Monday, November 24, 2008

Cap-and-trade is a simply dreadful policy

SOURCE Free Enterprise Education Institute

"Cap-and-trade is a simply dreadful policy option that is being pushed
by Alcoa, BP, Caterpillar, Conoco Phillips, Dow Chemical, Duke Energy,
Dupont, General Electric, PepsiCo and the other big business interests that
belong to the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP)," said the FEEI's Tom
Borelli. "Global warming pork-barrel spending and corporate welfare are
what they're after," Borelli added. "USCAP members hope that, through a
cap-and-trade scheme, Congress will simply give them and other special
interests what amounts to essentially 'free money' -- as much as $1.3
trillion dollars over the next 10 years. "Not only is
cap-and-trade likely to misdirect taxpayer monies and rob hard-working
Americans of income, it's not at all clear that it will produce any
environmental benefits whatsoever," he added.

The price of dissent on global warming

The truth is never well accepted by politicians if it goes against their pitch. However, they are quick to change bandwagons.

The Australian Nov 25, 8008
The price of dissent on global warming
David Bellamy

WHEN I first stuck my head above the parapet to say I didn't believe what we were being told about global warming, I had no idea what the consequences would be. I am a scientist and I have to follow the directions of science, but when I see that the truth is being covered up I have to voice my opinions.

According to official data, in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased. Why, then, do we not hear about that? The sad fact is that since I said I didn't believe human beings caused global warming, I've not been allowed to make a television program.

My absence has been noticed, because wherever I go I meet people who say: "I grew up with you on the television, where are you now?"

It was in 1996 that I criticised wind farms while appearing on children's program Blue Peter, and I also had an article published in which I described global warming as poppycock. The truth is, I didn't think wind farms were an effective means of alternative energy, so I said so. Back then, at the BBC you had to toe the line, and I wasn't doing that.

At that point, I was still making loads of TV programs and I was enjoying it greatly. Then I suddenly found I was sending in ideas for TV shows and they weren't getting taken up. I've asked around about why I've been ignored, but I found that people didn't get back to me. At the beginning of this year there was a BBC show with four experts saying: "This is going to be the end of all the ice in the Arctic," and hypothesising that it was going to be the hottest summer ever. Was it hell! It was very cold and very wet and now we've seen evidence that the glaciers in Alaska have started growing rapidly, and they have not grown for a long time.

I've seen evidence, which I believe, that says there has not been a rise in global temperature since 1998, despite the increase in carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. This makes me think the global warmers are telling lies: CO2 is not the driver. The idiot fringe has accused me of being like a Holocaust denier, which is ludicrous. Climate change is all about cycles. It's a natural thing and has always happened. When the Romans lived in Britain they were growing very good red grapes and making wine on the borders of Scotland. It was evidently a lot warmer.

If you were sitting next to me 10,000 years ago, we'd be under ice. So thank God for global warming for ending that ice age; we wouldn't be here otherwise.

People such as former American vice-president Al Gore say that millions of us will die because of global warming, which I think is a pretty stupid thing to say if you've got no proof. And my opinion is that there is absolutely no proof that CO2 has anything to do with any impending catastrophe. The science has, quite simply, gone awry.

In fact, it's not even science any more; it's anti-science.

There's no proof, it's just projections, and if you look at the models people such as Gore use, you can see they cherry-pick the ones that support their beliefs. To date, the way the so-called Greens and the BBC, the Royal Society and even political parties have handled this smacks of McCarthyism at its worst.

Global warming is part of a natural cycle and there's nothing we can actually do to stop these cycles. The world is now facing spending a vast amount of money in tax to try to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist.

And how were we convinced that this problem exists, even though all the evidence from measurements goes against the fact? God knows. Yes, the lakes in Africa are drying up. But that's not global warming. They're drying up for the very simple reason that most of them have dams around them.

So the water once used by local people is now used in the production of cut flowers and vegetables for the supermarkets of Europe. One of Gore's biggest clangers was saying that the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was drying up because of global warming.

Well, everyone knows, because it was all over the news 20 years ago, that the Russians were growing cotton there at the time and that for every tonne of cotton you produce you use a vast amount of water. The thing that annoys me most is that there are genuine environmental problems that desperately require attention. I'm still an environmentalist, I'm still a Green and I'm still campaigning to stop the destruction of the biodiversity of the world. But money will be wasted on trying to solve this global warming "problem" that I would much rather was used for looking after the people of the world. Being ignored by the likes of the BBC does not really bother me, not when there are bigger problems at stake.

