No Global Warming in 351 Year British Temperature Record

If people were interested in evidence, this would kill global warming stone dead

The Central England Temperature (CET) record, starting in 1659 and maintained by the UK Met Office, is the longest unbroken temperature record in the world. Temperature data is averaged for a number of weather stations regarded as being representative of Central England rather than measuring temperature at one arbitrary geographical point identified as the centre of England.

A Scottish statistician, Wilson Flood, has collected and analysed the 351 year CET record. Here is the comparison of the 18th Century with the 20th Century:



Wilson Flood comments: “Summers in the second half of the 20th century were warmer than those in the first half and it could be argued that this was a global warming signal. However, the average CET summer temperature in the 18th century was 15.46 degC while that for the 20th century was 15.35 degC. Far from being warmer due to assumed global warming, comparison of actual temperature data shows that UK summers in the 20th century were cooler than those of two centuries previously.”

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A "Green car" boondoggle

Once upon a time, there was a country whose government had decided in all its wisdom that it was going to be good at making cars. It designed precisely one model and started producing it. And it kept building this car for three decades. There was so much demand for the car that people added their children’s names to the waiting lists at birth. Or was it just that production was so inefficient?

The car in question was, of course, the infamous East German Trabant. Notoriously unreliable, uncomfortable, and hopelessly out of date even at the time it was introduced, it became the clearest demonstration that governments should stay out of the car industry.

The sort of communism that brought the world cars like the Trabant has long gone, the Soviet bloc has disappeared, but we still have politicians who think they are the better car managers. The latest politician is none other than US President Barack Obama.

This week the US government announced its support for little-known car manufacturer Fisker. The company will receive more than half a billion US dollars in subsidised loans to build a hybrid sports car.

Never mind that at a retail price of US$89,000 the car will be out of reach of most consumers. Ignore the fact that sports cars are not really green cars. And forget that Fisker does not have much experience in building cars anyway.

What matters more than a viable business plan in these days of reborn socialism are your political connections. Or was it just a strange coincidence that one of Fisker’s top investors is former US Vice President Al Gore? It doesn’t hurt that his quest to save the world from climate change is incidentally helping fill his coffers with taxpayer cash.

The socialism of times past we have buried, but its flawed ideas are still haunting us from its grave.

The above is part of a press release dated October 2 from the Centre for Independent Studies. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590. Telephone ph: +61 2 9438 4377 or fax: +61 2 9439 7310




Respecting Religious Belief

The belief in man-made global warming is a secular religious dogma, one which the rest of us should be allowed to respect without being compelled by the secular political state to suffer its disastrous consequences.

With cap-and trade regulation moving again to the top of Congress’s agenda, it’s time to revisit the true nature of the man-made global warming hypothesis.

While not all believers in the hypothesis of man-made global warming are worshippers of secular socialism and salvation through the political state, that hypothesis, as currently hyped by Al Gore, is a product of the secular religion of socialism.

Socialism’s beginnings are rooted in the scientism of gnostic revelation about the secrets of history’s presumed inevitable course. Forecasts about the inevitable climate disasters to beset the world within ten years, as Al Gore predicted a year or two ago, are just an extension of that brand of historicism.

Neither Auguste Comte’s, nor Karl Marx’s predictions about the socialistic course of world history have materialized. Similarly Al Gore’s predictions have been consistently wide of actual events, and his acolytes’ computer models can’t even conform to what actually happened in the past.

The Soviet Union, liberal-progressivism’s great hope for perfection of society, was one of history’s most brutal and destructive episodes. President Obama’s proposed regulation of our economy based upon Al Gore’s prescriptions for global warming will be more of the same.

In the classic gnostic pattern, liberal-progressives see political society as badly aligned, causing all sorts of human misery. Liberal-progressives are confident that their secret knowledge will enable them to restructure society and to free humanity from the bondage of inequities arising from protection of private property.

Lawyers will tell you that property is not a thing, but a bundle of rights: rights to use and to dispose of tangible and intangible possessions. Among those properties, as understood by the delegates who wrote the Constitution in 1787 and as outlined by John Locke in 1689, are the rights to determine for ourselves how we will build our homes, what automobiles we will drive, what forms of energy we will use, and the rights of entrepreneurs to conceive of new technology and to use it to found new businesses that create new jobs for our citizens.

