like Cinematography, Visual Effects and Art Direction.

Taking the stage to accept the win for Best Picture just moments after winning for Directing, Bigelow thanked men and women in uniform all over the world, in the military and other services. "They are there for us, and we are there for them," she said.

Minutes earlier, accepting the Directing award, Bigelow said, "I'd just like to dedicate this to the women and men of the military who risk their lives every day in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world. May they come home safe." (MTV)

The organisers of Earth Hour, to be held this year on March 27, adveritse the resolution of warming worriers:

What, only 579 cities signed up so far? Seems that resolutiuon may actually be fading fast, given their target:

Or, suggests Senator Cory Bernardi, you may choose on that date and time to help him celebrate something much more important:

President Obama has allocated $4 billion in "stimulus funds" to help advance the "smart grid," which is intended to seamlessly integrate all our new solar and wind power into the national supply of electricity. Much of the $4 billion will be spent to install 20 million new digital "smart meters." These meters will instantly tell the power company how to deploy its varied generating sources most effectively.

The "stimulus fund" goal is to create new "green" jobs. The Washington Post estimates that deploying the 20 million smart meters will create jobs for about 1,600 installers, and keep them employed for about five years. The manufacturing process for the meters will be highly automated, so only a few hundred jobs would be involved there. Still, 2,000 green jobs for five years, paid for by stimulus funds, must be good. Or is it?

Let's think this through. The smart meters report automatically to the power company. We'll lose 28,000 existing, permanent jobs for meter-readers. The Washington Post says all our "green" energy efforts are likely to produce only tens of thousands of jobs, not the millions of jobs needed to keep America at full employment.

A good Spanish study, led by Dr. Gabriel Calzada of Juan Carlos University in Madrid, found that every renewable-energy job created by the Spanish government has destroyed 2.2 other energy-related jobs. Worse, every megawatt of expensive "green energy" has destroyed 5.39 jobs in non-energy sectors as products became too expensive for consumers to buy—or as manufacturing shifted to countries without energy taxes. President Obama has held Spain up as a country for us to emulate, which only emphasizes that Calzada's study is likely an Obama-valid blueprint for our own energy future.

Note, by the way, that China has already become the world's major source of wind turbines, cutting further into Obama's "green job" expectations. The wind turbine manufacturing will shortly be joined by our steel and aluminum industries, fertilizer plants and many other production facilities when the U.S. energy penalty taxes mount up.

Unfortunately, the $4 billion doesn't replace our massive existing investments in coal-fired and gas-fired power plants, in gasoline refineries and service stations, in natural gas pipelines and drilling rigs. In reality, the renewables will subtract from our standard of living. (Dennis T. Avery, ESR)

Green jobs are a waste of space, a waste of money, a lie, a chimera. You know that. I know that. We’re familiar with the report by Dr Gabriel Calzada Alvarez of the Rey Juan Carlos University in Spain which shows that for every “green job” that is created another 2.2 jobs are LOST in the real economy.

We also know that alternative energy is a fraud – only viable through enormous government (ie taxpayer subsidy) and utterly incapable of answering anything more than a fraction of our energy needs. As Shannon Love puts it here:

Here’s a fact you won’t see mentioned in the public policy debate over “alternative” energy:

There exists no alternative energy source, no combination of alternative energy sources, and no system of combinations of alternative energy sources that can fully replace a single, coal fired electric plant built with 1930s era technology.

Nada.
Zero.
Zilch.

So why are our political leaders setting out quite deliberately to deceive us? (James Delingpole)

One of the more sinister aspects of the "climate change" miasma is the insistence of campaigners and governments that saving the planet requires personal sacrifice and significant changes in personal lifestyles. However, while we may be dimly aware of government exhortations along those lines, few people realise quite how much of our money is being spent on trying to make us change our ways.

A significant amount of that money is spent by one government department, DEFRA, on "behavioural research", and a record of its recent expenditure provides a chilling testament to the Orwellian world of climate advocacy, where every aspect of our lives is coming under official scrutiny.

The record, which starts in 2005, has the University of Surrey doing a project called "Choice Matters", exploring how to make sustainability "an automatic and primary part of producer and consumer choice, rather than a self-satisfying added extra." This cost a relatively modest £21,775.

For £63,017 meanwhile, the University of Westminster carried out an analysis of existing research relating to "pro-environmental behavioural change", aiming to contribute towards a better practical understanding of how DEFRA could influence behaviours.

Cranfield University, on the other hand, took on: "Sustainable development as a "collective choice" problem: theoretical and practical implications". The aim if this research was to explore thoroughly the potential of a highly promising and unique body of research, known as "collective-action theory", for achieving DEFRA's goal of finding new ways of motivating people to produce and consume in a sustainable manner. This cost a mere £23,333.

Exeter University was given the task of applying theories of behavioural change, using innovative techniques within the context of specific lifestyle groups. It employed a brand marketing approach to demonstrate how a model of environmental behaviour could be used to develop policies for change. The work cost us £21,000.

Other work went to the London-based "green" consultancy, Brook Lyndhurst, which was asked about "nudging the S-Curve". This shows an initial period of slow change; a period of acceleration, and rapid change; and a period in which change slows down as some sort of limit to growth is approached. This project sought better to understand the S-curve in order to promote pro-environmental behaviour change. For us, there was no change from £21,150.

... (EU Referendum)

Interview of Dr. Faisal Hossain pn the BBC show “The Naked Scientists: Science Radio & Science Podcasts” titled

The podcast is available (see - Faisal’s talk is later on the podcast) with the transcript below: (Climate Science)

SEBRING - If Highlands County had to comply today with the EPA's clean water regulations today, it couldn't.

The EPA has proposed surface water standards in Florida, but there are no specific numbers for the 113 public and private lakes in Highlands County, said lakes manager Clell Ford.

Instead, the EPA plan groups Florida waters with nutrient allotments that depend on the characteristic of the water.

None of the 18 clear lakes on Lake Wales Ridge meet the proposed standards for phosphorous and nitrogen, Ford said Friday.

Of the 22 muck lakes just off the ridge, 13 don't meet the standards.

None of the sandy lakes around the county would meet the Environmental Protection Agency's rules.

"Well," Ford said, "one reason why is the way the rules are written." (Highlands Today)

Experts predict that, over the long term, food security can't be achieved without energy security. Add in mechanization, storage, and transport and the energy impact of a typical meal in industrialized nations is many times the amount of energy the meal's consumer derives. Recently, researchers have been taking a close look at just how much energy it takes to produce even seemingly similar foods. The conclusion: Food choices can have a significant impact on energy use in agriculture, and by extension, on greenhouse gas emissions as well. Beef lovers beware! As the world diverts more of its grain harvests into meat production, some scientists are taking a closer look at more environmentally friendly sources of protein, including insects.

Attacks on meat eating are nothing new. In 2003, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health started “Meatless Mondays,” an initiative to reduce U.S. meat consumption by 15%. More recently, a number of pop celebrities, including Paul McCartney and Sheryl Crow, started a campaign for “Meet Free Mondays.” Indian economist and IPCC head R. Pachauri , who is also a vegetarian, encouraged all people to “give up meat for one day [a week] initially, and decrease it from there.”

As we reported in The Resilient Earth, others have pursued this story for different purposes. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. ABC News picked up the story in an article titled “Meat-Eaters Aiding Global Warming? New Research Suggests What You Eat as Important as What You Drive.” In it they reported that you should become a vegetarian if you want to help lower greenhouse gas emissions. They quoted researchers who liken eating red meat to driving an SUV. This position would certainly be supported by PETA, the group running the GoVeg.com web site.

Now, according to a news article in Science, if people in the developed world ate less meat, it would free up a lot of grain that could feed billions of hungry people. A lot of good farmland could be converted from grazing to crop production as well. As article author Erik Stokstad put it in “Could Less Meat Mean More Food?”:

Scholars on all sides of the issue agree on one thing: Just as the rich use more energy than the poor, they also eat more meat. The United States, for instance, accounts for about 15% of global meat consumption but has just 4.5% of the world's population. In the developing world, daily meat consumption averages around 80 grams. Americans consume about 330 grams of meat a day on average—the equivalent of three quarter-pound hamburgers. This is despite a recommendation from the US Department of Agriculture that people consume just 142 to 184 grams of meat and beans daily.

All meals are not created equal in terms of production energy. As a start, researchers have been taking a close look at just how much energy it takes to produce even seemingly similar foods. Consider the production energy costs for the two meals shown below. The meal consisting of beef, tomatoes and wine (left) requires more than three time the energy to produce as does the one featuring chicken, carrots and tap water (right). Which one would you prefer?

In the face of the world's burgeoning population do we need to ban burgers? How can we meet the growing demand for meat? Some scientists think we need to look at much smaller, multi-legged livestock. A cow needs to eat roughly 8 grams of food to gain a gram in weight, insects need less than two. “If you are going to feed 9 billion people, we cannot ignore the efficiency of insects as protein producers,” says Paul Vantomme, senior forestry officer at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

As reported in another Science article by Gretchen Vogel, one possible replacement for cattle are caterpillars from the south of Africa. “Nutritionally, it is excellent food,” says Arnold van Huis, an entomologist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. “It's the same or even better than conventional meat, fish, or poultry.” According to van Huis, Just 100 grams of caterpillars can provide all of an adult's recommended daily protein, along with iron, B vitamins, and other essential nutrients. Known as the mopane worm, these caterpillars of the emperor moth may need some re-branding before the achieve wide market acceptance as a beef substitute.

Science reporter Vogel didn't just write about eating insects, she tried them herself. She and her family tried grasshoppers, boiled first to kill any possible nematodes and then sautéed with garlic, onions, and lime juice. The final result was described as “grassy and, truth be told, a bit mushy. Not bad, but not necessarily worth the effort.”

A better choice turned out to be Mexican chapulines served at Oyamel, a Washington DC restaurant. Chapulines are grasshoppers of the genus Sphenarium. They are collected only at certain times of year—from their hatching in early May through the late summer/early autumn. Imported from Mexico, these insects are dried in the sun, then salted, and sautéed in tequila. The effect was crunchy, savory, and delicious. “We ordered seconds,” Vogel reported (they had me at “tequila”).

Although chapulines are available throughout Mexico, they are especially popular in the state and city of Oaxacain. They can also be found in the areas surrounding Mexico City, such as Tepotztlan, Cuernavaca, and Puebla. As with other types of grasshopper, chapulines must be thoroughly cleaned and washed, then cooked before human consumption. This is to avoid possible infection from nematodes that can infest human hosts.

Around the world entomophagy enthusiasts think that eating insects could catch on, even among Europeans and North Americans. In the Netherlands, a company called Bugs Organic Food markets mealworms and grasshoppers through two dozen outlets. The effort has reported some success: the Dutch minister of agriculture was seen holding a grasshopper at a press conference. She did not eat the grasshopper, so the insect eaters may have a bit farther to go. If you are personally adventurous a number of insect recipes can be found here.

Some food-security researchers remain skeptical, pointing to the complexities of global markets and human food traditions. These could produce some counter-intuitive and possibly counterproductive results. Calculating the full impact of meat consumption on global food security requires sophisticated models that can track how changes in consumption ripple out across farming systems, global supply chains, and food markets.

In 1998 Mark Rosegrant and colleagues at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFRPI) used a model called IMPACT to study what might happen if rich nations cut their demand for meat to half of what it was in 1993. The simulation, published in the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, found that as demand for meat fell, prices declined and meat became more affordable worldwide. As a result, poorer consumers in the developing world could buy more and projected 2020 meat consumption actually increased by 13%. Regardless of what the vegetarian movement says, that's a good thing, because increasing animal-protein consumption among the very poor can provide substantial nutritional benefits, particularly for children. On the other hand, when the rich halved their meat habit, the poor didn't necessarily get significantly more grain.

According to the model, human cereal consumption in developing nations rose by just 1.5%. That's enough grain to ease hunger for 3.6 million malnourished children—but nowhere near the level of gain increase many expect from reducing meat consumption. Even worse, the simulation results indicate that eating less meat could increase food insecurity. When consumers in developed countries replaced meat with pasta and bread, world wheat prices actually rose, increasing malnutrition slightly in developing countries.

Others have pointed out that eating some meat is good for the planet because some habitats benefited from grazing. Also, vegetarian diets that included lots of milk, butter and cheese would probably not noticeably reduce emissions because dairy cow flatulence is a major source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas (see “Cow Farts & Kangaroos”). “It's not this panacea that people have put forward,” concludes Rosegrant. Quoting from TRE Chapter 15, Prophets of Doom:

So, can cutting down on meat save the planet from global warming and ease world hunger? Are there bug burgers or cricket casserole in our future? Here in the US it is highly doubtful that even the government-knows-best Obama administration will try to force all Americans to become vegetarians, even gradually. As I said in my earlier post, “When Humans Almost Went Extinct,” the two things that made us human were the use of fire and eating meat. Nowadays the climate change alarmists say we must curtail using the first, and activist vegetarians demand we stop eating the second. Right. Who knows, eating insects may eventually catch on—as with climate change, only time will tell.

Europe's food safety agency has used partial evidence to approve genetically modified crops, including a GM potato developed by BASF, and should overhaul its methods, a French environment minister said.

France has previously invoked environmental risks to suspend cultivation of Monsanto's MON 810 maize, which was the only GM crop approved for growing in the European Union prior to this week's approval of BASF's Amflora potato.

Chantal Jouanno, a junior minister in the French government, said the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), whose opinions are used by the EU's executive, had ignored the environmental effects of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). (Reuters)

A move by Unilever to stop buying palm oil from Indonesia's top supplier Sinar Mas and to blacklist another supplier PT Duta Palma was "unfair," Indonesian Agriculture Minister Suswono said on Friday.

Green campaigners and consumers have turned up the heat on European firms such as Unilever, saying these companies' palm oil suppliers are responsible for deforestation and peatland clearence that can speed up climate change.

"If there is a dispute we should ask an independent to judge objectively what was the weakness. A unilateral decision by Unilever I think is unfair," the minister told reporters.

Unilever, the world's top palm oil buyer, blacklisted Duta Palma last month, after previously halting a $33 million supply contract with Sinar Mas unit PT SMART.

"We have to prove if the accusations are right so going forward there will not be misunderstanding," added Suswono, who uses one name like many Indonesians.

The move by Unilever, and other campaigns by NGOs, has prompted palm planters in Indonesia and Malaysia to set up a forum to cooperate in promoting sustainable practices and to be united in the face of pressures from buyers. (Reuters)

It’s a rare day when the New York Times gets something right editorially while the Wall Street Journal gets it wrong — and on gun rights, no less. Yet that was the case today, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in McDonald v. Chicago, a challenge to Chicago’s draconian gun-control law.

Not surprisingly, the Times opens with a shot against the Court’s 2008 decision in Heller v. District of Columbia, which found for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, quite apart from whether he’s a member of a militia. The next step, at issue in McDonald, is whether that right was good not simply against the federal government (Heller decided that) but against states and municipalities as well. Both the Times and the Journal argue, correctly, that the Bill of Rights should apply against the states, and that’s how the Court will likely rule. The difference is on the grounds for so ruling, and it’s not a trivial matter. (Cato at liberty)

Copenhagen was a flop. Congress's cap-and-trade bill is stalled. The EPA has delayed its climate rules. If you think this means American business is escaping the threat of carbon restraints, think again.

Most of the climate debate focuses on Washington. This misses a more clever and committed force—environmental groups that impose their agenda on companies via pressure, legal threat and sympathetic regulators. A textbook example has been quietly unfolding in the insurance sector. The question is whether governors will stand by to let green activists effectively regulate their businesses.

Since the beginning of the climate debate, environmental lobbies such as Ceres (a coalition of activists and investors that pressures companies to go green) have expressed particular interest in insurers. Rather than nitpick every company to adopt climate-change policies, these organizations realized it would be more efficient to target a gatekeeper. Everybody needs insurance. If insurers could be bludgeoned into requiring policyholders adopt carbon-mitigation practices as a requirement for insurance, the activists would have imposed their will widely and quickly.

Enter the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the professional body for state regulators. Unlike, say, the National Governors Association, NAIC has a quasi-regulatory role. Insurance is complex, and the association develops model bills for state legislatures to vote on. This has at times been beneficial, but NAIC'S structure also means activist commissioners can drive its agenda.

No surprise then when several commissioners—with the prodding of outside green groups—several years ago dragged NAIC into the climate debate. It began innocently enough, with a task force charged with producing a "white paper."

Yet under the direction of members such as Wisconsin Insurance Commissioner Sean Dilweg and Pennsylvania Commissioner Joel Ario—both climate crusaders—the task force turned itself into a national climate regulator. In particular, in unveiled its "Climate Risk Disclosure Survey," a document insurers must complete and make public. This survey was not put forward for legislative approval, but rather presented as something state commissioners must issue unilaterally. (Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ)

The European Union executive is tempering its hopes of securing a legally binding climate deal in talks this year culminating in Cancun, Mexico, focusing instead on a 2011 summit in South Africa, a source said.

"The realistic approach is to aim for deliverables in the Bonn and Cancun meetings this year, and then to aim for a legally binding agreement in South Africa," the European Commission source said on condition of anonymity.

"But we should not give up hope of it being done earlier," the source added.

EU climate negotiators are struggling to find direction after Copenhagen talks in December ended in a weak accord. (Reuters)

The European Union's development chief may be forced to name and shame France, Germany and Italy for not living up to their aid commitments, contributing to a roughly $17 billion funding gap this year.

Andris Piebalgs warned in January he would clearly identify EU countries that failed to meet their aid commitments.

"In 2010, the EU aid disbursements are likely to further grow to approximately 54-55 billion euros ($74-75 billion)," a leaked EU document seen by Reuters shows. "Many member states will most probably not reach their... aid targets. A gap of 12-13 billion euros remains."

The paper did not name France, Germany or Italy, but an OECD report last month said they were among the EU's worst performers.

The paper also warned the shortfall threatens the EU's standing in climate talks, which this year aim to build on the weak accord reached in Copenhagen in December. (Reuters)

The European Commission is planning in the next couple of months to table a proposal for a carbon tax, a move likely to cause division among member states.

EU taxation commissioner Algirdas Semeta told Brussels weekly European Voice that he is planning draft legislation on a minimum rate of tax on carbon emissions.

The commissioner is to table a proposal in the next few months (Photo: European Community, 2006)

"In my estimation it is possible to start discussion within the college [of European Commissioners]," he told the newspaper, adding that "there is currently the right momentum" to relaunch the issue.

His spokesperson said that the "energy directive is one of the priorities he would like to pursue," during his five-year mandate and that an impact assessment of such a carbon tax is now being finalised. The commissioner would like to publish the proposal in the next "couple of months." (EU Observer)

A rift within Japan's government over legislation to fight climate change has raised the risk of it watering down plans for an emissions trading system that is at the core of its drive for greener policies.

In its latest draft for a climate bill expected to be submitted to parliament next Friday, the environment ministry is vague on details of how the scheme would set emission limits and when trading would start.

The environment ministry has favored setting volume caps on emissions. But the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has called for caps per unit of production, which would allow emissions to rise when businesses increase output.

METI is under pressure from companies worried about limits on greenhouse gas emissions restricting growth.

"We are not ruling out volume caps, but considering the need for economic growth, carbon intensity targets should also be included in the scheme," METI minister Masayuki Naoshima told a news conference on Friday. (Reuters)

Japan is struggling over how to meet the government’s ambitious promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade.

The cabinet on Friday delayed until next Friday a decision on a bill covering emissions trading, carbon taxes and other green measures, after Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama complained that it was “in danger of being pummelled” by industry groups and their allies. Failure to reach agreement next week would delay the bill until parliament reconvenes after elections in July. (Financial Times)

A Climate-Change Chameleon - It's hard to tell whether New Delhi really understands the economic cost of fighting 'global warming.'

"The climate world is divided into three: the climate atheists, the climate agnostics, and the climate evangelicals. I'm a climate agnostic."

A direct—some would say brash—man with a penetrating stare, it's hard to believe India's Environment and Forests Minister, Jairam Ramesh, is agnostic about anything. This is the man who dressed down Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last year when she pushed for India to adopt binding emissions targets. He was the first politician of a major nation to question the United Nations' claim that the Himalayan glaciers were melting at a rapid pace. And he's spearheaded his country's very own climate-change research institute—a direct challenge to the U.N.'s now-discredited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

That record makes Mr. Ramesh one of the few policy makers in the world in a position to push a new, more economically rational approach to climate change—and debate the politics of it, too. It helps that he isn't media-shy. And like many Indian men, Mr. Ramesh has a penchant for the dramatic: "You have unlimited time!" he tells me, hands outstretched, as we settle down to a chat in his darkened office, with a single spotlight shining on the minister himself. (Mary Kissel, WSJ)

Exposed: The global warming camapign enters its emperor's-new-clothes phase

BY STEVEN F. HAYWARD
March 15, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 25

It is increasingly clear that the leak of the internal emails and documents of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in November has done for the climate change debate what the Pentagon Papers did for the Vietnam war debate 40 years ago—changed the narrative decisively. Additional revelations of unethical behavior, errors, and serial exaggeration in climate science are rolling out on an almost daily basis, and there is good reason to expect more.

The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), hitherto the gold standard in climate science, is under fire for shoddy work and facing calls for a serious shakeup. The U.S. Climate Action Partnership, the self-serving coalition of environmentalists and big business hoping to create a carbon cartel, is falling apart in the wake of the collapse of any prospect of enacting cap and trade in Congress. Meanwhile, the climate campaign’s fallback plan to have the EPA regulate greenhouse gas emissions through the cumbersome Clean Air Act is generating bipartisan opposition. The British media—even the left-leaning, climate alarmists of the Guardian and BBC—are turning on the climate campaign with a vengeance. The somnolent American media, which have done as poor a job reporting about climate change as they did on John Edwards, have largely averted their gaze from the inconvenient meltdown of the climate campaign, but the rock solid edifice in the newsrooms is cracking. Al Gore was conspicuously missing in action before surfacing with a long article in the New York Times on February 28, reiterating his familiar parade of horribles: The sea level will rise! Monster storms! Climate refugees in the hundreds of millions! Political chaos the world over! It was the rhetorical equivalent of stamping his feet and saying “It is too so!” In a sign of how dramatic the reversal of fortune has been for the climate campaign, it is now James Inhofe, the leading climate skeptic in the Senate, who is eager to have Gore testify before Congress. (The Weekly Standard)

Dr. Jones asserted that the weather services of several countries, including Sweden, Canada and Poland, had refused to allow their data to be released, to explain his reluctance to comply with Freedom of Information requests.

The row sparked by the leak of climate change emails from a British university has the potential to "undermine" the reputation of science as a whole, two respected scientific organisations have warned. (Sunday Telegraph)

According to recently disclosed e-mails from a National Academies of Science listserv, prominent climate scientists affiliated with the U.S. National Academies of Science have been planning a public campaign to paper over the damaged reputation of global warming alarmism. Their scheme would involve officials at the National Academies and other professional associations producing studies to endorse the researchers’ pre-existing assumptions and create confusion about the revelations of the rapidly expanding “Climategate” scandal.

The e-mails were first reported in a front-page story by Stephen Dinan in the Washington Times today. The Competitive Enterprise Institute has independently obtained copies of the e-mails. A list of excerpts, with descriptive headlines written by me, can be found below. The entire file of e-mails has been posted as a PDF and can be read here.

In my view, the response of these alarmist scientists to the Climategate scientific fraud scandal has little to do with their responsibilities as scientists and everything to do with saving their political position. The e-mails reveal a group of scientists plotting a political strategy to minimize the effects of Climategate in the public debate on global warming. (Cooler Heads)

Update: full text

If you want to see the full exchange of the NAS members who try to collect money for their anti-skeptic "outlandishly aggressively partisan" propagandistic campaign - from themselves and the corporations (5:1) - see this 17-page

Thursday, March 25, 2010, 3:00 PM GMT

To view this free webinar please register below

In the 60 years since the invention of the digital computer, millions of lines of code have been developed to support scientific research. Although an increasingly important part of almost all research projects, most research software is barely fit for purpose compared to equivalent systems in the commercial world. The code is hard to understand or maintain, lacking documentation and version control, and is continually ‘re-invented’ as the code writers move on to new jobs. This represents a tremendous waste of the already inadequate resources that are put into its development. We will investigate how this situation has come about, why it is important to the future of research, and what can be done about it.

Robert McGreevy will draw on his extensive experience at the STFC ISIS Facility, and explain how these issues are being addressed for the benefit of research science globally. Nicholas Draper, consultant at Tessella, will then expand on this, using the example of the Mantid project at ISIS. (Physics World)

The New York Times published a doozy of a front-page story by John M. Broder on Wednesday on the Climate-gate scientific fraud scandal. Those who have been lambasting our national “paper of record” for months for largely ignoring the scandal, while every London paper has run multiple big stories full of juicy new revelations, can now relax. The wise and good Grey Lady has finally taken notice.

Well, not exactly. Broder’s story, headlined “Scientists Take Steps to Defend Climate Work,” is all about how the climate science establishment have realized that they “have to fight back” against critics who have used the Climategate revelations to call into question the…

"It may just be one of the most ominous bits of evidence yet that global warming could run out of control," writes Geoffrey Lean.

"Scientists are beginning to find that methane frozen in permafrost under the Arctic Ocean is bubbling up to the surface and reaching the atmosphere, raising concerns that one of the most-feared potential self-reinforcing effects of climate change may be starting to get under way."

You have to read right down to the end of the report, however, to find the great man writing: "It is far too early to draw firm conclusions from the findings."

Then we learn that "Only a tiny amount of methane has been released so far compared to what is emitted elsewhere in the world and the Alaskan researchers are only beginning to track how the methane moves into the atmosphere."

Aha, though, never fear ... er ... please do fear. Be very afraid, please – my job depends on it. This, Lean assures us: " ... certainly bears watching closely. It could turn out to be one more piece of evidence that the effects of climate change are becoming evident faster than anyone predicted."

They are getting desperate. It'll be farting cows next. (EU Referendum)

A sharp-eyed viewer has noticed that when I was debating George Monbiot on TV yesterday and I mentioned that his cherished “peer-reviewed science” had been discredited by Climategate he bared his teeth like a cornered cur. Says my body language expert John Lish:

“It was a quite aggressive and defensive gesture which was noticeable when he was attempting to dismiss you (talking about peer review). A definite body-language sign of being rattled. He’s definitely uncomfortable about what’s occurring and others will have spotted that as well.” (James Delingpole)

I do not think so. Simply, it’s all been Allcott’s and Mullainathan’s (the original authors’) fault. In fact, this is what they wrote:

Obviously, Climategate notwithstanding, an enormous percentage of newsmedia people still firmly believe only titillating stories about upcoming disasters will ever attract the interest of their readers. I have a feeling that’s the kind of newsmedia most likely to go the way of the dodo, at least regarding scientific journalism. (Maurizio Morabito, OmniClimate)

Well before the recent controversies, the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was marred by an unwillingness to listen to dissenting points of view, an inadequate system for dealing with errors, conflicts of interest, and political advocacy. The latest allegations of inaccuracies should be an impetus for sweeping reform. From Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network

In The Observer is a report on a fascinating scientific dispute which provides a graphic illustration of the uncertainties of climate science and the unreliability of predictions offered by disparate scientists – to say nothing of the utter shambles of the research effort.

The nature of the dispute seems clear enough from the article headline, which tells us: "Rise in UK carbon emissions disputed by report". The strap lines further elucidates the issue, with the information that "Soil deposits of CO2 'not fuelling global warming yet – but will in future'".

Thus informed, we learn from the text that a major study for the UK government "has cast doubt over claims that rising temperatures are causing soil to pump greater amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further fuelling global warming."

The original claim was reported in September 2005 in the journal Nature (Bellamy, P H, et al) covered at the time by The Guardian. Then, under one of those classic scare headlines, we were told that, "Loss of soil carbon 'will speed global warming'", the piece retailing the claim that, over the previous 25 years 100 million tons of carbon dioxide had been released by the soil of England and Wales.

Leaving us in no doubt as to the importance of this release, we were told that the figure cancelled out all emissions cuts in the UK since 1990.

As to the source of the information upon which the claim was made, we learn that it was derived from the National Soil Inventory, carried out initially between 1978 and 1983, and again from 1994 to 2003, by the National Soil Resources Institute at Cranfield University.

In full scare mode, professor Guy Kirk of the university – and a co-author of the Nature paper - declared that it had been reckoned that the CO2 fertilisation effect was offsetting about 25 percent of the direct human-induced carbon dioxide emissions. He added that it was reckoned that the soil temperature emission effect would catch up in maybe 10 to 50 years' time. But, according to his analysis, "We are showing that it seems to be happening rather faster than that."

To complete the current Observer "take" on this claim, we are now told that a national survey of the soils of Great Britain, funded by DEFRA, claims to have found no net loss of carbon over approximately the same period. Now, a special study group is being proposed, with an independent statistical expert, to examine why the reports differ and which result is more likely to be correct. (EU Referendum)

To relieve the tedium of churning though the endless lists of climate change research projects, it is rather fun to imagine these projects being up for sale on online, with some dry little civil servant picking them off the list and adding them to his (our) virtual shopping basket.

So, our little man from DEFRA is logged onto his computer and, with our credit card in front of him, he can start lining up the purchases from the website. First on the list is: "An appraisal of unaccounted sources and sinks of greenhouse gas, ammonia, and other emissions to air from UK land management, starting in April 2007 and finishing in September 2008" (AC0108). That costs a mere £49,906.

In the slightly higher price range, he now picks a project entitled: "Air quality measurements on cracking clay soils" (AC0111). Yes, strangely, that is climate change related. Starting in April 2008 and not finishing until March 2013, that costs us £2,046,516.

Something a little less pricey, but still rather in the high end, is: "Inventories of ammonia and greenhouse gasses from UK agriculture" (AC0112). Again for the period April 2008 to March 2013, we get it for £1,450,603. Our account now stands at £3,547,025. "Do you wish to continue, or go to the checkout?" the computer asks. Unfortunately for us, the civil servant wants to continue.

OK. Bargain of the week is: "Agriculture and climate change: turning results into practical action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - A review" (AC0206). A nice quickie, from June to July, it comes at a mere £30,000. That barely changes the running total, which now stands at £3,577,025.

From the bargain basin, our man now adds a "study of the scope for the application of research in animal genomics and breeding to reduce nitrogen and methane emissions from livestock based food chains" (AC204). For a mere £49,939, that was for June 2007 to January 2008. The shopping basket is now at £3,626,964.

In the mid-range price bracket now comes: "The translation of existing research outputs into actions that reduce pollution gas emissions from agriculture" (AC0207). That costs £150,000 for a period December 2007 to March 2009. If you purchase, "The limits to a sustainable livestock sector in the UK" (AC0208), that adds £226,943 to the account, covering the period April 2007 to March 2010. The shopping basket is now at £4,003,907. Sorry, there is no discount for quantity.

Next on the list is: "Ruminant nutrition regimes to reduce methane and nitrogen emissions" (AC0209). To stop cows farting and burping, a mere £746,495, with the study from April 2007 to March 2010. This comes as part of a matched set with, "Modelling nutritional effects on reproduction in dairy cows" (AC0218) - needed to make sure changes in nutrition do not have any untoward effect. For execution between October 2009 and July 2010, this comes at the knockdown price of £76,764.

... (EU Referendum)

The Met Office says its short-term forecasts are "extremely accurate"

The Met Office is to stop publishing seasonal forecasts, after it came in for criticism for failing to predict extreme weather.

It was berated for not foreseeing that the UK would suffer this cold winter or the last three wet summers in its seasonal forecasts.

The Met Office said it decided to change its forecasting approach after carrying out customer research.

Explaining its decision, the Met Office released a statement which said: “By their nature, forecasts become less accurate the further out we look. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

The statement last week from the Met Office that they were no longer going to rely on their seasonal forecasts provoked obvious responses, but one wonders whether the implications have fully sunk in.

While the headline "barbeque summer" predictions have provided endless entertainment, these forecasts have a strategic purpose. They are used by local authorities, power generators and others for planning purposes. And it was last year's optimistic forecast that contributed to the lack of preparedness for the hard winter, leaving many highway authorities short of grit and salt.

Thus, if the Met Office is no longer going to offer forecasts to public utilities and other commercial users, these will be "flying blind", and will either have to plan on a worst case scenario or risk not being able to deliver if we experience next winter anything like we have just suffered – or even worse.

No more so it this the case than with electricity generation. During the intense cold last month, reserve capacity was briefly down to seven percent. An outage by a major power station would have precipitated power cuts, leaving vast areas of the country in the dark and cold.

Delays and incompetence by successive administrations, and the slavish adherence to the "green" agenda means that we are already operating with inadequate margins. And, to that extent, we are already living on borrowed time. Our lights stay on in the winter entirely by luck, rather than judgement.

For sure, the utilities are responding to an expected shortfall by building new CCGT plants, which means that price rather than power cuts may be the future issue. But that does not rule out the possibility of major breakdown, or a deterioration in the political situation elsewhere in the world, that leaves us short of power. (EU Referendum)

Senior scientists at the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WITG) has rejected the Global Warming Theory and told that the Himalayas are quite safer zone on earth, where Global Warming has no role in controlling the conditions.

In an exclusive chat with HT, Director WIHG Dr AK Dubey has said that the conditions of Himalayas are controlled by the winter snowfall rather than external factors like much hyped Global Warming. He told that for a concrete result, at least 30 years of continuous research with steady outcome is needed to confirm the actual impact.

"According to a data for over 140 years available with a British weather observatory situated in Mukteswar (2311m) in Almora has actually revealed that temperature in that region witnessed a dip of .4 degrees," he said.

Since 1991, the institute is monitoring the Himalayas extensively with focusing the glacial studies and last twenty year data has never witnessed a continual retreat. Sometimes, the recession rates have gone up but on an average the rate is very much safer, he added.

Whatever predictions about Himalayas are being made are based on short-term studies conducted on glaciers, which have no comparison with Himalayan Glaciers, he told. "Our glaciers are giant high altitude glaciers above 4000m altitude with a permanent temperature below 20 degrees Celsius. And has no comparison with the Alps Glaciers or Alaskan Glacier which are at sea level," he said.

Dr. DP Dobhal, eminent glaciologist added that however there is a change in climate in terms of shrinking of winter period but still a lot is dependent upon the snowfall occurs. Currently the rate of recession is in between 16-20 meters a year for glacial retreat in Himalayas, whereas 30 percent of the glaciers are more than 10km in length, he said. (Ashwani Maindola, Hindustan Times)

The winter of 2009-2010 has produced its fair share of winter storms in the Northern Hemisphere – recall that President Obama arrived back in Washington from his appearance at the Copenhagen climate conference only to find the White House grounds buried under near-record amounts of snow. Europe and Asia have seen their share of large winter storms as well during the 2009-2010 winter. Hardly a large storm goes by without someone, somewhere suggesting that whatever we are seeing, it is related to “climate change”. If one looked no further than the Technical Summary of the IPCC, they would discover that the IPCC is rather quiet on this subject with no claims whatsoever that winter storms will increase in frequency, magnitude, duration, or intensity due to the ongoing changes in atmospheric composition.

