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Australian astronomers may have found a solution to how far-away Jupiter and Saturn drive the sun's solar cycle. In a paper published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, astronomer Dr Ian Wilson and colleagues from the University of Southern Queensland, suggest Jupiter and Saturn affect the sun's movement and its rotation, and hence its sunspot activity. Every 11 years the sun undergoes a period of intense solar activity, marked by flares, coronal mass ejections and sunspots. This period is known as the solar maximum and occurs twice each solar, or Hale, cycle. "The sun can be thought...

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came up with the world's first idea for government control of the temperature of the earth's atmosphere. The presidential candidates from the two major parties in the US seem united in their quest to increase the role of the federal government in regulating climate. European nations have spearheaded international efforts. Politicians, bureaucrats, and journalists around the globe are in determined agreement on climate change. They want to do something about it. US citizens currently face is a lack of choice from the two presidential candidates. During the latter part of the 20th...

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research today released a scientific assessment that provides the first comprehensive analysis of observed and projected changes in weather and climate extremes in North America and U.S. territories. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change previously evaluated extreme weather and climate events on a global basis in this same context. However, there has not been a specific assessment across North America prior to this report. Among the major findings reported in this assessment are that droughts, heavy downpours, excessive heat, and intense hurricanes are likely to become more commonplace...

It's almost a point of pride with climatologists. Whenever someplace is hit with a heat wave, drought, killer storm or other extreme weather, scientists trip over themselves to absolve global warming. No particular weather event, goes the mantra, can be blamed on something so general. Extreme weather occurred before humans began loading up the atmosphere with heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. So this storm or that heat wave could be the result of the same natural forces that prevailed 100 years ago—random movements of air masses, unlucky confluences of high- and low-pressure systems—rather than global warming.

On 23 June of this year (2008), James E. Hansen --Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies -- unleashed a tirade that was truly "beyond the pale" ... even for him. He said, among other things, that "climate is nearing dangerous tipping points," that if CO2 emissions follow a business-as-usual scenario, "sea level rise of at least two meters is likely this century," that "polar and alpine species will be pushed off the planet," that "ocean life dependent on carbonate shells and skeletons is threatened by dissolution," and that "we have used up all slack in the schedule for...

At NRO, Victor Davis Hanson diagnoses our society as being in a chronic state of hesitation, a nation of “Jittery Hamlets:” The causes of this paralysis are clear. Action entails risks and consequences. Mere thinking doesn’t. In our litigious society, as soon as someone finally does something, someone else can become wealthy by finding some fault in it. Meanwhile, a less fussy and more confident world abroad drills and builds nuclear plants, refineries, dams, and canals to feed and fuel millions who want what we take for granted. There is an inverse side to all this dithering: the rush to...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California on Thursday took a major step forward on its global warming fight by unveiling an ambitious plan for clean cars, renewable energy and stringent caps on big polluting industries. The plan, which aims to reduce pollutants by 10 percent from current levels by 2020 while driving investment in new energy technologies that will benefit the state's economy, is the most comprehensive yet by any U.S. state. It could serve as a blueprint not only for the rest of the United States, ... "This is of tremendous importance, not only for California," Mary Nichols, chairman of...

Are the ices of the Arctic north about to melt away for good? Rami Abdelrahman gets the views of a range of Swedish researchers. Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria is one of a number of Scandinavian royals making for the Arctic archipelago on the Swedish ice-breaker Oden this weekend to participate in an event to coincide with and promote International Polar Year. But will there even be a need for such ice-breaking vessels in years to come? Many commentators would have us believe that glaciers and ocean ice are about to go the way of the dodo. Upon their arrival at...

Citing extensive United Nations research as well as personal observations, former Mets manager Willie Randolph has concluded that last year's historic late-season collapse of the New York Mets was caused by anthopogenic global warming. "This is a settled issued," declared Randolph. "The Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change has investigated every possible explanation for our cataclysmic stretch run choke. The only logical conclusion is that global warming caused severe imbalances in the microclimates in and around Shea Stadium." Pressed for details Mr. Randolph explained that temperature readings in left field were .0002 of a degree (Celsius) higher than readings in right...

The Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) wants the Federal Government's drought policy to help prepare farmers for climate change. Yesterday, the Federal Government announced the detail of how it will review the policy, which has previously defined drought as a once in 20 or 25 year event. Exceptional Circumstances (EC) support and farm exit packages will be reviewed as part of an economic assessment of drought policy. The Government has also announced a panel will look at the social effect of drought, and the weather bureau and CSIRO will report on climate change. VFF president Simon Ramsay says farms need to...

WASHINGTON - Droughts will get drier, storms will get stormier and floods will get deeper with a warming climate across North America, U.S. government experts said in a report billed as the first continental assessment of extreme events.

Greenland ice core analysis shows drastic climate change near end of last ice age Caption: The North Greenland Ice Core Project camp. Credit: NGRIP Temperatures spiked 22 degrees F in just 50 years, researchers say Information gleaned from a Greenland ice core by an international science team shows that two huge Northern Hemisphere temperature spikes prior to the close of the last ice age some 11,500 years ago were tied to fundamental shifts in atmospheric circulation. The ice core showed the Northern Hemisphere briefly emerged from the last ice age some 14,700 years ago with a 22-degree-Fahrenheit spike in just...

U.S. Energy Security and Climate Change PolicyCenter for a New American Security Washington, District of Columbia (United States) ID: 205934 - 5 - 06/11/2008 - 1:01 - $29.95 Browner, Carol M. Administrator (1993-2001), Environmental Protection Agency Podesta, John D. President and CEO, Center for American Progress Gullegde, Jay Senior Research Fellow, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Science and Impacts Burke, Sharon Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security Smith, Frederick C. Vice President, Institute for 21st Century Energy A panel discussion was held on the foreign policy and national security challenges of energy security and climate change. Topics...

Viking Farms Tell Cautionary Climate Tale Boundary walls built by Iceland's Viking farmers run through Unnsteinn Ingason's land. At some point, farmers stopped repairing the walls, and a climate change may help explain why. Ingason's land had been farmed for hundreds of years prior to his family's ownership. Here, ruins of a stone farm house with a turf roof on a hill behind Ingason's home. Archaeologist Adolf Fridriksson stands near the ruins of an early Viking farm. The farm was long ago abandoned, and its soil heavily eroded. Icelandic farmers bring their sheep down from the hills for the winter....

.....As senator, and then vice president, Gore used his power to channel money toward those who “played ball” and away from those who doubted GW. The latter found that grant money dried up, promotions were denied, and even jobs were terminated. Gore’s colleague, Colorado Senator Timothy Wirth, became Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs in charge of promoting GW theory and international agreements to address the alleged problem. Wirth was quoted as bragging that he could change a lot of minds with a billion dollars per year of State Department money. Indeed, recent estimates are that $50 billion has been...

For months, Democrats and the environmental lobby promoted last week's Senate global-warming debate as a political watershed. It was going to be the historic turning point in U.S. climate change policy. In the event, their bill collapsed in a little more than three days. Democrats failed to secure a majority, much less the 60 Senators necessary, for a procedural vote on Friday morning that would have allowed the real work of amending the bill to begin. By that point, Majority Leader Harry Reid had already made it plain that he wanted the bill off the floor as quickly as possible...

Thank you for contacting me regarding climate change. I appreciate hearing from you. I believe that we must address the causes of climate change immediately. The global average surface temperature is rising, glaciers and sea ice are melting, and the overwhelming majority of scientists agree that our accelerating use of fossil fuels is a significant part of the problem. As you know, the Senate is considering climate change legislation. I believe a cap-and-trade system is the best and most flexible way of guaranteeing that the lowest cost measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are adopted first. We must also be...

Grouped By Vote Position YEAs ---48 Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Collins (R-ME) Dodd (D-CT) Dole (R-NC) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Kerry (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Martinez (R-FL) McCaskill (D-MO) Menendez (D-NJ) Mikulski (D-MD) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Salazar (D-CO) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Smith (R-OR) Snowe (R-ME) Stabenow (D-MI) Sununu (R-NH) Tester (D-MT) Warner (R-VA) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI)...

Brown lambasted for opposing global-warming vote Friday, June 6, 2008 11:24 PM By Jack Torry THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH WASHINGTON — Sens. Sherrod Brown and George V. Voinovich today helped block a sweeping bill aimed at curbing global warming, ending congressional efforts on climate change until next year. By a 48-36 vote, supporters of the bill failed to muster the necessary 60 votes to end a Republican filibuster and clear the way for final passage. Brown was one of four Democrats and Voinovich was one of 32 Republicans to support the filibuster. While Voinovich's decision to oppose the bill had been...

