Thing Of The Past : Winter 2010-2011 Was The Third Snowiest On Record In The Northern Hemisphere

It's probably very boring of me but I think I should point out the satirical bits in Steve's post below. The "rate of more than 40 degrees per century" is of course quite mad. It is an extrapolation from the last decade and is meant to lampoon Warmist extrapolations from one recent short period.

The final disclaimer is a mockery of the Warmist claim that the 1930s were warmer than the 2000s only in the USA and that the 2000s were hottest everywhere else -- JR

Three of the four snowiest Northern Hemisphere winters since 1967 have been in the last four years. Four of the five snowiest winters have been since CRU experts told us that children won’t know what snow is.


(From here)

This has coincided with plummeting winter temperatures. Over the last decade, US winter temperatures have been falling at a rate of more than 40 degrees per century.


(From here)

Disclaimer : The Northern Hemisphere makes up only a tiny percentage of the planet.

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Are humans to blame for snowstorms?

The media is flush with articles this morning claiming global warming is the cause of the multitude of heavy snow events the past two winters. The news hook is a March 1 press conference in which the Union of Concerned [Leftist] Scientists presented two scientists making such a claim.

A Union of Concerned Scientists press conference claiming humans are causing a global warming crisis would typically be about as newsworthy as a Union of Concerned Socialists press conference claiming capitalism is causing a global equality crisis. This is, after all, what the Union of Concerned Scientists does.

The two scientists speaking at the press conference, Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground, and Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, claimed warmer temperatures allow the atmosphere to hold more moisture, which results in higher snowfall totals. Masters and Serreze clearly are weather experts, but are they right about global warming causing – in effect – more winter?

Longtime AccuWeather forecaster Joe Bastardi doesn’t think so. Responding to a similar assertion by Al Gore, Bastardi said, “We’ve had the third snowiest weather in Northern Hemisphere history, but moisture in the snow pack is below normal. Which means it’s not [snowier] because there’s more moisture but because it’s been colder. He’s just not looking at the facts. With the global temperature collapsing, you can’t be saying, ‘Well, it’s getting colder because it’s getting warmer.’ That’s the opposite argument they were using when the temperature was going up.”

Other weather experts, including meteorologist Anthony Watts, point out that real-world atmospheric conditions refute the “global warming is causing more snow” theory. Specifically, Watts notes that atmospheric humidity has been declining for decades.

Moreover, the past two North American winters were notably cold rather than notably warm. This would seem to contradict the assertion that warmer air soaked up more moisture, causing the higher snowfall totals.

Then there’s the pesky issue of “consensus.” Alarmists typically counter any fact-based global warming argument with the assertion that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has already ruled on the issue, and therefore “the science is settled” and “the debate is over.” “Mild winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms,” IPCC claimed in its 2001 Third Assessment. Now that real-world conditions show otherwise, alarmists are changing their tune. Well, which is it? Can the alarmists please pick a story line and then stick with it?

Maybe Masters and Serreze are right, and maybe they are wrong. Either way, the heavy snow event issue shows deep cracks in the allegedly impenetrable alarmist armor.

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British Green Movement Backed Murderous Libyan Regime

New evidence raises growing concerns that environmentalism is the sinister tool of fascist politics. Revelations from a crumbling Libyan dictatorship show an enforced green agenda propped up by a discredited UK establishment.

Latest news highlighted by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (March 3, 2011) strengthens claims by global warming skeptics that not only are extreme political radicals controlling the green movement but that there exists an increasing popular rising against this sinister trend.

What will come as a shock to most citizens not fully engaged in the long running climate debate is that there has been a new twist in the controversy revealing a dark and dangerous undertone to the once innocent and non-political green movement. No longer are the rank and file of the environmentalist movement comprised of animal-loving, kind natured innocents that we remember from our childhood. No, quite the contrary as the misguided support of zealots such as Britain’s Lord Stern and Prince Charles have backed Libyan ogre, Colonel Gaddafi.

Libyan Evidence Proves Existence of Secret Eco-fascism

The shabby British-Libyan partnership of extremism first became apparent back in 2007. But only now does the BBC finally pay some attention as the Libyan dictator slaughters his own people in a desperate attempt cling to power. Finally, we get an insight into the relationship between the Gaddafi family and various British institutions and politicians.

At the time Lord Stern trumpeted the Gaddafi plan boasting it, “will show how environmental and cultural objectives can help to build a thriving and sustainable local economy in a crucial part of the world.”

