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Why do they buy the nonsense about alleged greenhouse gases causing dangerous global warming? The claim about the power of greenhouse gases sounds like magic and the evidence for “global warming” is of little value. Those who talk about global warming claim a 0.5 C (1 F) increase in what they call the global average temperature indicates the earth is getting warmer. You don’t have to be a mathematician or physicist to recognize that one temperature cannot represent every place on earth from frigid polar regions to blazing deserts. Nor can a single temperature represent year round conditions in temperate...

Further evidence for the decline of the oceans’ historical role as an important sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide is supplied by new research by environmental scientists from the University of East Anglia. Since the industrial revolution, much of the CO2 we have released into the atmosphere has been taken up by the world’s oceans which act as a strong ‘sink’ for the emissions. This has slowed climate change. Without this uptake, CO2 levels would have risen much faster and the climate would be warming more rapidly. A paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research by Dr Ute Schuster and Professor...

The State of Kansas has denied a permit to build two coal powered electric plants to Sunflower Electric. The state of the art plants would use flue gas to grow algae which could be used for biofuels or animal feed. The complex near Garden City would include an ethanol plant. Local officials favor the plant. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment denied the permit because of carbon dioxide emissions even though the algae would actually reduce CO2 emissions. The denial won't adversely affect growth in the Kansas economy because the Kansas economy isn't growing that much anyway and the...

Al Gore’s campaign against global warming is shifting into high gear. Reporters and commentators follow his every move and bombard the public with notice of his activities and opinions. But while the mainstream media promote his ideas about the state of planet Earth, they are mostly silent about the dramatic impact his economic proposals would have on America. And journalists routinely ignore evidence that he may personally benefit from his programs. Would the romance fizzle if Gore’s followers realized how much their man stands to gain? Earlier this year Gore experienced a notable public relations debacle. The Tennessee Center for...

I hope the delay in approving the power plants Sunflower Electric has proposed isn't because the Kansas Department of Health and Environment believes the lie that carbon dioxide has some magical power to control atmospheric temperatures. How can anyone believe that CO2, which is only 0.04 percent of the atmosphere, can have any impact on air temperatures? I have yet to see any scientific evidence to support the claims about the magical ability of CO2 claimed by greenhouse gas believers. If these believers had any real scientific evidence they wouldn't be claiming that their estimates of past temperatures provide evidence....

Scientists take two approaches to determining the validity of theories. One approach involves efforts to prove the theory is valid which sometimes is difficult to do. The other approach attempts to disprove the theory, or falsify it. If the theory can be falsified,then there is no need to attempt to prove it. Heinze Thieme has published several essays demonstrating that the greenhouse gas theory is false. In "On the Phenomenon of Atmospheric Backradiation" he shows that "An assessment conducted in the light of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the principles of vector algebra of the key greenhouse theory concept...

Governments need to scrap subsidies for biofuels, as the current rush to support alternative energy sources will lead to surging food prices and the potential destruction of natural habitats, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development will warn on Tuesday. The OECD will say in a report to be discussed by ministers on Tuesday that politicians are rigging the market in favour of an untried technology that will have only limited impact on climate change. “The current push to expand the use of biofuels is creating unsustainable tensions that will disrupt markets without generating significant environmental benefits,” say the authors...

More bad news from holier-than-America Europe: Great Britain won't meet its Kyoto Protocol target of a 20 percent reduction in emissions of six greenhouse gases by 2010, and chances of achieving that goal by 2020 are almost as bleak. The admission by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs merely confirms what Cambridge University and others have been saying for years. Britain, like most of the rest of Europe, Canada and scores of other global-warming citadels throughout the world, is hopelessly out of compliance. About the only nations on target to live up to their Kyoto obligations are China,...

Feeling guilty about the amount of deadly greenhouse gases you emit by driving that big SUV or using your air conditioner during the summer? Well, don't count on an easy fix. While celebrities like Al Gore and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger burnish their green credentials by buying so-called carbon offsets that fund projects like wind farms to make up for their energy excesses, environmental advocates nationwide criticize the effectiveness of the programs. Their concern: The carbon offset market, which is largely unregulated, lacks the standards or the oversight needed to make sure that the projects consumers send money to are actually...

Eating beef ' is less green than driving' Last Updated: 2:59am BST 19/07/2007 Producing 2.2lb of beef generates as much greenhouse gas as driving a car non-stop for three hours, it was claimed yesterday. Japanese scientists used a range of data to calculate the environmental impact of a single purchase of beef. Taking into account all the processes involved, they said, four average sized steaks generated greenhouse gases with a warming potential equivalent to 80.25lb of carbon dioxide. advertisement This also consumed 169 megajoules of energy. That means that 2.2lb of beef is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions which have...

