Free Republic

California Governor Jerry Brown will sign a bill today which will raise the required amount of costly renewable energy for electric generation in the Golden State to 33% while Texas Governor Rick Perry is likely grinning from ear to ear. Texas and other business-friendly Western states such as Arizona and Utah, stand to benefit from California's latest payoff to the green lobby.  The bill boosts the electric renewable energy standard from its current 20% to 33% by the year 2020, and California consumers and businesses will be stuck with the additional cost.  Businesses will have one more reason to leave...

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is betting that as many as 15 Senate Democrats will back a GOP-led bill that strips EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. His estimate of Democratic support is far above what is widely believed and would put the measure — which might receive a Senate vote next week — on the brink of the 60 votes needed or over the top. Manchin, in a West Virginia radio interview this morning, said he’s urging fellow Democrats to back Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) amendment to small-business legislation. “Other people might not, but I believe there’ll be...

The New Hampshire House of Representatives today voted overwhelmingly — 246 to 104 — for New Hampshire to become the first state to repeal an up-and-running global warming cap-and-trade energy tax system. The state senate is expected to follow suit with a similarly veto-proof repeal. The move has major implications both in the region and nationally. Since 2008, New Hampshire has been one of the 10 members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a power plant-only cap-and-trade system that holds quarterly auctions requiring electric utilities to buy carbon dioxide permits. The cost of those permits is buried in the...

It certainly didn't take long for someone, a British academic this time, to couple the tragedy in Japan to the specter of future tsunamis caused by global warming. In 2004, Michael Crichton's State of Fear had the plot line of an extreme environmental group planning to trigger a tsunami using a massive underwater explosion, with the intention of blaming it on man-made climate disruption. Sadly, Japan's tsunami is now being used to stoke the dying embers of climate-change mania. Even before nature's fury ravaged Japan, meteorological mischief was contemplated to awaken the world's interest in climate change. This effort would...

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, after surviving 15 years, mostly spent on life support. It reached its peak in Bali in 2007 at the annual UN gabfest, had a sudden unexpected collapse in Copenhagen in 2009, and has been in a coma since. Kyoto had its real beginning at the 1992 Global Climate Summit in Rio de Janeiro. I missed that great party but George Bush the elder went and signed up for the United States. The language of the Global Climate Treaty, the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), was vague enough to not be completely objectionable...

As Congress looks for ways to trim the budget, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) represents an opportunity for up to $9 billion in savings. This outfit has become little more than an advocacy group for trendy leftist causes operating on the public’s dime. Many liberal policies being promoted are so unpopular that congressional Democrats can’t muster the votes to get them through the proper legislative process. So they go to the EPA instead. That’s why the EPA announced Tuesday that it had revised the deadlines imposed on certain companies for reporting so-called “greenhouse gas” production. A facility that manufactures paper,...

It's impossible to open a magazine on any topic anymore without encountering a barrage of "tips" on how to live a greener life. Cooking magazines tell you how to carry on eco-friendly cooking. Computer magazines warn readers about the dangers of "vampire power" from their plugged in devices. Business publications lecture on carbon neutral business practices. Entertainment mags offer cackle on about celebrities and their ecologically friendly mansions. Anyone a century from now who picks up a present day magazine will assume that the people of the early 21st century spent all their time sorting compost and calculating their carbon...

My new book, Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax, is dedicated to Al Gore, whose invention of the Internet made it possible–and whose invention of facts made it necessary. Beginning with the aggressively hyped 1988 U.S. Senate hearings he organized, no one has done more to melt down complacent minds with stoked-up claims of fossil-fueled climate peril. In 2006 Gore launched an initial three-year, $300 million “Alliance for Climate Protection” media campaign to promote greenhouse gas reductions. While ads appearing in national television, print, radio, and online outlets were directed to diverse audiences, the ultimate...

Some things never change: Cover of Newsweek, January 22, 1996. h/t to World Climate Report Update: James Taylor’s post on Forbes supports our position. A number of alarmists have been organized to team up on the comment section to defend the undefensible. Please add your voice of support to shout them down in the comments section. By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS FellowAs we reported, the eco-pressure group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, as part of a continuing misinformation campaign sponsored a teleconference yesterday with a very confused Jeff Masters of Weather Underground, opportunist Mark Serreze of NSIDC and a UCS...

At today’s House Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing on EPA’s job killing greenhouse gas regulations, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) asked panel witness Gina McCarthy — chief of EPA’s air programs, including the agency’s greenhouse gas regulations — whether she had any idea of what the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide is, SHE ADMITTED THAT SHE DID NOT!

