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.

The money trail shows more moola going to those promoting man-made global warming hokum than to skeptics.

Joanne Nova at ABC (Australia).

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.

No.

Recent news of mammoth icebergs the size of small U.S. states breaking off Antarctica may sound dire. But those events mostly represent business as usual at the world’s southernmost continent, scientists say.

A massive iceberg the size of the state of Rhode Island collided with Antarctica’s Mertz Glacier in mid-February, and caused a huge new iceberg with an estimated mass of 860 billion metric tons to break off the glacial tongue. Scientists note that such dramatic examples have not been uncommon over the past decade.

“I need to stress that the event in the Mertz area, and indeed most of the iceberg calving in Antarctica is a completely normal, expected activity for a stable ice sheet,” said Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.

Al Gore has refused to debate climate change in public. Today, the New York Times presents him with a platform.

His opening graf:

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.

Set aside his hype and hysteria. That sentence makes no sense grammatically: attacks do not indicate anything.

This gibbberish is the work of a supposedly smart man? (Well, okay, Gore did say the earth’s core was several million degrees).

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 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.

A) We have oil reserves but the Democrats won’t let us touch it. B) As hip as Gore fancies himself, he’s missing out on the real energy revolution — natural gas. If you missed our post on this, read here.)

And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.

Bullshit. Green jobs are a chimera.

But what a burden would be lifted! We would no longer have to worry that our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation that had selfishly and blithely ignored clear warnings that their fate was in our hands.

Me? I’m more worried my grandchildren will ask why we spent the nation into debt and stuck them with the bill.

We could instead celebrate the naysayers who had doggedly persisted in proving that every major National Academy of Sciences report on climate change had simply made a huge mistake.

Now, you’re on the right track.

OneCosmos:

We all know that there are economic bubbles that inevitably burst and punish investors for their irrational exuberance and willing suspension of disbelief about the laws of economics.

In fact, it seems that these bubbles are not so much built into the free market system as built into man, since we have more or less averaged about one per generation over the past two or three centuries. Thus, the “law of the economic bubble” is a painful lesson that each generation must learn anew.

I’m not an economist, but it seems to me that a bubble occurs when price outruns value, and it bursts when price returns to value, i.e., its actual worth. In 2006, the price of my house was absurdly higher than its value. In fact, even now its price is too high, but that’s California for you.

But this is not a post about economics; or perhaps we could say that it is about “psycho-spiritual economics,” for what I would like to suggest is that what occurs in economics reflects a deeper principle, and that there also exist intellectual and spiritual bubbles that eventually burst and send their investors hurtling to the ground.

To cite the most recent dramatic example, the climate change industry has been revealed to be a classic intellectual bubble. As with economic bubbles, its worth as a scientific theory became absurdly overvalued, to the point that more and more outrageous claims were required to prop it up. People were willing to pay the price, so long as the illusion of value was maintained. But since the bubble has burst, intellectuals who invested heavily in it are left holding penny stocks that even then no one will buy, for they are essentially worthless.

Most people are not scientists, just as they are not economists. Therefore, they rely on economic advisors to tell them how and where to invest, and they rely on science to tell them “what to believe,” i.e., where to invest their credence. But science itself becomes a classic bubble when it morphs into scientism, because it pretends to know things it not only cannot know, but can never know in principle. And because man is everywhere man, this is when science begins taking on all of the trappings of a primitive and poorly thought out, ad hoc religion.

If not, there should be.

Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.

The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.

At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study “strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results“. The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher.

Many scientists criticised the IPCC approach as too conservative, and several papers since have suggested that sea level could rise more. Martin Vermeer of the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published a study in December that projected a rise of 0.75m to 1.9m by 2100.

Siddall said that he did not know whether the retracted paper’s estimate of sea level rise was an overestimate or an underestimate.

Announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said: “It’s one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science.” He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published. A formal retraction was required, rather than a correction, because the errors undermined the study’s conclusion.

James Taranto noticed the same thing we did in WaPo story.

Meanwhile, the BBC carries an extraordinary interview with Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the central Climategate figure. In the interview, Jones admits that the periods 1860-80 and 1910-40 saw global warming on a similar scale to the 1975-98 period, that there has been no significant warming since 1995, and that the so-called Medieval Warm Period calls into question whether the currently observed warming is unprecedented.

And then there’s this exchange:

BBC: When scientists say “the debate on climate change is over,” what exactly do they mean–and what don’t they mean?

Jones: It would be supposition on my behalf to know whether all scientists who say the debate is over are saying that for the same reason. I don’t believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view. There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well.

So “the vast majority of climate scientists” don’t think the debate is over? Someone had better tell the IPCC, Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee and most of our colleagues in the media, who have long been insisting otherwise–and indeed, who continue to do so. An example is this piece from yesterday’s Washington Post:

With its 2007 report declaring that the “warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won a Nobel Prize–and a new degree of public trust in the controversial science of global warming.

But recent revelations about flaws in that seminal report, ranging from typos in key dates to sloppy sourcing, are undermining confidence not only in the panel’s work but also in projections about climate change. Scientists who have pointed out problems in the report say the panel’s methods and mistakes–including admitting Saturday that it had overstated how much of the Netherlands was below sea level–give doubters an opening.

It wasn’t the first one. There is still a scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. But . . .

That sentence beginning “There is still . . .” seems a rote recitation of an editorial position, sort of like when a news story refers to “a procedure that opponents call ‘partial-birth abortion,’ ” or when Reuters puts scare quotes around “terrorism.” (Or, for that matter, like when we refer to John Kerry as “the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat who by the way served in Vietnam,” except that we are satirizing the practice.) The gist of the Post’s story is that the so-called consensus no longer exists, if it ever did. So why is the paper compelled to assert that it still does?

Sorry, yet another climate change post. Yesterday’s WaPo acknowledged the fallout from ClimateGate.

With its 2007 report declaring that the “warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won a Nobel Prize — and a new degree of public trust in the controversial science of global warming.

But recent revelations about flaws in that seminal report, ranging from typos in key dates to sloppy sourcing, are undermining confidence not only in the panel’s work but also in projections about climate change. Scientists who have pointed out problems in the report say the panel’s methods and mistakes — including admitting Saturday that it had overstated how much of the Netherlands was below sea level — give doubters an opening.

It wasn’t the first one. There is still a scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. But in the past year, a cache of stolen e-mails, revealing that prominent climate scientists sought to prevent the publication of works by their detractors, has sullied their image as impartial academics. The errors in the U.N. report — a document intended to be the last nail in the coffin of climate doubt — are a serious problem that could end up forcing environmentalists to focus more on the old question of proving that climate change is a threat, instead of the new question of how to stop it.

One wonders what a “scientific consensus” means.

Certainly there are thousands of scientists who dispute the notion of human-caused climate change.

Who determines what constitutes a consensus.

Phillip Jones, the chief scientist behind the “ClimateGate” scandal, gave an interview to the BBC and made some statements that all but refute the “science” behind man-made global warming.

This graph from Sonic Frog cuts to the heart of the matter. If there were warmer periods in our recent past than today — eras without many people and no industrialization — then recent warming trends are likely just natural variation.

That is, climate change is not man made and there’s no reason to wreck our economies to fix a problem we didn’t cause and cannot affect anyway.

At issue is the Medieval Warm period, roughly 900-1400 AD, during which the Vikings were able to colonize Greenland, growing seasons expanded in Europe and populations expanded etc.

At this point, I’ll defer to Powerline’s summary of the Jones interview.

But it’s easy to understand why many have gotten excited about the interview that global warming high priest Phil Jones gave to the BBC. Jones was the director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, whose emails, leaked by a whistle-blower, sparked a major scientific scandal. In some respects, Jones seemed candid in the BBC interview, if not remorseful. For example, he agreed that currently, the climate is not warming:

Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?

Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

Further, he acknowledged that, far from being unprecedented, the rate of warming in the modern era is nearly identical to prior warming periods. In other words, goodbye, hockey stick:

Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?

… Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).

I have also included the trend over the period 1975 to 2009, which has a very similar trend to the period 1975-1998.

So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other. Here are the trends and significances for each period:

1860-1880: 21 0.163 Yes
1910-1940: 31 0.15 Yes
1975-1998: 24 0.166 Yes
1975-2009: 35 0.161 Yes

Those are indeed welcome admissions; the last concession is completely at odds with the UN’s 2007 IPCC report. In other instances, however, Jones continued to manifest the errors in logic that typify climate alarmists. Thus, he was asked about the Medieval Warm Period:

There is a debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was global or not. If it were to be conclusively shown that it was a global phenomenon, would you accept that this would undermine the premise that mean surface atmospheric temperatures during the latter part of the 20th Century were unprecedented?

