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

The earth will warm about 2.4 degrees C (4.3 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels even under extremely conservative greenhouse-gas emission scenarios and under the assumption that efforts to clean up particulate pollution continue to be successful, according to a new analysis by a pair of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. That amount of warming falls within what the world's leading climate change authority recently set as the threshold range of temperature increase that would lead to widespread loss of biodiversity, deglaciation and other adverse consequences in nature. The researchers, writing in the online edition of...

The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage. Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a “lawful excuse” to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of “lawful excuse” under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property...

Northern Ireland environment minister Sammy Wilson is taking heat for saying environmentalists' views on global warming amount to a "hysterical psuedo-religion," the BBC reports. "Resources should be used to adapt to the consequences of climate change, rather than King Canute-style vainly trying to stop it," Wilson said. The article states Mr Wilson said he refused to "blindly accept" the need to make significant changes to the economy to stop climate change. "The tactic used by the "green gang" is to label anyone who dares disagree with their view of climate change as some kind of nutcase who denies scientific fact,"...

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

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

New York's uber-liberal attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, has strong-armed Xcel Energy into fanning the flames of global warming alarmism, the New York Times reports. Cuomo, who was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton, pressed Xcel to disclose to investors detailed information regarding the risks that global warming supposedly poses to its business. This new corporate disclosure requirement will help green groups blackmail energy companies into cutting the greenhouse gas emissions that supposedly contribute to global warming. "This really takes it another step, by making it a settlement agreement that should have an impact across the industry,"...

Gaia Orders Hurricane Gustav to interrupt GOP convention. Gaia, a jealous and wrathful deity, has sent Hurricane Gustav to dampen the spirits of Republicans gathered at their convention, a group of fundamentalist secular humanists said in a news release. "Your sins of extravagance and ignorance have angered the one true non-God," said Jerry Fellwell, pastor at the Tabernacle of the Indifferent Shepherd in Lynchburg, Tenn. "And now she or he has unleashed a relatively well-known meteorological event to strike on a random date. Repent now for the end is nigh!" According to Fellwell, Gaia is also referred to as...

Rumors are circulating that GOP presumptive presidential candidate Senator John McCain plans to select Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty as his vice presidential running mate. Pawlenty certainly talks a good shtick when it comes to free markets, low taxes, and limited government, but his views on climate change and energy policy are downright frightening. "We should not spend time on voices that say [climate change] is not real," Pawlenty said even as new evidence surfaces almost daily that undermines the alarmist consensus. "We should have listened to President Carter" about energy policy, Pawlenty said. President Jimmy Carter, readers may recall, gave...

We have observed spectroscopic changes in temperature sensitive molecular lines, in the magnetic splitting of an Fe I line, and in the continuum brightness of over 1000 sunspot umbrae from 1990-2005. All three measurements show consistent trends in which the darkest parts of the sunspot umbra have become warmer (45K per year) and their magnetic field strengths have decreased (77 Gauss per year), independently of the normal 11-year sunspot cycle. A linear extrapolation of these trends suggests that few sunspots will be visible after 2015.

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

Wind Turbines Whip Up Health Fears By RICHARD COCKLE  BOARDMAN, Ore. — Sherry Eaton pulled into the driveway of her rural, high-desert home to see one of several giant wind turbines being assembled a half-mile away. "I started to cry," Eaton, 57, recalled of her first sight of the Willow Creek Wind Project in late July. "They're going to be hanging over the back of our house, and now there's the medical thing." "The medical thing" is new research suggesting that living close to wind turbines, as Eaton and her 60-year-old husband, Mike, soon will be doing, can cause sleep...

We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "the end of living and the beginning of survival" for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction. The collapse of the polar ice caps would become inevitable, bringing long-term...

Climate Change? Blame Your Stuff By SCOTT LEARN To cut energy use, save money and, while you're at it, live a greener life, you can turn down the air conditioning, back off the accelerator, hop on a bike. But when it comes to your personal energy tally, there's another big but not as commonly considered source: the stuff you buy. Every product, from televisions to teapots, takes energy to get to the shopping bag — energy to mine raw materials, make the product and ship it.Yet that use goes unreported in the tracking of greenhouse gases and energy. Though some...

THE FEW climate-change "skeptics" with any sort of scientific credentials continue to receive attention in the media out of all proportion to their numbers, their qualifications, or the merit of their arguments. And this muddying of the waters of public discourse is being magnified by the parroting of these arguments by a larger population of amateur skeptics. First, they tell you you're wrong and they can prove it. (In this case, "Climate isn't changing in unusual ways or, if it is, human activities are not the cause.") Then they tell you you're right but it doesn't matter. ("OK, it's changing...

