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Advocates and sympathetic politicians claiming that man-made global warming from use of carbon-based energy sources mandates international controls on economically prosperous nations were already worried that their victory is slipping. Now another blow has been struck against the basic "science" used to support their case. Following an extensive theoretical analysis, two German physicists have determined(pdf) that the term greenhouse gas is a misnomer and that the greenhouse effect appears to violate basic laws of physics. To briefly review, the entire argument for immediate political action on carbon-based emissions rests upon three premises, formulated over the last twenty years by scientists...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senators tussled over the cost of climate legislation Tuesday with the leading author of the bill maintaining that while energy prices will increase, inaction on global warming would cause even worse economic and security problems. "Are there some costs? Yes sir, there are some costs," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. But of the array of studies that show restricting greenhouse gases will lead to higher energy prices, he said, "none of them factor in the cost of doing nothing." Kerry was the leadoff witness as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee began a series of marathon...

The Environmental Protection Agency announced a proposed rule Wednesday to begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions from thousands of power plants and large industrial facilities. The proposed rule would require polluters to install the best available technology to capture greenhouse gases whenever a new plant is opened or significantly changed. The rule applies to any industrial plant that emits at least 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year. When the rule is final, the EPA said operators of as many 14,000 sources of pollution would have to get additional permits. The proposal, long anticipated and highly controversial, marks the first government...

WASHINGTON – The Arctic is warmer than it's been in 2,000 years, even though it should be cooling because of changes in the Earth's orbit that cause the region to get less direct sunlight. Indeed, the Arctic had been cooling for nearly two millennia before reversing course in the last century and starting to warm as human activities added greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. "If it hadn't been for the increase in human-produced greenhouse gases, summer temperatures in the Arctic should have cooled gradually over the last century," said Bette Otto-Bliesner, a National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist and co-author...

August 18, 2009 — For decades, astronomers and geologists have worried about a paradox. Stellar evolution theory claims sunlight on the early earth would have been 20-30% dimmer than it is today, but geology shows the oceans were liquid in the earliest (Archean) rocks. For that matter, so does the book of Genesis, but that record is not usually allowed in scientific discussions. Anyway, how could the earth remained warm enough under a dim sun to keep the oceans from freezing? This has been called the “faint young sun paradox.” A new answer came from researchers at the Tokyo Institute...

The price of coal and efforts to control its emissions keep energy costs spiraling higher. American Electric Power, parent of Appalachian Power Co., reports that it is "the largest purchaser of coal in the Western Hemisphere." For Appalachian, coal-fired power plants generate about 98 percent of the electricity it delivers to customers in a territory that includes portions of Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. For AEP companywide, coal fuels about 70 percent of power generation. And all that coal, an increasingly controversial fuel, helps explain the upward spiral of Appalachian's costs for complying with environmental regulations. Appalachian and AEP report...

Climate Change: The EPA has prepared a finding for review that global warming is a public health threat, the first step toward regulating the American economy down to your lawn mower.We are often told how the pursuit of alternative energy will help save the earth from climate change and create lots of green jobs. Advocates rarely use the phrase "global warming" any more because the earth is in fact no longer warming, and hasn't for a decade due to a decline in solar activity and other natural factors. They prefer the phrase "climate change" because it can cover a multitude...

There's no free lunch when it comes to cutting greenhouse gases In 2006, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California state legislature decided that each and every man, woman, and child in California should eliminate 4 tons of CO2 emissions by 2020. And so America's first mandatory cap on greenhouse gasses, the Global Warming Solutions Act(pdf), became law. The state must now reduce its emissions to below 1990 levels, a 30 percent reduction from projected business-as-usual emissions, essentially cutting the allotment of carbon dioxide equivalent from 14 tons to 10 tons per person.Opponents of the bill worried that deep, rapid cuts...

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu says the US will not be able to cut greenhouse emissions as much as it should due to domestic political opposition. Prof Chu told BBC News he feared the world might be heading towards a tipping point on climate change. This meant the US had to cut emissions urgently - even if compromises were needed to get new laws approved. Environmentalists said Prof Chu, a Nobel physicist, should be guided by science not politics. The American political system is in the throes of a fierce battle over climate policy. President Barack Obama says he wants...