The deniers of global warming are about to latch on to a new argument. The world is cooling. And they are right - well, slightly. Globally, this year is likely to be the coolest for some time - back to the average of the early 90s, according to some unpublished forecasts. This is no refutation of man-made global warming. It is the inevitable consequence of one of nature's climatic cycles. The La Niña, the cold phase of the El Niño cycle in the Pacific, has sent average global temperatures plunging this year. And there is more. Longer term climate cycles...

Climate Change fears drives much activism, energy policy and politics. Paleoclimatoligy data shows that many concerns, such as of disasterous and catastrophic global warming, are unfounded.

THE history of left-wing politics is a history of unintended - and invariably negative - outcomes. Glorious workers’ revolutions lead to tyranny. Welfare causes misery. Government-funded tertiary education ends up subsidising the same proportion of private school and state school students as previously attended universities under full fees. Public broadcasting evolves into elite programming funded by people who never watch or listen to it. Decades of state film funding gives us films nobody pays to see. I could go on. Hey, I will: Environmentalism Thanks to its capture by leftists - degenerates from a positive save-the-critters movement into a freaky...

Earlier this week, we spoke to Senator James Inhofe from the Senate floor, where he led the opposition in debate on the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill. He seemed confident that the bill would not pass in the Senate, and told us that the overwhelming vote to open debate had nothing to do with support for the bill, but the opportunity to argue against massive regulation of energy production in the US. Inhofe apparently had it more right than he knew, as it appears that the debate will end much more quickly than anyone guessed — and that the bill is dead...

"105° tomorrow? We'll be sending you out live," the television producer informed me. Like most TV Meteorologists, I loathed the heat wave live-remotes. I would much rather work in a controlled environment, complete with air conditioning and a green Chroma-key screen. And during extreme weather events, the studio lent itself to professionalism rather than playing on emotion. "Let me guess, the bank in Walnut Creek?" I said sarcastically. I had been through this drill many times. "Perfect location. Plus, a lot of viewers with ratings meters out there." Walnut Creek is an upscale town 30 miles east of San Francisco....

Study Warns Global Warming Could Swamp Gulf Coast By SEAN REILLYWASHINGTON — A new government report offers a grim forecast of global warming's long-term impact on the Gulf Coast, warning that "a vast portion ... from Houston to Mobile, Ala., may be inundated in the future." The predicted flooding, resulting from rising sea levels and sinking land surfaces, would occur within the next 50 to 100 years, according to the report, released last month by the National Science and Technology Council, a federal advisory body. While the effects would fall outside the life spans of most adults today, they could...

The global warming bill, up for debate in the Senate this week, includes a little-known provision to reduce the nation’s collective carbon footprint, and to make the U.S. energy-independent by replacing the burning of petroleum products with the burning of paper currency. Under the terms of the legislation, Congress would require that businesses and individuals burn money to run factories, heat homes and propel motor vehicles. “Money is a relatively clean-burning, renewable resource,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA. “If we need more, we don’t have to go crawling to the Saudis, we simply mandate that our own people send it...

Keeping you up to date: I told you this morning about the Lieberman-Warner “climate change” boondoggle. At 6:25pm Eastern tonight, the Senate voted on the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to Consider S.3036 ). It passed 74-14, with 12 not voting. Thirteen GOP senators plus Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd (yes, Robert Byrd) opposed the massive eco-pork bill that would perpetuate the carbon offset/cap-and-trade fraud.

CONFER: Climate security and economic run We live in an era of much unrest in which people fear for their security, be it socially (terror threats), economically (recession), or environmentally (global warming). Feeding off this, our elected officials have been quite successful in using fear-mongering to introduce endless amounts of legislation that do much more harm than good. The terror fears have been addressed by the Patriot Act, a series of intrusive laws that are unconstitutional and un-American. The economic fears have been satisfied with an economic stimulus package which has produced reams of worthless fiat money. Up next on...