On the 23 of June, I had the opportunity to attend the Friends of Trees Conference in Barcelona. It has taken me a few weeks to digest all the information, which I, together with about 900 other people managed to inhale: The fumes of change, the organic revolution, the climate crisis, the need for solidarity and action. It was a most overwhelming task: and Al Gore's redundant joke of: "I used to be the next president of the United States," has hardly helped ease the intensity of the situation. The crowds clapped at every comment made by the speakers, who...

Climate Change: Reputable scientists now say the long-term threat to climate is severe cooling, not rising temperatures. In fact, our carbon emissions may just have prevented the next ice age. Chicken Little may have to be measured for a winter coat, if the observations of R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre of Canada's Carleton University, are accurate. Writing in Toronto's National Post, Patterson reported on his research that involved analysis of core samples of more than 5,000 years of mud recovered from the bottom of Western Canada's fjords. In summary, his research showed...

The controversy about purported "greenhouse gases" is much ado about nothing. I have yet to see any empirical scientific evidence to support the claim that carbon dioxide ( CO2) can convert low energy Infrared radiation (IR) into heat energy. Supporters of the belief in greenhouse gases rely on studies of the distant past to support their belief. They suffer from the delusion that they can precisely determine temperatures from periods hundreds and even thousands of years ago by examining ice cores, tree rings, etc. They have convinced a lot of gullible politicians and journalists that they can determine past temperatures...

Vote due on gas-guzzler fees By Chris Bowman - Bee Staff Writer Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, June 7, 2007 Here's one way to combat global warming: Take $2,500 out of the pockets of new Hummer owners and give it to buyers of the Toyota Prius. That's essentially the proposal set for a vote today or Friday on the Assembly floor of the California Legislature. The same body that passed the nation's first law curbing climate-altering or "greenhouse" tailpipe exhausts is debating a system of fees and rebates to coax some of those emission cuts from new car buyers. The...

If you have tried to reason with a GWF (Global Warming Fanatic), you know it's a waste of time. They believe GW with a passion that has no room for facts and data. Tell them the planet has been warming (slightly) since 1977 because it's on the up side of a solar-driven warming and cooling cycle going back hundreds of thousands of years. Tell them CO2 (carbon dioxide) - not a pollutant but a harmless gas that every oxygen-breathing animal breathes out and plants breathe in to survive - is a tiny fraction of the Earth's atmosphere, man-made CO2 a...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has boosted his environmental profile by signing global warming agreements with states and foreign governments, most recently one this month with the Australian state of Victoria. Schwarzenegger officials say the agreements are intended to force the federal government to take a more stringent approach to tackling global warming. But some critics note the signings have given Schwarzenegger opportunities for photo-ops with foreign leaders, and Democrats have raised concerns that the Republican governor is using the deals to predispose California to a market-based system in which companies can buy their way out of emissions reductions. Each of the...

A gentleman named George Monbiot has accused the leading industrial nations of the world of condemning millions to die. Perhaps, if he were criticizing their unwillingness to take stronger military action against Islamic Fundamentalists, the gentleman would have a point. He isn’t. He instead is accusing these nations of using phony science to deny the inevitable reality of anthropogenic global warming. Monbiot drags forth all the AGW bogeymen. The Ice Caps on Greenland will melt, just like they did in the Middle Ages, when the Vikings settled the vast island and appropriately named it Greenland. The Amazon Rain Forest would...

GLOBAL warming could devastate China's development, but that should not stand in the way of economic progress, according to the country's first official survey of climate change. Hotter average global temperatures fuelled by greenhouse gases mean that different regions of China are likely to suffer spreading deserts, worsening droughts and floods, shrinking glaciers and rising seas, the National Climate Change Assessment warns. This environmental upheaval could derail the ruling Communist Party's plans for sustainable development, the report says. However, it also insists economic growth must come before greenhouse gas cuts. "Climatic warming may have serious consequences for our environment of...

For most of us facing gridlocked roads and packed trains, the Monday morning commute is a more pressing concern than climate change. Staggering rush hours could tackle climate change But there may be a single solution to both, according to business leaders. The Institute of Directors is calling for flexible hours and more home working to help tackle global warming. Miles Templeman, the institute's director-general, said offering employees greater flexibility would ease pressure on transport networks and cut rush-hour power demand - thereby reducing emissions. Mr Templeman urged ministers not to rush into policies that risked harming the economy, such...