Two new articles are out that further confirm that global warming will not be causing mid-latitude winter storms to become some new destructive result of the greenhouse effect. (WCR)

UPDATED: 2:16 p.m. CST March 6, 2010: Added a plot of the differences between v5.3 and v5.2.

YR MON GLOBE NH SH TROPICS
2009 1 0.213 0.418 0.009 -0.119
2009 2 0.220 0.557 -0.117 -0.091
2009 3 0.174 0.335 0.013 -0.198
2009 4 0.135 0.290 -0.020 -0.013
2009 5 0.102 0.109 0.094 -0.112
2009 6 0.022 -0.039 0.084 0.074
2009 7 0.414 0.188 0.640 0.479
2009 8 0.245 0.243 0.247 0.426
2009 9 0.502 0.571 0.433 0.596
2009 10 0.353 0.295 0.410 0.374
2009 11 0.504 0.443 0.565 0.482
2009 12 0.262 0.331 0.190 0.482
2010 1 0.630 0.809 0.451 0.677
2010 2 0.613 0.720 0.506 0.789

The global-average lower tropospheric temperature remained high, at +0.61 deg. C for February, 2010. This is about the same as January, which in our new Version 5.3 of the UAH dataset was +0.63 deg. C. February was second warmest in the 32-year record, behind Feb 1998 which was itself the second warmest of all months. The El Nino is still the dominant temperature signal; many people living in Northern Hemisphere temperate zones were still experiencing colder than average weather.

The new dataset version does not change the long-term trend in the dataset, nor does it yield revised record months; it does, however, reduce some of the month-to-month variability, which has been slowly increasing over time.

Version 5.3 accounts for the mismatch between the average seasonal cycle produced by the older MSU and the newer AMSU instruments. This affects the value of the individual monthly departures, but does not affect the year to year variations, and thus the overall trend remains the same.

Here is a comparison of v5.2 and v5.3 for global anomalies in lower tropospheric temperature.

YR MON v5.2 v5.3
2009 1 0.304 0.213
2009 2 0.347 0.220
2009 3 0.206 0.174
2009 4 0.090 0.135
2009 5 0.045 0.102
2009 6 0.003 0.022
2009 7 0.411 0.414
2009 8 0.229 0.245
2009 9 0.422 0.502
2009 10 0.286 0.353
2009 11 0.497 0.504
2009 12 0.288 0.262
2010 1 0.721 0.630
2010 2 0.740 0.613

trends since 11/78: +0.132 +0.132 deg. C per decade

The following discussion is provided by John Christy:
As discussed in our running technical comments last July, we have been looking at making an adjustment to the way the average seasonal cycle is removed from the newer AMSU instruments (since 1998) versus the older MSU instruments. At that time, others (e.g. Anthony Watts) brought to our attention the fact that UAH data tended to have some systematic peculiarities with specific months, e.g. February tended to be relatively warmer while September was relatively cooler in these comparisons with other datasets. In v5.2 of our dataset we relied considerably on the older MSUs to construct the average seasonal cycle used to calculated the monthly departures for the AMSU instruments. This created the peculiarities noted above. In v5.3 we have now limited this influence.

UPDATE: The following chart, which differences the v5.3 and v5.2 versions of the dataset clearly illustrates this spurious component to the seasonal cycle which has been removed:
TLT_GL_v.5.2_vs_v5.3

The adjustments are very minor in terms of climate as they impact the relative departures within the year, not the year-to-year variations. Since the errors are largest in February (almost 0.13 C), we believe that February is the appropriate month to introduce v5.3 where readers will see the differences most clearly. Note that there is no change in the long term trend as both v5.2 and v5.3 show +0.132 C/decade. All that happens is a redistribution of a fraction of the anomalies among the months. Indeed, with v5.3 as with v5.2, Jan 2010 is still the warmest January and February 2010 is the second warmest Feb behind Feb 1998 in the 32-year record.

For a more detailed discussion of this issue written last July, email John Christy at christy@nsstc.uah.edu for the document.

[NOTE: These satellite measurements are not calibrated to surface thermometer data in any way, but instead use on-board redundant precision platinum resistance thermometers (PRTs) carried on the satellite radiometers. The PRT's are individually calibrated in a laboratory before being installed in the instruments.] (Roy W. Spencer)

There have been a rash of bogus reports in the news media about rapidly rising sea-levels supposedly caused by global warming. Sea-levels are notoriously hard to measure on a global basis since land also rises and sinks due to tectonic activity. With historical records mostly unreliable how can we tell if current conditions are normal for Earth 14,000 years after a deglaciation? A new report, based on calcium growths in caves on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, says that sea levels around 81,000 years ago were higher than today. Higher sea-levels imply less glacial ice and warmer temperatures than today as well. Even more interesting is that this occurred during a warm period called marine isotope stage (MIS) 5a, which was more than 30,000 years after the Eemian interglacial ended and glaciation had resumed. This could mean that current theories about how ice age glacial periods start are wrong.

Scientists have long made a strong connection between Earth's climate and sea-levels. Warmer climate means less glacial ice and higher ocean water levels. This means that during glacial periods, often called ice ages, sea-levels drop because more water is trapped in glacial ice. Scientists know from paleoclimate records that the end of a glacial period occurs quickly and is accompanied by wild swings in climatic conditions. But because the buildup of large amounts of glacial ice depends on precipitation it was thought that descent into a new glacial period was a more gradual affair. A report in Science, entitled “Sea-Level Highstand 81,000 Years Ago in Mallorca,” authored by Jeffrey A. Dorale and colleagues, not only claims that sea-levels were higher than modern levels during ages past but that there have been significant swings in sea levels after the last interglacial warm period ended.

Dorale et al. base their report on data taken from speleothems—stalactites and stalagmites—found in caves on the island of Mallorca, off the Mediterranean coast of Spain. By looking at encrustation markings on the subterranean speleothems the researchers were able to measure sea-levels over +80,000 years ago. Their methodology is described in the following quote from the paper:

Marine isotope stages (MIS), or marine oxygen-isotope stages, are alternating warm and cool periods in Earth's climate history. Sometimes referred to in older literature as oxygen isotope stages, their existence was deduced from oxygen isotope data collected from ice-core data and deep sea core samples. The marine isotopic record shows about 50 climate cycles going back over the past 2.5 million years. In 1955, Cesare Emiliani, the founder of paleoceanography, divided oxygen isotope records from deep-sea cores collected in the Caribbean into stages. These stages were numbered with 1 being the most recent. As more detailed data became available, Marine Isotope Stage 5 (MIS5) was divided into five sub-stages (a-e), with the Eemian Interglacial being widely associated with MIS5e (see “Marine Isotope Substage 5e and the Eemian Interglacial”).

Speleothems, from the Greek for “cave deposit,” are mineral deposits formed in caves by the evaporation of mineral-rich water, their presence implying that the Mallorcan caves were not always filled with water to the depth they are today. Stalactites and stalagmites formed during times when sea-levels were low and the caves were air-filled chambers. Over time, the caves were repeatedly flooded by changes in sea-level, with the water leaving a record of each flood as encrustations of calcite on speleothems formed during earlier low water periods.

In all, the researchers collected six speleothem encrustations from five different caves along the eastern and southern coast of Mallorca. All the sampled caves were within a horizontal distance of 250 m (800 ft) of the coast. In the past, the local water table and consequently the level of water in the caves rose and fell with sea-level changes. These changes in water level left tell tale marks on the cave interiors. Encrustations were sampled from two distinct heights located 1.2 to 1.5 (3.9 to 4.9 ft) and 2.6 m ±5 cm (8.45 ft ±2 in) above present sea-level.

Relative sea-level change at any particular location reflects not only changes in global ice volume but also the response of Earth to changes in surface loading in the form of surface deformation, referred to as glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). The authors propose that Mallorca’s location in the western Mediterranean is unusual with regard to GIA, being fairly close to a predicted zone of neutral GIA to the west. Their conclusion is that Mallorca occupies a narrow transition zone between regions of emergence and submergence in the Mediterranean basin, where sea-level nearly follows the eustatic curve. In other words, the observed sea-level change at Mallorca is not affected significantly by changes other than the changes caused by variation in glacial ice volume.

The researchers reached the conclusion that western Mediterranean relative sea level was ~1 m (~3.25 ft) above modern sea-level ~81,000 years ago during marine isotope stage 5a. “Although our findings seemingly conflict with the eustatic sea-level curve of far-field sites, they corroborate an alternative view that MIS 5a was at least as ice-free as the present, and they challenge the prevailing view of MIS 5 sea-level history and certain facets of ice-age theory,” the authors state. Variation in sea level and Insolation levels is shown in the figure below, taken from the article.

There are two conclusions from this work that stand out. The first is that sea-levels were higher by at least 3 feet during the last interglacial and even during one 4000 year long warm period after the termination of interglacial conditions. This implies that an additional rise in sea-levels in the future would not be an indication of abnormal global warming, as claimed by some climate change alarmists. The fact is, recent sea-levels have been remarkably stable. According to the new speleothem data “mean sea level has remained stable on Mallorca for the past ~2800 years.” The researchers cite other, corroborating data:

Indeed, in 2006, Morag K. Coyne, Brian Jonesa, and Derek Ford reported a study of the Ironshore Formation on the western part of Grand Cayman. They found formations dating to MIS 5 that indicated sea-levels of 2 to 6 m above modern levels and that “the highstands associated with MIS 5e, 5c, and 5a were at similar elevations.” All those who are “alarmed” at the melting of glaciers during the current interglacial should take note: there were higher sea-levels and less glacial ice during the last interglacial and human activity had nothing to do with it.

The second interesting point is that the conventional wisdom regarding onset of a glacial period, that it is a slow and gradual affair, is quite possibly wrong. Because of the relationship between sea-level and continental ice volume, an accurate sea-level history has been sought by scientists interested in ice-age cycles and their underlying causes. This study has important implications for currently accepted relationships among glacial ice volume, historic CO₂ levels and global temperature change. In the words of the authors:

Other researchers have hinted that termination of the last interglacial took place rapidly. In 1980, John T. Hollin reported in Nature that “substage 5c was essentially interglacial, and was terminated by a catastrophic cooling.” Add corroborating data from others including Dorale et al. and the evidence seems to be mounting that the currently held view of interglacial terminations is wrong.

I myself have written of the difference between deglaciations, which are known to be rapid, wild transitions, and gradual interglacial terminations. Here is evidence that glaciation can also be a roller coaster ride, with periods of rapid freezing and melting. Furthermore, it may mean that climate scientists have read far too much into ice-core records of CO₂ and other atmospheric gases. If these findings prove accurate they reinforce something that every scientist and non-scientist should always keep in mind—conventional wisdom is often wrong and science is never settled.

March 4 -- Regulators overseeing the world’s second-biggest emissions market are concerned that low prices for emissions credits are sapping support for carbon trading, a UN board member said.

“We are concerned with this,” Diana Harutyunyan, a member of the executive board for the United Nation’s Clean Development Mechanism, said in a telephone interview today. “This is making this process less attractive.” (Bloomberg)

The United States and Britain are threatening to withhold support for a $3.75 billion World Bank loan for a coal-fired plant in South Africa, expanding the battleground in the global debate over who should pay for clean energy.

The opposition by the bank's two largest members has raised eyebrows among those who note that the two advanced economies are allowing development of coal-powered plants in their own countries even as they raise concerns about those in poorer countries.

While the loan is still likely to be approved on April 6 by the World Bank board, it has revealed the deep fissures between the world's industrial powers and developing countries over tackling climate change. (Reuters)

Dr. Pierre Desrochers, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Toronto Mississauga, is the scholar’s scholar. In an age where few read all important material on all sides of their subject, this professor stands out.

Can President Obama strike a deal with the University of Toronto to make this course available to his top energy and environmental aides, even smartest-guy-in-the-room John Holdren? Energy legislation is currently stalled, and the summer might be a good time for a “time out” to learn the basics of energy and the free society.

The development of new energy sources has had a major impact on the development of both human societies and the environment. This course will provide a broad survey of past and current achievements, along with failures and controversies, regarding the use of various forms of energy. Understanding of technical terms, physical principles, creation of resources and trade-offs will be emphasized as a basis for discussions about energy options. The local and global dimensions of the economics and politics surrounding the world’s energy resources will be recurring concerns in this course.

• To cover the basic physical, technical and economic issues related to energy use;
• To cover broadly the history of energy development and use;
• To introduce students to past debates and current controversies.

Lecture 1 (September 8): Introduction
Lecture 2 (September 15): Concepts and the Big Picture
Lecture 3 (September 22): Fire and Agriculture
Lecture 4 (September 29): Fossil-Fueled Civilizations 1
Lecture 5 (October 6): Fossil-Fueled Civilizations 2
Lecture 8 (October 27): Electricity (Hydro and Nuclear)
Lecture 9 (November 3): Renewables and Alternatives
Lecture 10 (November 10): The Perennial Energy Debate
Lecture 11 (November 17): The Curse of Natural Resources
Lecture 12 (November 24): The Future of the Automobile
Lecture 13 (December 1st): Current Issues

In a post on his blog and then again on the Huffington Post, Joe Romm challenged me to a wager on oil prices, claiming prescience concerning the price rise in the past decade compared to my 1996 forecast of low prices for two decades. He seems to be implying that that I have refused to wager him, having closed the webpage to any further comments.

I find myself taken aback, as my experience with the blogosphere is somewhat limited. My experience is primarily as an academic, writing articles for refereed journals and books, as well as working papers, with an intention to make them carefully sourced and referenced. A blog can consist of nothing more than a rant, and the comments appended to them often worse (and usually anonymous). I will not however yield to the temptation to follow suit (even if our illustrious moderator would permit it, which he won’t).

Having put up approximately 20 posts on the subject of peak oil, it might be thought that Romm is an expert on the subject. But so far as I know, he has a grand total of one article on oil, his famed, “Mideast Oil Forever” Atlantic Monthly piece (co-authored with Charles Curtis), which is the source of his pride on the subject.

A careful reading of “Mideast Oil Forever” shows that his argument was not so much that prices would soar, but that global dependence on Middle East oil would soar, which has not happened. My argument was that the forecast of rising Middle East market share was likely to be incorrect, and it was (see Figure), so that economic fundamentals would not imply ever rising prices.

Which is a far cry from saying my forecast was wrong and Joe’s correct. In my testimony, I specifically stated,

Arguably, the price collapse leading to the rise of Hugo Chavez, the September 11 terrorist attacks and the Bush Administration’s decision to invade Iraq, are those ‘substantial changes’. Certainly, not the soaring Middle East market share predicted by Romm. (Since he downloaded the transcript of the hearing, it’s not clear how he missed this.) [Read more →] (MasterResource)

It's fair to say these have been some frustrating months for Steven Chu, secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. Among other things: The global climate summit in Copenhagen failed to produce much of an agreement. The prospects of passing a comprehensive energy bill are murkier than ever. There have been a string of revelations about questionable practices and outright mistakes by scientists who contributed to a big 2007 U.N. climate-science report. And the Obama administration has been criticized for the way it has doled out economic-stimulus funds.

Mr. Chu talked with Robert Thomson, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. What follows are edited excerpts of that conversation. (WSJ)

The iconic sage grouse that once roamed the western U.S. plains in great numbers needs protection, a move that will still curtail some energy development, the U.S. Interior Department said on Friday.

The bird will not be listed under the Endangered Species Act, but the department will put special emphasis on preserving the chicken-sized bird on lands where oil companies want to drill and wind companies want to erect their massive turbines.

The bird which feeds off the sage brush in states such as Wyoming has lost about half of its habitat over the past several decades, with its numbers slashed by 90 percent to between 200,000 and 300,000.

Bob Abbey, director of the Bureau of Land Management, said the agency will review drilling permits that have already been approved.

"Certainly, we would be reviewing those applications with a lot more scrutiny in areas where we have determined they are major populations of sage grouse and as a result of that determination...we would likely attach some additional stipulations on that drilling," he said.

It was not immediately clear which projects will be affected, but efforts to protect the bird have already thrown some projects into uncertainty, including a 198-turbine, $600 million wind farm in Wyoming proposed by Horizon Wind Energy. (Reuters)

Ottawa's plan to shift responsibility of environmental assessments to Canada's main energy regulator fails to address fundamental problems surrounding major oil and gas projects, a green think tank said on Friday.

But the oil industry, which had complained that the regulatory process for such developments as oil sands projects and pipelines was overly cumbersome and expensive, welcomed the streamlining initiative.

Canada's federal budget, delivered on Thursday, contained a provision to move impact assessments from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to the National Energy Board and Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which the government said have more expertise than CEAA. (Reuters)

Oh the irony. This morning, the Des Moines Register is reporting on the death of a piece of legislation known as SF 2359. The bill would have required that all gasoline sold in Iowa contain at least 10% ethanol. But Iowa legislators couldn’t garner enough political support for the bill. [Read More] (Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune)

Wind power is unreliable, expensive and doesn’t result in lower C02 emissions. Why is Ontario still rushing ahead with it?

The Ontario government’s rush into renewable energy, and industrial wind turbine-generated electricity in particular, is likely to reveal the law of unintended consequences. The government needs to rigorously re-evaluate this precipitous policy before committing billions more in subsidies to it.

First, as to the cost of wind-generated electricity, the feed-in tariff for on-shore wind turbines in Ontario provided for under the Green Energy Act is 13.5¢ per kWh (and higher for smaller projects). This is more than twice the prevailing rates for electricity on the spot market in Ontario (less than ¢6 per KWh).

This cost increase will be fed through to industrial, commercial and residential consumers through various additional charges on their electricity bills. In addition, further expenditures are required to enhance and extend the transmission grid to accommodate these projects. A 2009 study by London Economics Consultancy, Examining the Potential Costs of the Ontario Green Energy Act 2009, estimates that the higher costs of green power will add hundreds of dollars to the average electricity bills of households throughout Ontario.

Adam White, President of the Association of Major Power Consumers of Ontario, states: “The situation is not sustainable because it will leave companies paying higher rates than competitors in other jurisdictions.” Toronto energy lawyer, Peter Murphy, states: “The government is sitting on a political time bomb.” Recent studies of wind power in Denmark, Germany and the U.K. reach similar conclusion about the impacts of renewable energy on electricity costs in these three jurisdictions. The Ontario government’s estimate of an increase in electricity costs per year from its renewable policies of 1% a year seems to lack any justification or credibility.

The contributions of industrial wind power to reducing CO2 emissions are at best marginal. Massive numbers of turbines are needed, and because of their intermittency and unpredictability, they require the availability of back-up generation, especially for peak-load capacity. In Denmark, Germany, the U.K., and now Ontario, this has entailed the construction of additional fossil fuel plants (typically natural gas plants) to provide reliability. These plants dramatically reduce the net contributions of wind power to CO2 abatement, which come at an extremely high cost relative to other abatement strategies (such as real-time pricing of electricity).

In the case of base-load electricity, most of this is provided in Ontario by carbon-clean hydro and nuclear power so that, to the extent that wind power is used to provide base-load electricity, it displaces lower cost hydro and nuclear power and often results in exports of surplus power, often at give-away prices.

In October 2007, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) — the government’s own agency, tasked with planning Ontario’s power system and now entering into long-term contracts with renewable energy producers — published its Integrated Power System Plan, where it analyzed a “high wind power” scenario for the province, and concluded: “Since wind generation has an effective capacity of 20% compared to 73% for hydroelectric generation, additional generation capacity with better load-following characteristics would need to be installed.

“This needed capacity will likely have to be obtained by installing additional gas-fired generation. Thus, in addition to incurring further capital costs for the gas generation installation, higher gas usage would be expected to make up for the reduced amount of renewable energy from wind compared to that from hydroelectric generation or this alternative. Therefore, this alternative would result in higher greenhouse gas emissions.” The OPA concluded: “Wind and solar power will never be more than a niche supplier of power in Ontario.”

What did the OPA see as the better alternative? Renewable hydro power sites in northern Ontario (which it identified). The OPA stated: “The hydroelectric generation developments included in the plan are cost effective compared to developing additional wind generation; this comparison includes the cost of transmission reinforcements. In conclusion, development of major hydroelectric generation north of Sudbury, with major reinforcement of the transmission north of Sudbury, is the preferred alternative compared to developing additional renewable generation in southern Ontario and other parts of northern Ontario.”

This begs the obvious question, what has changed in two years? Beyond these sites in northern Ontario, in the medium to longer term there would be enough northern Canadian hydro power in Manitoba, Quebec and Labrador to satisfy Ontario’s needs for decades. If Boston and New England can depend on northern Canadian hydro power, why not Toronto? Moreover, prior demand projections for electricity need to be revised downwards to reflect not only the current economic recession (demand was down more than 6% in 2009 over 2008), but the long-term contraction in a number of Ontario’s electricity-intensive heavy manufacturing industries, such as steel and automobile manufacturing.

The potential contributions of renewable energy to the creation of jobs in the province require a heavy dose of skepticism. While the government has claimed that it plans to create 50,000 new green jobs in the province over the coming years, the additional burdens on industrial, commercial, and household consumers from higher electricity costs associated with renewable energy will kill existing jobs. Recent studies in Denmark and Germany find that very few net new jobs have been created as a result of renewable energy policies. In the case of Denmark, they have cost between US$90,000 to US$140,000 per job per year in public subsidies, and in the case of Germany, up to US$240,000 per job per year. According to a column by Randall Denley in the Ottawa Citizen of Jan. 24, 2010, the new manufacturing jobs entailed in the massive Samsung renewable project recently announced by the Ontario government will cost $300,000 each in public subsidies.

In an SNL Financial news wire report of Oct. 23, 2009, the Ontario Minister of Natural Resources was reported as stating that the agency had temporarily stopped accepting applications for proposed wind energy projects because it had already received 500 such applications and needed to make sure that it had appropriate processes in place before taking any more. Obviously, the massive public subsidies being offered have provoked a corporate feeding frenzy.

But corporate enthusiasm for subsidized wind power should not be confused with the longer-term public interest. In terms of cost, CO2 and jobs, wind power attracts a failing grade. It gets worse, with poor marks for localized impacts on flora and fauna, for potentially adverse health effects on local residents from persistent exposure to low intensity turbine noise, for potentially adverse impacts on local property values and for an environmental review process which the Ontario Environmental Commissioner describes as “broken.” All render renewable energy policy, at least as currently conceived by the Ontario government, one of the least compelling options in the challenging economic environment in which the province finds itself now.

Picking technological winners in fields such as this, and then picking winners within classes of technology (such as Samsung) are fraught with the risk of costly errors. A better policy orientation would be first to price all sources of electricity, including environmental costs , and let consumers respond accordingly, and finally to subsidize breakthrough R&D in sectors that are significant sources of carbon emissions.

As Jan Carr, former CEO of the Ontario Power Authority, puts it in a recent article: “The recent rush to “green” Ontario’s electricity system has produced a largely ad hoc approach to the selection and investment in power generation technologies that will unnecessarily increase the cost of electricity with far-reaching economic and social effects… Pricing carbon would have the advantage of continuing a century of economically rational development of the electricity system as an essential underpinning of modern society. To do other than proceed on an economic basis is to risk massive economic distortions… The alternative process of picking winners and losers in renewable energy technologies, based on perceptions and public opinion polls, puts us all at considerable risk.”

Before mortgaging its long-term future by awarding hundreds more 20-year fixed-price contracts to wind developers, the province of Ontario urgently needs an independent, objective, expert investigation, perhaps by the Auditor-General, of the prospective economic, environmental and employment effects of wind power and other renewable energy policies in the province.

"To the greens who accuse me of treachery I say this: we do not have a moral obligation to support all forms of renewable energy, however inefficient and expensive they may be. We do have a moral obligation not to be blinded by sentiment. We owe it to the public, and to our credibility, to support the schemes which work, fairly and cheaply, and reject the schemes which cost a fortune and make no difference."

So writes Moonbat, defending his earlier position against the feed-in tariff for solar energy.

He is fighting his corner against Jeremy Leggett, chairman of the installation company Solar Century, a man who has a vested interest in promoting what one of the most expensive forms of electricity generation ever invented. And, although Moonbat doesn't say it, it is as plain as a pikestaff that this is money talking. Yet, if the sceptics are branded as terminally biased because they take money from "big oil", how is it that people who take money from "big solar" are given a hearing?

Interestingly, Moonbat also takes a tilt at the EU's carbon trading scheme – and his is not the only one. Sandbag, a British "non-profit" is also having a go, complaining about all the "carbon fat-cats" who are making a fortune out of the scheme. Like virtually everything else run by the EU, it simply doesn't work, so it is good to see a chorus of criticism building up.

Like Snow White being kissed by the prince, they are slowly waking up out of their entranced sleep. Only, unlike Snow White, it isn't a prince looking lovingly at them but the ghastly spectre of EU bureaucrats who never seem to tire of inventing ways of messing up peoples' lives and costing them a fortune.

But, when even people like Moonbat are beginning to recognise this, there is hope for us yet. (EU Referendum)

Neither of the main parties seems to have any idea how we are to meet the looming shortfall in power, warns Christopher Booker. (Christopher Booker, TDT)

IT'S not often that "Our Saint" Mary MacKillop and Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson are mentioned in the same breath, but Panax Geothermal chief executive Bertus de Graaf managed it in a press release on Friday.

The occasion was the official opening of the company's geothermal project at Penola on South Australia's Limestone Coast, where Panax hopes to bring Australia's first commercial geothermal energy project into production, and where the soon-to-be-canonised MacKillop founded the Australian Sisters of St Joseph.

The Rudd government would like to think that it has taken a saintly approach to the geothermal industry, awarding $153 million to help in the development of two "hot rock" energy plants, and some $50m in drilling assistance, including $7m to Panax.

But the geothermal industry has been at pains to point out that this is not nearly enough. (The Australian)

WASHINGTON - A fight over U.S. President Barack Obama's climate change initiatives intensified on Thursday when an influential Democratic senator sought a two-year pause on regulations to reduce carbon dioxide pollution from coal-fired power plants and other smokestacks.

Legislation calling for the delay was introduced by Senator John Rockefeller of West Virginia, where the coal industry anchors his small state's economy, much like several others.

In offering the bill, Rockefeller said it would "safeguard jobs, the coal industry and the entire economy as we move toward clean-coal technology." It also would give Congress "the time it needs" to write climate control legislation, he said.

The Obama administration has long maintained that the Environmental Protection Agency would move independently to reduce greenhouse gases blamed for global warming if Congress failed to produce its own climate legislation.

But the five-term senator has said Congress shouldn't move too fast on the legislative front, noting that more time was needed to develop "clean coal" technologies which would attempt to capture and bury carbon from burning coal.

As chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Rockefeller is positioned to have an impact on negotiations for a climate bill, which has been stalled in the Senate since last year and faces an uphill fight in this election year.

Rockefeller's proposal would not stop EPA's imminent moves to reduce carbon pollution from vehicles, however. (Reuters)

As climate change legislation stalled in the Senate, the Obama administration noted that it had a workable -- although admittedly unwieldy -- Plan B. If Congress wouldn't cap U.S. emissions, officials said, the Environmental Protection Agency would do it instead.

Now, even Plan B may be in trouble.

On Thursday, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) introduced a bill that would put a two-year freeze on the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants. His was the latest of various congressional proposals -- from both chambers and both parties -- designed to delay or overturn the EPA's regulations.

It is unclear how far Rockefeller's bill will go. Even if it passed, it could face a presidential veto. But environmentalists are worried that the measure could attract moderate Democrats, who are worried, in turn, about driving up the prices of fossil fuels such as oil and coal.

And, in a broader sense, activists are concerned about a loss of momentum for action on climate change. (Juliet Eilperin and David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post)

Four influential coal-state Democrats introduced companion bills in the House and Senate today that would block U.S. EPA from implementing any climate-related stationary source rules for two years, a timeout of sorts that they think gives Congress time to pass legislation dealing with the issue.

Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia unveiled the Senate bill, while the House measure was introduced by West Virginia's Nick Rahall, the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, and Alan Mollohan, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), who played a pivotal role in negotiations last year on the House-passed climate bill, also signed up an original co-sponsor. ( Greenwire)

EPA on Thursday declined to criticize Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-W.Va.) new bill that would block regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from stationary industrial facilities like power plants and factories for two years.

His plan is less sweeping than Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) proposal that would completely nullify EPA’s power to impose limits on heat-trapping emissions.

Here’s the prepared statement from EPA Press Secretary Adora Andy: (E² Wire)

It's said that the most dangerous place in the world is between a politician and a camera. The same could be said about getting between trial lawyers and the courtroom.

The rush to the courts is under way, triggered by two recent rulings allowing global warming claims to go forward against energy defendants for their emissions of carbon dioxide. A third such ruling may be coming soon, even though it becomes more obvious every day that man-made global warming is a myth and such lawsuits are frivolous.

But plaintiffs' lawyers love these suits because the financial stakes — and their contingent fees — are potentially enormous. (Maureen Martin, IBD)

Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics.

In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of "being treated like political pawns" and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.

"Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.

Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work. (Stephen Dinan, The Washington Times)

Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be “an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach” to gut the credibility of skeptics.

In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of “being treated like political pawns” and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

The greatest scandal connected to global warming is not exaggeration, fraud or destruction of data to conceal the weakness of the argument. It is those who are personally profiting from promoting this fantasy at the expense of the rest of us.

Al Gore is the most visible beneficiary. The world's greatest climate-change fear-monger has amassed millions in book sales and speaking fees. His science-fiction movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Academy Award for best documentary and 21 other film awards. He was co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his "efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

Meanwhile, Mr. Gore was laying his own foundations. As he was whipping up hysteria over climate change, he cannily invested in "green" firms that stood to profit in the hundreds of millions of dollars (if not more) from increased government regulations and sweetheart deals from connected politicians and bureaucrats. The multimillionaire climate dilettante was given a free pass by reporters, who refused to ask him hard questions about the degree to which he was profiting from the panic he was causing.

With the global-warming story line unraveling, the New York Times allowed Mr. Gore to run what amounted to an unpaid advertisement for his brand of climate-change hysteria. This screed, published Saturday, reiterated his claim that the world faces an "unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it." That's pretty good rhetoric for the person with the largest carbon footprint in the world. (The Washington Times)

Scientist-turned -filmmaker Randy Olson has posted a two-part (one, two) interview that he conducted with Marc Morano. Here is an excerpt:

Morano might want to check out today's New York Times on that last point. But if Morano isn't a creationist, but other skeptics are, and Morano doesn't typically vote Republican, but many skeptics do, are we introducing a sort of willful intellectual poverty into the debate over climate change by the practice of collapsing everything into two sides?

It has been fascinating to observe how a multinational corporation that is so popular and trusted can be so flatfooted and incapable of responding to a crisis.
Like many of these crises it started small. The corporation seemed invincible and underwent major growth. Some worried the growth was too fast and retained doubts about the science and the technology. However, these warnings were on the fringe and were easily ignored…

… until three months ago, when the corporation suddenly found itself at the center of crisis after crisis, its science and technology revealed to be hopelessly flawed, shoddy even.
Inside the corporation denial took over, but eventually it became clear the problem was structural. In a rush for profits and market dominance, executives had ignored procedures, falsified data, and then covered up or tried to minimize their falsifications.
Compounding the problem — the head of the corporation remained silent until he was forced to respond to the concerns of the American people:

And so, this past Sunday, Al Gore finally emerged from hiding to do damage control of the deluge of scientific scandals, which had shattered public confidence in the Global Warming industry.
But unlike the President of Toyota, Mr. Gore offered no apologies or explanations. (Phelim McAleer, Big Journalism)

A volatile mix of science and politics has ignited a backlash against climate science in the United States and United Kingdom. The exposure of e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in Norwich, UK, last November, and the subsequent discovery of errors and distortions in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), may have little bearing on the overall weight of scientific evidence about anthropogenic climate change. But they have triggered a media and blogging frenzy, re-energized political opposition to action on climate change and put climate scientists on the defensive.

The problem? Science has been called on to do something beyond its purview: not just improve people's understanding of the world, but compel people to act in a particular way. For nearly twenty years, researchers, policy-makers and activists have claimed that climate science requires a global policy agenda of top-down, United-Nations-sponsored international agreements; targets and timetables for emissions reductions; and the creation of carbon markets. But this agenda was guaranteed to be politically divisive because it entails short-term political and economic costs in return for benefits that are long term and highly uncertain. (Nature News, 4 March 2010, via GWPF)

Those of us who have looked at GISS and CRU code have been saying this for months. Now John Graham-Cumming has posted a statement with the UK Parliament about the quality and veracity of CRU code that has been posted, saying “they have not released everything”.

“I have never been a climate change skeptic and until the release of emails from UEA/CRU I had paid little attention to the science surrounding it.”

I am writing at this late juncture regarding this matter because I have now seen that two separate pieces of written evidence to your committee mention me (without using my name) and I feel it is appropriate to provide you with some further information. I am a professional computer programmer who started programming almost 30 years ago. I have a BA in Mathematics and Computation from Oxford University and a DPhil in Computer Security also from Oxford. My entire career has been spent in computer software in the UK, US and France. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

This post is Part II of Richard Tol's look at Chapter 11 of the IPCC AR4 WGIII. Part I is here.

Richard Tol is a research professor at ESRI in Ireland, one of the top 175 economists in the world and a contributor to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where his work is widely cited. In this guest post, the first of a series, Richard takes a look at parts of the IPCC AR4 Working Group III, which has largely escaped scrutiny in recent months. In this Part II he concludes:

Somehow the tables have turned. For all the smears of big money funding the "deniers", the numbers reveal that the sceptics are actually the true grassroots campaigners, while Greenpeace defends Wall St. How times have changed.

Sceptics are fighting a billion dollar industry aligned with a trillion dollar trading scheme. Big Oil's supposed evil influence has been vastly outdone by Big Government, and even those taxpayer billions are trumped by Big-Banking.

The big-money side of this debate has fostered a myth that sceptics write what they write because they are funded by oil profits. They say, follow the money? So I did and it's chilling. Greens and environmentalists need to be aware each time they smear with an ad hominem attack they are unwittingly helping giant finance houses. (Australian Broadcasting Corp.)

[This commissioned essay was rejected by the ABC's The Drum. See "ABC's iron curtain descends" here...]

February 2010 provided a snapshot of the global warming debate that may help explain why recent public opinion has shifted away from the need for urgent and deep action on climate change. It was a month of contrasts that at the end has many of us asking: Well, where to from here? (Marc Hendrickx, Quadrant)

As reported here on March 2, there has been a very unique phenomenon at the International Herald Tribune (IHT) / The New York Times (NYT): for the first time ever, an IHT printed-paper article was not immediately available in the NYT website. And a front-page article it was: “Feeling the heat from critics, climate scientists battle back“, by John M Broder.

The article finally appeared online in the early AM GMT hour of 3 March, titled “Scientists Taking Steps to Defend Work on Climate“. Tellingly, the structure has been heavily changed, and the interviewees as well. I have had a series of e-mail exchanges with Mr Broder today and won’t report any of them. The impression remains that some Editor at the NYT panicked (**) after reading the IHT version, and got Mr Broder or some sub-editor to rewrite it almost from scratch to eliminate some inconvenient names and acquire warmist respectability by giving the concluding remarks to Gavin Schmidt (*).

All in all, it has been an episode wholly consistent with an atmosphere of climate bullying at the NYT.

