Free Republic

Ecosystems haven’t maxed out ability to absorb fossil fuel emissions Earth’s ecosystems keep soaking up more carbon as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, new measurements find. The research contradicts several recent studies suggesting that “carbon sinks” have reached or passed their capacity. By looking at global measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the new work calculates instead that total sinks have increased roughly in line with rising emissions. “The sinks have been more than able to keep up with emissions,” said Pieter Tans, an atmospheric scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo....

Down, down, down.

I’m away, so this is a good time for Guest posts. Here Tony explains that we need lots of electricity even while we sleep. I didn’t realize our electricity needs were so high at night. The lowest power use each day is still as much as 60% of the peak. That’s the base load at 3am, and solar panels and wind farms just can’t provide it. We can burn the odd $500 billion building hundreds of solar plants, but even then, we would have to go “medieval” for about 8 hours each night. Candles anyone? — Jo Guest post by...

Penn State panelists attack "deniers" Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush, Christopher Monckton, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal.Penn State "climate ethics" professor Donald Brown accused global warming skeptics late last month of committing "new crimes against humanity." "We've lost 25 years," said Brown, referring to so-called global warming skeptics' efforts to delay and prevent government action on climate change. "I think we should encourage a conversation whether this is some sort of kind of new crime against humanity." "Its really evil stuff," continued Brown, speaking to a classroom of students on April 30. "It's nasty." Brown, the Associate Professor...

A new paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters describes how the oceans have warmed only 0.09°C over the last 55 years, from 1955-2010. Don’t let the red line fool you, read on. Key Points A strong positive linear trend in exists in world ocean heat content since 1955One third of the observed warming occurs in the 700-2000 m layer of the oceanThe warming can only be explained by the increase in atmospheric GHGs That last bullet point makes me cringe a bit, because I seriously doubt the resolution of this study down to hundredths of degrees seeing the sort...

The U.S. oil boom has created a glut of crude in Cushing, Okla., a major oil storage hub. This sign dubs the city the "Pipeline Crossroads of the World." For years, Cushing, Okla., has been on the receiving end of a 500-mile pipeline funneling oil from the Gulf of Mexico to the American heartland.Starting this weekend, that pipeline will start moving crude in the other direction. That flow reversal could soon have implications at gas pumps around the country."For 40 years, crude oil flowed north," says Philip Verleger, a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "Today, oil...

Sixty SouthCoast Residents learned about Agenda 21, SmartGrowth, Sustainable Development and other threats to their constitutional right to own property at an informative presentation at the Fall River Public Library in Fall River, MA. monday evening This group of patriotic and concerned citizens took time out of their busy lives to learn the facts about a devious plot hatched at the United Nations in 1987 under the guise of “saving the planet and the environment", called Agenda 21. They had all heard the horror stories of communities and businesses severely inundated by ridiculous environmental regulations and restrictions from a vast...

Federal Priorities: A new report shows we have spent $70 billion on climate change since 2008 while our strapped military is ordered to become energy-efficient. Imagine weapons that don't harm the environment. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, took to the Senate floor Thursday to decry the green agenda being imposed on the military by the Obama administration at the same time the defense budget is being sacrificed on the altar of runaway deficit spending.

Flashback, Michael Mann said this on October 5th, 2010: Our efforts to communicate the science are opposed by a well-funded, highly organized disinformation effort that aims to confuse the public about the nature of our scientific understanding. …Scientists are massively out-funded and outmanned in this battle, and will lose if leading scientific institutions and organizations remain on the sidelines. I will discuss this dilemma, drawing upon my own experiences in the public arena of climate change. Next time you get challenged on how much money is involved and whose side gets it, point out Mann is delusional by showing them...

HELP WANTED: Seeking a go-getter able to thwart sea level rise, reduce polluting fossil fuel emissions and protect strained drinking water supplies. Must have lobbying skills to convince local government and residents to invest in preparing for climate change. Al Gore-style PowerPoint abilities a plus. Palm Beach County is in the market for a climate change czar. While the actual job title and day-to-day duties for this new county post remain in flux, the far-reaching goal is to get a county with more than one million people ready for climate change. That includes promoting "environmental sustainability" efforts such as recycling...

From the DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a new paper in GRL saying something that doesn’t make much sense to me. As shown in the diagram above, thunderstorms transport heat from the lower troposphere upwards. The heat source at the base of the atmosphere (at the surface) is the absorption of sunlight by the surface of the Earth. That transfers heat to the lower atmosphere by conduction (a small amount), and mostly be re-radiated Long Wave IR. Heat is then transported upwards by convection, which is done by clouds (cumulus for example) and especially thunderstorms. So, given the amount of...

