Unscientific ecofascist, Alan Betts, just KNOWS the truth

Elderly British-born and NOAA funded Vermonter, Dr. Alan Betts, has scientific credentials but a real scientist is always open to new evidence and argument.   We see below however that Betts regards the global warming theory as beyond question and is unrepentant of his wish to use all methods to suppress scientific discussion of it.  He is an ideological descendant of the Nazi book burners.  He regards it as corruption to fund research that does not lead to Warmist conclusions. He just KNOWS the truth, indicating that it is he who is the dogmatist, not skeptics. And everything he himself says below is unsupported assertion and selective use of evidence.  That oil companies give far more to Greenies than to skeptics is unmentioned, for instance.  Skeptics of course have nothing to fear from a RICO investigation  -- but such an investigation would create the impression that they have.  It would be amusing to hear what Betts thinks of the First Amendment

A couple of months ago, I was one of 20 climate scientists who signed a letter to the United States attorney general requesting a RICO investigation of the companies that have poured millions into campaigns against climate science. This law, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970, and it was used to expose the way the tobacco industry knowingly deceived the public for decades at the cost of many lives.

But when we suggested that this kind of deliberate fraud should be exposed, since this obstruction of political action will lead to staggering loss of life on Earth this century, the hate mail poured in — targeting us for challenging the gospel of money and power. Fellow scientists at public universities were attacked with demands for all their emails for the past five years, driven by the fantasy that we are a scientific conspiracy, threatening the noble fossil fuel industry with false climate analyses. Really! When there is over $100 billion in annual profits at stake, it is not hard to guess where the conspiracy lies.

We now know that the Exxon team of research scientists examined the evidence that greenhouse gases were warming the global climate back in 1978. Their assessment agreed with the 1979 National Academy of Science report that said doubling carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would warm the planet by 5 to 8 degrees F. But Exxon management decided they should suppress their own scientific assessment and instead fund groups to undermine climate science, because they could see that climate science was an obvious threat to oil industry profits. Two weeks ago, the New York attorney general began a RICO investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public and investors about the risks of climate change.

But it is hard to deny reality forever. Last month the Canadian government that had silenced their own government scientists on climate change to protect the tar sands industry, was thrown out of office. I recall back in 1980, around the time Exxon decided to suppress its own science, meeting with a group of brilliant young Soviet scientists. We were part of an international science team for an Atlantic Ocean tropical experiment. After hours, they explained that the Soviet Union was on the path to collapse because of the irreconcilable conflict between ideology and reality. They were prophetic.

For two centuries the United States government respected scientific evidence and prospered. Now it faces collapse, because the merge of web technology with the infamous principle of the “big lie” has undermined the integrity of so many politicians.

So we, the people, must speak up, elect leaders who stand for the truth, start to work with the Earth, and build communities that are sustainable for generations to come.

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Co-Founder of Weather Channel Challenges NOAA’s Winter Forecast: 'Nonsense'

 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting above-average temperatures for much of the northern and western United States this winter due to the effects of the “strong El Nino that’s currently in place.”

But Joseph D’Aleo, co-founder of the Weather Channel and chief forecaster at Weatherbell Analytics, a meteorological consulting firm, called NOAA’s seasonal forecast for December through February “nonsense” - pointing out that NOAA’s predictions have been proven wrong the past two winters.

During a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Jon Gottschalck, chief of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center's Operational Prediction Branch in College Park, Maryland said that due to the effects of the current El Nino, which is “probably among the strongest on record,” much of the northern and western U.S. would experience “above-average temperatures” this winter.

Only a “small area” along the nation’s southern border would have lower than normal temperatures between December and February, he said..

But Weatherbell's forecast is for below-average temperatures for much of the southern part of the U.S.,with as much as 30 inches of snow predicted for Washington, D.C.

Weatherbell's prediction also calls for higher-than normal temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and along the northern section of the country due to the effect of El Nino.

"Overall, a snowy, colder than normal winter is experienced in the South and East. The core of winter will be late rather than earlier. December could be very warm, with February very cold. El Nino is a big influence, but not the only factor," according to Weatherbell.

D'Aleo also pointed out that Weatherbell’s seasonal predictions for the last two winters were on target, while NOAA’s were not.