It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, but Ventura County fire officials say it's actually a naturally occurring thermal anomaly known as a "heat sink." They are worried about the phenomenon which is located 3 miles north of Fillmore on federal land owned by the BLM. Fire officials say the "heat sink" is very hot gases escaping from the ground, like hydrogen sulfide. They say the gas is so hot, it can ignite the brush around it, starting wildfires. In fact, the fire department has been up there several times during the past couple of decades dealing...

For years now, we have been told by the man-made Global Warming crowd that "the debate is over" and that we all just need to shut up and do as they say "for the good of the planet." It was/is a highly unscientific, dictatorial and small minded attempt to eliminate scientific and other kinds of debate on an issue that Liberals around the world feel is of supreme importance. But, as is becoming more and more clear, their concern for the issue is rooted more in their desire to use the issue as a tool to gain more political power...

"It is critical our community be an integral and active part of the debate because African-Americans are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change economically, socially and through our health and well-being."

Snow Greets Summer Hikers On Mount RainierBy HOWARD MEYERSON   Climbers and hikers on their way up the mountain in July negotiate the snow-covered trails that wind through alpine meadows normally filled with wild flowers at this time of year. (Photo by Howard Meyerson)     PARADISE, Wash. — Cool ocean temperatures in the southern Pacific Ocean — a phenomenon known as La Nina — chilled sunny expectations this summer for thousands of visitors to Mount Rainier National Park.Those who arrived here in July planning to backpack or hike its famous sub-alpine wildflower meadows found snow instead, six feet in...

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

-- snip -- Complaints about privacy and fairness from the government's former chief scientist, Sir David King, and the Nobel peace prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be upheld on almost all counts, the Guardian has learned. But it is understood that Channel 4 will still claim victory because the ultimate verdict on a separate complaint about accuracy, which contained 131 specific points and ran to 270 pages, will find that it did not breach the regulator's broadcasting code and did not materially mislead viewers...

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

Sometimes when you're sifting thru general news, you run across a couple of items with 6 degrees of separation that truly make you go "huh??". Such is the case in the legal battles of the proposed hybrid dry cooled coal-fired Desert Rock plant in New Mexico.Early this year, the Navajo Nation and Sithe Global Power filed a lawsuit against the EPA for delays in issuing an air quality permit by the July 31st deadline for the proposed plant. New Mexico's AG said it couldn't be done because it would be in violation of the Endangered Species Act. Desert Rock spokesman...

Flopping Aces threads on global warming invariably strike the debate chord. They are a study in one-upmanship, chock full of quotes from supporting links, studies and articles. But our debate always suffers from one fatal flaw… that is the starting point of our respective opinions. Our commonality is we all believe the climate is, and always has, changed. The disagreement begins when we discuss whether that change is significantly connected, or caused by man releasing gaseous emissions into the atmosphere. In this respect, I felt it a worthy post to dedicate a thread to the so-called "consensus" on AWG (or...

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

The dwindling march of the penguins is signaling that the world's oceans are in trouble, scientists now say. Penguins may be the tuxedo-clad version of a canary in the coal mine, with generally ailing populations from a combination of global warming, ocean oil pollution, depleted fisheries, and tourism and development, according to a new scientific review paper. A University of Washington biologist detailed specific problems around the world with remote penguin populations, linking their decline to the overall health of southern oceans. "Now we're seeing effects (of human caused warming and pollution) in the most faraway places in the world,"...

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

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

Citing extensive United Nations research as well as personal observations, former Mets manager Willie Randolph has concluded that last year's historic late-season collapse of the New York Mets was caused by anthopogenic global warming. "This is a settled issued," declared Randolph. "The Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change has investigated every possible explanation for our cataclysmic stretch run choke. The only logical conclusion is that global warming caused severe imbalances in the microclimates in and around Shea Stadium." Pressed for details Mr. Randolph explained that temperature readings in left field were .0002 of a degree (Celsius) higher than readings in right...

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

WASHINGTON - Droughts will get drier, storms will get stormier and floods will get deeper with a warming climate across North America, U.S. government experts said in a report billed as the first continental assessment of extreme events.

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

The president of the low-lying Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati said Thursday his country may already be doomed because of climate change. President Anote Tong said communities had already been resettled and crops destroyed by seawater in some parts of the country, made up of 33 coral atolls straddling the equator. Although scientists are still debating the extent of rising sea levels and their cause, Tong told a press conference marking World Environment Day that changes were obvious in his country of 92,000 people. "I am not a scientist but what I know is that things are happening we did...