For an example of what has been changed, note the mysterious disappearance of Judith Curry from the NYT version (Prof Curry is out there to conclude the IHT article), whilst a Peter C. Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists, plus Gavin Schmidt, are parachuted in literally out of thin air.

ps Gavin being Gavin, he’s now quotable with a “Good science is the best revenge“, some sort of instinctive plagiarism of Willis’ exhortation a few days earlier: “Do good science, and publicly insist that other climate scientists do good science as well“

If opinion polls are right, fewer people "believe" in climate change now than a few months ago, prior to the leak of emails from the University of East Anglia and the emergence of embarrassing errors in one of the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The science of global warming, it seems, has taken a severe hit in terms of the public's credulity.

So says The Independent leader. It then goes on:

The green movement is fracturing under the continued pressure of the truth about global warming, Al Gore wrote for the NYT and is widely ridiculed and British Columbia proves that green taxes can’t stop global warming. Also, in a Daily Bayonet exclusive, buy your Axis of Upheaval offsets, this week only. (The Daily Bayonet)

NEW YORK - The deadly El Nino weather anomaly should dissipate by early summer in the northern hemisphere, but there is a chance a weak version will linger for the rest of 2010, according to a U.S. government report issued Thursday.

The federal government's Climate Prediction Center said in a monthly update the warm waters which are a hallmark of the phenomenon are slowly easing, and this indicates "a transition to ... neutral conditions" in June or July.

But the CPC said there are "several models (which) suggest the potential of continued weak El Nino conditions through 2010, while others predict the development of La Nina conditions later in the year."

The CPC is a unit of the U.S. National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. (Reuters)

ALBANY, Calif., March 1, 2010—New research addressing climate change questions, a priority focus of the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, documents that American pika in the Sierra Nevada and southwestern Great Basin are thriving and persist in a wider range of temperatures than previously discovered. Results were recently published in a paper titled "Distribution and Climatic Relationships of the American Pika (Ochotona princeps) in the Sierra Nevada and Western Great Basin, U.S.A.; Periglacial Landforms as Refugia in Warming Climates," by Constance Millar and Robert Westfall in the February 2010 issue of the journal Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research.

A small mammalian relative of rabbits and hares, the American pika inhabits rocky slopes of western North American mountains. Pikas tolerate cold climate environments through a combination of physiological and behavioral adaptations where these same adaptations may make them sensitive to even mildly warm climates.

Vulnerability of pika habitat to global warming has been an escalating concern, causing speculation that the range of suitable pika habitat will contract upward in elevation as lower elevation site temperatures increase.

Millar and Westfall developed and used a rapid assessment method to detect recent presence of American pika in 94 percent of 420 sites in the Sierra Nevada, California, southwestern Great Basin, central Great Basin and central Oregon Cascades ranges. Occurrence and non-detection sites were then compared to pika's habitat affinities to rock formation types and the climatic features of those sites. Rock-ice feature landforms are important habitat components providing insulation and refugia from outside air temperature increases and accounted for 83 percent of the sites. Site climate data indicate that in this study region, pika tolerate a wider range of temperatures and precipitation than previously interpreted.

Low elevation populations are usually in relatively warmer locations, so have been thought to be at risk due to rising 20th-21st century temperatures. Millar & Westfall found, however, that 12% of their occupied sites were lower in elevation than the historic (early 20th century) records indicate, revealing that pika live 500 meters (1640 feet) below what was previously known for this region.

Results of this study suggest that pikas in the Sierra Nevada and southwestern Great Basin appear to be thriving and tolerating a wide range of thermal environments. This study also suggests a greater distribution in the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin than has been found in other studies in these regions, and provides important baseline surveys that can be used in future pika ecology and population studies. (USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station)

WASHINGTON - Arctic ice melting could cost global agriculture, real estate and insurance anywhere from $2.4 trillion to $24 trillion by 2050 in damage from rising sea levels, floods and heat waves, according to a report released on Friday.

"Everybody around the world is going to bear these costs," said Eban Goodstein, a resource economist at Bard College in New York state who co-authored the report, called "Arctic Treasure, Global Assets Melting Away."

He said the report, reviewed by more than a dozen scientists and economists and funded by the Pew Environment Group, an arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts, provides a first attempt to monetize the cost of the loss of one of the world's great weather makers. (Reuters)

Stuck ... a cargo ship is seen trapped in ice in the Baltic Sea. Photo: Reuters

About 50 ships, including large ferries carrying thousands of people, are stuck in ice in the Baltic Sea, Swedish maritime authorities said.

"Around 50 commercial vessels are waiting for help from ice breakers (and) we have had as many as six large passenger ferries stuck, but have managed to free two of them," Johny Lindvall of the Swedish Maritime Administration's ice breaker unit said.

Mr Lindvall said he had not seen a situation with so many ships stuck at once since the mid-1980s. (AFP)

I think you might be interested in my study of Arctic sea ice extent. I put most of it together some time back and have finally managed to revisit it adding some of the things that should have been there first time around. The data sources have not been updated since I wrote it originally.

It now contains calculations of difference between the satellites. Whilst the trend is a little on the high side, probably due to the apparent more rapid decline in the overlapping time frame, it does suggest that all the apparent Arctic sea ice extent decline might be accounted for by measurement drift.

How Fast is Arctic Sea Ice Declining?
by Jonathan Drake

Day after day we are bombarded with images of polar bears on ice bergs and collapses of ice sheet into the ocean with apocalyptic headlines that the Arctic ice will vanish within a few years. It is of particular interest that, according to Dr. Vicky Pope, head of Climate Change at the UK Met Office, “Recent headlines have proclaimed that Arctic summer sea ice has decreased so much in the past few years that it has reached a tipping point and will disappear very quickly. The truth is that there is little evidence to support this. Indeed, the record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer sea ice increasing again over the next few years.” Met Office: Stop misleading climate claims

So, on that basis, what is going on? Could there be some kind of misinterpretation of the data? Might someone have made a wild extrapolation? With these questions in mind the Arctic sea ice records are examined to see what, if anything can be learnt.

The two commonly cited measures for sea ice are extent and area. Many people are unaware that there are two different measures, let alone a difference or what it is and so a simplified definition would seem useful. Both are presently derived from satellite and calculated from images. Each pixel of the image is assigned an area.

Download PDF file from Trevoole.co.uk to read FULL report by Jonathan Drake (via Climate Realists)

OSLO - Large amounts of a powerful greenhouse gas are bubbling up from a long-frozen seabed north of Siberia, raising fears of far bigger leaks that could stoke global warming, scientists said.

It was unclear, however, if the Arctic emissions of methane gas were new or had been going on unnoticed for centuries -- since before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century led to wide use of fossil fuels that are blamed for climate change. (Reuters) [em added]

(Mar. 4, 2010) — Scientists at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have found evidence of hydrothermal vents on the seafloor near Antarctica, formerly a blank spot on the map for researchers wanting to learn more about seafloor formation and the bizarre life forms drawn to these extreme environments.

Hydrothermal vents spew volcanically heated seawater from the planet's underwater mountain ranges -- the vast mid-ocean ridge system, where lava erupts and new crust forms. Chemicals dissolved in those vents influence ocean chemistry and sustain a complex web of organisms, much as sunlight does on land. In recent decades more than 220 vents have been discovered worldwide, but so far no one has looked for them in the rough and frigid waters off Antarctica. (ScienceDaily)

There is a new paper which demonstrates the role of urban areas in rainfall. It is

The approach of this study was to determine, theoretically, what impact current and future urban land use in the coastal city of Houston, Texas has on the space and time evolution of precipitation on a `typical’ summer day. Regional model simulations of a case study for 25 July 2001 were applied to investigate possible effects of urban land cover on precipitation development. Simulations in which Houston urban land cover was included resolved rain cells associated with the sea breeze front and a possible urban circulation on the northwest fringe of the city. Simulations without urban land cover did not capture the initiation and full intensity of the `hypothesized’ urban-induced rain cell. The response is given the terminology the `urban rainfall effect’ or URE. An urban growth model (UrbanSim) was used to project the urban land-cover growth of Houston, Texas from 1992 to 2025. A regional atmospheric-land surface model was then run with the 2025 urban land-cover scenario. Though we used a somewhat theoretical treatment, our results show the sensitivity of the atmosphere to urban land cover and illustrate how atmosphere ^ land interactions
can affect cloud and precipitation processes. Two urban-induced features, convergence zones along the inner fringe of the city and an urban low-pressure perturbation, appear to be important factors that lead to enhanced rain clouds independently or in conjunction with the sea breeze. Simulations without the city (NOURBAN) produced less cumulative rainfall in the west-northwest Houston area than simulations with the city represented (URBAN). Future urban land-cover growth projected by UrbanSim (URBAN2025) led to a more expansive area of rainfall, owing to the extended urban boundary and increased secondary outflow activity. This suggests that the future urban land cover might lead to temporal and spatial precipitation variability in coastal urban microclimates. It was beyond the scope of the analysis to conduct an extensive sensitivity analysis of cause ^ effect relationships, though the experiments provide some clues as to why the rainfall evolution differs. This research demonstrates a novel application of urban planning and weather ^ climate models. It also raises viable questions concerning future planning strategies in urban environments in consideration of hydroclimate changes.”

“As concern grows about the impact of human processes on climate change, water cycle accelerations, and precipitation variability, it is important to place urban processes into the context of regional and global climate system processes. Finally, urban rainfall processes have profound implications for surface runoff, water resource management, agriculture, weather forecasting, and urban planning.” (Climate Science)

VHeadline.com oil industry commentarist Andrew McKillop writes: The heavily promoted Copenhagen climate summit of December 2009 was as we know a complete failure. Claims made by political leaders of several OECD countries before the conference, that this was "the last chance to save the planet" were quickly removed from the media. Press coverage of "Climategate" or the falsification by leading climate scientists of data on the real trend of possible or probable climate cooling -- not global warming -- was at first slow, due to the very strong, almost Stalinian self-control of press and media in all countries to reinforce and rationalize, and support official government doctrine.

Global Warming since late 2009 has been subjected to considerable reasonable doubt, if not by leading politicians and leading editorialists.

The Internet is today full with sites showing proof the UN IPCC, or UN panel of experts on climate change, included scientists so hungry for prestige and greedy for funding they were prepared to cheat on the figures they published. Recent avowals of data tampering by leading specialists including Rajendra Pachauri the UN's climate change chief, and Phil Jones the English scientist whose compromising e-mails showed how far he and friends "improved" climate data. The extreme statements that unreformed Al Gore continues to trot round the media only tend to back up suspicion that global warming was and is a "fake crisis."

CARBON MONEY

Global warming business has however become big business in recent years. World Bank estimates for the total value of emissions trading, carbon finance and derivatives in 2008-2009 were that this "hot air trading" turned over about US$126 billion. Since the introduction of obligatory carbon trading in Europe, in 2005, total CO2 emissions by the EU27 have only fallen with the onset of economic recession in 2008. Some observers claim that carbon finance could rise in value to $3 trillion annual by 2020, an estimate which in part also depends on a much more basic question.

That is: Will the US dollar still exist in 2020? (Andrew McKillop, VHeadline)

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., March 4 - Global leaders in the energy business say they want some certainty in U.S. climate policy to encourage development of new technologies and other investment, but they do not expect federal legislation to pass this year.

The chief executives of some of the biggest companies in the power, raw materials and oil businesses also said they broadly support a carbon cap-and-trade program.

Cap-and-trade was the centerpiece of a climate bill passed by the House of Representatives last year, but senators are not expected to back such a plan, which would limit greenhouse gas emissions and let companies trade permits to emit carbon.

"We are a very keen proponent of market-based energy legislation," Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chief Executive Peter Voser said at a Wall Street Journal conference in Santa Barbara, California.

He said the industry needs "certainty on the carbon price, certainty on legislation."

"I am still very hopeful we'll get something passed," Voser said. "I am skeptical (about) this year." (Reuters)

A new article was accepted for publication in Natural Resources Research. It contains new research that questions the IPCC and their biased assumptions regarding future fossil fuel production in the Emission Scenarios.

Abstract:
Anthropogenic global warming caused by CO2 emissions is strongly and fundamentally linked to future energy production. The Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) from 2000 contains 40 scenarios for future fossil fuel production and is used by the IPCC to assess future climate change. Previous scenarios were withdrawn after exaggerating one or several trends. This study investigates underlying assumptions on resource availability and future production expectations to determine whether exaggerations can be found in the present set of emission scenarios as well.

It is found that the SRES unnecessarily takes an overoptimistic stance and that future production expectations are leaning towards spectacular increases from present output levels. In summary, we can only encourage the IPCC to involve more resource experts and natural science in future emission scenarios. The current set, SRES, is biased toward exaggerated resource availability and unrealistic expectations on future production outputs from fossil fuels.

Article available from Global Energy Systems (Uppsala Universitet)

The Government has vowed to fight any EU plans to introduce a Europe-wide carbon tax.

The warning followed confirmation that the new EU Commissioner for Taxation, Algirda Semeta, is planning proposals soon for a minimum tax on fuel, natural gas and coal - something the Commission has avoided until now.

A Government spokeswoman said any such plan would require the unanimous approval of the member states, and the UK would not be alone in opposing the idea.

"We are against any blanket, EU-wide taxes, as taxation is a matter for national sovereignty." (Aol News)

What makes higher gasoline prices so frustrating is that it doesn’t have to be this way.
March 4, 2010
- by AWR Hawkins

During 2008, when gasoline topped $4 a gallon in many parts of the U.S., political figures like former Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) chanted the popular cry: “Drill Here, Drill Now!” Bumper stickers calling for expanded drilling in the U.S. were ubiquitous, and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin relentlessly pushed to have the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) opened for drilling.

Average, everyday Americans were heavily involved as well. And taken in retrospect, 2008’s “Drill Here, Drill Now” movement became so vocal that the push for expanded domestic oil production was nothing less than a precursor to the tea parties that popped up throughout the U.S. in 2009.

Yet here we are in 2010, and the mantra is lost. After gas prices fell in late 2008, many of the “Drill Here, Drill Now” crowd apparently moved on to other causes. As a result, we didn’t drill here and we now face the prospect of paying $3.25 (or more) a gallon for our gasoline this coming summer. And estimates are that this approaching price increase will raise the average American’s monthly gasoline expenditures beyond what many can bear. (PJM)

One of the almost flogged-to-death human interest stories of this Sunday’s Oscars is that the two leading candidates for Best Picture — Avatar and The Hurt Locker — were made by directors who were once married to each other: James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow. Rooters for the bomb disposal underdog thus include both those who would like to see a woman win Best Picture for the first time, and the vast cohort of Hollywood ex-wives.

However, there are plenty of other reasons to hope that Canadian-born Mr. Cameron fails to own the podium, including the fact that his film was this week cited approvingly as part of a vicious ongoing campaign against the Alberta oilsands.

Perhaps Avatar’s most outspoken critic is Ann McElhinney. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington two weeks ago, Ms. McElhinney noted — to Tea Party cheers — that Avatar might be both beautiful and compelling, but it was also an “anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-mining rant.”

Despite Avatar’s boffo box office (well over US$2-billion worldwide, and counting), the movie has also been slammed by critics ranging from the Vatican through the Marine Corps to liberals who don’t like its white-man-saving-the-natives theme.

The Singapore Navy is stepping up security efforts after receiving information that terrorists may attempt to attack oil tankers steaming through the Malacca Strait. The shipping lane between Malaysia and Indonesia is among the world’s busiest and is traversed by more than 90,000 vessels every year.

The Strait has long been the site of terrorist and pirate attacks and is considered a key oil transit chokepoint. The Strait provides the shortest sea route between northern Asia and the oil-producing countries of the Middle East. Over half of the world’s daily oil production is moved by tankers on fixed maritime routes though chokepoints. Chokepoints are narrow shipping channels along these high traffic sea routes. These routes are considered a critical part of global energy security because even a temporary blockage of one of them can lead to substantial increases in total energy costs. Chokepoints are also especially vulnerable to piracy, terrorism and oil spills. (Seth Myers, Energy Tribune)

A leading climate scientist has likened Australia's continued export of coal in the face of global warming to that of a ''drug dealer'' feeding the world's fossil fuel addiction.

James Hansen, the so-called grandfather of climate change and head of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, has become famous for his research on the Earth's climate and his dogged attempt to bring the science of global warming to the world.

Here for lectures, Dr Hansen said the problem was particularly relevant for Australia because it continues to be a huge consumer and exporter of coal: ''If [Australia] continues to increase its export of coal it is, in effect, becoming a drug dealer for the world.''

The gap between public knowledge and the scientific reality of global warming is the big problem, he said.

''If the [public] really understood it, they wouldn't let the governments get away with it.'' (SMH)

In August 2009, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued its fourth Early Site Permit for two new units at Southern Nuclear’s Vogtle site and its first for the Westinghouse AP1000 pressurized water reactor design. The two new units planned for Vogtle also became the reference plant for the AP1000 under NuStart in June 2009. This means Vogtle Units 3 and 4 will be the first licensed installations of the new AP1000 reactor design.

On February 16, President Obama announced that the DOE has offered Plant Vogtle terms for a loan guarantee that could provide up to 80% of the project estimated cost of $14.5 billion with the Southern Nuclear only paying a credit subsidy fee.

That’s a lot of commitment from taxpayers–$11.6 billion worth. Perhaps rapidly rising construction costs of new nuclear plants is partly why the owners want such large protection up front. But there are problems with fundamental economics comparing nuclear to the best foregone opportunity.

My back-of-the-envelope calculations comparing a natural gas-fired combined cycle plant to a new nuclear plant raise more questions than answers. For example, assume a utility has a baseload need of 2,400 MW in the future (like the new Vogtle units). Next, use the EIA future price projection of about 12 cents/kWh for nuclear and 8 cents/kWh for a gas-fired combined cycle produced electricity.

At today’s gas prices (yes, the prices have historically been extremely volatile), the combined cycle plant would use about $750 million a year of fuel. The 4 cents/kWh difference in busbar cost of generation is also equivalent to about $750 million per year in lower cost electricity generation. In essence, it’s an economic dead heat. However, the first cost of the no-risk gas combined-cycle plant is about a fifth of the nuclear plant, the latter which requires large government subsidies.

Simple math suggests that the gas-fired option should be back on the table. Moderate the fuel price risk with financial instruments with Grade A corporations. Obviously, there are major competitive problems with the nuclear plants to require such a large government subsidy–more explanation is invited in the comments by those in the know.

The Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generation Plant (Plant Vogtle) is one of Georgia Power’s two nuclear facilities and one of three nuclear facilities in the Southern Company system (Figure 1). Southern Nuclear, a subsidiary of Southern Company since 1990, is the licensed operator of Plant Vogtle, which is located about 25 miles south of Augusta, Ga. The plant is jointly owned by Georgia Power (45.7%), Oglethorpe Power Corp. (30%), Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (22.7%), and the Dalton Utilities (1.6%). [Read more →] (MasterResource)

Lost in President Obama’s rhetoric that the science is settled on climate change, the president is willing to shut down Yucca Mountain without scientific justification. Today, the Department of Energy (DOE) filed to withdraw the application for the geologic repository Yucca Mountain that was supposed to begin collecting used fuel in 1998. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 set January 31, 1998, as the deadline for the federal government to begin disposing of used fuel. More than a decade after the deadline, the government has still not settled on a policy for how to do it. The DOE established a blue ribbon commission to explore alternatives to long-term waste storage. The government’s ineptitude to begin proper nuclear waste management should be a reason to remove government responsibilities, not remove Yucca from consideration.

On numerous occasions (not Yucca specific) President Obama emphasized the importance of objective, transparent science, stressing that politics should not trump sound science.

When Chicago passed a ban on handgun ownership in 1982, it was part of a trend. Washington, D.C. had done it in 1976, and a few Chicago suburbs took up the cause in the following years. They all expected to reduce the number of guns and thus curtail bloodshed.

District of Columbia Attorney General Linda Singer told The Washington Post in 2007, "It's a pretty common-sense idea that the more guns there are around, the more gun violence you'll have." Nadine Winters, a member of the Washington city council in 1976, said she assumed at the time that the policy "would spread to other places."

But the fad never really caught fire -- even before last summer, when the Supreme Court struck down the D.C. law and cast doubt on the others, including the Chicago ordinance before the court Tuesday. The Second Amendment may kill such restrictions, but in most places, it wasn't needed to keep them from hatching in the first place. (Steve Chapman, Townhall)

Safety expert for Mercedes says strict speeding laws are not the answer to lowering road tolls.

A leading safety expert says a crackdown on speeding is not the answer to reducing the road toll.

The vice president of safety development for Mercedes-Benz, Ulrich Mellinghoff, says crash avoidance systems, better roads and more roundabouts would do more to cut the road toll than tougher speeding laws.

The approach is in direct contrast to state governments in NSW and Victoria, who have been preaching the "speed kills" mantra as the number one panacea for the road toll.

Mr Mellinghoff says motorists often fell into the trap of thinking they were driving safely because they were doing less than the speed limit.

He says the German road toll had reduced significantly in the past 20 years, despite much higher speeds on the roads.

" In Germany you can drive as fast as you want. I don't think that speed alone is the problem. It's the wrong speed in a special situation. With speed limits you will not stop those situations. If you have fog and drive at 100km/h, which is allowed, you are really in high danger of having an accident. On the other hand, if you drive 250km/h on the German autobahn in clear weather conditions with no traffic, it's not really a risk and no accidents happen in those situations," he says.

His claims are borne out by German road statistics. In 1972, there were 20,000 deaths on West German roads. In 2009, there were 4100, despite 20 million more people on the road (including the old East Germany).

"That was with much worse traffic and significantly more vehicles on the road," says Mellinghoff.

"What we have seen is there are a lot of very different reasons for accidents. Sometimes it is not the high speed, it is the wrong speed. If you limit the speed, the driver often thinks all they have to do is drive the speed limit and they don't have to think," he says. (SMH)

Dear Readers,

I apologize for the unplanned absence. Your letters of support and concern have been overwhelming and heartwarming. Thank you so much. Please know that I am okay and still passionately believe everyone deserves sound information – something we are not getting today! My personal commitment is unchanged and I hope to be able to return to Junkfood Science as soon as I am able.

Warmly,

Sandy (Junkfood Science)

NEW YORK - Fueling recent criticism of educational DVDs for toddlers, a new study finds that kids do not improve language skills after viewing one such product, the Baby Wordsworth from the Walt Disney Company's Baby Einstein series.

While The Baby Einstein Company does not explicitly make educational claims, it notes on its web page that the Baby Wordsworth DVD is a "playful introduction to words and sign language."

The new study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, put the DVD to the test in a group of one- and two-year-olds.

For six weeks, 88 children were randomly assigned to either watch it a few times a week or not at all. Researchers then tested the language skills in each group based on how many words the kids knew according to their parents and how well they did in a lab test.

At the end of the period, toddlers who had watched the DVD fared no better than those who hadn't.

Children in both groups understood about 20 of the 30 words highlighted in the DVD, on average, and spoke 10. Their general language development showed no difference, either.

The researcher also asked parents about their kids' television viewing before entering the study. The earlier a child started watching Baby Einstein DVDs, it turned out, the smaller his or her vocabulary was.

The finding is in line with earlier research, said Rebekah Richert, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside, who led the study. But it is unclear if the DVDs themselves are responsible. Parents who place their kids in front of the screen could be trying to remedy slow language development, or they could be using the DVDs as baby sitters, cutting back on social stimulation.

"A lot of children, particularly when they're young, seem to have these kinds of (DVDs)," Richert told Reuters Health. "My take-home message would be to encourage live interaction between parent and child." (Reuters Health)

WASHINGTON - Germs that make their home in the gut may help cause obesity and a range of health-threatening symptoms that go along with it, researchers reported on Thursday.

It could be that certain bacteria cause inflammation that can affect appetite as well as inflammatory bowel conditions like Crohn's disease and colitis, the researchers reported in the journal Science.

In other words, the germs make you overeat, Andrew Gewirtz of Emory University in Atlanta and colleagues reported.

"Previous research has suggested that bacteria can influence how well energy is absorbed from food, but these findings demonstrate that intestinal bacteria can actually influence appetite," Gewirtz said.

"The obesity epidemic is driven by people eating too much, but why are people eating more?"

Gewirtz said the research suggests that bacteria may play a role - perhaps a population of bacteria that thrive because other, competing organisms have been wiped out by antibiotics, access to clean water and other factors of modern life. (Reuters)

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist Scott Yates is studying how oxytetracycline (OTC), an antibiotic that is administered to animals, breaks down in cattle manure.

Livestock producers in the United States often use antibiotics to control disease in their animals, and confined U.S. livestock and poultry generate about 63.8 million tons of manure every year. The drugs are often only partially absorbed by the digestive tract, and the rest are excreted with their pharmaceutical activity intact.

Yates, who works at the ARS Contaminant Fate and Transport Research Unit in Riverside, Calif., found that in controlled laboratory conditions, OTC in cattle manure was degraded more quickly as temperatures increased and as the moisture content in the manure increased. But the OTC breakdown slowed as water saturation levels neared 100 percent. Yates concluded that this slowdown resulted when oxygen levels were not high enough to fuel the OTC biodegradation.

Yates also noted that OTC breaks down more quickly in manure than in soil. Compared to soil, manure has higher levels of organic material and moisture, which support the microorganisms that break down this pharmaceutical.

This laboratory research may be useful in designing studies that evaluate the potential effects of lagoons, holding ponds and manure pits on bacteria and antimicrobial resistance.

Livestock producers also might use the results from this study to maximize the breakdown of organic materials and potential antibiotics in manure by designing storage environments with optimum temperatures and moisture levels.

Results from this study were published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. (United States Department of Agriculture-Research, Education, and Economics)

BOSTON - General Electric Co is known for exporting American products like washing machines and jet engines, and the biggest U.S. conglomerate is getting ready to ship out another American trend - the outdoor smoking ban.

The world's largest maker of jet engines this week told employees that it plans to ban smoking on all GE property - both indoors and out - worldwide starting in March 2011.

The Fairfield, Connecticut-based company already prohibits indoor smoking at about 80 percent of its 2,000 facilities globally. The new policy aims to extend that ban to apply to all GE property, meaning an assembly-line worker could not have a cigarette while walking from the factory gate to the door. (Reuters)

I have a piece in National Review Online today outlining the fantasy behind Sen. Lindsey Graham’s latest attempt to keep cap-and-trade alive. Here’s the beginning:

Radical environmental groups have ripped off taxpayers to the tune of $37 million.
March 4, 2010
- by Richard Pollock

Without any oversight, accounting, or transparency, environmental activist groups have surreptitiously received at least $37 million from the federal government for questionable “attorney fees.” The lawsuits they received compensation for had nothing to do with environmental protection or improvement.

The activist groups have generated huge revenue streams via the obscure Equal Access to Justice Act. Congressional sources claim the groups are billing for “cookie cutter” lawsuits — they file the same petitions to multiple agencies on procedural grounds, and under the Act, they file for attorney fees even if they do not win the case. Since 1995, the federal government has neither tracked nor accounted for any of these attorney fee payments.

Nine national environmental activist groups alone have filed more than 3,300 suits, every single one seeking attorney fees. The groups have also charged as much as $650 per hour (a federal statutory cap usually limits attorney fees to $125 per hour).

In well over half of the cases, there was no court judgment in the environmental groups’ favor. In all cases, whether there was any possible environmental benefit from the litigation is highly questionable. Most cases were simply based upon an alleged failure to comply with a deadline or to follow a procedure. (PJM)

The largest free-ranging wildlife sanctuary in NSW could be under threat from a proposed sand mine that will operate less than 40 metres from its boundary.

The owners of the Australia Walkabout Wildlife Park, which was founded by the former federal environment minister Barry Cohen, have written to the Department of Planning to oppose the mine, at Calga, on the Central Coast.

The mine, being considered by the Planning Department, would also be close to the venue for the annual Peats Ridge Music Festival.

Rocla Quarry Products operates a sand mine next to the proposed site, but wants to increase the sand it mines from 400,000 tonnes a year to 1 million tonnes. (SMH)

Not dead ... a yellow-spotted bell frog. Photo: Taronga Zoo/Michael McFadden

In the world of amphibians, it is the equivalent of finding the Tasmanian tiger. A species of frog presumed extinct for nearly 30 years has turned up in the Southern Tablelands.

The yellow-spotted bell frog was once ubiquitous in the northern and southern tablelands of NSW, but was almost wiped out after the chytrid fungus arrived from Africa in the early 1970s.

It was found alive and well in 2008 by government researcher Luke Pearce, who was searching for a native fish, the southern pygmy perch. Instead, he spotted the bell frog, which has distinctive markings on its groin and thighs.

But Mr Pearce had to wait until last October before he could return with David Hunter, the threatened species officer of the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water, to confirm the finding.

''We heard this bell frog call,'' Mr Pearce said. ''[We] went down looking for it and actually nearly stepped on it. It was quite amazing. This frog was just waiting there to be found.''

In one stretch of stream on a farm in an unspecified part of the Southern Tablelands, an estimated 100 yellow-spotted bell frogs have been found. Six tadpoles have been taken to Taronga Zoo to establish a breeding program.

''If it has a predisposition to being resistant to this fungus, as opposed to having site attributes resulting in resistance, that will afford it much greater protection when we start putting it elsewhere,'' Dr Hunter said. (SMH)

LONDON - A giant asteroid smashing into Earth is the only plausible explanation for the extinction of the dinosaurs, a global scientific team said on Thursday, hoping to settle a row that has divided experts for decades.

A panel of 41 scientists from across the world reviewed 20 years' worth of research to try to confirm the cause of the so-called Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction, which created a "hellish environment" around 65 million years ago and wiped out more than half of all species on the planet.

Scientific opinion was split over whether the extinction was caused by an asteroid or by volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps in what is now India, where there were a series of super volcanic eruptions that lasted around 1.5 million years.

The new study, conducted by scientists from Europe, the United States, Mexico, Canada and Japan and published in the journal Science, found that a 15-kilometre (9 miles) wide asteroid slamming into Earth at Chicxulub in what is now Mexico was the culprit.

"We now have great confidence that an asteroid was the cause of the KT extinction. This triggered large-scale fires, earthquakes measuring more than 10 on the Richter scale, and continental landslides, which created tsunamis," said Joanna Morgan of Imperial College London, a co-author of the review.

The asteroid is thought to have hit Earth with a force a billion times more powerful than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.

Morgan said the "final nail in the coffin for the dinosaurs" came when blasted material flew into the atmosphere, shrouding the planet in darkness, causing a global winter and "killing off many species that couldn't adapt to this hellish environment." (Reuters)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Geologists have found evidence that sea ice extended to the equator 716.5 million years ago, bringing new precision to a "snowball Earth" event long suspected to have taken place around that time.

Led by scientists at Harvard University, the team reports on its work this week in the journal Science. The new findings -- based on an analysis of ancient tropical rocks that are now found in remote northwestern Canada -- bolster the theory that our planet has, at times in the past, been ice-covered at all latitudes.

"This is the first time that the Sturtian glaciation has been shown to have occurred at tropical latitudes, providing direct evidence that this particular glaciation was a 'snowball Earth' event," says lead author Francis A. Macdonald, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard. "Our data also suggests that the Sturtian glaciation lasted a minimum of 5 million years." (Harvard University)

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration will give small businesses a break on coming carbon dioxide emissions rules but big emitters like coal-fired power plants will face a crack-down, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said on Wednesday.

President Barack Obama has pushed the EPA to begin regulating gases blamed for warming the planet, in part to force polluters to support the climate change bill. The legislation is his preferred method of climate control, but it is stalled in the Senate. (Reuters)

Instead of exercising its “judgment,” as required by Sec. 202 of the Clean Air Act, to determine whether greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions endanger public health and welfare, EPA largely deferred to the judgment of an external agency not subject to U.S. data quality and freedom of information laws — the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC developed three lines of evidence for its conclusion that GHG emissions are causing dangerous global warming. The first is based on the IPCC’s understanding of the physics of the climate system. The second is the claim that recent decades are unusually warm compared to previous centuries during the current interglacial period known as the Holocene. The third line of evidence is the asserted agreement between observations and computer model simulations.

Is cap and trade really "dead"?

After all, didn't Sen. Lindsey Graham say so? The South Carolina Republican's recent remarks -- or snippets of them -- have ricocheted around Capitol Hill and beyond in recent weeks, lending momentum to the notion that the congressional effort he is helping lead no longer plans to implement a system that requires companies to buy and sell emission credits.

But Graham's remarks appear to be more political than substantive. Indeed, cap and trade remains very much a part of the debate on what legislation will look like when the closed-door negotiations are finished.

Graham was quoted Saturday in The Washington Post telling environmentalists "cap-and-trade is dead." The New York Times carried a similar quote in January that the senator later clarified, explaining he was referring to the large-scale, House-passed climate bill and a Senate counterpart approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee (Greenwire, Jan. 27).

In fact, Graham remains committed to putting a price on carbon emissions. And the proposal he is working on with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is likely to utilize the cap-and-trade mechanism when it comes to the electric utility industry, and later to manufacturers. (Darren Samuelsohn, E&E)

Even if the global warming malarkey were true, cap and trade would actually cause the problem it seeks to remedy.
March 3, 2010
- by William M. Briggs

When Scott Brown (R-MA) won his Senate seat, swept into office by his promise of becoming the Senate’s “filibuster breaker,” a lot of people said: “Whew! Now I don’t have to worry about that atrocious health-tax bill, or that cap and trade monstrosity!”

That just shows how euphoria clouds the mind. Because as soon as Republicans began celebrating, Democrats started furtively passing sealed manila folders to one another while making shushing sounds.

Republican elation didn’t last long. There was a distinct feeling of shock when President Obama let slip that health care was “still on the table.” And not just on the table, but that it would wend its way through the Senate via reconciliation, doubtlessly gathering an encrustation of rancid pork as it rolled along.

Well chum, sit down. Because the same thing is happening with the greenhouse gas limiting bill: the cap and trade … and tax, and might as well spend. It, too, has risen from the dead.

Only it never was dead, of course. It was just in hiding, waiting, and now is under active revision with the leadership of John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT).

At this writing, the public doesn’t know exactly what measures will be adopted in the revised Senate bill, but we can make some intelligent guesses. The first being that the law of unintended consequences is set to strike once more.

Suppose, as is not likely, that it is true that humans are untowardly affecting the climate such that temperatures are everywhere increasing, and that those increasing temperatures are everywhere devastating or harmful and nowhere helpful. Suppose, too, that these temperature increases are directly caused by controllable greenhouse gas emissions, and that if these emissions can be reduced by a few percentage points, temperatures will not everywhere increase nor be everywhere harmful.

Suppose all that is true. Cap and trade is still a bad idea. (PJM)

WASHINGTON — The trio of senators negotiating a broad climate change and energy bill appears likely to abandon plans for an economywide cap on greenhouse gas emissions in favor of a sector-based approach that is winning cautious support by oil and gas industry leaders.

American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard said he was “encouraged” by the leading scenario being discussed on Capitol Hill to impose new greenhouse gas emissions limits on power utilities and a separate “carbon fee” on gasoline and transportation fuels.

That would replace a House-passed plan for an economywide “cap-and-trade” program forcing manufacturers, utilities and other polluters to buy and trade emission allowances to comply with steadily tightening limits on carbon dioxide.