Some facts on climate legislationPublished on Sunday, Jun 01, 2008 Here are questions about the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act that the Senate is to begin debating this week: Q: What is it? A: The bill by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va., would create a ''cap-and-trade'' program designed to reduce environmentally harmful carbon dioxide emissions by power companies, big manufacturers, refineries and other businesses. Q: How would it work? A: Affected companies would be forced to meet new limits — the ''cap'' part — on their emissions. They would have to reduce emissions by about 2 percent each...

Climate Bill Underlines Obstacles to Capping Greenhouse GasesBy Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, June 1, 2008; Page A12 When the Senate takes up landmark climate legislation this week, its backers can be sure of just one thing: The obstacles they face show how hard it will be to enact a meaningful cap on greenhouse gases -- probably under the next administration. The next administration, not this one, because even supporters of the complex, extensively negotiated 494-page bill say that there is little chance that it will win Senate approval, less chance that the House will...

Discussing fuel prices and what it means for the troubled auto industry, with Mike Jackson, Autonation CEO

The Senate's leading climate-change bill, while aiming to combat global warming by reducing carbon dioxide in the air, actually poses "extraordinary perils" for Americans and the economy, according to a new study from The Heritage Foundation. The study, produced by Heritage's Center for Data Analysis (CDA), forecasts severe consequences—including crushing energy costs, millions of jobs lost and falling household income—if Congress enacts the so-called Lieberman-Warner bill. What follows are 50 state-by-state breakouts of the impact the bill would have on jobs and the economy.

The global warming debate arrives in the Senate next week, and it's about time. Finally, the Members will have to vote on something real, as opposed to their buck-passing to courts and regulators, and their easy trashing of President Bush. The vehicle is a bill that principal sponsors Joe Lieberman and John Warner are calling "landmark legislation." They're too modest. Warner-Lieberman would impose the most extensive government reorganization of the American economy since the 1930s. Thankfully, the American system makes it hard for colossal tax and regulatory burdens to foxtrot into law without scrutiny. So we hope our politicians will...

Editor's Note: This story embargoed for release until 2 pm ET Wednesday, October 17, 2001, to coincide with publication in the journal Nature.) COLUMBUS, Ohio - An international team of scientists reported this week that a rock core drilled from the seafloor off the coast of Antarctica is the first to show cyclic climate changes in polar regions that are linked to cores taken from the ocean bottom in both temperate and tropical zones. These records show ice sheet advances and retreats that match Milankovitch cycles - variations in the Earth's orbit around the sun, in the tilt of the ...

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine’s announcement that 31,072 U.S. scientists have signed a petition challenging the assertion that humans are causing, or will cause catastrophic global warming, has sparked outrage among fanatic environmentalists. Even though many eminent scientists are among the petition’s signers, the Institute is being denigrated as “an obscure group” and has been mockingly labeled the “Oregon Institute of Science and Malarkey.” “Who has ever heard of this outfit?” international environmental expert Al Gore jeered. “The idea that these ‘flat-Earthers’ merit a hearing is ludicrous. I have a Nobel Prize for environmental science. I think most...

A vast array of physical and biological systems across the earth are being affected by warming temperatures caused by humans, says a new analysis of information not previously assembled all in one spot. The effects on living things include earlier leafing of trees and plants over many regions; movements of species to higher latitudes and altitudes in the northern hemisphere; changes in bird migrations in Europe, North America and Australia; and shifting of the oceans' plankton and fish from cold- to warm-adapted communities. "Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the warming world is causing impacts on...

The newest analysis of trace gases trapped in Antarctic ice cores now provide a reasonable view of greenhouse gas concentrations as much as 800,000 years into the past, and are further confirming the link between greenhouse gas levels and global warming, scientists reported in the journal Nature. They also show that during that entire period of time, there have never been concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane as high as the current levels, said Edward Brook, an associate professor of geosciences at Oregon State University, and author of a Nature commentary on the new studies. "The fundamental conclusion that today's...

NOAA: U.S. Has Cool April, Global Temperature Ranked 13th Warmest on RecordThis past month was the coolest April in 11 years for the lower 48 United States, and fell into the lowest twenty-five percent of all Aprils based on records going back to 1895, according to an analysis by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The average April temperature, 51°F, during April was one degree below the 20th century mean, and was the 29th coolest, or 86th warmest, based on preliminary data. The combined average global land and ocean surface temperatures for April ranked 13th warmest since worldwide...