There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia. For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.

Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm that today, then current warmth would be unprecedented.

We know from the instrumental temperature record that the two hemispheres do not always follow one another. We cannot, therefore, make the assumption that temperatures in the global average will be similar to those in the northern hemisphere.

Understand what Jones is saying here: Where we have records–Europe, North America, and parts of Asia–they show that the Medieval Warm Period existed and was, in fact, warmer than current conditions.

In the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere, however, “There are very few palaeoclimatic records.” That’s true. Why? Because the Southern Hemisphere and the tropical regions are mostly water. The Earth’s land mass is concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere. Currently we can track ocean temperatures, but for obvious reasons there is no way to reconstruct marine temperatures from 1,000 years ago. Jones concludes that we can’t “make the assumption” that global temperatures were equally as elevated in the areas for which we have no records. A more honest assessment would be that we may never know for sure, but all indications are that the MWP was indeed warmer than our current climate.

Of course, Jones and his fellow alarmists do indeed “make assumptions” every time they produce a chart that purports to show what global temperatures were 1,000 years ago. In those charts, they consistently rely on computer models to minimize the MWP in a manner that contradicts what we know about actual land temperatures at the time.

Jones also was unpersuasive when he tried to defend his own email comments about using “tricks” to “hide the decline” in current temperatures:

Let’s talk about the e-mails now: In the e-mails you refer to a “trick” which your critics say suggests you conspired to trick the public? You also mentioned “hiding the decline” (in temperatures). Why did you say these things?

This remark has nothing to do with any “decline” in observed instrumental temperatures. The remark referred to a well-known observation, in a particular set of tree-ring data, that I had used in a figure to represent large-scale summer temperature changes over the last 600 years.

The phrase ‘hide the decline’ was shorthand for providing a composite representation of long-term temperature changes made up of recent instrumental data and earlier tree-ring based evidence, where it was absolutely necessary to remove the incorrect impression given by the tree rings that temperatures between about 1960 and 1999 (when the email was written) were not rising, as our instrumental data clearly showed they were.

This “divergence” is well known in the tree-ring literature and “trick” did not refer to any intention to deceive – but rather “a convenient way of achieving something”, in this case joining the earlier valid part of the tree-ring record with the recent, more reliable instrumental record.

I was justified in curtailing the tree-ring reconstruction in the mid-20th Century because these particular data were not valid after that time – an issue which was later directly discussed in the 2007 IPCC AR4 Report.

So Jones admits that he and other climate alarmists have used tree ring data where they were helpful to the global warming theory and discarded them where they were not. Never answered is the obvious question: if tree ring data are unreliable after the mid-20th Century, why were they reliable before then? Nor does Jones address the second criticism of tree ring data, which was discussed in the leaked East Anglia emails: the authors of the principal tree ring studies apparently cherry-picked the trees that gave them the rings they were looking for, while ignoring larger numbers of trees that did not.

When the interviewer gets to the ultimate question, the hollowness of the anthropogenic global warming theory stands exposed:

If you agree that there were similar periods of warming since 1850 to the current period, and that the MWP is under debate, what factors convince you that recent warming has been largely man-made?

The fact that we can’t explain the warming from the 1950s by solar and volcanic forcing – see my answer to your question D.

This was question D and Jones’s answer:

Do you agree that natural influences could have contributed significantly to the global warming observed from 1975-1998, and, if so, please could you specify each natural influence and express its radiative forcing over the period in Watts per square metre.

This area is slightly outside my area of expertise. When considering changes over this period we need to consider all possible factors (so human and natural influences as well as natural internal variability of the climate system). Natural influences (from volcanoes and the Sun) over this period could have contributed to the change over this period. Volcanic influences from the two large eruptions (El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991) would exert a negative influence. Solar influence was about flat over this period. Combining only these two natural influences, therefore, we might have expected some cooling over this period.

In fact, solar activity has not been “about flat” over the period in question, rather it was at a higher level early in the warming period and more recently has been declining as manifested by an unusual scarcity of sunspots. Jones attributes little impact to the variations in solar output because he discounts the current theory, now being hotly debated, that cosmic rays associated with greater solar activity magnify the effect of increased solar energy by affecting cloud cover and by increasing water vapor in the atmosphere. This theory may ultimately be proved or disproved, but it is a fact, not easily dismissed by the alarmists, that for the time period or which we have records there is a close correlation between sunspot activity (a good proxy for variations in solar intensity) and temperatures on earth.

In any event, it is simply not scientific to assume that if two other factors–solar intensity and volcanoes–do not fully explain changes in temperatures, then whatever remains must be due to anthropogenic global warming. The Earth’s climate system is complex and not well understood. There is no scientific basis for assuming that AGW accounts for “everything else.”

Christopher Monckton, a longtime critic of man-made global warming, takes a victory lap after Phillip Jones’s interview BBC interview.

For several months, the “Monthly CO2 Reports,” compiled by me at www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org, have been pointing out that there has been no statistically significant “global warming” for 15 years. Regular attacks on my calculations and graphs have appeared on blogs by the usual suspects — Gavin Schmidt of NASA being, as usual, the most venomously ad hominem and the least scientifically plausible.

Then came Climategate. Kevin Trenberth, one of the many scientists whose activities I had been following with suspicion for some years, had privately been saying to his colleagues that there had been “no global warming for a decade” and that it was “a travesty” that they could not explain why. Publicly, of course, the Climategate conspirators had been saying that the last ten years were the warmest decade on the instrumental record — true, but not surprising given that there has been 300 years of global warming.

Now, Professor Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia has admitted publicly, and — as far as I know — for the first time, that there has been no statistically significant “global warming” for 15 years. He has also admitted that his Climatic Research Unit has lost much of the data behind the “hockey-stick” graph, via which Michael Mann and other Climategate conspirators had falsely attempted to demonstrate that the Medieval Warm Period was not warmer than the present. (more…)

Newsbusters brings us this amusing bit from Monday’s Joy Behar show. The twit (Joy) interviews Eve Ensler (the tw*t), author of The Vagina Monologues.

ENSLER: Well, I just think the idea that she doesn’t believe in global warming is bizarre.

BEHAR: Every scientist of any note believes in it but Sarah Palin doesn’t believe in it.

ENSLER: And I think we just kind of have to walk around the world at this point and look at what is happening to nature and earthquakes and tsunamis.

BEHAR: Right.

ENSLER: And weather changes to just feel it. But I think that idea that she doesn’t believe in global warming and she could actually run for vice president, and we have a country where that is possible, it seems insane.

BEHAR: It’s unbelievable. It does seem insane and the fact that she has not negated the possibility of running in 2012.

ENSLER: But we have. We have negated the possibility of her winning.

Maybe they rely on the NYT.

When the Audi commercial (see below) ran during the Superbowl, one of my sons voiced what I was thinking: it would irritate many of their potential customers.

Why? Because it accepted the “green” assumptions, even as it exaggerated them, as given.

A liberal blogger agrees.

The ad only makes sense if it’s aimed at people who acknowledge the moral authority of the green police—people who may find those obligations tiresome and constraining on occasion, who only fitfully meet them, who may be annoyed by sticklers and naggers, but who recognize that living more sustainably is in fact the moral thing to do. This basically describes every guy I know.

Poor fellow needs to expand his social circle — diversity, man, diversity!

Now go back through the ad. Notice that everyone who gets busted is a man. There are lots more urban and suburban professional males in Audi’s target market than there are teabaggers.

To scratch one layer deeper: what is Audi’s message to these guys who want to be good but find the effort anxious-making? Here’s a way to meet your green obligations and still have a bad-ass car! The Audi A3 is both green and desirable—indeed more desirable because it’s green. Buried deep in this ad, in other words, is a bright green message: prosperity, pleasure, and sustainability can be achieved together.

Maybe the threat of this will cause foolish, pious politicians to get up to date on real science.

Republican politicians and conservative activists are launching a ballot campaign to suspend California’s landmark global-warming law, in what they hope will serve as a showcase for a national backlash against climate regulations.

Supporters say they have “solid commitments” of nearly $600,000 to pay signature gatherers for a November initiative aimed at delaying curbs on the greenhouse gas emissions of power plants and factories until the state’s unemployment rate drops.

GOP gubernatorial candidates and Tea Party organizers paint the 2006 law, considered a model for other state and federal efforts, as a job-killing interference in the economy. Talk radio is flailing at what John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, drive-time hosts on Los Angeles’ KFI-AM (640), call “the global-warming final solution act” promoted by “fascist, Nazi” officials.