OBAMA FAILS TO MEET 400 MPG AUTOMOBILE CLEAN AIR HOPES Jonathon Moseley The nation was greatly disappointed Tuesday when President Barack Obama announced his new plans for the automobile industry. Instead of setting fleet mileage standards at an average of 400 miles per gallon, as many had hoped and frankly expected, Obama set a goal of only a paltry 35.5 miles per gallon on average. Incredibly, Obama is apparently showing doubts about the power of the United States Government to unilaterally declare the miles per gallon that complex machinery like automobiles and trucks achieve in their technical operation. Such...

President Barack Obama will issue new vehicle emission standards and pair them with a broader goal of reducing pollution, marking the first time limits on greenhouse gases will be linked to federal standards for cars and trucks. The Wall Street Journal reported that the administration will raise fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2016, four years earlier than federal law requires. Officials familiar with the administration's discussions say Obama will unveil the new standards on Tuesday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the official announcement had not been made. California, 13 other states and the...

WASHINGTON — Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, once hailed by President George W. Bush as a pollution-free solution for reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, will not be practical over the next 10 to 20 years, the energy secretary said Thursday, and the government will cut off funds for the vehicles’ development. Developing those cells and coming up with a way to transport the hydrogen is a big challenge, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in releasing energy-related details of the administration’s budget for the year beginning Oct. 1. Dr. Chu said the government preferred to focus on projects...

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency says that corn ethanol — as made today — has a worse impact on climate than gasoline when land use changes are considered. But EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said Tuesday that future improvements in production technologies are expected to make ethanol and other biofuels more climate friendly than gasoline. .. Some scientists say that by using more land to grow ethanol crops, there is an increase in greenhouse gases as vegetation that absorbs carbon is replaced.

Don't worry, this shouldn't hurt. In fact, you won't feel a thing. So goes the refrain of those pushing for passage of a climate bill regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Just what do they think we're smoking? A crackdown on greenhouse gases should involve "no cost to the consumer," declared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi the other day — this from a leading supporter of the legislation. As if one fanciful pledge weren't enough, the California Democrat also insisted that it would be wrong to pass a bill "that was a penalty to some states." Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a...

In car-crazy California, a new fuel standard ordered by state officials to curb greenhouse gases could dramatically change how vehicles run. It also could have a huge effect on cost. The petroleum industry and some economists say the new standard adopted by the state Air Resources Board on Thursday will cost motorists billions, because blending gasoline will become considerably more complicated. But state officials and environmentalists say the "low-carbon fuel standard" will actually save Californians money by reducing oil consumption and ushering in a competitive new era of biofuels and electric vehicles. The stakes are enormous. The price of fuel...

Countries that buy Chinese goods should be held responsible for the carbon dioxide emitted by the factories that make them in any global plan to reduce greenhouse gases, a Chinese official said on Monday. "About 15 percent to 25 percent of China's emissions come from the products which we make for the world, which should not be taken by us," said Gao Li, director of China's Department of Climate Change. Speaking at a forum sponsored by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Gao added that "this share of emission should be taken by the consumers, not the producers" and...

“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.” -- from the Oregon Petition, signed by over 31,000 scientists United by that conviction, over 800 scientists, economists, and policy makers arrived in New York City last Sunday to attend the Heartland Institute’s 2nd Annual International...

A move by Gov. David A. Paterson to increase the free allowances for carbon-dioxide emissions that New York gives power plants is unlikely to undermine efforts by nine other states that signed a landmark pact to reduce global warming, officials said on Friday. Last fall, 10 states from Maryland to Maine agreed to cap the emissions from hundreds of power plants and to make them pay for polluting. Under this carbon-trading pact, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, each state issues its own tradable permits, or allowances, for each ton of carbon-dioxide pollution. States auction most of the allowances,...

WASHINGTON – EPA administrator Lisa Jackson says the agency is moving toward regulating the gases blamed for global warming. In an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, Jackson said the agency will decide whether greenhouse gases are a danger to human health and welfare, the legal trigger for regulation under federal law. Jackson said the agency owed the American people an opinion. "We are going to be making a fairly significant finding about what these gases mean for public health and the welfare of our country," Jackson said.

Enlarge ImageDry so long. Models call for Dust Bowl-like dryness (purples and reds) around the globe and to the end of the millennium. Credit: S. Solomon et al., PNAS Early Edition (January 2009) Climate scientists have painted an unpleasant picture of the end of this century if humankind keeps spewing climate-changing gases into the atmosphere. Now they are pointing out that the ill effects won't be going away for a long, long time. The carbon dioxide we're emitting this century is so slow to disappear and climate so slow to respond, they say, that the effects felt in a...