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

Study Warns Global Warming Could Swamp Gulf Coast By SEAN REILLYWASHINGTON — A new government report offers a grim forecast of global warming's long-term impact on the Gulf Coast, warning that "a vast portion ... from Houston to Mobile, Ala., may be inundated in the future." The predicted flooding, resulting from rising sea levels and sinking land surfaces, would occur within the next 50 to 100 years, according to the report, released last month by the National Science and Technology Council, a federal advisory body. While the effects would fall outside the life spans of most adults today, they could...

Keeping you up to date: I told you this morning about the Lieberman-Warner “climate change” boondoggle. At 6:25pm Eastern tonight, the Senate voted on the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to Consider S.3036 ). It passed 74-14, with 12 not voting. Thirteen GOP senators plus Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd (yes, Robert Byrd) opposed the massive eco-pork bill that would perpetuate the carbon offset/cap-and-trade fraud.

Some facts on climate legislationPublished on Sunday, Jun 01, 2008 Here are questions about the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act that the Senate is to begin debating this week: Q: What is it? A: The bill by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va., would create a ''cap-and-trade'' program designed to reduce environmentally harmful carbon dioxide emissions by power companies, big manufacturers, refineries and other businesses. Q: How would it work? A: Affected companies would be forced to meet new limits — the ''cap'' part — on their emissions. They would have to reduce emissions by about 2 percent each...

Climate Bill Underlines Obstacles to Capping Greenhouse GasesBy Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, June 1, 2008; Page A12 When the Senate takes up landmark climate legislation this week, its backers can be sure of just one thing: The obstacles they face show how hard it will be to enact a meaningful cap on greenhouse gases -- probably under the next administration. The next administration, not this one, because even supporters of the complex, extensively negotiated 494-page bill say that there is little chance that it will win Senate approval, less chance that the House will...

I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier. I'm a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can't be very good to pump lots of CO2into the atmosphere but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats. -- snip --Yet on the basis of this speculation, environmental activists, attended by compliant scientists and opportunistic politicians, are advocating radical economic and social regulation. "The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity," warns Czech President Vaclav Klaus, "is no longer socialism. It is, instead,...

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

Paraphrasing a Radio News report today out of a Pittsburgh station: PA's farmers are facing a problem trying to get their corn crop planted due to the "cold, wet late spring weather" that has prevented plowing and planting. Same problem faces Indiana, West Virginia, Ohio to varying degrees. Unless the weather turns drier for at least 5-7 days in the next ten days, no corn crop can be safely planted. Soybeans are an option, since they are a shorter season crop and might grow to full term before the fall, BUT Washington's political environmental ethanol requirements (which are driving today's...

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

A vast array of physical and biological systems across the earth are being affected by warming temperatures caused by humans, says a new analysis of information not previously assembled all in one spot. The effects on living things include earlier leafing of trees and plants over many regions; movements of species to higher latitudes and altitudes in the northern hemisphere; changes in bird migrations in Europe, North America and Australia; and shifting of the oceans' plankton and fish from cold- to warm-adapted communities. "Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the warming world is causing impacts on...

Development campaigners have accused the UK government of making a stealth cut to an £800m fund designed to help poor countries adapt to climate change.

Senators Warn Bill Could Spike Gas $1.50 to $5 a Gallon Inhofe, Sessions blast massive costs of global warming legislation. By Jeff Poor Business & Media Institute 5/15/2008 5:44:34 PM Worried about gas prices hitting $4 a gallon and beyond? Imagine if they were $6, $7 or even $8 a gallon. Those levels are a certain possibility should Congress pass cap-and-trade legislation, which could face a vote in early June. Oil is trading at record levels, in excess of $120 a barrel. Leading Republican Sens. James Inhofe (Okla.) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.) both told the Business & Media Institute (BMI)...

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

Hollywood—In what could only be referred to as a historic event, Hollywood is shutting down its doors to save “Mother Earth.” The move comes after years of trying to reach an unsympathetic Bush administration, and decades of attempts at inculcating the American populous. The historic decision—based largely on the overwhelming evidence of the plight of polar bears, spotted owls and tropical insects—has forced the inevitable activist outcome, an outcome designed to promote a greener planet. Over the last year, article after article has emerged, detailing the destruction to the planet via one species or another. The evidence has only fallen...

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

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