“We are on fire,” said Assemblyman Dan Logue (R-Marysville), a sponsor of the proposed initiative. “People are calling from all over the country. This will be the most intense campaign the state has seen in 50 years.”

Mary D. Nichols, chairwoman of the state’s Air Resources Board, which is implementing the law, known as AB 32, called the initiative “a campaign that has to be taken seriously.”

“It would put all our efforts at energy efficiency and renewable energy in the deep freezer for a long time,” she said.

The measure would halt proposed regulations until the state’s jobless rate dips to 5.5% or below for a year. That’s a level that California has not seen since 2007. California has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates: 12.4%.

Maybe they were using Al Gore’s projected sea level.

The Netherlands has asked the UN climate change panel to explain an inaccurate claim in a landmark 2007 report that more than half the country was below sea level, the Dutch government said Friday.

According to the Dutch authorities, only 26 percent of the country is below sea level, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be asked to account for its figures, environment ministry spokesman Trimo Vallaart told AFP.

The incident could cause further embarrassment for the IPCC, which recently admitted a claim in the same report that global warming could melt Himalayan glaciers by 2035 was wrong.

IPCC experts calculated that 55 percent of the Netherlands was below sea level by adding the area below sea level — 26 percent — to the area threatened by river flooding — 29 percent — Vallaart said.

It took three years to discover this discrepancy?

Meanwhile, India is giving the finger to the IPCC…

The Indian government has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own leading scientist Dr R.K Pachauri.

Now British Parliament is hot on the trail.

The potential criminality of the Climategate scandal is exactly the issue that is being investigated by authorities in Britain. The British Parliament has convened hearings to investigate East Anglia University and the Climate Research Unit to uncover unethical and illegal activities. As more information is revealed, the whole Climategate affair begins to take on the makings of a good mystery novel. Like any good mystery or crime plot, the web of involvement is widespread.

But in order for a reader to be drawn in, the author must establish the motive and opportunity for the crime to be believable. To understand Climategate, we must start at the center of the web. At the center is the now-discredited Dr. Phil Jones of East Anglia University and the work he orchestrated at the Climate Research Unit (CRU). This is exactly where the British Parliament has started its investigation for possible criminal wrongdoing.

The British investigation, headed up by Phil Willis, M.P., focuses on four areas: data manipulation, data suppression, violations of the Freedom of Information Act, and data integrity. Clearly, the recently uncovered e-mails will play a big role in this investigation. A new thread in this web has appeared recently concerning a separate investigation conducted by the European Law Enforcement Organization Cooperation (aka Europol). Investigators have found evidence of a complex carbon-trading scam on the European Climate Exchange. Just three short weeks ago, three British subjects were arrested in an apparent scam worth billions of dollars. Much of the criminal activity alleged involves tax evasion.

There’s so much debunking of man-made global warming. A taste:

Global Warming: The Other Side

John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, produced this five-part video series.

Watch it here.

---

The Death of Global Warming
William Russell Mead

The global warming movement as we have known it is dead. Its health had been in steady decline during the last year as the once robust hopes for a strong and legally binding treaty to be agreed upon at the Copenhagen Summit faded away. By the time that summit opened, campaigners were reduced to hoping for a ‘politically binding’ agreement to be agreed that would set the stage for the rapid adoption of the legally binding treaty. After the failure of the summit to agree to even that much, the movement went into a rapid decline.

The movement died from two causes: bad science and bad politics…

---

How WWF has affected Climate Science
John Rosenthal

…WWF has in recent years been one of the principal purveyors of climate alarmism. It would seem that the organization has still further expanded its brief to cover the conservation not only of “all living things,” but even of that non-living and, frankly, purely notional thing known as “climate.” It was thus WWF that served as the cited source for the IPCC’s now famously debunked claim, according to which at current rates of “warming” the Himalayan glaciers could be expected to melt by 2035. Indeed, Debbie Framboise has turned up dozens of citations of WWF in the IPCC’s 2007 “Fourth Assessment Report,” on everything from “mudflows and avalanches” to the allegedly destructive effects of climate change on “marine fish and shellfish.” Richard North of the EUReferendum blog has uncovered yet another dodgy WWF-referenced claim on the alleged effects of climate change on the Amazonian forests.That the IPCC’s assessment would rely so heavily on the claims of an activist organization raises obvious questions about its objectivity. But the issues raised by the IPCC’s reliance on WWF are even more troubling than might appear on first glance. For exactly what sort of activist organization is WWF? It is commonly assumed that it is a private advocacy organization funded by donations from the public: in other words, a “non-governmental organization” or “NGO.” But closer inspection of WWF’s finances reveals that the “NGO” moniker is here — as indeed in so many cases — a misnomer. It would be more accurate to describe WWF rather as a “PGO”: a para-governmental organization. In fact, WWF receives massive funding from states. Moreover, it receives massive funding not from just any states, but from precisely that federation of states that has made combating supposed “global warming” into one of its highest policy priorities, if not indeed its highest priority — namely, the European Union…

---

A Disaster Of Biblical Proportions

Classical Values

The UN’s IPCC has just taken a few more torpedoes below the water line.

Well it turns out that the WWF is cited all over the IPCC AR4 report, and as you know, WWF does not produce peer reviewed science, they produce opinion papers in line with their vision. Yet IPCC’s rules are such that they are supposed to rely on peer reviewed science only. It appears they’ve violated that rule dozens of times, all under Pachauri’s watch.A new posting authored by Donna Laframboise, the creator of NOconsensus.org (Toronto, Canada) shows what one can find in just one day of looking.

Here’s an extensive list of documents created or co-authored by the WWF and cited by this Nobel-winning IPCC AR4 report:

I’m not going to reprise the long list. You can find it at the links provided.I would like to touch on a few things. First off WWF stands for the World Wildlife Fund. Second I’d like to look at the connection between the WWF and the UK Meteorological Office.

What is not generally realised is that the UK Met Office has been, since 1990, at the very centre of the campaign to convince the world that it faces catastrophe through global warming. (Its website now proclaims it to be “the Met Office for Weather and Climate Change”.) Its then-director, Dr John Houghton, was the single most influential figure in setting up the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as the chief driver of climate alarmism. Its Hadley Centre for Climate Change, along with the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU), was put in charge of the most prestigious of the four official global temperature records. In line with IPCC theory, its computers were programmed to predict that, as CO2 levels rose, temperatures would inevitably follow. From 1990 to 2007, the Department of the Environment gave the Met Office no less than £146 million for its “climate predictions programme”.But in the past three years, with the Met Office chaired by Robert Napier, a former global warming activist and previously head of WWF UK, its pretensions have been exposed as never before. The “Climategate” leak of documents from the CRU, along with further revelations from Russian scientists, have shown the CRU/Met Office alliance systematically manipulating temperature data, past and present, to show the world growing warmer than the evidence justified. And those same computers used to predict temperatures 100 years ahead for the IPCC have also been used to produce those weather forecasts that prove so consistently wrong.

Scientific method has gone out of the window, to support a theory that looks more questionable than ever.

And what is the WWF telling its Internet readers?

The U.K. Met Office says “it is more likely than not that 2010 will be the warmest year in the instrumental record, beating the previous record year which was 1998.”The Met Office said the record temperatures likely will be driven by “a combination of man-made global warming and a moderate warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as El Niño.” It noted that this year is the fifth warmest year, based on records extending back to 1850.

“Looking further ahead, our experimental decadal forecast confirms previous indications that about half the years 2010-2019 will be warmer than the warmest year observed so far — 1998,” the Met Office said.

