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

[Ranger]

Was there any direct response to Paul Krugman recent NYT posts? He cited the earth2100 9degs hotter report.


Searched one bill version for lumens and incandescent blubs. Thought they'd push for something more strict than the clean air act of 2007.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-o...al_legislation

[OldDude]

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.

The article doesn't talk about the big lambs, but I assume they still survive too. Therefore, I take it that the increased survival of small lambs means there are MORE SHEEP. The article fails to mention that. Is that good news or bad news?

Look, every silver lining has a cloud!

Edit: The other implication is "the livin' is easy" when its warmer, assuming there is any truth at all to the whole study.

[movielib]

Climate scientist Roy Spencer on why cap and trade is so bad.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/07/...green-economy/

Cap and Trade and the Illusion of the New Green Economy
July 1st, 2009 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

I don’t think Al Gore in his wildest dreams could have imagined how successful the “climate crisis” movement would become. It is probably safe to assume that this success is not so much the result of Gore’s charisma as it is humanity’s spiritual need to be involved in something transcendent – like saving the Earth.

After all, who wouldn’t want to Save the Earth? I certainly would. If I really believed that manmade global warming was a serious threat to life on Earth, I would be actively campaigning to ‘fix’ the problem.

But there are two practical problems with the theory of anthropogenic global warming: (1) global warming is (or at least was) likely to be a mostly natural process; and (2) even if global warming is manmade, it will be immensely difficult to avoid further warming without new energy technologies that do not currently exist.

On the first point, since the scientific evidence against global warming being anthropogenic is what most of the rest of this website is about, I won’t repeat it here. But on the second point…what if the alarmists are correct? What if humanity’s burning of fossil fuels really is causing global warming? What is the best path to follow to fix the problem?

Cap-and-Trade

The most popular solution today is carbon cap-and-trade legislation. The European Union has hands-on experience with cap-and-trade over the last couple of years, and it isn’t pretty. Over there it is called their Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Here in the U.S., the House of Representatives last Friday narrowly passed the Waxman-Markey bill. The Senate plans on taking up the bill as early as the fall of 2009.

Under cap-and-trade, the government institutes “caps” on how much carbon dioxide can be emitted, and then allows companies to “trade” carbon credits so that the market rewards those companies that find ways to produce less CO2. If a company ends up having more credits than they need, they can then sell those credits to other companies.

While it’s advertised as a “market-based” approach to pollution reduction, it really isn’t since the market did not freely choose cap-and-trade…it was imposed upon the market by the government. The ‘free market’ aspect of it just helps to reduce the economic damage done as a result of the government regulations.

The Free Market Makes Waxman-Markey Unnecessary

There are several serious problems with cap-and-trade. In the big picture, as Europe has found out, it will damage the economy. This is simply because there are as yet no large-scale, practical, and cost-competitive replacements for fossil fuels. As a result, if you punish fossil fuel use with either taxes or by capping how much energy is allowed to be used, you punish the economy.

Now, if you are under the illusion that cap-and-trade will result in the development of high-tech replacements for fossil fuels, you do not understand basic economics. No matter how badly you might want it, you can not legislate a time-travel machine into existence. Space-based solar power might sound really cool, but the cost of it would be astronomical (no pun intended), and it could only provide the tiniest fraction of our energy needs. Wind power goes away when the wind stops, and is only practical in windy parts of the country. Land-based solar power goes away when the sun sets, and is only practical in the sunny Southwest U.S. While I personally favor nuclear power, it takes forever to license and build a nuclear power plant, and it would take 1,000 1-gigawatt nuclear power plants to meet electricity demand in the United States.

And no one wants any of these facilities near where they live.

Fortunately, cap-and-trade legislation is not necessary anyway because incentives already exist – right now — for anyone to come up with alternative technologies for energy generation and energy efficiency. Taxpayers and consumers already pay for billions of dollars in both government research (through taxes) and private research (through the cost of goods and services) to develop new energy technologies.

Whoever succeeds in these efforts stands to make a lot of money simply because everything we do requires energy. And I do mean everything…even sitting there and thinking. Using your brain requires energy, which requires food, which requires fossil fuels to grow, distribute, refrigerate and cook that food.

Economic Competitiveness in the Global Marketplace

Secondly, when instituted unilaterally by a country, cap-and-trade legislation makes that country less competitive in the global economy. Imports and trade deficits increase as prices at home rise, while companies or whole industries close and move abroad to countries where they can be more competitive.

The Obama administration and congress are trying to minimize this problem by imposing tariffs on imports, but this then hurts everyone in all of the countries involved. Remember, two countries only willingly engage in trade with each other because it economically benefits both countries by reducing costs, thus raising the standard of living in those countries.

The Green Mafia

Third, cap-and-trade is a system that is just begging for cheating, bribing, and cooking the books. How will a company’s (or a farm’s) greenhouse gas emissions be gauged, and then monitored over time? A massive new bureaucracy will be required, with a litany of rules and procedures which have limited basis in science and previous experience.

And who will decide how many credits will initially be given by the government to each company/farm/industry? Does anyone expect that these decisions will be impartial, without political favoritism shown toward one company over another, or one industry over another? This is one reason why some high-profile corporations are now on the global warming bandwagon. They (or at least a few of their executives) are trying to position themselves more favorably in what they see to be an inevitable energy-rationed economic system.

Big Oil and Big Coal Will Not Pay for Cap-and-Trade

Fourth, it is the consumer – the citizen – who will pay for all of this, either in the form of higher prices, or reduced availability, or reduced economic growth. Companies have no choice but to pass increased costs on to consumers, and decreased profits to investors. You might think that “Big Business” will finally be paying their “fair share”, but Big Business is what provides jobs. No Big Business, no jobs.

The Green Jobs Illusion

Fifth, the allure of “green jobs” might be strong, but the economic benefit of those jobs is an illusion. The claim that many thousands of new green jobs will be created under such a system is probably true. But achieving low unemployment through government mandates does not create wealth – it destroys wealth.

Let me illustrate. We could have full employment with green jobs today if we wanted to. We could pay each other to dig holes in the ground and then fill the holes up again, day after day, month after month. (Of course, we’ll use shovels rather than backhoes to reduce fossil fuel use.) How’s that for a green jobs program?

My point is that it matters a LOT what kinds of jobs are created. Let’s say that today 1,000 jobs are required to create 1 gigawatt of coal-fired electricity. Now, suppose we require that electricity to come from a renewable source instead. If 5,000 jobs are needed to create the same amount of electricity with windmills that 1,000 jobs created with coal, then efficiency and wealth generation will be destroyed.

Sure, you can create as many green jobs as you want, but the comparative productivity of those jobs is what really matters. In the end, when the government manipulates the economy in such a fashion, the economy suffers.

And even if a market for green equipment (solar panels, windmills, etc.) does develop, there is little doubt that countries like China will be able to manufacture that equipment at lower cost than the United States. Especially considering all of our laws, regulations, limits, and restrictions.

So, What’s the Alternative?