It also would scotch plans in the House bill to require refiners to buy allowances to pay for carbon dioxide released when consumers burn their transportation fuels to power cars, trucks and planes.

That had been bitterly opposed by the oil industry as an unfair burden that could spur refining operations to move overseas. ( Houston Chronicle)

AMSTERDAM - The debate on using public and private financing to fight climate change must be resolved for the Cancun climate summit to succeed where Copenhagen failed, U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer warned on Wednesday.

World leaders meet in Cancun in Mexico at the end of the year to hammer out a legally binding climate agreement, after they failed to do so in Copenhagen last December.

The focus before that meeting should be on getting short-term financing moving through existing institutions and clarifying the mechanisms for long-term finance, de Boer said. (Reuters)

March 3 -- The process for reaching a global climate agreement “needs a good spanking,” United Nations Climate Chief Yvo de Boer said today.

“More meetings does not mean success,” de Boer, who steps down from his UN post on July 1, said today at the Carbon Market Insights conference in Amsterdam. “We need to get down to business.”

The Copenhagen summit in December 2009 was a failure even though it was preceded by many meetings, de Boer said. While about 150 nations agreed to submit plans or targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the meeting failed to produce a global treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which lapses in 2012.

“Going back from Copenhagen, I was extremely disappointed,” de Boer said. “My first feeling was it had been an absolute disaster.” (Bloomberg)

Parliament isn’t the place where climate sceptics go to make friends. Just over a year ago, just three MPs ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/29/commons_climate_change_bill/ ) voted against the Climate Act, with 463 supporting it. But events took a surprising turn at Parliament’s first Climategate hearing yesterday.

MPs who began by roasting sceptics in a bath of warm sarcasm for half an hour were, a mere two hours later, asking why the University of East Anglia’s enquiry into the climate scandal wasn’t broader, and wasn’t questioning “the science” of climate change. That’s further than any sceptic witness had gone. (Andrew Orlowski, The Register)

I watched part of the UK Parliamentary Committee Panel investigations with Phil Jones, and my main thought was ferrgoodnesssake–the nation of the Magna Carta, Newton, and the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution: can’t the UK empire just fly Steven McIntyre in and sit these two men down in the same room at the same time? You know, ask questions from one then the other, drilling down with no tea-and-cakes breaks, until they sort out each item on a prearranged list?

Billions of lives depend on figuring out whether CO2 matters, and trillions of dollars rests on the scientific output of East Anglia CRU… if it’s so important, why don’t the UK Government get serious? (Or for that matter, why don’t the IPCC volunteer to arrange this, all televised and restore their credibility… right… show they are take “unscientific behaviour” seriously?) Note that I’m not suggesting that the Panel members aren’t serious, only that they have a long learning curve in this incredibly detailed saga, and McIntyre could save everyone some time.

I did like that the dialogue was so civilized (that’s such a rare thing), but it seemed like the slow road to real answers. I guess this is a big new (albeit supranormal “parliamentary”) step on the road where science “gets it right in the long run”.

Prof Jones admitted he had withheld data and sent some “pretty awful” emails, and he insisted it was “standard practice” to refuse certain information to other scientists. He also explained that none of the climate scientists reviewing his papers had ever asked for the data. There you have it: what we always knew, that peer review boils down to two anonymous, unpaid “peers” who have barely any vested interest in finding flaws.

Awkwardly for Jones, Steven Mosher points out on WattsUP that, Professor Jones was quite happy to share data with Steven McIntyre in 2002, before he realized that McIntyre was a step ahead and moving on a different path. After that, suddenly there were “confidentiality agreements” to worry about, (though those agreements apparently only applied selectively, since he sent that confidential information to Webster and Rutherford).

The UK Parliamentary site is here, with words from Lord Lawson in the first hour, then Phil Jones starts after 60 minutes. Thanks to Simon at Australian Climate Madness for the youtube version of the Phil Jones’ testimony. Smart move. More » (Jo Nova)

Is Hansenism more dangerous than Lysenkoism?

On June 23, 1988, a young and previously unknown NASA computer modeller, James Hansen, appeared before a United States Congressional hearing on climate change. On that occasion, Dr. Hansen used a graph to convince his listeners that late 20th century warming was taking place at an accelerated rate, which, it being a scorching summer's day in Washington, a glance out of the window appeared to confirm.

He wrote later in justification, in the Washington Post (February 11, 1989), that "the evidence for an increasing greenhouse effect is now sufficiently strong that it would have been irresponsible if I had not attempted to alert political leaders".

Hansen's testimony was taken up as a lead news story, and within days the great majority of the American public believed that a climate apocalypse was at hand, and the global warming hare was off and running. Thereby, Dr. Hansen became transformed into the climate media star who is shortly going to wow the ingenues in the Adelaide Festival audience.

Fifteen years later, in the Scientific American in March, 2004, Hansen came to write that "Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue. Now, however, the need is for demonstrably objective climate forcing scenarios consistent with what is realistic".

This conversion to honesty came too late, however, for in the intervening years thousands of other climate scientists had meanwhile climbed onto the Hansenist funding gravy-train. Currently, global warming alarmism is fuelled by an estimated worldwide expenditure on related research and greenhouse bureaucracy of more than US$10 billion annually.

Scientists and bureaucrats being only too human, the power of such sums of money to corrupt not only the politics of greenhouse, but even the scientific process itself, should not be underestimated. In recognition of these events, the term Hansenism is now sometimes used to describe the climate hysteria which had, until recently, gripped western media sources and political, business and public opinion in a deadly grasp. (Bob Carter, Quadrant)

The statement is odd because Schmidt and his climate scientist colleagues have devoted much of the effort on their blog to countering "skeptics" and persuading the public and the media that their views are the authoritative ones. Was Schmidt misquoted? Is Real Climate shutting down?

If that statement was curious, the following quote attributed to Schmidt indicates how some scientists just do not get what has happened in the past few months (emphasis added):

Calling people with whom you disagree "nutters" is a good example of the excessive arrogance in the scientific community, a problem that does not look to be going away anytime soon. The notion that "good science" will wreak revenge on the "nutters" who "control the agenda" suggests that we can expect even more politicized science, that is to say, political battles waged through science.

Fortunately, there are some folks who do get it. For instance, Sheila Jasanoff of Harvard, who studies science in society, explains in a blog post addenda to the print story:

In this week's Nature, Dan Sarewitz of ASU (and also a long-time friend, mentor and collaborator of mine) explains that whatever is done to restore trust in climate science, that alone won't do much to advance climate policy. Sarewitz explains that waging climate politics through science was always going to be a losing proposition for those calling for action:

I'm grateful to Charles Crawford for this item, in which BBC Radio Five Live's Peter Allen tells a listener that he is not allowed to question manmade global warming. The programme will soon disappear from the BBC website so an excerpt is attached below.

Snow in the east, no snow in the west: Eureka! Al Gore and Gordon Campbell see the connection

This past week has seen two wonderful examples of that psychological phenomenon known as “confirmation bias,” that is, interpreting whatever evidence presents itself as proof of what you believe. On Sunday, in The New York Times, Al Gore deemed it disgraceful that “deniers” were suggesting that this year’s East Coast Snowmageddon had undermined the Inconvenient Truth of man-made global warming. More snow was clear evidence of the pernicious hand of industrial man. The next day, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell told The Globe and Mail that the lack of snow at the Vancouver Olympics was due to … man-made global warming.

THE CASE for global-warming alarmism is melting faster than those mythical disappearing Himalayan glaciers, but Al Gore isn’t backing down.

In a long op-ed piece for The New York Times the other day, Gore cranked up the doomsday rhetoric. Human beings, he warned, “face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.’’ His 1,900-word essay made no mention of his financial interest in promoting such measures - Gore has invested heavily in carbon-offset markets, electric vehicles, and other ventures that would profit handsomely from legislation curbing the use of fossil fuels, and is reportedly poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire.’’ However, he did mention “global-warming pollution’’ no fewer than four times, declaring that “our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation’’ if we don’t move decisively to reduce it.

By “global-warming pollution,’’ Gore means carbon dioxide (CO2), which is a “pollutant’’ in roughly the way oxygen and water are pollutants: Human existence would be impossible without them. CO2 is essential to photosynthesis, the process that sustains plant life and generates the oxygen that human beings and animals inhale. Far from polluting the world, carbon dioxide enriches it. Higher levels of CO2 are associated with larger crop yields, increased forest growth, and longer growing seasons - in short, with a greener planet.

Of course carbon dioxide also contributes to the greenhouse effect that keeps the earth warm. But the vast majority of atmospheric CO2 occurs naturally, and it is far from clear that the carbon dioxide contributed by human industry has a significant impact on the world’s climate. (Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe)

Perhaps someone should ask workers at the Met Office to take a rain check on their optimism.

After predicting just a 20 per cent chance of a colder than average winter, they were left embarrassed again when official figures revealed it was the coldest for more than 30 years. (Daily Mail)

PUNE: Giving new direction to environmental studies, 'Climate change and voice of rural children'- a booklet on impact of climate change on Indian rural children was released by Holistic Child Development India (HCDI) on Monday. Commissioner of Tribal Researcher Institute Dr A K Jha released the booklet.

The HCDI, a Christian humanitarian organisation has been working particularly for quality improvement in the lives of children through developmental projects with child-centered approach. “Children are the worst victims of climate change. The booklet is the outcome of a series of workshops conducted in Nagpur, Varanasi and Pune on the impact of climate change on rural and tribal children by HCDI. Especially, the children from Varanasi, who are the victims of Bihar Floods, expressed that the greed and exploitation of natural resources are the reasons behind climate change. These experiences have been complied in the booklet,” said Naina Athalye of HCDI. The representatives of children were also present on the occasion.

HCDI Director Thomas Rajkumar said that although the climate change affects human lives as a whole, children, especially living in rural and tribal areas, are worst affected. The booklet aims to provide a platform to their voices and to learn from their experiences. (Sakaal Times)

A federal appeals court has agreed to review a three-judge panel's ruling that a group of Mississippi coastal landowners can sue energy and chemical companies claiming their greenhouse gas emissions contributed to global warming, caused sea levels to rise and added to the intensity of Hurricane Katrina.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Feb. 26 granted a petition from the energy and chemical companies for a review by the full court of the panel's decision.

The court said the case would be scheduled for oral argument the week of May 24.

It gave attorneys for both sides until April 30 to file briefs.

The lawsuit was filed by the landowners in U.S. District Court in Gulfport in September 2005, about a month after Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast.

U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. dismissed the lawsuit in 2007.

The families appealed to the 5th Circuit. The three-judge panel's ruling last October reinstated the lawsuit.

The panel said the landowners had shown they had suffered an injury that could be traced back to the energy and chemical companies. The landowners had sought compensatory and punitive damages against 32 companies and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

In their petition for a review by the full 5th Circuit, the companies argued that global warming was not attributable only to them but resulted from the emissions of greenhouse gases from millions of sources dating to the Industrial Revolution. (Associated Press)

Richard Tol is a research professor at ESRI in Ireland, one of the top 175 economists in the world and a contributor to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where his work is widely cited. In this guest post, the first of a series, Richard takes a look at parts of the IPCC AR4 Working Group III, which has largely escaped scrutiny in recent months. He concludes:

Kendrick Frazier, long time editor of the Skeptical Inquirer magazine, has been caught whining on the Inquirer's Facebook page about people canceling their subscriptions. The motivation for the canceled subscriptions is SI's un-skeptical view of anthropogenic global warming. Under Frazier's leadership the “Magazine for Science and Reason” has been sucking up to the climate change mongering American Association for the Advancement of Science and acting as a cheering section for AGW.

According to his Center For Inquiry (CFI) on-line bio, Kendrick Frazier has been the editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine for over 30 years. He is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and the American Geophysical Union. Unfortunately for the reputation of the Skeptical Inquirer, Frazier has led that formerly respectable magazine into welcoming arms of the AGW true believers.

In 2005, Frazier was made a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for “distinguished contributions to the public understanding of science through writing for and editing popular science magazines that emphasize science news and scientific reasoning and methods.” The AAAS, publisher of the journal Science, has been a vocal supporter of all things climate change for years. Being made a Fellow was just the payoff to a fellow climate change alarmist for subverting the magazine he edits. Much cheaper than thirty pieces of silver.

Needless to say, a number of people who are themselves skeptics have a real problem with the blind eye Frazier has turned toward the question of climate change. This blog has previously addressed SI's betrayal of real skepticism in “Skeptical Inquirer Abandons Reason, Embraces Global Warming.” Now, a letter from a SI subscriber canceling his subscription has evoked a tirade from Editor Frazier. Here is part of the former subscriber's letter:

And what was the reply to this earnest and reasonable request for an explanation? How did the supposedly skeptical and learned Ken Frazier respond? Here are the full contents of his online rejoinder:

“Join the lynch mob” and “slam those damned ignorant climatologists,” what a thoughtful, well reasoned response to his reader's request for an explanation of his magazine's pro-AGW bias. Ken even notes that SI is losing longtime readers and that the magazine is highly dependent on subscriptions to survive. A rational man would have made a polite and reasoned response to a letter from a valued subscriber, not liken him to a creationist or a member of a lynch mob. Clearly it is Frasier who suffers from don't-tell-me-anything-I-don't-want-to-hear syndrome. So, for showing your lack of skepticism, irrational intolerance of others and atrociously bad manners this Crank of the Week is all yours: Kendrick Frazier, Skeptical Inquirer Editor.

[Thanks to Resilient Earth reader Philip T. for bringing Frazier's online meltdown to our attention. Much appreciated, Philip.] (The Resilient Earth)

Climate change is one reason malaria is on the rise in some parts of the world, new research finds, but other factors such as migration and land-use changes are likely also at play. The research, published in The Quarterly Review of Biology, aims to sort out contradictions that have emerged as scientists try to understand why malaria has been spreading into highland areas of East Africa, Indonesia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

"We assessed … conclusions from both sides and found that evidence for a role of climate in the dynamics is robust," write study authors Luis Fernando Chaves from Emory University and Constantianus Koenraadt of Wageningen University in the Netherlands. "However, we also argue that over-emphasizing a role for climate is misleading for setting a research agenda, even one which attempts to understand climate change impacts on emerging malaria patterns."

Malaria, a parasitic disease spread to humans by mosquitoes, is common in warm climates of Africa, South America and South Asia. The development and survival, both of the mosquito and the malaria parasite are highly sensitive to daily and seasonal temperature patterns and the disease has traditionally been rare in the cooler highland areas. Over the last 40 years, however, the disease has been spreading to the highlands, and many studies link the spread to global warming. But that conclusion is far from unanimous. Other studies have found no evidence of warming in highland regions, thus ruling out climate change as a driver for highland malaria. (University of Chicago Press Journals)

WUWT reader “DC” points us to this Gore-esque pronouncement from a USGS scientist about “Antarctic ice loss”.

German and Russian scientists say that it is normal for an interglacial period like the one just ending to finish with one or more brief - in geological terms - spells of warming before the glaciers return. (Lewis Page, The Register)

Critics are questioning the accuracy of a 120-year-old weather station network that measures surface temperature in the U.S. by tallying paper reports from volunteers whose data is rife with human error.

To measure weather, volunteers take readings at different times of day, round to the nearest whole number, and mark up paper forms they mail in monthly.

Crucial data on the American climate, part of the basis for proposed trillion-dollar global warming legislation, is churned out by a 120-year-old weather system that has remained mostly unchanged since Benjamin Harrison was in the White House.

The network measures surface temperature by tallying paper reports sent in by snail mail from volunteers whose data, according to critics, often resembles a hodgepodge of guesswork, mathematical interpolation and simple human error.

"It's rather archaic," said Anthony Watts, a meteorologist who since 2007 has been cataloging problems in the 1,218 weather stations that make up the Historical Climatology Network.

"When the network was put together in 1892, it was mercury thermometers and paper forms. Today it's still much the same," he said.

The network relies on volunteers in the 48 contiguous states to take daily readings of high and low temperatures and precipitation measured by sensors they keep by their homes and offices. They deliver that information to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), which uses it to track changes in the climate.

Requirements aren't very strict for volunteers: They need a modicum of training and decent vision in at least one eye to qualify. And they're expected to take measurements seven days a week, 365 days a year.

That's a recipe for trouble, says Watts, who told FoxNews.com that less scrupulous members of the network often fail to collect the data when they go on vacation or are sick. He said one volunteer filled in missing data with local weather reports from the newspapers that stacked up while he was out of town. (Joseph Abrams, FOXNews.com)

Deep Climate, a blog promoting panic about AGW and specializing in criticisms of the Canadian skeptic groups, asked the question why the BBC has inconveniently asked Phil Jones whether there had been a significant global warming since 1995. Recall that he had to answer that there was none - because it's damn too easy to check that there was none.

According to Deep Climate, your humble correspondent has "played a key role in getting the question asked in the first place."

Together with Richard Lindzen and Anthony Watts, I was quoted as the inspiration for the BBC. Once Phil Jones answered the BBC's questioned, he became our friend denier, so the Deep Climate article talks about Lindzen, Motl, and Jones. ;-) I am honored but yes, Deep Climate has a point. I helped to promote this way of thinking - about "statistically significant trends" - although I have obviously neither invented it nor brought it to climatology. :-)

My modest contribution was a simple calculation (thanks to Wolfram Mathematica), No statistically significant warming since 1995, that I wrote in December 2009 and that was reposted on Anthony Watts' blog which increased the nonzero but relatively modest TRF's reach by one order of magnitude.

Jeff Id showed us an article from November 2009 where he discussed the same question with the same result so I was surely no pioneer in the content, at most in the presentation. (But it does seem to me that our detailed calculations of the confidence levels etc. may differ a bit.)

Why 1995, why the answer is important

Deep Climate correctly writes that Richard Lindzen has been the main person who has thought about the statistical significance of the trends. He is often ahead of us, and ahead of everyone else. Let me mention a few elementary words about the statistical significance.

The "amateurs" would buy the superficial way of reasoning that has spread in the media. They would ask whether a warming trend in a period was positive or negative. They would usually end up with the trend since 1998 which were cooling, but that could have been blamed on a single El Nino, so the big conclusion remained obscure. (UAH shows cooling since 2001 and most other years, too.) And they (the amateurs) thought that this information was scientifically interesting by itself.

Except that it's not too scientifically interesting. It's clear that there's always some change. However, most changes of the atmosphere (and many other systems) may be interpreted as "noise". Almost by definition, detailed properties of "noise" can't have any implications: they're random. If we want to figure out whether the data support the idea of a warming - a trend that exists for a reason, whatever the reason is - we need the data to show not only some warming.

We also have to show that it is a "signal" and not just "noise". In other words, we need to show that it is unlikely for the change to have occurred just by "chance". The concept of statistical significance is designed to do exactly this job. When we look whether an event had a "real" reason, we employ various statistical methods to compute the probability that it could have occurred by chance.

If this probability is smaller than 1% or 5%, i.e. if we really see some "signal" that doesn't seem to be just "noise", it's pretty unlikely that the observed pattern is a result of chance. Such a conclusion weakens the "null hypothesis" - that the data are explained by "noise" - and strengthens another hypothesis, one that adds a new effect (an underlying warming trend, in this case).

That's the logic how new effects and new particles including the top quark were being discovered, too.

If the probabilities above are calculated to be smaller than 1% or smaller than 5%, we say that the conclusion about the existence of the trend (or anything else) is statistically significant at the 99% or 95% confidence level. That doesn't quite "prove" that the underlying trend is real but it makes it likely. It is a "fuzzy" kind of evidence - and science often needs to take similar "incomplete proofs" into account.

UPDATED (12:30 p.m. CST, March 3): Appended new discussion & plots showing importance of how low-population density stations are handled.

ABSTRACT
Global hourly surface temperature observations and 1 km resolution population density data for the year 2000 are used together to quantify the average urban heat island (UHI) effect. While the rate of warming with population increase is the greatest at the lowest population densities, some warming continues with population increases even for densely populated cities. Statistics like those presented here could be used to correct the surface temperature record for spurious warming caused by the UHI effect, providing better estimates of temperature trends. (Roy W. Spencer)

AMSTERDAM - Investors are becoming less convinced that a global carbon market, estimated to be worth about $2 trillion by the end of the decade, can be established as uncertainty over global climate policy persists.

The absence of legally binding global climate deal and a federal emissions trading scheme in the United States are standing in the way of the market in global emissions trading growing to achieve yearly turnover of $2 trillion by 2020.

"There will only be a $2 trillion market if the U.S. gets on board," Trevor Sikorski, head of carbon research at Barclays Capital, told Reuters at a carbon conference in Amsterdam.

The market for carbon credits was worth around $136 billion last year, according to analysts Point Carbon. (Reuters)

Lord Turner has criticised the European Union's carbon trading scheme for continuing to give billions of pounds in windfall profits to manufacturers.

The carbon trading scheme, which is meant to penalise heavy polluters and reward those who reduce their emissions, currently gives out large numbers of "allowances" to companies for free, which can then be sold for cash on the open market.

A new report by Climate Strategies found that some industries, such as cement-making, will pick up an extra €10bn to €20bn (£9bn to £18bn) over the next few years without having to put any effort into reducing their carbon dioxide emissions.

This will happen even as the scheme moves into its strictest phase, when free allowances are meant to be limited. (TDT)

To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon.

To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving must simply increase, according to a forthcoming report by researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The 14 percent target was set in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for fiscal 2010. (NYT)

History matters. And the record suggests that small, wedge taxes are a dangerous thing.

Consider one of the most interesting examples of political capitalism in the history of the U.S. oil and gas industry. The story concerns the first state motor fuel tax, passed in Oregon in 1919 at, you guessed it, $0.01 per gallon. (But that penny is worth about 12 pennies today!)

Was this tax the work of a far sighted reformer? Or was it a confluence of private and public interests creating a demand for and supply of government favor?

Interestingly, “Big Oil” was behind the Oregon gas tax. The major oil companies calculated that the demand for gasoline and thus the price of gasoline would rise more from tax-financed new road construction than demand for the same would fall from the tax.

Oregon’s beginning led to road taxes in all 48 states within a decade to fund road construction.

Problem was that gas tax revenue started to be diverted to other uses to the chagrin of the oil major, now organized as the American Petroleum Institute (API). “Phantom roads” became an issue.

Government intervention giveth and taketh away. (Could the same be predicted for the ’starter’ carbon levy?)

Here is the story of the first motor fuel tax reproduced verbatim from Oil, Gas, and Government (Cato Institute: 1989), pp. 1375–76.

Events in Oregon were the genesis of the motor-fuel tax revolution. The state legislature, desperate to secure new funding for public roads, proposed in 1917 to increase motor vehicle fees. The rationale was that any increase would be saved in automobile repairs once improved roads were in service. Leading the fight with the author of the plan, C. C. Chapman, was I. N. Day, a former state senator turned paving contractor. After a long fight, the legislature approved the tax bill thanks to Chapman’s oft-revised roadmap. As he explained:

With the motor-vehicle tax, the motor-fuel levy was only a step away. Earlier, a gas tax had been proposed in conjunction with the state gasoline inspection law, and with more revenue needed, Chapman, now editor of a leading newspaper, editorialized for a gas tax, which was seized upon by road interests and legislators. A bill was drafted by the highway committee, and a 1 cent per gallon levy became law on February 25, 1919, with the help of regular editorials by Chapman. Years later, Chapman expressed his thanks before the American Petroleum Institute (API):

After years of planning and preparation, sometime this year a drill bit will augur its way into the ground towards BP's Liberty oil field offshore
Alaska's North Slope. The drill bit, attached to a massive drilling rig, will test the limits of how far it is possible to drill from a surface well site to penetrate a distant oil reservoir in the deep subsurface.

Success will mark a new chapter in reducing the surface footprint of oil and gas development. (Alan Bailey, GoO)

WASHINGTON, DC, Mar. 3 -- A project team has begun to inject carbon dioxide into Alabama’s Citronelle field as part of a $7.9 million pilot project to determine whether the field is ideal for simultaneous enhanced oil recovery and CO2 storage, the US Department of Energy said on Mar. 1.

Study results of the 7,500-ton CO2 injection will provide estimates of oil yields from EOR and storage capacity in depleted oil reservoirs, DOE’s Fossil Energy Office said. Scientists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) are leading the 5-month injection, which aims to prove whether oil remaining in domestic formations can be economically produced, it indicated.

UAB initially proposed the project involving the state’s largest oil field 30 miles north-northwest of Mobile to DOE in 2006. Denbury Resources Inc., which owns and operates the field, is a partner, along with Southern Co., the Alabama Geological Survey, Alabama A&M University, and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

The field may be ideal for a CO2-EOR demonstration because it is composed of sandstone reservoirs in a simple structural dome and has existing infrastructure which includes deep wells, according to DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory. (OGJ)

The state government has approved plans for two large new power stations, triggering concerns about a further increase in greenhouse gas emissions, especially if coal is used as the fuel.

The approvals are for ''concept plans'' for two, 2000- megawatt power stations at Mount Piper, near Lithgow, and Bayswater, which is near Muswellbrook in the Hunter.

Final plans for the power station design, including fuel source, will need separate approval before construction can begin.

According to the Australian Electricity Market Operator, NSW will face blackouts by the end of 2015, largely as a result of the planned decommissioning of the ageing Munmorah power station on the Central Coast, one of the highest-cost power stations in NSW. Its life could be extended, at a cost, although no decision has been made.

Neither of the power stations at Mount Piper or Bayswater uses gas, although there are plans for a gas pipeline from Queensland to the Hunter over the next few years.

Additional coal-fired generators at Bayswater will add 12.4 million tonnes of carbon pollution a year, and the generators planned for Mount Piper will add 10.4 million tonnes. Combined, this would mean a 34 per cent increase in emissions from power stations in NSW, the National Conservation Council said. (SMH)

South Africa is seeking Britain’s support for a $3.75bn World Bank loan for its hard-pressed electricity industry.

The facility has been raised by South African ministers and officials who are in London this week for the state visit of Jacob Zuma, the president. It would assist funding a new coal-fired generating plant, helping to prevent future power shortages but also increasing the country’s relatively high carbon emissions.

The state power company, Eskom, has been granted permission for a 25 per cent price increase but the industry regulator turned down its request for a 35 per cent rise. This has increased the need for the World Bank loan to fund the planned expansion of generating capacity.

“We really have to go hunting and borrow much more than we would have had to [had the 35 per cent rise been approved],” said Mpho Makwana, the acting chairman and chief executive of Eskom.

Eskom is preparing to build two big coal-fired plants. Some $3.1bn (€2.27bn, £2.05bn) of the World Bank money is needed for one of the power stations – a 4,800MW plant at Medupi while the rest would be spent on renewables and energy efficiency projects.

South Africa is particularly keen to win support from the UK, as well as other powerful World Bank members such as the US, France and Germany, at a board meeting due early next month. But environmental campaigners argue that the project contributes to global warming. In a document published this month, the World Bank said the Medupi station met the environmental criteria for supporting coal projects because it would be equipped with “clean coal” and “carbon capture” technology. (Financial Times)

While Duke Energy’s Chairman, CEO, and President, James Rogers, spends millions of dollars of his customers’ money lobbying for cap-and-trade on Capitol Hill, the company’s web page for its South Carolina customers is passing along tips on how to handle cold weather. Shouldn’t Duke Energy be warning its customers how much more they are going to have to pay to Duke Energy in higher electric rates if Congress passes the cap-and-trade legislation that Duke Energy supports?

Lindsey Graham has taken the title formerly held by John McCain.
March 3, 2010
- by Myron Ebell

The mainstream media have been searching for a new favorite Republican ever since John McCain won the presidential nomination in the spring of 2008. Clearly, McCain couldn’t be allowed to continue in that role because of the risk that it might have helped him win the presidency.

Favorite Republican really shouldn’t be a hard spot to fill. The only qualifications required are an eagerness to abandon conservative principles in order to further fashionable liberal issues, and a general ineffectualness at pursuing conservative goals.

Several prominent Republicans come immediately to mind as being well qualified.

It’s taken awhile, but after a long audition, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has won the job. Increasing, as well as increasingly favorable, mainstream media attention culminated on Sunday when Thomas L. Friedman anointed Graham in his New York Times column. Friedman’s fawning interview is headlined: “How the GOP Goes Green.”

As often happens when the subject knows his interviewer is friendly, Graham lets down his guard and says several revealing things. (PJM)

Wind energy is an engineer’s nightmare. To begin with, the energy density of flowing air is miserably low. Therefore, you need a massive contraption to catch one megawatt at best, and a thousand of these to equal a single gas- or coal-fired power plant.

If you design them for a wind speed of 34 miles per hour, they are useless at wind speeds below 22 mph and extremely dangerous at 44 mph, unless feathered in time. Remember, power is proportional to the cube of the wind speed. Old-fashioned Dutch windmills needed a two-man crew on 12-hour watch, seven days a week, because a runaway windmill first burnt its bearings, then its hardwood gears, then the entire superstructure.

The Obama administration has made the increased use of wind power to generate electricity a top priority. In 2009 alone, U.S. wind generation capacity increased by 39%. But more wind power means more giant turbines closer to more people. And if current trends continue, that spells trouble. [Read More] (Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune)

A FOIA reveals the Department of Energy turned to George Soros and to wind industry lobbyists to help cover up two economic studies pointing to the failure of European wind energy programs.
March 3, 2010
- by Christopher Horner

After two studies refuted President Barack Obama’s assertions regarding the success of Spain’s and Denmark’s wind energy programs, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request reveals the Department of Energy turned to George Soros and to wind industry lobbyists to attack the studies.

Via the FOIA request, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has learned that the Department of Energy — specifically the office headed by Al Gore’s company’s former CEO, Cathy Zoi — turned to George Soros’ Center for American Progress and other wind industry lobbyists to help push Obama’s wind energy proposals.

The FOIA request was not entirely complied with, and CEI just filed an appeal over documents still being withheld. In addition to withholding many internal communications, the administration is withholding communications with these lobbyists and other related communications, claiming they constitute “inter-agency memoranda.” This implies that, according to the DoE, wind industry lobbyists and Soros’s Center for American Progress are — for legal purposes — extensions of the government.

This is a defense commonly employed against FOIA requests when seeking to withhold certain communications with, for example, paid consultants. (PJM)

Were one to say, “had you heard the American administration has colluded with the energy industry to attack a recent economic study that was giving them grief,” the average response would likely include, “Oh, there goes Bush and Halliburton again.” But that’s not the story here.

The Obama Administration appears to have secretively worked with the American Wind Energy Association to attack the crucial Spanish study that showed “green jobs” mandates killed traditional jobs at a rate of 2 lost for every 1 created.

More details here. Funny that the Administration isn’t complaining about these dirty energy lobbyists — even though they have yet to produce a product on economically advantageous terms (hopefully they will someday).

The “transparency” in this case came from the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a reporter … not the Administration. We hoped for change; We got wind blown up our … well, hope holes. (The Chilling Effect)

FAMILIES were driven from the Highlands to make way for sheep during the infamous Clearances.

Now the threat of a Highland landscape devoid of people has arisen again.

But this time it is not the lure of profits from mutton and wool that threatens our unique landscape. It is the steady march of giant wind turbines that will drive away tour ists and leave a dwindling population struggling to survive.

The shameful decision by the Scottish Government to approve the Beauly to Denny power line, despite more than 18,000 letters of objection and only 46 letters of support, ran a knife across the throat of democracy and public consultation.

The fact that Friends of the Earth, the World Wildlife Fund and the (so-called) Green Party were all supporters of this act of vandalism, lays bare their credentials as environmental saviours.

SNP energy minister Jim Mather tried to justify this environmental catastrophe with weasel words about Scotland becoming a European leader in clean, green energy.

There is nothing clean or green about marching huge steel pylons across mountain landscapes and past some of Scotland's most important historic castles and battlefields.

Jim Mather is the kind of politician who would cut down a native Scots pine, stand on the stump and deliver a speech about conservation, without batting an eye.

No doubt an audience comprised of environmentalists would applaud him wildly. (The Scotsman)

LONDON - Biofuels company Vireol is set to break ground in July on Britain's third major refinery making bioethanol from feed wheat and further expansion could be on the cards, the company's chief executive Dave Knibbs said.

"I think you could see some more plants here...We are the most efficient place to produce feed wheat in Europe, our yields are better than anyone else's and there is room for more growth (in yields)," he told Reuters in an interview. (Reuters)

Some hail ethanol as the methadone needed to wean Western countries off fossil fuels. Others deplore it as environmental sabotage. Prof. Luiz Martinelli, ecology, University of São Paulo in Brazil, presented his assessment of the controversial process on Friday. (Cornell Daily Sun)

GENEVA - Hybrid and electric cars are the stars of motor shows, but the expensive technologies could take a decade to really hit European roads as automakers improve petrol and diesel cars to meet short-term emissions targets.

The planned launch of the first zero-emission electric cars from Nissan Motor Co, Daimler AG and Mitsubishi Motors Corp this year, as well as debut of hybrid cars from a growing number of European brands has renewed the buzz around electric powertrains as promising solutions to reducing emissions in carbon dioxide-conscious Europe.

But most automakers gathered at the Geneva auto show this week said the most practical road to meeting Europe's 130g/km CO2 emissions target by 2015 was to improve conventional gasoline engines, downsize their cars, or offer more diesel engines, which are 20 to 30 percent more fuel-efficient than their petrol cousins.

"I think the opportunity for hybrids in Europe is quite small," said Hyundai Motor Europe Vice President Allan Rushforth. (Reuters)

Gun Rights: Otis McDonald, 76, an Army vet who lives in a high-crime area of Chicago, thinks the Constitution gives him the right to bear arms to protect himself and his wife as he protected his country. We think so too.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments on behalf of four Chicago residents led by homeowner McDonald, the Second Amendment Foundation and the Illinois State Rifle Association to overturn Chicago's three-decade-old ban on owning handguns.

In a 5-4 decision in 2008, Heller v. District of Columbia, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court overturned the District of Columbia's draconian, 32-year-old ban on the private ownership of handguns. Scalia wrote that an individual right to bear arms is supported by "the historical narrative" before and after the Second Amendment was adopted.

The joy of Second Amendment defenders was short-lived. A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, led by Judge Frank Easterbrook, rejected subsequent suits brought by the National Rifle Association against the city of Chicago and its suburb of Oak Park, Ill.

According to Easterbrook, the Revolution was fought and independence won so that the Founding Fathers could write a Constitution with a Bill of Rights that applied only to the District of Columbia.

"Heller dealt with a law enacted under the authority of the national government," he wrote, "while Chicago and Oak Park are subordinate bodies of a state."

We're all for federalism, but the U.S. Constitution is the U.S. Constitution. Surely he can't be serious. (IBD)

What is most like Alice in Wonderland in medical care reform is the fact that it is being discussed in the abstract, as if there are not already government-run medical care systems in this country and elsewhere.

Yet there seems to be remarkably little interest in examining how government-run medical care actually turns out — medically and financially — whether in Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration hospitals in this country, or in government-run medical systems in other countries.

We are repeatedly being told that we need to have a government-controlled medical care system because other countries have it — as if our policies on something as serious as medical care should be based on the principle of monkey see, monkey do.

By all means look at other countries, but not just to see what to imitate. See how it actually turns out. Yet there seems to be an amazing lack of interest in examining what government-controlled medical care produces.

