GLOBAL COOLING HITS SUNNY SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Right down to the Mexican border!

A border crossing proves deadly for an illegal immigrant in San Diego County. The Border Patrol says one man died and six others were rescued this morning after they became lost in freezing, snowy weather about 60 miles from the Mexican border.

The Mexican nationals were in the Corte Madera area of Pine Valley, more than 4,000 feet above sea level, when they became disoriented in ankle-deep snow. One managed to contact the California Highway Patrol by phone. The CHP called the Border Patrol, and agents trained in search and rescue hunted three hours before finding the group. Border Patrol spokesman Richard Kite says one man was dead and the others were treated for non-life-threatening conditions. Border Patrol spokesman Richar Kite says it's not the first time that illegal immigrants have tried to avoid detection by hitting the back-country.

The snow may have come from a storm that hit California Friday night and early Saturday morning. It also dumped hail on Carlsbad and Encinitas. Hail and snow also were reported in northern Los Angeles County, shutting down the Grapevine section of Interstate Five, a major artery near Santa Clarity.

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And its killing California's famous oranges: Panic!

California's $1.3 billion citrus industry is facing massive losses after three nights of freezing temperatures up and down the state. "The growers know there is damage, and they expect it to be significant," said Dave Kranz, manager of media services for the California Farm Bureau Federation. As much as 70 percent of the state's orange crop has been destroyed, according to state officials and farmers.

The state's avocado and strawberry crops also have been hard hit, and other fruits and vegetables ranging from leafy greens to blueberries may be in jeopardy as well, Kranz said, explaining that it takes several days to assess damage after a wave of freezing weather.

A.G. Kawamura, secretary of the state Department of Food and Agriculture, spent the holiday weekend touring farms and groves in the central and southern parts of the state. He said damage from this past weekend's freeze is likely to exceed that from a 1998 freeze that destroyed about $700 million worth of citrus and other produce across the state. "This is one of those freezes that, unfortunately, we'll all remember," Kawamura said.

Reports from farmers ranged from damage to more than half their crops to losses of 100 percent. Claire Smith, spokeswoman for Sunkist Growers cooperative, said up to 70 percent of the navel oranges still on members' trees were damaged. "We will be lucky to salvage a quarter to a third of what was left. It is a bleak situation," said Charles Sheldon, a citrus grower near Lindsay......

The cold spell, which was expected to keep its grip on the state until midweek, set in Friday night, when temperatures dipped into the high teens and low 20s for long durations in many places, including the San Joaquin Valley, the heart of the state's citrus industry. California produces 95 percent of all the oranges in the nation sold for fresh-eating; half come from the hard-hit Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley, Kranz said.....

While this month's cold wave was severe, its effect was not expected to match the damage from an extended freeze in 1990 that wiped out not just crops, but killed hundreds of trees.

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How come unusually hot weather is proof of global warming but unusualy cold weather is "just one of those things"?




GERMAN NATIONAL INTEREST AT ODDS WITH EUROPE'S GREEN DREAMS

The biggest obstacle to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's ambitions for her European Union presidency is her own government. Germany's two-party coalition is either divided or going it alone on many of the goals Merkel laid out yesterday for her six-month term, including common EU policies on energy, climate change and ties with Russia. As a result, Merkel's presidency isn't likely to produce breakthroughs toward creating a single energy market, or the less-regulated economy needed to push up the 27-nation bloc's growth rate.

"Does Germany want a common EU energy policy?" Ronald Asmus, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state who heads the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund, said in an interview. "Its own national interests are at odds with what the European Commission and other member states want to do."

Merkel's authority at home is limited by the power-sharing deal between her Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democrats, partners in the second so-called grand coalition in postwar German history. Merkel, 52, in the EU chair for the first time since taking office in November 2005, pleaded for the bloc to pull together in a Berlin press conference yesterday. ``Europe only succeeds when it's united,'' she said.

Energy Differences

An EU-wide energy strategy is already foundering on German opposition. Merkel's government opposes creating a bloc-wide energy regulator, and is threatening to blunt today's commission proposal to force utilities to separate their power-generation and transmission businesses. Germany puts a ``low priority'' on that idea since it is unlikely to drive down prices, Joachim Wuermeling, a deputy economy minister, said in an interview in Berlin today.

Vladimir Dlouhy, a former Czech economics minister who teaches at Charles University in Prague, said in an interview that while Merkel ``might be somebody who will steer Europe into a new direction,'' the divisions within her government and the ``difficult internal political situation in the country might present very important limits to her ability to achieve something.''