January 27, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Climate Policy CrashThe EPA is poised to regulate greenhouse gases without a legislative fix. By Jonathan H. Adler Climate change remains at the top of President Obama’s agenda, current economic woes notwithstanding. Obama recently inveighed against energy sources that “threaten our planet,� and several of his early appointments—including Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, science adviser John Holdren, and White House energy czar Carol Browner—signal the importance of climate-change policy to this administration. During the campaign, Obama endorsed an 80-percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she hopes to move...

fool’s par·a·dise: “a state of happiness that is temporary and insubstantial because it is based on illusions or unrealistic hopes” - Encarta® World English Dictionary [North American Edition] © & (P)2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. I am struck by the diversity of risk analyses being carried out by investors in today’s climate change market place.  Whether it’s ‘carbon’* market conferences and publications, ‘ethical investments’, insurance company projects or the activities of financial, legal and engineering institutions, it seems at first glance that they have it all covered.  Many financial, political, procedural, legal...

Falling oil prices slash value of greenhouse gas emission allowances.SOURCES: EEX; TECSON The price of European Union (EU) allowances for carbon dioxide emissions has reached an all-time low, hit by falling oil and gas prices, and expectations that economic recession will lead to reduced energy demand.Under the EU's mandatory emission trading system - set up in 2005 and still by far the largest such scheme in the world - power plants and other CO2-intensive industries can buy emission allowances that allow them to exceed their government-allocated CO2 caps. In 2008, the equivalent of almost 5 billion tonnes of CO2 was...

Farmers Panic About a ‘Cow Tax’ By Kate Galbraith Should their greenhouse gases be taxed? (Photo: Steve Ruark for The New York Times) The comment period for the Environmental Protection Agency’s exploration of greenhouse gas regulation ended last Friday, with farmers lobbying furiously against the notion of a “cow tax” on methane, a potent greenhouse gas emitted by livestock. The New York Farm Bureau issued a statement last week (PDF) saying it feared that a tax could reach $175 per cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and upward of $20 for each hog. Such a tax would represent a...

Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

The black soot that big rig trucks belch from their chugging diesel engines may soon become a thing of the past. In one of the more far-reaching smog regulations that California has ever proposed, state air regulators are considering a first-in-the-nation plan that would require nearly every privately owned, heavy diesel truck in the state to install a filter that would reduce emissions of soot from their rigs by 85 percent. The new regulation would affect 1 million truckers, half of them registered out of state who regularly drive on California freeways. If approved by the California Air Resources Board...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California's utilities, refineries and large factories must transform their operations to cut greenhouse gas emissions as part of a new climate plan before state regulators. On Thursday, the California Air Resources Board was expected to adopt what would be the nation's most sweeping global warming plan, outlining for the first time how individuals and businesses would meet a landmark 2006 law that made the state a leader on global climate change. It would hold California's worst polluters accountable for the heat-trapping emissions they produce _ transforming how people travel, utilities generate power and businesses use electricity. At...

Abstract: President-elect Barack Obama said attacking global climate change is a "matter of urgency" that will create jobs as he got advice from Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the issue. Obama made clear he would adopt an aggressive approach to global warming when he takes over the White House on January 20. He and Vice President-elect Joe Biden met for nearly two hours with Gore at Obama's presidential transition office in Chicago. Obama hopes addressing climate change can create the kind of jobs that will help pull the U.S. economy out of a...

MONTGOMERY, Ala.–For farmers, this stinks: Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if the federal government decides to charge fees for air-polluting animals. Farmers so far are turning their noses up at the notion, which they contend is a possible consequence of an Environmental Protection Agency report after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases emitted by belching and flatulence amounts to air pollution. "This is one of the most ridiculous things the federal government has tried to do," said Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks, an outspoken opponent of the fees. EPA officials...

WASHINGTON – Carbon dioxide isn't the only greenhouse gas that worries climate scientists. Airborne levels of two other potent gases — one from ancient plants, the other from flat-panel screen technology — are on the rise, too. And that's got scientists concerned about accelerated global warming. The gases are methane and nitrogen trifluoride. Both pale in comparison to the global warming effects of carbon dioxide, produced by the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels. In the past couple of years, however, these other two gases have been on the rise, according to two new studies. The increase is...