While our so-called health care "summit" last week was going on, British newspapers were carrying exposes of terrible, and often deadly, conditions in British hospitals under that country's National Health Service. But this has not become part of our debate on what to expect from government-controlled medical care.

Such scandals are an old story under the National Health Service in Britain, one repeatedly producing fresh scandals that their newspapers carry but ours ignore.

In addition to a whole series of National Health Service scandals in Britain over the years, the government-run medical system in Britain has far less high-tech medical equipment than there is in the United States. Neither in Britain and Canada nor in other countries with government-run medical care systems can people get to see doctors, especially surgeons, in as short a time as in the United States.

It is not uncommon for patients in those countries to have to wait for months before getting operations that Americans get within weeks, or even days, after being diagnosed with a condition that requires surgery. You can always "bring down the cost of medical care" by having a lower level of quality or availability. (Thomas Sowell, IBD)

BOSTON - Maine's state Legislature could soon vote on a bill making the Northeast U.S. state the first to require that cellular phones carry warnings of a possible link between mobile phone radiation and brain cancer.

Dozens of studies on the issue have shown no link, but have not ended the debate. Any requirement for warning labels could be a headache for cell phone manufacturers.

Maine's bill, the Children's Wireless Protection Act, was the subject of emotional testimony on Tuesday in the joint House-Senate Health and Human Services Committee in Augusta, the state capital.

The committee will next schedule one or more work sessions that could kill the bill outright, or advance it to debate by the state's House and Senate. Votes in the full Democratic-controlled state House and Senate could come as early this month, a legislative aide said. (Reuters)

That's a popular saying -- and true in many ways. But for a free country, America does ban a lot of things that are perfectly peaceful and consensual. Why is that?

Here are some things you can't do in most states of the union: rent your body to someone for sex, sell your kidney, take recreational drugs. The list goes on. I'll discuss American prohibitions tomorrow night at 8 and 11 p.m. Eastern time (and again on Friday at 10) on my Fox Business program.

The prohibitionists say their rules are necessary for either the public's or the particular individual's own good. I'm skeptical. I think of what Albert Camus said: "The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants." Prohibition is force. I prefer persuasion. Government force has nasty unintended consequences.

I would think that our experience with alcohol prohibition would have taught America a lesson. Nearly everyone agrees it was a disaster. It didn't stop people from drinking, but it created new and vicious strains of organized crime. Drug prohibition does that now.

The prohibitionists claim that today's drugs are far more dangerous than alcohol.

But is that true? Or is much of what you think you know ... wrong? (John Stossel, Townhall)

The latest scientific conclusions — which are causal, not merely correlative — show that pot use significantly increases the likelihood of mental illness.
March 3, 2010
- by Clayton E. Cramer

Back in the 1970s, when I was first exposed to the idea of decriminalizing illegal drugs, it seemed like a good idea. My interest was abstract: I didn’t smoke pot. My wife and I signed a marijuana decriminalization petition one evening around 1980 for a group that acted like they had fallen out of a Cheech and Chong movie. They asked if we could contribute a joint or two to the cause. They were utterly shocked when we told them: “We don’t smoke pot.” They just could not imagine that anyone would support decriminalization without a more personal interest.

There’s no question that making drugs illegal creates serious problems for our criminal justice system. It clogs the courts, it corrupts police officers and government officials, and it funds some really sleazy people. All of this is true — but it turns out that there are some substantial social costs on the other side that simply don’t get any attention. While it may sound like I have been watching Reefer Madness (1936) – a tragically overwrought portrayal of the dangers of marijuana — it turns out that mental illness is one of those social costs.

A surprising number of scholarly studies in the last 25 years have demonstrated that marijuana use seems to cause an increase in psychoses such as schizophrenia, and somewhat less dramatic mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder.

Let me emphasize: This isn’t just correlation analysis — finding that people with a current mental illness are disproportionately potheads. I am well aware that people with significant mental illness problems tend to “self-medicate” using various psychoactive drugs (including alcohol). No, these are longitudinal studies that show the marijuana use comes first, with the mental illness later in life. (PJM)

CHICAGO - U.S. health regulators have warned units of Nestle and more than a dozen other foodmakers over nutritional claims made for baby food, nuts and other products on food labels and product websites, according to letters made public on Wednesday.

The warnings came as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is set to push for new package labeling geared toward making it easier for consumers to understand the nutritional content of the foods they eat.

The FDA plans to soon issue draft guidelines for nutritional labeling, but also plans to work with the food industry to design a new labeling system, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said in an open letter to the food industry. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON - Foodborne illnesses cost the United States $152 billion in health-related expenses each year, according to a study released by consumer and public health groups on Wednesday.

Food safety advocates are hoping that the study will boost efforts in Congress to overhaul the nation's antiquated food safety system.

Dozens of pathogens, many of them unknown, creep into the food supply each year, sickening millions. The price tag includes medical costs, lost productivity and quality-of-life, according to a study from the Produce Safety Project.

"This is significantly more than previous official estimates and it demonstrates the serious burden that foodborne illness places on society," said Sandra Eskin, a spokeswoman with Make Our Food Safe Coalition, a group of consumer, public health and other groups pushing for stronger food safety laws. (Reuters)

McDonald's is hardly an ideal dining location for anyone struggling to stay slim. But the fast food chain scored a PR coup today when Weight Watchers agreed to endorse some of its products in New Zealand – a move met with outrage by nutritionists and obesity experts.

As part of the deal, which the company says is the first of its kind in the world, McDonald's will use the Weight Watchers logo on its menu boards and Weight Watchers will promote McDonald's to dieters. (Associated Press)

SHENZHEN, China - Some of the hundreds of bacteria found in the digestive systems of humans may be linked to specific diseases like cancer, diabetes and obesity, an international team of scientists said in a paper on Thursday.

Researchers, led by Chinese scientist Wang Jun, said in the latest issue of Nature they found more than 1,000 different species of bacteria in the human gut.

They said they had sequenced, or analyzed, the genes of each bacteria, creating the first genetic catalog of the organisms found in the human digestive system. Their research was based on analysis of stool samples from 124 people from Denmark and Spain.

Wang and his fellow researchers found several genes that may be linked to obesity and Crohn's disease, but he said more validation work was needed.

"Apart from helping you digest, these bacteria may also play a very important role in ... diseases like Crohn's disease, cancer, obesity," Wang, executive director of the Beijing Genomics Institute, said in an interview with Reuters.

"If you just tackle these bacteria, it is easier than treating the human body itself. If you find that a certain bug is responsible for a certain disease and you kill it, then you kill the disease," Wang said. (Reuters)

Far from being a food spoiler, the fluorescent lighting in supermarkets actually can boost the nutritional value of fresh spinach, scientists are reporting. The finding could lead to improved ways of preserving and enhancing the nutritional value of spinach and perhaps other veggies, they suggest in a study in ACS' bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

There could be good news for coffee-lovers today as scientists claim that drinking four cups a day could protect the heart.

Previously, it has been thought that coffee caused heart palpitations but this latest study suggests that, in moderation, it may actually reduce the risk of heart rhythm disturbances. (That's Fit)

The organization that helped cut Virginia's youth smoking rate almost in half hopes to duplicate that success by getting kids to choose apples and playing outdoors over potato chips and watching television.

The Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation last year took on an added mission and a new name -- the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia has the nation's highest smoking rate, but the state Division of Tobacco Prevention faces budget cuts that would wipe out money for programs that help people quit smoking. (Charleston Gazette)

KNOXVILLE — Former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore will be honored by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with only the third honorary degree granted by the campus. The degree was approved by the UT Board of Trustees at their meeting today.

Gore will receive the degree — an Honorary Doctor of Laws and Humane Letters in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology — at the spring commencement exercises of the College of Arts and Sciences on May 14. He will be the featured speaker at the ceremony, addressing graduates and their families along with the gathered faculty.

“Vice President Gore’s career has been marked by visionary leadership, and his work has quite literally changed our planet for the better,” said UT Knoxville Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek. “He is among the most accomplished and respected Tennesseans in history, and it is fitting that he should be honored by the flagship education institution of his home state.” (Press Release)

Introduction
According to the United Nations Governing Council of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), "our dominant economic model may thus be termed a ‘brown economy." UNEP’s clearly stated goal is to overturn the "brown economy" and replace it with a "green economy":

"A green economy implies the decoupling of resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth… These investments, both public and private, provide the mechanism for the reconfiguration of businesses, infrastructure and institutions, and for the adoption of sustainable consumption and production processes." [p. 2]

Sustainable consumption? Reconfiguring businesses, infrastructure and institutions? What do these words mean? They do not mean merely reshuffling the existing order, but rather replacing it with a completely new economic system, one that has never before been seen or used in the history of the world. (Patrick Wood, CFP)

Earth-observing satellites have been discovering that air pollution is quite an inter-continental traveler. Dust from the Sahara has turned up on coral reefs in Florida, and dust from the Asian Gobi Desert has appeared as far away as the east coast of New Jersey, reports Jeannie Allen. Studies on the Sierra snowpack confirmed that more than a third of the air pollution affecting California originates in China. Air pollution from the northeastern United States sometimes reaches Europe, and occasionally, European pollution travels the opposite direction in return. (Jack Dini, Hawaii Reporter)

TORONTO, March 2, 2010 — The levels of contamination to water and sediment in Frenchman's Bay in Pickering, Ontario greatly exceed provincial water quality standards, in some cases by as much as 250 per cent, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Toronto Scarborough. This is largely due to large amounts of road salt applied in winter, especially to Highway 401, the study finds.

Roads, parking lots and railways are the primary source of contaminated water and sediment and a decline in aquatic life in the watershed and lagoon, according to a recent article in Sedimentary Geology written by geology professor Nick Eyles and recent PhD graduate Mandy Meriano.

The densely populated area along Highway 401 and its accompanying traffic volume have profoundly affected the geology and characteristics of water in the bay and nearby city, according to the article, "Road-impacted sediment and water in a Lake Ontario watershed and lagoon, City of Pickering, Ontario, Canada: An example of urban basin analysis." The growing city of 100,000 people is sprawled across a densely urbanized watershed that has been "hardened" by roads, rail lines, buildings and parking lots, the authors write.

"Our findings are pretty dramatic, and the effects are felt year round," says Eyles. "This is a really bad news story about the relentless chemical assault on a watershed, with bleak implications that go far beyond the lagoon itself. We now know that 3,600 tonnes of road salt end up in that small lagoon every winter from direct runoff in creeks and effectively poison it for the rest of the year. The future of Frenchman's Bay is not bright, but this also affects the Great Lakes." (University of Toronto)

Chemicals that helped solve a global environmental crisis in the 1990s — the hole in Earth's protective ozone layer — may be making another problem — acid rain — worse, scientists are reporting. Their study on the chemicals that replaced the ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) once used in aerosol spray cans, air conditioners, refrigerators, and other products, appears in ACS' Journal of Physical Chemistry A, a weekly publication.

Jeffrey Gaffney, Carrie J. Christiansen, Shakeel S. Dalal, Alexander M. Mebel and Joseph S. Francisco point out that hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) emerged as CFC replacements because they do not damage the ozone layer. However, studies later suggested the need for a replacement for the replacements, showing that HCFCs act like super greenhouse gases, 4,500 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The new study adds to those concerns, raising the possibility that HCFCs may break down in the atmosphere to form oxalic acid, one of the culprits in acid rain.

They used a computer model to show how HCFCs could form oxalic acid via a series of chemical reactions high in the atmosphere. The model, they suggest, could have broader uses in helping to determine whether replacements for the replacements are as eco-friendly as they appear before manufacturers spend billions of dollars in marketing them. (American Chemical Society)

For several hundred thousand households in the Northeast, an epic snowfall led to days without power, heat, water and mobility. Welcome to the involuntarily low-carbon life.

WASHINGTON - The idea of imposing a broad cap-and-trade system to cut America's greenhouse gas emissions is dead and will be replaced with a new approach, an influential Republican senator said Tuesday.

Lindsey Graham, one of three senators working against daunting odds to produce a compromise climate bill, has recently turned against imposing the kind of cap-and-trade system used in Europe, which involves companies buying and selling pollution permits.

Graham did not specify whether another mechanism or some sort of cap-and-trade would be used more narrowly, such as to control emissions in the power utility sector.

"The cap-and-trade bills in the House and Senate are dead. The concept of cap-and-trade is going to be replaced," Graham said. (Reuters)

In recent weeks I have penned four columns debunking the smear campaign against Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution of disapproval to stop EPA from dealing itself into a position to make climate and energy policy for the nation — a power Congress never delegated to EPA when it enacted the Clean Air Act.

Climate Politics: When Will the Sanctimony End? (MasterResource.Org, Mar. 2) debunks the calumny that the Murkowski resolution is “polluter-crafted,” and shows that this pejorative accurately applies to the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill — legislation that many Murkowski detractors such as Climate Progress and MoveOn.org enthusiastically support.

MoveOn’s Triple Whopper (Pajamas Media, Feb. 10) shows that MoveOn.org’s TV ad campaign against the Murkowski resolution piles falsehood on top of falsehood on…

Ministers should consider a carbon tax on imports to help struggling British manufacturers, according to one of the government's key advisers, despite fears such a measure could lead to a global trade war.

Lord Turner, who heads the UK committee on climate change, said the government should "rigorously assess" bringing in levies on cheap imports from countries outside the European Union, which are not subject to carbon-related costs such as the EU emissions trading scheme. (The Guardian)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's weekend announcement that it would establish "an independent committee of distinguished experts" to evaluate its own procedures was intended to stem the tide of criticism washing over the U.N.'s arbiter of global-warming science. In practice, what this means is that another U.N.-appointed panel of "experts" will convene to review the failures of the original experts. This is less than reassuring. (WSJE)

Last week, Dr. Judith Curry, climate scientist from Georgia Institute of Technology, admitted on Watt's Up With That that climate scientists needed to do a better job of communication in order to reestablish trust after the debacle of Climategate. In reply, both sides, warmist and skeptic, ripped her to shreds. That, Dr. Curry wrote, showed that she had probably got it right.

WASHINGTON — For months, climate scientists have taken a vicious beating in the media and on the Internet, accused of hiding data, covering up errors and suppressing alternate views. Their response until now has been largely to assert the legitimacy of the vast body of climate science and to mock their critics as cranks and know-nothings.

But the volume of criticism and the depth of doubt have only grown, and many scientists now realize they are facing a crisis of public confidence and have to fight back. Tentatively and grudgingly, they are beginning to engage their critics, admit mistakes, open up their data and reshape the way they conduct their work.

The unauthorized release last fall of hundreds of e-mail messages from a major climate research center in England, and more recent revelations of a handful of errors in a supposedly authoritative United Nations report on climate change, have created what a number of top scientists say is a major breach of faith in their research. They say the uproar threatens to undermine decades of work and has badly damaged public trust in the scientific enterprise. (NYT)

The "Climategate" scandal, which broke in November 2009, revealed what many skeptics had privately suspected. Prominent climate scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) had collaborated to keep data out of skeptics' hands, subverted the peer review process, and used questionable methods to construct the temperature record on which the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change (IPCC) based its recommendations.

Now a new "Climategate" scandal is emerging, this time based on documents released by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in response to several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suits filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The newly released emails further demonstrate the politicized nature of climate science, revealing a number of questionable practices that cast doubt on the credibility of scientific data provided by NASA. (Iain Murray & Roger Abbott, American Spectator)

A handful of errors does not mean that human-induced climate change is an illusion or that CO2 emissions do not need to be cut, writes the former chairman of the IPCC. From Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network

The Guardian reports that the Institute of Physics has issued a clarification of its submission to yesterday's select committee:

This is very interesting. I think I follow developments on the climate front as closely as anyone, but I can't say I've heard anyone suggest that the IoP was saying anything more than it actually did - that the climategate affair had worrying implications for the integrity of climatology.

In these circumstances, one also wonders who it was that "forced" the IoP to issue a clarification. (Bishop Hill)

And the hits just keep on coming for UEA/CRU and Dr. Jones. Now I wonder, where the heck is the American Meteorological Society?

1. The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is the UK’s only professional and learned society devoted to the interests of statistics and statisticians. Founded in 1834 it is also one of the most influential and prestigious statistical societies in the world. The Society has members in over 50 countries worldwide and is active in a wide range of areas both directly and indirectly pertaining to the study and application of statistics. It aims to promote public understanding of statistics and provide professional support to users of statistics and to statisticians.

2. The Society welcomes this opportunity to submit evidence to the Science and Technology committee on the disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia inquiry.

3. The Society’s response relates to the first of the questions on which the committee invites submissions: “What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?”

4. The RSS believes that the debate on global warming is best served by having the models used and the data on which they are based in the public domain. Where such information is publicly available it is possible independently to verify results. The ability to verify models using publicly available data is regarded as being of much greater importance than the specific content of email exchanges between researchers. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

Bishop Hill covers it - the select committee on "Climategate" – and does a creditable job under very difficult circumstances.

The Guardian also does it at some length, while Watts up with that? picks up on the report in The Daily Mail. The point that seem to have stuck is Jones's admission that not sharing data is "standard practice" – for climate scientists at any rate.

What has shocked us all, however, is how old Jones looks (pictured). Clearly, all the publicity photographs we've been using are long out of date. But it's probably not wrong to assume that the strain of the last few months is affecting him.

Nevertheless, I missed all the fun, having spent the best part of yesterday on the net, tracking down more of Pachauri's millions. I'm working on a theory that the predominant source of his funding is European, which seems to be the case, although it is early days.

There's a lot of Swedish money, quite a bit of German federal funding, some Spanish and some Italian. But he gets a lot of corporate funding as well, some US federal funding and hunks from charitable foundations, to say nothing of the Global Environment Foundation. Transparent it ain't, but one thing seems to be clear – by far the majority of his funding comes from taxpayers.

I also stumbled on a couple more EU projects, which brings the total found to date up to 19 in seven years, at a gross value of €58 million, of which TERI takes an unknown share. That is a remarkable success rate for an obscure Indian research institute. I've amended my earlier piece to take account of these projects.

Meanwhile, an e-mail from a tortured reader alerted me to Moonbat's latest piece - tortured because he found himself agreeing with the man. And, remarkably, so do I. Staggering, but there it is.

Moonbat is having a go at the government's feed-in tariffs, with the absurd allowances for the different types of input. He calculates that the money paid out to micro-generators by 2030 will cost £8.6 billion – a loss of £8.2 billion.

He also makes the point that this is a direct transfer of wealth from the poorer consumers, who will be paying for the tariff through their electricity bills, to the middle class who can afford the equipment, and also notes that the Tories (and the Lib-Dims) want even more. These are precisely the points I made in my piece.

What Moonbat also calculates is that, using solar panels, it costs about £430 to save one ton of CO2, by far the most expensive possible way of doing it. By contrast, it costs £8 a ton if you build a nuclear power station.

That the Tories want to up the ante (or so we are told by Channel 4), from the government's two percent to 15, is then even more bizarre than I earlier made out. Over term – if we rely on Moonbat's figures – that is around £60 billion, averaging £2 billion a year. Add carbon capture and you will be reducing half the population to rubbing sticks to keep warm.

Looking at Jones's picture, it is not easy to discern whether the man realises what he's been part of – the forces which he's contributed to letting loose. But that is the face of a man who will be responsible for no end of heartache as people struggle to pay their fuel bills, and suffer when they cannot.

Starkly, that is one of the many faces of evil. It never looks anything like you might imagine – although Pachauri gets close. (EU Referendum)

Thanks to Simon at Australian Climate Madness (ACM) the video of yesterday’s testimony by Dr. Phil Jones of UEA/CRU is now online via YouTube, making it viewable by millions worldwide. There are five parts, each of about 9 or 10 minutes. Jones is accompanied by the Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, Prof. Edward Acton. Symon sums up the questioning: “They don’t exactly give PJ a tough ride, do they? To quote the former UK Labour Chancellor Denis Healey, it was like being savaged by a dead sheep…”. Fred Pearce of the Guardian commented that: “…the Commons committee tiptoed round embattled scientist and sidestepped crucial questions”.

Here’s a sampling of what British press has to say. Thanks to Dr. Benny Peiser and his CCNet Newsletter for the roundup.

MPs have quizzed the scientist at the centre of the “climategate” scandal, the first time he has been questioned in public since the row erupted. Professor Phil Jones used his appearance before the science committee to say that he had done nothing wrong. Earlier, critics told the MPs that the stolen e-mails, which appeared on the internet in November, raised questions about the integrity of climate science.

Al Gore's defense of global-warming hysteria in Sunday's New York Times has many flaws, but I'll focus on just one whopper -- where the "Inconvenient Truth" man states the opposite of scientific fact.

Gore says, "The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere -- thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States."

It's an interesting theory, but where are the facts? (Alan Reynolds, NYP)

Is the former vice president not-so-secretly a narcissistic, shameless phony? (Henry I. Miller, Forbes)

Al Gore can no longer change anyone's mind about climate change. He should let Republican Lindsey Graham lead the fight (Dan Kennedy, The Guardian)

The inescapable conclusion from this study is that dead elephants should be thrown into the sea. (Andrew Bolt)

“Polluter-funded” is the global warming movement’s favorite pejorative to discredit anyone who questions the reality of a climate crisis or opposes their policy nostrums. Google the term and you’ll find about 18,300 sites where it appears.

“Polluter-crafted” brings up about 7,500 sites. The warming lobby uses this buzzword to trash legislation they oppose, most recently Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s resolution of disapproval, pursuant to the Congressional Review Act (CRA), to stop EPA from dealing itself into a position to make climate policy – a power Congress never approved when it enacted the Clean Air Act.

Who are these “polluters” who craft and fund? Any big company that emits carbon dioxide (CO2) because it supplies, refines, or combusts carbon-based (fossil) fuels.

This is all a rhetorical trick. Yes, CO2 is a “greenhouse” (heat-absorbing) gas. However, water vapor (H2O) is also a greenhouse gas, yet nobody calls it “air pollution.” Since 1975, EPA has required automakers to install catalytic converters to clean up automobile exhaust. The core function of these devices is to turn other substances into the aforementioned greenhouse gases, H2O and CO2. It would be nutty to say that catalytic converters pollute the air.

Carbon dioxide is an odorless, colorless trace gas that is non-toxic to humans and animals at more than 30 times ambient levels. An essential plant nutrient, CO2 is the basic building block of the planetary food chain. Plants raised in CO2-enriched environments grow larger and faster, use water more efficiently, and are more resilient to environmental stresses such as drought and air pollution. Since animals directly or indirectly depend on plants for food, CO2 emissions nourish the entire planetary biosphere. Name another “pollutant” that does that!

But okay, for the sake of argument, let’s stipulate that CO2 emissions are “air pollution.” Some of the nation’s biggest CO2-emitters support the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. Waxman-Markey supporter American Electric Power (AEP) is the nation’s top CO2-emitter, according to Benchmarking US Air Emissions (2006), a joint report by Ceres, NRDC, and PSEG. Duke Energy, which merged with Cinergy, is the nation’s third-largest CO2-emitter. CEO Jim Rogers crowed about Duke’s role in crafting Waxman-Markey shortly after the House passed it last June.

Waxman-Markey arguably takes the cake in the industry-scripted bill category. The U.S. Climate Action Partnership (U.S. CAP), a coalition including some of the world’s biggest corporations, outlined the bill’s main provisions months before it was introduced in A Blueprint for Legislative Action: Consensus Recommendations for U.S. Climate Legislation (January 2009).

So is Waxman-Markey a “polluter-crafted” bill? And are recipients of campaign contributions from AEP, Duke, and other U.S. CAP member companies “polluter-funded” politicians? Yes, if you apply green “logic” without fear or favor. [Read more →] (MasterResource)

Forced to spin Copenhagen as a success, Climategate as a skeptics' conspiracy, and cap and trade legislation as world-changing, Joe Romm has started making increasingly wild accusations against working journalists and academics. The latest, a 4,000 word diatribe that both accuses Andy Revkin of campaigning for Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke, Jr. to be a co-author on the next IPCC report and generally assaults Pielke by recapitulating misrepresentations and misstatements that have already been proven wrong. Our point-by-point fact check of Romm's claims and his hesitance to engage in open debate with Pielke suggests that he is willing say virtually anything to avoid dealing with the fact that his apocalypse-mongering has backfired, and that his climate policies are failing. (Breakthrough)

As we all know, the debate over global warming is contentious, often vitrolic. Labels are often applied by both sides. One the most distasteful labels is “denier”. I’m pleased to report that the UK paper The Guardian has taken on this issue headfirst.

In a recent email exchange with the Guardian’s James Randerson, where he discussed an outreach opportunity to climate skeptics via a series of stories on the Guardian website, I raised the issue with him.

Yesterday I received an email from him. It is my impression that he sent the suggestion out to other staff members and there was a discussion about it, which was written about here: Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chair of the Nobel Prize-winning Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), spoke to those attending the Tilde Café at Nellie Greens in Branford Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010.

Pachauri discussed the consumption patterns of the human race and what our growing dependence on fossil fuels has done to the environment and on Earth’s atmosphere.

“The Earth has maintained a climatic balance for a long time,” Pachauri said. Now, with higher concentrations of gases, we have created a blanket that reflects heat back to Earth and “the balance is being disturbed.” This disruption, he said, is resulting in changes in precipitation and increase in extreme weather events. (Environmental Headlines)

The imminent risk of catastrophic climate change was clear even before MPs began looking into the charges against the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. (Andrew Gimson, TDT)

Adele Morris is a fellow and policy director at the Brookings Institution, which, in partnership with UNLV, runs the Brookings Mountain West think tank.

Her work focuses on energy and natural resource policies related to the economics of climate change. Brookings Mountain West brought her to the university last week. (Las Vegas Sun)

The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change is proudly touting its 40-page brochure on climate change in cities.

Cities, we are told, are concentrations of vulnerability to the harmful impacts of climate change. They are also, directly and indirectly, responsible for the majority of the world’s emissions of greenhouse gasses. 50% of the world’s population lives in cities, a number that is set to increase to 60% by 2030. For all of these reasons, cities are on the front line in responding to the threats of climate change.

For further details, you must contact Professor Jim Hall, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University. By some strange coincidence, that is exactly the same detail on a grant application to the Engineering and Physical Science Council (EPSRC), which just happens to have given him £124,385 for a project labelled SCORCHIO: "Sustainable Cities: Options for Responsing to Climate cHange Impacts and Outcomes".

SCORCHIO, it turns out, is a bit of a bun fight for academics. Not only is Newcastle University a beneficiary, Professor GJ Levermore of the University of Manchester has also done rather well out of it. He as scooped the jackpot of £319,234 for his part in the project.

And just to keep the other chaps happy and firmly on-side, we have another project in the running, called LUCID: The Development of a Local Urban Climate Model and its Application to the Intelligent Development of Cities.

Professor M Davies of the University College London gets £608,174 for his part in the project. Professor S E Belcher of the University of Reading gets a tidy £238,330 and Professor M Kolokotroni of Brunel University walks away with £179,953.

Just so no one feels left out, we also have SNACC: "Suburban Neighbourhood Adaptation for a Changing Climate - identifying effective, practical and acceptable means of suburban re-design". The big money goes to Professor R Hambleton, a cool £380,454. Runners up are Dr R Gupta of Oxford Brookes University, who gets £182,046, and Professor G R Bramley of Heriot-Watt University, who has to make do with with a mere £63,638.

Mind you, they must all be just a teensy-weensy bit jealous of Dr T Drage from the University of Nottingham. With "Step Change Adsorbents and Processes for CO2 Capture", he grabs first prize in the climate change lottery with a stonking £1,580,881.

However, there is plenty to go round. Altogether, under the "climate change" theme, the EPSRC is paying out on 114 ~~lottery winners~~ university projects, dispensing a grand sum of £63,245,372.

And, of course, all these dedicated, independent scientists are firmly convinced that climate change is a real and present danger. How could £63,245,372 be wrong? And then there are the 912 grants from the Natural Environment Research Council on climate change. At a mere £166,500,521, that also tends to concentrate a few minds – but that is another story. (EU Referendum)

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (March 1, 2010) --The melting of glaciers is well documented, but when looking at the rate at which they have been retreating, a team of international researchers steps back and says not so fast.

Previous studies have largely overestimated mass loss from Alaskan glaciers over the past 40-plus years, according to Erik Schiefer, a Northern Arizona University geographer who coauthored a paper in the February issue of Nature Geoscience that recalculates glacier melt in Alaska.

The research team, led by Étienne Berthier of the Laboratory for Space Studies in Geophysics and Oceanography at the Université de Toulouse in France, says that glacier melt in Alaska between 1962 and 2006 contributed about one-third less to sea-level rise than previously estimated. (Press Release)

There has been quite a bit of interest in the error in the 2007 IPCC WGII prediction of the melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas (e.g., see). Thanks to Madhav L Khandekar, he has alerted us to an article in the magazine Forbes India Magazine of March 5, 2010 titled

“Vijay Kumar Raina is amused. The 76-year old retired geologist who lives in Sector 17, Panchkula in Haryana has been blitzkrieged by the media, government, world scientist community and the average citizen since December 2009.

Why? Because he blew the lid off the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC), headed by the charismatic R.K. Pachauri, claims that the Himalayan glaciers will be extinct by 2035.”

Snow blankets New York City. Al Gore (below) claims the increased snow is due to global warming.

Snow blankets New York City.
Photo: Del Mundo, New York Daily News

Now that we have reached the end of the meteorological winter (December-February,) Rutgers University Global Snow Lab numbers (1967-2010) show that the just completed decade (2001-2010) had the snowiest Northern Hemisphere winters on record. The just completed winter was also the second snowiest on record, exceeded only by 1978. Average winter snow extent during the past decade was greater than 45,500,000 km2, beating out the 1960s by about 70,000 km2, and beating out the 1990s by nearly 1,000,000 km2. The bar chart below shows average winter snow extent for each decade going back to the late 1960s.

Researchers evaluate climate fluctuations from 115,000 years ago

Halle (Saale)/Leipzig/Moscow. At the end of the last interglacial epoch, around 115,000 years ago, there were significant climate fluctuations. In Central and Eastern Europe, the slow transition from the Eemian Interglacial to the Weichselian Glacial was marked by a growing instability in vegetation trends with possibly at least two warming events. This is the finding of German and Russian climate researchers who have evaluated geochemical and pollen analyses of lake sediments in Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Russia. Writing in Quaternary International, scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Saxon Academy of Sciences (SAW) in Leipzig and the Russian Academy of Sciences say that a short warming event at the very end of the last interglacial period marked the final transition to the ice age. (Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres)

A few weeks ago, over at the blog MasterResource.org, WCR’s Chip Knappenberger took a look at just how confident one should be regarding the amount of warming that anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have caused since the mid-20th century.

The IPCC claims that it is “very likely” that “most” of the warming since then has been the result of human GHG emissions. In IPCC parlance, “very likely” means with a greater than 90% likelihood. The EPA parrots the IPCC’s claim in the Technical Support Document for their Endangerment Finding (TSD, p. 2):

But, in his MasterResource.org article, Knappenberger shows that this statement is not supported by recent findings in the scientific literature—findings that have appeared in the literature subsequent to the publication of the IPCC’s statement. He concluded that the IPCC’s statement—especially the likelihood designation—should be re-evaluated in light of what we know now.

In some sense, however, Knappenberger’s analysis did not go far enough. While he used middle-of-the-road estimates for the warming influence of some non-GHG factors, in some cases he was being too conservative—like when it comes to the non-climatic influences on local thermometers—and, further, he failed to include a potential impact from solar changes.

So here, we take Knappenberger’s analysis a bit further, and show that it is easy to demonstrate, using the contents of the peer-reviewed scientific literature, that anthropogenic GHG emissions could be responsible for less than one-third of the warming in the extant global temperature records.

Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week:
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 806 individual scientists from 479 separate research institutions in 43 different countries ... and counting! This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Northern Fennoscandia. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click here.

Subject Index Summary:
Long-Term Studies (Woody Plants - Pine Trees: Loblolly Pine): How long-lived loblolly pine trees will likely respond to rising atmospheric CO2 has been assessed by how they have responded to increases in the air's CO2 concentration in open-top chamber and free-air CO2-enrichment experiments.

Plant Growth Data:
This week we add new results of plant growth responses to atmospheric CO2 enrichment obtained from experiments described in the peer-reviewed scientific literature for: Cassava (Imai et al., 1984), Reed Grass (Zhao et al., 2009), Rice (Imai and Murata, 1979), and White Clover (Johnson and McNicol, 2010).

Tropical Forests and Earth's Changing Atmosphere: Are the trees of the planet's warmest latitudes being stressed to the breaking point by rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations and temperatures? (co2science.org)

Understanding Pyrodiversity - Researchers from Oregon State argue that when it comes to carbon emissions, not all forest fires are created equal.

Ah, climate science. What a messy and divisive subject. And with events like “snowmaggedon” and “climategate” taking the media by storm, there seems to be no shortage of controversy to fuel the fire.

A new study from Oregon State University does just that. Researchers suggest that previous calculations of forest fires’ carbon dioxide contribution grossly overestimate the impact of flaming foliage on the atmosphere.

Previous research on the climatic effects of fires has suggested that forests, though often touted for their carbon-storage abilities, emit a significant amount of greenhouse gases when they go up in flames. And contrary to what Smokey the Bear might have you believe, the issue isn’t if a forest will burn, but when. (Miller-McCune)

Two coal-fired power plants, including Eon’s controversial Kingsnorth project, are to be given government support that could be worth tens of millions of pounds to develop technology for storing carbon dioxide emissions, the Financial Times has learnt.

The announcement, which could come in early March, of money for two companies to produce detailed plans for the innovative power stations will take Britain closer to commercial carbon capture and storage technology – essential if the country is to continue burning coal for electricity while meeting the government’s targets on greenhouse gas emissions.

When the studies are completed in about a year, the government has pledged to award public funds to one to four projects to demonstrate CCS technology on a commercial scale, something that has not yet been achieved anywhere in the world.

Each company is likely to be given funding in the low tens of millions of pounds to meet the cost of drawing up those plans.

Ministers argue that Britain could become the world leader in the fledgling technology, which many energy experts say must be pressed into widespread use if the threat of climate change is to be avoided. (Financial Times)

AMSTERDAM - Companies with excess carbon permits are stock-piling them rather than selling them off in anticipation of tighter emissions caps and higher carbon prices from 2013, industrial firms and utilities said on Tuesday.

Many investors in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) have been concerned that industrial users such as steel and cement firms would dump the rest of their surplus permits for 2009 in the first half of this year, causing prices to crash.

Industrial firms sold carbon permits, called EU Allowances, (EUAs) last February to raise cash after the economic downturn reduced their output, causing prices to drop as low as 8.05 euros ($10.89) a tonne. Prices have since risen by about 66 percent.

Most of the 27-nation bloc has now issued 2010 permits, but traders said there has been little evidence of a major sell-off so far.

The threat of higher carbon prices and stricter rules on emissions limits after 2013 could be preventing selling. (Reuters)

Anytime that oil prices hit US$ 80 a barrel, alarm bells start ringing, and tried-and-tested slogans are dusted off, for one more run in the media. In January 2010 oil prices briefly surged past US$ 80 a barrel, prompting US Energy Secretary Chu to add more proof that high-priced oil, if not global warming is taken seriously by high level national deciders and policy makers. Chu's schizophrenic concern on high priced oil was underlined by the fact that high oil prices make it a little less uneconomic to develop the mostly and usually costly new and renewable energy sources his Department is promoting with fervour.

