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CHILLICOTHE, Ohio (AFP) – White House hopeful Barack Obama called for a global response to the deepening financial crisis Friday as ministers from the world's major wealthy democracies headed to Washington for emergency weekend talks. "We also have to recognize that this is not just an American problem. In this global economy, financial markets have no boundaries," the Democrat told a crowd of several thousand in working-class Chillicothe in the battleground state of Ohio. "So the current crisis demands a global response," Obama said on the final business day of a rollercoaster week which saw stocks dive worldwide, amid panic...

Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi said political leaders discussing idea of closing world's financial markets while they 'rewrite the rules of international finance'... MORE Nothing follows. I can't get to the Bloomberg story its getting hammered. This is huge and series. Load your shotguns folks.

And down the stretch they come! Barack Obama and John McCain are racing toward the Presidential finish line, but the national economy is providing a headwind to John McCain while airing the sails for Barack Obama. Another day, another triple digit drop in the DOW, and as a financial professional I can tell you that there is no quick and easy fix. I was a opponent of the bailout and I believe John McCain missed his opportunity to make a dent in the polls by aligning himself with the people and not with government. The problem with the bailout is...

Factory data show wider economy sufferingBy Chris Giles in London Financial Times, October 2 2008 Manufacturers across the world's advanced economies suffered a torrid September, surveys suggested yesterday, providing clear evidence that the real economy had been unable to escape the woes of the financial sector. From Japan, across Europe and in the US, surveys of manufacturers were bleak with readings suggesting output was falling. Snip.

After decades of immigration from Asia and Latin America, Silicon Valley has hit a linguistic milestone that is rare in America: For the first time, a majority of Santa Clara County residents speak a language other than English at home. In 2007, Santa Clara was one of just 10 counties in the United States where more than 50 percent of residents speak a foreign language at home, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data released Monday. Most of those counties are home to Spanish speakers on the Mexican border or multilingual populations in large cities like New York, Los Angeles...

The BBC is being investigated by television watchdogs after a leading climate change sceptic claimed his views were deliberately misrepresented. Lord Monckton, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, says he was made to look like a ‘potty peer’ on a TV programme that ‘was a one-sided polemic for the new religion of global warming’. Earth: The Climate Wars, which was broadcast on BBC 2, was billed as a definitive guide to the history of global warming, including arguments for and against. During the series, Dr Iain Stewart, a geologist, interviewed leading climate change sceptics, including Lord Monckton. But the peer...

UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday stressed the need for "global leadership" as he pressed world leaders not to pursue narrow national interests in the face of hard economic times. "I see a danger of nations looking more inward, rather than toward a shared future," he said at the opening of the UN General Assembly's annual debate. He spoke of a "challenge of global leadership" to tackle the world's worsening financial, energy and food crises. "We see new centers of power and leadership -- in Asia, Latin America and across the newly developed world," Ban told more than 120 heads...

Excerpt - ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - British Airways has suspended its flights to Pakistan because of security fears after a bloody suicide truck-bomb blast at a hotel in Islamabad on the weekend, an airline spokesman said on Monday. ~ snip ~

The record-setting surface of the sun. A full month has gone by without a single spot (Source: Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)) Sunspot activity of the past decade. Over the past year, SIDC has continually revised its predictions downward (Source: Solar Influences Data Center) Geomagnetic solar activity for the past two decades. The recent drop corresponds to the decline in sunspots. (Source: Anthony Watts) A chart of sunspot activity showing two prior solar minima, along with heightened activity during the 20th century (Source: Wikimedia Commons)Drop in solar activity has potential effect for climate on earth. The sun has reached a...

The record-setting surface of the sun. A full month has gone by without a single spot (Source: Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)) The sun has reached a milestone not seen for nearly 100 years: an entire month has passed without a single visible sunspot being noted. The event is significant as many climatologists now believe solar magnetic activity – which determines the number of sunspots -- is an influencing factor for climate on earth. According to data from Mount Wilson Observatory, UCLA, more than an entire month has passed without a spot. The last time such an event occurred was...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- The Republican platform may include a first-ever plank on global warming, an examination of a draft document indicated. "Increased atmospheric carbon has a warming effect on the Earth," The Hill reported the draft document as saying. "While the scope and long term consequences of this warming effect are the subject of ongoing research, we believe the United States should take measured and reasonable steps today." Sen. John McCain, poised to become the party's presidential nominee next week during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., is a proponent of tackling global warming.