Ah yes the experimental models. What he means is computer programs. Unverified computer programs with dodgy codes and corrupted data.

previous entry | main | next entry January 25, 2010 A Disaster Of Biblical Proportions The UN’s IPCC has just taken a few more torpedoes below the water line. Well it turns out that the WWF is cited all over the IPCC AR4 report, and as you know, WWF does not produce peer reviewed science, they produce opinion papers in line with their vision. Yet IPCC’s rules are such that they are supposed to rely on peer reviewed science only. It appears they’ve violated that rule dozens of times, all under Pachauri’s watch.A new posting authored by Donna Laframboise, the creator of NOconsensus.org (Toronto, Canada) shows what one can find in just one day of looking. Here’s an extensive list of documents created or co-authored by the WWF and cited by this Nobel-winning IPCC AR4 report: I’m not going to reprise the long list. You can find it at the links provided.I would like to touch on a few things. First off WWF stands for the World Wildlife Fund. Second I’d like to look at the connection between the WWF and the UK Meteorological Office. What is not generally realised is that the UK Met Office has been, since 1990, at the very centre of the campaign to convince the world that it faces catastrophe through global warming. (Its website now proclaims it to be “the Met Office for Weather and Climate Change”.) Its then-director, Dr John Houghton, was the single most influential figure in setting up the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as the chief driver of climate alarmism. Its Hadley Centre for Climate Change, along with the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU), was put in charge of the most prestigious of the four official global temperature records. In line with IPCC theory, its computers were programmed to predict that, as CO2 levels rose, temperatures would inevitably follow. From 1990 to 2007, the Department of the Environment gave the Met Office no less than £146 million for its “climate predictions programme”.But in the past three years, with the Met Office chaired by Robert Napier, a former global warming activist and previously head of WWF UK, its pretensions have been exposed as never before. The “Climategate” leak of documents from the CRU, along with further revelations from Russian scientists, have shown the CRU/Met Office alliance systematically manipulating temperature data, past and present, to show the world growing warmer than the evidence justified. And those same computers used to predict temperatures 100 years ahead for the IPCC have also been used to produce those weather forecasts that prove so consistently wrong. Scientific method has gone out of the window, to support a theory that looks more questionable than ever. And what is the WWF telling its Internet readers? The U.K. Met Office says “it is more likely than not that 2010 will be the warmest year in the instrumental record, beating the previous record year which was 1998.”The Met Office said the record temperatures likely will be driven by “a combination of man-made global warming and a moderate warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as El Niño.” It noted that this year is the fifth warmest year, based on records extending back to 1850. “Looking further ahead, our experimental decadal forecast confirms previous indications that about half the years 2010-2019 will be warmer than the warmest year observed so far — 1998,” the Met Office said. Ah yes the experimental models. What he means is computer programs. Unverified computer programs with dodgy codes and corrupted data.And about the floods and hurricanes that are supposed to descend on mankind if he doesn’t mend his ways? Made up. THE UN climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to a rise in natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny – and ignored warnings from scientific advisers. The report’s author later withdrew the claim because the evidence was too weak. The link was central to demands at last month’s Copenhagen climate summit by African nations for compensation of $US100 billion from the rich nations. However, the IPCC knew in 2008 that the link could not be proved but did not alert world leaders, who have used weather extremes to bolster the case for action on climate change. And they knew it was bad and did nothing. You know, that is not the only fraud uncovered. We may now be in possession of tens of them. So far. In fact it is looking like the whole IPCC enterprise is a fraud. And that doesn’t even get to the bottom of the CO2 emissions trading fraud.I’d like to go back to Watts Up With That and look at a few comments on the subject. Evidently the WWF is removing articles they had formerly posted. That is pretty good evidence on its face that they were fraudulent. Jer (18:34:30) :I find that most of the links are now inactive. Wondering if this is happening because of the attention. It seems like IPCC referenced material ought to be available. Jer This one is amusing: PaulH (18:34:53) :@Patrick Davis: It might be easier to list what the IPCC got right. Frankly, if the IPCC were to declare that water is wet I would insist on independent verification from a non-UN/non-WWF affiliated organization before believing it. Another joker. Halfwise (18:49:58) :It is easy to get confused between the World Wildlife Fund and World Wrestling Entertainment. Here is how to tell them apart: One gets crowds wildly excited with staged antics, bizarre plot lines and unbelievable hype. The other stages wrestling exhibitions. Here is one about the fraud connections. It refers to a rather long comment with links up thread. Andrew30 (19:04:30) :pat (18:37:29) : ; Yes, pat I put that there. This list of documents goes beyond just one carbon trader. So was the money and influence from more then one carbon trader being channeled through the WWF to both the CRU and the IPCC? Has the WWF become no more than and money and influence launderer for Big Carbon? Here is an excerpt from a comment from A Jones. a jones (19:30:42) :Yes As I observed elsewhere this is a great scientific, financial and political fraud. And as with all frauds once the dominoes start to topple the collapse accelerates with terrifying speed. So fast that I at least can hardly keep up. And although there is immense inertia in those who have invested so heavily in the fraud, from the political activists to the Meeja to the politicians themselves once there is sufficient impetus in the avalanche they have to give way. The politicians will say they were deceived but acted in good faith, the Meeja never apologises for anything, and the activists will say they were only trying to get a point across, see WWF announcement over glaciers. Yet possibly for the first time we are seeing what t’internet and the WWW can really do. The Indian press is hot on the story, something we would have never known even a few years ago. Isn’t modern technology a wonderful thing? Yes it is.Here is a rather long one about conjecture in science. yonason (19:34:37) :Shrinking Glaciers, Shrinking Arctic; Science so simple that even Mark Twain could do it. http://www.online-literature.com/view.php/life_mississippi/18 “Therefore, the Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelve hundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago. It was eleven hundred and eighty after the cut-off of 1722. It was one thousand and forty after the American Bend cut-off. It has lost sixty-seven miles since. Consequently its length is only nine hundred and seventy-three miles at present. ………. In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period,’ just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.” I think Mark Twain ia as good a place as any to put a halt to this amusement. It is hard to get more amusing than that. The good news is that the whole fraud is unraveling. It will be interesting to see what the Watermelons try next. Green is the new Red! Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon on 01.25.10 at 05:40 AM TrackBack TrackBack URL for this entry: http://classicalvalues.com/cgi-bin/pings.cgi/9283 Comments What’s with the “What ancient form of execution would you LEAST prefer?”? Are you on something? Jorge Banner   ·  January 25, 2010 11:35 AM Jorge, Yes. I’m on a guest pass. I don’t run the site. M. Simon ·  January 25, 2010 01:32 PM Post a comment You may use basic HTML for formatting. Name: Email Address: URL: Remember Me? YesNo Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style) //