Today however, oil price hysteria is being given awhirl by none other than Al Gore, who with Rejendra Pachauri is probably the world's best-known promoter of global warming catastrophe. In a late February interview with New York Times, Al Gore said: "It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it. Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling oil reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil"

This new approach was also used by world environment ministers meeting in Bali, Indonesia in late February. The "unimaginable calamity" of global warming now has a more down-to-earth and practical handle: high oil prices. As Al Gore and economic deciders like Ben Bernanke of the US Federal Reserve and Jean-Claude Trichet of Europe's Central Bank, and environment ministers now lard into their speeches, economic recovery from what the IMF calls the worst economic recession since 1945 is threatened by high oil prices. (Andrew McKillop, Market Oracle)

While China has been praised by some Western politicians and pundits, including Al Gore for the country’s miniscule non-hydrocarbon activities it is China’s global pursuit of oil and gas that has grown to a crescendo. The Chinese refer to their recent purchases as global acquisition and diversification. But amidst the maelstrom of global warming rhetoric, their aggressive moves are getting precious little attention. [Read More] (Michael Economides and Xina Xie, Energy Tribune)

SHARE Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) Tuesday derided as "a joke" a bipartisan proposal being crafted by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), and John Kerry (D-Mass.) to address climate change since it does not spell out what to do with toxic waste that would be generated by proposed new nuclear plants.

"There's no nuclear power, there's no recycling, there's no storage," McCain said. "It's a joke when there's no site recycling and there's no storage. Nuclear power is not viable without recycling and without storage. Period." (Patricia Murphy, Politics Daily)

BRUSSELS - Europe's plan to lead the green technology race has a gaping financial hole for the next four years, handing the advantage to rivals China, Japan and the United States.

Even after 2014, when the European Union budget should have been thoroughly overhauled, there is no guarantee that green tech will have triumphed in a battle for funds versus the powerful farming lobby. (Reuters)

Plans for the grid feed-in tariff suggest we live in southern California. And at £8.6bn, this is a pricey conceit with little benefit (George Monbiot, The Guardian)

The idea seems like a slam dunk, a win-win-win for the environment, farmers and politicians hunting for green-energy solutions: Turn cow manure into electricity by collecting the methane gas released off the dung, compressing it, running it through a generator and voila! You have a renewable, seemingly never-ending (though very fragrant) source of electricity.

Great, right? After all, methane released into the air is a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, scientists have found.

There’s only one problem: Turns out that the generators used to turn the gas into power emit nitrogen oxides, or NOx. Some emit more NOx than others. And while methane may damage the planet, it doesn’t damage -- at least, not in the immediate sense -- people’s health like NOx does.

So central California, with its air pollution problems, is seeing some of the country’s strictest standards for what sort of digester generators can -- or cannot -- be used out on the farms. Some say they’re stricter than what dairymen are working with in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or New York -- and all because California’s NOx problems are … well … noxious. (LA Times)

He’s made the highest grossing film on the planet, but Hollywood mega-director James Cameron is now promoting “Avatar” as the most successful environmental film of all time, too. Really.

“There is no studio anywhere in the world who would say an environmental message would make $3 billion ... I can’t think of any other really commercially successful ones, can you?” he said during an interview at a Santa Monica fundraiser last Monday for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council.

“‘WALL-E’, maybe?” replied his wife, actress Suzy Amis Cameron.

It was Amis Cameron who asked an astonished, grateful NRDC if they would like her husband to appear at a quickly arranged fundraiser starring Cameron and his sci-fi blockbuster, which features a mother tree deity. The film is nominated in nine Oscar categories, after all, including best director and best picture. Hooking up with NRDC was, if you think about, perfectly natural.

Talking to a graduate film student at the event, Cameron warmed to his message that he’s the greatest enviro director, comparing his work to “An Inconvenient Truth,” which he called boring with bar charts. “If it wasn’t Al Gore, nobody would have listened,” he said, but then ruefully admitted he made four semi-successful documentaries about the ocean before plunging into “Avatar.”

“I wanted to do a film that had a deeply embedded environmental message ... but do it in the form of a science fiction action adventure,” Cameron told local public radio host Elvis Mitchell. “My feeling was if we have to go four light years away to another planet to appreciate what we have here on earth, that’s okay.” (grist)

Not surprisingly, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released last Friday revealed that 56 percent of Americans think the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to their rights and freedoms.

Particularly apropos here is the feds' health care violation of the 10th Amendment, which is part of our Bill of Rights and was ratified Dec. 15, 1791. The amendment says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Thomas Jefferson explained the pre-eminence of this amendment in 1791: "I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition." ( Chuck Norris, Townhall)

Americans should beware when members of Congress talk about "reform" and "comprehensive" because those words usually cover a lot of mischief. The latest example of this legerdemain is the so-called Patent Reform now aggressively pushed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Since we've outsourced millions of well-paying American jobs overseas, the one asset we have to maintain our American standard of living is innovation superiority. The United States is the world's leader in technology innovation, which is due to our private enterprise economic system, our constitutional protections of private property and most especially our unique system of granting patents to inventors.

Other countries can produce things we invent more cheaply because of the pitiful wages they pay, but they have a dismal record of inventing anything. Lacking expertise in innovation, some foreign countries concentrate on stealing ours. (Phyllis Schlafly, Townhall)

The real victims of the current medico-legal system are the American people. (And don't miss Part I and Part II of the tort reform segment of Dr. Weiss's Medically Incorrect series on PJTV.)

Over the past several years it has been reported that “medical mistakes” kill more Americans every six months than the number of Americans that died in the entire course of the Vietnam War. Medical error is the fifth leading cause of death in this country.

This has been the basis of the arguments from trial lawyers, who feel that it’s their solemn duty to protect the American people from such crimes as medical malpractice. These assertions are based on a report from the Institute of Medicine, which claimed that medical errors are responsible for between 44,000 and 99,000 deaths each year.

This report was yellow journalism at best, and journalistic malpractice at worst. The threat of legal liability is considered by some, especially the trial lawyers, to be critical in ensuring patient safety.

Before I begin my argument for real tort reform, let me first state, unequivocally, that true victims of medical malpractice must receive compensation. No one is arguing against that. (PJM)

LONDON - Families in some poor nations are trapped in cycles of illness and poverty as authorities fail to tackle chronic health problems or meet goals on child health and tuberculosis, scientists said on Tuesday.

British and American researchers found countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe with the highest rates of HIV and chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease are also failing to meet goals on reducing child death rates and the spread of tuberculosis. (Reuters)

United States Federal Agency-sponsored research in public health toxicology is as irresponsible and misleading as the IPCC misconduct. Can't imagine anything as bad as the IPCC? How about thirty-plus years of panic-mongering about how the environment is a killer and (from the movie Aliens) "we're gonna die, man, we're all gonna die"?

Well of course we're gonna die, eventually. This scientific misconduct suggesting that we are going to die from the environment is intended to scare the most anxious and comfortable society in history. The research is the result of agency money spent to make the public more anxious and push the idea that government is a savior; regulations and programs must be instituted now to rescue us from Armageddon. More news at seven -- or in tomorrow's paper.

Adult professionals should be committed to good science and intellectual effort. In medicine, law, and all intellectual inquiry, we search for the best evidence. In public health research, unfortunately, the basic rules have been discarded in a shocking and disappointing way because the public health research community is poisoned by politics and funding influence. So the inconvenient scientific rules are ignored.

Epidemiologists study population effects, and toxicologists study negative effects. Sir Austin Bradford Hill, British icon of public health research, originated in the early 1950s nine criteria for proving toxicity. His first and most important criterion was evidence of a measurable and significant toxic effect. Other criteria include that the toxic effect proposed has to be plausible, has to make exposure sense, and should be evaluated to make sure some other thing is not in play. All the toxicology criteria are derivative of the effect. The rest of the criteria are sensible rules any momma could come up with. Read them here.

Public health bench studies on toxins expose rats or mice to extreme (just less than killer) levels of toxins. After the rodents are exposed, they are studied for effects or sacrificed and examined. When the researchers tally a death or find on autopsy a disease or a tumor, they assert they have found a toxin, and the public must be protected and warned. Any exposure to the toxin is dangerous. Agency regulators must step in and protect the society.

Population studies in public health look for effects from exposures, and the researchers work and grind small effects that don't prove anything but provide an opportunity to raise a question of toxicity. Even small effects that fail to prove toxicity then become important. The small effect is projected to the society as a big effect, and the researchers and agency pound the table and show projections that the small effect can produce thousands of sick or dead people. (American Thinker)

CHICAGO - Working with the food industry to cut salt intake by nearly 10 percent could prevent hundreds of thousands of heart attacks and strokes over several decades and save the U.S. government $32 billion in healthcare costs, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

Eating too much salt is a major cause of high blood pressure, which the Institute of Medicine, one of the National Academies of Sciences, last week declared a "neglected disease" that costs the U.S. health system $73 billion a year. (Reuters)

NEW YORK - New York City's obesity rate has climbed in recent years, but there are large variations across the city's neighborhoods, with lower income areas hit hardest, a new study finds.

Between 2003 and 2007, the prevalence of obesity citywide increased from 20 percent to 22 percent, according to the study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

That was still lower than national and statewide rates, which stood at roughly 27 percent and 25 percent around the same time period. And some city neighborhoods remained steadfastly slim.

In more affluent areas like the Upper East Side, Chelsea and the West Village, obesity rates hovered around 8 percent across the study period.

In contrast, obesity was a more common and growing problem in other city neighborhoods, many of which are lower-income. In 2003, only one neighborhood -- East Harlem -- had an obesity rate higher than 30 percent. By 2007, six neighborhoods had joined it: three in the Bronx, the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, Rockaway in Queens and northern Staten Island.

It's no secret that the collective U.S. waistline has been expanding in recent decades. But the problem does not affect all areas of the country -- or even all areas of a single city -- equally. (Reuters Health)

SAN FRANCISCO, March 2 -- Banning sugary beverages and junk foods from schools appears to slow childhood obesity, U.S. researchers found.

First author Emma Sanchez-Vaznaugh, assistant professor of health education at San Francisco State University, said from 2003-2005, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed several bills into law to eliminate sodas and other highly sweetened beverages and restrict the sale of junk foods in all of California's public schools.

For the study, Sanchez-Vaznaugh and co-investigators used eight years of body mass index data from fifth- and seventh-grade students collected as part of California's annual Physical Fitnessgram testing. The study compared BMI trends before and after the legislation.

The data indicate that before the policies took effect, the rate of overweight students was increasing among all groups in the study -- girls and boys in fifth and seventh grades.

However, in the three-year period after the policies became effective, the increase in the number of overweight children was significantly reduced among fifth-grade boys and seventh-grade students of both sexes throughout California.

The pre- and post-policy trends in overweight were not significantly different among fifth-grade girls, the study said.

The findings are published in the journal Health Affairs. (UPI)

WASHINGTON - U.S. children eat an average three snacks a day on top of three regular meals, a finding that could explain why the childhood obesity rate has risen to more than 16 percent, researchers said on Tuesday.

Children snack so often that they are "moving toward constant eating," Carmen Piernas and Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina reported.

More than 27 percent of calories that American kids take in come from snacks, Piernas and Popkin reported in the journal Health Affairs. The researchers defined snacks as food eaten outside regular meals.

The studies will help fuel President Barack Obama's initiative to fight obesity in childhood, something Obama's wife, first lady Michelle Obama, notes could drive up already soaring U.S. healthcare costs. (Reuters)

NEW YORK - There are plenty of good reasons to eat fish, but preventing abnormal heart rhythms doesn't seem to be one of them, according to a new study.

Dr. Jarrett D. Berry of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and his colleagues found no relationship between how much non-fried fish postmenopausal women ate and their risk of developing atrial fibrillation, the most common heart rhythm abnormality. (Reuters Health)

SAN FRANCISCO - A group including a California nonprofit organization is suing fish oil manufacturers and pharmacies that sell the popular supplements over their purported toxicity.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in San Francisco Supreme Court, claims that the makers and sellers of certain supplements found to contain high levels of PCB compounds - man-made industrial chemicals - have failed to alert consumers as required under California's right-to-know law. (Reuters)

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—With concern over mercury contamination of tuna on the rise and growing information about the health effects of eating contaminated fish, scientists would like to know exactly where the pollutant is coming from and how it's getting into open-ocean fish species.

A new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology uses chemical signatures of nitrogen, carbon and mercury to get at the question. The work also paves the way to new means of tracking sources of mercury poisoning in people.

The study, by researchers at the University of Michigan, Harvard School of Public Health, the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and the National Institute of Nutrition and Seafood Research in Norway, appears in the journal's March 1, 2010 issue. (University of Michigan)

Blacksburg, Va. –– Poor air quality apparently affects the running times of women in marathons, according to a study by Virginia Tech civil and environmental engineer Linsey Marr.

Marr's findings come from a comprehensive study that evaluated marathon race results, weather data, and air pollutant concentrations in seven marathons over a period of eight to 28 years. The top three male and female finishing times were compared with the course record and contrasted with air pollutant levels, taking high temperatures that were detrimental to performance into consideration.

Higher levels of particles in the air were associated with slower running times for women, while men were not significantly affected, Marr said. The difference may be due to the smaller size of women's tracheas, which makes it easier for certain particles to deposit there and possibly to cause irritation. (Virginia Tech)

California's dirty air caused more than $193 million in hospital-based medical care from 2005 to 2007 as people sought help for problems such as asthma and pneumonia that are triggered by elevated pollution levels, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Researchers estimate that exposure to excessive levels of ozone and particulate pollution caused nearly 30,000 emergency room visits and hospital admissions over the study period. Public insurance programs were responsible for most of the costs, with Medicare and Medi- Cal covering more than two-thirds of the expenses, according to the report.

"California's failure to meet air pollution standards causes a large amount of expensive hospital care," said John Romley, lead author of the study and an economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "The result is that insurance programs -- both those run by the government and private payers -- face higher costs because of California's dirty air."

While much work has been done previously to catalog the economic impact of air pollution across California, the RAND study is the first to quantify the cost of hospital-based medical care to various payers caused by the failure to meet federal clean air standards across the state. More people in California live in areas that do not meet federal clean air standards than in any other state. (RAND Corporation)

The Environmental Protection Agency is riling many businesses with proposals to regulate greenhouse gases for the first time, but data suggest it has been slow out of the gate under President Barack Obama in enforcing existing regulations on traditional pollutants.

In fiscal 2009, the EPA's enforcement office required polluters to spend more than $5 billion on cleanup and emission controls—down from $11.8 billion the previous year, according to a report recently published by the agency. The report, which examines the EPA's performance in enforcing limits on pollutants like sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and soot, covers the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, a period that covers the last 3½ months of President George W. Bush's watch and the first 8½ months of Mr. Obama's.

Defendants in agency enforcement cases committed to cut pollution by about 580 million pounds in fiscal 2009, down from 3.9 billion pounds in fiscal 2008, according to the report. (WSJ)

KANSAS CITY - Environmentalists filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on Monday accusing the service of illegally allowing farmers to grow genetically modified crops in a national wildlife refuge.

The groups said up to 80 other national wildlife refuges across the United States are now growing genetically engineered crops and could be vulnerable to similar legal action.

Fish & Wildlife Service spokesman Joshua Winchell said the government agency had no comment.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for Delaware by the Widener Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic on behalf of Delaware Audubon Society, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Center for Food Safety.

The groups want the court to force the Fish & Wildlife Service to remove genetically engineered crops from the National Wildlife Refuge at Bombay Hook in Delaware, alleging the crops are a result of illegal cooperative farming agreements.

The groups said the service has allowed hundreds of acres to be plowed over without the environmental review required by the National Environmental Policy Act .

In March 2009, the same groups won a similar lawsuit against plantings of genetically modified crops within the Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge.

"These refuges are to be administered to benefit wildlife, not farmers," plaintiffs' attorney Christine Erickson said in a statement.

Erickson said Fish & Wildlife Service policy forbids genetically modified agricultural crops in refuge management unless it is determined they are essential to accomplish refuge purposes.

The suit seeks to enjoin any cultivation of genetically engineered crops on Bombay Hook until environmental assessments are completed as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. (Reuters)

James Inhofe calls for criminal investigation of climate scientists as senators prepare proposal that would ditch cap and trade (The Guardian)

Having failed to convince the country that we should reorder one-sixth of our economy (health care) in one fell swoop, liberals in the Administration and Congress are now doubling down and moving on to the next big thing. This time it’s the transformation of everything, through climate legislation. One could almost stand agape, admiring the boldness of the overreach, were not so much prosperity at stake.

The latest attempt to force the U.S. economy to turn away from readily available, affordable fuels and leaving it to the tender mercies of untried, experimental and expensive technologies is a bipartisan effort by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). A legislative package from them, according to The Washington Post on Saturday, would individually cap how much traditional energy the main pillars of the American economy would be able to use. This would of course cripple our economy and threaten our prosperity. Any doubts about how broad and deep this effort is are dispelled by reading the following paragraph in the Post:

The reason the Senators could not act through their preferred vehicle, a “cap-and-trade” scheme that would put an across-the-economy ceiling on the use of traditional sources of fuel such as coal, oil and natural gas—above which companies using these fuels would have to pay for extra rights—is that the whole edifice of global warming is now falling apart.

It is collapsing with such rapidity that it is worth pausing from time to time to take stock. Continue reading...

Today, the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) has submitted an encouraging statement to the U.K. Parliamentary committee investigating the ClimateGate:

The scientist at the heart of the 'Climategate' row over global warming hid data 'because it was standard practice', it emerged today.

Professor Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia's prestigious climatic research unit, today admitted to MPs that the centre withheld raw station data about global temperatures from around the world.

The world-renowned research unit has been under fire since private emails, which sceptics claimed showed evidence of scientists manipulating climate data, were hacked from the university's server and posted online.

On the spot: Professor Phil Jones being grilled by the Science and Technology committee in the Commons today

Now, an independent probe is examining allegations stemming from the emails that scientists hid, manipulated or deleted data to exaggerate the case for man-made global warming.

Prof Jones today said it was not 'standard practice' in climate science to release data and methodology for scientific findings so that other scientists could check and challenge the research.

He also said the scientific journals which had published his papers had never asked to see it.

Appearing before the committee's hearing into the disclosure of data from the CRU alongside Prof Jones, the university's vice chancellor Prof Edward Acton said he had not seen any evidence of flaws in the overall science of climate change - but said he was planning this week to announce the chair of a second independent inquiry, which will look into the science produced at CRU. (Daily Mail)

Professor Phil Jones, head of climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia

The integrity of climate change research is in doubt after the disclosure of e-mails that attempt to suppress data, a leading scientific institute has said.

The Institute of Physics said that e-mails sent by Professor Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, had broken “honourable scientific traditions” about disclosing raw data and methods and allowing them to be checked by critics.

...

The committee did not ask him about several of the most damaging e-mails he had sent, including one in which he asked a colleague to delete information that had been requested. The committee had been asked not to press him too closely because he was close to a nervous breakdown. (The Times)

Even Fred Pearce of the New Scientist is astonished by how gently Climategate ringleader Phil Jones was questioned by a parliamentary inquiry:

This sweet concern to be nice to Jones is at odds with the insane fears he so recklessly stoked:

As Tom Nelson aptly wrote, "Al Gore lied and people died." Sadly, this comment is now literally true.

The people who say that global warming alarmism is a serious mental problem or a social pathology that should be treated on par with violent pedophilia or the Islamic terrorism got a new powerful argument.

It’s not clear what Al Gore has been doing the past three months since the Climategate scientific fraud scandal broke–perhaps doing a bit of interplanetary travel or hanging out in a remote cave discussing how to de-industrialize America with his fellow global warming alarmist, Osama bin Laden. No matter, Gore has returned to his global warming crusade with an op-ed in the Sunday New York Times. And what an op-ed! “We can’t wish away climate change” is 1896 words, or about three times the length of most op-eds. Unfortunately, the leader of the forces of darkness hasn’t learned a thing during his mysterious sabbatical.

Gore begins by claiming that “it would be an enormous relief” if global warming turned out not to…

Al Gore resurfaces in an op-ed to say that nobody's perfect, everybody makes mistakes and climate change is still real. And he has some oceanfront property in the Himalayas to sell you.

If hyperbole and chutzpah had a child, it would be the opening paragraph of Gore's op-ed in Sunday's New York Times. Gore surfaced from the global warming witness-protection program to opine that despite admissions of error and evidence of fraud by various agencies, we still face "an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it."

Perhaps he's trying to protect his investments as he knows them, for he is heavily involved in enterprises that deal with carbon offsets and green technology. If the case for climate change is shown to be demonstrably false, a lot of his green evaporates like moisture from the ocean. (IBD)

Al Gore now says the Himalayan glaciers story was just ‘one small error’. In fact, it was every green’s trump card. (James Howell, spiked)

Bishop Hill has a summary – at once fascinating, deeply revealing and rather chilling – of a recent workshop staged at Oxford University to discuss the role of the media in reporting Climate Change.

It shows that EVEN NOW as far as the liberal elite is concerned, all public doubts about AGW are merely a question of “false consciousness” in need of correction rather than the result of evidence-based scepticism. (James Delingpole, TDT)

Here’s a blast from the past. Dr. James Hansen’s view in 1989 seemed a lot more temperate than it does today. Back then, he’s ready to accede to a study that says something counter to what his theory predicts, saying “I have no quarrel with it”. Today, he uses labels like “deniers” (see here) when such contradictory essays and facts are made public. What a difference 20 years makes.

And even back then, with no firm evidence in hand, Gore was pushing to cede White House environmental policy to “world policy”.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25— After examining climate data extending back nearly 100 years, a team of Government scientists has concluded that there has been no significant change in average temperatures or rainfall in the United States over that entire period.

While the nation’s weather in individual years or even for periods of years has been hotter or cooler and drier or wetter than in other periods, the new study shows that over the last century there has been no trend in one direction or another.

The study, made by scientists for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was published in the current issue of Geophysical Research Letters. It is based on temperature and precipitation readings taken at weather stations around the country from 1895 to 1987. Read the rest of this entry » (WUWT)

How much do calculations of global temperatures represent the real temperature of the Earth? Every day new stories appear about temperature records with errors or deliberate omissions. An important part of the debate is something called the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHIE). A new article by Dr. Edward Long says, “The problem would seem to be the methodologies engendered in treatment for a mix of urban and rural locations; that the ‘adjustment’ protocol appears to accent to a warming effect rather than eliminate it. This, if correct, leaves serious doubt for whether the rate of increase in temperature found from the adjusted data is due to natural warming trends or warming because of another reason, such as erroneous consideration of the effects of urban warming.”

In another paper we learn that, “The GISS adjustments to the USHCN data at Dale Enterprise follow a well-recognized pattern. GISS pulls the early part of the record down and mimics the most recent USHCN records, thus imposing an artificial warming bias.”

What are they talking about? (Tim Ball, CFP)

The Health Impact Project today announced the award of a $150,000 grant to the Oakland-based Public Health Institute to collaborate with the California Department of Public Health on a health impact assessment (HIA) of a proposed "cap-and-trade" regulation under California's 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act. The study will analyze the health impacts of this landmark proposal and provide a health-based analysis to inform the California rulemaking process.

Health impact assessment is a flexible, data-driven tool that identifies the health benefits and consequences of new policies and develops practical strategies to minimize any adverse effects, ensuring the best possible health outcomes. The findings of this HIA will support health-based recommendations to protect and promote health, and also could inform leaders in other states looking to California's regulations as a model for future efforts.

"This project is an excellent example of the role that health impact assessments can play—early on in the policy-making process—to improve and protect health," said Aaron Wernham, director of the Health Impact Project. "The findings will not only inform development of a groundbreaking cap-and-trade regulation in California, but can also help shape similar policies that emerge to address concerns about climate change in other states and at the national level." (Pew Health Group)

Almost exactly three weeks ago, the press release queen, Louise Gray, was prattling about early springs as a result of global warming.

Fortunately for her, her kindly employer has spared her blushes, not requiring her to write the piece today, which tells us: "For those celebrating St David Day on Monday, there will be a noticeable absence of daffodils as the country's growers say the cold snap has left their crops a month behind schedule."

Britain's "Arctic winter", incidentally, was officially declared the coldest in 30 years "as parts of the country were lashed by gale force winds and torrential downpours."

Strangely enough, almost exactly a year to the day, little Louise was writing under the headline, "Latest spring bloom at Kew for 20 years" – the strap reading: "After a succession of early spring blooms, flowers came out later this year than for 20 years because of the recent cold snap."

And this is why we're perfectly happy to assert that the global warming scare is in its end game. The basis of the scam relies on keeping the population (or a goodly proportion of it) in a perpetual state of fear.

As early as 2005, researchers – amongst them Nick Pidgeon from the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia - were noting that it was necessary to qualify the term "climate change" with the descriptor "dangerous". In this case, they noted that providing information, although the first step, would not alone "suffice to change behaviour".

Crucially, they noted that messages had to be "tailored" to reach "the diversity of interpretations of danger" otherwise they were "not likely to succeed."

Part of that calculus is to draw the marks' attention to changes in their own personal environments, and then relate them to the bigger picture. Not for nothing, therefore, have the warmists focused on issues such as early springs. As these are witnessed first hand, they can be exploited – quite deliberately - as a means of spreading the message.

Unfortunately for the warmists, Mother Nature is not co-operating, exposing the certainties and the dire predictions, willingly spread by the likes of Louise Gray, to ridicule. And while the journalists seem to have extremely short memories, there are always the blogs to remind them of what they wrote.

And this is why the bubble has burst. Al Gore has been reduced to a comedy act and Louise Gray has become an object of pity.

The warmists have lost their grip on the "fear button". They have been deprived of the one and only tool which could enable them to force through their agenda. The rest, like daffodils in spring, is only a matter of time. (Richard North, EU Referendum)

Amid serious concerns over climate change, the mass death of tonnes of fish on the shores of Rio de Janeiro's main lagoon has raised an alarm for a global warming disaster.

About 100 city clean-up crews say they have removed some 90 tonnes of dead fish so far on the shores of a popular beachside lagoon in Rio.

There was no immediate estimate of how many died, but several species were involved. The unpleasant smell is disturbing the local residents and passersby.

Experts say the mass death could be the result of an abrupt temperature change, falling 10 degrees centigrade in 24 hours.

Speculations as to the cause of the incident range from increased levels of harmful algae to sewage and pollution. (Press TV) [em added]

While the so-called Snowmageddon and Snowicane tm blizzards that book-ended the month got much of the nation's attention, not a single tornado was reported in the United States during February 2010.

According to the Storm Prediction Center (SPC), no tornadoes were reported last month.

"It's a phenomenal feat that we went a month without a tornado," said AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist Henry Margusity.

If the statistic stands, it would be the first tornado-free February in at least 60 years.

February typically has 22 tornadoes on average, based on reports dating back to 1950 from the SPC.

"Despite it being an El Nino year, which would normally mean severe weather in the South, the jet stream has been depressing cold air very far south and it has combined with cooler-than-normal Gulf of Mexico water temperatures," Margusity said. "These have led to the suppression of severe weather in February."

February's previous low was two tornado reports, occurring in both 1964 and 2002.

However, this would not be the first tornado-free month on record.

According to the SPC, only five months since 1950 have failed to turn in a tornado report: October 1952, December 1963, November 1976, January 1986 and January 2003.

While there were no tornadoes, there were 32 other reports of severe weather, according to the SPC. Nineteen severe wind events and 13 incidents of hail were reported. (Jon Auciello, AccuWeather.com)

This Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) prediction for summer made on 24 November 2009 has turned out to be so exactly wrong in several aspects. You can see in the BoM Outlook archive It is not only the 24 November prediction that is so wrong – check out their maps of predicted rain percentages published on 21 December, 19 January and there is no learning going on. Check actual rain here, choose 3 months to see summer rain.
BoM failure

The temperature Outlook for summer was just as hopeless but I have not got the time to put all these maps up – you can check against maps you can make here – make maps for 3 months for max and min anomaly, they compare with the BoM max and min temperature prediction maps for summer.

I am at a loss to understand how a well funded org of professionals can repeatedly get these Outlooks so wrong. Obviously the models they use are not worth a cup full of warm spit.
Australia pays for better and deserves better. (Warwick Hughes)

Figure 1. Atmospheric CO2 550 million years ago to the present. Source: Peter Ward (2007): Under a Green Sky (Harper Collins, NY 2007).

The release of more than 370 billion tons of carbon (GtC) from buried early biospheres, adding more than one half of the original carbon inventory of the atmosphere (~590GtC), as well as the depletion of vegetation, have triggered a fundamental shift in the state of the atmosphere (after Peter Ward, Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future, HarperCollins). Raising atmospheric CO2 level at a rate of 2ppm/year, a pace unprecedented in the geological record, with the exception of the effects of CO2 released from craters excavated by large asteroid impacts, the deleterious effects of pollution and deforestation have reached a geological dimension, tracking towards conditions which existed on Earth in the mid-Pliocene, about 2.8 million years ago. (Online Opinion)

Charles F. Keller - ”Chick”, the retired Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory Branch of
University of California’s Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) copied me on an e-mail that he sent out widely to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on January 25 2010. I appreciate that he shared with me this e-mail, as it provides his perspective on my weblog. He has okayed me posting it here, and has also suggested, in a follow on e-mail to me (see the first e-mail text below), that we jointly write our impressions of the climate issue. He wrote in the follow up

“Finally, I got to thinking. Is there a use for the two of us to write together–our impressions about important aspects of this problem–sort of Brooks and Shields like. Those two agree on many important issues but see them from different points of view. Hearing them bounce ideas off each other is very useful to many. Perhaps we could do that? It might be fun to try.”

I have accepted this opportunity for a constructive (much needed) dialog. I am pleased, that despite his concerns on the tone of my posts, that he concludes that much of what I write is correct. I suspect one area of agreement is that we both see considerable value in model simulations as process studies, while an area we disagree in is on the skill of these models to make multi-decadal climate predictions.

On February 2010 I posted the announcement of an excellent news article by Timothy B. Wheeler in the Baltimore Sun

There was a follow up today on the issue I raised on the neglect of mentioning the effect of the air pollution control equipment on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. The new article is titled

“Now, Constellation is saying, the scrubbers should make Brandon Shores one of the cleanest coal-burning plants of its size in the country.

One pollutant the scrubbers won’t remove, though, is carbon dioxide. A byproduct of burning coal, CO2 is the main “greenhouse” gas produced by human activities that scientific authorities say is gradually changing the earth’s climate. Though you can’t see it, it’s pouring out of the scrubber stack seen at left, along with the billowing white water vapor. Brandon Shores emitted 7.8 million tons of the gas in 2008, according to government figures supplied by Constellation’s John Quinn.”

“But the scrubbers will actually cause the plant’s emissions of carbon dioxide to increase about 2.5 percent, company spokesmen say. That’s because the plant will be using some of the electricity it produces to run its scrubber equipment, and will need to burn more coal to make up for the diverted power.”

OSLO - At least three more firms are under investigation over allegations of tax fraud relating to carbon emissions, Norwegian police said on Monday.

Two companies were known since Friday to be under investigation, but police said on Monday that they were looking into several others.

"We are looking into several companies that have bought and handled CO2 quotas from each other. Their number is in the range of around five, but there can be more," said Asbjoerg Lykkjen, a police lawyer at the finance and environment unit of Oslo police.

Two men have so far been arrested and held. "We don't rule out the possibility that there could be more arrests," Lykkjen told Reuters

LONDON - British consumers are still thinking about the price of the electronic goods they buy, rather than saving energy, according to a survey commissioned by energy-saving technology manufacturer Energenie on Monday. (Reuters)

How is this for an unlikely alliance? The oil and gas industry teaming up with the National Audubon Society for exploration and production along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast.

It’s not that farfetched at the Audubon’s Paul J. Rainey Sanctuary in southwestern Louisiana, where the Audubon is reviewing such an option to re-open the refuge to natural gas development. At more than twice the size of Manhattan, Rainey is the organization’s largest sanctuary.

Money earned from natural gas leasing and production would finance marsh restoration and other construction projects that the group cannot afford without additional revenue. (GoO)

Using fossil fuel in vehicles is better for the environment than so-called green fuels made from crops, according to a government study seen by The Times.

The findings show that the Department for Transport’s target for raising the level of biofuel in all fuel sold in Britain will result in millions of acres of forest being logged or burnt down and converted to plantations. The study, likely to force a review of the target, concludes that some of the most commonly-used biofuel crops fail to meet the minimum sustainability standard set by the European Commission.

Under the standard, each litre of biofuel should reduce emissions by at least 35 per cent compared with burning a litre of fossil fuel. Yet the study shows that palm oil increases emissions by 31 per cent because of the carbon released when forest and grassland is turned into plantations. Rape seed and soy also fail to meet the standard. (The Times)

Hopes for a nuclear revival, fanned by fears of global warming and a changing political climate in Washington, are running into new obstacles over a key element -- money.

A new approach for easing the cost of new multibillion-dollar reactors, which can take years to complete, has provoked a backlash from big-business customers unwilling to go along.

Financing has always been one of the biggest obstacles to a renaissance of nuclear power. The plants are expensive, and construction tends to run late and over budget. The projected cost for a pair of proposed Georgia plants would be $14 billion; the Obama administration last month pledged to provide them with $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees.

So utilities have turned to state legislators and regulators to help contain capital costs. In states such as Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, utilities have won permission to charge customers for some of the cost of new reactors while construction is still in progress -- a financing technique that would save utilities a couple of billion dollars for each reactor. Previously, utilities had to wait until power plants were in operation before raising rates, as they still do in most states. (Steven Mufson, Washington Post)

I used to adore the opinion page of the New York Times. Whatever was printed there had to be the closest thing to the gospel truth handed down since Paul got knocked on his arse while heading to Damascus. I assumed only the smartest people were allowed to preach from the media world’s most hallowed pulpit. [Read More] (Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune)

Relying on electricity for heating homes and powering cars as part of efforts to cut carbon emissions could pose "enormous risks" to energy supplies, an industry body has warned.

The Combined Heat and Power Association (CHPA), which supports technology that produces both heat and electricity from fuels, said a switch to electricity could undermine targets to cut emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.

A report by researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Surrey said Government plans to shift the UK towards a low-carbon economy included a high degree of electrification in heating homes and running transport, such as electric cars.

But the report, commissioned by the CHPA, said using more electricity for transport and heating would require rapid and sustained progress on building new, low-carbon power supplies.

It would also require an expansion of the network to meet higher peak demand - at a time when the increased use of renewables such as wind power would mean more fluctuation in supply.

The report warned of large energy losses at power plants during electricity generation, but harnessing that "waste" heat could make our energy supplies more efficient.

More use of combined heat and power power plants, which capture and use the heat from combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, and district heating systems which would transfer the heat to homes, could cut electricity demand by 13 per cent. (Independent Television News)

Often it’s hard to tell whether highly questionable actions by federal and state government officials that reward special interests at the expense of U.S. taxpayers, job seekers, and electric customers are due to honest but misguided intentions, skullduggery, malfeasance, incompetence, or simple mistakes.

