Obama abandons cap 'n trade

Many diverse groups in the environmentalist groups and industries are ready to take on yet another battle. This battle is over the regulation of greenhouse gases. President Barack Obama has stated that he will look for newer more efficient ways to control global warming pollution other than the road block created by Congress. This road block seemed like a sure victory for those who feel greenhouses don’t effect the globe. But, with Obama backing a new plan there has to be a way by just to give us a new idea of protection.

“Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way,” Obama stated at a news conference Wednesday, soon after Democrats lost control of the House. “I’m going to be looking for other means to address this problem.” Obama said sounding optimistically pleased with what his team and agenda was going to represent in the near future.

Obama went on to say, “I don’t think … the desire is to somehow be protective of their powers here. One of the things that’s very important for me is not to have us ignore the science, but rather to find ways that we can solve these problems that don’t hurt the economy, that encourage the development of clean energy in this country, that, in fact, may give us opportunities to create entire new industries and create jobs.” At least Obama knows what his team needs to take care of, working on it could be a great next step.

The dropped global warming plan has upset quite a few in a turnout that could eventually raise pollutants in the air. Whenever a new measure is announced, you can trust that it will be watched with a close eye! Maybe EPA authorities will not have to feel attacked in calls like this when it comes to the U.S. Congress’s say.

SOURCE





More USHCN Comedy in D.C.

More crooked "adjustments" to the temperature record from official American climatologists

As if the Lincoln, Virginia USHCN comedy wasn’t enough fun, this story gets even better. The next closest station to Washington D.C. is at Fredericksburg, Virginia, about 50 km to the south.



Like Lincoln, the USHCN Fredericksburg adjusted graph shows steady warming since the 1960s. In fact it shows almost identical warming to Lincoln.



But there is something a little different about the Fredericksburg graph of raw data. Can you spot it below?




Besides the obvious fact that the adjustments completely change the shape of the graph, it turns out that USHCN doesn’t actually have any readings at Fredricksburg after 1994. Raw data shown in blue below, adjusted in red.



So where did they get the post -1994 data for Fredricksburg? You guessed it. They took the adjusted upwards trend from Lincoln, added three degrees to it, and basically plastered it onto the end of the Fredricksburg graph. Fredericksburg in blue below, Lincoln in red.



How cool is that? They were able to take the manufactured Lincoln rise in temperatures, and “fix” the record of a second station using the same data! They took a downwards temperature trend at Lincoln, flipped it upwards, and got a double global warming bonus from one roll of the dice.

And who would have thought that the weather is more than three degrees warmer just 70 km to the south of Lincoln? We are so lucky to have such clever scientists fixing the data for us. Otherwise, we would have just assumed that Washington D.C. was getting cooler – like the thermometers say.



SOURCE






COP10 was much noise and no substance – thank goodness!

My first impressions after the COP10 UN conference on biodiversity held in Nagoya was of a jamboree involving 5,000 people mouthing diffuse platitudes and woolly goals which had little to do with the further development of the human species. The Japanese hosts came up with 2 billion $ in the last few days of the conference to assuage some of the demands being made by developing countries and to be able to mount a PR exercise about the great success it had all been.

I don’t often agree with George Monbiot of The Guardian but this time I think he gets it right. It was a con. There was no substance in the declarations made at the end of the conference. The only point of difference is that I am profoundly thankful that there was no substance to something which has no real objectives whereas Monbiot believes that this was a minor tragedy. He writes:

We’ve been conned. The deal to save the natural world never happened. The so-called summit in Japan won’t stop anyone trashing the planet. Only economic risks seem to make governments act.

‘Countries join forces to save life on Earth”, the front page of the Independent told us. “Historic”, “a landmark”, a “much-needed morale booster”, the other papers chorused. The declaration agreed last week at the summit in Japan to protect the world’s wild species and places was proclaimed by almost everyone a great success. There is one problem: none of the journalists who made these claims has seen it.