Climate Change: Ronald Reagan once declared that air pollution comes from trees. He was right then and he's right now. Psssst: Trees can also contribute to global warming. Reagan's famous statement contributed to the conventional wisdom that Republicans are ignorant or uncaring or both on environmental issues. It also earned the Gipper considerable derision. His former press secretary, James Brady, once grabbed the president as they flew over a forest and said in mock alarm, "Look, Mr. President — killer trees!" Turns out, Reagan was right. Planting trees are said to be food for the environment and a tool to...

UN report says poor will suffer most unless measures taken to cut greenhouse gases BRUSSELS (AP)-- As the world gets hotter, millions of people will suffer from hunger, thirst, floods and disease unless drastic action is taken, the bleakest report yet on global warming said yesterday. "Don't be poor in a hot country, don't live in hurricane alley, watch out about being on the coasts or the Arctic, and it's a bad idea to be on high mountains with glaciers melting," Stephen Schneider, a Stanford University scientist and study co-author, said. All regions of the world will change, with the...

The heavy condemnatory breathing on the subject of global warming outdoes anything since high moments of the Inquisition. A respectable columnist (Thomas Friedman of the New York Times) opened his essay last week by writing, "Sometimes you read something about this administration that's just so shameful it takes your breath away." What asphyxiated this critic was the discovery that a White House official had edited "government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming." The correspondent advises that the culprit had been an oil-industry lobbyist before joining the administration, and on leaving it he took...

US Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe (both R-ME) have introduced a measure (S.1073) that would require automakers to reduce new vehicle greenhouse gas emissions 30% below 2002 levels by 2016. This would nationalize California’s motor vehicle greenhouse gas reduction standard. The EPA would be required to tighten the reductions every five years. The bill also requires fuel suppliers to increase the percentage of low-carbon fuels—biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol E85, hydrogen, electricity, and others—in the motor vehicle fuel supply by 2015. This would reduce emissions from motor vehicle fuels by 10% below projected levels by 2030. It’s clear...

The EU's top political leaders meet three times a year in a rose-coloured marble building known as Justus Lipsius. EU leaders arrived in gas-guzzling cars to debate green issues It is named after a 16th-Century Dutch scholar often described, predominantly by his fans, as one of the most learned men of his day, as well as the founding father of neo-stoicism, which combined pagan materialism with Christianity. Nowadays, the new Europe under Jose Manuel Barroso could even be described as eco-stoicism, combining materialism with environmental zealotry. The new movement, though, does not have as many converts as the Portuguese...

Gore's carbon footprint may be the size of Godzilla's, but he eases his conscience with "carbon offsets." He buys them from himself. And every time someone else buys them, Big Al gets richer. ...Speaking of carbon offsets and shell games, guess where Gore buys his carbon offsets? Well, he buys them from a firm call Generation Investment Management LLP, a tax-exempt U.S. 501(c)3 corporation. The chairman and co-founder is Al Gore. In other words, he buys his carbon offsets from himself. Others who buy these offset are really buying stock in Gore's growing business. You, too, can green up his...

The idea of a cap-and-trade system for limiting carbon-dioxide emissions in the U.S. has become all the rage. Earlier this year, 10 big American companies formed the Climate Action Partnership to lobby for government action on climate change. And this week the private-equity consortium that is bidding to take over Texas utility TXU announced that, as part of the buyout, it would join the forces lobbying for a cap on carbon emissions. But this is not, as Lenin once said, a case of capitalists selling the rope to hang themselves with. In most cases, it is good old-fashioned rent-seeking with...

With a winter that brought snow to Tucson, Ariz., and 70-degree weather to New York City -- along with an Academy Award for the global-warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" -- climate change has become more ingrained in the public consciousness. Not everyone may be willing to overhaul their lives to accommodate the environment, but more people are opting for the rising number of options offered by companies to neutralize their "carbon footprints," meaning the amount of energy they consume. Most carbon-offset programs require consumers to make small payments that in turn go to programs that create renewable energy or absorb...

Despite constant criticism from environmental activists at home and across Europe claiming the U.S. government is doing nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, new evidence suggests America's efforts are more effective than Europe's. According to H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), the United States has spent more on research and technologies to reduce climate change than any other country, and its business-led efforts are paying off. "The United States is doing a far better job reigning in its emission than Europe, even though it has a faster-growing economy and population," says Burnett....

