Hansen : Clueless About Drought | Real Science

Hansen claims that lowering CO2 to below 350 ppm is the only thing which can prevent drought in the west.

The historical record tells us that Hansen has absolutely no idea what he is talking about.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber wants stronger green hammer | JunkScience.com

Professor John Schellnhuber has been the European version of James Hansen for some time and was at one time research director for the UK Tyndall Center...He heads the German Chancellor’s “de-industrialisaton council”, which speaks volumes.

Late-May storm sets 2 snowfall records for Billings : The Billings Gazette - Montana & Wyoming News

“That’s the latest record of 1 inch this late in May,” he said.

Climate Common Sense: Clean Energy Corporation could lose 7.5% of capital each year.

With Treasury saying that investments by Gillard's Clean Energy money pit could lose 7.5% of capital each year I am amazed that banks have not been falling over themselves to lend money to these projects.

Errors in IPCC climate science » Blog Archive » Cheering news at last – sackings at the Department of Climate Change

Not far enough though – but a start.

Department Secretary Blair Comley announced job cuts were imminent and far greater than had been originally forecast.

“Only a week ago, Kate Lundy said she was pleased there would be no forced redundancies”, Senator Humphries said today.

GISS Used To Have An Intelligent Director, Before Hansen Took Over | Real Science

Green no longer says it for clean crusaders | JunkScience.com

The man who brought you GetUp.org and now heads Purpose.com with the aim of mobilising millions of people to solve global problems says green has gone the way of Justin Bieber: not cool, deeply unsexy, super generic and debased by overexposure.

Green scepticism is rife. ”Everybody is cloaking themselves in green so as consumers, when we see that, we don’t believe them,” Heimans said.

Black power beats green | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

 But shares in Geodynamics, a geothermal company in which Flannery holds shares, have dropped to deep lows, despite the $90 million grant the Rudd Government was persuaded to give it in November 2009 (red dot):

NOAA/NWS under fire – ‘misappropriated $43 million dollars’ | Watts Up With That?

Jack Hayes, the director of the National Weather Service, stepped down Friday in response to an investigation that top officials at the weather service had misappropriated $43.8 million by giving bonuses and extensions to contractors without proper justification.

Climate change quotes

 [United States Conference of Catholic Bishops] These quotations can be used in parish bulletins, websites and other ways to promote the work of the church in this area.

US Senate Prohibits Military From Using Expensive Green Energy

The Pentagon's investment in green energy requires too much green paper for some in Congress. A sharply divided Senate Armed Services Committee voted this week to prohibit the military from spending money on alternative fuels if the cost exceeds traditional fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and oil.

Benefits of Mandatory Carbon Reporting yet to Convince Finance Bosses - World News Report

Despite Government lobbying by many leading business groups, including the CBI, over a third (38%) of financial directors oppose the introduction of mandatory carbon reporting - according to a survey by Lex Autolease.

Giving further cause for concern, the poll of almost 500 FDs also revealed that nearly two thirds (63%) were not even aware of the Climate Change Act 2008, which obliges the Government to introduce mandatory carbon reporting for all UK businesses.

Abu Dhabi May Inject CO2 in Offshore Fields to Boost Output - Bloomberg

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. may start injecting carbon dioxide instead of natural gas into its
offshore fields to enhance oil recovery, according to an official from the company’s Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Co. unit.

Frost in Austria destroys thousands of hectares of vines | Daily wine news - the latest breaking wine news from around the world | News | decanter.com

Minister ends carbon charge for energy companies - The Irish Times - Mon, May 28, 2012

From next year, Irish energy companies will have to buy these credits at auctions or on the secondary carbon market. This is intended to act as a disincentive to climate change-causing pollution.

But in the current, preliminary phase of emissions trading, European energy companies receive most or all of their allowances free from the EU.

Nevertheless, Irish firms have been passing on a notional “opportunity cost” of carbon credits in their prices, which means that rather than being penalised for polluting they can actually make windfall profits under the emissions trading system.