People will have to be rationed to four modest portions of meat and one litre of milk a week if the world is to avoid run-away climate change, a major new report warns. The report, by the Food Climate Research Network, based at the University of Surrey, also says total food consumption should be reduced, especially "low nutritional value" treats such as alcohol, sweets and chocolates. It urges people to return to habits their mothers or grandmothers would have been familiar with: buying locally in-season products, cooking in bulk and in pots with lids or pressure cookers, avoiding waste and...

DALLAS (Sept. 19, 2008)- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has no evidence that greenhouse gas emissions are harming the environment, according to comments filed this week by Sterling Burnett, Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. The EPA is considering whether it should be regulating greenhouse gas emissions and whether the Clean Air Act is an effective way to do so. "Using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases is not at all what the law was intended to do," Burnett said. "You're seeing a lot of regulation without any results." According to Burnett, laws intended to...

People should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change, the world's leading authority on global warming has told The Observer Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year earned a joint share of the Nobel Peace Prize, said that people should then go on to reduce their meat consumption even further. His comments are the most controversial advice yet provided by the panel on how individuals can help tackle global warning.

Scientists at Columbia University are developing a carbon dioxide (CO2) scrubber device that removes one ton of CO2 from the air every day, says the Heartland Institute. While some see the scrubber as an efficient and economical way to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide, many environmentalists oppose the technology because it allows people to use fossil fuels and emit carbon in the first place. According to Columbia University physicist Klaus Lackner, who is leading the research team: Producing a large number of CO2 scrubbers can keep to a minimum any rise in atmospheric CO2 without the economically painful elimination of inexpensive...

Opponents of massive new energy taxes and regulations breathed a small sigh of relief last month when the Lieberman-Warner climate-tax bill went down in flames on the Senate floor. Even 10 Democrats broke from the party line and voted against it, writing that they would have opposed the bill on final passage. Unfortunately, power-mad bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency remain undaunted. The EPA is expected today to release a document that blueprints a dizzying array of greenhouse-gas regulatory programs under dozens of different provisions of the 1970 Clean Air Act. The document, called an “Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,”...

The global warmers are becoming increasingly desperate to prop up their failing prophesy in every way possible. Behaving just as Leon Festinger predicted in When Prophecies Fail. As the earth shows no net warming in a decade and cooling into its 7th year, as new models suggest cooling may continue because of natural ocean cycles, as the sun stays quiet now 12 years since the last solar minimum, usually a signal of cooling, as more and more peer review calls into question the importance of CO2 and of the the accuracy of the models and the entire greenhouse theory because...

Estonian authorities have slapped a flatulence tax on farmers to compensate the country for the methane gas produced by cows. Farmers this week received their first 'fart tax' demands asking them to pay for the greenhouse gases their cattle produce.

OSLO (Reuters) - Canada will be investigated on suspicion of violating rules for registering greenhouse gases that are the mainstay of a U.N.-led fight against global warming, official documents show. Canada played down the news, saying it was taking quick steps to ensure it complied by the rules. Ottawa could be suspended from rights to trade carbon dioxide if found to be in breach of the rules by the enforcement branch of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol. Greece was suspended last month, the first state to face such a sanction. "On 5 May 2008 Canada was given an official notification of...

In the community of Shady Grove Woods, trees are becoming more and more scarce. Residents and other anti-Intercounty Connector activists marched through the neighborhood on Saturday, pointing out the trees that were cut down to make way for the six-lane highway. ‘‘It’s just that we didn’t have a say in it in so many ways and we’re not talking about a two-lane road, we’re talking about a major highway running through here,” resident Sam Chim said of the ICC. ‘‘We have a lot of nice, private woods back here and now we’re going to have a highway running through instead....

Did NASA's James E. Hansen commit perjury when he testified before House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on March 19, 2007? Ferenc Miskolczi had previously informed NASA that the equations being used to predict catastrophic global warming were invalid. Yet Hansen told Congress that "greenhouse gases" posed a serious threat. "The predominance of positive feedbacks, along with the inertia of the oceans and ice sheets, has profound practical implications. It means that if we push the climate system hard enough it can obtain a momentum, it can pass tipping points, such that climate changes continue, out of our control....