If anthropogenic global warming does end up being a serious problem, then what can be done to move away from fossil fuels? I would say: Encourage economic growth, and burn fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow! Increased demand will lead to higher prices, and as long as the free market is allowed to work, new energy technologies will be developed.

As long a demand exists for energy (and it always will), there will be people who find ways to meet that demand. There is no need for silly awards for best inventions, etc., because the market value of those inventions will far exceed the value of any gimmicky, government-sponsored competitions.

Why are Politicians so Enamored by Cap-and-Trade?

Given the pain (and public backlash) the EU has experienced from two years’ experience with its Emissions Trading Scheme, why would our politicians ignore that foreign experience, as well as popular sentiment against cap-and-trade here at home, and run full-steam with eyes closed into this regulatory quagmire?

The only answer I can come up with is: more money and more power for government. As a former government employee, I am familiar with the mindset. While the goal of a private sector job is to create wealth, the government employee’s main job is to spend as much of that wealth as possible. A government agency’s foremost goal is self preservation, which means perpetuating a public need for the agency. The idea that our government exists to help enable a better life for its citizens might have been true 100 years ago, but today it is hopelessly naïve.

All Pain, No Gain

And finally, let’s remember what the whole purpose of carbon cap-and-trade is: to reduce future warming of the climate system. Even some prominent environmentalists are against Waxman-Markey because they do not believe it will substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions here at home. To the extent that provisions are added to the bill to make it more palatable to politicians from agricultural states or industrial states, it then accomplishes even less of what it is intended to accomplish: reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.

And even if cap-and-trade does what is intended, the reduction in CO2 emissions as a fraction of global CO2 emissions will moderate future warming by, at most, around one tenth of a degree C by late in this century. That is probably not even measurable.

Of course, this whole discussion assumes that the climate system is very sensitive to our carbon dioxide emissions. But if the research we are doing is correct, then manmade global warming is being overestimated by about a factor of 5, and it is the climate system itself that causes climate change…not humans.

If that is the case, then nothing humanity does is going to substantially affect climate one way or the other. Indeed, given the fact that life on Earth depends upon the tiny amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, I continue to predict that more atmospheric CO2 will, in the end, be a good thing for life on Earth.

Yet, many politicians are so blinded by the additional political power and tax revenue that will come from a cap-and-trade system that they do not want to hear any good news from the science. For instance, in my most recent congressional testimony, the good news I presented was met with an ad hominem insult from Senator Barbara Boxer.

I can only conclude that some politicians actually want global warming to be a serious threat to humanity. I wonder why?

Spencer is not only a great climate scientist but, to my mind, a far better economist than Nobel Prize in Economics winner Paul Krugman, at least in this area. If Krugman and Gore each won a Nobel Prize, Spencer should get two - which would actually be deserved.

[Dr Mabuse]

Paul Krugman is a status quo hack who sings the song wealthy(and this powerful and influential) people want to hear.

[Palaver]

Originally Posted by movielib

Climate scientist Roy Spencer on why cap and trade is so bad.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/07/...green-economy/

Good article.

I just wanted to thank movielib and everyone for providing some very useful information in these threads. I don't usually post in these threads, but I am always checking it for new information, and I appreciate the effort you put into it. Keep up the great work.

[movielib]

Britain finally finds some guilty.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...re/8132672.stm

Power station protesters guilty
Drax Power Station
The protesters were against the pollution caused by Drax

Twenty-two environmental campaigners have been found guilty of obstructing a train carrying coal to Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire.

Protesters boarded the train carrying coal into the station in June 2008 after it stopped for two men posing as railway staff, Leeds Crown Court heard.

The defendants, including three from West Yorkshire, were protesting against pollution at the station in Selby.

Judge James Spencer QC said they would not face a custodial sentence.

Sentencing was adjourned to a date in September.

Caused delays

The trial, which was scheduled to last two weeks but only ran for four days, heard how the train was stopped by two men posing as Network Rail staff, wearing orange jackets and hard hats, who held up a red flag.

Moments later the train and a nearby bridge were scaled by the protesters wearing white paper boiler suits and carrying banners.

The protest lasted 16 hours, causing delays to numerous freight and passenger services.

During the protest coal was shovelled on to the track to stop the train moving.

The clean-up operation cost more than £30,000.

None of the defendants denied being on the train but they told the jury they did not believe they were doing anything criminal because they were trying to prevent climate change.

A statement from British Transport Police said that "in this case the activists involved took the activities too far and went beyond the bounds of lawful protest".

No doubt these loons were emboldened by the acquittal of some other loons last year who pulled something similar at a coal plant. I hope this turns the tide.

I'm a little disappointed they will not serve time but they should at least be made to pay for all the damage they did.

[movielib]

Excellent opinion piece in the WSJ on EPA's "Carbongate."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124657655235589119.html

* JULY 3, 2009
The EPA Silences a Climate Skeptic
The professional penalty for offering a contrary view to elites like Al Gore is a smear campaign.
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

Wherever Jim Hansen is right now -- whatever speech the "censored" NASA scientist is giving -- perhaps he'll find time to mention the plight of Alan Carlin. Though don't count on it.

Mr. Hansen, as everyone in this solar system knows, is the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Starting in 2004, he launched a campaign against the Bush administration, claiming it was censoring his global-warming thoughts and fiddling with the science. It was all a bit of a hoot, given Mr. Hansen was already a world-famous devotee of the theory of man-made global warming, a reputation earned with some 1,400 speeches he'd given, many while working for Mr. Bush. But it gave Democrats a fun talking point, one the Obama team later picked up.
[Commentary] Ken Fallin

Alan Carlin, 35-year Environmental Protection Agency veteran

So much so that one of President Barack Obama's first acts was a memo to agencies demanding new transparency in government, and science. The nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lisa Jackson, joined in, exclaiming, "As administrator, I will ensure EPA's efforts to address the environmental crises of today are rooted in three fundamental values: science-based policies and program, adherence to the rule of law, and overwhelming transparency." In case anyone missed the point, Mr. Obama took another shot at his predecessors in April, vowing that "the days of science taking a backseat to ideology are over."

Except, that is, when it comes to Mr. Carlin, a senior analyst in the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics and a 35-year veteran of the agency. In March, the Obama EPA prepared to engage the global-warming debate in an astounding new way, by issuing an "endangerment" finding on carbon. It establishes that carbon is a pollutant, and thereby gives the EPA the authority to regulate it -- even if Congress doesn't act.

Around this time, Mr. Carlin and a colleague presented a 98-page analysis arguing the agency should take another look, as the science behind man-made global warming is inconclusive at best. The analysis noted that global temperatures were on a downward trend. It pointed out problems with climate models. It highlighted new research that contradicts apocalyptic scenarios. "We believe our concerns and reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious review of the science by EPA," the report read.

The response to Mr. Carlin was an email from his boss, Al McGartland, forbidding him from "any direct communication" with anyone outside of his office with regard to his analysis. When Mr. Carlin tried again to disseminate his analysis, Mr. McGartland decreed: "The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office." (Emphasis added.)