Why Businesses Need Evidence Before Claiming The Carbon Tax Has Caused Price Rises | Lifehacker Australia

If a business claims that a price rise is linked to the carbon price, the claim must be truthful and have a reasonable basis. If a business decides to make a claim, it should be based on information that is relevant to that particular business. Businesses should be aware that the ACCC can ask for information to support claims about the carbon price.

Twitter / omnologos: Global cooling in the 1970

Global cooling in the 1970s: @wmconnolley writes it was "widely accepted" then goes bonkers to deny that simple truth, http://omnologos.com/why-the-global …

No Globes: A Smog-Filled Snow Globe that Highlights Climate Change | Colossal

This limited edition snow globe titled No Globes was designed by UK firm Dorothy to protest the construction of several dirty coal-fired power stations in 2009. Instead of the idyllic miniature scene usually found inside a snow globe with an accompanying plume of white powder, Dorothy constructed a power plant spewing a disconcerting cloud of black particles.

Washington Post admits: "Six Persian Gulf suppliers provide just 22 percent of all U.S. imports"; no mention of the global warming hoax

Center of gravity in oil world shifts to Americas - The Washington Post

From Canada to Colombia to Brazil, oil and gas production in the Western Hemisphere is booming, with the United States emerging less dependent on supplies from an unstable Middle East. Central to the new energy equation is the United States itself, which has ramped up production and is now churning out 1.7 million more barrels of oil and liquid fuel per day than in 2005...what was once a seemingly unalterable truth — that American oil production would steadily fall while the United States remained heavily reliant on Middle Eastern supplies — is being turned on its head...Six Persian Gulf suppliers provide just 22 percent of all U.S. imports, the nonpartisan U.S. Energy Information Administration said this month. The United States’ neighbors in the Western Hemisphere, meanwhile, provide more than half — a figure that has held steady for years because, as production has fallen in the oil powers of Venezuela and Mexico, it has gone up elsewhere.

Green energy hopes for Hunter - ABC Newcastle NSW - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Hunter residents are being warned a failure to recognise the benefits of a green energy boom could cost them their jobs.

Hundreds of workers have been informed their jobs will go when a Kurri Kurri aluminium smelter shuts its doors.

Doctor Evans says they will not be the last to go.

"Investment in renewable energies will promise a lot more jobs than current investments in coal fired power stations or even in industries that are currently dependent on coal fired power stations," he said.

"But if the Government doesn't invest in that, then we're going to see a lot more job losses in industries like aluminium and including primary industries."

Quadrant Online - The unbearable stench of fishiness

Years of government fear-mongering about evil “carbon” and propaganda about “clean energy” have produced a new inconvenient truth: there is no prospect of turning its contrived climate disaster narrative – one it now desperately wants to disown - into anything other than a very expensive fishy farce.

So the game of climate-change subterfuge continues, with the announcement of a $14 million ($22 million budgeted for next financial year) television campaign: The Red Herring Assistance Package: Benefiting those who need it most.

Designed to advertise compensation payments to offset [partially] increased costs after 1 July - when the carbon [dioxide] tax [price] is imposed on energy service providers (aka “polluters”) – the government ads neither mention the carbon tax nor attempt to explain how it will create a benign Goldilocks climate, one just right for Australia.  

Tropical dams are a false solution to climate change

Tropical dams emit considerably more greenhouse gas emissions than their temperate counterparts yet are being treated as a solution to climate change, warns a report published in Nature Climate Change.

The problem, argue Philip Fearnside and Salvador Pueyo, is the result of errors in calculations by energy companies.

Clean water tops Canadians' enviro concerns - Carman Valley Leader - Manitoba, CA

Only 33% of survey respondents said they worry "a great deal" about global warming and rainforest loss, while 55% said they're very concerned about pollution of drinking water.