January 2010 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 ANCIENT (AND MODERN) WORLD-WIDE CALENDAR Search the Site E-mail escheie_[AT]_yahoo_DOT_com Classics To Go Classical Values PDA Link What ancient form of execution would you LEAST prefer? Buried alive Crucifixion Flayed alive Scourged to death Stung/bitten to death by insects Slow disembowelment Roasted on grill Dragged from chariot Torn apart by wild beasts Rolled downhill inside spiked barrel Death of a thousand cuts Free polls from Pollhost.com Archives January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 May 2002 AB 1634 MBAPBSAAGOP Skepticism See more archives here Old (Blogspot) archives Recent Entries • Is that a bomb in your underwear or are you just happy to see me? • Grant • One Laptop Per Child In Haiti • Too tired, but never tired enough! • A New Theory Of Electrodynamics • Making Christianity work — in the angry arab street • The conservative blogosphere’s Pauline Kael moment? • “How do you do that?” • Pleistocene nostalgia for evolution’s end times? • A Disaster Of Biblical Proportions Links Alphecca (My Blogdaddy) Puff the Protector Andrew Sullivan Gays in Military Site Middle East Media Research Institute Gay Libertarian Site The Bitch Girls Join the NRA! SECOND AMENDMENT VIDEO! Shooters’ Carnival Tammy Bruce Gun Owners of America // <![CDATA[ START OF TRAFFIC.COM TrafficMagnet This code generates a Traffic.com TrafficMagnet. Modifying this code may break the Magnet. Use of the Traffic.com TrafficMagnet is subject to the Terms of Use found at magnet.traffic.com. Copyright 2005 Traffic.com, Inc. // Pink Flamingo Bar Small Town Veteran Cranial Cavity Bit’s Blog The Squiggler Michelle Malkin Fmragtops Bad Cat Robot Evil Emperor Mindstation The Kaitlyn Mae Book Blog IMAO Freedom Dogs Musing Minds Captain’s Quarters The Yell Strata-Sphere Sailor590 Flopping Aces Hillbilly White Trash Abracadabrah Committees of Correspondence Kesher Talk iHillary Hennessy’s view Radioactive Liberty SCSUScholars The Sundries Shack Rodney G. Graves MarinerPundit Everything I Know Is Wrong Chris At Home Way Off Bass The Computer Curmudgeon McBlog Chicagoray The Middle Ground Daily Terrorist Round-up bRight & Early Don’t Go Into The Light Joust The Facts Pro Cynic Don Surber Dr. Sanity Sons Of The Republic The Kool Aid Report Pirate Cove — Deployed! Freedoms Zone Hyscience The Influence Peddler CARRY ON AMERICA Church and State Strong As An Ox And Nearly As Smart StixBlog Aarons CC Bob Orr Post Watch Strait-Talk Boring Made Dull The Institute Girl on the Right My Sandmen Abu Wabu Just One Minute Random Thoughts Of Yet Another Military Member» Thoughts of a landlocked sailor trapped on the Left Coast Blue Crab Boulevard Marvins Word Residual Forces violet Aggressive Tendencies Traction Control The Colossus North Coast Online The Right Track Sam Houston – Throwing Heat Yankee Mom Chickenhawk Express Politechnical INANIMATE CARBON ROD Looking Around PC Free Zone BoghieOnYourSix SingleMind.Net: Proud Member, 101st Fightin%u2019 Keyboardists! Confessions of a Pilgrim The Gantry Launchpad The American Mind Slapstick Politics Stuck On Stupid Psycmeistr’s Ice Palace The Countervailing Force Classical Values Brutally Honest The MoxArgon Group Vox Poplar The Noonz Wire The Real Ugly American Teapot Tantrums Six Meat Buffet — Deployed! Conservative Blog Therapy AbbaGav Manly Men ProtestWarrior Expose the Left Stop The ACLU Bookworm Room Texas Rainmaker As the Top of the World Turns THE MUSLIM QUESTION Texican Tattler Life~Florida~Whatever 7 Deadly Sins Publius Rendezvous Gribbit’s Word — Deployed! Americans for Freedom Everyday Thoughts Collected – By Randy Thomas Right on the Right yeah yeah sure sure OldController Jim-Rose.com, The Libertarian Popinjay HOLYCOAST.COM CaNN :: We started it. Technogypsy: The Art of the Blog The Gathering Storm 123beta The Asylum Little Green Footballs Northern Alliance Wannabe Are We Lumberjacks? A Lady’s Ruminations blonde sagacity Assistant Village Idiot Useless Drivel Physics Geek Texas Fred’s Welcome To The Twilight Zone Stingray: a blog for salty Christians Ms. Underestimated Richard’s Ego The Amboy Times Woody’s Woundup Rhymes With Right Unalienable Rights Blog Le Mont De Sisyphe e-Claire: e-lectronically Delicious! House of Opinions Leaning Straight Up Right Truth Right Wing Nation The Pool Bar Political Satire Fake News – The Nose On Your Face The NJ Blog Free Constitution QuickRob – More than a Blog Sma’ Talk Wi’ T: We Eat Chickens For Lunch Shoot a Liberal PA Pundits Don Singleton The Suburban Crusader The Daily Bayonet Brainster’s Blog euphoricreality.net Jarhead’s Firing Range Knowledge Is Power — Deployed! Kenders’ Musings sisu Dave in Texas The Buzz Blog Fausta’s blog Left Brain Female . . . in a Right Brain World Freedom Watch The Wide Awake Cafe TigerHawk Darleen’s Place Second Shift Reflections When I Can’t Not Write Blogger Ale Hillary Needs A Vacation Cao’s Blog AngryWhitey The Lone Voice Code Red* Women for the Troops DragonLady’s World Atlas Shrugs Rocket’s Brain GM’s Corner Pettifog chez Diva Palmetto Pundit Sneakeasy’s Joint Shock Word Around The Net Reformed Chicks Blabbing Shots Across The Bow Uncooperative Blogger Mensa Barbie Real Texas Cowgirl Elf Leather Penguin Granddaddy Long Legs Little Platoon Right Wing Rocker Villains Vanquished Savko Babe Blogmeister Moonbat Monitor Deep Thought Wall Street Cafe Trau Csacskasagai South Park Diva USS Neverdock Technicalities Red Cuppa Politics Rants and Rayguns Andy Hefty Left Handed Right Wing Right Mom Rants and Raves Echoes of Forever Villainous Company Cranky Beach Anti-Strib Nuclear Tinkerbell Chaotic Synaptic Activity Steve the Pirate Impacted Wisdom Truth Captain’s Comments Yellow Limes Iraq Now Nancy Reyes Republican Witch Chuckoblog Deep Keel Blue Star Chronicles Burkeophilia Real Debate Wisconsin DK Republic Phantom Observer High Desert Wanderer Aloha Daze The Median Sib Gunn Nutt Common Folk Using Common Sense Thunder Run Crusader Coyote Wide White Combs Spouts Off De Doc Philomathean Vita Abalto Discerning Texan Noisy Room Amboy Times Woman Honor Thyself Pursuing Holiness Bacon Eating Atheist Jew Red Phish Head Obi’s Sister Captain Of One Pollywog Creek Porch Dean Swift Paducan Jawa Solar Flared Conservative Musings Parableman And Rightly So! — Deployed! EckerNet.Com Bootleg Hollow Royal Flush The Outlaw Republican Rightwing Guy Conservative Cogitation Screw Loose Change Dispatches from the Socialist Gulag Growing Old Disgracefully DANEgerus Weblog Diary Of A Hollywood Refugee Blogger Beer Miss Ladybug INSIGHT on Freedom something’s rotten Gawfer Anthroblogogy infinite universe customerservant.com Redneck Rants Iraq War News Rambix and the Red Star The Peace Moonbeam Chronicles Assorted Babble Shot In The Dark Greensickle FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog Periscope Journal Big Daddy Schmoo Report Sgt. Lori Blogs for Condi ….Just For The Record From The Earth To The Moon Israel Matzav BabyTrollBlog Right Mom Fugger Nutter The Right Place What’s Going On Out There? Tales of A Wandering Mind Cap’n Bob Pekin Prattles Billy O’Blog Periscope Journal The 82nd Chairborne Division Neo Con Eagles Wings Dr. Phat Tony’s The Dragon and the Phoenix American Geek little green colloquium Our Benevolent Overlord Kal El The Carrier Project DD.N Libertarian Leanings On the wing. Life~Florida~Whatever The Anti-Jihad Pundit Three O’Clock in the Morning Passionate America All Things Beautiful The Violence Worker! ConservaThink BIG DOG’S WEBLOG Acme Anvil Co. Webloggin Tammy Bruce Liberty and Justice On the Campus Right LegendHasIt Obviously Right Dean’s World Half a Pica Distance Signaleer the will to exist Adam’s Blog Tidbits And Treasures Matt Lewis and the News KeepinItReal The Irate Nation THE ASTUTE BLOGGER The Daily Blogster Nurse William Planck’s Constant Sunlight Foundation- Under The Influence The Blorg ModernConservative Church of the Painful Truth Gop3.com: The Triumvirate Neocon Express Ron%u2019s Musings annavenger Pious Agnostic Reject the U.N. Bloggin’ Outloud Western Wisdom The Infidel Sage Weblog The World According To Carl DeMediacratic Nation Red Sky!! Wake up America FREEDOM EDEN Thinking Right Take Our Country Back A NEWT ONE- THE TRUTH SURGE! Hard Starboard Ron’s Musings Il Rumore Dei miei Venti 7.62mm Justice Ft. Hard Knox Citizen Warrior The Sniper by BlogRolling View real-time Philadelphia area traffic reports END OF TRAFFIC.COM TrafficMagnet David Hackworth Hell In A Handbasket Matt Welch The Volokh Conspiracy Virginia Postrel PseudoPsalms The Light of Reason The Anger of Compassion Anger Management Dustbury.com Rachel Lucas Shadow Government reflections in d minor JustOneMinute Boone Country Catallarchy Agenda Bender Mike Silverman Steven Malcolm Anderson Walter in Denver Impearls Donald Sensing Howard Owens Loco Parentis Colby Cosh VodkaPundit Radley Balko Dean’s World The Queen of All Evil baldilocks Joe Gandelman Dave Tepper Begging to Differ Kesher Talk Jeff Jarvis Doc Searls Little Green Footballs Captain Ed Oh, That Liberal Media! ICANNfocus.org God of the Machine Sandefur’s Freespace Wizbang Robert Prather LawPundit The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler Amygdala bilious young fogey MadLab On the Fritz why dave bergman is neat Skiplog Clowning Glory Dispatches from the Culture Wars Where in Washington, D.C. is Sun Myung Moon? Anti-Socialist Tendencies Of Interest WICKED THOUGHTS Setting The World To Rights doubleplusgood infotainment It Can’t Rain All The Time Scrutineer Nick Danger, International Man of Mystery seldom sober TRITICALE Random Jottings Graham Lester point2point Shark Blog Gene Healy Discount Blogger Six Foot Pole Dodgeblogium Across the Atlantic The Imperialist Dog Lex Talionis Mind Of Mog Say Uncle CAMPVS MAWRTIVS res gestae dionysii Annika’s Journal & Poetry A :{FRUSTRATED}: ARTIST Yet another weird SF fan Lincoln Cat The Meatriarchy Who is Ronald? Short Daddy Punch Drunk Mookie Riffic On The Third Hand MatthewEdgar.net ZenPundit Jennifer’s History and Stuff argghhh!!! Modulator D.C. Thornton Centerfield Asymmetrical Information Airline Pilots Security Assn Relapsed Catholic PAPADOC Abraca-Pocus The Pryhills Winds of Change Daily Pundit The Speculist Regnum Crucis The Elfin Ethicist Classics in Contemporary Culture elephant-rabbits A Perfectly Cromulent Blog allied Parableman Southern Musings CALIFORNIA YANKEE Allen’s Arena Ex-Gay Watch Jonno Michael Moore doesn’t love me! Eschaton Clayton Cramer Letters From a Strip of Dirt Oliver Willis Hesiod Theogeny Dr Zen JunkYardBlog Orcinus Ideofact Letter from Gotham Oraculations INCITE Positive Liberty ALLAH IS IN THE HOUSE Tiny Little Lies My So-Called Penis Keith Devens Jason Holliston W(h)ine Country Straight White Guy Ken MacLeod Lawrence Lessig PaleoJudaica.com EdCone.com Common Sense and Wonder Who knew? Daily Howler James Landrith Chief Wiggles L.T. Smash damnum absque injuria Daniel W. Drezner OxBlog Reason of Voice Steven Den Beste Wonkette! Cranial Cavity Gibberish in Neutral DramaQueen vivalabloog Classics in Contemporary Culture The LLama Butchers HobbsOnLine ACIDMAN Sector 7-G Zogby Blog mtpolitics.net Horologium Civic Dialogues Practical Penumbra Right Wing News Stranger in a Strange Land Ambient Irony Tiger: Raggin’ & Rantin’ Read My Lips Jay Solo The