Mr. McGartland blasted yet another email: "With the endangerment finding nearly final, you need to move on to other issues and subjects. I don't want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research etc, at least until we see what EPA is going to do with Climate." Ideology? Nope, not here. Just us science folk. Honest.

The emails were unearthed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Republican officials are calling for an investigation; House Energy Committee ranking member Joe Barton sent a letter with pointed questions to Mrs. Jackson, which she's yet to answer. The EPA has issued defensive statements, claiming Mr. Carlin wasn't ignored. But there is no getting around that the Obama administration has flouted its own promises of transparency.

The Bush administration's great sin, for the record, was daring to issue reports that laid out the administration's official position on global warming. That the reports did not contain the most doomsday predictions led to howls that the Bush politicals were suppressing and ignoring career scientists.

The Carlin dustup falls into a murkier category. Unlike annual reports, the Obama EPA's endangerment finding is a policy act. As such, EPA is required to make public those agency documents that pertain to the decision, to allow for public comment. Court rulings say rulemaking records must include both "the evidence relied upon and the evidence discarded." In refusing to allow Mr. Carlin's study to be circulated, the agency essentially hid it from the docket.

Unable to defend the EPA's actions, the climate-change crew -- , led by anonymous EPA officials -- is doing what it does best: trashing Mr. Carlin as a "denier." He is, we are told, "only" an economist (he in fact holds a degree in physics from CalTech). It wasn't his "job" to look at this issue (he in fact works in an office tasked with "informing important policy decisions with sound economics and other sciences.") His study was full of sham science. (The majority of it in fact references peer-reviewed studies.) Where's Mr. Hansen and his defense of scientific freedom when you really need him?

Mr. Carlin is instead an explanation for why the science debate is little reported in this country. The professional penalty for offering a contrary view to elites like Al Gore is a smear campaign. The global-warming crowd likes to deride skeptics as the equivalent of the Catholic Church refusing to accept the Copernican theory. The irony is that, today, it is those who dare critique the new religion of human-induced climate change who face the Inquisition.

But surely, there's no double standard.

[movielib]

Once again, skeptics are being faulted because they are funded by millions. Never mind that alarmists are funded by billions.

http://www.climate-resistance.org/20...ll-change.html

Fri, 03 July, 2009
A Big Fuss About Small Change

Bob Ward is at it again. In an article for the Guardian, he writes that - shock, horror - ExxonMobil continues to fund organisations he disagrees with, even though he has told them not to.

A few weeks ago, ExxonMobil revealed that it made contributions in 2008 to lobby groups such as the National Center for Policy Analysis and the Heritage Foundation in order to “promote informed discussion”. So I have now written again to ExxonMobil to point out that these organisations publish misleading information about climate change on their websites

Ward, you might remember, started writing letters of complaint to the likes of Exxon when he was Director of Communications at the Royal Society, who supplied him with headed note-paper. He continued his crusade after taking up the post of Director of Global Science Networks at global risk insurance firm RMS. And he shows no sign of stopping now that he’s Policy and Communications Director at Professor Lord Sir Nicholas Stern’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the LSE.

The Guardian deems Ward’s article important enough to get its staff environment reporter to write an article about the fact that Ward has written an article:

The world’s largest oil company is continuing to fund lobby groups that question the reality of global warming, despite a public pledge to cut support for such climate change denial, a new analysis shows.

Company records show that ExxonMobil handed over hundreds of thousands of pounds to such lobby groups in 2008. These include the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) in Dallas, Texas, which received $75,000 (£45,500), and the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC, which received $50,000.

According to Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at the London School of Economics, both the NCPA and the Heritage Foundation have published “misleading and inaccurate information about climate change.”

‘Hundreds of thousands of pounds’. Gosh. Compared to the sums made available for climate alarmism, even the ~$45 million paid out by Exxon over the course of a decade (according to Greenpeace’s Exxonsecrets website) is chicken feed. One only needs to compare it to the amount given by Ward’s benefactor, Jeremy Grantham, to put things into perspective. As a Sunday Times article revealed recently:

So concerned is Grantham, 70, over this issue that he has set up the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, endowed with £165m of his own money, to fund environmental research and campaigns. From it he is funding the LSE and Imperial donations, and other grants to American groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund.

So, just one individual has given nearly five times more in one lump to the green cause than Exxon (a petro-chemicals giant) is alleged to have given over the course of a decade. Nevermind the $billions at the disposal of the giant green NGOs such as WWF, and Greenpeace - many of which enjoy cosy relationships with governments and the EU, who go so far as paying such groups to lobby them.

According to Grantham:

Capitalism and business are going to have to remodel themselves and adapt to a rapidly changing and eventually very different world.

Says the… erm… Capitalist businessman. But whose interests will the remodelling of global capitalism and business serve?

Ward, of course, has his own interests served by elevating poorly-funded networks of ‘deniers’ to the status of global capitalist conspiracy. It gives the impression that there’s actually an organised challenge to the increasing influence of environmental ideology, giving him a role as its inquisitor. Thus, the image of the brave Ward standing against evil corporate conspiracies (with billionaires standing behind him, out of focus) gives such environmental ideology the appearance of socially-progressive radicalism.

Yet, arguably, Exxon are the ones doing the social good here, donating such sums that, if only in a small way, create the possibility of debate that has been so far dominated by the interests of the super-wealthy - the Goldsmiths, Prince Charles, the Tickells, Gore, and so on. Why should we take their word for it that their influence, and the influence of the institutions they lobby for, and fund, and direct, are operating in our interests?

Moreover, Ward’s accusations about the corrupting influence of corporate dollars can be thrown right back at him. From his HQ at the LSE, Ward’s boss Nick Stern runs both the Grantham and the Centre for Climate Change, Economics and Policy (CCCEP). While Ward’s employment is ostensibly with the Grantham, he also doubles up as PR man for the CCCEP. The CCCEP is funded jointly by the UK’s research councils and risk insurance giants Munich Re.

The close association between climate alarmists and the insurance industry is no less natural than that between ’sceptics’ and Exxon. Just as Exxon might be expected to play down the threat of climate change when it suits them, Munich Re can be relied upon to overstate the dangers. Fear of risk is to the insurance industry what oil is to Exxon.

The difference is that Bob Ward doesn’t write letters of complaint to Munich Re insurers or articles for the Guardian when Munich Re disseminates ‘misleading and inaccurate information about climate change’ - which they surely do.

While Big Oil dishes out a few quid to a handful of pressure groups on the political fringes, Big Insurance conducts its business safely ensconced within the political, academic and scientific establishment. Its own brand of misleading and inaccurate information is acceptable simply because it does not conflict with the political goals of the environmental elite. Indeed, that same misleading and inaccurate information becomes central to the environmental cause, forming the basis of, for example, Kofi Annan’s much-publicised report ‘demonstrating’ that 300,000 people per year are dying as a result of climate change.