..."We see a huge gap between Quebec, where almost a majority are worried about global warming to a great extent, versus Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia where the worry is not as great," he said.

Coletto said the numbers should alter the debate over oilsands development, which environmental activists have attacked because of its greenhouse gas emissions.

"You're not going to win the argument if you keep plugging away at climate change," Coletto said.

 

 

A better way to fight climate change | StarTribune.com

One could certainly imagine government-subsidized R&D that cut the cost of solar panels by 90 percent, or transformed the hydrogen-producing artificial leaf into a viable source of fuel.

Twitter / JackTindale: Odd how Greens tell us we

Odd how Greens tell us we must trust scientists universally on Global Warming but not on nuclear power or GM food. ‪#geeksinthepark‬

It's all so confusing: There's allegedly no war on coal, and environmentalists are also allegedly winning the war on coal?

The ‘war on coal’ is a myth | Grist

However, with the number of coal jobs in key coal states actually on the rise since 2009, it’s more like peacetime prosperity than war in coal country.

The biggest climate victory you never heard of - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

The fight against coal in the US has achieved great success due to activists' passion and commitment.

Carbon tax exemption plan | Rockhampton News | Local News in Rockhampton | Rockhampton Morning Bulletin

WITH an already austere council budget in mind, councillors plan to petition the Federal Government to exempt the Rockhampton Regional Council from paying carbon tax.

Councillor Glenda Mather described the tax as another burden on struggling councils and ratepayers suffering from rising living costs.

KXLH knocked off the air temporarily | KXLH.com | Helena, Montana

Our chief engineer has been dispatched to the remote transmitter site, but reports that there is more than two feet of snow blocking access.

Overheated planet update: Over 70 Indy 500s in a row have been cooler than the 1937 race

Indy 500 in the books, but heat isn't a record

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - The Indianapolis 500 is in the record books, but it won't go down as the hottest race day ever.

The National Weather Service in Indianapolis says the temperature at the end of the race was 91 degrees. That's one degree shy of the race-day record of 92 set in 1937.

Lie to the little people, New York Times columnist says | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman is also a global warming evangelist, so I doubt he thinks lies should be used to justify only big spending

NASA : Ice Age In Eight Years | Real Science

Other than NASA. NCAR, CRU, CIA, Columbia University, University of Colorado, Science News, Time, Newsweek, New York Times, and just about every other news source on the planet ………………. the global cooling scare never happened.

The David Appell conspiracy theory.

Greenland Temps Trending Down

I wonder where the people who’ve been screaming about “unprecedented” global warming have been getting their information from.

You don’t suppose that they might have an agenda that has nothing to do with global warming, do you? Maybe that they simply want to control you?

Snow for Jackson Hole Wyoming

Remember, Jackson Hole is south of Yellowstone National Park.

Quark Soup by David Appell: New Romm Record: 11 F

Reminder: Romm's employer refuses to reveal its funding sources. Perhaps one of them manufacture thermometers?

Land and sea species differ in climate change response: study

Researchers gathered published data from tests determining the physiological temperature limits – tolerance to heating and cooling levels - on 169 cold-blooded marine and terrestrial species, then compared the data with the regions the species inhabit.

They found that while marine animals closely conformed to the temperature regions they could potentially occupy, terrestrial species live farther from the equator than their internal thermometers suggest they can live. In other words warm temperatures aren't limiting them from living in closer to the equator.

Robert Stavins: "Unlike the environmental threats addressed successfully in past U.S. legislation, climate change is essentially unobservable to the general population"

Can Market Forces Really be Employed to Address Climate Change? | Harvard University – Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs – An Economic View of the Environment

But climate change is distinctly different. Unlike the environmental threats addressed successfully in past U.S. legislation, climate change is essentially unobservable to the general population. We observe the weather, not the climate. Until there is an obvious and sudden event – such as a loss of part of the Antarctic ice sheet leading to a dramatic sea-level rise – it is unlikely that public opinion in the United States will provide the bottom-up demand for action that inspired previous congressional action on the environment over the past forty years.