“Their forecast was warm for 2013/14 for the Great Lakes when Chicago had their coldest December to March on record,” D’Aleo told CNSNews.com in an email.

He also pointed out that on Oct. 16, 2014 NOAA predicted “another warm winter” with “above-average temperatures…most likely in the western U.S., Alaska, Hawaii and New England.”

“They were warm in the Northeast last winter when the 10 Northeast states plus D.C. had their coldest January to March in the entire record," he noted.

In contrast, “Weatherbell, in the summer of 2013, suggested the Great Lakes would have an historic winter, which it was. Last year, we forecast another very cold winter for the eastern Great Lakes and Northeast,” D’Aleo told CNSNews.com.

“Winters have been cooling in the Northeast at a rate of 1.5F/decade for 20 years,” he continued. “There has been a lot of complaints from the local offices and from the energy markets about NOAA's warm bias. A lot of money has been budgeted to try and improve their seasonal forecast ability.”

D’Aleo also challenged a prediction by Ahira Sanchez-Lugo, a climate scientist at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information in Ashville, N.C., who said during the press briefing that “we expect 2015 to be the warmest year on record.”

“We also do not agree with the assessment of the current climate this year, either. Though we acknowledge there will be a bump from El Nino – always is,” D’Aleo told CNSNews.com.

“Satellites shows no change for 18.6 months. They suggest the year to date is not the warmest ever by a long shot. It’s in the middle of the pack for the last 20 years.

“This is the average of the two satellite sources (UAH and RSS) by month since 1997. The trend is flat,” he said.

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Obama: $3B for U.N. Climate Fund ‘A Smart Investment for Us to Make’

Leftists these days call all spending "investments", but investments are expenditures that are expected to yield a measurable profit.  There is not even an attempt to set up any measurement of benefit from this spending

President Obama had an opportunity Sunday to respond to Republican senators’ threat to withhold the $3 billion he has pledged for the U.N. “Green Climate Fund” (GCF) unless any new climate agreement is presented to the Senate for ratification – but chose not to.

Instead, Obama said simply that critics of his climate agenda lost a major argument when China announced it will join international efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Speaking in Kuala Lumpur, he also defended climate financing, saying that helping poor countries to adapt to green technologies without having their development efforts impaired was a “smart investment for us to make.”

With the opening of the U.N. climate conference in Paris just days away, a group of 37 GOP senators warned Obama in a letter Thursday that they will not allow taxpayer money to go to the GCF “until the forthcoming international climate agreement is submitted to the Senate for its constitutional advice and consent.”

Republican opposition to the administration’s climate change program appears to be driving the administration’s resistance to calls from Europe and elsewhere for the agreement coming out of Paris to be a treaty – and therefore requiring Senate ratification by a two-thirds vote.

The signatories pointed out that Congress had never authorized funding for the GCF, and that Obama’s $3 billion pledge had been made “unilaterally.”

They asked the president to ensure that foreign counterparts in the talks were made aware that “that Congress will not be forthcoming with these funds in the future without a vote in the Senate on any final agreement as required in the U.S. Constitution.”

Speaking to reporters in the Malaysian capital on the final day of a trip to Turkey and South-East Asia, Obama was asked about the issue of raising climate finance, “given especially the Republican opposition back home.”

In his response, he said nothing about the threat to withhold funds or the question of the status of a new climate agreement, which will apply to the post-2020 period.

After outlining the thinking behind climate finance – which will be a central focus in the Paris talks – he turned briefly to criticism of his climate policies.

“Sometimes, back home, critics will argue, there’s no point in us doing something about getting our house in order when it comes to climate change because other countries won’t do anything and it will just mean that we’re in a less competitive position,” he said.

“Well, when I met with President Xi [Jinping] and China signed on to an aggressive commitment, that took a major argument away from those critics,” he said, adding that the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters had now “signed on.”

China announced a year ago that it will aim for its greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2030, if not earlier. Last September it said it would begin a national cap-and-trade program in 2017.

China has not pledged any contribution to the GCF, saying that must come from “developed nations” – as defined in previous climate change agreements. Instead Beijing says it will set up a separate fund to help developing countries combat climate change.

The GCF is the core of a 2009 agreement by Obama and other leaders to raise – from 2020 onwards – $100 billion each year from public and private sources to help developing countries deal with climate change.