To take Exxon funding is to attract accusations of ‘denialism’, but to be funded by Munich Re is something to be proud of, to the extent that esteemed academic institutions such as the LSE want to tell the world about it:

New world-leading Grantham Research Institute opens for business as LSE joins forces with Munich Re on climate change

The £millions available to Ward and his colleagues have improved neither the quality of their arguments nor their popularity with the electorate. No wonder they are terrified that Exxon are still funding ‘deniers’. Grantham ought to ask for his money back. Surely, if ‘deniers’ were engaged in prostituting their intellectual resources for pure profit, the best way to ensure that the environmental message got heard would be to pay them to switch sides. After all, in spite of the $billions that have been made available to green causes, it’s only (allegedly) taken Exxon $45m to undo all that ‘good’ work.

We haven't heard quite as much about this lately, perhaps because the alarmists are seeing that word of the three orders of magnitude difference is getting out, if only occasionally around the wide borders and through the tiny cracks of the obstacle to real climate and environmental news affectionately known as the not quite all powerful MSM. But it hasn't stopped everyone.

[DJLinus]

Originally Posted by 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.

I sure hope not. One thing this bill will accomplish is get me to do something that I've never done before: write/call my senators.

The closest I ever came to doing that was a few years ago when I almost wrote a joke letter complaining about the shoddy officiating in pro wrestling. But then I thought I might be placed on some watch list for kooks and nixed that idea.

[movielib]

Let's here a small cheer for the Supreme Court.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/us...s.html?_r=1&hp

Environment Groups Find Less Support on Court
Larry J. Wagner, Jr./ISSI
Published: July 3, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court heard five environmental law cases in the term that ended Monday, and environmental groups lost every time. It was, said Richard J. Lazarus, a director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, “the worst term ever” for environmental interests.

Environmentalists lost in Supreme Court decisions involving cost-benefit analysis to decide how much marine life may be killed by cooling structures at power plants like Indian Point in New York.

The court allowed Navy exercises using sonar that threatened whales off California. It limited the liability of companies partly responsible for toxic spills. It made it harder to challenge Forest Service regulations and easier to dump mining waste into an Alaskan lake. And it allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to use cost-benefit analysis to decide how much marine life may be killed by cooling structures at power plants.

Business groups expressed measured satisfaction with the decisions.

“The court does seem to be bringing more common sense back to environmental law,” Robin S. Conrad, a lawyer with the United States Chamber of Commerce, said at a recent news briefing.

In the past 40 years or so, ever since environmental law emerged as a separate field based on major statutes enacted in the 1970s, the Supreme Court has been reasonably receptive to cases brought by environmental groups.

That seems to have changed under the court of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

“It has taken a little while, but we are finally seeing how much the changes in 2005 and 2006 moved the court in important areas, including in environmental law,” said Douglas Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal research organization and law firm. Chief Justice Roberts joined the court in 2005, and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. in 2006.

Last term’s environmental decisions are consistent with larger trends at the court, which has leaned to the right recently and seems poised to make significant moves in a conservative direction in important areas of the law.

Justice Alito replaced Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who often voted for environmental interests. Justice O’Connor’s background may have helped shape her thinking: she has written fondly of growing up on the Lazy B ranch in the high desert wilderness in Arizona and New Mexico.

“We experienced nature in an intimate way,” she wrote in a 2005 foreword to her memoir, “Lazy B.” “We learned to respect the environment.”

Justice O’Connor’s departure had a powerful impact and played a part in last term’s 5-to-0 rout, said Amy Sinden, who teaches environmental law at Temple’s law school. “These could all have come out very differently if we still had O’Connor on the court,” she said.

At the same time, the principles announced in some of the court’s environmental rulings, which generally favored presidential power, may aid the Obama administration as it moves away from the previous administration’s policies.

“It’s become a cliché to say the Roberts court is about the expansion of executive power,” Professor Sinden said, “and I think it’s true of these environmental cases as well. The court gave the Bush administration discretion. That certainly leaves the Obama administration with discretion to act as well.”

While the court’s environmental rulings may help the administration as it issues regulations to carry out existing laws, the harder questions will arise as Congress enacts new laws.

“The real test will come when the Obama administration tries to implement new legislation, like the climate change legislation, assuming it passes” the Senate, said Professor Lazarus, who represented the losing side in one of the recent environmental cases.

The climate change law, he said, will “raise a huge number of legal issues when implemented and will face of barrage of legal challenges from industry, some of which will find their way to the high court.”

The Bush administration was largely but not entirely aligned with business interests in the five environmental cases the court decided. That meant it was easy to tell who was losing — the environmentalists — but hard to tell who was winning.

Should the Obama administration take a more adversarial stance toward business, plainer fault lines may emerge.

“You might be able to tell whether the court is pro-business or pro-government,” said Jonathan Z. Cannon, who teaches environmental law at the University of Virginia.

The four members of the court’s conservative wing — Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who is often the swing vote, were in the majority in all five decisions. (Justice Kennedy, Professor Lazarus said, has been in the majority in all but one of the more than 50 environmental cases he has heard since joining the court in 1988.)

In years past, Justice Kennedy has been sporadically receptive to arguments made by environmentalists, particularly when they were sensitive to states’ rights and did not call for upending rules on which businesses had come to rely. Not this year.

The five more conservative justices were sometimes joined by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who is something of a moderate on environmental issues, having written on regulation, risk management and administrative law as a professor before joining the court.

One case, Burlington Northern v. United States, about who may be held liable under the federal Superfund law for toxic spills, was decided 8 to 1, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in dissent.

Several scholars said that businesses had become more sophisticated in recent years in hiring Supreme Court specialists to tailor their cases to appeal to Justices Kennedy and Breyer.

As surprising as the results in last term’s five cases were, scholars added, what may have been even more surprising was that the court chose to hear some of them at all. In two, the government did not file an appeal, even though the Environmental Protection Agency had been on the losing side in lower courts.

Environmental interests had won in the appeals court in all five of last term’s cases, and the Supreme Court reversed each one. Four cases came from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, which has a liberal reputation. The fifth came from the Second Circuit, in New York, and was written by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, now President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court.

Should Judge Sotomayor be confirmed by the Senate, she will replace Justice David H. Souter, an avid outdoorsman who loves hiking in New Hampshire and tended to vote in favor of environmental interests.

There is little reason to think Judge Sotomayor’s approach would be very different. Indeed, the court reversed one of her decisions in Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper, the case that involved the use of cost-benefit analysis by the environmental agency. Justice Souter was in dissent.

Patrick A. Parenteau, who teaches environmental law at Vermont Law School, said he was disturbed not only by the substance of the court’s recent decisions but also by what they failed to address. None, he said, involved extended discussions of the environmental consequences, whether for the future of a lake in Alaska or the practice of forestry.

“The lesson from this,” Professor Parenteau said, “is to do everything you can to keep environmental cases out of this court.”

I don't want to get too excited. Obama may be able to turn that around. Funny, I want liberals on the Court to protect abortion rights and some other personal rights but I want conservatives to stop crazy greens and nutty government spending and regulations. It's a delicate balance because libertarians are not going to be appointed.

[movielib]

I had not seen this column, describing some of the many deals made to get Waxman-Markey passed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/us...mate.html?_r=1

With Something for Everyone, Climate Bill Passed
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: June 30, 2009

WASHINGTON — As the most ambitious energy and climate-change legislation ever introduced in Congress made its way to a floor vote last Friday, it grew fat with compromises, carve-outs, concessions and out-and-out gifts intended to win the votes of wavering lawmakers and the support of powerful industries.