Thanks to globalization, it is now increasingly easy for capital to cross national borders. Investors naturally prefer lower–tax jurisdictions, so there is a shift of jobs and investment out of high–tax nations. This is having a big impact on tax policy. Simply stated, tax competition is compelling governments to dramatically lower their tax rates. This has important implications for China, the United States, and other every nation seeking to play a role in the world economy. As recently as 1980, the average top statutory corporate tax rate in industrialized nations was nearly 50 percent. Top personal income tax rates were...

Call Congress back to have an up-or-down vote on a comprehensive energy bill which includes expanded drilling for oil. There is a petition here: http://www.callbackcongress.com/

http://www.spaceweather.com/ PROTO NEW-CYCLE SUNSPOT: A sunspot from the next solar cycle could soon appear in the sun's northern hemisphere. SOHO magnetograms show an emerging magnetic dipole with the telltale polarity of Solar Cycle 24: So far this is merely a proto-sunspot; the magnetic fields have not coalesced to form a truly dark sunspot core. Nevertheless, the little active region is significant. It is a herald of new Solar Cycle 24, and a sign that the solar cycle, while seemingly stuck in endless minimum, is actually progressing normally. The calm won't last forever! Readers with solar telescopes, keep an eye on...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s single most illuminating statement in the course of a just-completed overseas tour was his self-description during the stop in Berlin as a “citizen of the world.” Widely interpreted as nothing more than an innocuous expression of solidarity with his adoring, post-nationalist hosts, this declaration is actually just the latest indication that Senator Obama embraces a vision of his own country and its role in the world that should be exceedingly worrisome to America’s citizenry.

I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector. FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old...

‘We are the problem and the solution to global warming’İSMAİL KOCABIYIK; ISTANBUL 13 July 2008, Sunday Human beings are the cause of global warming, but they are also the only force capable of stopping it, according to İbrahim Dinçer, the chairman of the Global Conference on Global Warming, which was held this past week in İstanbul. In an interview with Sunday's Zaman Dinçer, a professor at the University of Ontario's Institute of Technology, said there are several ways to prevent global warming and that the most important is education. "You can educate people from kindergarten to the end of their...

OAKLAND, Calif. -- California is making it mandatory for cars to be labeled with global warming scores, figures that take into account emissions from vehicle use and fuel production.

Where are the Sunspots? Are we in for a Quiet Solar Cycle?Written by Ian O'Neill So what's up with our Sun? Is it going through a depression? It seems as if our closest star is experiencing a surprisingly uneventful couple of years. Solar minimum has supposedly passed and we should be seeing a lot more magnetic activity, and we certainly should be observing lots more sunspots. Space weather forecasts have been putting Solar Cycle 24 as a historically active cycle… but so far, nothing. So what's the problem? Is it a ticking bomb, waiting to shock us with a huge...

STATEMENT ON THE GLOBAL ANGLICAN FUTURE Praise the LORD! It is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting. The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. (Psalm 147:1-2) Brothers and Sisters in Christ: We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, send you greetings from Jerusalem! Introduction The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), which was held in Jerusalem from 22-29 June 2008, is a spiritual movement to preserve and promote the truth and power of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ as we Anglicans...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Members of the Senate sought on Thursday to pass bipartisan legislation to more than triple funds to fight AIDS in Africa and other countries, but some Republican foes vowed to block it because of its cost. President George W. Bush had called for a doubling of U.S. funding to help fight a global battle against AIDS. There are indications his administration would go along with more aggressive spending, according to congressional aides. But he has had difficulty convincing some fellow Republicans in Congress to go along. Supporters of the proposed $50 billion in U.S. funds over five...

Scientists have made the claim that obese people are more responsible for global warming than thin people. So what's the cure? Uh...ask a fat guy and you may not like the answer! (The author requests that you visit his site and not paste the cartoon within this thread. THANKS!)

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...

Yet another global warming fantasy is that the polar bears are being killed by our CO2 emissions. That aint what's killing them, it's the reds! See for yourself in this "Geeks On Caffeine" cartoon!

Alistair Darling warns of global crisis hitting Britain in first Mansion House speech By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor Last Updated: 9:27am BST 18/06/2008 Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, is to warn that Britain is now "exposed to global events like never before" in his first Mansion House speech to the City. In a BBC interview he urged people not to push for inflation-busting pay rises this year saying it would be "disastrous" if the current high rates of inflation became the norm. His comments will underline the growing concern within Government over the impact of rapidly increasing food and fuel...

In the past decade, global defense spending has grown 45 percent, to over $1.3 trillion. That's about 2.5 percent of global GDP. After the Cold War ended in 1991, defense spending declined for a few years, to under a trillion dollars a year. But by the end of the 1990s, it was on the rise again. The region with the greatest growth has been the Middle East, where spending has increased 62 percent in the last decade. The region with the lowest growth (six percent) was Western Europe. About a third of global defense spending is in weapons and major...