Please recognize that “connecting the dots” among the actions of these officials will require careful reading of the following four pages.

How has Iberdrola benefited so handsomely from U.S. and NY officials’ actions?

MADRID - Spain's government on Monday proposed more than doubling production from renewable energy sources by 2020 to just over 20 percent of total energy use, which would meet European Union targets.

"We face a high degree of energy dependence, high price volatility in international energy markets and the challenges of climate change," said an Economy Ministry document containing details of government plans to revive the recession-hit economy.

The government is seeking cross-party consensus on its plans to turn a record 3.6-percent decline in the economy in 2009 into a 2.9-percent increase in 2012.

The document predicted renewables production by 2020 would be the equivalent of 27.9 million tonnes of petroleum, up from 11.96 million tonnes in 2009.

That would be 20.2 percent of Spain's projected primary energy consumption, or just above a target of 20 percent set by the 27-nation European Union. (Reuters)

The Wyoming House and Senate have passed the nation’s first tax on wind energy and sent the bill to Governor Dave Freudenthal. The Democratic Governor proposed the new tax to the Republican-dominated legislature last month and so is almost certain to sign the bill into law.

The new excise tax of one dollar per megawatt hour will begin in 2012 and will apply to windmills that have been generating electricity for three years or more. Revenues are to be split 60-40 between counties and the State.

Amusingly, Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, complained about the proposed tax on the grounds that it would discourage wind power production: “It is very disturbing to hear that one of the great States…

Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators.

As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them. And pollution rates are rising.

Companies that have spilled oil, carcinogens and dangerous bacteria into lakes, rivers and other waters are not being prosecuted, according to Environmental Protection Agency regulators working on those cases, who estimate that more than 1,500 major pollution investigations have been discontinued or shelved in the last four years. (NYT)

Van Jones is back, reconstructed and rehabilitated.

Jones, recall, departed from his White House job as "green jobs czar" after publicity about his association with a "9/11 truther" organization that alleges complicity of the Bush administration with the 9/11 attack.

He was already a lightening rod, having characterized President Bush as a "crackhead", using profanity to describe Republicans, and offering gems like blaming "white polluters and white environmentalists" for "steering poison" to minority communities.

But as White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel understands that power brokers should "never waste a crisis", those on the left grasp that you never waste an asset like a black self-described communist from the 1990's with an Ivy League degree and a best selling "green jobs" book.

So now Jones has new jobs at Princeton University and Washington's Center for American Progress. And, to seal the public rehabilitation, he will be awarded the NAACP's Image Award, and has been called by NAACP president Benjamin Jealous a "national treasure." (Star Parker, Townhall)

The Washington Times is a newspaper that looks with favor upon the Bush/Cheney/Obama/neocon wars of aggression in the Middle East and favors making terrorists pay for 9/11. Therefore, I was surprised to learn on February 24 that the most popular story on the paper’s website for the past three days was the “Inside the Beltway” report, “Explosive News,” about the 31 press conferences in cities in the US and abroad on February 19 held by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, an organization of professionals which now has 1,000 members.

I was even more surprised that the news report treated the press conference seriously.

How did three World Trade Center skyscrapers suddenly disintegrate into fine dust? How did massive steel beams in three skyscrapers suddenly fail as a result of short-lived, isolated, and low temperature fires? “A thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7,” reports the Washington Times.

The paper reports that the architects and engineers have concluded that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology provided “insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers’ destruction” and are “calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials.” ( Paul Craig Roberts, Axis of Logic)

Get Out of Our House aims to replace every member of Congress with people who pledge to play by different rules.
March 1, 2010
- by Sarah Durand

Remember when average citizens were relatively uninvolved in politics? They’d go into the voting booths, cast a ballot, and then go back to their lives as usual. Even with knowing that politics is an ugly business, they still mostly trusted their elected officials to make the right decisions for this country.

That time has long passed. Everywhere you turn, ordinary Americans are engaged in the political process. Lack of trust in our elected officials has led usually passive Americans to review every bill in Congress with scrutiny. Warning our fellow patriots when new threats emerge from Washington, we have become a nation of Paul Reveres.

Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are steering us in the wrong direction. No longer concerned with fiscal conservatism, Republicans have abandoned their platform of smaller government and personal responsibility in favor of an all-controlling nanny state. The Democrats are simply driving us there faster. And neither party seems concerned that its constituents would like to get off this highway altogether. (PJM)

One in four U.S. parents believes that some vaccines cause autism in healthy children, but even many of those worried about vaccine risks still think their children should be vaccinated.

Most parents continue to follow the advice of their children's doctors, according to a study based on a University of Michigan survey of 1,552 parents.

"Nine out of 10 parents believe that vaccination is a good way to prevent diseases for their children," said lead author Dr. Gary Freed of the University of Michigan. "Luckily their concerns don't outweigh their decision to get vaccines. ..."

Fear of a vaccine-autism connection stems from a flawed and speculative 1998 study that recently was retracted by a British medical journal. The retraction came after a council that regulates Britain's doctors ruled that the study's author acted dishonestly and unethically.

The new study was done before the retraction. "Now that it's been shown to be an outright fraud, maybe it will convince more parents that this should not be a concern," said Freed, whose study appears in the April issue of Pediatrics. (Star Tribune)

NEW YORK - Older adults who catch a nap on most days may have a higher risk of type 2 diabetes than those who never take a siesta, researchers reported Monday.

In a study of nearly 20,000 Chinese adults age 50 and older, the investigators found that participants who said they usually napped on at least four to six days out of the week had a higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes.

Roughly 15 percent had diabetes, based on blood testing, versus about 12 percent of their counterparts who napped less often or not at all.

When the researchers weighed other factors -- including participants' ages, physical activity levels and any diagnoses of high blood pressure or heart disease -- frequent napping remained linked to a higher diabetes risk.

Men and women who napped four to six days per week were 36 percent more likely than those who never napped to have diabetes. Similarly, daily nappers had a 28 percent higher risk, according to findings published in the medical journal Sleep.

Before nap lovers become too alarmed, however, the researchers stress that their findings do not prove that napping itself is the culprit.

For one, the study was cross-sectional, meaning it assessed participants at one point in time rather than following them over years. So it is not certain which came first, the frequent napping or the diabetes. (Reuters Health)

CHICAGO — The odds of obesity appear stacked against black and Hispanic children starting even before birth, provocative new research suggests.

The findings help explain disproportionately high obesity rates in minority children. Family income is often a factor, but so are cultural customs and beliefs, the study authors said.

They examined more than a dozen circumstances that can increase chances of obesity, and almost every one was more common in black and Hispanic children than in whites. Factors included eating and sleeping habits in infancy and early childhood and mothers smoking during pregnancy

In a separate, equally troubling study, researchers found signs of inflammation in obese children as young as 3 years old. High levels were more common in blacks and Hispanics. (AP)

BOSTON, Mass. (March 1, 2010)—Efforts to prevent childhood obesity should begin far earlier than currently thought—perhaps even before birth—especially for minority children, according to a new study that tracked 1,826 women from pregnancy through their children's first five years of life.

Most obesity prevention programs—including the national initiative recently launched by First Lady Michelle Obama—target kids age 8 and older. Scientists at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute's Department of Population Medicine, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, now say that factors that place children at higher risk for obesity begin at infancy, and in some cases, during pregnancy. Their research also suggests that risk factors such as poor feeding practices, insufficient sleep and televisions in bedrooms are more prevalent among minority children than white children.

"This early life period—prenatal, infancy, to age 5–is a key period for childhood obesity prevention, especially for minority children," says Elsie Taveras, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School, as well as the director of the One Step Ahead Program at Children's Hospital Boston. "Almost every single risk factor in that period before age 2, including in the prenatal period, was disproportionately higher among minority children." (Harvard Medical School)

WASHINGTON — What if you could be fat but avoid heart disease or diabetes? Scientists trying to break the fat-and-disease link increasingly say inflammation is the key.

In the quest to prove it, a major study is under way testing whether an anti-inflammatory drug — an old, cheap cousin of aspirin — can fight the Type 2 diabetes spurred by obesity.

And intriguing new research illustrates how those yellow globs of fat lurking under the skin are more than a storage site for extra calories. They're a toxic neighborhood where inflammation appears to be born.

Diabetes and heart disease usually tag along with extra pounds, a huge risk for the two-thirds of Americans who are overweight or obese. What isn't clear is what sets off the cascade of damage that ends in those illnesses. After all, there are examples of obese people who somehow stay metabolically fit — no high blood pressure or high blood sugar or high cholesterol.

"If fat cells functioned perfectly, you could be as obese as you want and not have heart disease," says Dr. Carey Lumeng of the University of Michigan. "It's something we don't understand, why some people are more susceptible and others are not so susceptible." (AP)

Obesity appears to be associated with an increased risk of depression, and depression also appears associated with an increased risk of developing obesity, according to a meta-analysis of previously published studies in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

"Both depression and obesity are widely spread problems with major public health implications," the authors write as background information in the article. "Because of the high prevalence of both depression and obesity, and the fact that they both carry an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, a potential association between depression and obesity has been presumed and repeatedly been examined." Understanding the relationship between the two conditions over time could help improve prevention and intervention strategies. (JAMA and Archives Journals)

NEW YORK - Younger adults who get either little sleep or a lot of it may see a greater expansion in their waistlines over time, a study published Monday suggests.

Researchers found that among black and Hispanic adults younger than 40, those who typically slept for five hours or less each night had a greater accumulation of belly fat over the next five years, versus those who averaged six or seven hours.

Those who logged eight hours or more in bed each night also showed a bigger fat gain -- but it was less substantial than that seen in "short sleepers."

The study, reported in the journal Sleep, does not prove that too little or too much sleep directly leads to excess fat gain. But the findings support and extend those of other studies linking sleep duration -- particularly a lack of sleep -- to weight gain and even to higher risks of diabetes and heart disease. (Reuters Health)

The basic formula for gaining and losing weight is well known: a pound of fat equals 3,500 calories.

That simple equation has fueled the widely accepted notion that weight loss does not require daunting lifestyle changes but “small changes that add up,” as the first lady, Michelle Obama, put it last month in announcing a national plan to counter childhood obesity.

In this view, cutting out or burning just 100 extra calories a day — by replacing soda with water, say, or walking to school — can lead to significant weight loss over time: a pound every 35 days, or more than 10 pounds a year.

While it’s certainly a hopeful message, it’s also misleading. Numerous scientific studies show that small caloric changes have almost no long-term effect on weight. When we skip a cookie or exercise a little more, the body’s biological and behavioral adaptations kick in, significantly reducing the caloric benefits of our effort.

But can small changes in diet and exercise at least keep children from gaining weight? While some obesity experts think so, mathematical models suggest otherwise. (NYT)

NEW YORK - Don't expect your calcium and vitamin D supplements to improve your heart health or prevent a stroke, according to a systematic review of published studies.

While vitamin D and calcium are clearly important for bone health, write the authors of the review, evidence on whether they help heart health is conflicting.

In the U.S., the recommended daily intake of calcium is 1000 milligrams, and 400 international units for vitamin D. Skin produces vitamin D when directly exposed to the sun, but this is usually not enough.

Milk, breakfast cereals and orange juice fortified with the vitamins are the main food sources, though some fatty fish naturally contain high amounts of vitamin D.

Before people who already get enough start taking vitamin D and calcium supplements, senior author Dr. Howard D. Sesso, from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and his colleagues wanted to study the evidence to support their use - and make sure there are no hidden risks involved. (Reuters Health)

WASHINGTON - Sneezing, congestion, and runny noses from hay fever may be lasting longer because climate change may be extending pollen seasons, doctors in Italy said on Monday.

Pollen seasons as well as the amount of pollen in the air progressively increased during a six-year study in Italy, the doctors told a meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology in New Orleans.

The team at Genoa University recorded pollen counts, how long pollen seasons lasted and sensitivity to five types of pollen in the Bordighera region of Italy from 1981 to 2007.

"By studying a well-defined geographical region, we observed that the progressive increase of the average temperature has prolonged the duration of the pollen seasons of some plants and, consequently, the overall pollen load," Dr. Walter Canonica, who worked on the study, said in a statement. (Reuters)

Scientists broadly agree that global warming may threaten the survival of many plant and animal species; but global warming did not kill the Monteverde golden toad, an often cited example of climate-triggered extinction, says a new study. The toad vanished from Costa Rica's Pacific coastal-mountain cloud forest in the late 1980s, the apparent victim of a pathogen outbreak that has wiped out dozens of other amphibians in the Americas. Many researchers have linked outbreaks of the deadly chytrid fungus to climate change, but the new study asserts that the weather patterns, at Monteverde at least, were not out of the ordinary.

The role that climate change played in the toad's demise has been fiercely debated in recent years. The new paper, in the March 1 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the latest to weigh in. In the study, researchers used old-growth trees from the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve to reconstruct moisture levels in that region over the last century. They expected to see global warming manifested in the form of a long-term warming or drying trend, but instead discovered that the forest's dry spells closely tracked El Niño, the periodic and natural warming of waters off South America that brings drought to some places and added rainfall and snow to others.

The golden toad vanished after an exceptionally dry season following the 1986-1987 El Niño, probably not long after the chytrid fungus was introduced. Scientists speculate that dry conditions caused the toads to congregate in a small number of puddles to reproduce, prompting the disease to spread rapidly. Some have linked the dry spell to global warming, arguing that warmer temperatures allowed the chytrid pathogen to flourish and weakened the toad's defenses. The new study finds that Monteverde was the driest it's been in a hundred years following the 1986-1987 El Niño, but that those dry conditions were still within the range of normal climate variability. The study does not address amphibian declines elsewhere, nor do the authors suggest that global warming is not a serious threat to biodiversity.

"There's no comfort in knowing that the golden toad's extinction was the result of El Niño and an introduced pathogen, because climate change will no doubt play a role in future extinctions," said study lead author Kevin Anchukaitis, a climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. (The Earth Institute at Columbia University)

Atrazine, one of the world's most widely used pesticides, wreaks havoc with the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists.

The 75 percent that are chemically castrated are essentially "dead" because of their inability to reproduce in the wild, reports UC Berkeley's Tyrone B. Hayes, professor of integrative biology.

"These male frogs are missing testosterone and all the things that testosterone controls, including sperm. So their fertility is as low as 10 percent in some cases, and that is only if we isolate those animals and pair them with females," he said. "In an environment where they are competing with unexposed animals, they have zero chance of reproducing." (University of California - Berkeley)

"Scientifically Flawed," "Insufficient Data," "Results Problematic if not impossible" describe past critiques of studies done by Dr. Tyrone Hayes

WASHINGTON, March 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Alex Avery, Director of Research and Education at the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues, criticized new research by University of California Berkeley professor Dr. Tyrone Hayes alleging endocrine disruption in amphibians caused by the popular herbicide atrazine. Prior research by Dr. Hayes has come under scientific scrutiny and criticism by directors of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for lacking basic scientific standards and lack of transparency.

Avery pointed to comments by Anne E. Lindsay, former Deputy Director of EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs, testified in 2005 that Dr. Hayes' 'data are insufficient' to support his claims. She further noted:

" . . .[EPA] has never seen either the results from any independent investigator published in peer-reviewed scientific journals or the raw data from Dr. Hayes' additional experiments that confirm Dr. Hayes' conclusions."

The EPA's independent Scientific Advisory Panel "believed strongly that all of the field studies reviewed had serious flaws that limit their usefulness..." and "these problems render interpretation of results problematic if not impossible."

Lindsay's testimony further invalidated any legitimacy of Hayes' work, saying "all of the available information was scientifically flawed. None of [Hayes'] laboratory studies on atrazine were conducted in accordance with standard protocols.""

"Dr. Tyrone Hayes has spent more than a decade allied with eco-activists peddling scare stories due to alleged health effects from atrazine. Yet despite his decade-long search and after more than 50 years of widespread use of this herbicide by farmers to minimize soil erosion while combating weeds, Hayes can offer no compelling real-world evidence that atrazine poses any appreciable risk to amphibian populations anywhere," Avery stated. "Aside from his own often-conflicting lab studies, other researchers have not seen the effects Hayes claims to have found. Replication is the gold-standard of science and Hayes' work has failed this test miserably."

"Finally, it should be noted that Dr. Hayes is an admitted anti-atrazine activist and has aligned himself closely with organizations including Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), organizations with a clear track record of campaigns against popular herbicides, large scale farm production and effective tools that have revolutionized agriculture today," Avery concluded.

Alex Avery is an expert in agricultural policy from a global perspective, with reference to both economic and environmental impacts. He has followed extensively the benefits of atrazine and has provided testimony before the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on many occasions during its re-registration process.

Nanoparticles are atmospheric materials so small that they can't be seen with the naked eye, but they can very visibly affect both weather patterns and human health all over the world – and not in a good way, according to a study by a team of researchers at Texas A&M University.

Researchers Renyi Zhang, Alexei Khalizov, Jun Zheng, Wen Xu, Yan Ma and Vinita Lal in the Departments of Atmospheric Sciences and Chemistry say that nanoparticles appear to be growing in many parts of the world, but how they do so remains a mystery.

Their work is published in the current issue of Nature Geoscience and was funded by the National Science Foundation and The Welch Foundation.

The team looked at how nanoparticles are formed and their relationship with certain organic vapors responsible for additional growth.

"This is one of the most poorly understood of all atmospheric processes," Zhang says. "But we found that certain types of organics tend to grow very rapidly. When this happens, they scatter light back into space, and that definitely has a cooling effect – sort of a reverse 'greenhouse effect.' It can alter Earth's weather patterns and it also tends to have a negative effect on human health."

Persons with breathing problems, such as those who suffer from asthma, emphysema or other lung ailments, can be at risk, he notes.

Zhang says the team used new methods of measuring nanoparticles and formed new models to determine their impact on atmospheric conditions.

"These changes on our weather systems appear to be the most dramatic consequences of these nanoparticles," he adds.

"Once these form, they can change cloud formations, which in turn can affect weather all over the world, so this can become a global problem to deal with. We're trying to get a better understanding of these particles work and grow.

"They can form near areas that have petrochemical plants, such as Houston, which also has high amounts of aerosols from traffic emissions and other numerous factories. But we're still trying to learn how they form and interact with the atmosphere."

Many types of trees and plants also contribute to the formation of nanoparticles, which are natural processes, Zhang says, and certain forms of organic materials can also speed up the development of the particles. But all of these ultimately affect the atmosphere, and very often, cloud formation, where the aerosols scatter light and radiation back into space and provide the "seeds" of cloud droplets and development.

"These nanoparticles are very small – about one million times smaller than a typical raindrop," Zhang says. "But what they do can have a huge effect on our weather." (Texas A&M University)

WASHINGTON - The federal government will maximize enrollment in the land-idling Conservation Reserve, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a policy that would reduce U.S. cropland by 1.5 percent if successful.

The amount of land involved, around 5 million acres, could produce more than 150 million bushels of wheat, 200 million bushels of soybeans or 700 million bushels of corn, based on recent abandonment rates and the Agriculture Department's projected yields for the three crops this year.

Growers planted 320 million acres to the principal U.S. crops of grains, cotton, oilseeds, hay, tobacco, potatoes and sugarcane in 2009, says USDA.

Some 31.2 million acres are enrolled in the reserve at present with contracts for 4.5 million acres to expire on September 30. With the expirations, enrollment would be more than 5 million acres below the 32 million-acre ceiling set by the 2008 farm law.

Over the weekend, Vilsack announced the Agriculture Department would try to add 300,000 acres to the reserve for wildlife habitat and would give all landowners a chance to enroll land. Dates and other details of the "general signup" will be announced after an environmental impact statement is completed, he said. (Reuters)

CONFERENCE: Economic effects to be examined by invited experts.

The federal listing of polar bears as a threatened species so outraged Alaska lawmakers, they considered spending more than a million dollars for a public relations effort to reverse the decision.

A request for proposals from public relations firms now has more modest goals: a conference assessing what the Endangered Species Act will cost Alaska, and whether a public relations campaign would be useful.

A legislative request for proposals from public relations firms was modified three times since mid-December. Proposals have been in hand since Jan. 20.

For a fee of up to $1.5 million, lawmakers are looking for someone who can put on a conference in Anchorage, gather panelists to speak on the effects of the ESA and recommend whether Alaska should embrace a public relations effort to counter its negative economic effects. (Associated Press)

Nearly 40 years after the first Earth Day, this is irony: The United States has reduced the manmade pollutants that left its waterways dead, discolored and occasionally flammable.

But now, it has managed to smother the same waters with the most natural stuff in the world.

Animal manure, a byproduct as old as agriculture, has become an unlikely modern pollution problem, scientists and environmentalists say. The country simply has more dung than it can handle: Crowded together at a new breed of megafarms, livestock produce three times as much waste as people, more than can be recycled as fertilizer for nearby fields. (David A. Fahrenthold, The Washington Post)

JAKARTA - Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has signed a decree to allow projects including mining, power plants, transport and renewable energy deemed strategically important to take place in protected forests.

Yudhoyono has pledged to do more to cut through red tape and prevent overlapping regulations slowing down projects ranging from mining to toll roads in the resource-rich developing nation in his second term in office.

Increasing exploitation of mineral resources and speeding up infrastructure development is seen as key for boosting growth and creating jobs in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

But the decree, which was obtained by Reuters and came into effect on February 1, will anger green groups given Indonesia already has one of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world. (Reuters)

New research in the FASEB Journal suggests that a new strain of tobacco plant can make antibodies to toxic pond scum that affects humans, livestock and wildlife

Tobacco might become as well known for keeping us healthy as it is for causing illness thanks to researchers from the U.K. In a new research report appearing in the March 2010 print issue of the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) scientists explain how they developed a genetically modified strain of tobacco that helps temper the damaging effects of toxic pond scum, scientifically known as microcystin-LR (MC-LR), which makes water unsafe for drinking, swimming, or fishing. This plant could serve as a major tool for helping keep water sources safe to use, especially in developing nations.

"We hope that our study will ultimately lead to a reduction in the exposure of humans, livestock, and wildlife to environmental pollutants," said Pascal M.W. Drake, Ph.D., co-author of the study, from the Centre for Infection at St. George's University of London.

To develop this type of tobacco, Drake and colleagues genetically altered a tobacco plant to produce an antibody to MC-LR, by inserting genes which code for the production of this antibody. With the genes in place, the new strain of tobacco produced the antibody in its leaves and secreted the antibody from its roots into the surrounding hypotonic growth medium. When the toxin from MC-LR was added to the plant's surrounding hypotonic growth medium, the antibody bound to the toxin, rendering it harmless. This is the first example of a transgenic plant expressing an antibody that remediates an environmental toxin, but according to Drake, more plants like these will be developed in the future to address different environmental problems.

"Tobacco is perhaps one of the most cultivated non-food crop in human history," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB Journal, "and for centuries it has hurt human health. Now, with smart genetic tweaking, tobacco may prove more valuable in the field than in the pipe." (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology)

This letter from numerous leading scientists in climate and related fields to Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is worthy of wider circulation. (SPPI)

Three key senators are engaged in a radical behind-the-scenes overhaul of climate legislation, preparing to jettison the broad "cap-and-trade" approach that has defined the legislative debate for close to a decade. (Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson, Washington Post)

Clean Skies News talks to Steve Milloy of JunkScience.com about a measure to suspend the landmark 2006 law, AB32, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, until unemployment returns to about 5 percent. That law would impose tougher emissions standards on California vehicles cap emissions in 2012 and require businesses and emitters to buy and sell allowances, but critics are saying that's costing the state jobs. (Clean Skies News)

The Legislature in Madison is debating a $15 billion utility rate hike, under the guise of "green jobs," to satisfy the ideological musings of the far left.

This complex piece of legislation known as the Clean Energy Jobs Act is an incredibly expensive solution in search of a problem. Wisconsin has a surplus of energy, not a deficit. We don't need politicians forcing us to play their game and sticking us with the price of admission.

This bill's authors believe Wisconsinites have to stop global warming. Not the world, not Americans - Wisconsinites. They must think Wisconsin's air stops at its borders. If that were true, our efforts could bear fruit. But it isn't.

We are foolish to act alone. If we pass this bill, Wisconsin will become the Midwest's economic pariah. High taxes and stiff regulations mixed with high energy costs - it's suicide economics. (Ted Kanavas, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

WARSAW - The European Union's aim to lead the world in adopting ambitious emission cuts has failed and the bloc needs a new strategy for global climate talks, a Polish official was quoted on Saturday as saying.

The EU agreed to cut its emissions by 20 percent below the 1990 levels over next 10 years as part of world's efforts to battle climate change, but said insufficient engagement of other key players in the U.N.-led talks prevented it from deepening the cuts to 30 percent. (Reuters)

The Lou Dobbs Radio Show - February 24, 2010

Lou Dobbs: The timing is good. And I'm going to say this, because one of the things I don't think happens often enough in our society - in part because it doesn't happen so often that we have public figures who stand up, who put their, you know, set their feet squarely forward, and say, "This is nonsense. We have to be fact-based, we have to be rational. And this nonsense has to end." James Inhofe has been such a man over the past 6-7 years. He sometimes stood absolutely alone, and was demonized, vilified, ridiculed by the national media. He stands now, in 2010, as a man utterly vindicated, and for whom I think everybody needs to, you know, extend a round of applause. Senator Inhofe, thank you very much for being with us today.

Senator Inhofe: Thank you so much.

Lou Dobbs: You got it. You take care. Now, you know, it's funny. The national media doesn't like to give credit where credit is due, because of the politics they can't, the bias. But, I mean really, this man at many junctures was absolutely singular, he was absolutely alone in resisting a wave of popular faddism, which was climate change and global warming. So, I sincerely mean that. He deserves a great deal of both applause and respect for what he has done. (EPW Press Blog)

Yesterday in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Barbara Boxer made the following statement:

In my opening statement, I didn’t quote one international scientist or IPCC report. … We are quoting the American scientific community here.

This is in response to Sen Inhofe's minority report about climategate, blasting the IPCC. Boxer doesn't even attempt to defend the IPCC, she simply says that she used American scientists in her opening statement. This is true, in this particular case, but it certainly hasn't been historically. Boxer has relied on the IPCC several times as the Chair of the EPW, and she has relied on Pachauri as well. Lets start at the beginning. (Climate Quotes)

University of Colorado Climatologist Roger Pielke sounds off on President Obamas appointment of Thomas Karl (Fox Business Network)

The carbon tax has never gained much political momentum, but if cap-and-trade is defeated, then it might be dragged out again, peddled as an efficient, market-oriented approach to encourage wise use of carbon resources. This new incarnation may seem preferable to the old one, but it is still bad policy.

One of the leading proponents of the carbon tax is NASA scientist James Hansen, humbly described on the dust jacket of his new book as "the World's Leading Climate Scientist." The aforementioned book bears the melodramatic title, Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. (Not to quibble, but what exactly does "storms of my grandchildren" mean?)

When Hansen came to Cambridge to hawk his book, I was prepared to come face to face with a fanatic. He is notorious for suggesting that energy company "CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature." He has hysterically likened coal trains to "death trains -- no less gruesome than if they were boxcars headed to crematoria." And he hypocritically complained for eight years that President Bush was muzzling him -- accusations which appeared in hundreds of unmuzzled news conferences. (Peter Wilson, American Thinker)

We recently offered tips on "What to say to a warmer" for when Al Gore or a fellow global warming alarmist comes to dinner. This week, we suggest: "What to say to a warmist named Schwarzenegger," in case the Terminator drops by.

California has the most destructive and costly global warming law in the nation, if not the world. In a perverse way, it's the governor's crowning achievement. That says a lot about a fellow who drove the state into virtual bankruptcy, accelerated unemployment to at least 12 percent, while dramatically increasing government spending, taxes and the government payroll. But those destructive acts pale next to what's in store if his preposterously titled Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 is enforced as planned.

California is the pivotal battle in the global warming war. If the tax-and-cap crowd succeeds here, it's only a matter of time before their poisonous solution spreads coast to coast. We are, as warmists say, reaching a tipping point.

To give the debate a shove in the right direction, here are some global warming tipping-point, talking points to raise over dinner: (Orange County Register)

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd remains committed to introducing an emissions trading scheme (ETS), saying it is the best way of taking action on climate change.

"It is the most effective, least costly way of dealing with climate change," Mr Rudd told ABC Television on Sunday.

"There is no way ... that when you're dealing with big challenges in the future of really bringing down greenhouse gas emissions that you can walk away from emissions trading." (AAP)

BEIJING - China said on Sunday it will spell out greenhouse gas emissions goals and monitoring rules for regions and sectors in its next five-year plan, with monitoring to show it is serious about curbing emissions.

The Chinese government said in November it would reduce the amount of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from human activity, emitted to make each unit of national income by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels. (Reuters)

China has no intention of capping its greenhouse gas emissions even as authorities are committed to realizing the nation's target to reduce carbon intensity through new policies and measures, the country's top climate change negotiators said yesterday.

The negotiators also warned that rich and developing countries have little hope of overcoming key disagreements over how to fight global warming.

China 'could not and should not' set an upper limit on greenhouse gas emissions at the current phase, said Su Wei, the chief negotiator of China for climate change talks in Copenhagen, at a meeting in Beijing on China's climate change policies in the post-Copenhagen era.

Su, who is also director of the department of combating climate change under the National Development and Reform Commission, said that China's greenhouse gas emissions have to grow correspondingly as the country still has a long way to go in improving people's livelihoods and eradicating poverty. ( GLOBE-Net)

India has caught out an American attempt to go back on an agreement not to push for international “scrutiny” of voluntary attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, negotiated between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, U.S. President Barack Obama and the heads of government of China, Brazil and South Africa at the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen last December.

Though the U.S. quickly changed tack when India protested, some negotiators here say the attempt to smuggle in already-discarded language vindicates their fears that compromises made by developing countries at Copenhagen signalled a “dangerous opening of the door.”

World leaders had discussed, in a marathon bargaining session, how to describe the international monitoring of voluntary mitigation actions by developing countries, which were not funded by outside sources.

The leaders of Brazil, South Africa, India and China had objected to the terms suggested by Mr. Obama: “scrutiny,” “review,” “assess,” “examine.” Finally, Mr. Obama and European leaders had agreed to use the term “consultations and analysis.” (The Hindu)

NUSA DUA, Bali, Indonesia, February 26, 2010 - Governments reached agreement today to strengthen the global response to the impacts of climate change.

At the close of a United Nations Environment Programme gathering in Indonesia, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said he is optimistic that the conference had enabled the world's environment ministers to find a "collective voice" again after the "great frustrations" in Copenhagen.

"The ministers responsible for the environment ... have spoken with a clear, united and unequivocal voice," said Steiner. "Without that there would never be any progress," he told reporters at the end of the three-day meeting. (ENS)

The emerging errors of the IPCC's 2007 report are not incidental but fundamental, says Christopher Booker (TDT)

And it never was about the science, as Sam at Climatequotes.com (”remembering what they will want us to forget”) reminds us with this useful little delve into the Government archives. He shows how in 2003 the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) deliberately set out to mislead the public about the dangers of “Climate Change”. Among the “experts” DEFRA invited to help talk up the threat were our old friends at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU). (James Delingpole, TDT)

NUSA DUA, Indonesia - An independent board of scientists is to review the work of a U.N. climate panel, whose credibility came under attack after it published errors, a U.N. environment spokesman said on Friday. (Reuters)

Rajendra Pachauri, the controversial Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is to face an international inquiry into the performance of his organisation. (TDT)

Over £11 million of British taxpayers' cash has been paid or pledged to Dr Rajendra Pachauri's institute, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), while he has been chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This comprises over £1 million in direct payments over the last five years and £10 million to come from DFID over the next five.

Direct cash payments have been made by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which has given Dr Pachauri's TERI £441,000. £134,000 came from DEFRA and £269,000 from DFID – totalling £844,000.

In addition, TERI shared £167,000 with Sussex University for a project funded by DECC and another £73,000 for the same project, funded by DEFRA, plus it shared in a £4 million research initiative funded by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Although the exact amounts paid to TERI in the shared projects are not specified, the institute was a major partner in the £240,000 Sussex University-led projects which, with the EPSRC money, would bring the overall total received to more than £1 million in cash already paid in the last five years.

The details emerged from a parliamentary question asked by Ann Winterton MP. She was told that the direct payments to TERI included £120,000 for developing an energy security policy for India and £76,000 for the design of renewable energy credit system for India. These were funded by the FCO.

Defra funded three conferences jointly organised by TERI in its luxurious New Delhi offices (pictured), spending £46,000 to cover forests and climate change and £88,000 on three "summits" on sustainable development. DFID supported two more sustainable development conferences, paying TERI £71,000 in 2008 and 2009. The 2008 conference received £31,000 but this was also supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, which paid $200,000 towards the costs as well.

It also emerged that the British government paid £14.5 million in the last five years to the Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEP), of which TERI is the Asian representative, supplying office space in its own Delhi headquarters and the secretariat.

REEP also acts as a "funding vehicle", supporting research projects undertaken by its members, with an average value of €100,000. TERI has worked on at least two of these in the last five years.

The £11 million of British funding is in addition to the share of €56 million for participation in 17 EU-funded projects (partly paid by the UK), €7.5 million pledged by the Norwegian government, nearly €1 million paid or pledged by the Finnish government, and $1 million pledged by the Australian government.

Other funders include institutions such as the World Bank and commercial companies, such as the oil company BP, which is funding a $9.4 million project to grow Jatropha for biofuel in three districts of Andhra Pradesh. Additionally, Pachauri himself is estimated to earn about $800,000 annually in direct fees for his services, which he claims are paid to his institute.

Having started with a £500,000 grant from Tata in 1974, TERI is one of the largest indigenous Indian NGOs, with assets estimated to be worth £40 million. The British taxpayer can be proud that it has helped in a small way to make Dr Pachauri's institute such a success. (Richard North, EU Referendum)

BUENOS AIRES – A 7-month-old baby survived alone for three days with a bullet wound in its chest beside the bodies of its parents and brother, who died in an apparent suicide pact brought on by the couple’s terror of global warming, the Argentine press said Saturday.

The incident, reported by the daily Clarin, occurred in a modest dwelling in the city of Goya in the northeastern province of Corrientes, where Francisco Lotero, 56, and Miriam Coletti, 22, lived with their two small children.

According to sources cited by the Buenos Aires morning paper, the couple’s neighbors smelled Thursday a strong odor coming from the Lotero’s house.

Police entered the home and found a Dantesque scene: the lifeless bodies of the couple, each shot in the chest, and their 2-year-old son, who had been shot in the back.

In another room police found a 7-month-old baby still alive but covered in blood from a bullet wound in the chest. It was taken to hospital immediately and its condition is improving hourly, according to doctors’ reports.

The cops found a letter on the table alluding to the couple’s worry about global warming and their anger at the government’s lack of interest in the matter. (Latin American Herald Tribune)

Al Gore won a Nobel Prize and an Oscar for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. But in the last three months, as global warming has gone from a scientific near-certitude to the subject of satire, Gore -- the public face of global warming -- has been mum on the topic. (Gene J. Koprowski, FOXNews.com)

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it. (Al Gore, NYT)

The New York Times have published an op-ed that is bound to become a subject of jokes:

The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails has been accused of making a misleading statement to Parliament. (The Times)

Memorandum submitted by Dr Benny Peiser to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (GWPF)

This submission in effect warns that this recent warming may not be unprecedented, after all, and those that claim it is may have been blinded by bias or simply fiddled their results and suppressed dissent.