I might not be on TV any more but I still go around the world campaigning about these important issues. For example, we must stop the destruction of tropical rainforests, something I've been saying for 35 years.

Mother nature will balance things out, but not if we interfere by destroying rainforests and overfishing the seas. That is where the real environmental catastrophe could occur.

David Bellamy is a botanist, author of 35 books, and has presented 400 television programs.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Global Temperature Trends From 2500 B.C. To 2008 A.D.

Excerpts from Harris Mann
Global Temperature Trends From 2500 B.C. To 2008 A.D.

From August of 2007 through February of 2008, the Earth’s mean reading dropped to near the 200-year average temperature of 57 degrees.

Our recent decline in the Earth’s temperature may be a combination of both long-term and short-term climate cycles, decreased solar activity and the development of a strong long-lasting La Nina, the current cooler than normal sea-surface temperature event in the south-central Pacific Ocean. Sunspot activity in the past 18 months has decreased to the lowest levels since ‘The Little Ice Age’ ended in the mid-to late 1800s. This "cool spell," though, may only be a brief interruption to the Earth’s overall warming trend. Only time will tell.

By the end of this 21st Century, a big cool down may occur that could ultimately lead to expanding glaciers worldwide, even in the mid-latitudes. We could possibly see even a new Great Ice Age. Based on long-term climatic data, these major ice ages have recurred about every 11,500 years. Well, you guessed it. The last extensive ice age was approximately 11,500 years ago, so we may be due.

Earthly Climate Has A 'Solar' Thermostat

From Harris-Mann Climatology

Our Earthly Climate Has A 'Solar' Thermostat And A 'Water Vapor' Humiguide

As I’ve said repeatedly in the past few years, our planet’s "CLIMATE BUS" has a huge rotary-type engine powered by the SUN.

This sleek, intelligently-designed vehicle has a smooth WATER VAPOR transmission and a combination MAGNETIC and ELECTRIC rear-end.

The bus has JET STREAM air-conditioning, WIND-POWERED steering and CORIOLIS FORCE front-wheel drive. This climatological ‘hot rod’ also boasts brilliant COSMIC RAY tires.

Just where is the MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING PART on the bus? Well, it’s merely a single LUG NUT on one of the rear wheels that’s continually spinning ‘round and round’ burning up BILLIONS OF OUR TAX DOLLARS.

It’s all "smoke and mirrors," folks, a never-ending YELLOW SCIENCE JOURNEY of DECEIT and GREED in the ‘opposite’ direction of TRUTH.

CLIMATE CHANGE is REAL! But, its recurring cycles of HOT and DRY, COLD and DRY, WARM and WET and COOL and WET are NATURAL, not MAN-MADE. Man only makes things worse, especially in the urban "HEAT ISLANDS" of pollution. Believe it!

I’m for "GREEN in your pocket" and "COMPASSION in your heart..."

By Climatologist Cliff Harris

NBC Fires Weather Channel Environmental Unit

From Washington Post
NBC Fires Weather Channel Environmental Unit
Cullen's future role at the network is not known.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Obama & Climate Change2

On Tuesday at a governors' conference, Mr. Obama reiterated his intent to cap emissions of greenhouse gases and allow companies to trade permits to emit pollutants like carbon dioxide. Those policies foresee $15 billion a year going to alternative energy sources and nuclear power, while pushing the price of coal up substantially, by forcing coal-fired utilities to purchase the right to burn it.

Candidate Obama said that under his policies, "If somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can -- it's just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

Obama & Climate Change

Mr. Obama, in a video for a climate-change summit Tuesday, pledged to pursue energy policies that would reduce greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80% by 2050.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

World wide increase in Methane

Tg Dailey

The two lead authors of a paper published in this week's Geophysical Review Letters, Matthew Rigby and Ronald Prinn, the TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science,

"Boston (MA) - Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas........it is now believed this may be part of a natural cycle in mother nature - and not the direct result of man's contributions."

Obama & Climate Change

Environment News Service

Excerpts include:

Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense said, "This election offers us the greatest opportunity we have ever had to change course on global warming."

"We must do everything we can to pass climate legislation........."

"An Obama administration should end tax incentives and subsidies for high carbon-emitting technologies and projects and enact mandates that 20 percent of the nation�s electricity come from renewable power by 2020 and at least 30 percent by 2030, Lubber said."

"The new administration and Congress must shun the excuse that it is 'too expensive' to act to curb global warming..."

"The Center for Biological Diversity looks forward to working with the Obama administration and the new Congress to take swift action to stem the extinction crisis, reverse the current course toward runaway global warming,...."