Alliance The Smallest Minority Wrong Side of Happiness Wince and Nod One Little Victory Fishbucket suburban blight Sketches of Strain Boi from Troy Being American in T.O. Outside the Beltway One Fine Jay Bill and Kent’s Place on the Web Burton Terrace This Book Stinks The Happy Carpenter Political Correctness Watch GREENIE WATCH Resource.full This Liberal” Brainville BLAMBLOG Ordinary Galoot QandO Josh Cohen Extra Ordinary Ideas brykMantra Croooow Blog Old Right commiewatch Proculian Meditations UggaBugga Dustin the No-Longer-Blogless Les Jones Blog Temporal Globe Postcards from Nowhere Tarazet Unfogged Synthstuff Riba Rambles Mitch Berg The National Debate scha-den-freu-de Ocean Guy Topic Exchange CELESTIAL OFFERINGS Texas Native Somewhere over the Rainbough Why read this? End NPR Bias Ace of Spades HQ Web Dawn GANGSTORIES Sheila Astray’s Redheaded Ramblings Alan Sullivan (Seablogger) hobbyblog FuturePundit.com Tim Blair A Voyage To Arcturus HipperCritical BarlowFriendz Jihad Watch Kin’s Kouch Bad Money The Campblog News Junkie Canada De Doc’s Doings Bigwig Eject!Eject!Eject! Tom’s Nap Room A Coon Cat’s World The sexual adventures of Woodie and Peaches Crystalline Ceramics Web Resource Heh. Indeed. NakedVillainy.com Andrew David Chamberlain The Karmic Inquisition Adam Smith Institute Weblog Andrea Harris Hi. I’m Black Banana Oil Jim Miller on Politics Who Tends the Fires Ranck and File MOLOTOV COCKTAIL FRANK NOLI IRRITARE LEONES Miss O’Hara deadmaus Coffee With Rhoads robot guy Travelling Shoes Admiral Quixote’s Roundtable danm.us The Argus Dissecting Leftism Dissecting Leftism — OLD Site Aaron’s cc Commentariat The Argus – Registan INDC Journal Pundit Ex Machina DeMythology Peppermint Tea Gilly’s World Beyond the Black Hole La Shawn Barber” Perverse Access Memory Invisible Adjunct Photon Courier Intel Dump Junkscience.com The SmarterCop Laban Tall Banagor Peeve Farm Rand Simberg camedwards.com Kim du Toit Mrs. du Toit Dancing with Dogs Two–Four Heretical Ideas Astonished Head Outlandish Josh Central Oregon for Dean The White Peril 白禍 (Sean Kinsell) www.blktlr.com Subterranean Bungalo DFMoore Dave Halliday Well Versed Qoheleth 60: Joel Moody’s Repository quo vado jonrowe.blogspot.com yellopad Sticks of Fire Dissecting Leftism ByteMagick Blogs of War PRESTOPUNDIT Of Interest The Meatriarchy Bernhardt Varenius The Forager Miller?s Time Blogs of War painting to stay (?) sane Blue Goldfish | Surface Clowning Glory House of Payne International Last Chance Caf馬t;/a> Psychology of Leftism a_sdf CONSERVATISM/RIGHTISM Taylor & Company The Vicious Circle Leftists as Elitists Eye of the Storm A scratch area Wicked Thoughts Filtrat The Bayou City Perspective The Belfry Blogger Setting The World To Rights Ljonn.com Oddly Normal Varifrank Jamie Jamison on Technology GayPatriot A New York Escorts Confessions jamescalvin.com The Eleven Day Empire Dr. Rusty Shackleford Eric’s Grumles Before The Grave Belmont Club Gumbo Pie BeldarBlog MooreThoughts Blind Adherence Last One Speaks Logic Monkey Bird’s Eye View DIRTY WATER Forgadring precision-guided cowboy Punditmania Minor Thoughts Just Askin’ HispaLibertas Let’s Try Freedom Megan McArdle Ann Althouse Beautiful Atrocities Sean Hackbarth Power and Control Professor Bainbridge Power Line Dialogic Darleen’s Place I’m N.O. Pundit! Done With Mirrors AMERICAN FUTURE CodeBlueBlog Gay Orbit Urthshu Zacht Ei Interested-Participant blake taylor The Anchoress Freespeech.com Spiked Decision ‘08 (Mark Coffey) White Lightning Axiom: Redux The Big Picture Rachel Lucas BEI John Cole Haight Speech evolution: on the loose Moderates of all Nations, Unite! Jeff Gannon THE GLEESON BLOGLOMERATE Pajama Pundits Centerpiece The Radical Centrist Lab-Tested FreedomSight AmbivaBlog evolution Marx & Friends in their own words Elective Application Religion Research Islam Blog YOUNGPUNDIT.COM {finding peace in the chaos} IQ & PC — By Chris Brand Classics in Contemporary Culture Morse’s Code A&W Bench Marx Julie Neidlinger Shades of Gray The Daily Lion: NeoLibertarianism on a Stick Miller’s Time Centerpiece This Liberal Coming Anarchy Lay Lines that’sRich the blog eclectic booklore Yankee Madmen Jesusland Expatriate Amazing Motor Girls Spiced Sass Decline and Fall of Western Civilization Modern Crusader MaroonBlog Skriblerier, etc. I am partially fused with infinity Eros Colored Glasses Bill Peschel: The man comes around The Twins Tell the Truth wickens.ca The War of Ideas ConsterNations EaglesUp Blog Vitriolics Anonymous DIRTY WATER Mean Mr. Mustard 2.0 EDUCATION WATCH THE RIGHT SCALE AIS Knight Hammer SOCIALIZED MEDICINE The Argus DON’T BE DUMB! Blue Goldfish | Surface GUN WATCH De Docs Institute for Memetic Engineering And Polymaths… Wordpress Test Weblog Kapowie Zone Political Theory: Weblogs You know, they say… all blogged down Harkonnendog Big Dirigible GeoPoliticalreview.com Coyote Blog Blog Retrofuturistic VietPundit JasonColeman.com Logical Meme Bloggledygook Discursive Recursions Bird’s Eye View Right Wing Nut House ELEMENOHPEE Locusts and Honey Moonbattery The Everlasting Phelps Mythusmage Opines The Cassandra Page Of Arms & the Law The Daily Bork Strange Stuff Another Gay Republican Libertarian Man of Mystery Liberty Just In Case TalkLeft Joe’s Dartblog Iowa Hawk The Common Room Darth Vader Gay Bipolar Republican Boxing Alcibiades Baby TrollBlog Strange Fictions Urban Hermit The Eye of Polyphemus Toe In The Water Bryan’s Basement Fishkite Right on the Left Coast Beltway Buzz pike speak Scared Monkeys The Mudville Gazette Matt Sheffield Undercaffeinated Trey Jackson NashvilleFiles.com Moonbat Central Dust my Broom The Cliffs of Insanity Riding Sun The Modo Blog Philly Future philly Off In The Tall Weeds Doug Petch.Com Gays for Life the True Nature of Reality Spinning Clio Mike Huckabee President 2008 A.E.Brain that rogueclassicist guy A M㯠Invis�l Constantly Risking Absurdity Laurence Simon Notes & Musings A World of Speculation Weird Events Pit Bull Wars New World Man Mark in Mexico The Palmetto Pundit All Things Jen(nifer) Generic Confusion Justus for All iHillary Michael Totten Don Surber Maggie’s Farm Unpaid Punditry Corps The Counter Hippie Kicking On Doors FunnyBusiness Restless Mania Mark Tapscott nobody sasses a girl in glasses Letters from the Bostonian Exile The Education Wonks Diana Hseih just muttering Right-Wing of the Gods Michelle Malkin Inside Larry’s Head Ballpoint Wren A Blog For All The Liberal Wrong American Outlook Splog Reporter From the Grand Stand Tinabell Affordable Housing Institute mudphud Living In The Past Searchlight Crusade Gus Van Horn Ian Schwartz One Billion Red Chinese and a Dog Named Liberty Suburban Bourgeois The Metropolis Times DR. HELEN Philadelphia AIDS Thrift Sir Humphrey’s Birth Story The Simplest Thing Blue Star Chronicles One Stack Mind Cathy Young Neocon Express A A R D V A R K World Climate Report Apartment 604 Yelling at the Windshield Kimdergarten/ ShrinkWrapped The Bear Cave X marks the blogspot CARRY ON AMERICA Jim Rose Kiril, The Mad Macedonian Signal 94 Pseudo-Polymath The International Libertarian Gates of Vienna California Sojourn The Liberty Papers Barcepundit A. Jacksonian Jon Swift Tim Maguire Three Sticks Asymmetric Dog Politics OregonGuy Little Miss Attila Buuuuurrrrning Hot AGENT BEDHEAD Tygrrrr Express David Harsanyi Snowflakes in Hell Earnest Iconoclast Eternity Road Musings of the GeekWithA.45 Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest Argue With Everyone Political Forum Nathan J. Winograd Assistant Village Idiot Parkway Rest Stop Grouchy Old Cripple Technicalities Coalition of the Swilling TigerHawk Mary Madigan Sad Old Goth Erica Sherman Joated Ezra Levant Kathy Shaidle Free Dominion Small Dead Animals Habitation of Justice GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE IEC Fusion Technology Blog John Bambenek Adventures in Existence The Discerning Observer Economists for McCain Opining Online The North Coast the CAMPVS The Michigan Review FMG Kejda Gjermani South Carolina American Glob Breitbart.com BigHollywood BigGovernment Memeorandum Le Qu&eacuteb&eacutecois Libre The Truth Laid Bear Kagogi the Destroyer Socrates’ Academy Armed and Dangerous Vin Suprynowicz Tongue Tied My Watergate Blog Syndicate this site (XML) // Llama Butchers Dean’s World Raging!The Jawa Report In The Agora INDC Journal Balloon Juice Chris Cam Daily Pundit The Owner’s Manual Beautiful Atrocities Decision 08′ Tom Rants Arguing With Signposts Kesher Talk The MUSC Tiger Say Uncle Restless Mania D.C. Thornton Signifying Nothing One Fine Jay Respectful Insolence The World Wide Rant The Countertop Chronicles Right Thoughts The Strata-Sphere The Unabrewer Random Fate One Good Turn Leaning Towards the Dark Side All Things Jennifer Enrevanche The Politburo Diktat TinkertyTonk State Of Flux Arch City Pundit Pigilito says… aTypical Joe Environmental Republican POV Big Cat Chronicles Strange Fictions Politechnical The Wisdom of Change Searchlight Crusade Greeblie Evolution Mossback Culture The Art of the Blog The World According to Nick Inside Larry’s Head Right Decisions Argghhh! Justus for All Techography Done With Mirrors Classical Values BlueStateRed Gay Orbit Armies of Liberation Phin’s Blog DANEgerus The Recovering Democrat Agent Bedhead Louisiana Libertarian From The Mind Of Chris Battles Don Surber Standing Out In The Cold Generic Confusion Wake Me Up On Judgment Day The Big Tent Blog The Nose On Your Face I-magery Charging RINO Raging!Say Anything Bostonian Exile Ex Donkey Blog Diggers Realm What Attitude Problem Mean Ol’ Meany The Cannuckistan Chronicles Below The Beltway Cardinal Martini Southern California Law Blog Professor Bainbridge Cold Hearted Truth Mind of Mog Bloggerale Cranky Insomniac Powered by BlogRolling ScrappleFace Slutertarian HQ SCSU Scholars Assume the Position Blogmosis Ibidem The Spoons Experience The Thoughts of Hondonius Aurelius Wizbang :: Explosively Unique… aimless Neurotic Fishbowl Log nr.19 My Pixelated Brain Dean’s World (Dean Esmay Judicious Asininity Raging Kraut Common Sense and Wonder Les Jones Weblinks from the Broom Closet suburban blight A Single Guy In The South Cold Fury Abraca-Pocus! Dancing with Dogs Popdex ScrappleFace On The Third Hand Beth’s Contradictory Brain A Small Victory Rachel Lucas Culpepper Log SCSUScholars John Gorenfeld’s weblog NOLI IRRITARE LEONES Absinthe and Cookies The S-Train Canvass Berry’s World On the Fritz Donald Sensing Boyd’s blog protein wisdom Betsy’s Page The Mudville Gazette INCITE Strengthen The Good protein wisdom Interested-Participant Mark Coffey JasonColeman RazorsKiss.net Confederate Yankee musings of a fat kid Anthroblogogy WILLisms.com TFS Magnum this blog is full of crap GayPatriot Scared Monkeys Cynical Nation Mareparvum Mister Snitch! Blogs Against Hillary Cold Fury Saint Kansas Dappled Things No Credentials phins blog Pseudo-Polymath Jon Swift Dr. Sanity Blue Dog State Powered by BlogRolling Blogroll Classical Values! Search Popdex: Pssst! Wanna get on the Classical Values blogroll? Don?t bang your head! Please send me an email and let me know, because although I try to keep up, sometimes I have trouble finding every last link. Site Credits Site Meter XHTML Strict 1.0 Copyright (c)2006 Site Meter Site Meter XHTML Strict 1.0 var site=”sm731347S” // Copyright (c)2005 Site Meter (Link buttons)

