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New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo announced a 13-state coalition has filed a motion in Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals defending a new environmental regulation limiting greenhouse gases. Starting in January 2011, pollution control requirements under the federal CAA will apply for the first time to new or modified facilities that emit global warming pollution. A new rule from the EPA focuses these requirements on the largest facilities, such as power plants, cement kilns, and oil refineries. These large facilities account for 70% of the greenhouse gases from stationary sources. In response, interest groups representing some of these...

Transiting through SFO the other day, I noticed a number of kiosks where one can purchase carbon offsets for one’s flight. To feel good if you are crossing the country costs @ $12.00, or 30x the actual going rate. To feel good for a Transpac flight might cost as much as $20. Somehow, I think Al Gore is lurking somewhere in the background. Of course, that nasty carbon will probably just blow right back across the Pacific from China in a couple of days.

New federal regulations issued this week stipulate that the electronic health records--that all Americans are supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year--must record not only the traditional measures of height and weight, but also the Body Mass Index: a measure of obesity. The obesity-rating regulation states that every American's electronic health record must: “Calculate body mass index. Automatically calculate and display body mass index (BMI) based on a patient’s height and weight.” The law also requires that these electronic health records be available--with appropriate security measures--on a national...

It's odd how little we've heard lately from the skeptics who deny that climate change is real. What's the matter, people? Heat stroke? The Venus-like heat that much of the country has been suffering this summer is almost enough to make anybody a believer in global warming. Almost, but not quite: Honesty compels me to acknowledge that a few weeks of record-setting temperatures do not constitute proof of anything. Climate scientists have to analyze data covering decades and centuries to discern what's really going on. Of course, the unusually heavy snowstorms that buried Washington and other East Coast cities last...

A delegation of 20 black mayors representing the National Conference of Black Mayors arrived in Washington, DC to lobby congress to pass legislation to promote “clean energy.” According to the delegation’s press release, they want “a national plan to move their cities to become more energy efficient, reduce pollution and create new clean energy jobs and businesses.” But is black unemployment twice the national unemployment rate because of carbon emissions? Are the budgets of state and local governments running in the red because of the kind of energy Americans burn? One visit that the delegation of black mayors did not...

This is a truly remarkable video found at Powerline of NASA administrator Charles Bolden telling al-Jazeera that NASA is now tasked "to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering." The agency that sent a man to the moon has been enlisted to improve the self-esteem of Muslims.

NOTE The following text is a quote: Navy Official Discusses Climate Change Investment Strategy By Bob Freeman Office of the Oceanographer of the Navy WASHINGTON, June 21, 2010 – A number of recent strategic Defense Department documents have recognized that the changing climate may affect national security and military operations later in the century. This is particularly true for the globally deployed U.S. Navy, and investments to address climate challenges may need to be made, the service’s oceanographer said in a June 18 “DoD Live” bloggers roundtable. “We're going to have to fold these challenges into a tight fiscal budget,”...

A new analysis of 1372 climate scientists who have participated in major climate science reviews or have signed statements in support or opposition to their main conclusions confirms what many researchers have said for years: Those who believe in anthropogenic climate change rank much higher on the scientific pecking order than do those who take issue with the idea. The paper shows that "the vast majority of working [climate] research scientists are in agreement" on climate change, says climate science historian Naomi Oreskes of the University of California, San Diego. "Those who don't agree, are, unfortunately—and this is hard to...

Senator claims GOP follows Beck and Limbaugh, not science, on climate By Ben Geman - 06/17/10 01:57 PM ET Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Thursday that strong global warming legislation lacks 60 votes and claimed Republicans are paying attention to conservative media pundits rather than climate science. "It is absolutely incredible and very, very sad — and I say this not from a political point of view — that a lot of very bright Republicans no longer pay attention to science and are much more interested in the rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck," he said. Sanders spoke with...