Liberal-progressives, in the name of their special knowledge, propose to abrogate those rights, as they see it, for our own good. We the ordinary citizens of the United States are too ignorant to make proper choices for ourselves. As Bill Clinton said about proposed tax reductions, he would be favorably disposed, but people would just use the money for the wrong things.

The hypothesis of man-made global warming in its present-day emanation is a fuzzy, feel-good doctrine used to proselytize young students and ill-informed members of the public. Under its seemingly beneficent cover, however, is a fist of iron that will crush individual political liberties.

It is no accident that labor unions, a quintessential excrescence of socialism, strongly support President Obama’s efforts to impose Kyoto-style restrictions on business and individual choice. Resurgent anti-free-trade protectionism, under the sham of protecting the environment, is a logical implication of the liberal-progressive urge to micro-manage everything and everyone, as well as a political payoff to organized labor.

If Democrat/Socialist Party leaders have their way, the United States will be propelled into relative poverty. Our standard of living, if regulations to reduce carbon emissions to the extent proposed by President Obama are imposed, will be reduced to less than the standards prevailing when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Labor unions then will be positioned to resume medieval guild-style control of all production (much of which will of necessity be hand crafted, if San Francisco liberal-progressives like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi determine the model). Lucky labor union members will be assured of a monopoly position to limit the numbers of apprentices permitted to work in production of goods, while the public pays for their union luxury in fewer jobs, fewer goods, and higher prices.

There is plenty of evidence that the earth has gone through many climate cycles and that the earth has gradually been warming over millions of years. That, however, is a far cry from the presumption that humans are powerful enough to usurp God’s Will with respect to climate conditions. It is an equally far cry from handing over our nation’s fate to a socialist elite centered in the UN and the Brussels EU headquarters, an elite who presume themselves powerful enough to control the entire world’s climate.

Unfortunately for believers in this socialist dogma, evidence against it continues to mount. Its foot of clay is the complete inability of scientistic speculators to make their computer models predict accurately any actual weather behavior. With global temperatures moving over the past decade in the opposite direction from Al Gore’s predictions, believers are left to secular religious faith alone to sustain them. This, of course, they are free to do, but that is no warrant for compelling us to degrade our lives and the future for our children and grandchildren to support their secular religious belief.

Socialists have long recognized that their religion, which is resisted strongly wherever political freedom exists to any degree, must be imposed by force, either legislatively or by armies. Moreover, if socialism is to become the dominant religion in the United States, it must ultimately be imposed universally. Too many people defect from socialism when they can observe people in other nations living in free-market prosperity.

The Soviet Union’s continual drive to pull nations around the globe into its political and economic orbit was motivated by precisely that recognition. Lenin and other socialist theorists recognized that the imagined social and economic harmony of socialism could be realized only when the entire world had been converted or conscripted into the socialist religion.

This explains why, to promote the hypothesis of man-made global warming, President Obama and his socialistic confreres continually refer to so-called international law and to their vision of a world government.

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Big green machine feeds off you

Lawmakers have made it abundantly clear to bailed-out banks and automakers that federal money comes with strings attached. New rules on executive compensation are only the tip of the iceberg for TARP-funded banks. For bailed out automakers, Congress has inserted itself into decisions about plant closings and dealerships. The President of the United States even fired GM's CEO.

But environmental groups face few such restrictions, which is how they can victimize the taxpayer two- or even three-fold. They freely sue dozens of federal government agencies even as they take federal money. Sometimes they take the money and spend equivalent amounts lobbying Congress to restrict consumers' freedom. Some of them even pay their executives large six-figure salaries.

The taxpayer finds himself in triple jeopardy. He funds these groups with grants and contracts, he can be on the hook for both sides' legal costs, and he risks the loss of freedoms to new laws and lawsuits -- his property rights, and his ability to buy affordable appliances, or even his livelihood.

Defenders of Wildlife, whose president makes more than $300,000 a year, has taken about $190,000 in federal grants since 2004. They are now suing the government to protect aggressive wolves that were recently introduced into the Mountain West and have since ravaged game and impoverished shepherds and ranchers. The group also spent nearly $150,000 in the first half of 2009 lobbying Congress -- among other things, to fight against a law allowing for wolf control. They have also received more than $80,000 in web development work since 2006 from the Agriculture and Interior Departments.