// ]]>]]>

John McLaughlin at American Thinker:

The blogsite IceCap includes a fascinating article by a Mr. Li Xing published in China Daily under the headline “Do three errors mean breaking point for IPCC?”.

Mr. Xing recounts his attendance at the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.  He writes of attending a panel featuring various skeptics concerning work done by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He came away particularly impressed by a talk given by Dr Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist and founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service, who, as Xing reports, “challenged the IPCC findings with his research data.”

Xing tells of meeting with IPCC chairman Dr Rajendra Pachauri and others about skeptic views and seeing those views brushed aside without serious appraisal.  He also inquired why IPCC reports included very little data from Chinese researchers.

China is not a small country. Its landmass spans several climate zones and includes the roof of the world. I have to wonder how data from China would affect the IPCC’s findings.

Several Chinese scientists who have gone over the IPCC report believe that the IPCC may have overstated the link between global temperature and CO2 in the atmosphere.

In a paper published in the December issue of the Chinese language Earth Science magazine, Ding Zhongli, an established environmental scientist, stated that the current temperatures on earth look normal if global climate changes over the past 10,000 years are considered.

Xing then cites the recent revelations of significant problems in the IPCC work.  These include how “some scientists had favored data which supports the case for ‘global warming’ in order to enhance their grant proposals,” the announcement that an IPCC claim of total glacier melt in the Himalayas by 2035 was based on “sheer speculation” — not peer-reviewed scientific work, and revelation that the IPCC had misrepresented an unpublished report linking climate change with an increase in natural disasters even when the report’s author, Dr Robert Muir-Wood, a researcher in risk management not climatology, had explicitly stated the opposite.

Mr. Xing concludes:

I am particularly troubled by the fact that top IPCC officials do not seem to take these revelations seriously. Interviewed by the BBC, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chairman of the IPCC, dismissed the matter as a “human mistake”.

Ancient Chinese considered three a breaking point. They could forgive two errors, but not a third. Now that the IPCC has admitted three “human” errors, isn’t it time scientists gave its work a serious review?

It is amazing that Chinese media examine what has recently come out revealing IPCC “mistakes” and conclude more serious examination of its work is in order.  Yet the American mainstream media brush aside such concerns seeking to keep an obvious political agenda alive.

Obama did good on Wednesday calling for more nuclear power plants.

The left, which normally insists we emulate the French, hates and fears nuclear power even though the French generate 80% of their power that way. And have for decades.

Safely. Nonetheless, as USA Today reports:

President Obama’s call Wednesday, in his State of the Union Address, for a “new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants” was panned by some environmentalists and Democratic backers.