As of early November, 38 countries have pledged a total of $10.2 billion for the GCF, with Obama’s pledge of $3 billion accounting for 29 percent of the total. The next biggest pledges have come from Japan ($1.5 bn), Britain ($1.2 bn) and Germany ($1.003 bn).

Broader climate finance mobilized from public and private sources so far has been estimated at $62 billion, according to a recent OECD study.

The U.N. Environmental Program has argued that $100 billion a year will not be nearly enough to help the world to adapt to global warming.

SOURCE





More costly and destructive EPA regulations aimed at destroying American manufacturing

What’s a Boiler MACT? MACT stands for the Maximum Achievable Control Technology, and is the focus of recently revised rules by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). To comply with rules justified by the President’s 2011 Executive Order 13563, industrial operations that generate their own power with boilers must further reduce emissions with questionable benefit through costly retrofitting processes in order to be legally operational. According to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), EPA estimates the compliance cost for American Manufacturers will initially be nearly $5 Billion, with $1.5 Billion annually, further hampering wage and job growth.

For industrial users of electricity, Boiler MACT is fast becoming one of their largest obstacles to powering their own factories. Depending on the specific product requirements, industry requires large quantities of electricity to operate. Industries such as the paper industry have long used boilers to meet this demand, and utilized waste products or coal to power steam turbines to generate their electricity. This used to enable them to produce electricity at roughly half the market rate from the power grid.

Because of the costly nature of the rules that would force businesses to purchase new generators or invest large amounts of money to keep existing ones, thousands of jobs would be lost to meet the compliance costs. Why are we continuing to ship jobs overseas? The rules are designed to further reduce exposure to mercury and particulate matter, but it is questionable whether it will achieve the health benefits the EPA projects.

For this reason, U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, (R-Maine), won support for an amendment to H.R. 2822, which would defund and delay enforcement of these rules until late next fiscal year.

Rep. Poliquin said in a statement, “Overregulation and poor government policies have led to higher energy prices for Maine families and businesses.  Too many of our paper mills have closed because the high cost of energy in our State has made it hard to compete.  With these closures came thousands of jobs lost and several closed businesses.  This is simply unacceptable.

“That is why I’ve stood up to the EPA and the Obama Administration and took action to delay the Boiler MACT rule from being implemented to protect jobs.  This proposal is devastating to the families, businesses and communities in our State, and it’s critical that Congress acts to stop it.”

In the forest products industry alone, these and other regulations caused three Maine paper mills to close already. Other damage is being felt in similar mills in Wisconsin. “For some plants, the capital requirements (of the EPA rule) will deplete multiple years of discretionary capital and include a continued operating cost that often equates to 5 to 10 percent of payroll,” said Expera spokesperson Addie Teeters in 2014. Expera has four paper facilities in Wisconsin, and one in Maine.

These costs impact wage growth in an industry already feeling the impact of electronic modernization, which is decreasing the demand for paper.

Public outcry against the rules a few years ago prompted the EPA to issue a “clarification”.  In a statement recognizing the EPA’s modifications, American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) President and CEO Donna Harman damned the EPA with faint praise, saying, “The agency has been responsive to many of our implementation concerns as evidenced in this latest rule. However, policy makers must not lose sight of the fact that this rule is only one of a dozen or more potentially affecting our industry to the tune of $10 billion over the next decade.”

On Nov. 5 EPA concluded it’s “reconsideration” phase, leaving implementation deadline to begin in Jan. 2016. If there are operations that have failed to upgrade to new or retrofitted boilers, fines are sure to follow in the forest products industry, as well as many others across the country. As the House has acted, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Governmental and Related Agencies chaired by Sen. Lisa Murkowski(R-Alaska) has reportedly incorporated a delay of implementation into the coming omnibus bill for FY2016.

At the very least, with thirteen long months remaining of the Obama Administration, it is a matter of economic urgency that appropriators the Boiler MACT defund be included in the upcoming omnibus spending bill for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2016. The current Administration may not care about the jobs impacted outside of the beltway, but it is important to buy time for a future administration that might.

If there is to be a renaissance of American manufacturing, Congress must act to run out the clock on this administration, and enable the next president to repair the damage done in its wake.

SOURCE





WA: Judge Finds ‘Constitutional Obligation’ for State to Act on Global Warming

But also finds that what the State is doing is sufficient

In what environmentalists are calling a “groundbreaking” ruling, a Washington state judge wrote that state lawmakers have a “constitutional obligation” to the youth of the state to take action on global warming.

