The One & Only Global Warming Thread, Part 7 (including environmentalism and energy)

[wmansir]

movielib, any thoughts on Krugman's latest article?

[classicman2]

Why would anyone pay any attention to what Paul Krugman says on the subject?

[Red Dog]

I read that ridiculous piece yesterday. "Treason against the planet." And then he has the gall to criticize hyperbole at the end of the piece.

[movielib]

Originally Posted by wmansir

movielib, any thoughts on Krugman's latest article?

What classicman2 and Red Dog said. Yes, I read it yesterday but thought it's so silly, why even bother?

[movielib]

Co-author of suppressed EPA report appears on Fox News.



Carlin is obviously unaccustomed to public speaking. But he did a decent job. The not too bright Steve Doocy twice called him a scientist but he is an economist (but does have an undergraduate degree in physics). I suspect Carlin either didn't catch that or was too polite to correct him. He seemed very nervous. He was very careful not to overstate the situation although it seemed he was being prodded to do so.

[movielib]

Originally Posted by movielib

Waxman-Markey growing.

Over last weekend from 946 to 1201 pages.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...,7298930.story

300 page amendment added today.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/2...-with-ap-spin/

http://www.rules.house.gov/111/Speci...hr2998_111.pdf

I'm not sure if there is any overlap between these two.
...

When the bill was voted on no one even seemed to know how long the bill was, let alone what was actually in it. I tried to find out yesterday and couldn't. All I could find online were older versions.

Finally, with thanks to Stephen Milloy of junkscience.com, here is the link to the full 1428 page bill:

http://greenhellblog.files.wordpress...r2454final.pdf

Two weeks ago this bill was 946 pages long which already seemed insane. It grew another 50%!

I don't listen to Rush that much but I caught a little of his show today. He was saying anyone who would vote for this bill must be insane. I can't disagree. Change the name from the House Chamber to the House Asylum.

[classicman2]

Dick Morris just stated that he knows global warming does exist, and he believes that 1/3+ is caused my man.

That does for me. I've changed my mind. Dick Morris can't be wrong.

[Red Dog]

Originally Posted by classicman2

Dick Morris just stated that he knows global warming does exist, and he believes that 1/3+ is caused my man.

Now that's scientific precision.

[classicman2]

Has this guy ever been right - except when he advised Clinton not to fess up?

[movielib]

Democratic WV senators not too keen on ration 'n' tax.

http://sundaygazettemail.com/News/200906290584

June 29, 2009
Byrd, Rockefeller wary of global warming bill
By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- One of West Virginia's U.S. senators is opposed to the landmark global warming bill that passed the House Friday, while the other has "serious concerns" about the measure.

Aides to Sen. Robert C. Byrd issued a statement Monday that said Byrd "cannot support" the American Clean Energy and Security Act "in its present form."

Sen. Jay Rockefeller's office also issued a statement that said Rockefeller "continues to have serious concerns about the House bill."

Byrd and Rockefeller are both Democrats, and their party needs 60 votes in the Senate to block a potential Republican filibuster once the legislation reaches the floor. Currently, Democrats hold 59 [of course that just became 60] of the Senate's 100 seats.

On Friday, the House narrowly passed the bill, which caps carbon dioxide emissions and sets up a market-based program for trading and selling greenhouse emissions permits.

West Virginia's House members, Democrats Nick Rahall and Alan Mollohan, and Republican Shelley Moore Capito, all voted against the bill. Among other things, they cited concerns about the bill's impact on the coal industry.

The United Mine Workers union did not endorse the bill, but said it provided a "remarkable" amount of money for carbon capture and storage projects that would ensure the "future of coal will be intact."

In his statement Monday, Byrd said, "I continue to believe that clean coal can be a 'green energy.'

"Those of us who understand coal's great potential in our quest for energy independence must continue to work diligently in shaping a climate bill that will ensure access to affordable energy for West Virginians," Byrd said. "I remain bullish about the future of coal, and am so very proud of the miners who labor and toil in the coalfields of West Virginia."

The statement from Rockefeller's office said, "Senator Rockefeller followed the process in the House on the climate change legislation very closely, and he continues to have serious concerns about the House bill.

"The Senate process is in the beginning stages, and Senator Rockefeller will continue working with his colleagues to make sure West Virginia's interests are represented," the statement said.

The key words are "cannot support in its present form." If the House bill had remained "in its present form" back when it was in committee, it wouldn't have been voted out of the committee. Deals were made. Then if it had remained "in its present form" it wouldn't have passed the House. More deals were made. We know what Waxman did. What will Boxer do now?

It is somewhat reassuring that even after the House deals, WV's Democratic reps still voted against it. Let's hope Byrd and Rockefeller have such resolve.

Let's also hope some other Democratic senators from coal, manufacturing and agricultural states stand up to one of the worst pieces of legislation in the country's history. I don't have much confidence that my two - Kohl and Feingold - are very likely to vote against it.

[kvrdave]

Mine are for it, and my governor is trying to do the same on the state level. Even my largely dem legislature won't do it, so she is trying to do executive orders to force it.

[Red Dog]

Warner and Webb are my Senators and they don't exactly embrace hippy-type stuff, so maybe one or both of will see this crap for what it is.

[movielib]

This is the kind of deal which was inserted into the ration 'n' tax bill to get it passed:

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009...-climate-bill/

Rep. Kaptur gets $3.5 billion sweetener in climate bill
Democrats offered concession to Ohio's Kaptur

By Edward Felker (Contact)

Originally published 04:45 a.m., July 1, 2009, updated 09:31 a.m., July 1, 2009

When House Democratic leaders were rounding up votes Friday for the massive climate-change bill, they paid special attention to their colleagues from Ohio who remained stubbornly undecided.

They finally secured the vote of one Ohioan, veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, the old-fashioned way. They gave her what she wanted - a new federal power authority, similar to Washington state's Bonneville Power Administration, stocked with up to $3.5 billion in taxpayer money available for lending to renewable energy and economic development projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, included the Kaptur project in a 310-page amendment to the legislation unveiled at 3 a.m. Friday, just hours before the bill was to be debated on the House floor. The amendment was packed with other vote-getting provisions, both large and small, that had been sought by dozens of wavering Democrats.

The wheeling and dealing proved successful. Mr. Waxman and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, backed by the personal lobbying of President Obama, won over enough lawmakers to pass the bill narrowly Friday evening, 219-212.

Miss Kaptur trumpeted her handiwork on her congressional Web site. She said the new federal authority would bring new economic development to Ohio and the struggling Great Lakes region and would also ensure "regional equity" with other parts of the country that already have such programs.