SAN FRANCISCO – Lawyers for two couples challenging California's ban on same-sex marriage plan to wrap up their case Friday following the incendiary testimony of a proponent who said he thinks gays are more likely to be pedophiles and that allowing them to wed would lead to the legalization of polygamy and incest. Hak-Shing William Tam of San Francisco spent five hours testifying Thursday as a hostile plaintiffs' witness to prove that bias toward gays fueled the 2008 campaign to pass the voter-approved measure, known as Proposition 8. Tam, who was one of five people who signed on as official...

A new report, published today, which features input from 13 universities and 12 research bodies, including the University of East Anglia, urges the new government to break this country's “fossil fuel addiction”. Switching from petrol or diesel powered vehicles and cutting the number of short haul flights are key policies together with cutting livestock numbers, which generates 82 percent of green house gases in the agricultural sector. But Brian Finnerty, regional spokesman for the National Farmers' Union (NFU), said while they support the view that farming has a part to play in carbon reduction, they take exception to the assumption...

Senate authors of a controversial climate change bill heralded EPA modeling results unveiled Tuesday as proof that their plan would have a limited pinch on Americans’ pocketbooks. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) found many reasons to gloat after getting the 74-page study that showed the overall costs from their legislation’s major global warming provisions would cost an average household between $80 to $150 per year. “There’ll be some people who will want to demagogue that politically, but that’s less than $1 a day,” Lieberman told reporters. “Is the American household willing to pay less than $1 so...

The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony. “Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the...

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper forProgress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony. “Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous,” the paper states unambiguously, adding that they rendered “the...

Nancy Pelosi and husband Paul own vineyard in St. Helena but they make no mention of the tons of CO2 the fermentation their wine produces. How green is that? About as green as Al Gore’s mansion, Caney Creek Zinc Mine runoff and his huge jetliner. Let’s jack up the prices for just these few products to start off Cap and Tax. Carbonated Water/Seltzer CO2 Fire Extinguishers Carbonated pop/sodas Beer Fermentation Whiskey Fermentation Wine Fermentation Alka-Seltzer Dry Ice Wire Feed Welders Bottle Gas Producers of CO2

Can Climate Change be described in similar terms to a religious faith? Both accept the basic premise of their belief on faith alone without actual first hand knowledge of that premise. Ask a warmist believer to explain the Science behind their belief and they cannot, other than in the most basic of terms, and some not even that. Yet, at the same time, they forget some of the basic Science they all learned in High School. Because a Scientist has told them it is so, and because it has been written down, and then peer reviewed, then that is good...

The Senate has rejected a bid to stop the Obama administration from imposing regulations on greenhouse gases, giving a boost to President Barack Obama as he pursues broader clean energy legislation. Senators turned back a resolution that would have rescinded the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Supporters of the measure, mostly Republicans, argued that the EPA had usurped the authority of Congress to set climate policy and that the EPA regulations would increase energy costs and kill jobs.

In selling the health care overhaul to Congress, the Obama administration cited a once obscure research group at Dartmouth College to claim that it could not only cut billions in wasteful health care spending but make people healthier by doing so. Wasteful spending — perhaps $700 billion a year — “does nothing to improve patient health but subjects you and me to tests and procedures that aren’t necessary and are potentially harmful,” the president’s budget director, Peter Orszag, wrote in a blog post characteristic of the administration’s argument. Mr. Orszag even displayed maps produced by Dartmouth researchers that appeared to...

CBS News: "It's been ten years since that oddly public passionate kiss at the Democratic convention. That was followed by Gore winning the popular vote for President but losing the electoral vote. Family friend Sally Quinn says that may have done the marriage irreparable harm."

Climate Science: Noted scientists at a Chicago climate conference declare that global warming is not only dead, but that the planet faces a big chill for decades to come. What about those frozen wind turbines? It's not exactly Copenhagen or Kyoto, but the 700 scientists attending the fourth International Conference on Climate Change, sponsored by the Heartland Institute, had some chilling news of their own in the most liberal sense. "Global warming is over — at least for a few decades," Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told the gathering. "However, the bad news is that...