However, not is all as it seems while the BBC are still keeping tight-lipped over the link between Saif Gaddafi, London School of Economics Professor David Held and Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband.

Also prominent amongst UK greens praising the crumbling Libyan government is mendacious big mouth Prince Charles who is currently tight-lipped about his favored "world’s first sustainable region" – now revolting after forty-one years under the evil boot of Colonel Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam.

Despite local Libyan people long opposing Gaddafi’s plan it was enforced on them with the connivance and support of UNESCO, WWF and the Prince of Wales School of Traditional Arts.

Ultra-green London School of Economics in Secret Libyan Cash Deal

But the story gets worse as Greg Hurst and Dominic Kennedy, reporting in the Times (March 3, 2011), reveal that the ultra green London School of Economics (LSE) secured a secret £1 million deal to train hundreds of members of the Libyan dictator’s future green elite.

Hurst and Kennedy explain that LSE’s underhanded dealings with the Gaddafi regime were revealed after whistleblowing website WikiLeaks uncovered secret diplomatic cables.

The Times reports:

“The NEDB [Libyan National Economic Development Board] is co-operating with the UK Government and the London School of Economics (Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi’s alma mater), among other UK institutions, on an exchange programme to send 400 ‘future leaders’ of Libya for leadership and management training. Eventually, [an official of NEDB] explained, 250 additional Libyan ‘future leaders’ would also be trained in Libya.”

LSE staff are financed by Gaddafi money and recently argued that Libya was less likely to have a revolution because it had “more pronounced tribalism” giving Libyans a fair stake in society.
An embarrassed LSE has tried to pass off the despicable collaboration as a “purely education endeavour”. This nonsensical statement is hardly surprising being that Lord Giddens, the former LSE director, regards Gaddafi as “impressive” and “genuinely popular.”

Although evidence is yet to be uncovered that proves their claim some skeptics insist Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi’s PhD from the LSE was bought as part of the disreputable deal.

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Not So Fast! “Clean Energy” and the Depressed Economy

The New York Times recently gave editorial space to four former governors to share their economic and political brilliance on how to revitalize our economy. While all four dazzled readers with their wisdom, I have decided to highlight the brilliance of Bill Ritter, Jr., the former Democratic governor of Colorado, who urges Americans to embrace “clean energy.”

Ritter claims clean energy will “re-energize the economy”:

Building this new economy starts with understanding how clean energy legislation can create jobs. During my four-year term in Colorado, I signed 57 pieces of clean energy legislation. In 2007, for example, we doubled the proportion of energy in the state that is required to come from renewable sources to 20 percent by 2020. In 2010, we increased that to 30 percent for our biggest utility. As a result, Colorado now ranks fourth among the 50 states in its number of clean energy workers per capita, and 1,500 clean energy companies call our state home — an 18 percent increase since 2004. Wind- and solar-energy companies that have built factories and opened offices in Colorado have brought in thousands of new jobs.

Ritter continues with more of his “accomplishments,” and then urges Americans to follow President Obama’s plans:

Last year we capped our clean energy work with a bill that required shutting down several dirty, inefficient coal plants and replacing them with cleaner energy fuels, principally natural gas.

President Obama’s goal to produce 80 percent of America’s energy from clean sources by 2035 is absolutely achievable. But as Washington ponders its next move on energy legislation, governors can and should lead the way.

Socialism Failed

Unfortunately, while the rhetoric sounds promising, everything he wrote is nonsense. Like most American politicians, Ritter fails to understand that socialism really is a failure, and that a 25-year plan for “clean energy” development has no more chance of succeeding than any of the infamous Five-Year Plans first hatched by Josef Stalin. Colorado and the U.S. government don’t send critics of their plans to the gulag, but the “clean energy” advocates do demand that the authorities use the iron fist of coercion to achieve their goals.

My question is this: If these energy sources are so wonderful and such great investments, why do all those ventures have to be subsidized directly by tax dollars or indirectly by government mandates? If these were the profitable and job-creating ventures that Ritter claims they are, why have private firms not jumped in without the government promise to backstop their losses?

Internalize the Externalities!

If the answer is that the government has favored oil by socializing some of its costs, then the proper solution is: Internalize all the costs and let all products compete on a level playing field — no favors, no obstacles.

In a truly free market, entrepreneurs make profits by directing resources from lower valued to higher valued uses – as ultimately determined by consumers. The “clean energy economy” of which Ritter speaks assumes government knows what kinds of energy we should be using. It cannot have such knowledge. Only the free market can say.