The end is nigh! Or so our esteemed environmental prophets are telling us… yet again. Humans will need two Earths to support our lifestyles by 2030 because we are draining the world’s resources so quickly, a new report has warned.Produced by the World Wildlife Fund, the Zoological Society of London, the Global Footprint Network and the European Space Agency, the 2012 Living Planet Report measures humans’ ecological footprint on the planet.At the moment, the picture is bleak, according to Jim Leape, Director General of WWF International, with resources being drained 50 per cent faster than they can be replenished.He said:...

Extremist green campaigning group WWF - endorsed by no less a body than the European Space Agency - has stated that economic growth should be abandoned, that citizens of the world's wealthy nations should prepare for poverty and that all the human race's energy should be produced as renewable electricity within 38 years from now. Most astonishingly of all, the green hardliners demand that the enormous numbers of wind farms, tidal barriers and solar powerplants required under their plans should somehow be built while at the same time severely rationing supplies of concrete, steel, copper and glass. The WWF presents...

It appears Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former vice president Al Gore is back in the game. Back in the dating game, that is. He has, according to The Washington Post's Reliable Source blog, a "serious girlfriend." Her name is Elizabeth Keadle—better known as Liz—a well-heeled Democratic donor from Southern California in her 50s with a background in science and a devotion to environmental causes. The relationship is solid enough that she accompanied Gore, 64, and an eclectic group of experts and VIPs (Richard Branson, singer Jason Mraz, actor Tommy Lee Jones) on a trip to Antarctica in January to...

A new paper published May 15th in the the journal The Cryosphere utilizes 12 years worth of RADARSAT data to determine the rate at which some well known ice shelves in Antarctica have been moving and changing, and the answer is: “not much”. In fact it appears there has been a slowing down. First a map of Antarctica and the most worrisome Ross Ice Shelf (marked by the red x) is in order: If you follow the alarmosphere and MSM related to the Ross Ice Shelf and others, you get these kinds of stories: West Antarctic ice sheet collapse even...

Remember the fear of global warming is falling because skeptics are well organized and well funded by vested interests and, after all, the US government is only spending ten thousand times more than Heartland. How could they compete? The Congressional Research Service estimates that since 2008 the federal government has spent nearly $70 billion on “climate change activities.”Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe presented the new CRS report on the Senate Floor Thursday to make the point that the Obama administration has been focused on “green” defense projects to the detriment of the military.The Daily Caller Hello to all the fans...

Almost six years ago, I was the editor of a single-topic issue on energy for Scientific American that set out a plan for how to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations below a planet-livable threshold of 560 ppm. If I had it to do over, I would scale back on the nuclear fusion and clean coal, instead devoting at least half of the available space for feature articles on psychology, sociology, economics and political science. Since doing that issue, I’ve come to the conclusion that the technical details are the easy part. It’s the social engineering that’s the killer. Moon shots...

The Congressional Research Service estimates that since 2008 the federal government has spent nearly $70 billion on “climate change activities.” Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe presented the new CRS report on the Senate Floor Thursday to make the point that the Obama administration has been focused on “green” defense projects to the detriment of the military. The report revealed that from fiscal years 2008 through 2012 the federal government spent $68.4 billion to combat climate change. The Department of Defense also spent $4 billion of its budget, the report adds, on climate change and energy efficiency activities in that same...

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Anthony Watts From Dr. Benny Peiser at The GWPFGlobal Warming Policy Foundation (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Network Agency Calls For Suspension Of Emission Laws For Old Coal Plants Last winter, on several occasions, Germany escaped only just large-scale power outages. Next winter the risk of large blackouts is even greater. The culprit for the looming crisis is the single most important instrument of German energy policy: the “Renewable Energy Law.” The economic cost of a wide-scale blackout are measured in billions of Euros per day. The most important test of energy policy is now the...

In obscure, blue-collar towns across Appalachia -- places that most Americans have never seen -- generations of coal miners have toiled away at back-breaking labor to power American homes and industry. Now, as many as 200,000 of them who dig, process, transport and burn America's most abundant fuel are threatened by EPA's latest coal rule. It imposes a standard for emissions that is all but impossible for many plants to meet. It requires coal-fired plants to release no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour. The only means for many older plants to attain that standard is...