Green energy jobs far short of Obama goal | Campaign 2012 | Washington Examiner

"We can invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy ... to create 5 million new jobs, new energy jobs, all across [the] country, jobs that pay well, jobs that can't be outsourced," Obama, the candidate, told an Ohio crowd.

But the president has fallen far short of his own mark.

The wind industry has actually lost about 10,000 jobs since 2009, even though it doubled its domestic production, the American Wind Energy Association reports. And Republicans were quick to point out that as Obama blocks the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas, the oil and gas industry has added 75,000 jobs since the start of his term.

Obama spent $90 billion of his stimulus package on green energy projects, including weatherization of buildings and development of electric vehicles. Yet, by the end of last year, just 16,100 people landed new jobs in the so-called green industry, Labor Department statistics show, far short of the 200,000 jobs the White House projected it would help create each year.

The lack of progress has some Democrats bemoaning the current state of green energy, particularly when compared with the vision laid out by Obama.

Heavy snow expected in Southwest - Local - The Southwest Booster

Environment Canada is calling for Swift Current to receive rainfall amounts of 15 to 25 millimeters, with a mixture of rain and snow falling throughout the afternoon and the temperature expected reach only 2 Celsius.

The Shaunavon / Maple Creek / Val Marie / Cypress Hills region remains under a snowfall warning, with 10 to 30 centimeters of snow expected over the Cypress Hills today.

Government Confirms Plans For New Coal Plants (With Green Fig Leaf)

A new generation of coal-fired power stations will be built without permanent curbs on emissions, say green groups, who warn that a "whopping loophole" risks a new age of pollution.

Culture splits climate views, not science smarts

What's going on? Basically people with technical smarts just use their abilities to better rationalize their already-held views. And why is that? Fitting in with your friends matters a lot more to people than getting climate science right, suggests Kahan, by email (see his Cultural Cognition website for more details):

"...what an ordinary member of the public believes -- or does, as consumer or voter -- has no practical impact on climate change, and hence no impact on the risk he or she faces. So any mistake that individual makes on the science is really immaterial to his or her personal well-being. What matters a lot more is having a belief that fits in with her group -- it can really ruin your life to hold a position that is at odds with your peers on a controversial issue. So it makes sense that people will pay more attention to "getting it right" relative to their group. It doesn't take a lot of sophisticated thought to be pretty good at that. But if you are capable of technical reasoning -- and you know a lot about science (we measured that too) -- you can do an even better job finding support for his or her group's position and rationalizing away evidence that challenges that position. If that is how things work, then people who are good at quantitative reasoning will be even more polarized."

My Second-Most-Remarkable Moment

Vahrenholt’s left credentials, in contrast, have hit the German media full on. He’s had big-time interviews in Der Spiegal and Die Welt, and a TV production. Now the whole of Europe has been forced to look again at the 1,500-year cycle—in a period when the earth’s temperatures are no longer rising. The climate models’ predictions have been blown out! Does the solar-cloud theory now sound more plausible? What a remarkable turn of events!

Announcing the PL Green Weenie Award | Power Line

Second, let’s assume for the sake of discussion that the estimate of 150,000 heat deaths is completely correct!  The second major failing of environmentalists is the inability to weigh tradeoffs.  The 150,000 death estimate is roughly half as many as will be killed by a favorite environmental policy already on course: the CAFE standards requiring all cars to get much higher gas mileage.  Even the U.S. government admits this (you can find some of the most recent technical NHTSA papers here; the chart below shows one of the most simple approaches to the subject.  See also this older study.)  The mid-point estimate is that the new mileage standards, which will require smaller, lighter-weight cars to attain, will result in somewhere around 300,000 additional highway fatalities over the next century—twice as many as rising heat will supposedly cause.  So congratulations, enviros—just one of your preferred solutions to this problem will kill twice as many people as your program will save.