I checked with as many of them as I could reach by phone: all they had read was a press release which, though three pages long, is almost content-free. The reporters can’t be blamed for this – it was approved on Friday but the declaration has still not been published. I’ve pursued people on three continents to try to obtain it, without success. Having secured the headlines it wanted, the entire senior staff of the convention on biological diversity has gone to ground, and my calls and emails remain unanswered. The British government, which lavishly praised the declaration, tells me it has no printed copies. I’ve never seen this situation before. Every other international agreement I’ve followed was published as soon as it was approved.

The evidence suggests that we’ve been conned. The draft agreement, published a month ago, contained no binding obligations. Nothing I’ve heard from Japan suggests that this has changed. The draft saw the targets for 2020 that governments were asked to adopt as nothing more than “aspirations for achievement at the global level” and a “flexible framework”, within which countries can do as they wish. No government, if the draft has been approved, is obliged to change its policies.

More HERE





Greenies losing in Canada

A Greenie wail below

Environmental groups say they may have lost their "best hope" for change within Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government following the departure of Jim Prentice as environment minister.

But after three ministers in the same portfolio, they say they remain skeptical about whether anyone can get Harper to take significant action to protect the environment, rather than the interests of oil and gas companies.

"At the end of the day, they've all been good soldiers in terms of carrying on what is effectively an irresponsible climate-change policy that the prime minster has actually designed," said Graham Saul, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, a coalition of environmental, faith-based and labour groups.

"He was our best hope of getting action from the Conservative party, and even he wasn't able to push the prime minister to do anything of confidence. It's like a revolving door at this stage."

Prentice has been praised by some groups for continuing the work of his predecessor, John Baird, in expanding protected areas with sensitive ecosystems and species. But groups also note that he weakened targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change and that he has failed to deliver regulations to crack down on pollution from industrial facilities.

A leaked memo from the Finance Department last spring provided the only evidence suggesting Prentice was at odds with his government over the oil and gas industry. The memo revealed that Prentice had written to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, urging him to announce a phase out of tax incentives and subsidies for the fossil fuel industry in the 2010 budget as part of a strategy to encourage renewable energy with a smaller environmental footprint. But no changes were made in the end.

However, Prentice has been credited by Pollution Probe, an environmental group based in Ontario, for working with the U.S. administration in delivering new regulations to crack down on tailpipe emissions from new vehicles.

Saul said that on other files, Prentice failed to break ranks with his government on policies that could harm the environment.

"It would be nice to think that he was a well-intentioned red Tory who was frustrated by Prime Minister Harper but, at the end of the day, there's no real evidence to suggest that he pushed very hard," said Saul. "At the end of the day, most of the evidence suggests that he was actively involved in trying to figure out how to promote the short-term interests of oil companies."

Steven Guilbeault, the co-founder of Equiterre, a Quebec-based environmental group, said he was concerned about Harper's decision to appoint Baird, now the government House leader, to the environment portfolio on an interim basis.

It could mean that Baird would be representing Canada at the next international climate change summit, which begins on Nov. 29 in Cancun, Mexico, after generating some controversy at a 2007 global warming summit in Indonesia. "He's one of the most partisan ministers I've ever encountered," said Guilbeault. "It's very difficult to have any kind of constructive conversation with him."

But Harper's office would not say whether Baird would still be the minister leading Canada's delegation at the summit. "I won't speculate on timelines," said Harper's spokesman, Andrew MacDougall. "Rest assured, Canada will be well-represented in Cancun."

SOURCE






Green mirage is killing our future

Comment from Australia by Andrew Bolt

When we will wake up? We’re destroying our future by chasing a green mirage:

South Korea and Taiwan are managing to produce cheaper power than Australia, even though they have to ship the Australian coal that fires their furnaces.