The deal making continued right up until the final minutes, with the bill’s co-author Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, doling out billions of dollars in promises on the House floor to secure the final votes needed for passage.

The bill was freighted with hundreds of pages of special-interest favors, even as environmentalists lamented that its greenhouse-gas reduction targets had been whittled down.

Some of the prizes were relatively small, like the $50 million hurricane research center for a freshman lawmaker from Florida.

Others were huge and threatened to undermine the environmental goals of the bill, like a series of compromises reached with rural and farm-state members that would funnel billions of dollars in payments to agriculture and forestry interests.

Automakers, steel companies, natural gas drillers, refiners, universities and real estate agents all got in on the fast-moving action.

The biggest concessions went to utilities, which wanted assurances that they could continue to operate and build coal-burning power plants without shouldering new costs. The utilities received not only tens of billions of dollars worth of free pollution permits, but also billions for work on technology to capture carbon-dioxide emissions from coal combustion to help meet future pollution targets.

That deal, negotiated by Representative Rick Boucher, a conservative Democrat from Virginia’s coal country, won the support of the Edison Electric Institute, the utility industry lobby, and lawmakers from regions dependent on coal for electricity.

Liberal Democrats got a piece, too. Representative Bobby Rush, Democrat of Illinois, withheld his support for the bill until a last-minute accord was struck to provide nearly $1 billion for energy-related jobs and job training for low-income workers and new subsidies for making public housing more energy-efficient.

Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican staunchly opposed to the bill, marveled at the deal-cutting on Friday.

“It is unprecedented,” Mr. Barton said, “but at least it’s transparent.”

Mr. Waxman defended the deal making as necessary to address a problem that affected every region and every industry.

“We worked hard to craft compromises that addressed the legitimate concerns of industry without undermining the environmental integrity of the legislation,” Mr. Waxman said. “Tackling hard issues that have been ignored for years is never easy.”

In its odyssey from introduction in late March to House passage, the climate-change bill sponsored by Mr. Waxman and Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, grew to more than 1,400 pages from 648 pages.

Although watered down from the original vision, it was still the first time either house of Congress passed a bill imposing a limit on the emissions blamed for the warming of the planet. The legislation awaits action in the Senate.

Despite all the concessions, President Obama worked hard for the bill and called it an extraordinary step for the nation. He said in an interview Sunday that the compromises had been necessary to moderate the different effects of greenhouse-gas controls on different parts of the country.

“I think that finding the right balance between providing new incentives to businesses, but not giving away the store, is always an art; it’s not a science because it’s never precise,” Mr. Obama said.

One of the major changes in the bill came early at the insistence of Democrats from Southeastern states, including John Barrow of Georgia, G. K. Butterfield of North Carolina and Bart Gordon of Tennessee. Prodded by utilities in the region, they pressed for a weakening of the national mandate for renewable energy.

The original bill called for all utilities to secure 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar, hydro and geothermal energy by 2025.

This was seen as either impossible or enormously expensive in the Southeast, which does not have abundant supplies of such energy. The standard was weakened to 15 percent by 2020, with states given the ability to reduce it further if they cannot meet the target. That helped win Mr. Gordon and Mr. Butterfield’s votes. Mr. Barrow voted no.

The bill’s centerpiece is a cap-and-trade program that sets a ceiling on emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide and allows polluting industries to trade emission permits or allowances to meet it. Mr. Obama said during the presidential campaign that all of those permits should be sold at auction, but the bill’s authors ended up giving away 85 percent free at the outset of the program, which won votes but that some environmental advocates said undercut the bill’s integrity.

Industries fought among themselves for a share of the permits. Oil refiners were frozen out at the beginning, but called on lawmakers from refinery-rich districts to press their case.

Representative Gene Green, a Democrat from near Houston, demanded 5 percent of the permit value, worth more than $3 billion a year, to help refiners deal with the costs of carbon controls. “Refineries are very energy-intensive,” Mr. Green said. “They need a breather to adapt.”

He got them 2 percent of the allowances.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, a major supplier of power in the Farm Belt, was squeezed out by the big utilities and received none of the permits in the early negotiations. But ultimately the head of the group, Glenn English, a former Democratic member of Congress from Oklahoma, secured nearly $400 million in annual emissions permits to help the small co-ops.

With that deal done, some farm-state Democrats who had previously opposed the bill were willing to vote for it.

Some of the toughest negotiations were between Mr. Waxman and Representative Collin C. Peterson, Democrat of Minnesota and a fierce defender of agricultural interests.

Mr. Peterson wrung numerous concessions on provisions opposed by agribusinesses and forestry companies. Several had to do with so-called offsets, which allow industrial polluters to meet emissions targets by buying carbon reductions from other sectors, particularly farms and forests, which actually take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

In the original bill, those offsets were to have been regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, considered a bogyman in the farm states. Mr. Peterson got oversight shifted to the farmer-friendly Department of Agriculture. He also broadened the list of activities that would qualify as offsets, bringing a potential windfall to farm interests.

His deal cut, Mr. Peterson threw his support behind the bill.

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff and a former Democratic leader in the House, said the president did not believe that the compromises had done it fatal harm.

“He loves this bill and lobbied hard for it,” Mr. Emanuel said, “including the great, the good and the not-so-great provisions.”

In the future I may sometimes refer to Waxman-Markey as the Frankenstein bill although the monster was made from far fewer and less disparate parts than this monstrosity.

[movielib]

I am posting this to show how no one should uncritically accept something they read just because they like it and/or it fits in with their political philosophy. The following article was linked at Free Republic today and that article is dated today:

http://www.thecypresstimes.com/artic...GY_COSTS/23266

U.S.A. SITTING ON 2 TRILLION BARRELS OF OIL AS “CAP AND TRADE” THREATENS TO CRIPPLE ECONOMY AND ESCALATE ENERGY COSTS
Charles Lingerfelt , Kurdish American School
Published 07/05/2009 - 9:14 a.m. CST

Thirty thousand scientists and NASA say Global warming is a farce! So, why are we not drilling for our own oil here in the USA? Why are we shutting down the coal mining, putting people out of jobs? Who wants to drive one of those little cars around all the BIG trucks on the roads? Not me. It won’t happen...been there, done that, and lived to tell about it.

Americans are being scammed!

The "Bakken," as it is known throughout America, is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. People in California, Nevada, and other states need to "wake up," and vote Pelosi, Reid and all the other traitors OUT OF OFFICE!

Regardless of 'Party affiliation.'

I'd say to all states involved, take control of your state and get this out to the USA only, it is in your hands, and those states will be able to have no sales tax whatsoever, and, will be able to give back to the people like they do in Alaska. But, I hope the people in your state will never allow this information to be conveyed to China or Japan ~ but kept in the USA.