Schroeder's Legacy

Close German-Russian energy links cultivated by Merkel's Social Democratic predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, also stand in the way of a broader EU-Russia energy-supply accord proposed by the commission, the EU's Brussels-based executive agency.

Germany, along with eight smaller countries, is undercutting the EU's strategy for combating global warming by insisting on a more generous allotment of pollution permits under the European emissions-trading system. A November EU commission order to cut German greenhouse-gas allowances by 6 percent for 2008-12 is the source of ``great concern,'' potentially adding 10 billion euros ($13 billion) to German consumers' energy bills, Economy Minister Michael Glos of the Christian Democrats' Bavarian wing wrote Jan. 2 in the newspaper Handelsblatt.

Such broadsides make Merkel hostage to ``the power of ministries,'' said Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London. With the Social Democrat- controlled Environment Ministry more eager to impose pollution caps, ``you don't actually have a united line within the German government.''

Lufthansa Pressure

What's more, the government is under pressure from Deutsche Lufthansa AG, the national airline, to block French-and British- backed proposals to widen the system to force air carriers to pay for what they pollute. ....

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CANADA'S WORKERS FEAR KYOTO WILL COST THEIR JOBS

Canada's largest private sector union said on Thursday that thousands of jobs in the auto industry could be at risk if a left-leaning opposition party succeeds in persuading the government to quickly introduce binding emissions standards on vehicles.

Jack Layton, who heads the New Democratic Party, says he will not consider propping up the minority Conservative government unless it brings in new emissions rules for vehicles immediately.

Buzz Hargrove, head of the Canadian Auto Workers union, wrote to Layton to say he and his union members had been "taken aback" by the tough comments on emissions. "If this issue is not handled delicately and thoughtfully, we could see thousands of auto workers' jobs destroyed," he said in an open letter requesting a meeting with Layton.

The government has said it will impose binding limits once a voluntary agreement with the auto companies on emissions runs out in 2010. Layton said on Wednesday he wanted the government to move on emissions before the next federal budget, which is expected in February or March.

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GREAT FOR THE ELITE! EUROPE IS PRICING POOR BUGGERS OFF THE ROAD

The price of every new car sold in Britain could soar by more than 1,600 pounds under new laws to be proposed by the European commission to tackle climate change. Stavros Dimas, the European environment commissioner, yesterday announced plans for compulsory limits on carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, blaming motor manufacturers for failing to comply with a voluntary pledge to improve fuel efficiency. "The technology is there to do this, but it has not been done as promised by the voluntary agreement. They [the manufacturers] know the situation better than anyone else because they gave an undertaking to bring down carbon dioxide," he said.

The plans, to be announced on January 24, will require car companies to produce vehicles that emit less than 120 grams of carbon dioxide a kilometre by 2012. The cap will apply as an average across a maker's range of vehicles - a manufacturer could still sell gas-guzzling 4x4s if it also produced smaller, cleaner vehicles.

Three-quarters of leading car brands are failing to reduce emissions at the rate set in the voluntary agreement. They are supposed to drop to 140 grams per kilometre by 2008. Carbon dioxide emissions from road transport have risen by 22% in Europe since 1990 and now make up more than 20% of total emissions. The current fleet emissions average is about 162 grams a kilometre.

The proposals, which will also float the idea of including car manufacturers in Europe's emissions trading scheme, will trigger a consultation, with formal legislation to follow later this year. Mr Dimas said he expected car companies to pass on the costs of the required improvements to consumers: "The technology to make them cleaner will make them more expensive." EC figures suggest the increased cost per car could be 577 euros, but a report by a team of Dutch transport consultants in October put it closer to 2,450 euros (624 pounds).

Nigel Wonnacott of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said: "We would be very concerned about measures that would impose additional costs on manufacturers. If it costs more to make the cars then that cost will be passed on." Attempts to build lower-emitting cars had been hampered by safety requirements adding additional weight, as well as a lack of government support for biofuels and cleaner technologies, he said, adding that the law could force some manufacturers to move production overseas.

An October report by the Brussels-based lobby group Transport and Environment said Japanese car makers have the worst record on fuel efficiency, with Nissan, Suzuki and Mazda in the bottom three of 20 brands. Fiat, Citroen and Renault are the only companies on course to meet the voluntary limits.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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