In self-sufficient Australia, households are paying one-third more for electricity than those in Taiwan and South Korea - two of the biggest buyers of Australian coal. Residential power prices in Australia have surged 12.4 per cent in the past year, four times the rate of inflation…

Industrialists yesterday declared that Australia’s surging power prices could rob the manufacturing and mining sectors of their competitive edge…

The Energy Users Association of Australia yesterday claimed power prices were on track to double within five years and triple within a decade as utilities spent billions of dollars on infrastructure, and the federal government forced them to source one-fifth of their supplies from renewable energy by 2020…

Industry analyst Ben Freund, the chief executive of energy price comparison website GoSwitch, ... said Australia had not built any new coal-fired power stations for two decades, despite surging demand from a growing population fond of power-hungry air-conditioning, clothes dryers and flat-screen TVs…

“If demand is increasing, we should just be producing more of it; supply should meet demand as it does for any other commodity and we shouldn’t be seeing these sorts of skyrocketing prices.”

Way to go. We’re pricing ourselves out of the market in part by demanding much more expensive ”green power” - a largely token gesture - and frightening off investment in coal-fired power by threatening an emissions trading system.

SOURCE (See the original for links)





Selling out their craft to the global warming cause

Andrew Bolt

Should journalists report the views of global warming sceptics - even just for balance?

A panel of “top” journalists and journalism academics, as chosen by the University of Technology Sydney’s far Left Centre of “Independent Journalism” and broadcast by the ABC, agree that on the whole the answer is ... no, or rarely. (Listen at the link.)

Naturally, in accord with their commitment to debate, not one person on the panel is a sceptic, or challenges this group think.

The ABC’s Sarah Clarke says she prefers to rely on material given the “all clear” by the IPCC, and praises the ABC and Fairfax papers for having been two “responsible” outlets that have been “objective” on global warming.

Monash University’s Philip Chubb says the debate “doesn’t need to go outside the halls of climate change”.

Warmist academic Anne Henderson-Sellers, who says she sets her students the homework of watching the propagandist An Inconvenient Truth and The Age of Stupid to inform themselves, demands to know why journalists didn’t describe Lord Monckton as a “fruitcake” so her hairdresser wouldn’t be so impressed. Chubb calls him a “clown”.

No one panellist, because of this lack of debate, raises one of the more obvious questions. For instance:

- Where on earth is the evidence that media outlets have given an equal hearing to sceptics? For instance, which sceptical scientist here has got equal media time to Tim Flannery? Which sceptical film maker has received the air time of Al Gore? Which media outlets have backed a sceptical propaganda event as they have Earth Hour? Which media outlets have run sceptical specials as they’ve run specials warning of apocalyptic warning? Where is the sceptic on this very panel?

- How would these journalists justify treating as the “truth”, not to be questioned by outsiders, of statements by the IPCC since proved to be false or highly questionable? Are they to be treated as true until the IPCC admits they are not? Are outsiders who point out their error to be ignored unless the IPCC gives the “all clear” to report them?

- How can journalists justify suppressing a debate when even the leading warmist authority, the IPCC, says the chances of its theories of man-made warming being correct are ”at least a 9 out of ten” - which suggests there’s perhaps a 10 per cent chance they are wrong? Does this mean the media cannot even report the IPCC scientists who doubt? And how can mere journalists justify ignoring the views of sceptics as learned and prominent in their field as, say, Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT? Would these journalists have refused to report the views of Galileo? Of that mere assistant patent examiner Einstein?

- Why does the astonishingly certain and peremptory Henderson-Sellers praise An Inconvenient Truth, and use it as a teaching aide, yet demand the media not report the sceptics who have proved that it is in fact riddled with errors and exaggerations? Why must a warmist as untrained and prone to exaggerate as Al Gore be spared scrutiny?

- How broadly should this restriction on reporting sceptics be applied? Should it also include not reporting them when they point out failed predictions? The vested interests , sheer nuttiness, religious fervor, totalitarian tendency or extraordinary hypocrisy of some warmists? The threat to freedom of some “solutions” the warmists proposed? The extraordinary futility and economic cost of Australia taking the lead on emissions trading, or adopting grand schemes for ”green energy”? Examples of mere alarmism? After all, these are subjects which surely may be discussed intelligently even by those “outside the halls of climate change”.

SOURCE (See the original for links)

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