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Blaming climate change for the storm that ravaged southern Myanmar a week ago is neither helpful in a humanitarian crisis nor scientifically defensible. But it's a neat diversionary tactic that seems to be working. Al Gore described the cyclone as an example of "consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming." Mr. Gore conceded a comparable storm struck the same region as recently as 50 years ago. The earlier storm and those that preceded it over the long march of time were less damaging, for obvious reasons: population and government. Myanmar, once known as Burma,...

Thursday is the deadline set by a federal judge in Alaska for the Fish and Wildlife Service to decide whether the polar bear is a threatened or endangered species. All the evidence shows the polar bear doesn’t need his help. Environmental groups petitioned for such a listing and sued when a decision was not forthcoming by the deadline. They claimed that global warming had already diminished polar ice, would continue to do so and doom the estimated 23,000 or so bears to extinction by perhaps 2050. If the bears were listed, the service would be obliged to designate “critical habitat.”...

According to my esteemed colleague Rick Bell, the United Nations is making Premier Ed Stelmach grumpy. And who can blame him? The UN is threatening Canada and, by extension, Alberta. The threat is they won't let us trade carbon internationally because we apparently missed a reporting deadline. Taking crap from the UN is hard at the best of times, given it's the most monumentally corrupt and ineffective political body since the court of Louis XVI. It elects representatives from some of the world's most vicious, totalitarian governments to its human rights council, where they issue proclamations so anti-Semitic Joseph Goebbels...

If there were a Society of Global Warming Alarmists, Bill McKibben might get kicked out for being too much of a worry wart . . . You've probably seen those phone-message forms with boxes to be checked in ascending order of urgency ranging from "FYI—no need to return call" all the way up to "the future of Western civilization hangs in the balance." We might see that last category as light-hearted exaggeration, but it's no laughing matter to McKibben. In his jeremiad in today's LA Times literally entitled "Civilization's last chance," McKibben solemnly declares that "the world looks a little...

Sunday Funnies: Al Gore Says 'Global Warming Has Fried My Brain' Photo of Noel Sheppard. By Noel Sheppard | May 11, 2008 - 10:12 ET For several years since Nobel Laureate Al Gore started his campaign to frighten people into thinking they're destroying the planet every time they drive their cars, climate realists around the world have wondered just how much of the global warming myth the former Vice President actually believes. Syndicated columnist Jay Ambrose, in a satirical piece entitled "A Gore Confession" published Sunday, suggests what the real culprit might be: the warming has fried Gore's brain. But...

Dispatch from the Department of Glass Houses . . . The Good Morning America crew had a bunch of yucks today at the expense of the Sparks, NV streets department employee who spelled "scool" on the asphalt. But within minutes, two ABCers made math mistakes of their own, one of a political sort, the other climate-related. RON CLAIBORNE: In Sparks, Nevada, someone in the streets department could use a spelling lesson. A sign painted on the street announces a nearby facility is a "s-c-o-o-l" [sound of Claiborne chuckle]. The city plans to fix the sign as soon as possible. That's...

Poorer people living in developing countries care more about the environment than those living in more prosperous countries, a global survey has revealed. They feel more responsible for man-made problems, live a greener lifestyle and are prepared to do more to reduce their own impact on the environment. It is the better-off consumers living more comfortably in developed western countries who are the worst environmental offenders, the survey found. They lead the least sustainable lifestyles because they live in bigger houses, have more cars and consume more goods and food. The United States was identified as the biggest culprit for...

Climate Monitoring / Climate At A Glance / UNITED STATES / Help UNITED STATES Climate Summary April 2008 The average temperature in April 2008 was 51.0 F. This was -1.0 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 29th coolest April in 114 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. 2.39 inches of precipitation fell in April. This was -0.04 inches less than the 1901-2000 average, the 54th driest such month on record. The precipitation trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.01 inches per...

When it comes to Iraq, our media have been preoccupied with the issue of whether there was adequate intelligence to justify the invasion and if policy-makers made up evidence before the war. But on the matter of global intervention to stop global warming, there seems to be no need for scientific evidence to justify what is shaping up as a global carbon tax of 35 cents a gallon of gas on the American people.