WASHINGTON (AP) - Revising his stance on global warming, President Bush on Wednesday proposed a new target for stopping the growth of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. The president also called for putting the brakes on greenhouse gas emissions from electric power plants within 10 to 15 years. "To reach our 2025 goal, we will need to more rapidly slow the growth of power sector greenhouse gas emissions so that they peak within 10 to 15 years, and decline thereafter," Bush said in excerpts of the speech released early by the White House.

(02-26) 04:00 PST Washington - Washington - -- A senior Environmental Protection Agency staffer's newly released memo warned that EPA chief Stephen Johnson would lose his credibility and might have to resign if he rejected California's rules limiting greenhouse gases from cars and trucks.The document, prepared by a top deputy in the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, is further evidence of the fierce internal struggle that Johnson faced before he ruled against California in December. Documents released earlier revealed that he overruled the unanimous opinion of his agency's legal and technical staff, who urged him to approve the...

If two scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are correct, people will still be driving gasoline-powered cars 50 years from now, churning out heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — and yet that carbon dioxide will not contribute to global warming. The scientists, F. Jeffrey Martin and William L. Kubic Jr., are proposing a concept, which they have patriotically named Green Freedom, for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline. The idea is simple. Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would...

If you haven't done so already, meet the Nano, possibly the most significant new car of the decade. Small, cute, and snub-nosed, it fits four people and a duffel bag, has a single windshield wiper, travels at 60 mph, and it's all yours for the princely sum of $2,500, roughly the same price as the DVD system in your neighbor's Lexus and about half the price of the cheapest cars on the market today. Even better, at least for the philosophically minded, the Nano comes with its own moral conundrum: What happens when the laudable, currently fashionable movement to improve...

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 10 (OneWorld) - Coastal residents and students from all over South Carolina are planning to picket this evening's Republican Party Presidential Candidates Debate. "We just want to emphasize how important the issue of climate change is to the future of South Carolina," said Gretta Kruesi of the state's Coastal Conservation League. "Climate change will affect the strength and number of hurricanes, beach erosion, and tourism, which is the backbone of our economy. We want to make sure the candidates address this issue and invite them to respond." Sporting surfwear and bathing suits, attendees plan to hold aquamarine...

Dallas, TX - The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is expected today to debate amendments to a bill proposed by Sens. Lieberman (I-CT) and Warner (R-VA) that would create a "cap and trade" system designed to cut total U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet an expert with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) says the cap and trade system would slow economic growth with little if any environmental improvement to show for it. "Back in 1997 the Senate took the sensible position that the U.S. should not adopt any climate treaty that would either harm the economy or that...

The energy bill to be signed by the president today is arguably the worst piece of energy legislation ever enacted into law. It will substantially increase the price of automobiles, increase highway fatalities, increase fuel prices, worsen air pollution, and force consumers to buy products (like super-efficient light bulbs) that they manifestly -- and for very good reason -- do not want to buy. It will transfer huge amounts of wealth from the consumer to the farm lobby in the course of promoting a dubious product -- ethanol -- that will make energy supplies less reliable and greenhouse gas emission...

As NewsBusters reported, Nobel Laureate Al Gore made a fool out of himself at the United Nations climate change meeting in Bali Thursday by chastising America for having the exact same global warming policy the Clinton administration had when he was vice president in 1997. Marvelously, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton was on Fox News the following day speaking inconvenient truths about the Global Warmingist-in-Chief that sycophantic media members disgracefully refuse to share with the citizenry. With that in mind, get your popcorn ready, kick your feet up, and listen to the facts about this issue spoken in a fashion...

Those who spend much time in greenhouses know that they are often very humid places because water evaporates from plants and from surfaces that get wet when the plants are watered. Meteorologists typically refer to the water vapor content of the air as relative humidity which is how close the air is to holding as much water vapor as it can hold at its current temperature. Unfortunately many climatologists waste so much time on the nonexistent impact of radiation on air temperature that they don't provide sufficient emphasis to the significant impact of water vapor on air temperature. Those who...

California researchers plan to make biofuels in a novel way that doesn't involve food crops or microbial fermentation. A new research effort involving three University of California campuses and West Biofuels LLC, will develop a prototype research reactor that will use steam, sand and catalysts to efficiently convert forest, urban, and agricultural "cellulosic" wastes that would otherwise go to landfills into alcohol that can be used as a gasoline additive. "We have a very feasible design to combine individual components of technology that have been proven separately into a successful biomass processing prototype," said Robert Cattolica, leader of the research...