"The federal government has been subsidizing infrastructure and economic development in other parts of the country since the New Deal. Now, it's our turn," she said. "With the Midwest taking the brunt of the economic crisis, my priority was to bring our region additional tools to create jobs and promote energy independence."

Her spokesman, Steve Fought, said Miss Kaptur modeled the fund after Mr. Obama's economic stimulus package, which gave similar-sized pots of money to the Western Area Power Administration and the Bonneville Power Administration. Those two Department of Energy administrations serve the Far West and the Western Plains states by issuing similar kinds ofloans.

The provision empowers the Energy and Commerce departments to recommend to Congress the final structure of the new federal lending authority. In the meantime, the provision authorized $25 million in startup money in 2010.

Miss Kaptur saw the struggling climate-change bill as a vehicle that was strong enough to carry the project into law.

"When she saw this coming down the pike, she saw an opportunity to attach something she's kicked around for a long time," Mr. Fought said. The inclusion of the program in the legislation, he added, "made it possible for her to entertain voting for the bill."

In the end, Miss Kaptur, a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee and the House Budget Committee, was among a minority of Midwestern and Southern Democrats to vote for the bill. "It was not the factor, but a factor, in her decision to vote for the bill," Mr. Fought said.

Although the program would benefit his home state, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, also of Ohio, criticized the provision during a more-than-hourlong speech Friday evening. He said an Ohio-based power authority was unneeded because electricity already flows well through Ohio without a new federal power authority.

"We do it today," he said. "We are doing it already."

Whether the plan becomes law now depends on the Senate, which has yet to adopt the provision. No companion proposal was included in the energy bill that passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee recently, and the full chamber has yet to begin writing climate-change legislation.

Many of the details of the authority would be determined by the Energy Department. It would be the first new federal power administration created since 1977, when the Western regional power authority began operating.

Yes, Waxman got the bill passed the old fashioned way - he bought the votes - with our money.

Few of the reps had any idea what was in this bill, other than their own deals, if they were smart enough to have been against the bill before they were for it. From what I can gather, the complete bill wasn't even posted on the internet until yesterday, four days after the vote.

[movielib]

New poll says Americans not much in line with ration'n'tax.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...global_warming

56% Don’t Want To Pay More To Fight Global Warming
Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Fifty-six percent (56%) of Americans say they are not willing to pay more in taxes and utility costs to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, taken since the climate change bill was passed on Friday, finds that 21% of Americans are willing to pay $100 more per year for cleaner energy and to counter global warming. Only 14% are willing to pay more than that amount.

Fifty-two percent (52%) of all adults say it is more important to keep the cost of energy as low as possible than it is to develop clean, environmentally friendly sources of energy. But 41% disagree and say developing cleaner, greener energy sources is the priority.

Sixty-three percent (63%) rate creating jobs as more important than taking steps to stop global warming. For 22%, stopping global warming is more important.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of Democrats believe it is more important to develop clean, environmentally friendly sources of energy than to keep the cost of energy down. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Republicans and 57% of unaffiliated adults disagree and put the emphasis on keeping the cost of energy down.

As is often the case, there’s a telling division between the views of populist or Mainstream America and the Political Class. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Mainstream Americans say they are not willing to pay higher taxes and utility costs to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming, compared to only 17% of the Political Class.

For 57% of the Political Class taking steps to stop global warming is more important than job creation, while 71% of Mainstream America believe job creation is more important.

Forty percent (40%) of U.S. voters say global warming is a very serious problem, but voters are narrowly divided over whether it is caused by human activity or long-term planetary trends. In recent surveys, voters have been moving away from the idea that humans are to blame.

Americans have mixed feelings about the historic climate change bill that passed the House on Friday, but 42% say it will hurt the U.S. economy.

The bill is intended to reduce heat-trapping gases that some scientists say cause global warming. Even its supporters say the measure, which includes a so-called “cap and trade” plan,” will have a major impact on the economy.

President Obama is a champion of the bill and is prepared to sign it into law. But while the bill passed narrowly in the House, it faces tougher opposition in the Senate. The legislation has little GOP support because of questions about the science behind it and the potential cost.

Another major initiative promoted by the president also divides the general public. Fifty percent (50%) favor the president’s health reform plan while 45% are opposed.

In May, only 24% of voters could correctly identify the “cap-and-trade” plan as something that deals with environmental issues.

It is quite common to find Americans more favorable toward new government proposals until a price tag is attached. For example, Americans are evenly divided over the idea of making free health care available to every one in the country, but opposition grows dramatically when their own health insurance is involved.

"21% of Americans are willing to pay $100 more per year for cleaner energy and to counter global warming. Only 14% are willing to pay more than that amount."

Even the much (justly) maligned CBO study said the bill would raise energy costs by $175 per family annually. That knocks out almost all the rest of the support right there. But the CBO study way underestimates this bill's cost. See:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/ene...ent/wm2503.cfm

If the American people understood this bill, no one would be left who supported it except Al Gore. He doesn't care how much more his energy costs go up because he has already made $100 million from his global warming empire and will make much more with his offset business. And anyway, he already spends twenty times what we do for energy (but that's OK since he buys offsets from himself).

[movielib]

(See: The One & Only Global Warming Thread, Part VI)

More on cosmic rays:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/0...e-end-is-near/

Message in the CLOUD for Warmists: The end is near?
1 07 2009

You’ve probably all heard of Svensmark and the Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) to cloud cover modulation theory by now. Lot’s of warmists say it is “discredited”. However, CERN in Switzerland isn’t following that thinking, and after getting some encouraging results in the CLOUD06 experiment, they have funded a much larger and more comprehensive CLOUD09 experiment. I figure if it is “discredited”, a bunch of smart guys and gals like CERN wouldn’t be ramping up the investigation. There’s also word now of a new correlation:



Correlation recently reported between solar/GCR variability and temperature in Siberia from glacial ice core, 30 yr lag (ie. ocean currents may be part of response)

I get so many tips now it is hard to choose, but this one is a gem. If you look at nothing else this month, please take the time to download the slide show from CERN’s Jasper Kirkby at the end of this article.

He does a superb job of tying it all together. I found Kirkby’s slide show quite interesting, and I’ve grabbed some slides for our WUWT readers. He proposes a GCR to cloud droplet mechanism, which to me, makes sense meteorologically. He also touches on the possibility that the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) may have been shifted due to GCR modulation during the LIA/Maunder Minimum. This ties in with Willis Eschenbach’s theories of the ITCZ being a “thermostatic mechanism” for the planet with some amplification effects. – Anthony

Norm Potter writes in Tips and Notes for WUWT with this-

The end is near for the warmists, I suspect. This month, Jasper Kirkby of CERN explained the Centre’s CLOUD experiment, which is moving forward:

“The current understanding of climate change in the industrial age is that it is predominantly caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, with relatively small natural contributions due to solar irradiance and volcanoes. However, palaeoclimatic reconstructions show that the climate has frequently varied on 100-year time scales during the Holocene (last 10 kyr) by amounts comparable to the present warming – and yet the mechanism or mechanisms are not understood. Some of these reconstructions show clear associations with solar variability, which is recorded in the light radio-isotope archives that measure past variations of cosmic ray intensity. However, despite the increasing evidence of its importance, solar-climate variability is likely to remain controversial until a physical mechanism is established.

“Estimated changes of solar irradiance on these time scales appear to be too small to account for the climate observations. This raises the question of whether cosmic rays may directly affect the climate, providing an effective indirect solar forcing mechanism. Indeed recent satellite observations – although disputed – suggest that cosmic rays may affect clouds. This talk presents an overview of the palaeoclimatic evidence for solar/cosmic ray forcing of the climate, and reviews the possible physical mechanisms. These will be investigated in the CLOUD experiment which begins to take data at the CERN PS later this year.”

I found this side on page 29 to be plausible from a meteorological standpoint:
Kirkby_slide_page29-mechanism



Here is a slide showing the ITCZ shift he’s proposing:



And here is the data and some conjectures, obviously more data is needed. However what is seen so far certainly seems far from “discredited” as some warmists say.
Kirkby_slide_page34



In the conclusions of his slide show, Kirkby outlines the state of knowledge and areas of investigation:

• Climate has continually varied in the past, and the causes are not well understood – especially on the 100 year timescalerelevant for today’s climate change

• Strong evidence for solar-climate variability, but no established mechanism. A cosmic ray influence on clouds is a leading candidate

• CLOUD at CERN aims to study and quantify the cosmic raycloud mechanism in a controlled laboratory experiment

• The question of whether – and to what extent – the climate is influenced by solar/cosmic ray variability remains central to our understanding of anthropogenic climate change

More info, see: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/ – the CERN Colloquium

Download Kirkby’s Slide show (Large 7.8 MB PDF, be patient)
http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/acc...s&confId=52576

Dozens of top scientists from dozens of top institutions are not only interested in the CLOUD experiments but are taking part in them. But the alarmists simply wave their magic wands and dismiss even the possibility. But then, how could an actual experiment be better than their models with their made to order parameters? How can the real world be more real than their virtual world?

[movielib]

Worst piece of legislation in US history?

http://www.rollcall.com/news/36393-1.html

The Costs of the Cap-and-Trade Bill
By Robert Zubrin
Special to Roll Call
July 1, 2009, 9:45 a.m.

On June 25, the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate stabilization act, which would institute a cap-and-trade system to restrict Americans’ carbon emissions. While proponents of the bill have sought to argue that the costs of such a system would be negligible, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the bill proposes a massive and highly regressive tax on the U.S. economy, and could potentially cause not only extensive business failures, unemployment and privation within our borders, but starvation among poorer populations elsewhere.

To understand this, it is only necessary to look at the numbers. According to a report issued by the Environmental Protection Agency in April, by 2015 the price of carbon emission indulgences required by the bill for industries to operate could be expected to run between $13 and $17 per ton of CO2 emitted. It may be noted that this estimate was made by an Obama administration agency highly favorable to the bill and that it did not take into account the very real possibility that speculators might act aggressively to buy up all the available indulgences and then, acting like ticket scalpers, force industrial users to purchase them at greatly inflated prices. So these EPA figures for carbon emission costs should be viewed as minimal. That said, let’s stipulate the $15/ton midrange of the EPA estimate, and see what it implies.

The United States emits about 9 billion tons of CO2 per year. Therefore, at a rate of $15/ton fee for emission indulgences, the bill would impose a tax of $135 billion per year on the nation. Divided by the U.S. population of 300 million, that works out to a cost of $450 per year levied on every American man, woman or child, or $1,800 for a family of four. While for wealthy individuals like Al Gore such an impost might represent a mere pittance, for working families struggling hard to make ends meet it would be a very significant burden.

But that is not even the worst part of it. As a result of the markup of carbon costs, a lot of those working families will be out of work and unable to pay their existing bills, let alone new ones. Consider: Burning one ton of coal produces about three tons of CO2. So a tax of $15 per ton of CO2 emitted is equivalent to a tax of $45/ton on coal. The price of Eastern anthracite coal runs in the neighborhood of $45/ton, so under the proposed system, such coal would be taxed at a rate of about 100 percent. The price of Western bituminous coal is currently about $12/ton. This coal would therefore be taxed at a rate of almost 400 percent. Coal provides half of America’s electricity, so such extraordinary imposts could easily double the electric bills paid by consumers and businesses across half the nation. In addition, many businesses, such as the metals and chemical industries, use a great deal of coal directly. By doubling or potentially even quadrupling the cost of their most basic feedstock, the cap-and-trade system’s indulgence fees could make many such businesses uncompetitive and ultimately throw millions of working men and women onto the unemployment lines.

A gallon of petroleum-derived liquid fuel produces about 20 pounds, or 1 percent of a ton, of CO2 when burned. But it takes about 1.5 gallons of oil to produce one gallon of refined liquid fuel. So a $15/ton tax on CO2 emissions will also cause an increase in the price of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel on the order of $0.22/gallon. This will not only hit consumers’ pockets, but increase transport costs throughout the economy, thereby disabling businesses and increasing unemployment levels still more. While harming the economy, such a gas tax will do nothing material toward the truly essential goal of decreasing America’s dependence on foreign oil. Indeed, the bill’s dramatic hikes in electricity costs will have the opposite effect, since only 3 percent of America’s electricity is derived from oil, and by forcefully increasing electric power costs, the bill will actually discourage adoption of electric means of transport, including mass-transit systems today and potentially plug-in hybrid cars in the future. America’s dependence on foreign oil could be substantially relieved by legislation requiring that new cars sold in the United States be flex-fueled and thus able to run equally well on alcohol fuels derived from a multitude of nonpetroleum sources, but the bill’s provisions in this area are so weak as to be worthless.

But all these bad aspects of the Waxman-Markey bill pale before its potential impact on the world’s food supply. America’s agricultural sector is one of the greatest success stories in human history. In 1930, hunger still stalked the entire globe. Not just in Africa, India and China, but even in Europe and America, the struggle to simply get enough food to live on still preoccupied billions of people. Since 1930, the world population has tripled. But instead of going hungrier, people nearly everywhere are now eating much better. This miracle is the work of American farmers, who have not only produced huge surpluses to feed the world, but used the income gained from such good work to pioneer ever more advanced techniques that have enabled farmers everywhere to grow more. This progress is still continuing. In 2007, Iowa alone produced more corn than the entire United States did in 1947, and the 300,000 American corn growers as a whole produced 784 billion pounds of corn, an amount sufficient to supply 130 pounds of corn per year to every person on the planet. But this miracle depends upon the availability of cheap fertilizer and pesticides, which in turn require carbon-based process energy to produce. If you tax carbon, you tax fertilizer and pesticides. If you tax these things, you tax food, and by no small amount. A $15/ton CO2 tax would increase fertilizer production costs directly by about $60/ton, with the cap-and-trade bill’s increased transport costs inflating the burden still more. That’s enough to make many farmers use less fertilizer, and less fertilizer means less food.

To get a sense of what it would mean for farmers to abandon fertilizer, it is only necessary to go to the supermarket and compare the price of the “organic” produce, grown without chemical fertilizer, to the regular produce, which, while just as nutritious, typically costs less than half as much. It is one thing for wealthy organic food buffs to voluntarily pay such high prices for their food — that is their right. But to impose such costs for basic groceries on everyone else, and particularly the poor, as part of a largely symbolic effort to try to change the weather, is self-indulgent in the extreme.

In the 220 years of our republic, there may have been worse pieces of legislation enacted by Congress than the Waxman-Markey bill, but none readily comes to mind. The Senate needs to take a stand and stop this disastrous act from passing into law.

Robert Zubrin is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

[movielib]

Not being (strictly speaking) a scientist only counts when he or she is a skeptic.

http://planetgore.nationalreview.com...FlYzcxNTZkYjQ=

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Batman’s a Scientist [Chris Horner]

Anyone with even a casual acquaintance with the global-warming industry knows that this crowd's first response to any challenge, of any sort, from any source, is to go ad hominem. When the climate facts are not helpful, ad hom is their way to change the subject. They know what they need to know — that climate legislation is the instrument at hand for long-desired "social change," and whatever means that are necessary will be employed. To these people, facts and logic are for losers —and often enough, ad hominem is used to conceal the ideologues' staggering ignorance on the issues (ignorance of the sort that President Obama revealed with his recent claim that carbon dioxide "contaminate[s] the water we drink and pollute[s] the air we breathe" — he said, opening a Perrier and exhaling a sigh).

So when the EPA got caught suppressing the sole substantive report submitted as part of its "internal deliberation" over whether and how to seize the energy sector of the U.S. economy, you knew ad hominem was sure to follow. In the Washington Times story about the suppressed report, we read that a spokeswoman for EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson — who made the determination that CO2 threatens the world — "noted that the memo's author, Alan Carlin, is an economist, not a climate scientist." Funny how people tasked with certain jobs become unqualified only when they are inconvenient.

Carlin is, indeed, a Ph.D. economist from MIT, a degree he obtained after earning a degree in physics from Cal Tech — both of which probably explain why he holds the job of reviewing such proposals. But this reflexive ad hom raises several obvious questions, none more obvious than: What makes Lisa P. Jackson a climate scientist? (She's a chemical engineer.)

For that matter, who the hell are Barack Obama, Henry Waxman, Ed Markey, Nancy Pelosi, Carol Browner, Al Gore . . . need I continue? They all apparently are perfectly suited to reach informed judgment on the issue. Waxman is a scientist (bachelor's in political science, UCLA ‘61) like Batman's a scientist. Freeman Dyson, meanwhile, is "just a physicist." Clearly, our governmental solons are qualified because they agree that this issue must be ridden to achieve the desired "change."

As I detail in Red Hot Lies, this ad hom addiction doesn't serve the alarmists well — particularly when their credentialism is a one-way street. EPA now joins the rest of the gang in assailing critics of the IPCC report (to which the agency admits outsourcing its decision making on climate science) as lacking proper scientific credentials. But that report was written by 52 government representatives as part of a process expressly chartered to support a future global-warming treaty and was not, as EPA claims, peer-reviewed. (Many peers did review it, and we learned through a FOIA threat that — just like EPA's reviewer — they rejected it, only to be ignored. That's a lot of things, but peer review isn't one of them.) Naturally, some of us wondered about the amazing qualifications of the "world's leading climate scientists" behind the IPCC who are not to be challenged — what it must take to become qualified to speak! — only to discover that they included teaching assistants in anthropology and the like (really).

Team Soros was particularly adamant about an economist daring to opine, sniveling "since when have economists . . . become scientists, and why should we care what they think about climate science?" And now the EPA plays the same card against economist Carlin, and suggests we defer instead to the IPCC, as did they. But, uh, the fellow [Note by movielib: Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC] posing as the IPCC's chief "climatologist" (New York Times and USA Today), or the UN's "chief climate scientist" (AP), is . . . an economist.

The alarmists, now joined by the Obama administration, are bullying, sneaking, dissembling, and on occasion openly lying to the public to get their way. You've got a little bit of time left to be outraged. My colleagues and I are flattered that so many people just assume we're handling these things, and the public can go about their lives. I have a life on the outside, too, with a wife and children. So, please, if this should come to be, don't call me. We told you.

[parrotheads4]

That's a lot of info. I just wondder if it will ever be sunny and warm in New York again...

[movielib]

The hurricane season is one month in and not even a single named storm yet (and nowadays, just about any little ripple in the Atlantic gets named). It's actually pretty rare to have nothing at all in June That doesn't mean it will be a mild season (although forecasts are universally pretty moderate this year). But remember some of those other years (especially post-Katrina) where those early little ripples get huge press? Have you seen anyone comment on the uncharacteristic lack of anything so far this year? No, I didn't think so.

[kvrdave]

Originally Posted by movielib

The hurricane season is one month in and not even a single named storm yet (and nowadays, just about any little ripple in the Atlantic gets named). It's actually pretty rare to have nothing at all in June That doesn't mean it will be a mild season (although forecasts are universally pretty moderate this year). But remember some of those other years (especially post-Katrina) where those early little ripples get huge press? Have you seen anyone comment on the uncharacteristic lack of anything so far this year? No, I didn't think so.

It shouldn't surprise anyone. This is exactly what my Global Warming model predicted.

[crazyronin]

Originally Posted by kvrdave

It shouldn't surprise anyone. This is exactly what my Global Warming model predicted.

Since this isn't a counter coup in Honduras, we shouldn't be hasty. We'll have to see how this plays out.

[movielib]

New cosmic ray paper by Henrik Svensmark et al.:

http://climateresearchnews.com/2009/...ls-and-clouds/

New Paper: Cosmic Ray Decreases Affect Atmospheric Aerosols and Clouds

Henrik Svensmark et al have a new GRL paper in press entitled: ‘Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds’

The Abstract states:

Close passages of coronal mass ejections from the sun are signaled at the Earth’s surface by Forbush decreases in cosmic ray counts. We find that low clouds contain less liquid water following Forbush decreases (FDs), and for the most influential events the liquid water in the oceanic atmosphere can diminish by as much as 7%. Cloud water content as gauged by the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) reaches a minimum around 7 days after the Forbush minimum in cosmic rays, and so does the fraction of low clouds seen by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and in the International Satellite Cloud Climate Project (ISCCP). Parallel observations by the aerosol robotic network AERONET reveal falls in the relative abundance of fine aerosol particles which, in normal circumstances, could have evolved into cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Thus a link between the sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds appears to exist on a global scale.

The paper concludes:

Our results show global-scale evidence of conspicuous influences of solar variability on cloudiness and aerosols. Irrespective of the detailed mechanism, the loss of ions from the air during FDs reduces the cloud liquid water content over the oceans. So marked is the response to relatively small variations in the total ionization, we suspect that a large fraction of Earth’s clouds could be controlled by ionization. Future work should estimate how large a volume of the Earth’s atmosphere is involved in the ion process that leads to the changes seen in CCN and its importance for the Earth’s radiation budget. From solar activity to cosmic ray ionization to aerosols and liquid-water clouds, a causal chain appears to operate on a global scale.

Svensmark, H., T. Bondo, and J. Svensmark (2009),

Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds,

Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2009GL038429, in press.

(accepted 17 June 2009)

And guess what? It's peer-reviewed. Actually that's not at all a surprise. It's only alarmist lies which keep claiming skeptics don't get peer reviewed papers published.

This shows a clear correlation (not necessarily cause and effect but such a strong correlation is quite suggestive, I think) between Forbush events which drastically suppress cosmic rays and a reduction of water content and aerosol particles in the oceanic atmosphere which means fewer clouds. While this, of course, requires further study, I don't know how the alarmists can keep ignoring the cosmic ray theory which keeps piling up evidence to the point of bashing them over the head with a two-by-four. I have no doubt this study will, as always, be ignored.

And guess what else? This study, as is Svensmark's wont, is based on observations or experiments in the real world (the former, in this case), as opposed to the alarmists whose studies typically are based on models of their wishful thinking virtual world. As always with the alarmists, if the real world and the virtual world clash, it is the real world which must not be real.

Unfortunately, at this time the full paper was not available except to AGU members at the GRL site:

http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/papersinpress.shtml

http://www.agu.org/login/

[movielib]

uestion: What do you call 50 reasons to be against Waxman-Markey? (Answer at the end)

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...mM2MWE=&w=MA==

July 2, 2009 12:01 PM
A Garden of Piggish Delights
Waxman-Markey is part power-grab, part enviro-fantasy. Here are 50 reasons to stop it.
By Stephen Spruiell & Kevin Williamson

The stimulus bill was the legislative equivalent of the famous cantina scene from Star Wars, an eye-popping collection of the freakish and exotic, gathered for dubious purposes. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, known as ACES (the American Clean Energy and Security Act), is more like the third panel in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights — a hellscape that disturbs the sleep of anybody who contemplates it carefully.

Two main things to understand about Waxman-Markey: First, it will not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, at least not at any point in the near future. The inclusion of carbon offsets, which can be manufactured out of thin air and political imagination, will eliminate most of the demands that the legislation puts on industry, though in doing so it will manage to drive up the prices consumers pay for every product that requires energy for its manufacture — which is to say, for everything. Second, it represents a worse abuse of the public trust and purse than the stimulus and the bailouts put together. Waxman-Markey creates a permanent new regime in which environmental romanticism and corporate welfare are mixed together to form political poison. From comic bureaucratic power grabs (check out the section of the bill on candelabras) to the creation of new welfare programs for Democratic constituencies to, above all, massive giveaways for every financial, industrial, and political lobby imaginable, this bill would permanently deform American politics and economic life.

The House of Representatives, famously, did not read this bill before passing it, which is testament to either Nancy Pelosi’s managerial incompetency or her political wile, or possibly both. If you take the time to read the legislation, you’ll discover four major themes: special-interest giveaways, regulatory mandates unrelated to climate change, fanciful technological programs worthy of The Jetsons, and assorted left-wing wish fulfillment. We cannot cover every swirl and brushstroke of this masterpiece of misgovernance, but here’s a breakdown of its 50 most outrageous features.

SPECIAL-INTEREST SOPS
1. The big doozy: Eighty-five percent of the carbon permits will not be sold at auction — they will be given away to utility companies, petroleum interests, refineries, and a coterie of politically connected businesses. If you’re wondering why Big Business supports cap-and-trade, that’s why. Free money for business, but higher energy prices for you.

2. The sale of carbon permits will enrich the Wall Street investment bankers whose money put Obama in the White House. Top of the list: Goldman Sachs, which is invested in carbon-offset development and carbon permissions. CNN reports:

Less than two weeks after the investment bank announced it would be laying off 10 percent of its staff, ***Goldman Sachs confirmed that it has taken a minority stake in Utah-based carbon offset project developer Blue Source LLC. . . . “Interest in the pre-compliance carbon market in the U.S. is growing rapidly,” said Leslie Biddle, Head of Commodity Sales at Goldman, “and we are excited to be able to offer our clients immediate access to a diverse selection of emission reductions to manage their carbon risk.”

3. With its rich menu of corporate subsidies and special set-asides for politically connected industries, Waxman-Markey has inspired a new corporate interest group, USCAP, the United States Climate Action Partnership — the group largely responsible for the fact that carbon permits are being given away like candy at Christmas rather than auctioned. And who is lined up to receive a piece of the massive wealth transfer that Waxman-Markey will mandate? Canada Free Press lists:

Alcoa, American International Group (AIG) which withdrew after accepting government bailout money, Boston Scientific Corporation, BP America Inc., Caterpillar Inc., Chrysler LLC (which continues to lobby with taxpayer dollars), ConocoPhillips, Deere & Company, The Dow Chemical Company, Duke Energy, DuPont, Environmental Defense, Exelon Corporation, Ford Motor Company, FPL Group, Inc., General Electric, General Motors Corp. (now owned by the Obama administration), Johnson & Johnson, Marsh, Inc., National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, NRG Energy, Inc., Pepsico, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, PG&E Corporation, PNM Resources, Rio Tinto, Shell, Siemens Corporation, World Resources Institute, Xerox Corporation.

One major group of recipients of the free money being given to industry in the form of carbon permits are the electric utilities, represented in Washington by the Edison Electric Institute. Along with the coal and steel businesses, the utilities are positioned to receive a huge portion of the carbon permits — some of which will be disguised as measures for consumers — and have become one of the nation’s highest-spending lobbies, working to ensure that their interests are served by cap-and-trade.

4. To the extent that the allowances actually generate government revenue, that money is going to be used for fraud-inviting projects of dubious environmental or economic value. Example: Some allowance money will be used to “build capacity to reduce deforestation in developing countries experiencing deforestation, including preparing developing countries to participate in international markets for international offset credits for reduced emissions from deforestation.” What are the chances of that being abused?

5. In addition to the permits, the bill also allows for the creation of “offsets” — the medieval-style indulgences of the carbon-footprint world. In fact, nearly all of Waxman-Markey’s carbon-reduction targets can be met with offsets alone through 2050, meaning decades before any actual reduction of greenhouse gases is required. That means huge new expenses for small businesses and consumers in return for basically zero environmental improvement. And how does one earn an offset to sell? Get a farm and cash in through such methods as, and we quote, “improved manure management,” “reduced tillage/no-tillage,” or “afforestation of marginal farmlands.” Translation: Plant some trees around the house and claim some extra credits on the land the government may already be paying you not to farm. And do a better job of handling your B.S. — but you’ll never do as good a job on that one as the authors of Waxman-Markey.

6. Because the cap-and-trade regime will disadvantage domestic refineries vis-à-vis foreign competitors, such as India’s powerhouse Reliance Industries, Waxman-Markey is attempting to buy them off with free permits — 2 percent of the national total will go to domestic refineries, at no cost.

7. Agribusiness is exempted from cap-and-trade controls, but the farm lobby will be given permits to sell and to profit from anyway. All carrot, no stick — precisely what this powerful industry lobby is accustomed to receiving from Washington.

8. Waxman-Markey strips the EPA of its oversight role when it comes to managing the offsets associated with American farms. At the behest of Cargill and other big players in the farm lobby, oversight will be entrusted to the USDA — basically a wholly owned subsidiary of the agriculture cartel, one of America’s most rapacious special-interest groups, which already is stuffed with subsidies and sops.

9. Waxman-Markey directs the EPA to ignore the real environmental impact of ethanol and other biofuels. The gigantic subsidies lavished on the farm lobby through the ethanol program encourage farmers to clear forest land to plant corn — a net environmental loss that the use of ethanol does nothing to offset. An earlier version of the legislation that would have accounted for land-use changes was altered at the farm lobby’s demand. Now, the EPA will be forbidden to rain the same pain on the ethanol gang that it’s going to rain on the rest of the economy — a minimum of five years’ (ahem) “study” is required before a ruling on whether ethanol should be treated the same as any other fuel, and the EPA, USDA, and Congress all must agree to act before Big Corn reaps what Waxman-Markey sows.

10. Rural electrical cooperatives are demanding that the offsets be awarded in proportion to historic emissions, and they probably will prevail. This means that high-polluting generators, such as the coal-fired plants typical of electric co-ops’ members, will be rewarded because they pollute more, while cleaner producers, such as those using nuclear and hydroelectric power, will be penalized.

11. The farm lobby will be rewarded for practices that do little or nothing to reduce greenhouse gases. One such practice is “no till” planting, in which farmers forgo plowing and plant seeds directly into the soil. Two peer-reviewed scientific papers suggest that no-till either does nothing to decrease carbon dioxide or actually increases the level of greenhouse-gas emissions by upping emissions of nitrous oxide — a much more powerful greenhouse gas. Now it’s not clear that no-till will reduce greenhouse gases, but the practice does make weed-control more difficult, meaning that it supports the market for herbicides such as Monsanto’s RoundUp. Guess who’s spending millions lobbying for no-till?

12. Waxman-Markey provides an excuse for trade protectionism. The bill will give the Obama administration broad new powers to enact tariffs on imports from jurisdictions that have not had the poor sense to enact similar legislation, meaning that it invites both politically driven trade protectionism and retaliatory measures from abroad in the service of an empty green dream. As the New York Times puts it:

A House committee working on sweeping energy legislation seems determined to make sure that the United States will tax China and other carbon polluters, potentially disrupting an already-sensitive climate change debate in Congress. The Ways and Means Committee’s proposed bill language would virtually require that the president impose an import tariff on any country that fails to clamp down on greenhouse gas emissions. Directed primarily at China, the United States’ biggest manufacturing competitor, the provisions aim to protect cement, steel and other energy-intensive industries that expect to face higher costs under a federal emissions cap.

13. Waxman-Markey channels billions of dollars into subsidies for “international clean technology deployment for emerging markets.” David H. McCormick of the Treasury Department recently gave a speech on the establishment of an $8 billion fund for that purpose; those who showed up to gets the specs on this new gravy train included Sequoia Capital, the United Steelworkers Union, the Clinton Climate Initiative, Ernst & Young, Duke Energy, SunPower, Honeywell, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Credit Suisse, Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, and Goldman Sachs. If you’re wondering who’s going to make real money off of Waxman-Markey, this list would be a pretty good place to start.

14. Naturally, Big Labor gets its piece of the pie, too. Projects receiving grants and financing under Waxman-Markey provisions will be required to implement Davis-Bacon union-wage rules, making it hard for non-union firms to compete — and ensuring that these “investments” pay out inflated union wages. And it’s not just the big research-and-development contracts, since Waxman-Markey forces union-wage rules all the way down to the plumbing-repair and light-bulb-changing level.

NON-CAP MANDATES
15. The renewable electricity standard is the big one here. This would require utilities to supply 20 percent of their power from renewable energy sources (or “increased efficiency”) by 2020. The Senate was unable to pass a smaller mandate in 2007, because favored sources of renewable energy (wind power, for instance) just don’t work in certain regions of the country, and regional blocs can wield a great deal of power in the Senate. These blocs may be less powerful this time around, because the Democrats within them will be under a great deal of pressure to pass this bill. The renewable standard would force utilities to rely increasingly on expensive sources of energy like wind and solar — expensive because they are capital-intensive and must be located far away from urban areas, necessitating long transmission lines. You can thank Congress for adding yet another charge to your monthly utility bill.

16. The bill would create a system of renewable electricity credits similar to the carbon offsets mentioned above — utilities that cannot meet the standard could purchase credits from other utilities. One way or another, however, the cost is getting passed along to you.

17. The renewable standard excludes sources of power like nuclear and coal gasification, and perhaps that’s to be understood. Even though these sources are cleaner than traditional coal-burning plants, they violate a number of green taboos. What’s less understandable is the way “qualified hydropower” is narrowly defined to exclude hydropower from Canada. Again, the thing to remember is that Congress is less concerned with greening the environment and more concerned with greening the pockets of parochial interests.

18. The legislation calls for the establishment of a Carbon Storage Research Corporation (CSRC) to steer $1 billion annually into the development of carbon-capture technologies. The CSRC would be funded via assessments on utility companies. Hear that? It’s the sound of another charge being added to your bill. Evidence suggests that subsidizing research into carbon-capture technology is either futile (in the case of traditional coal-powered plants) or unnecessary (the technology for sequestering emissions from gasification plants already exists).

19. The promotion of carbon capture will require a host of new regulations — the bill calls on the EPA to create a permitting process for geologic sequestration (burying captured carbon emissions in the ground), regulations to keep the buried carbon from escaping into the air, and regulations to keep it from escaping into the water supply. All we need now are carbon guards to throw the carbon in solitary confinement if it gets too rowdy in the prison yard.

20. The bill imposes performance standards on new coal-fired power plants to encourage the adoption of carbon-capture technology. Ratepayers would pay more for electricity because of the efficiency losses associated with carbon capture.

21. The bill regulates every light fixture under the sun. Actually, the sun might be the only light source that isn’t regulated specifically in this legislation. There are rules governing fluorescent lamps, incandescent lamps, intermediate base lamps, candelabra base lamps, outdoor luminaires, portable light fixtures — you get the idea. The government actually started down this road by regulating light bulbs in the 2005 energy bill. This bill merely tightens the regulations, which means the unintended consequences produced by the 2005 bill — more expensive light bulbs that burn out quicker — will probably get worse.

22. The bill extends its reach to cover appliances as well. Clothes washers and dishwashers, portable electric spas, showerheads, faucets, televisions — all these and more are covered specifically in the bill. You thought we were kidding when we said this bill represents the federal government’s attempt to expand its regulatory reach to cover everything. We weren’t.

23. Appliances will be required to come with “carbon output” labels, and retailers will get bonus payments for marketing those that are certified “best-in-class.” The bill sets up a payment schedule to reward the manufacturers of these “best-in-class” products: $75 for each dishwasher, $250 for each clothes washer, and so on. So go out and splurge on that new super-energy-efficient refrigerator — under this bill, you already made a $200 down payment.

24. The bill requires the EPA to establish environmental standards for residences, meaning a federally dictated one-size-fits-all policy for greening every home in America. When you’re retrofitting your home according to EPA guidelines, it will come as little comfort to know that the government is reimbursing you for your troubles, especially if you’re doing the work around April 15.

25. The bill would affect commercial properties, too. In fact, all buildings would be governed by a “national energy efficiency building code” that would require 50 percent reductions in energy use in all buildings by 2018, followed by 5 percent reductions in energy use every three years after that through 2030. No one disputes that these changes will be costly, but Waxman-Markey supporters argue that they will pay for themselves through lower energy bills. This argument holds up only if we assume that energy prices will stay flat or fall over time. But the aforementioned carbon caps instituted elsewhere in this legislation make that prospect highly unlikely. Businesses and homeowners will pay twice — once to retrofit their roosts and again when the energy bill arrives.

26. The bill instructs the EPA to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from mobile sources such as cars, trucks, buses, dirt bikes, snowmobiles, boats, planes, and trains.

27. It instructs the EPA to cap and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from non-mobile sources as well. These two items would be bigger news if the Supreme Court hadn’t already cleared the way for the EPA to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. President Obama will probably move forward on this front even if Congress fails to pass the cap-and-trade bill. He has already announced a strict national fuel-efficiency standard for cars, and the implications for other sources of greenhouse-gas emissions are not good.

28. The bill calls on the EPA to establish a federal greenhouse-gas registry. Businesses would be required to collect and submit data on their emissions to the EPA, creating yet another compliance cost for them to pass on to their customers.


29. The bill undermines federalism by prohibiting states from creating their own cap-and-trade programs. Nearly half of all U.S. states have already taken some sort of action to cap greenhouse-gas emissions by forming regional compacts and implementing their own emission standards. Understandably, these states support a federal cap so that they are not at an economic disadvantage to states that do not cap emissions. If these states want to hamstring their own economies in the pursuit of green goals, that should be their business. States that don’t see any reason to do so should not be forced to share in their folly.

GREEN DREAMS
30. Utility companies are directed to start laying the groundwork for a glorious future in which everyone drives a plug-in car. The legislation directs them to start planning for the deployment of electrical charging stations along roadways, in parking garages, and at gas stations, as well as “such other elements as the State determines necessary to support plug-in electric drive vehicles.” (States are directed to consider whether the costs of planning or the implementation of these plans merit reimbursement. Either way, you wind up with the bill.)

31. The secretary of energy is required to establish a large-scale vehicle electrification program and to provide “such sums as may be necessary” for the manufacture of plug-in electric-drive vehicles, including another $25 billion for “advanced technology vehicle” loans. As if Detroit hadn’t gotten its hands on enough taxpayer money.

32. The bill directs the secretary of energy to promulgate regulations requiring that each automaker’s fleet be comprised of a minimum percentage of vehicles that run on ethanol or biodiesel.

33. It includes loan guarantees for the construction of ethanol pipelines. Nearly every energy bill in the last five years has included loan guarantees for the construction of ethanol pipelines. Apparently, would-be builders of this vital infrastructure are still having problems getting financing.

34. Congress passed (and Obama signed) a “cash for clunkers” program as part of the war appropriations bill this month. Under the program, you get a rebate for trading in a used car for one that gets slightly higher mileage. The Waxman-Markey bill takes this concept and applies it to appliances, electric motors — basically anything that can be traded in for a more energy-efficient version. These types of programs generally fail cost-benefit analyses spectacularly because more energy goes into the production of the new appliances than would have been used if the old ones had just run their course.

35. The bill includes $15 billion in grants and loans to encourage the manufacture of wind turbines, solar energy, biofuel production, and other sources of renewable energy that have benefited from decades of such largesse already. Another $15 billion is not going to make these energy sources cost-competitive. Only carbon rationing can achieve that. One suspects the Democrats know this; that’s why they are pushing a carbon-rationing bill. The $15 billion is just another sop to the green-energy lobby to help grease the skids.

36. The bill establishes within the EPA a SmartWay Transport Program, which would provide grants and loans to freight carriers that meet environmental goals.

37. The bill requires the secretary of energy to establish a program to make monetary awards to utilities that find innovative ways of using thermal energy, as if utilities needed an extra incentive to discover a new, cheap energy source.

38. It includes another $1.5 billion for the Hollings Manufacturing Partnership Program. This program pops up repeatedly in discussions of programs that both liberals and conservatives think should be eliminated. It is corporate welfare, pure and simple.

39. It includes $65 million for research into high-efficiency gas turbines, another gift to the corporate world with little environmental benefit.

40. It includes $7.5 million to establish a National Bioenergy Partnership to promote biofuels. Economic barriers to the commercial viability of biofuel as an energy source have proven to be so insurmountable that even with all of the federal mandates and subsidies already thrown their way, the ethanol companies lined up with everyone else for a federal bailout when the financial crisis hit. The last thing consumers need is another full-time, federally subsidized lobbying arm for that industry.


VARIOUS LEFT-WING WISH FULFILLMENT
41. One of Obama’s most reliable constituencies, college administrators, will be given billions of dollars to play with through the creation of eight “Clean Energy Innovation Centers,” university-based consortia charged with a mission to “leverage the expertise and resources of the university and private research communities, industry, venture capital, national laboratories, and other participants in energy innovation to support cross-disciplinary research and development in areas not being served by the private sector in order to develop and transfer innovative clean energy technologies into the marketplace.” Meaning that the famous business acumen of the federal government will be applied to the energy industry.

42. Another Obama constituency, the community-organizing gang — i.e., ACORN — will be eligible to receive billions in funding as the bill “authorizes the Secretary [of Energy] to make grants to community development organizations to provide financing to businesses and projects that improve energy efficiency.” Think federally subsidized consultants paid $55 an hour to tell businesses to turn down their AC in the summer.

43. Waxman-Markey also enables Obama to indulge his persistent desire to use the tax code to transfer wealth from people who pay taxes to people who don’t — i.e., from likely Republican voters to likely Obama voters. The bill “amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow certain low income taxpayers a refundable energy tax credit to compensate such taxpayers for reductions in their purchasing power, as identified and calculated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), resulting from regulation of GHGs (greenhouse gases).”


44. Not only will Waxman-Markey slip more redistribution into the tax code, it will establish a new monthly welfare check. It will create an “Energy Refund Program” that will “give low-income households a monthly cash energy refund equal to the estimated loss in purchasing power resulting from this Act.”

45. Another new class of government dependents will be created by Waxman-Markey: Americans put out of work by Waxman-Markey. The bill establishes a program to distribute “climate change adjustment assistance to adversely affected workers.”

46. Waxman-Markey will create yet another raft of government dependents, but of a different sort — bureaucrats. The bill creates: a new United States Global Change Research Program, a National Climate Change Adaptation Program, a National Climate Service, Natural Resources Climate Change Adaptation Strategy office at the White House, and an International Climate Change Adaptation Program at the State Department.

47. And since everybody else is getting a check, Bambi gets one, too, in the form of money for “domestic wildlife and natural resource adaptation.”

48. States also get in on the action. The legislation allows each state to set up a State Energy and Environment Development (SEED) account into which the federal government can deposit emission allowances. States can then sell these allowances and use the proceeds to support clean-energy programs. They must set aside a certain amount of the money to fund federal mandates, but they are given broad discretion to use the rest by making loans, grants, and other forms of support available to favored constituencies. It’s federalism, of a sort — the wrong sort.

49. And, of course, everything includes a health-care component, even cap-and-trade. Waxman-Markey requires the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a “strategic action plan to assist health professionals in preparing for and responding to the impacts of climate change.”

50. Waxman-Markey dumps money into questionable “partnerships” and grants to study “emerging careers” in “renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate change mitigation.” The first career to emerge, of course, will be managing grants to study emerging careers.

That’s our Top 50. We could go on. And on.

When Nancy Pelosi was advising congressmen to back this beast, she said they should not worry about the words of the bill they had not read, but think about four others: “jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.” The legislation offers Pelosi perverse vindication: Waxman-Markey will create a lot of jobs for Wall Street sharps, Big Business rent-seekers, ACORN hucksters, utility-company lobbyists, grant-writers at left-wing organizations, college administrators, light-bulb-policing bureaucrats, and an army of parasitic hangers-on. It’s up to the Senate to stop it.

Answer: The tip of the supposedly melting iceberg.

None of the 219 reality challenged representatives who voted for this bill had read it or had anything but a vague idea of what was in it. At least passage by the House is causing some attention so that some of the idiocy is getting out - but, of course, not through the MSM.

[movielib]

[movielib]

Oh noes. Global warming is shrinking sheep. We gotta DO SOMETHING!!!!

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/...ap6614172.html

Baaad news? Global warming now shrinking sheep
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID , 07.02.09, 02:05 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- Like the wool sweater that emerges from the dryer a size too small, global warming seems to be shrinking sheep.

On average, wild Soay sheep on Scotland's island Hirta are 5 percent smaller today than they were in 1985, according to a team of researchers led by Tim Coulson of Imperial College London.

"The decrease in body size was due to a reduction in growth rates caused, in part, by the changing climate," Coulson said in an interview via e-mail.

Evolution favors the development of large sheep, which can more easily survive harsh winters, Coulson explained. So the researchers became curious about the overall decline in size of the animals on Hirta.

They discovered that as the climate has grown milder, small lambs that would not have survived previous winters were now living to grow up and reproduce.

Since size is inherited, the survival and reproduction of these smaller animals lowered the average size of the herd.

In addition, Coulson noted, there is what he termed the "young mum effect," with the younger mothers physically unable to produce large offspring.

The find adds to the understanding of how change occurs in many types of animals, he said, including birds, fish and mammals.

It shows how evolution and ecology each play a role in change, Coulson said: "And that, for our wild sheep at least, climate change is having a detectable effect on body size - a trait that is partly determined by genes - and that this compliments previous research showing how climate change can influence population size."

"This study addresses one of the major goals of population biology, namely to untangle the ways in which evolutionary and environmental changes influence a species' traits," said Andrew Sugden, deputy and international managing editor at Science, which published the report.

The research was supported by Britain's Natural Environment Research Council.

What the fuck? This is UK tax pounds at work?



Lamb Chop is 5% smaller than in those happy Shari Lewis days.
Certified by real working climate scientists doing real science.