It is impossible to build a sustainable economic recovery on subsidized “green energy,” no matter how much rhetoric to the contrary comes from Washington and the governors’ mansions. An economy cannot grow unless entrepreneurs freely can mesh their plans with consumer wishes. For Ritter to claim that government can coerce us into prosperity is not alternative wisdom; it is delusion.

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Wacky Europeans trying to put even more of their energy supplies at the mercy of mad Muslim regimes!

The world’s largest energy megaproject has begun. Desertec will spend the better part of a trillion dollars on solar energy plants in North Africa, the electricity from which will be transmitted via undersea cables to Europe. The notion that this project is an eco-fantasy is quickly felled by investigating the heavyweight European businesses involved in the Desertec Industrial Initiative. Broadening the investigation into other media and activist groups involved yields useful insights into environmentalism. For instance:

During the early years of the Climate Change campaign, the Holtzbrincks (a family of impeccable German-aristocratic and Nazi pedigree) purchased Scientific American and Nature magazines. These media outlets profoundly influenced the Climate Change debate.

Bertelsmann AG, controlled by Germany’s Mohn family (also militant Nazis), is Europe’s largest media conglomerate and the top publisher of English-language books. Mohns’ current matriarch, like her recently deceased husband, is a full member of the ultra-green Club of Rome.

Among Europe’s most effective environmental activist organizations are: German Business Forum for Sustainable Development, E8, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, CSR Europe, European Wind Energy Association, and the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association.

Desertec is to supply 15% of total European electricity needs from North Africa! Another cornerstone of Europe’s green energy plan is the replacement of coal and uranium with natural gas. North Africa is to be the main gas supplier.

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South Carolina Bill Would Overturn Federal Light Bulb Ban

A bill by South Carolina State Representatives Bill Sandifer and Dwight Loftis would allow for the manufacture and purchase of incandescent light bulbs in South Carolina that are currently subject to a federal ban that begins to take effect in Jan. 2012.

“State Representatives Sandifer and Loftis are taking the lead in protecting the rights of South Carolina consumers, who don’t want the federal government telling them which light bulbs they must use,” Bill Wilson the President of Americans for Limited Government said.

“The basic concept of the bill is to allow the citizens of South Carolina to be able to continue to buy incandescent light bulbs,” said State Representative Bill Sandifer, Chairman of the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee.

“It is my strong belief that the feds have overstepped the Tenth Amendment, and now are venturing into telling us what kinds of lighting we can have in our homes,” Sandifer added.

But how can the federal government ban light bulbs? “They are trying to use again as they have so often done, the Commerce Clause. But I have a real problem with Big Brother intruding in how I live in my home,” Sandifer declared.

Explaining what the bill does, Representative Loftis said “it provides for the option of an entity manufacturing these bulbs in South Carolina to be sold in South Carolina”.

Wilson explained, “since the bulbs would be made entirely in South Carolina and sold in South Carolina, the federal government has no power to regulate it under the Interstate Commerce Clause.”

Sandifer said that there would be more hearings at the subcommittee level before it comes up for a final vote in his committee. He is hopeful for full House approval for the bill.

Loftis blasted the federal ban on incandescent light bulbs, saying, “On the one hand, the feds say we need to do something about cleaning up the environment, and on the other hand, they impose requirements that we use this particular light bulb that has hazards with the disposal of it.” The new fluorescent bulbs are laced with mercury, raising concerns over the costs of proper disposal and over mercury seepage back into the environment.

“All in all, it’s just something that the feds really I think have no business in regulating,” Loftis said, saying that the supposed cost savings from using the bulbs simply will not be there for consumers.

Loftis said that passage of the bill may depend on how environmental groups respond to it. “What side are they going to take?” Loftis asked. “Are they going to take the side of clean disposal? Or are they going to take the side of potentially putting some of the hazardous materials in the landfill or back out into the environment?”

Wilson said the issue came down to protecting the rights of consumers to be free to make their own choices, saying, “The government is attempting to micromanage our decisions as consumers. The federal government has no power to tell South Carolinians, or any citizen, what types of lighting they are allowed to use. Representatives Sandifer and Loftis deserve the support of their constituents to help overturn this tyrannical dictate by the federal government to use unsafe, mercury-laced bulbs.”

Wilson concluded, “Thomas Edison would be turning over in his grave if he knew that his invention, one of the greatest in human history, was being banned.”

The federal legislation effectively banning incandescent light bulbs, the “Energy Independence and Security Act,” was enacted in 2007.

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