The 'Cap and Trade' bill which just passed in the House in Washington D.C., has many things in it that we are not going to like. In order for us to sell our homes, an "environmental inspector" will have to come into our homes and make sure we have double pain windows, sufficient insulation, all the newest low-electricity appliances and an electrical outlet used to hook up electric cars. What used to be able to be "negotiated" between the seller and the buyer, now must pass through a governmental agency. I know this sounds "unbelievable," but it is true.

Most of us know about this "Bakken oil find" in North and South Dakota, and Montana. But read this article to the end. It puts a spin on it as to why this huge find has not been tapped yet. Could the OPEC countries, and our commitment to them, be a big part of the problem?

WILL ANY AMERICAN REALLY PUSH FOR IT!!?

The U. S. Geological Service issued a report in April ('08) that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man, was it ever big.

It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since '95) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana. Check it out:

The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska 's Prudhoe Bay , and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable... at $107 a barrel, we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.

"When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea," says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst.

"This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It's a Formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.' And it stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada .

For years, U. S.oil exploration has been considered a "dead end." Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves....and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels.

And, because this is "light, sweet oil," those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!

1.That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.

2. And, if that didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - - because it's from TWO YEARS AGO!

The following is data from 'The Stansberry Report Online': U. S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World! Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President George W. Bush mandated its extraction. In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted. With this mother lode of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?

They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth.

Here are the official estimates:

- 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
- 18-times as much oil as Iraq
- 21-times as much oil as Kuwait
- 22-times as much oil as Iran
- 500-times as much oil as Yemen
- and it's all right here in the Western United States.

How can this be? How can we not be extracting this? It is because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate to our lives and our economy......why?

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East- - more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. "That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today," according to The Denver Post.

Do you think 'OPEC' will drop its price - - even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive marketplace. Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?

Got your attention/ire up yet? I hope so!!

Now, while you're thinking about it ......and hopefully P.O'd, about it, do this:

1.) Pass along this information to all your family and friends. If you don't take a little time to do this, then you should put a towel in your mouth the next time you want to complain about gas prices ~ because by doing NOTHING, you've forfeited your right to complain!
--------
Now, I just wonder what would happen in this country if every one of you sent this to everyone in your address book. (Use the “email a friend function below this article, or copy the URL above and send it to your friends and family)

By the way, this info is all true. Check it out at the link below. GOOGLE it, or follow this link.

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

It'll blow your mind!!

The Free Republic link:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-.../2285919/posts

I was not about to uncritically accept this extraordinary claim and rush to post it here. I googled: bakken oil.

I immediately found good old reliable Snopes (second link):

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/bakken.asp

(I can't copy from the page so you will have to go to the link. Briefly, it says "Mixture of true and false information" and the Bakken reserves are perhaps a hundredth of what is claimed.)

I then looked at the comments at Free Republic and saw that others had also found this debunking. Good for them. But some (the ones who made the first comments) had just accepted the original article (which wasn't actually original but had been making the rounds for more than a year) at face value because they liked what it said.

We do have a lot of untapped oil reserves in this country and we should go after them. But wild claims don't help any.

Stay skeptical, my friends.

Edit: I also found this debunking:

http://www.examiner.com/x-2950-Denve...-urban-legends

Reports of Bakken Shale oil reserves are the stuff of urban legends
March 16, 1:10 PM
Lee Mossel
Denver Energy Industry Examiner

One of the more pervasive stories circulating on the INTERNET these days concerns reportedly massive amounts of "untapped" oil in the Bakken Shale formation of the Williston Basin in North Dakota.

The most widely circulated article is the "Stansberry Report Online" [link below] which hysterically reports "more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped" and "more oil...than the entire Middle East" and, even, "more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today..." The article goes on to say that the Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated, based on a United States Geological Survey (USGS) report, that 503 BILLION barrels of oil are recoverable from "...a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.' " (The Williston Basin is a geologic basin or syncline located in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and southern Canada. It is NOT a formation. The Bakken Shale is a formation totally contained within the Williston Basin.) The actual USGS report [link below] reported that 3 to 4.3 Billion barrels are "technically" recoverable...about 0.2 [corrected number] percent of the "more than 2 TRILLION barrels and about 0.8 [corrected number] percent of the 503 BILLION barrels.

What any interested party should understand, however, is the huge difference between "technically recoverable oil" and "practical oil recovery". Practical oil recovery must accommodate current and anticipated technologies, drilling and completion costs, operating costs, oil price and local, state and federal regulations. The "practical oil recovery" amount for the Bakken is probably more like 500 million barrels of oil. That is still a huge oil reserve and, since the USGS treats the Bakken as a "continuous" oil accumulation rather than a discrete, localized field, the Bakken will be a major contributor to the US oil reserves for many years.

Drilling and completion costs for Bakken wells can reach $5 million dollars each not including the lease bonuses paid for acquiring drilling rights which can approach $500,000 per well. The Williston Basin is a particularly difficult operating arena due to weather, surface conditions and lack of infrastructure. Bakken operators, several with Denver offices, like Headington (now Xterra), Lyco Energy (now Enerplus Resources), Marathon Oil Corporation and others, estimate that crude oil prices of at least $50 to $75 per barrel are required for sustained activity in the Bakken. Currently, oil price is about $45.

Full development and production of the Bakken will take many years and even more technological advances than those that enabled its "discovery." Contrary to euphoric proclamations of pseudo-scientific articles like the Stansberry Report Online, the eventual development of the Bakken will NOT provide the US with "the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil."

Stansberry Report Online: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3242120/Ba...h-for-41-years

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/30211

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

[movielib]

I think this is a rather revealing series of comments on Anthony Watts' wattsupwiththat.com blog between Anthony and a Gary Strand (Strand is apparently an employee of NCAR - the National Center for Atmospheric Studies, a nongovernmental (although it is 95% funded by the federal government) nonprofit that is closely aligned with the IPCC; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...heric_Research) who had been posting a bunch of insulting comments and asked:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/0...lled/#comments (all comments at this link starting at the posting time in the first post on July 5, 2009)

Gary Strand (08:22:10) :

Why is there such an insistence on some kind of face-to-face debate between one side and the other? I don’t understand that.

wattsupwiththat (08:54:28) :

Gary I think it has to do with Al Gore’s refusal to take interview questions at any of his 100,000 dollar lectures, (its in his speaking contract, section 9C) to allow members of the press there (its in his speaking contract, section 9A) or to address the science errors in his movie, such as the Mount Kilimanjaro melting which is really all about sublimation due to lack of evapotranspiration related to deforestation around the mountain. Gore needs a reality check, badly, but he knows he’ll lose any such challenge, and thus his lucrative gravy train of speaking engagements, so he hides from the challenge.

Gore’s bad example of one-sided soapboxing calls for a debate, and much of that gets transferred to other potential dustups I think. Add to that Alan Carlin’s treatment by the EPA and it gets amplified. Gore won’t debate, since he’d lose and he knows it, so Hansen is the next logical candidate, and it spreads from there.