A bit over a year ago, in the wake of Climategate, I put up a blog post over at the Foresight Institute which got picked up and run here at WUWT.  The essence of the post was that there was lots of natural variation in the ice core record of climate, so that it was reasonable to be skeptical of scientists who claimed that recent CO2 variations were “the only thing that could account for the recent warming trend” (quoting myself). Apparently that got enough exposure — and was persuasive enough — that over a year later the alarmists still...

Barack Obama may be forced to order a two-year delay in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) action on climate change to try to avoid a complete government shutdown, an environmental conference has been warned. Buried among the $61bn in Republican budget cuts are a series of measures that would strip the overall budget of the EPA by 30%. The Republican bill would specifically bar the Obama administration from funding programmes regulating greenhouse gas emissions, or connected to climate science and international negotiations for a deal to end global warming. It cuts funds for the post of White House climate adviser, Carol...

A real greenhouse has windows. So does the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect”. They are similar in that they allow Sunlight in and restrict the outward flow of thermal energy. However, they differ in the mechanism. A real greenhouse primarily restricts heat escape by preventing convection while the “greenhouse effect” heats the Earth because “greenhouse gases” (GHG) absorb outgoing radiative energy and re-emit some of it back towards Earth. The base graphic is from Wikipedia, with my annotations. There are two main “windows” in the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect”. The first, the Visible Light Window, on the left side of the graphic, allows...

Regional war could spark "unprecedented climate change," experts predict. Even a regional nuclear war could spark "unprecedented" global cooling and reduce rainfall for years, according to U.S. government computer models. Widespread famine and disease would likely follow, experts speculate. Earth is currently in a long-term warming trend. After a regional nuclear war, though, average global temperatures would drop by 2.25 degrees F (1.25 degrees C) for two to three years afterward, the models suggest.

I mentioned earlier today that my friend Jan Null, former lead forecaster for the NWS in San Francisco and now operator of Golden Gate Weather Service pointed out that a number of cold records were set overnight. Looks like we are in for a second night, and it looks even colder for some areas. Napa’s wine valley may hit 26-27 tonight. 2011 may not be a good year for wine then. We’ll see. Other grape growing areas in coastal valleys will also be affected:

Jan Null of Golden Gate Weather writes: Based on hourly weather observations a number of minimum temperature records were either set or tied in the Bay Area this morning. Today         Previous 2/26 recordCity          Min Temp         Min    YearSan Rafael      28              32 in 1996 Napa            27              30 in 1945 San Francisco   37              37 in 1962 SF Arpt         36              36 in 1971Oakland         35              38 in 1987 Oakland Arpt    32              34 in 1962 San Jose        33              33 in 1897These are unofficial values and some sites could be a degree or so lower when the official minima are collected later today. =================================================The cold storm did little in the way of snow, and has moved...

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Interior Department is holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday to officially open the Alaska Climate Science Center -- the first of its kind in the nation, the Interior Department says. Located at the University of Alaska-Anchorage, the center is the first of eight regional climate science centers the federal government plans to establish across the U.S. The U.S. Geological Survey is taking the lead in establishing the centers. According to the Fiscal 2012 U.S. Geological Survey budget proposal, “The Climate Science Centers will provide the scientific base for land and water management decisions related to...

Here's a sad and revealing chronology about a U.S. president named Obama, a California company named Solyndra and, now, a congressional investigation into the administration's loan guarantee of $535 million in a failed green energy project that was supposed to create jobs. But it didn't...

Not that there was much doubt about the question of the White House backing of Solyndra in California. The report from November, when I first wrote about the dissipation of more than a half-billion dollars, covered the facts well. In fact, let’s watch the original report from the local ABC affiliate one more time: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO... Congress has now confirmed the waste in a letter from the House Energy and Commerce Committee to Energy Secretary Steven Chu:Solyndra, Inc. was supposed to have showcased the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s stimulus and green jobs initiatives, but instead...

Gore Accuses Limbaugh, Fox and the Wall Street Journal of Conspiring to Mislead Public About Global Warming By Noel Sheppard Created 02/21/2011 - 10:59am The man that has made millions spreading the global warming myth claimed Friday that there's a conspiracy to mislead the public about the dangers of climate change. The Aspen Times reported Monday that Nobel Laureate Al Gore said conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page were involved: Gore, 62, delivered a 50-minute keynote address for a symposium on “Forests at Risk: Climate Change and the Future of the...