The alignment of the planets, and especially that of Jupiter and Saturn, control the climate on Earth.So explained Rhodes Fairbridge of Columbia University, a giant in science over much of the last century whose accomplishments are perhaps unsurpassed for their breadth, depth, and volume. This one man authored or co-authored 100 scientific books and more than 1,000 scientific papers, he edited the Benchmarks in Geology series (more than 90 volumes in print) and was general editor of the Encyclopaedias of the Earth Sciences. He edited eight major encyclopedias of specialized scientific papers in the atmospheric sciences and astrogeology; geomorphology;...

Sen. John McCain really does want to tempt the Republican base. ... We've gotten our hands on an advanced transcript of this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show" on NBC and the British Broadcasting Corporation's Katty Kay offered this nugget during the show's "Tell Me Something I Don't Know" segment: "John McCain is going to be doing more of these themed tours of America, and one of them is going to be on energy and global climate change. It could get him into trouble with Republicans, of course, and with the base, who don't think there is much climate change going...

Never-before-seen video of "space aliens" - footage that will be revealed to the public in a few weeks - convinced Jeff Peckman that extraterrestrials exist. "These happen to be the little gray ones, about four feet tall," said Peckman, who is proposing the creation of an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission in Denver, believed to be the first of its kind. "You could see them blink as they looked in a window and panned a room," Peckman, 54, said. Peckman is sponsoring an initiative that would require the city to create an ET Commission... Among the curious who attended the hearing were...

April 2008 was the coldest April in 11 years. April also ranked the 29th coldest since record keeping began 114 years ago. According to the National Climatic Data Center, the U.S. average temperature for the month was only 51 degrees, which is 1 degree below the average from 1901-2000. Along with those colder than normal temperatures, April 2008 was dry - the 54th driest on record.

When Maine officials tried to warn residents of the dangers of this winter's near-record snowpack, Big Media slanted the story, hampering efforts to warn folks of the danger....The result? "There are people who are losing their property, their homes and their livelihoods," Maine Governor John Baldacci said after the flooding that officials had tried to warn the public about did occur last week.

The average temperature in April 2008 was 51.0 F. This was -1.0 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 29th coolest April in 114 years.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday that pressure from the auto industry will not deter California from attempting to impose strict emission rules for vehicles sold in the state. The Republican governor met privately with seven auto executives who requested the get-together. In an interview afterward, he said he told them "the train has left the station" and that they should stop challenging California rules that are intended to help slow the rate of global warming

Students at a California public school have written a series of letters to Chicago's Heartland Institute, which works to discover and develop free-market solutions to society's problems, attacking its members for "destroying our planet" by refusing to endorse the politics of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" film. According to students in the sixth-grade class of teacher Michael Steria at David A. Brown Middle School, the institute consists of "fools" and "horrible people." "I think your (sic) fools for denying G.W. you know it could kill us all & you're just adding to it. I want you to help stop G.W....

Junk Science: Al Gore blames the Burma tragedy on global warming despite growing evidence to the contrary. Could the hype be related to his financial interests?Gore's reaction to the death and destruction caused by a cyclone ravaging Burma was to utter an emphatic "I told you so" Tuesday on National Public Radio. In an interview on NPR's "Fresh Air" broadcast, the jolly green giant made the charge while talking about the paperback release of his ironically named book, "The Assault on Reason." Ignoring the fact that the rising death toll is due in part to an incompetent, isolationist and authoritarian...

Deficient forecasting methodology casts doubt on threat to polar bear population, say authors in Interfaces studyHANOVER, MD, May 8, 2008 – Research done by the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine if global warming threatens the polar bear population is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify listing the polar bear as an endangered species, according to a study being published later this year in Interfaces, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®). On April 30, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ordered the Interior Department to decide by May 15 whether...

Computer analyses of global climate have consistently overstated warming in Antarctica, concludes new research by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Ohio State University. The study can help scientists improve computer models and determine if Earth's southernmost continent will warm significantly this century, a major research question because of Antarctica's potential impact on global sea-level rise. "We can now compare computer simulations with observations of actual climate trends in Antarctica," says NCAR scientist Andrew Monaghan, the lead author of the study. "This is showing us that, over the past century, most of Antarctica has not undergone...