You see Gary, there’s a lot of people that think computer modeling just isn’t a reliable way of divining the future, and much of the current global warming hysteria is from Hansen and “model zero” et al. plus Michael Mann and his ridiculous hockey stick. Mann’s obtuse math is falsified. He won’t debate anyone either, again he knows he’d lose once the work of McIntyre and McKittrick was raised in the debate. Mann won’t even bring himself to say McIntyre’s name in some instances. Mann fouled up lat/lot in data but can’t bring himself to correct it. My notes above are a tip of the iceberg on Mann’s mistakes, yet he has yet to correct a single one. This is not science. He also goes on record saying that Professor McKittrick and Steve McIntyre are “not scientists” even though they published a paper clearly mathematically refuting Mann’s math and statistical analysis. That’s how badly he fears the questions, he has to denigrate the people asking questions rather than address them. It is a common tactic we’ve seen. You yourself have employed it here.

Hansen offered to debate last month, but only on the subject of coal mining/ mountaintop removal. He has refused calls for debate about GISS, his modeling, or anything else.

Here’s why skeptics want debate. Science is supposed embrace challenges to hypothesis. That’s how it advances. Einstein said it only took one person to prove him wrong. These three won’t embrace debate, they won’t take questions, and they have a disdain for those who ask questions in spite of their isolation.

Jim Hansen referred to people like Steve McIntyre and myself as “court jesters” when we pointed out an error in GISTEMP. Einstein would have never done that, he would have said thank you and fixed it. Einstein was a man of integrity. James Hansen is not. Michael Mann is not, Gore most certainly is not.

All these men conduct their science in the public eye, but is goes beyond that, they seek out and embrace the public media to get their word out. Yet when the public wants to question them, they duck the questions, citing them as irrelevant, or in most case, don’t allow the questions to be publicly asked of them at all in their presence.

Science, especially popular public science that cannot be challenged, isn’t really science at all. People like myself and the thousands of WUWT regular readers see this, I hope that you are capable of seeing it also. Based on your own refusal to answer even the simplest of questions here, citing them as “irrelevant, my guess is that you won’t, but would prefer to enhance the fortifications of castle NCAR against the public horde.

Maybe you can call out over the castle walls and say “come to the gate and we’ll talk” rather than release buckets of hot lead. Bring Caspar Amman with you if you come to the gate. – Anthony Watts

Gary Strand (09:35:32) :

The debate is being done in the journals, guys. That may not be as emotionally satisfying, but that’s the way it’s done. So, submit your work for publication and let it be peer-reviewed. Science isn’t done on blogs, sorry.

PS – This isn’t high school debate class, you know.

REPLY: Exactly the response I expected from you. I gave you a chance to bridge the divide, and you chose to denigrate me by comparing it to high school debate class. You had to get that last dig in rather than leaving it alone. See here’s the problem with peer review, its an old boys club, which is why M&M ended up in E&E rather than BAMS or Journal of Climate. They sent it around. Nobody wanted to challenge Mann, because to do so challenges their own place in the system.

You aren’t any more capable of embracing debate or answering questions than the three men I named. From my view that makes you bereft of integrity. Build up those walls at NCAR Gary. Fortify your cubicle. But if you don’t want to take questions head on (so far you haven’t, you dance with deflection) maybe you should frequent another blog. Seriously. You do nothing but denigrate me and others here at every opportunity.

“science isn’t done on blogs” Yet, here you are. And that outdated notion will be disproven soon. Science is not done on the Gutenberg press and its derivatives, its is done by communication of ideas and challenges to ideas. The paper journal medium isn’t exclusive any longer. – Anthony

Gary Strand (10:21:30) :

The questions to which you wanted answers, Anthony, were completely irrelevant. You might as well have asked what color my eyes are. That I didn’t answer speaks nothing of my integrity – and that you pin my integrity on something so silly speaks far more of your own.

Is the peer-reviewed system perfect? Of course not – but that’s not an excuse to attempt to short-circuit it and post a ridiculously short and cursory analysis and call it “science”. You can call it an “old boys network”, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. If you want to have some credibility, you gotta go where the real scientists do, and meet their standards. If your ideas are truly good and correct, then they will out. Whining about the procedure gets you absolutely nowhere, and won’t make anyone take you seriously.

And, what I do here isn’t science. Neither is what you do.

I’ve not seen much here that would meet even the most minimal standards of even the most forgiving genuine journal.

REPLY: Ah the old “irrelevant therefore I won’t answer defense” Find a new one, that’s worn out. It’s relevant because I’m writing on perceptions of people who haven’t experienced things first hand. First hand experience has weight. In a court of law first hand experience has more weight than researched opinion. Petersen et al and Oreskes take the issue of 1970’s global cooling into the courts of public opinion.

As you pointed out (and I backed you up on) you never claimed you were a climate scientist.

I never claimed WUWT to be a “genuine journal”, that’s your claim, and again made only so that you can use it as a tool to denigrate. Look at the mast head. In the near future, online journals with online peer review will likely exceed that of paper journals. Blogs, in their infancy now, may very well evolve to fill that gap. Right now peer review is being practiced online whether you embrace the idea or not.

The problem of climate debate is tribal in nature. Closed minds like yours that refuse to consider others questions or ideas “seriously” seem to be the norm in the climate community. It is an example of an “us against them” tribal protectionism.

As for people taking me and/or WUWT seriously, they have and do. For example, NCDC would not have invited me to speak and visit for two days last year if they thought I was irrelevant. Without this blog and the support of its readers that would never have happened. There are many more examples you don’t know about because I’ve chosen not to publicize them. You are making an assumption from an outsider view.

There has been some excellent science done here. For example Ryan O’s analysis of the flawed Steig et al paper, which is another Michael Mann statistical math mess. But feel free to ignore it, as you have everything else.

Unfortunately your dogma refuses to allow any admission or agreement with the criticism of Steig et al.

I worry not what your opinion is, since the success of this blog, its reach, and subsequent projects, don’t rely upon it. As for my suggestion that you find another blog, I think that’s a good idea. Your whole purpose here seems to be denigration. – Anthony

This will probably continue.

[movielib]

A benchmark in global warming history hysteria is the release of Al Gore's scarefilm, An InConvenient Truth Lie. That auspicious date was January 24, 2006 at the Sundance Film Festival. While not scientifically significant, it's an interesting exercise to see just where global temperatures have gone since then. Answer: a surprising .39ºC (.74ºF) down.

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1799/G...nvenient-Truth

Global temperatures 'have plunged .74°F since Gore released 'An Inconvenient Truth'
June 2009 saw another drop in global temps
Sunday, July 05, 2009
By Marc Morano – Climate Depot

The latest global averaged satellite temperature data for June 2009 reveals yet another drop in the Earth's temperature. This latest drop in global temperatures means despite his dire warnings, the Earth has cooled .74°F since former Vice President Al Gore released "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2006.