Texas Precipitation 2.5 times as large this year compared to 2011 « Reasonable Doubt on Climate Change

Last year climate scientists were in a tizzy over the Texas drought:

Gov. Perry, who failed to stop the drought with his prayer proclamation, yesterday dismissed any worries about the Texas drought while speaking at the Iowa State Fair. Perry said, “we’ll be fine. As my dad says, it’ll rain. It always does.“

1974 : Drought And Flood Blamed On Global Cooling | Real Science

Temperatures had dropped more than half a degree prior to these droughts and floods. Climatologists now blame the identical phenomenon on global warming.

A Short Guide To The Climate Impact Of Coal Exports | ThinkProgress

It all comes down to the difference between the cost of producing and transporting Powder River Basin coal and the value of that coal in Asian markets.  That difference appears to be huge.

PRB coal isn’t dirt cheap.  It’s cheaper (than, say, top soil or gravel).

How many gallons of gasoline would it take to charge an iPhone? | ExxonMobil's Perspectives Blog

...Bill Colton, ExxonMobil’s vice president for Corporate Strategic Planning, often starts the discussion using this fact to put it in perspective:

All of the energy concentrated in one gallon of gasoline is enough to charge an iPhone once a day for almost 20 years.

$700,000 for believers to convert skeptics – but nothing for skeptical science « JoNova: Science, carbon, climate and tax

From the 2011 Australian Research Council report: as much as $45,700,000 was spent on An Environmentally Sustainable Australia in 2011.

The cash cow that is “Climate Change” is so loaded that over a six year period, $718,000 dollars of ARC funds has flowed to “believers” (their terminology) to study and convert dissenters.

Quark Soup by David Appell: New Emissions Data: BAU

...I don't get that -- climate models have no where near that level of accuracy. So what are they doing by giving the world the impression that future warming can be precisely determined by how much fossil fuel we burn?

Obama Silent On Climate Change In Big Iowa Energy Speech | ThinkProgress

How lame is it that a high-end coffeehouse chain is more comfortable talking about the gravest threat to the nation’s health and well-being than the President of the United States?

Global temperature continues to track 2011 « Reasonable Doubt on Climate Change

Meanwhile its still quite a bit cooler than 2010:

Chaos and resignations and "grand corruption" in the Maldives: Can we all rest assured that the Maldives' $160 million in carbon dioxide hoax swindle money is being spent wisely?

Challenges to climate change governance: Transparency Maldives | Minivan News

According to a preliminary report on Climate Governance Integrity by Transparency Maldives, approximately US$160.5 million dollars is currently being spent on various projects through externally funded grants and loans.

However, the report stated that according to the Government, management of mitigation and adaptation projects has proven to be a difficult task as a result of limitations in human resources, institutional capacity, and local expertise in the field.

...It noted that the former government appointed two presidential advisors – Mike Mason, an expert on renewable energy, carbon finance, and offsetting, and Mark Lynus, an environment activist and journalist – on climate change related policies, “both of whom resigned following the change of power on February 7. No new advisors have been appointed to date.”...

The other major body providing expert advice on adaptation and mitigation efforts, including achieving carbon neutrality by 2020, was the Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC), a 15 member body chaired by President Mohamed Waheed while he was Vice President. The report noted that in 2011 the CCAC only met twice, “even though they initially planned to meet every fortnight according to the government press statement [at the time].”...Another major challenge to climate governance is the absense of a comprehensive database on climate change projects in the Maldives, Zahir said.

“There is not a single institution that has a complete database on climate projects. It is very difficult to gather information and this makes it harder to incorporate anti-corruption safeguards,” Zahir added.

...“Corruption in the Maldives is grand corruption, unlike neighbouring countries where much of it is petty corruption,” Rasheed said. “In the Maldives there is corruption across the judiciary, parliament and members of the executive, all of it interlinked, and a systemic failure of the systems in place to address this. That why we score so low.”