Using some alarming language, King County Superior Court Judge Hollis R. Hill issued a ruling in a case involving eight Washington state youth in a case against the Washington Department of Ecology, seeking to require writing carbon emission rules to protect their generation. Though, Hill ultimately ruled the state was taking proper action to meet its obligation.

“In fact, as the petitioners assert and this court finds, their very survival depends upon the will of their elders to act now, decisively, unequivocally, to stem the tide of global warming by accelerating reductions of emission of GHG’s before doing so becomes first, too costly and then too late,” the judge’s ruling said. ”The scientific evidence is clear that the current rates of reduction mandated by Washington law cannot achieve the GHG reductions necessary to protect our environment and to ensure the survival of an environment in which petitioners can grow to adulthood safely.”

“Therefore, the state has a constitutional obligation to protect the public’s interest in natural resources held in trust for the common benefit of the people of the state,” the judge’s ruling said.

However, the decision concludes citing Gov. Jay Inslee’s efforts to curb climate change as evidence the state isn’t avoiding those duties, and as a reason to side with the state.

“Ecology’s actions are neither arbitrary nor capricious. Now that Ecology has commenced rulemaking to establish greenhouse emission standards taking into account science as well as economic, social and political considerations, it cannot be found to be acting arbitrarily or capriciously,” the ruling says. “For the foregoing reasons, the petition for review is denied due to the Department of Ecology having commenced the aforementioned rulemaking process as directed by the governor.”

The youth were represented by Our Children’s Trust, which describes itself as a “global human rights and environmental justice campaign;” the Western Environmental Law Center, which describes itself as combining “legal skills and sound conservation biology;” and Plant for the Planet, which describes itself as a group that “connects children around the world as ambassadors for climate justice.”

These organizations say they have pending litigation brought by youth in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Massachusetts and Oregon. Looking ahead to other court battles, the groups framed the Washington decision as a victory because the ruling asserted that the state had a constitutional and legal duty to protect the next generation from the impact of global warming.

“In this important ruling, Judge Hill has made it very clear what Ecology must do when promulgating the Clean Air Rule: preserve, protect and enhance air quality for present and future generations and uphold the constitutional rights of these young people,” Western Environmental Law Center attorney Andrea Rodgers said in a statement. “We will hold Ecology accountable every step of the way to make sure that Judge Hill’s powerful words are put into action. This is a huge victory for our children and for the climate movement.”

SOURCE




Australian Greenies still not happy about coal compromise

They've rightly figured out that Australia's conservative government has in fact THWARTED international attempts to stop investments in coal.  New generators are likely to use coal in poor countries only. New generators in advanced countries will be using gas anyhow

By Hannah Aulby, a clean energy campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation.

The Australian government has watered down an international deal on coal subsidies – essentially protecting the future profits of the Carmichael coal mine ahead of the best interests of our communities and environment.

Hailed as a ‘landmark’ deal to reduce public subsidies to coal fired power stations, the agreement by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development aims to stop public financing of the dirtiest coal projects. In the past seven years, rich countries' export credit agencies have funded about $35 billion worth of coal. The Turnbull Government was looking to block the deal, but has come onside at the last minute with a caveat – that old dirty coal power plants can still be financed in 8 of the world’s poorest nations.

The Minerals Council of Australia, hardly champions of climate action and poverty reduction, welcomed the deal, saying that it paves the way for coal powered development. And Trade Minister Andrew Robb said the deal provided coal fired power to lift millions out of energy poverty.

Again Australia is getting left behind by a world ready to move beyond coal. As well as the international political intent shown at the OECD, international markets are moving. Global coal consumption has fallen 2-4% this year, including a 6% drop in China. This being the case, we have, in fact, passed peak coal. Demand is dropping, and yet Australia continues to champion the Carmichael mine as the future of low emissions development. Continuing down the mine shaft will only leave us with stranded assets in a dinosaur economy.

Domestically the markets are turning on coal too. New projects are struggling to attract private investment, as seen by the Victorian brown coal project in the Latrobe Valley that was just withdrawn by Chinese firm Shanghai Electric Australia as it failed to reach the first investment milestones.

SOURCE

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