Development campaigners have accused the UK government of making a stealth cut to an £800m fund designed to help poor countries adapt to climate change.

The Prince of Wales has warned that the world faces a series of natural disasters within 18 months unless urgent action is taken to save the rainforests. In one of his most out-spoken interventions in the climate change debate, he said a £15 billion annual programme was required to halt deforestation or the world would have to live with the dire consequences. "We will end up seeing more drought and starvation on a grand scale. Weather patterns will become even more terrifying and there will be less and less rainfall," he said. "We are asking for something pretty dreadful unless...

The letter shows that the US has resisted the idea of loans, preferring to give developing countries grants. "We understand that grants would be the US preferred approach," the British ministers say. Both their departments are understood to have argued strongly that the money should be in direct grant form on principle, but were overruled by the Treasury. Last night several countries joined environment and development groups to condemn the loans. "We need urgently to prepare for climate change, but we are not in a position to pay back loans," said a spokesman for the Bangladesh high commission in London....

WASHINGTON - With concerns about global warming rising along with the planet's temperature, the head of the federal agency in change of weather research and forecasting is proposing creation of a new National Climate Service. Conrad C. Lautenbacher said Tuesday a climate service within his agency could combine data from the research and analysis work done by several agencies, as well as coordinate climate information for the government. "In the future I think it would make a lot of sense for us to separate the science from the political furball of policy," he said. Lautenbacher is head of the National...

I did not listen to Rush’s entire show. The part I did here, was a “look-down-your-nose-sneer” at Senator McCain’s concern and proposals about climate change. I know this is problematical with those believing we are on the edge of a catastrophe and those who feel this is all hokum. Seemingly, faith has replaced all reason in assessing the problem. In actual fact the problem is really quite simple. What the European and other governments want to do is to hold the concentration of carbon dioxide to 450 parts per million. Presently, it is 380 ppm. At the beginning of the...

Excerpted below: ... On May 6, Jeff Poor wrote for the Business & Media Institute (BMI) a story entitled, "Al Gore Calls Myanmar Cyclone a 'Consequence' of Global Warming," which was subsequently linked on the Drudge Report. Poor claims: "Using tragedy to advance an agenda has been a strategy for many global warming activists, and it was just a matter of time before someone found a way to tie the recent Myanmar cyclone to global warming." Poor wrote that Gore said in an interview on National Public Radio, "The year before, the strongest cyclone in more than 50 years hit...

January 25, 2008 Dear President Bush: On behalf of Property Rights Alliance (PRA), I write to urge you to halt the movement to list the polar bear as a “threatened” species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). This move, proposed by Secretary of the Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, would mark the first time a species is added to the ESA due to global warming. As you know, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 remains in dire need of reform. In over thirty years, the success rate of its main objective, to promote species recovery, was less than one percent. The original...

Curbing a notorious form of industrial pollution may ironically harm Amazonia, one of the world's natural treasures and a key buffer against global warming, a study released Wednesday has found. Its authors see a strong link between a decrease in sulphur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and a rise in sea temperature in the northern Atlantic that was blamed for wreaking a devastating drought in western Amazonia in 2005. University of Exeter professor Peter Cox and colleagues created a computer model to simulate the impact of aerosols -- airborne particles that, like sulphur dioxide, are also spewed out by...

Brussels officials have turned to religious VIPs to help spread the gospel of an environmentally friendly society and increase awareness of climate change in their parishes, as well as promoting tolerance between different confessions in Europe. Twenty high-level representatives – 19 men and one woman - from European Christian, Jewish and Muslim congregations met in Brussels on Monday (5 may) to discuss the sensitive issues of climate change and reconciliation between peoples. The meeting was co-chaired by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Slovenian Prime Minister and current president of the European Council, Janez Jansa, and the president of the...

In Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth, the militant members of the Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation (KEVIN) claim they have an “acronym problem”. Not compared to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front! MILF has an acronym problem. And its real. But names are the least of this Philippine radical group’s concerns. What they don’t have is food. At least they didn’t until Wednesday, when they picked up their guns and took over the coastal village of Sangay. Three hundred armed jihadists forced more than a thousand (mostly Christian) villagers off their land after demanding food and confiscating recently-harvested...

Lawrence Solomon talked about his book The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud

Lawrence Solomon talks about his book The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud