U.S. watchdog: EPA took shortcut on climate finding

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took a shortcut in laying the groundwork to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, a government watchdog said on Wednesday in a report that could fuel Republican efforts to block the agency's new rules on climate.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/28/us-usa-epa-climate-idUSTRE78R4H220110928 

Ivar Giaever Resignes from APS over AGW position

Norwegian born Nobel prize winning physicist resigns from APS.  He must not know about the sad plight of Norwegian lemmings.

On 13 September 2011 Giaever resigned from the American Physical Society over its official position that "the evidence is incontrovertible."

Giaever in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivar_Giaever

When your done calculating your Carbon Footprint make sure you calculate your Slavery Footprint

It seems to be the next absurdity, but it actually makes a good point (especially when compared to the uselessness of a carbon footprint.)

http://slaveryfootprint.org/

The American 'allergy' to global warming: Why?

A long story by AP on AGW "deniers."   However, they had no room to discuss the actual theories of the deniers.  Just that they tend to be increasingly right-wing.  It does talk about the "millions of dollars" spent by ExxonMobil and others to fund "denier" research, but does not discuss the billions of dollars in government grants used to fund (and direct) pro-AGW research.

Link: HERE

EDITOR'S NOTE: Climate change has already provoked debate in a U.S. presidential campaign barely begun. An Associated Press journalist draws on decades of climate reporting to offer a retrospective and analysis on global warming and the undying urge to deny.

The Australian scholar Hamilton sought to explain why in his 2010 book, "Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change."

In an interview, he said he found a "transformation" from the 1990s and its industry-financed campaign, to an America where climate denial "has now become a marker of cultural identity in the 'angry' parts of the United States."

FW: AlGore losses it

Al Gore calls B.S. on corporate polluters

By Troy Hooper | 08.05.11 | 4:00 pm

 

Al Gore is pissed.

The former vice president dropped in on an Aspen Institute media forum titled "Networks and Citizenship" on Thursday and railed against corporate evildoers who put profit above society.

Gore referenced the book "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming" by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, which tells of how petroleum, steel, autos, utilities and others enlisted lobbyists to cloud the climate debate.

Gore recalled how not long ago tobacco giants "succeeded in delaying the implementation of the surgeon general's report for 40 years – 40 years! In every one of those 40 years the average number of Americans killed by cigarettes each year exceeded the total number of Americans killed in all of World War II: 450,000 per year. My sister was one of them. … It was evil, evil, evil."

The model of media manipulation used then, Gore said, "was transported whole cloth into the climate debate. And some of the exact same people — I can go down a list of their names — are involved in this. And so what do they do? They pay pseudo-scientists to pretend to be scientists to put out the message: 'This climate thing, it's nonsense. Man-made CO2 doesn't trap heat. It may be volcanoes.' Bullshit! 'It may be sun spots.' Bullshit! 'It's not getting warmer.' Bullshit!" Gore exclaimed.

"When you go and talk to any audience about climate, you hear them washing back at you the same crap over and over and over again," he continued. "There's no longer a shared reality on an issue like climate even though the very existence of our civilization is threatened. People have no idea! … It's no longer acceptable in mixed company, meaning bipartisan company, to use the goddamn word climate. It is not acceptable. They have polluted it to the point where we cannot possibly come to an agreement on it."

Gore lamented the diminished role that reason and fact-based analysis play in modern U.S. politics.

During the debt-ceiling debate, American Crossroads, Americans for Prosperity and a collection of smaller groups followed tobacco's blueprint for bombarding the media with its messages, he said.

"Unnoticed in Washington and New York as the debt-ceiling debate was going on, the ratio of television advertisements was nine to one on the 'Don't-lift-the-debt-ceiling debate. Spending is the problem.' And now we're going to tip the country back into recession. It's absolutely insane," Gore said.

"Mark my words on this: we became the greatest country on earth because we made better decisions than any other nation," he continued. "And we made better decisions because we used shared consciousness, shared reality, rule of reason, best evidence, democratic discourse, free debate to figure out what's more likely than not to be the best decision here. It didn't always work, but it worked a hell of a lot better. Since we adopted this new system we are making catastrophic decisions that have massive consequences. The Iraq invasion. What just happened with macro-economic policy. It really is extremely difficult."

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Sent from my iPad

We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304793504576434122693094168.html

Associated Press

Light bulbs manufactured in Mullins, S.C.

The light-bulb wars are back on.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu came out swinging Friday against a House bill that would repeal a 2007 federal law effectively outlawing older forms of incandescent bulbs—an effort at energy conservation that has inflamed a wide swath of Americans who don't care for the more expensive alternatives.

In a conference call with reporters, Mr. Chu said the more-efficient bulbs required would save consumers money over the life of the product, even if the up-front price is higher.

"We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money," he said.

Sent from my iPad

Australia to hit nation's 500 worst polluters with tax; companies to pay $25 per ton of carbon

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/australia-to-hit-nations-500-worst-polluters-with-tax-companies-to-pay-25-per-ton-of-carbon/2011/07/09/gIQAV01H6H_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

SYDNEY — Australia will force its 500 worst polluters to pay 23 Australian dollars ($25) for every ton of carbon dioxide they emit, with the government promising to compensate households hit with higher power bills under a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions unveiled Sunday.

“We generate more carbon pollution per head than any other country in the developed world,” Gillard told reporters in Canberra as she released details of the tax, which will go into effect on July 1, 2012. “We’ve got a lot of work to do to hold our place in the race that the world is running.”

“The fact that we have any price at all is testament to all Australians who demanded the government take action on climate change,” Greenpeace Australia Pacific CEO Linda Selvey said in a statement. “But equally, the fact it is such a low price, with such limited coverage is testament to the power of the big polluters to dominate Australia’s political leadership.”

Conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott, an outspoken critic of the plan, insisted it will drive up the cost of living for millions of Australians and will do nothing to help the environment.

“It’s socialism masquerading as environmentalism,” Abbott told reporters. “It’s a package which is all economic pain for no environmental gain.”

Luke-Warmer

There is finally a term to describe me: a Luke-Warmer.  One the believes that while human activity is having an effect on the climate, the change is modest and easily adaptable.

Re: On The Hijacking of the American Meteorological Society (AMS)

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/16/on-the-hijacking-of-the-american-meteorological-society-ams/

On Jun 16, 2011, at 10:48 PM, David Pastalaniec <dpastalaniec@gmail.com> wrote:

Guest post by Bill Gray Professor Emeritus, Colorado State University

(AMS Fellow, Charney Award recipient, and over 50-year member)

June 2011

I am very disappointed at the downward path the AMS has been following for the last 10-15 years in its advocacy of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hypothesis. The society has officially taken a position many of us AMS members do not agree with. We believe that humans are having little or no significant influence on the global climate and that the many Global Circulation Climate Model (GCMs) results and the four IPCC reports do not realistically give accurate future projections. To take this position which so many of its members do not necessarily agree with shows that the AMS is following more of a political than a scientific agenda.