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...

"99% of investors need to focus less on the big picture and more on what their stocks are doing," says fund manager Howard Lindzon. But Lindzon does have some thoughts about the "big picture," particularly the endless debate about oil. Here, he gives the rationale for why $200 oil would be a good thing, because it might finally force America to get serious about alternative energy and get U.S. automakers to really innovate. "Maybe it's important oil finally goes to $200 so we do something else," he says. From an investor's perspective, "you can't be ashamed to be making money...

“Bishop claims environment abusers as bad as sex,” colorfully declared the headline of the Birmingham (England) Post. The May 31 article began: “The Bishop of Stafford has compared people who ignore the effects of climate change to the Austrian child sex monster Josef Fritzl.” In all too common fashion for Global Warming alarmists, the Anglican bishop recently employed a pastoral letter to liken dissenters on Global Warming to Josef Fritzl, who fathered seven children by his daughter, who was locked up in the basement across two decades.

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...

"In terms of renewable fuels, ethanol is the worst solution," Patzek says. "It has the highest energy cost with the least benefit."Ethanol is produced by fermenting renewable crops like corn or sugarcane. It may sound green, Patzek says, but that's because many scientists are not looking at the whole picture. According to his research, more fossil energy is used to produce ethanol than the energy contained within it. Patzek's ethanol critique began during a freshman seminar he taught in which he and his students calculated the energy balance of the biofuel. Taking into account the energy required to grow the...

A preventive war worked out so well in Iraq that Washington last week launched another. The new preventive war—the government responding forcefully against a postulated future threat—has been declared on behalf of polar bears, the first species whose supposed jeopardy has been ascribed to global warming. The Interior Department, bound by the Endangered Species Act, has declared polar bears a “threatened” species because they might be endangered “in the foreseeable future,” meaning 45 years. (Note: 45 years ago, the now-long-forgotten global cooling menace of 35 years ago was not yet foreseen.) The bears will be threatened if the current episode...

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.

Sir Paul McCartney is said to be "horrified" that his new eco-friendly car was flown 7,000 miles from Japan. The Lexus LS600H, which costs £84,000, was a gift from Lexus to the 65-year-old former Beatle, who helped promote the hybrid vehicle. But instead of arriving by boat as expected, the car was flown to Britain on a Korean Air flight, creating a carbon footprint almost 100 times bigger than if it had come by sea.

When Al Gore and his global warming alarmists take over, one of the first citizens they’ll slap in a prison and charge with crimes against the (green) state will be Steven J. Milloy, founder and publisher of the popular Web site JunkScience.com. For 12 years, JunkScience.com has worked to debunk the bad science that has been used to advance the harmful or merely silly political and social agendas of environmentalists that have led to things such as bans on DDT and incandescent light bulbs.

OSLO (Reuters) - The once-green Sahara turned to desert over thousands of years rather than in an abrupt shift as previously believed, according to a study on Thursday that may help understanding of future climate changes. And there are now signs of a tiny shift back towards greener conditions in parts of the Sahara, apparently because of OSLO (Reuters) - The once-green Sahara turned to desert over thousands of years rather than in an abrupt shift as previously believed, according to a study on Thursday that may help understanding of future climate changes. And there are now signs of a...

But like it or not, Gallegly and other lawmakers will have to give up gas-hungry SUVs and luxury sedans for leased vehicles that are more eco-correct, such as Toyota's Prius. Some are in a high-octane fit about it. "A Prius isn't made in the United States," Gallegly said. Congress has been bearing down to do more about global warming, and a little-noticed amendment to last year's energy bill has hit especially close to home. It requires House members who lease vehicles through their office budgets to drive cars that emit low levels of greenhouse gases. The requirement was sought by...

Global Warming Affects World's Largest Freshwater LakeThis well-known landmark, Shaman Rock on Lake Baikal in Russia, stands guard over an ancient lake whose pristine condition is changing quickly. (Credit: Nicholas Rodenhouse) ScienceDaily (May 1, 2008) — Russian and American scientists have discovered that the rising temperature of the world's largest lake, located in frigid Siberia, shows that this region is responding strongly to global warming. Consensus of scientists regarding global warming Drawing on 60 years of long-term studies of Russia's Lake Baikal, Stephanie Hampton, an ecologist and deputy director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) in...