Slow progress since Earth Summit 20 years ago | JunkScience.com

“Let’s consider climate change like you are in a car trying to stop before reaching a ledge. We are applying the brakes but we are still far away from decelerating enough not to fall from the ledge,” Wael Hmaidan, director of activist group Climate Action Network, told AFP on the sidelines of the talks which ended Friday.

Moms Taking Their Clean Air Message To The EPA | ThinkProgress

Global warming is a children’s health emergency, and we need to address it now, before it’s too late.

Ice — Like The Day After Tomorrow, Except with British People | BeyondHollywood.com

Undetected, a giant piece of ice the size of a small country breaks off the Antarctic continent and becomes a major world threat as it heads on an inexorable course north towards the UK, Europe and the US. Swathed in its own fog, and carrying its own devastating weather patterns the frozen colossus triggers a series of disasters and plunges the world’s temperatures into steep decline leaving the world to contemplate the dawning of a new ice age.  [Hat tip: B. Lemon]

Popular Technology.net: The Truth about Judith Curry

Judith Curry is not a skeptic but a hurricane alarmist who had an alleged epiphany after Climategate and now seeks to be some sort of arbiter of  scientific integrity. Her history of trust building includes accusing world leading hurricane expert, Dr. William Gray of "brain fossilization" and that, "Nobody except a few groupies wants to hear what he has to say" for his objections to her alarmist position on hurricanes. Curry has derided skeptics as "deniers" in both a testimony to congress and in the peer-reviewed literature, apparently in attempts at building "trust". Not even the most moderate of skeptics, Bjorn Lomborg was safe, "he fails to appreciate the risks that global warming bring to us all". Regarding the corruption exposed by Climategate she incomprehensibly believes, "I don't think anybody’s come at this with bad motives". She even defended Michael Mann by claiming that Steve McIntyre only found, "relatively minor errors" in Mann's Hockey Stick papers. But when it comes to the alarmist  English major Chris Mooney, author of such amicable titles as the "The Republican War on Science", she gave him a five star review on Amazon for "Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming" calling it, "Science writing at its best".

Global climate talks timeline | Environment | guardian.co.uk

How the global climate talks to thrash out a successor to the Kyoto protocol have progressed, from the run-up to the Copenhagen climate summit to 2011 negotiations in Durban, South Africa

More Coal, More Gas, More Nuclear: German Government May Abandon Green Energy Transition

The German government no longer believes in the green energy transition. Doubts are growing in the ruling coalition government that the ecological project can succeed.

Wet windy weather spoils Memorial Day plans - ABC4.com - Salt Lake City, Utah News

emorial Day weekend is supposed to be the unofficial start of summer. You know… spending time in the sun, boating, having fun camping up in the mountains, but with gloomy clouds, rain, chilly winds, and even snow hitting the Wasatch Front, it looks like Mother Nature missed the memo.

Freeze Warning

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PUEBLO HAS ISSUED A FREEZE WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO 7 AM MDT MONDAY. * LOCATION...THE SAN LUIS VALLEY. * TEMPERATURES...DROPPING BELOW FREEZING IN THE CENTER OF THE VALLEY AFTER MIDNIGHT...WITH A HARD FREEZE LIKELY BY EARLY MONDAY MORNING.

Pensioners to get carbon tax compensation

Pensioners will receive their first carbon price compensation on Monday.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says single pensioners will receive a one-off payment of $250 and couples $380. The amounts apply to full and part pensions.

"This assistance is there to help people with the flow-through impact of putting a price on carbon," Ms Gillard told reporters in Canberra on Sunday.

Brooklyn Apartments to Generate Their Own Power - NYTimes.com

AS the standards for environmentally friendly construction rise, a Brooklyn developer has a new goal: renovate an apartment building so it generates as much energy as it uses.

Twitter / BigJoeBastardi: Shot of much colder air i

Shot of much colder air into the midwest means June to get off to very cool start. People sweating this weekend with need sweaters nxt