A celebrated green economy produces pollution elsewhere, ongoing power shortages, and business-crippling costs. Rancho Seco was once a nuclear plant generating over 900 megawatts of electricity; today, its solar panels produce just 4.In January 2007, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger stood before the California legislature in Sacramento and delivered his fourth State of the State address since his improbable 2003 election. It was a rhetorical tour de force that would win him widespread acclaim. “California has the ideas of Athens and the power of Sparta,” said Schwarzenegger. “Not only can we lead California into the future; we can show the nation and...

The global warming organizer of an event at Wilkes U has stated the local area has been hurt by global warming. Please Freep this and ask them where is their proof they have been harmed?

If the globaloneyists had their way, a man named Jed would still be “a poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed.” In the short span of 30 years, the Greens have cooked up massive global warming hysteria, stood in the way additional oil exploration and gasoline refinement, and refused to allow viable alternatives to oil (nuclear, coal, natural gas, etc.) to even be seriously considered. As Americans consider proposals for a national energy policy, it is important to keep in mind the words of Lincoln: “He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.” For all...

College Republicans sponsor visit from global warming skeptic The other side of the global warming debate is one of negation. Christopher C. Horner, author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming," represents this side. Horner presented his lecture (sponsored by the College Republicans) titled, "A Dose of Sobriety About 'Global Warming' Alarmism," Tuesday, May 6 in the Student Union Hatch Ballroom. Horner believes that global warming is not a crisis but is merely a temporary climate shift that will correct itself. "[The Earth's] temperature relates to the sun," Horner said. Surface temperature stations around the world measure the heat...

Stephen Wilde has been a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society since 1968. The first two article's from Mr Wilde were received with a great deal of interest throughout the Co2 Sceptic community. In Stephen Wilde's third and exclusive article for CO2Sceptics.Com, he explores the mechanics and mechanism involved that are attributed to the Earth's Warming and Cooling, needless to say the presence of CO2 is not part of the process. Global Warming and Cooling - The Reality. It’s all very well doing what alarmists do which is to say that Co2 is rising and temperatures are rising so in...

Antarctica hasn't warmed as much over the last century as climate models had originally predicted, a new study finds. Monaghan and his team found that while climate models projected temperature increases of 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.75 degrees Celsius) over the past century, temperatures were observed to have risen by only 0.4 F (0.2 C). The findings of the study don't call into question model projections for other parts of the globe, Monaghan said. "The models are really doing quite a good job at simulating the 20th century changes over the six inhabited continents," he told LiveScience.

Thirty days after Steve McIntyre caught NASA cooking climate history again - this time in a feeble attempt to somehow conceal the alarmist-embarrassing  downward trend since 1998 -- Al Gore shamelessly portrayed Saturday's Myanmar cyclone catastrophe as a ‘consequence' of global warming.  A mere 16 days after NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation's cool phase shift would likely bring colder temperatures for as many as the next 20-30 years, Gore told NPR that the "trend toward stronger and more destructive storms appears to be linked to global warming and specifically to the impact of global...

The Energy Department unveiled its blueprint Wednesday for spending up to $1.3 billion on multiple clean-coal power plants that would capture carbon emissions and permanently store them underground. The announcement, launching two weeks of public comment over the revised plan for the project known as FutureGen, came despite pledges by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin to scuttle the effort. The Democrat stands convinced a town in his home state of Illinois deserved the project -- all of it. FutureGen's developers -- an alliance of a dozen big power and coal companies -- tapped Mattoon, Ill., as the site in December. But...

Grass that may help tackle global warming by cutting the level of methane given off by cows is being developed by scientists reports the latest issue of the Society of Chemical Industry’s (SCI) magazine Chemistry & Industry. Scientists at Gramina, a joint biotech venture by Australia’s Molecular Plant Breeding Cooperative Research Centre and New Zealand rural services group PGG Wrightson Genomics, are developing a grass that will not only cut the amount of methane cows burp up when chewing the cud but also grow in hotter climes. This means that farmers should be able to maintain dairy herds’ productivity and...

OSLO (Reuters) - Turn greenhouse gases to stone? Transform them into a treacle-like liquid deep under the seabed? The ideas may sound like far-fetched schemes from an alchemist's notebook but scientists are pursuing them as many countries prepare to bury captured greenhouse gases in coming years as part of the fight against global warming. Analysts say the search for a suitable technology could become a $150 billion-plus market. But a big worry is that gases may leak from badly chosen underground sites, perhaps jolted open by an earthquake. Such leaks could be deadly and would stoke climate change. Part of...