Global warming may 'stop', scientists predict By Charles Clover, Environment Editor Last Updated: 6:01pm BST 30/04/2008 Global warming will stop until at least 2015 because of natural variations in the climate, scientists have said. Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a "lull" for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Melting icebergs: The study predicts the IPCC's 0.3ºC temperature rise for the next decade may not happen The average temperature of the sea around Europe and North America is expected to cool slightly...

Bremerhaven, Germany (SPX) Apr 29, 2008 The Antarctic deep sea gets colder, which might stimulate the circulation of the oceanic water masses. This is the first result of the Polarstern expedition of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association that has just ended in Punta Arenas/Chile. At the same time satellite images from the Antarctic summer have shown the largest sea-ice extent on record. In the coming years autonomous measuring buoys will be used to find out whether the cold Antarctic summer induces a new trend or was only a "slip". The Polarstern expedition...

We understand that Barack Obama wants Albert Gore to serve as his environmental advisor. All the carnival barkers, medicine show proprietors, and rainmakers seem to be getting together in the same circus tent, and the price of admission is more than the American people can afford. For reference, a rainmaker was a charlatan who would visit desperate communities during droughts. He would display an impressive array of regalia, which might have included artifacts that he had supposedly obtained from Native American medicine men, and offer to make it rain–for a price. The desperate farmers would give him their money, and...

A comprehensive national ocean governance bill written by U.S. Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, was approved this afternoon by a House subcommittee. The bill’s next stop will be before the full Committee on Natural Resources, the final step before a vote by the full House of Representatives. “I’m excited that this bill has taken the first big step toward passage,” Farr said following the vote. “We have the laws and agencies to safeguard our oceans, but we have no framework for them to function. That means our laws often intersect and our agencies are left with overlapping guidelines. This bill will...

This is the worst moment in history to demand billions of gallons of biofuels from our farms. I told the Sustainable Agriculture students at Iowa State University last week, “Human numbers are still expanding rapidly. With more people and higher incomes, we’d need to double farm output by 2050 even without biofuels. . . . Food needs will stabilize and then decline after 2050, but any wildlife species crowded off the planet by the huge land requirements of biofuels in the next 40 years will be gone forever.” Unfortunately, at least three-fourths of the world’s wild species are in the...

America is in the throes of a major housing and financial downturn, soaring food and energy costs, rising unemployment and near recession. But many legislators and bureaucrats are falling all over themselves to restrict fossil fuel use, advance climate change legislation – and thereby increase oil imports, energy prices, and impacts on families and businesses.

The world's oldest living tree on record is a nearly 10,000 year-old spruce that has been discovered in central Sweden, Umeaa University said on Thursday. Researchers had discovered a spruce with genetic material dating back 9,550 years in the Fulu mountain in Dalarna, according to Leif Kullmann, a professor of Physical Geography at the university in northwestern Sweden. That would mean it had taken root in roughly the year 7,542 BC. "It was a big surprise because we thought until (now) that this kind of spruce grew much later in those regions," he said. Scientists had previously believed the world's...

(The Politico) President Bush has laid out a new global warming policy that seeks to stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, but the lack of a mandated cap on carbon emissions has led Democrats to blast the proposal as falling well short. The reaction from Democrats _ in advance of the Bush announcement on global warming this afternoon _ comes as no surprise. Democrats have used climate change as a bludgeon to bash Republicans, yet have been unsuccessful in pushing legislation with mandatory caps on carbon emissions. "After seven years of denying the seriousness of the climate...

Citing the far-flung reverberations from the American housing bust and credit squeeze, the International Monetary Fund cut its forecast Wednesday for global economic growth this year and warned that the malaise could extend into 2009.

We drive, they starve. The mass diversion of the North American grain harvest into ethanol plants for fuel is reaching its political and moral limits. A demonstrator eats grass in front of a U.N. peackeeping soldier in Port-au-Prince A demonstrator eats grass in front of a U.N. peacekeeping soldier during a protest against the high cost of living in Port-au-Prince "The reality is that people are dying already," said Jacques Diouf, of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "Naturally people won't be sitting dying of starvation, they will react," he said. The UN says it takes 232kg of corn...

Surface snowmelt in Antarctica in 2008, as derived from spaceborne passive microwave observations at 19.35 gigahertz, was 40% below the average of the period 1987–2007. The melting index (MI, a measure of where melting occurred and for how long) in 2008 was the second-smallest value in the 1987–2008 period, with 3,465,625 square kilometers times days (km2 × days) against the average value of 8,407,531 km2 × days (Figure 1a). Melt extent (ME, the extent of the area subject to melting) in 2008 set a new minimum with 297,500 square kilometers, against an average value of approximately 861,812 square kilometers......