It was considered the worst part of his 71-minute speech by 10,000 members of MoveOn, a non-profit progressive advoacy group that has raised millions of dollars for Democratic political candidates. They had signed up to evaluate the speech live and every few seconds would hit a button to reflect how they felt about it, ranging from “awful” to “great.”

“The most definitive drop in enthusiasm is when President Obama talked about nuclear power and offshore drilling,” says Ilyse Hogue, MoveOn’s director of political advocacy. “They’re looking for clean energy sources that prioritize wind and solar.”

Y’know, green on the outside, red on the inside. Shrinkwrapped:

It looks increasingly likely that the entire AGW scam represents a serendipitous cooptation of some immature science by the international left.  (Hence the derivation of Simon’s visual pun.)  After the fall of the USSR, communism and socialism were held in disrepute.  Among other problems for the left was that in every instance it failed to raise the living standards of those who were its nominal beneficiaries.  However, those who support collectivism and leverage envy and hated of those who are successful for their own aggrandizement, were not about to give up on their dreams of dismantling capitalism simply because they had lost the Cold War.  AGW was a perfect fit.

It threatened disaster at some indeterminate future, a disaster that could only be avoided by crippling the world’s most developed economies; all directed by those who were uniquely equipped to “save the planet.”  It was based on a belief structure that leveraged faith in the new religion of Gaiaism and thus had an already prepared population of worshippers who would fully adopt the dogma and be immune to countervailing data.  As a bonus, it offered the kinds of virtuous self regard that has been a traditional motivator for those who suffered significant guilt over their good fortune to be born and live in materially successful societies.

The international left were quite clear, if not terribly overt, about their desire to use AGW as a weapon to diminish the power of the wealthy nations and transfer large amounts of wealth to the poor (with the wealth first passing through the fingers of the international elites.)  The game is up now on AGW and those who desire above all to create the promised Utopia on earth that only they can envision and produce, must now look to other means by which to introduce such “necessities” as world governance, greater wealth transfers, and enhanced power to the elites.

The UN’s top climate change body has issued an unprecedented apology over its flawed prediction that Himalayan glaciers were likely to disappear by 2035.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said yesterday that the prediction in its landmark 2007 report was “poorly substantiated” and resulted from a lapse in standards. “In drafting the paragraph in question the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly,” the panel said. “The chair, vice-chair and co-chairs of the IPCC regret the poor application of IPCC procedures in this instance.”

The stunning admission is certain to embolden critics of the panel, already under fire over a separate scandal involving hacked e-mails last year.

You don’t say.

Sheesh, no wonder the stimulus didn’t work. Mike Flynn at Big Government:

The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (the Stimulus Bill) has been such an epic failure, that even the mainstream media has started to notice. The White House has tacitly acknowledged this and recently announced that it would no longer ‘count’ jobs ‘created or saved’ by the Stimulus. The basic problem is that the bulk of the spending went to programs or projects that have nothing to do with economic growth.

The latest example of this is a $500,000 grant to Michael Mann, Professor at Penn State University and unintended c0-star of the ClimateGate e-mail scandal. The leaked e-mails revealed collaboration among scientists to stifle dissenting views on the extent of man-made global warming.

Mann is also the creator of the “Hockey Stick” graph, which purported to show a sharp increase in recent temperatures. That work has been thoroughly discredited by researcher Stephen McIntyre. Yet, in June 2009, the National Science Foundation awarded Mann a three-year $500,000 to further study the climate’s response to human activity. According to the grant award:

The broader impacts involve supporting postdoctoral scholars and graduate students and contributing to the understanding of abrupt climate change.

So, the research is supposed to give us a better ‘understanding of abrupt climate change.’ Mind you, the research isn’t to determine whether there is abrupt climate change occurring. Given that Mann is known for using “tricks” to finesse his data, the National Science Foundation will not be pleased with the results.

ATHEISTS HAVE begun a campaign against the Government’s new blasphemy law, which came into force on January 1st as part of the Defamation Act.

The group Atheist Ireland has published 25 quotes it says are blasphemous, attributed to people from Jesus Christ to Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern.

Under the new law, which the group is campaigning to have repealed, blasphemy is punishable by a fine of up to €25,000.

It defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, and intending by such publication to cause such outrage.

One wonders: does this cover the religion of climate change?

Would mocking Al Gore be a criminal offense? Remember, NYT columnist Paul Krugman called skepticism of global warming treason.

Dan Neil in the LA Times:

This may come as something of a shock, but I am a liberal progressive environmental do-gooder. I know. Just keep breathing. You’ll come around.

I am also a car guy. As such, I am precisely the sort of prospect Renault means to cultivate in its film “Drive the Change” (Publicis), a two-minute corporate manifesto that declares the company’s intention to radically reinvent personal mobility around electric-vehicle technology. The film debuted at the Frankfurt auto show in September, and various “Drive the Change” campaign works — multiplexed across TV, Web and social media formats — will circulate globally as Renault ramps up to sell four new electric models by 2011. Meanwhile, Renault’s partner, Nissan, is on track to launch the Leaf EV in the U.S. by the end of this year, with an eventual sales goal of 150,000 annually.

Wow. Here in the land of the 900-cfm carburetor and 7-yard-long pickup? As a tree-hugging gear head, I should be delighted. Electric vehicles are fast, clean — even if you account for the electricity from coal-fired power plants, the so-called long tailpipe — and they represent the best means to efficiently convert multiple renewable energy pathways (wind, solar, biomass, hydro) to transportation.

So why do I want to kick Renault in the shin?

Because the “Drive the Change” campaign epitomizes, to the point of self-parody, all the worst characterizations the Reactionary Right holds dear about the Loony Left (of which I am, again, a card-carrying member): highhanded, holier-than-thou, gratingly preachy, salvationist, tone-deaf, collectivist. And in several imputations in this film, flat-out wrong.

I honor Renault/Nissan’s commitment to the environment, but the buttonholing sanctimony only makes me want to set an oil derrick on fire.

A mini-ice age may be on the way.

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.

Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in
summer by 2013.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.

The scientists’ predictions also undermine the standard climate computer models, which assert that the warming of the Earth since 1900 has been driven solely by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and will continue as long as carbon dioxide levels rise.

They say that their research shows that much of the warming was caused by oceanic cycles when they were in a ‘warm mode’ as opposed to the present ‘cold mode’.

This challenge to the widespread view that the planet is on the brink of an irreversible catastrophe is all the greater because the scientists could never be described as global warming ‘deniers’ or sceptics.

However, both main British political parties continue to insist that the world is facing imminent disaster without drastic cuts in CO2.

Britain is bracing itself for one of the coldest winters for a century with temperatures hitting minus 16 degrees Celsius, forecasters have warned.

They predicted no let up in the freezing snap until at least mid-January, with snow, ice and severe frosts dominating.

And the likelihood is that the second half of the month will be even colder.

This new French carbon tax was scheduled to go into law on Jan1, 2010. The tax was steep: 17 euros per ton of carbon dioxide (USD $24.40).  In a stunning move, and surely a blow to warmists everywhere, the tax has been found unconstitutional and thrown out. Originally found here (Google Translation).

Alexander Cockburn:

…Only a few weeks before Copenhagen, here is a scientist in the inner AGW circle disclosing that “we are no where close to knowing” how the supposedly proven AGW warming model might actually work, and that therefore geoengineering – such as carbon mitigation – is “hopeless.”

This admission edges close to acknowledgment of a huge core problem: that “greenhouse” theory violates the second law of thermodynamics, which says that a cooler body cannot warm a hotter body without compensation. Greenhouse gases in the cold upper atmosphere cannot possibly transfer heat to the warmer earth, and in fact radiate their absorbed heat into outer space. (Readers interested in the science can read Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf Tscheuschner’s “Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within the Frame of Physics,” updated in January 2009.)

Recent data from many monitors including the CRU, available on climate4you.com, show that the average temperature of the atmosphere and the oceans near the surface of the earth has decreased significantly across the past eight years or so. CO2 is a benign gas essential to life, occurring in past eras at five times present levels. Changes in atmospheric CO2 do not correlate with human emissions of CO2, the latter being entirely trivial in the global balance.

The battles in Nicaea in 325 were faith based, with no relation to science or reason. So were the premises of the Copenhagen summit, that the planet faces catastrophic warming caused by manmade CO2 buildup, and that human intervention – geoengineering – could avert the coming disaster. Properly speaking, it’s a farce. In terms of distraction from cleaning up the pollutants that are actually killing people, it’s a terrible tragedy.

Green weenies are becoming cartoons of themselves.

Man’s best friend could be one of the environment’s worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.

But the revelation in the book “Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living” by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers.

The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.

Combine the land required to generate its food and a “medium” sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) — around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4×4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.