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Oct. 15) -- The Earth's atmosphere is a complicated place. Somewhere in that swirling, shifting mixture of air, water and other gasses is the key to keeping us earthlings alive -- or to cooking us. Carbon dioxide has always received the most media attention as the leading cause of climate change, and a new study from NASA does more than concur with this assessment: It finds CO2 is overwhelmingly responsible for raising Earth's temperature.

NOTE The following text is a quote: Mullen: Military Has ‘Strategic Imperative’ to Save Resources By Lisa Daniel American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Oct. 13, 2010 – The military has a “strategic imperative” to lead the nation in environmental conservation, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said here today. “We in the Defense Department have a role to play here -- not solely because we should be good stewards of the environment and our scarce resources, but also because there is a strategic imperative for us to reduce risk, improve efficiencies, and preserve our freedom of action whenever...

The Chevy Volt has been hailed as General Motors' electric savior. Now, as GM officially rolls out the Volt this week for public consumption, we're told the much-touted fuel economy was misstated and GM "lied" about the car being all-electric.

The Sun may have caused as much warming as carbon dioxide over three years. An analysis of satellite data challenges the intuitive idea that decreasing solar activity cools Earth, and vice versa. In fact, solar forcing of Earth's surface climate seems to work the opposite way around — at least during the current Sun cycle.

Scientific integrity and scientific progress continue to take a beating from the Left.In Part I of my series of essays on Science and its Enemies on the Left, I looked at the toll of junk science, quackery and anti-technological Luddism and the role of the social and political Left in promoting all three. In Part II, I looked at politicized science (both the misuse of science by politicians and the politicization of scientists themselves) and the temptations presented to scientists by their ability to gain power through science.I’m overdue to finish Part III of the series, but in the meantime,...

California grossly miscalculated pollution levels in a scientific analysis used to toughen the state's clean air standards and scientists have spent the past several months revising data and planning a significant weakening of the landmark regulation, The Chronicle has found. The pollution estimate in question was too high - by 340 percent, according to the California Air Resources Board, the state agency charged with researching and adopting air quality standards. The estimate was a key part in the creation of a regulation adopted by the Air Resources Board in 2007, a rule that forces businesses to cut diesel emissions by...

GREER, SC -- A woman said she made a divine discovery when she picked up her MRI results recently. Tammie Cohrs said she sees Jesus in the MRI image. The Greer woman said she sees his eyes, nose and mouth, and even a crown of thorns. Cohrs was recently diagnosed with a rare form of oral cancer. She said her faith has helped her stay positive over the past few months, and when she had to have an MRI scan, she asked Jesus to be with her. "As soon as they put me in there, I just started praying," Cohrs...

(Reuters) - People will have to cut meat from their diets if the world is to stay within safer limits of planet-warming greenhouse gases, nitrate pollution and habitat destruction, according to a journal article published on Monday.

Hey, in an entertainment universe where a blood-soaked psychopath can be a hero and flesh-munching zombies can be hilarious (to me, too), what’s a few exploding schoolchildren? Late last week, a British climate group released “ No Pressure,” a mini-film aimed at rounding up new recruits to its “10:10″ movement, in which people, schools, companies and other participants pledge to cut their greenhouse gas emissions 10 percent in a year. On paper, the project had everything going for it — the screenwriter of “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” music by Radiohead, on-screen talent including Gillian Anderson,...

"If governments spent only one per cent of what is spent on armies, they would change the face of the world for poor people." Osama bin Laden, October 1, 2010. OSAMA bin Laden believes climate change is more damaging than war. An audio recording attributed to the al-Qaeda leader and broadcast on the internet yesterday expresses concern about the devastating floods in Pakistan and calls on Muslims to provide relief for the victims. "The number of victims caused by climate change is very big... bigger than the victims of wars," says the recording. If genuine, the recording would be...