Decades after most countries stopped spraying DDT, frozen stores of the insecticide are now trickling out of melting Antarctic glaciers. The change means Adélie penguins have recently been exposed to the chemical, according to a new study. The trace levels found will not harm the birds, but the presence of the chemical could be an indication that other frozen pollutants will be released because of climate change, says Heidi Geisz, a marine biologist at Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester in the US. She led a team that sampled DDT levels in the penguins. She worries that glaciers could...

According to the high prophet of global doom (warming), Mr. Gore blames current global warming on the severity of the recent typhoon in Burma which has resulted in approximately 100,000 deaths. I did some quick checking on major typhoon events over the last 50 years. April 29, 1991: Bangladesh, approximately 138,000 people killed and approximately 10 million people left homeless November 12, 1970: Bangladesh, killed somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 people; some estimates have put the death count closer to 1.2 million people when deaths from various illnesses resulting from stagnant water are included So is there a trend for...

Antarctica hasn't warmed as much over the last century as climate models had originally predicted, a new study finds. Climate change's effects on Antarctica are of particular interest because of the substantial amount of water locked up in its ice sheets. Should that water begin to melt, sea levels around the globe could rise and inundate low-lying coastal areas. The new study, detailed in the April 5 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, marks the first time that researchers have been able to give a progress report on Antarctic climate model projections by comparing climate records to model simulations...

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...

It was bound to happen eventually - someone from the global warming movement tying the recent Myanmar cyclone to the so-called climate change phenomenon. Former Vice President Al Gore in an interview on NPR's May 6 "Fresh Air" broadcast did just that. He was interviewed by "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross about the release of his book, "The Assault on Reason," in paperback. "And as we're talking today, Terry, the death count in Myanmar from the cyclone that hit there yesterday has been rising from 15,000 to way on up there to much higher numbers now being speculated," Gore said....

You knew this was coming. Global Warming is to blame for everything these days, including Global Cooling. From The Guardian: Two deaths in the waters off California and Mexico last week and a spate of shark-inflicted injuries to surfers off Florida’s Atlantic coast have left beachgoers seeking an explanation for a sudden surge in the number of strikes. In the first four months of this year, there were four fatal shark attacks worldwide, compared with one in the whole of 2007, according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. Of course, these...

CANBERRA, Australia - Koalas are threatened by the rising level of carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere because it saps nutrients from the eucalyptus leaves they feed on, a researcher said Wednesday. Ian Hume, emeritus professor of biology at Sydney University, said he and his researchers also found that the amount of toxicity in the leaves of eucalyptus saplings rose when the level of carbon dioxide within a greenhouse was increased. Hume presented his research on the effects of carbon dioxide on eucalyptus leaves to the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra on Wednesday. The researchers found that carbon dioxide...

The Sierra Club sent letters on Tuesday threatening to file suit to stop construction of eight coal-fired power plants in six states because, the environmental group claims, they violate the Clean Air Act. "This is the first major ramification on the ground from the (Washington) D.C. circuit kicking out the Bush administration's rules in February," said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's effort to stop coal power plants. In February, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act in not setting mandatory cuts for mercury emissions of power plants....

A new national anthem may soon be needed. Greenland has taken its first tentative steps towards becoming an independent state. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, travelled to Greenland – which has been part of Denmark since 1721 – to present a report that sets out the road to full sovereignty. The plan, which has been drawn up by a committee of politicians from Denmark and Greenland, envisages the phasing out of subsidies from Copenhagen as the huge island makes increasing use of its rich mineral and oil resources under a thick layer of ice. “This is a platform...

Here are a few facts: Over 95 percent of the greenhouse effect is the result of water vapor in Earth's atmosphere. Without the greenhouse effect, Earth's average temperature would be zero degrees Fahrenheit. Most climate change is a result of the orbital eccentricities of Earth and variations in the sun's output. On top of that, natural wetlands produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all human sources combined.

Despite all the talk in Congress about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it's not so easy greening the Capitol itself. For one thing, there's disagreement over how much it should cost for the Capitol Power Plant--which provides heating and cooling power to Congress--to use cleaner-burning natural gas instead of coal power. A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found the estimate for the House of Representatives' portion of the bill was about $1.1 million too high.Then there's the broader question of whether the fuel switch should even take place. Joe Lucas, a spokesman for the American Coalition...