Not all of the groups cause so much damage with your money, but they take it anyway. The Nature Conservancy (CEO compensation: $349,000), best known for purchasing land to prevent its development, is a billion-dollar organization. That hasn't stopped it from taking $14.4 million in grants from the Department of the Interior and received $50 million in federal contracts.

The more radical Forest Guardians are true green believers who certainly do not overpay themselves - their top employee makes only $46,000 per year. During the western forest fires of 2002, they steadfastly opposed the reopening of fire roads and the thinning of at-risk forests unless "solar powered chainsaws" were used. Even a small group like this can find itself a piece of the pie. Government grants accounted for 10 percent of their revenues in 2006, according to the IRS.

And just this year, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has put a leg aboard the federal gravy train. The famous public interest group, whose president made a modest $433,000 in 2007, has received a $750,000 government grant from the State Department to encourage the Chinese to use less energy. In addition to suing at least seven government agencies, including recently the Navy, the group also spent more than $400,000 in the first six months of 2009 lobbying Congress to require higher efficiency standards - and thus higher prices - for all appliances.

There's nothing wrong with a gadfly - someone has to hold government accountable. But should you be forced to pay for it, especially when it comes from an ideology that could hurt your livelihood or even your life?

Gadflies might be parasites in nature, but the human ones don't usually double as leeches.

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Cap-and-Trade Favors Corporate Interests Over National Interest

The "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act" introduced by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA) favors corporate interests over our national interest, says the Free Enterprise Project of the National Center for Public Policy Research. The bill calls for a 20% reduction in emissions, exceeding the 17% target in the House Waxman-Markey legislation passed in May.

Boxer-Kerry lacks many important details, including a disclosure of which industries will benefit from free emissions credits.

"In the rush to legislate, the Boxer-Kerry bill is silent on key elements, such as how the government will hand out free emissions allowances that are worth billions of dollars. With that amount of money left on the table it opens the door for a behind-the-scenes lobbying fest that will reward well connected companies while looting taxpayers," said Tom Borelli, PhD, director of the Free Enterprise Project.

Waxman-Markey awards most of the estimated $777.6 billion of free allowances to industry between 2012-2020. Utilities were the biggest winner in the "House bill lottery," receiving 35% of allowances.

President Obama originally wanted to auction all the emission credits with the revenue going to reduce the budget deficit.

In addition to the allowance windfall, a few select companies will benefit from specific provisions. Caterpillar would gain from sales of its newly-developed hybrid bulldozer, because the bill empowers the EPA to issue new emissions standards for "new heavy-duty vehicles and engines and for nonroad vehicles and engines."

The Caterpillar hybrid bulldozer is priced about $100,000 more than conventional bulldozers – an added cost that will be passed on to construction projects.

The Boxer gift to Caterpillar may be a reward for CEO Jim Owens. Under Owens, Caterpillar is a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) – a coalition of corporate and environmental special interest groups lobbying for cap-and-trade. Owens is a member of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

"Owens is putting his personal short-term interest over our national interest. He has previously acknowledged that cap-and-trade can harm the competitiveness of our manufacturing industries, yet he remains a member of USCAP," added Borelli. "Owens' thirty pieces of silver is a hybrid bulldozer."

"It's clear the only winners with cap-and-trade will be the lobbyists, CEOs and their environmental allies. The bill represents a huge transfer of wealth in the amount of hundreds of billions of dollars to industry. While the Washington elite benefit, the rest of America will end up paying the cost through higher energy prices, slower economic growth and sending jobs overseas," said Borelli.

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CA: San Joaquin River restoration to begin

California is supposed to be suffering from a water shortage -- but there's plenty of water to waste on Greenie romanticism

Federal officials are preparing to release the first surge of water from a Fresno-area dam to reawaken miles of the San Joaquin River and restore salmon runs that went dry in the 1940s.

The Bureau of Reclamation is set to begin the historic restoration of the state's second-largest river at 6 p.m. (9 p.m. EDT) Thursday when officials release pulses of water along the dry riverbed.

The project to bring back salmon to the river is a milestone in a decades-long legal tussle between environmentalists, farmers and the federal government. Environmental groups had filed a lawsuit stemming from the opening of Friant Dam in 1949, which dried up portions of the river below the dam where salmon once ran thick. Congress approved a legal settlement in March that aims to bring back Chinook salmon by 2012.

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ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is not impressed by Australia's "conservative" Federal parliamentary leader and his embrace of Warmism

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