After a false alarm earlier this month, the 2010 Arctic sea ice melt season has come to a close, with sea ice extent reaching the third-lowest in the satellite record. This continues the steady and steep decline in sea ice cover during the past few decades, which scientists have traced mainly to emissions of greenhouse gases, as well as natural climate variability. Underscoring the rapid changes sweeping the Arctic, both the Northwest and Northeast Passages were open for a time, and two sailboats set new records for transiting both of them in just one season — a feat that would...

I have been away for 3-4 months from my blog and I had a lot of articles I wanted to publish. For one, The anniversary of the Mutiny on the Bounty was around that time and a friend of mine who is a historical scholar was going to help write an interesting article about mutiny and include some facts about Captain William Bligh and the bounty crew that is not generally known. He would cut away some of the fiction and non fiction that sadly has seeped in thanks to popular fiction and Hollywood influence. I was also going to...

How hot was it? The National Weather Service's thermometer downtown reached 113 degrees for the first time since records began being kept in 1877 — and then stopped working. The record highs follow a summer of record lows. It was so hot Monday that it broke the all-time record — and the weatherman's thermometer. The National Weather Service's thermometer for downtown Los Angeles headed into uncharted territory at 12:15 p.m. Monday, reaching 113 degrees for the first time since records began being kept in 1877. Shortly after that banner moment, the temperature dipped back to 111, and then climbed back...

THE United Nations was set today to appoint an obscure Malaysian astrophysicist to act as Earth�s first contact for any aliens that may come visiting. Mazlan Othman, the head of the UN's little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), is to describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society’s Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire. She is scheduled to tell delegates that the recent discovery of hundreds of planets around other stars has made the detection of extraterrestrial life more likely than ever before - and that means the UN must be ready...

John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, says that the term "global warming" is "a dangerous misnomer” that should be replaced with “global climate disruption." At the Environmental Protection Agency's 40th celebration of the Clean Air Act on Tuesday, Holdren said, "I think one of the failures of the scientific community was in embracing the term 'global warming'. Global warming is in fact a dangerous misnomer." And in a speech last week in Norway, echoing remarks he made at a 2007 speech at Harvard University, Holdren said the

Report reveals all bar one of party's 48 mid-term election candidates are sceptical about climate changeAll but one of the 48 Republican hopefuls for the Senate mid-term elections in November deny the existence of climate change or oppose action on global warming, according to a report released today.The strong Republican front against established science includes entrenched Senate leaders as well as the new wave of radical conservatives endorsed by the Tea Party activists, says a report by the Centre for American Progress.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Women tend to accept the scientific consensus on global warming more than men, according to a study by a Michigan State University researcher. The findings ('The effects of gender on climate change knowledge and concern in the American public', Population & Environment, 2010, Volume 32, Number 1, Pages 66-87), challenge common perceptions that men are more scientifically literate, said sociologist Aaron M. McCright. "Men still claim they have a better understanding of global warming than women, even though women's beliefs align much more closely with the scientific consensus," said McCright, an associate professor with appointments in...

New research challenges idea that global warming will drive civil unrest. The idea that climate change might be a trigger for social disorder, population migration and conflict has an impressive pedigree. The link was mooted in a 2003 report for the Pentagon on the national-security implications of climate change; by the Stern review on the economics of climate change, prepared for the UK government in 2006; and in the United Nations' post-conflict environmental assessment of Sudan in 2007, which suggested that climate change was an aggravating factor in the Darfur conflict. But is there real proof of a link between...

It challenges previous assumptions that environmental disasters, such as drought and prolonged heat waves, had played a part in triggering unrest. Instead, it says, traditional factors - such as poverty and social tensions - were often the main factors behind the outbreak of conflicts.

H2O: Dangerous Chemical! A student at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair, April 26. He was attempting to show how conditioned we have become to alarmists practicing junk science and spreading fear of everything in our environment. In his project he urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical "dihydrogen monoxide." And for plenty of good reasons, since: it can cause excessive sweating and vomiting it is a major component in acid rain it can cause severe burns in its gaseous state accidental inhalation can...