A spectacularly preserved new Chinese fossil reveals a previously unseen stage in the early evolution of flight. Called Eoconfuciusornis, it is a missing link between the oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx, and more advanced birds that have been discovered in the Yixian geological formation in China. The Yixian deposits have yielded remarkably diverse fauna that have revolutionised avian palaeontology, but they are limited to a period from 125 to 120 million years ago – too narrow a time span to show much evidence of evolution within bird lineages

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. Former Vice President Al Gore in an interview on NPR’s May 6 “Fresh Air” broadcast did just that. He was interviewed by “Fresh Air” host Terry Gross about the release of his book, “The Assault on Reason,” in paperback. “And as we’re talking today, Terry, the death count in Myanmar from the cyclone that hit there yesterday has been rising from 15,000 to...

'Big Thaw,' a summertime spectacular in National Geographic magazine, provided awesome scenes of climate-change catastrophes.The glaciers are melting. The ice sheets are melting. They're sliding rapidly out to sea. More rapidly than anyone imagined. Look for the ice sheets to collapse. Look for sea levels to rise. Etc. Etc.National Geographic's breathless account, brilliantly illustrated with the stunning photography for which it is famous, won headlines around the world. It has been dramatized and magnified on nightly newscasts and blogs alike, and has become a staple in the popular imagination.But it won't happen, says Prof. Cliff Ollier of the University...

May 06, 2008, 4:00 a.m. Children of the CornLet's carefully examine the benefits — and beneficiaries — of ethanol. By David Freddoso For the first time since the United States government began subsidizing ethanol, its defenders are on the run. World hunger is chipping away at the image of one of America’s most-outrageous subsidies, even sympathetic politicians are being forced to admit that the biofuel industry has gone too far this time. “I’ve supported ethanol from the beginning,� Sen. Dick Durbin said (D., lll.) last week. Durbin represents the nation’s second-largest corn-producing state. “But we have to understand it’s...

Attention Global Warming Alarmists! You better sit down. I have bad news. It's so bad in fact, that this isn’t going to be easy for me. Now, I don’t know how to say it, so I’m just going to say it. It looks like we are not in a prolonged period of Global Warming. No, according to NASA and 3000 temperature measuring ocean buoys, global temperatures are cooling, not warming. I know...I know... this is horrible news, and I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you. The flooded cities, the dead polar bears, the shrinking glaciers, the...

Putting in 14, 15, sometimes 16 hour days as they compete for the Democratic nomination, Mrs. Clinton and Senator Barack Obama are usually in the air two or three times – or more – from morning to night. One day last week Mrs. Clinton hop-scotched across Indiana, from north to south and back north again, as she campaigned before Tuesday’s primary, with a few dozen reporters, photographers and campaign aides hustling from plane to bus to plane to keep up with her schedule.

If the Earth has a fever, as former Vice President Al Gore suggests, it's not showing signs of it. According to Climateaudit.org's Steve McIntyre, global sea ice has actually increased. "On a global basis, world sea ice in April 2008 reached levels that were ‘unprecedented' for the month of April in over 25 years," Steve McIntyre wrote on Climateaudit.org on May 4. "Levels are the third highest (for April) since the commencement of records in 1979, exceeded only by levels in 1979 and 1982." That data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Snow and Ice Data Center...

The [Connecticut] state Senate has given final legislative approval to a bill aimed at reducing the pollution that causes global warming. Senators voted 35-0 in favor of the legislation and sent it to Gov. M. Jodi Rell. The House of Representatives approved it earlier. If she signs it into law, Connecticut will be the fifth state to adopt mandatory limits on global warming pollution. The state passed legislation back in 2004. But that law, which established benchmarks for air pollution reduction, was voluntary. The new bill would require total emissions to be capped at 10 percent below 1990 levels by...

A desire to understand the universe seems to be hard-wired into our brains.  However we need a worldview (from the German Weltanschauung which means, literally, "world view").  Continuing with the computer metaphor, a worldview corresponds to a disc operating system, a framework for receiving and processing data. Worldviews have changed over the course of history.  The ancient Greeks thought that otherwise inexplicable events such as thunderstorms and falling in love were the results of whimsical actions of Zeus and Cupid, respectively.  Shakespeare and his contemporaries believed in a heavenly harmony that was replicated here on earth.  Thus the sun ruled...