In the late Middle Ages, professional pardoners sold indulgences to Roman Catholic parishioners with the promise that their sins would be forgiven. It was one of the practices that led to the success of Martin Luther's Reformation. Today, some environmentally conscious people purchase so-called carbon offsets to compensate for the CO2 emissions they are personally responsible for. ...At least 50 companies sell offsets for air travel for between $5 and $30 per ton of CO2. Some of them sell offsets for other activities as well.

You can neutralize the rest of your pollution—through offsets. When you buy offsets, you essentially pay someone to reduce or remove global warming pollution in your name. For example, when you buy 10 tons of carbon offsets, the seller guarantees that 10 fewer tons of global warming pollution go into the atmosphere. While the pollution you produce yourself is the same, you get the credit for that 10-ton reduction.

Global-warming doomsayers were out and about in a big way recently, but the rain came in central Queensland, then here in Sydney. January also was unusually cool. We have been subjected to a lot of nonsense about climate disasters, as some zealots have been presenting extreme scenarios to frighten us. They claim ocean levels are about to rise spectacularly, there could be the occasional tsunami as high as an eight-storey building, and the Amazon Basin could be destroyed as the ice cap in the Arctic and Greenland melts. An overseas magazine called for Nuremberg-style trials for global-warming sceptics, and a...

But if you have carbon markets, why do you need subsidies? Living in a carbon constrained world looks inevitable. Congress will be voting on a number of proposals to set limits on the emission of greenhouse gases later this year. So industrialists see the policy handwriting on the wall and are now rushing to help shape the emerging greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions regulatory scheme. In January the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, consisting of 10 big companies including DuPont, Alcoa, General Electric and Duke Energy, issued a "blueprint for a mandatory economy-wide, market-driven approach to climate protection." Also in January, the Electric...

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Emissions levels have proved a sticking point Leading US politicians are meeting with legislators from the EU, China, Japan and India to seek a breakthrough in the international climate deadlock. The meeting, organised by British-run parliamentarians' group Globe, is strongly supported by the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. On Thursday, it will publish recommendations for a new world deal on climate change at the G8 summit. G8 leaders will be meeting in Germany this summer. The gathering in the US senate has attracted two presidential candidates - John McCain and the Senate Foreign Relations committee chair Joe Biden. In...

An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since...

AUSTIN — Carrying signs with slogans of "Stop the Coal Rush" and "Shame on Texas," about 1,000 people rallied at the state Capitol on Sunday to call for lawmakers to slow down a plan to build up to 18 new coal-fired power plants. Environmentalists fear the new plants, with 11 proposed by energy giant TXU Corp., will pump millions of tons of pollutants into the air every year. "Coal plants seem so archaic," said Stacy Foss, an Austin teacher who brought her two young children to the rally in the 50-degree weather. "Texas is so environmentally incorrect." Organized by about...

A TV advertisement opposing TXU Corp.'s plan to build 11 new coal plants in Texas begins airing Wednesday in the Waco market, and will air next week in Dallas. The ad campaign, titled "Profits and Pollution," are being paid for by Environmental Defense, a nonprofit environmental group that is suing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality over the permit applications process. The ads are asking viewers to contact their state legislators and ask them to slow down TXU's fast-tracked coal plan. The fast-tracking plan could cut down the regulatory approval process for a new plant to six months. It previously...

Big Oil behemoth Exxon Mobil Corp. has dropped any pretense of questioning whether global warming is real. Now the company is seeking to position itself as an active player in efforts to lower greenhouse gases. "The appropriate debate isn't on whether climate is changing, but rather should be on what we should be doing about it," Kenneth Cohen, Exxon's vice president of public affairs, told reporters on a conference call Thursday. The call came less than a week after an international panel of hundreds of scientists said new research showed global warming was "unequivocal" and that human activity was primarily...

An alarming discovery by NASA has Green Party members, the Sierra Club, Al Gore, the United Nations, and tree-hugging hippies all over earth in a panic. Global warming is occurring on Mars! NASA has reported that Mars is coming out of an ice age and experiencing significant climate changes. Somehow, some way, the ruthless Republicans have found a way to get their message of support for oil companies and gas guzzling SUV’s all the way to Mars. How else can anyone explain global warming on Mars? Concerned environmentalists everywhere expressed dismay that they were asleep at the wheel for this...

Global warming on Mars! "It's all Bush's fault" Martians claim According to a report released by NASA in 2005, the polar ice caps are melting--on Mars. The dramatic shrinking of Mars' poles has taken place over a period of six Earth years (that's about 3 Mars years), and is largely attributed to increased solar activity. Given that Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, Earth being the third, is it possible that Sol may have something to do with our planet's warming as well? It may come as a surprise to some of you, but yes! A recent study...