I’ll repeat: Climategate reveals the greatest scientific scandal of our lifetime. (Andrew Bolt)

I promised I would write about Post Normal Science. The Institute of Physics has given me the perfect peg. It has just made the following devastating submission to the Parliamentary investigation into the Climategate scandal. It argues that the behaviour of the scientists involved has “worrying implications” for “the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.” (James Delingpole, TDT)

In this story from The Australian, we have the ludicrous double-irony of subscribers paying to read a story that disguises how their own taxpayer dollars are used against them to fund the propaganda that’s used to justify milking them for more taxpayer dollars….

Sometimes, you’d think media releases from science associations and universities were Commandments from God.

If football associations put out media releases that tried to whitewash the news of clubs rampantly breaking rules, or of officials letting them get away with it, or of umpires placing bets on the outcome of games they rule over, the sports journos would bake the officials, grill the umpires, and lampoon the clubs. But, when the topic is “science”, and the spokespeople have polysyllabic titles, they are untouchable.

Admittedly, there is that other effect: advertising. The Higher Education Supplement is designed to sell advertising space to universities, and asking the top dogs biting-hard questions is probably not the way to win big contracts (the journalists might be cynical, but Australian universities are a $12 billion dollar industry). And look in the last budget: There’s a neat pink icing on the cake in the graph below, thanks to the man-made theory of global warming. That pink icing is worth $100 million dollars to Australian universities annually, and most of that money for clean energy research heads to members of science associations (and not to the legal, architectural, arts, or physical ed. departments).

New Higher Education Funding Australia

Many of their utterances would evaporate under the weight of a single half-baked question. More » (Jo Nova)

26 Feb 10 - Dr Nils-Axel Mörner, geologist, physicist, and one-time expert reviewer for the IPCC, announced this week that, contrary to IPCC claims, sea levels are not rising.

"Sea level is not changing in any way, " said Dr Mörner in an hour-long interview with Kim Greenhouse of "It's Rainmaking Time."

Dr. Mörner, who received his PhD in geology in 1969, is one of the greatest - if not the greatest - experts on sea levels in the world today. He has worked with sea level problems for 40 years in areas scattered all over the globe

There is no change, says Mörner. There is absolutely no sea-level rise in Tuvalo, there is no change here, and there is zero sea-level rise in Bangladesh. If anything, sea levels have lowered in Bangladesh.

We do not need to fear sea-level rise, says Mörner. However, "we should have a fear of those people who fooled us."

Listen to interview here:
http://itsrainmakingtime.com/2010/nilsaxelmorner/

Also see an article that I posted a couple of years ago about Dr. Mörner:
Claim that sea level is rising is a total fraud

You can email Dr Mörner ( morner@pog.nu ) to purchase a copy of his booklet 'The Greatest Lie Ever Told' (Ice Age Now)

The IPCC -gates have so far mainly been a feature of Working Group 2, which looks at the potential impacts of climate change. As Hans von Storch explains in the introduction to a posting by Richard Tol, this is not because the other areas of the IPCC report deserve a clean bill of health.

Friday, February 26, 2010; A24

The Post deserves kudos for the Feb. 22 editorial "Climate insurance." Although it may not be recognized as such in today's political landscape, the prudent approach called for by The Post is a decidedly conservative one.

In the 1980s, scientists were sounding the alarm about ozone depletion. Just as today, there were skeptics claiming that the problem was not real. Thankfully, President Ronald Reagan ignored those skeptics -- some of whom were in his own administration. He acted on the science, which was far less solid than current knowledge about climate change, and pushed through the Montreal Protocol treaty, which began to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals.

Today, our ozone layer is healing because Reagan took prudent and decisive action to address the threat based on the best available science at the time. He did not wring his hands and wait for evidential certainty that might have come too late.

Reagan understood that to be a true conservative, you also have to be a good steward -- a fact that those who claim to be emulating him today seem to have forgotten.

David Jenkins, Oakton

The writer is vice president for government and political affairs at Republicans for Environmental Protection. (The Washington Post)

These are notes taken from a discussion meeting at Oxford University on 26^th February 2010 and sent to me by reader, Simon Anthony. I think they are extremely interesting.

Question and answer format featuring environmental correspondents Richard Black (BBC), Fiona Harvey (FT), David Adam (Guardian) and Ben Jackson (Sun) and chaired by Fiona Fox, director of the Science Media Centre.

FF: Has the press done a disservice to the public in reporting CG? Has media a responsibility to make the public “think the right way”?

How has the World's largest encyclopaedia been covering the Climate Change debate? (Martin Cohen, Philosophical Investigations)

If the predictions were true, the people of Ivalo would be gone, the first wave of refugees in a human tide caused by climate change.

Their river valley Arctic village in northeastern Finland is the first really unambiguous victim of melting polar caps. Starting around 2005, much of the village was suddenly below sea level.

There's no question that global warming is having its way with Ivalo. But the human effects are not what we expected.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has claimed in its reports that the most profound single impact of climate change will be “climate migration” – the displacement of as many as 200 million poor people to big cities and other countries due to flooding, shoreline erosion or drought.

But when social scientist Monica Tennberg and her team went to study this village of 3,500 members of the Sami people (Europe's counterpart to the Inuit), she was surprised: Despite effects as serious as those of the most grave climate forecasts, the people of Ivalo didn't migrate.

When the river level encroached on their village, they did some very innovative things: They drew on networks of truckers and had them deliver loads of sand to make Dutch-style levies. And they moved to higher ground and changed their fishing systems.

“If you listen to the IPCC, you might think that the indigenous peoples are the most vulnerable to climate change,” Ms. Tennberg, who is by no means a climate-change skeptic or denier, told me when I visited her at the University of Lapland this month. “But the story here turned out to be that local people are very innovative in their ways of dealing with threats. People are very poor, but they are very determined to find new ways of doing things.”

There is Sami migration, to work seasonally in cities, but it has nothing to do with climate (those affected migrate the least), and its urbanizing effect has helped them pay for climate adaptation.

In fact, Ms. Tennberg pointed out, those most vulnerable to climate change are the wealthy, who have fixed, expensive infrastructure and buildings in climate-vulnerable locations. Luckily, their countries have the resources to combat rising sea levels, as residents of Amsterdam, London and Venice already know.

Ms. Tennberg's studies are far from alone. The two most respected experts on human migration have both studied the issue in detail and concluded that climate migration is a non-phenomenon. This century will be dominated by human movement, but not one caused by temperature. ( Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail)

Research by hurricane scientists may force the UN’s climate panel to reconsider its claims that greenhouse gas emissions have caused an increase in the number of tropical storms. (Jonathan Leake, Sunday Times)

Robert Ehrlich, a physicist at George Mason University, offers a new mathematical model of hurricane formation which appears finally to solve one of the outstanding puzzles of climate change; the model also predicts dramatic increases in the number of storms as the world warms (HSNW)

Of course U.S. EPA is correct in their finding that the human influence on climate (aka anthropogenic global warming) poses a threat to human welfare. And no wonder why Obama science advisor John Holdren has not disowned his prediction that as many as one billion people could perish by 2020 from climate change.

The evidence is in this complete list of things caused by global warming (reproduced verbatim from the linked website): (MasterResource)

Ben Santer has an article over at RealClimate defending himself against some claims made recently by Fred Pearce in a series of articles Pearce did for the U.K.’s Guardian in recent weeks.

In particular, Santer discusses a 1996 paper that he (and colleagues) published in Nature magazine in which they reported to have identified a human fingerprint on global temperature change. Well, actually, in his RealClimate article Santer primarily discusses his Response to a Comment that WCR’s Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger published in Nature that pointed out that had Santer et al. used the full observational period of record available at the time they published their original paper (instead of a truncated one), that Santer et al.’s statements “about the strength of the evidence for human alteration of the lower tropospheric climate must be tempered.” (WCR)

Close to the mood of the public, that is what the Daily Express is telling its readers – with some panache, putting their injunction on the front page.

Our dedicated band of climate "scientists" have a real problem here, as the paper declares that they "stunned" Britons suffering the coldest winter for 30 years by claiming last month was the hottest January the world has ever seen.

The legend is conveyed to us by Australian "weather expert" professor Neville Nicholls, of Monash University in Melbourne. He is cited as saying: "January, according to satellite data, was the hottest January we've ever seen." He adds: "It's not warming the same everywhere but it is really quite challenging to find places that haven't warmed in the past 50 years."

But we also get UK forecaster Jonathan Powell, of Positive Weather Solutions. He tells us: "If it is the case and it is borne out that January was the hottest on record, it is still no marker towards climate change." Powell then adds: "It's all part of a cyclical issue and nothing should be read too deeply into that."

He continues: "It's been the coldest for 30 years in Britain but we predicted that and climate change always tends to throw up anomalies. It's all in line with predictions and I won't be sold on climate change at all. The data is (sic) either faulty or manufactured to make it look like it shouldn't."

There is, of course, no question about the latter assertion. The "global" temperature is manufactured. It isn't real. All it represents is a particular value from a particular set of heavily adjusted temperature measurements, assembled using questionable and less than transparent methodology.

The flaws in the whole concept were pointed out by none other than James Hansen, and now the absurdity is being revisited, with predictable results. Given what has been made of it though, tears rather than laughter are perhaps more appropriate. (Richard North, EU Referendum)

This is the line that appears before Bill McKibben’s article, “Climate Change’s OJ Simpson Moment“, which is currently touring the alarmist circuit.

It’s already a statement that only functions as an alarmist shibboleth, because it only makes sense when alarmist presuppositions are held. Let’s start at the top, then. (Climate Resistance)

Whenever a skeptic points out a new paper or journal article refuting some claim made by the theory of anthropogenic global warming, climate change alarmists often shout “cherry picking!” Evidently, most climate change true believers do not understand how science works or how theories are tested. Scientific theories must make predictions by which they can be tested. Providing evidence that AGW has failed in its predictions is not cherry picking, it is refutation. Unfortunately, when confronted with failed predictions the standard alarmist answer is to disavow the predictions. They will say that those are not predictions at all, they are projections—and that means AGW is not a scientific theory at all.

I recently received a long email from a friend, who is a global warming believer, regarding my earlier post, “Why I Am A Global Warming Skeptic.” This friend is an educated person, a philosopher but not a scientist. In reading his objections and counter arguments to my points I found a number of common misunderstandings that arise when laymen try to jump into a scientific debate. In this report I will address some, but by no means all of my friend's objections.

Having written previously on how to judge global warming as a scientific theory, perhaps it is time to recap some of that discussion. In The Resilient Earth, we wrote about the philosophy of science and how scientific theories are formulated and then validated. Science is both a body of knowledge and an approach to understanding nature by gaining more knowledge. It is based on gathering empirical evidence.

Empirical means simply what belongs to or is the product of experience or observation. If you can touch it, smell it, feel it, see it or measure it, it's empirical. Collecting empirical data through observation or experimentation is how the correctness of theories is established. It is also how theories are found to be invalid.

An important point is that, in order to be testable, a theory must make predictions about how nature behaves. This idea comes from the work of Karl Popper, one of the important philosophers of the 20^th century. Popper, who early in life was a communist, came to consider democracy the only form of government in which reason is celebrated. He identified Plato, Marx and Hegel as the greatest enemies of democracy in his 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies. As interesting as Popper's philosophy regarding society and politics was, it is his work on the philosophy of science that interests us here.

Popper made the following observations as to what makes a good scientific theory:

Popper made a distinction between what he termed conditional scientific predictions, which have the form “If X takes place, then Y will take place,” and unconditional scientific prophecies, which have the form “Y will take place.” It is the former rather than the latter which are typical of the natural sciences. This means that predictions made by scientific theories are typically conditional and limited in scope—taking the form of a hypothetical assertion stating that certain specified changes will come about if particular preceding events take place. Conversely, if X takes place and Y does not, then the hypothesis must be false. (Doug L. Hoffman, The Resilient Earth)

Richard Lindzen PhD, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was recently invited to give a talk entitled "The Peculiar Issue of Global Warming" at Fermilab 2/10/10 which you can watch in its entirety with slides here. Dr. Lindzen calmly eviscerates the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) and the IPCC "consensus". Highly recommended. Some of the key slides from the presentation are archived at the link below. Below are 3 slides from the presentation, the first noting that the theory of intelligent design sounds rigorous by comparison to the theory of anthropogenic global warming, the second noting that 3 pro-CAGW publications have already acknowledged that temperature data has contradicted the man-made attribution assumption (primarily CO2), which is the inherent assumption of the IPCC models, and the third noting that the fundamental assumption of CAGW that there is positive feedback by water vapor due to CO2 is "likely wrong". (Hockey Schtick)

Edward Long, a retired NASA physicist, wrote a fascinating 14-page paper for SPPI that needs to be read and verified:

INTRODUCTION
As I discussed in my last post, I’m exploring the International Surface Hourly (ISH) weather data archived by NOAA to see how a simple reanalysis of original weather station temperature data compares to the Jones CRUTem3 land-based temperature dataset.

While the Jones temperature analysis relies upon the GHCN network of ‘climate-approved’ stations whose number has been rapidly dwindling in recent years, I’m using original data from stations whose number has been actually growing over time. I use only stations operating over the entire period of record so there are no spurious temperature trends caused by stations coming and going over time. Also, while the Jones dataset is based upon daily maximum and minimum temperatures, I am computing an average of the 4 temperature measurements at the standard synoptic reporting times of 06, 12, 18, and 00 UTC. (Roy W. Spencer)

Climate models project that the global average temperature will rise about 1°C by the middle of the century, if we continue with business as usual and emit greenhouse gases as we have been. The global average, though, does not tell us anything about what will happen to regional climates, for example rainfall in the western United States or in paradisical islands like Hawai'i.

Analyzing global model warming projections in models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a team of scientists headed by meteorologist Shang-Ping Xie at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa's International Pacific Research Center, finds that ocean temperature patterns in the tropics and subtropics will change in ways that will lead to significant changes in rainfall patterns. The study will be published in the Journal of Climate this month, breaking ground on such regional climate forecasts. (University of Hawaii at Manoa)

Mahmood, R., R.A. Pielke Sr., K.G. Hubbard, D. Niyogi, G. Bonan, P. Lawrence, B. Baker, R. McNider, C. McAlpine, A. Etter, S. Gameda, B. Qian, A. Carleton, A. Beltran-Przekurat, T. Chase, A.I. Quintanar, J.O. Adegoke, S. Vezhapparambu, G. Conner, S. Asefi, E. Sertel, D.R. Legates, Y. Wu, R. Hale, O.W. Frauenfeld, A. Watts, M. Shepherd, C. Mitra, V.G. Anantharaj, S. Fall,R. Lund, A. Nordfelt, P. Blanken, J. Du, H.-I. Chang, R. Leeper, U.S. Nair, S. Dobler, R. Deo, and J. Syktus, 2010: Impacts of land use land cover change on climate and future research priorities. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 91, 37–46, DOI: 10.1175/2009BAMS2769.1

has appeared in print (see our earlier announcement about it) which I repeat with some added text from the article here (Climate Science)

Buying pet coke keeps a domestic energy source from going overseas, gasifying it creates a low carbon supply of electricity and sequestering the carbon reduces the number of wells needed to meet oil demand and also keeps carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. (Eric Lidji, GoO)

Yesterday's post on carbon capture and storage (CCS) provoked a worrisome e-mail drawing attention to a piece in the Canada Free Press, the headline of which declares: "Geologic Carbon Storage Can NEVER Work, says new US study."

The study, in fact, is not that new - it was first aired in October 2009, by two Texan petroleum engineers, professors Christine and Michael Economides. But the findings are unequivocal and damning. Reservoir volume required to store CO2 has been vastly under-estimated and far more hugely expensive injection wells will be needed than has been anticipated.

One study, of course, cannot be taken as the last word on such a complex subject, but a wider review of the issue yields remarkably little more information. What does emerge, however, is a commentary from Imperial College, which seems to offer some support for these claims.

One key aspect of CO2 storage that has been largely ignored to date, we are told, is the issue of injection rate into the subsurface. A typical 1GW coal-fired power plant produces 20,000 tons of CO2 per day, which must be injected into an aquifer at this daily rate for decades.

In two ongoing CO2 storage demonstration projects, we also learn, it has proved impossible to inject CO2 at the predicted rate without exceeding the fracture pressure of the aquifer formation. Conversely, each injection well costs millions of dollars and has an environmental impact on the surface so it is not acceptable to drill too many wells.

Further problems arise in salt water aquifers where there is competition between salt precipitation and carbonate dissolution. Precisely what happens over the long term is not known. But there are some fears that, as volume of CO2 injected increases, injecting even more could get harder (and more expensive) rather than easier. It could even be the case that the energy required to pump the CO2 exceeds that of the power station producing it.

Michael Economides explores his own paper, produced with "the smarter Economides", his wife, in another article, where he calls CO2 sequestration a "fantasy". In yet another, he argues that, just to service the CO2 output of a 500 MW power plant – producing about 3 million tons per year – the reservoir needed would be enormous, the size of a small US state.

For those reasons, we are told that geologic sequestration of CO2 is "a profoundly non-feasible option for the management of CO2 emissions". And Economides is now trying to save the state of Wyoming from wasting a mere $45 million on CCS research. There is no need to research this subject any longer, he writes. Let's try something else.

As it stands, no one is in a position to dispute these assertions, not even (or especially) Joan Ruddock, currently minister of state for Energy and Climate Change. Speaking in last Wednesday's Commons debate on the Energy Bill, she told the House:

Lobbyists bid to turn RBS, BP and Shell annual meetings into green referendums (Terry Macalister, The Observer)

SACRAMENTO, California, February 25, 2010 - California today fulfilled its commitment to establish the nation's first greenhouse gas standard for passenger vehicles by allowing federal greenhouse gas standards to fully comply with California's standards for model years 2012 to 2016.

The regulation adopted unanimously today by the California Air Resources Board allows cars that comply with the federal greenhouse gas standards for model years 2012 to 2016 to also comply with California's standards for each of those years. The two standards differ slightly, but reach the same levels by 2016. (ENS)

LONDON, Feb 25 - The British government is to give up to 5,000 pounds ($7,668) to anyone who buys an "ultra-low carbon" car from next year and will build recharging hubs, the Department of Transport said on Thursday.

The Plug-in Car Grant of 25 percent towards the purchase price, capped at 5,000 pounds, will be available across Britain for both private and business fleet buyers from January 2011, by which time a range of eligible vehicles should be on sale.

"By this time next year, cutting edge motorists will be on the roads with these next generation cars they've purchased because of our help," Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis said.

Only battery electric, plug-in hybrids with emissions of less than 75 g/km, or hydrogen fuel cell cars will be eligible for part of the 230 million pound total fund. (Reuters)

Following the Copenhagen Climate Summit which ended in stalemate last December, the President of Bolivia is seizing the initiative and hosting a People’s World Summit on Climate Change in Cochabamba this April. One of the key documents for discussion will be a Draft Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.

The political dynamic here is really interesting. For one thing, it’s the first time a self-identified indigenous leader is taking such a commanding role on the world stage. For another, Evo Morales revels in attacking the ‘global capitalist system’ which he says has dominated world affairs in the modern era and which he blames for the global ecological crisis. (livingforest)

Despite the debacle of the failed Copenhagen climate change conference last December, the United Nations is pressing full speed ahead with a plan for a greatly expanded system of global environmental governance and for a multitrillion-dollar economic transfer scheme to ignite the creation of a "global green economy."

In other words: Copenhagen without the authority — yet — of Copenhagen.

The world body even has chosen a time and a place for the culmination of the process: a World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, the 20th anniversary of the famed "Earth Summit" that gave focus and urgency to the world environmentalist movement.

The 2012 summit date is significant for another reason: It marks the end of the legal term of agreement for the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, which includes carbon reduction targets, and provided the legal basis for an international cap-and-trade market for carbon, centered in Europe. The U.S. first signed then backed away from the Kyoto deal without ratifying it; until its apparent collapse, the comprehensive Copenhagen deal was intended to include the U.S. and supplant Kyoto with a new, legally binding regime.

The new Rio summit will end, according to U.N. documents obtained by Fox News, with a "focused political document" presumably laying out the framework and international commitments to a new Green World Order. (George Russell, FNC)

24 February 2010 – The window of opportunity to preserve the Earth’s natural capital is diminishing rapidly, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated today, highlighting the need for improved international governance to close the gap between aspirations for environmental sustainability and real-life achievements.

“Coherent and effective international environmental governance architecture can provide a foundation for human well-being for generations to come. I urge you to be bold and creative in putting forward new ideas,” Mr. Ban said in a message delivered on his behalf to a special session of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum in Bali, Indonesia. (UN News)

NUSA DUA, Indonesia - A World Environment Organization, similar to the World Trade Organization, could be formed as part of environmental governance reform, a meeting of environment ministers decided on Friday. (Reuters)

With more than a trillion dollars a year going towards green technology, companies, cities, countries, even whole continents are proving Kermit wrong. It’s easy to be green

Clean technologies are a $1-trillion per year global industry. Who will snatch this prize by being among the clean tech leaders?

The United Arab Emirates is “in the forefront as a global pioneer of green technologies,” stated His Excellency Dr. Salem M. Al Dhaheri, Director-General of the country’s Federal Environmental Agency.

“India could achieve lower carbon emissions while becoming a world leader in green technologies,” according to the World Economic Forum’s India Economic Summit.

The Central African Republic was rated tops in sustainable environmental development, according to The Ecologist magazine, beating out runner-ups Bolivia and Mongolia.

Green jobs have been the foundation to any of President Obama’s jobs speeches. “Building a robust clean energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future,” he said in a speech last month. We’ve long argued that subsidizing jobs comes at the expense of others and will result in net job losses. Sunil Sharan, director of the Smart Grid Initiative at GE from 2008 to 2009, details in the Washington Post how smart metering will create jobs but destroy many more in the process:

"Green jobs" have become a central underpinning of the Obama administration's rationale to promote clean energy. But how valid is the assumption that a "clean-energy" economy will generate enough jobs to mitigate today's high level of unemployment -- new jobless claims were up 22,000 this week -- and to meet the needs of future generations? A green economy would have to spout jobs in the millions to do both. The facts challenge the prevailing thinking among some policymakers and officials that green jobs are a principal reason for transforming the economy. (Sunil Sharan, Washington Post)

LEAVING the car at home and catching a train to work may not be as good for the environment as you think.

Vehicles sitting in the sun for days at a time can spew out damaging hydrocarbons – one of the main ingredients in smog, a federal government study has found.

Hydrocarbons are in the vapour that escapes from petrol tanks on a warm day. Most newer cars have canisters that trap them before they are released but if cars are left sitting for longer than 24 hours the canisters can fill up and stop working until the vehicle is driven, the Second National In-Service Emissions Study found.

As many as 3 million Australian cars may not conform to Australian standards for evaporative emissions.

"The results indicate that when vehicles are parked in warm conditions for an extended period (more than a day), the evaporative emission control systems may not be able to effectively control the build-up of evaporative hydrocarbons, as even the latest systems are only designed to provide effective control for a continuous 24-hour period," the report said. (SMH)

The old saying that where there is muck, there is money is very true in Victoria. The Brumby government wants to convert Melbourne's waste disposal system from using landfill sites to high-tech alternative waste treatment plants. These are no more efficient at dealing with greenhouse gas emissions than best practice landfill disposal and are about three times more expensive than the landfill alternative.

The high-tech alternative looks like a no-brainer. But it mirrors the Victorian government's water policy - choosing the desalination option over water conservation and recycling, even though the latter would cost no more than a sixth of desalinated water.

In Victoria the operational partner in the Wonthaggi desal plant is Degremont, a subsidiary of the French water and environment multinational Suez.

SITA is Suez's environmental subsidiary. SITA's former marketing and communications manager, Mike Ritchie, has spent the past four years extolling the virtues of alternative waste plants. He claims landfills are the villains when it comes to climate change and encourages state governments to raise levies so that alternative treatment plants are price competitive against landfills.

It is an interesting paradox. Alternative treatment plants are only targeted at household waste, yet the Degremont arm of Suez plans to use the highly toxic ferric chloride, which produces equally toxic and unstable sludge. This must go to a prescribed waste landfill. The only prescribed landfill in Victoria is owned by SITA.

The iron chloride sludge produced over the 28-year life of the desal contract could cover the equivalent of the Melbourne CBD up to knee-deep. So SITA would be the front-runner for dumping the iron chloride waste in its landfill. It will remain toxic for as long as the dump exists and long after the desal plant is turned off and SITA is just a memory.

It seems the profits will be SITA's - or go to whichever other multinational gets the contract - and the risks will be for future generations. (SMH)

Richard Nixon declared War on Cancer in his 1971 State of the Union. Barack Obama devoted one sentence to our investment in promising innovative research in cancer. He mentioned the potential solar treatment that can kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells untouched. Nixon may have employed a metaphor of "overkill" in fighting a terrible disease, but Obama slighted the subject, despite earlier statements about wanting "a cure for cancer in our time."

Fortunately, the rates of new diagnoses and rates of death from all cancers combined have declined significantly in the past decade for men and women and for racial and ethnic populations in the United States, according to the National Cancer Institute. No small thing. But if you document the emotional fears over cancer articulated in personal experiences that scientists call "anecdotal evidence," the incidence of cancer seems incredibly high. (Suzanne Fields, Townhall)

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, February 25, 2010 - Planned shipments of depleted uranium from the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River nuclear materials processing center in South Carolina will not be shipped to Utah under an agreement negotiated Monday by Utah Governor Gary Herbert.

"This is a monumental win for the State of Utah," Governor Herbert said. "At one point, we were told these trains were all but on the tracks, making their way to Utah. The Department of Energy has now agreed, after we registered our concerns, that those trains will head elsewhere."

The governor emphasized that, in addition to halting planned shipments, "the Department of Energy has agreed it will take back the depleted uranium it sent in December if we cannot implement disposal processes that ensure the long-term health and safety of all Utahns." (ENS)

WASHINGTON - The federal agency that investigates health risks is concerned that the chemical bisphenol A may harm people and is spending $20 million to study the substance, widely used in food containers, a U.S. official said on Thursday.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has launched 11 new animal studies to investigate the possible effects of bisphenol A or BPA, NIEHS director Linda Birnbaum told Congress.

"There are concerns about multiple possible health effects of BPA exposure," Birnbaum told a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Energy and Environment Subcommittee.

"While much of the exposure to BPA in humans occurs through the diet, other sources of exposure include air, dust and water," she told the hearing, called to examine endocrine disruptors in drinking water.

Endocrine disruptors are natural or synthetic chemicals that may interfere with or mimic human hormones that regulate growth and development. (Reuters)

Councils pledge to limit growth of fast-food outlets as nutritionists bid to make meals healthier – without customers noticing (Denis Campbell, The Observer)

Just a quarter of Australians are at a healthy weight, according to a study which also put the total cost of caring for the nation's overweight and obese people at more than $56 billion a year.

Direct health care and other related costs totalled $21 billion, according to a study published in the Medical Journal of Australia, while government subsidies cost another $35.6 billion a year.

Prof Stephen Colagiuri, Professor of Metabolic Health at the University of Sydney, and his co-authors analysed data from the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle study, collected in 1999-2000 and 2004-2005.

He said the research took account of all costs - borne by individuals and the tax-paying public - which flow from the problem of being overweight or obese.

"Traditionally, studies report only costs associated with obesity and rarely take overweight into account," Prof Colagiuri said in a statement.

"We found that the direct cost of overweight and obesity in Australia is significantly higher than previous estimates. (AAP)

NEW YORK - New research from Australia confirms that the HIN1 flu hits pregnant women particularly hard-especially if they have asthma, obesity or diabetes.

"This finding underscores the importance of education regarding recommendations for vaccination in pregnancy and the need for rapid testing and earlier use of antivirals in suspected influenza," Dr. Michelle L. Giles of Monash Medical Center in Clayton, Victoria, and her colleagues write. (Reuters Health)

WASHINGTON — The longer people use cannabis or marijuana, the more likely they are to experience hallucinations or delusions or to suffer psychosis, according to a study released Saturday.

The study found that people who first used cannabis when they were aged 15 or younger were twice as likely to develop a "non-affective psychosis" -- which can include schizophrenia -- than those who had never used the drug. (AFP)

LONDON - Hopes of discovering treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome dimmed on Friday after a new study cast doubt on previous findings that a virus linked to prostate cancer might also be associated with the condition.

A Dutch research team investigated a possible link in a European group of patients with the fatigue disorder, also known as ME, that affects 17 million people worldwide, but found no evidence of the virus, known as XMRV.

The findings in the British Medical Journal were the latest to contradict a U.S. study published last year that found XMRV in the blood of 68 out of 101 patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

That study prompted hopes that CFS patients might benefit from a range of drugs designed to fight AIDS, cancer and inflammation.

CFS, or myalgic encephalitis (ME), is a debilitating condition that causes disabling physical and mental fatigue that does not improve with rest. (Reuters)

The unique relationship between dolphins and humans dates back to at least ancient Greece, where they were revered as being helpful to sailors. In fact, killing a dolphin in that culture could be punishable by death. But do dolphins have special powers that can cure humans?

Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT) stems from the collaboration between Hank Truby—a linguist and acoustic phonetician—and fabled dolphin researcher John Lilly, MD. Lilly was convinced that dolphins could mimic human speech patterns, and published a number of scientific papers on the subject. Less well-publicized is that his findings that the animals knowingly uttered human words have never been replicated.

Among his many other interests, Lilly was a proponent of psychedelic drugs and believed that he was in psychic contact with aliens, who guided him to his work with dolphins. He considered dolphins to be psychic conduits between aliens and humans. (Michael D. Shaw, Health News Digest)

Do private companies want to kill their customers?

It seems like a goofy question. Clearly, if a company killed its customers, there’d be nobody to buy its products and it’d go out of business. But many liberals don’t see it that way. In their eyes, a powerful government is all that’s protecting us from dangerous killer corporations. Look no further than the infamous health-care summit for proof.

“We could set up a system where food was probably cheaper than it is right now,” President Obama explained, “if we just eliminated meat inspectors and -- and we eliminated any regulations in terms of how food’s distributed and how it’s stored.”

Well, yes we could. And why would that be bad, exactly? “I’ll bet, in terms of drug prices, we would definitely reduce prescription drug prices if we didn’t have a drug administration that makes sure that we test the drugs so that they don’t kill us,” the president concluded.

So, meat companies, drug manufacturers -- they’d apparently be happy to kill you if they could. Just be glad you’ve got Washington’s efficient bureaucrats standing between you and them. (Rich Tucker, Townhall)

CAMBRIDGE, UK, February 22, 2010 - A working group of the International Whaling Commission today released a draft proposal that would allow the return of commercial whaling. An IWC moratorium on commercial whaling has been in place since 1986. (ENS)

Spanish scientists have studied interactions between the loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) and fishing gear such as longline hooks used at the water surface, mass beachings, and the effects of climate change on these animals. In order to reduce captures of this marine species without causing economic losses for fishermen, the scientists are proposing that fishing in the summer should only be carried out by night and in areas more than 35 nautical miles from land. (FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology)

Lynx, brown bears, wolves and elk are among a range of animals being considered for reintroduction to the countryside centuries after they died out in Britain. (TDT)

NEW YORK, New York, February 25, 2010 - Grizzly bears are roaming into what has been traditionally thought of as polar bear habitat in the Canadian province of Manitoba, where they are officially listed as extirpated, new research has found.

Biologists affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History, City College of the City University of New York have observed grizzly bears, Ursus arctos horribilis, in Canada's Wapusk National Park.

Located along the shores of the Hudson Bay, in the northern tip of Manitoba, the park protects one of the world's largest known polar bear maternity denning areas. The grizzlies were seen either along rivers known to harbor fish or in an area known for berries. (ENS)

Polar bears may have come into existence only 150,000 years ago, when brown bears were trapped by an ice age and had to adapt quickly to survive, scientists have found.

The suggestion follows the discovery of the jawbone of an animal that died up to 130,000 years ago, making it the oldest polar bear fossil found. The bone has yielded new insights into the origins of Earth’s largest land predator.

One is the possibility that polar bears owe their existence not only to past climate change, including ice ages, but have also survived at least one long period of global warming. (Jonathan Leake, Sunday Times)

Losing life’s variety - 2010 is the deadline set for reversing declines in biodiversity, but little has been accomplished

No silly hats or shouted countdowns. But entomologist Scott Miller is hosting a small event to mark the beginning of 2010, which the United Nations has declared the International Year of Biodiversity. Miller’s occasion is low-key, on a weekday, before noon even, and there’s no bubbly in sight. But there are other reasons for not quite calling this a celebration.

This is a poignant year for anyone who cares about the rich diversity of life on planet Earth. 2010 was supposed to be a milestone. The 193 nations participating in a treaty called the Convention on Biological Diversity had agreed to “achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth.”

Fat chance. The official document assessing the 2010 global outlook for biodiversity won’t be released until May, but conservationists and trend watchers predict at best a few bright points among worsening losses. Even a preview statement from the treaty secretariat says that, as of late January, “all the indications are that the 2010 target has not been met.”

Policy has achieved little for bio-diversity, but scientists have fared better in coming to understand just what biodiversity means for the fundamental workings of an ecosystem. From grasslands to oceans, ecologists are finding that greater diversity tends to boost an ecosystem’s productivity and reinforce its stability.

Biologists around the world are thus bootstrapping themselves out of despair and seizing the occasion to explain biodiversity and why it matters. (ScienceNews)

LOS ANGELES - Drought-stricken farmers and cities across California were granted a measure of relief on Friday when federal and state officials said they expected to supply significantly more water this year than last.

The announcements came as welcome news in the nation's No. 1 farm state, where dramatic cutbacks in water deliveries by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the state Water Resources Department had idled thousands of farm workers and 300,000 acres of cropland.

Shortages have also forced cities and counties to ration water, raise rates and impose strict mandatory conservation measures that turned lawns brown and left cars unwashed.

But a series of strong winter storms that could mark the end of a three-year drought has left several feet of snow on the Sierra Nevada mountain range that serves as California's principal source of surface water. (Reuters)

WHILE the Top End and Central Australia have been battered by torrential rains, a Territory town has had fish falling from the sky.

The freak phenomena happened not once, but twice, on Thursday and Friday afternoon about 6pm at Lajamanu, about 550km southwest of Katherine.

...

Lajamanu sits on the edge of the Tanami Desert, hundreds of kilometres from Lake Argyle and Lake Elliott and even further from the coast. But it's not the first time the remote community has been bombarded by fins from above.

In 2004, locals reported fish falling from the sky, and in 1974, a similar incident captured international headlines.

The small white fish are believed to be spangled perch, which are very common through much of northern Australia.

Weather bureau senior forecaster Ashley Patterson said the geological conditions were perfect on Friday for a tornado in the Douglas Daly region.

He said it would have been an ideal weather situation to allow the phenomena to occur - but no tornados have been reported to the authority.

"It's a very unusual event," he said. "With an updraft, (fish and water picked up) could get up high - up to 60,000 or 70,000 feet.

"Or possibly from a tornado over a large water body - but we haven't had any reports," he said. (Northern Territory News)