Climate cooling since 1998

Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist and World War II Marine who writes for Newsmax.com.

Excerpts include:

"The Earth is not warming. The 28-year period of warming between 1970 and 1998 stopped dead in its tracks, and the climate has been cooling ever since.

Meteorologist and Weather Channel founder John Coleman put it this way: �In the face of a rapidly cooling planet, all the proponents of global warming can do is to lamely suggest that global warming has gone on vacation and is taking a 10-year hiatus on account of the absence of sun spots.

The climate is in a cooling phase: A pronounced global cooling has set in so far this century. This year, most of the northern hemisphere, except for Western Europe, experienced what most scientists say was the harshest winter in decades.

And this year, winter has come early with record-breaking cold and October blizzards.

I have reported previously that 13 top scientists, including one Nobel Prize winner, wrote a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon saying that, while carbon dioxide levels have continued to rise, global temperatures have fallen, dramatically contradicting the claim that high carbon dioxide levels cause global warming."

Obama cap and trade costs

Forbes

"On the other hand, an auction-based cap-and-trade system would require power generators to buy allowances from the government. This would drive up electricity prices for consumers, especially in coal-fired regions like the Midwest and Southeast."

"Obama campaigned on a platform that championed an exclusively auction-based cap-and-trade system.... This particular campaign promise could seem especially less palatable now. If producers had to pay $25 for every metric ton of carbon they emitted, rates would need to rise anywhere from 23% to 43% at coal-fired utilities in the Midwest and 15% to 29% at coal-fired utilities in the Southeast to offset the costs of emissions allowances, according to a recent analysis by Bernstein Research."

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

BBC SHUNNED ME FOR DENYING CLIMATE CHANGE

BBC SHUNNED ME FOR DENYING CLIMATE CHANGE

Excerpts include:

FOR YEARS David Bellamy was one of the best known faces on TV. A respected botanist and the author of 35 books, he had presented around 400 programmes over the years and was appreciated by audiences for his boundless enthusiasm. Yet for more than 10 years he has been out of the limelight, shunned by bosses at the BBC where he made his name, as well as fellow scientists and environmentalists.

His crime? Bellamy says he doesn’t believe in man-made global warming

According to official data, in every year since 1998 world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased. Why, then, do we not hear about that?

It was in 1996 that I criticised wind farms while appearing on Blue Peter and I also had an article published in which I described global warming as poppycock. The truth is, I didn’t think wind farms were an effective means of alternative energy so I said so. Back then, at the BBC you had to toe the line and I wasn’t doing that.

I’ve seen evidence, which I believe, that says there has not been a rise in global temperature since 1998, despite the increase in carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. This makes me think the global warmers are telling lies – carbon dioxide is not the driver.

And my opinion is that there is absolutely no proof that carbon dioxide is anything to do with any impending catastrophe. The ­science has, quite simply, gone awry. In fact, it’s not even science any more, it’s anti-science.

Global warming is part of a natural cycle and there’s nothing we can actually do to stop these cycles. The world is now facing spending a vast amount of money in tax to try to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist.

The thing that annoys me most is that there are genuine environmental problems that desperately require attention. I’m still an environmentalist, I’m still a Green and I’m still campaigning to stop the destruction of the biodiversity of the world. But money will be wasted on trying to solve this global warming “problem” that I would much rather was used for looking after the people of the world.

2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season Withers on the Vine



2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season Withers on the Vine
A new Climateaudit.org series of posts

Maue, R.N. (2008) Northern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone Activity
Abstract: Recent historical Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone inactivity is compared with the strikingly large observed variability during the past three decades. Yearly totals of Northern Hemisphere ACE are highly correlated with boreal spring sea-surface temperatures in the North Pacific Ocean and are representative of an evolving dual-gyre, trans-hemispheric correlation pattern throughout the calendar year. The offsetting nature of EPAC and NATL basin integrated energy and the strong dependence of combined Pacific TC activity upon ENSO suggest a hypothesis that overall Northern Hemisphere TC behavior is largely modulated by global-scale, non-local climate variability.
Fact: There has been one Category 5 Tropical Cyclone in the Northern Hemisphere in 2008 (Jangmi in the WPAC). A total of 8 Category 4+ developed in 2008 (winds > 114 kts+)
Record inactivity continues: Past 24-months of Northern Hemisphere TC activity (ACE) lowest in 30-years

Updated: Global and Northern Hemisphere Accumulated Cyclone Energy: 24 month running sum through October 31, 2008. Note that the year indicated represents the value of ACE through the previous 24-months.