Republicans Cause Global Warming on Mars An alarming discovery by NASA has Green Party members, The Sierra Club, Al Gore, The United Nations, and tree-hugging hippies all over earth in a panic. Global warming is occurring on Mars! NASA has reported that Mars is coming out of an ice age and experiencing significant climate changes. Some how, some way, the ruthless Republicans have found a way to get their message of support for oil companies and gas guzzling SUV's all the way to Mars. How else can anyone explain global warming on Mars? Concerned environmentalists everywhere expressed dismay that they...

Comment: 'Harder than ever for cynics to dismiss global warming' Mark Henderson, Science Editor of The Times The IPCC's 'uncharacteristically robust' conclusion means the debate on climate change is over Like all groups that decide policy by committee, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is naturally prone to conservatism. Every line in its Summary for Policymakers is fiercely contested, and must be approved by a consensus of more than 300 expert scientists before it is included in the final document. The panel’s uncharacteristically robust conclusion that global warming is "very likely" the result of human activity is therefore cause...

The debate on global warming is over. That's the ultimate message from the report released in Paris today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.N. body of leading researchers charged with analyzing climate science and producing the final word on what is happening — and will happen — to our planet. IPCC scientists now say that it is "very likely" that global warming is chiefly driven by the buildup of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases caused by human activity, and that dangerous levels of warming and sea rise are on the way. Those two words...

Global warming on Mars In its ninth year in orbit around Mars, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor has made a number of surprising discoveries. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/newsroom/20050920a.html For three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress. Apparently, President Bush's enviromental policies are so destructive that they are causing global warming throughout the solar system. (HT: Instapundit) Posted by Joe Carter

Global Warming on Mars Glenn Reynolds highlighted this item from the Mars Global Surveyor project: [F]or three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress. While it is theoretically possible for human and animal activities to affect the climate on Earth, the main factor causing fluctuations in temperatures on this planet, as on Mars, is variability in energy output from the Sun. The Mars Global Surveyor data suggest what I think would be a relatively simple experiment: Why not place thermometers...

Is there Global Warming on Mars? In 2003, NASA's orbiter Mars Odyssey spotted seasonal changes such as the advance and retreat of polar ice, but it also is gathering information pointing to long-term trends. William Feldman of the Los Alamos National Laboratory confirmed that the current climate conditions, including too much frozen water at low-latitude regions, suggests something is out of equilibrium on Mars. Many scientists believe that Mars is coming out of an Ice Age. In some low-latitude areas, the ice has already dissipated. In others, that process is slower and hasn't reached equilibrium yet. Those areas are like...

Mars 'more active than suspected' Gullies have appeared in new images taken this year New images of Mars suggest the Red Planet's surface is more active than previously thought, the US space agency (Nasa) reports. Photographs from Nasa's orbiting spacecraft Mars Global Surveyor show recently formed craters and gullies. The agency's scientists also say that deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near the planet's south pole have shrunk for three summers in a row. They say this is evidence to suggest climate change is in progress. Mars rumble The new gullies appear in an April 2005 image of a sand-dune slope....

THE FINAL FRONTIER Global warming on Mars – without SUVs! Planet experiencing increased temperatures despite lack of humankind © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Though not subject to pollutants of human habitation, Mars appears to be undergoing global warming, with new data suggesting the planet is possibly emerging from an ice age. According to a report in Space.com, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter has spotted seasonal changes, such as the advance and retreat of polar ice, but it also is gathering information pointing to long-term trends. William Feldman of the Los Alamos National Laboratory tells the site the current climate conditions, including too much...

When did "Climate Change" replace "Global Warming"?So the Democrats in Congress are taking up "climate change". I must've heard that phrase "climate change" a dozen times in the news reports, but I don't think I heard the phrase "global warming" a single time. Are the liberals so afraid of the reaction to the phrase "global warming" that they are now shying away from it? When did this happen? Did I miss the memo?

Kimberly Strassel's "If the Cap Fits" (Wall Street Journal) examines the real motives of the Climate Action Partnership (CAP): to get the government to mandate or subsidize the purchase of their products, while rewarding them for implementing existing business plans. http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/kstrasselpw/?id=110009578 I therefore propose that we refer to the Climate Action Partnership (CAP) as the Corporate Ripoff Association of Profiteers. I leave development of a suitable acronym to the reader.