According to the latest data courtesy of algorelied.com: "For the record, this month's Al Gore / 'An Inconvenient Truth' Index indicates that global temperatures have plunged approximately .74°F (.39°C) since 'An Inconvenient Truth' was released." (see satellite temperature chart here with key dates noted, courtesy of www.Algorelied.com - The global satellite temperature data comes from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Also see: 8 Year Downtrend Continues in Global Temps)

Gore has not yet addressed the simple fact that global temperatures have dropped since the release of his global warming film. (Gore has also not addressed this: Another Moonwalker Defies Gore: NASA Astronaut Dr. Buzz Aldrin rejects global warming fears: 'Climate has been changing for billions of years' - Moonwalkers Defy Gore's Claim That Climate Skeptics Are Akin To Those Who Believe Moon Landing was 'Staged')

A record cool summer has descended upon many parts of the U.S. after predictions of the "year without a summer." There has been no significant global warming since 1995, no warming since 1998 and global cooling for the past few years.

In addition, New peer-reviewed scientific studies now predict a continued lack of global warming for up to three decades as natural climate factors dominate. (See: Climate Fears RIP...for 30 years!? - Global Warming could stop 'for up to 30 years! Warming 'On Hold?...'Could go into hiding for decades' study finds – Discovery.com – March 2, 2009 )

This means that today's high school kids being forced to watch Al Gore's “An Inconvenient Truth” – some of them 4 times in 4 different classes – will be nearly eligible for AARP (age 50) retirement group membership by the time warming resumes if these new studies turn out to be correct. (Editor's Note: Claims that warming will “resume” due to explosive heat in the "pipeline" have also been thoroughly debunked. See: Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. 'There is no warming in the pipeline' )

An Inconvenient Graph:



Another Inconvenient "Graph":



Of course, such a short term trend cannot be taken as significant. But one has to wonder, if the temperature trend had ben exactly the same amount but in the opposite direction, how would we be getting pounded by it?

And mostly, it's just funny.

Edit: Disclaimer: .39ºC = about .70ºF, not .74ºF. I did not do that math. It didn't seem quite right to me which was why I checked it.

[parrotheads4]

Does anyone know what happens to the 2,000 nuclear warheads when they are disarmed? I see Obama and Medvedev are working on an agreement (1,000 each).

[OldDude]

Originally Posted by parrotheads4

Does anyone know what happens to the 2,000 nuclear warheads when they are disarmed? I see Obama and Medvedev are working on an agreement (1,000 each).

The last time, we bought the plutonium from the Russians, diluted it with U-238 (nonfissionable, "buffer" form of uranium) and made fuel rods for nuclear power plants. They worked fine, are the ultimate in "beating swords into plowshares."

It gets it off the market, unavailable to terrorists, and "burns" it up in a useful way, providing energy.
(Probably uranium miners are opposed, though).

Hopefully, we'll do the same thing again.

As an aside, it demonstrates that MOX (mixed oxide) fuel rods work perfectly, and the US should reprocess 100% of spent fuel rods to reduce nuclear waste, the time for storing it, and reduce the cost of the nuclear energy.

[parrotheads4]

Originally Posted by OldDude

The last time, we bought the plutonium from the Russians, diluted it with U-238 (nonfissionable, "buffer" form of uranium) and made fuel rods for nuclear power plants. They worked fine, are the ultimate in "beating swords into plowshares."

It gets it off the market, unavailable to terrorists, and "burns" it up in a useful way, providing energy.
(Probably uranium miners are opposed, though).

Hopefully, we'll do the same thing again.

As an aside, it demonstrates that MOX (mixed oxide) fuel rods work perfectly, and the US should reprocess 100% of spent fuel rods to reduce nuclear waste, the time for storing it, and reduce the cost of the nuclear energy.

Thanks for the info OldDude. I was going to buy some shares of CCJ. I think I'll wait.

[movielib]

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...85-661,00.html

Climate laws add to police workload
Ben Packham
June 12, 2009 12:00am

EXCLUSIVE: FRONTLINE police will be forced to become "carbon cops" under the Government's blueprint to cut greenhouse emissions.

The Herald Sun can reveal Australian Federal Police agents will have to prosecute a new range of climate offences.

But they are yet to be offered extra resources, stretching the thin blue line to breaking point.

"The Government is effectively saying to us, 'Ignore other crime types'," Australian Federal Police Association chief Jim Torr said.

The group had been trying for months, without success, to discuss the issue with Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, he said.

Interpol has warned the carbon market will be irresistible to criminal gangs because of the vast amounts of cash to be made. Possible rorts include under-reporting of carbon emissions by firms and bogus carbon offset schemes.

"If someone is rorting it by even 1 per cent a year, we're talking about many, many millions of dollars," Mr Torr said.

Ms Wong's office said AFP agents would be expected to enter premises and request paperwork to monitor firms' emissions reductions. They would act on the 30-strong Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority's orders.

It said the authority could appoint staff members or police as inspectors.

She said the Department of Climate Change had spoken to the AFPA and the parties would talk again. Carbon trading involves carbon emissions rights buying and selling. Businesses can offset emissions by investing in climate-friendly projects, or carbon credits.

Ms Wong's office said provisions had been made to ensure compliance. "Inspectors may enter premises and exercise other monitoring powers," she said. "The inspectors may ask questions and seek the production of documents. There is provision for the issue of monitoring warrants by magistrates."

The AFP's 2855 sworn agents are involved in law enforcement in Australia and overseas, investigating terrorist threats, drug syndicates, people trafficking, fraud and threats against children.

Mr Torr said breaking carbon trading laws would be like breaking other laws. "These offences will constitute another federal crime type, along with narcotics importing, people smuggling and all the rest of it, that the AFP will be expected to police," he said. "I can see very complex, covert investigations . . . a lot of scientific expertise required."

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is facing Senate defeat unless it can secure the support of key cross-benchers or the Opposition.

Opposition climate change spokesman Andrew Robb said the scheme was problematic.

[movielib]

A great satirist has arisen from the grave to praise Paul Krugman and his efforts to deal with the "Traitors to the Planet," i.e. those who voted against Ration'n'Tax.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/a-modes...il-our-planet/

A Modest Proposal for Dealing with the Traitors Who Imperil Our Planet

PJM is proud to bring ye another Swiftian proposition to deal with the climate traitors in our midst.
July 6, 2009 - by Jonathan Swift

It is melancholy to contemplate how the once loyal citizenry of our nation has become so infested by traitors. Indeed, I myself had not realized the extent of the corruption until this Monday last, the 29th of June, when the alarum bell was rung for all to hear by a source so impeccable, brilliant, perceptive, omniscient, and otherwise singular in merit as to eliminate all possibility of disputation.

This of course, was the column appearing that day in the Times of New York, penned under the byline of none other than His Excellency Herr Professor Paul von Krugman, Nobel laureate and intellect extraordinaire, in which he identified those who fail to support the cap and trade bill as traitors to the planet.

I must admit, as a mere scribe, I lack the wit to prove this case myself, but Professor von Krugman’s understanding transcends that of more ordinary humans, and so he must be right. It surely matters not that the matter under examination — the technique of weather control — is outside the area of study in which the professor has been accorded his prize. For if the world listens in awe to the pronouncements of beauty pageant victors upon philosophy, the affairs of nations, and other matters of general import, then why should Professor von Krugman not be granted equal credit for infallibility in all that he chooses to discourse upon? Certainly, given his celebrity otherwise, his indifferent performance in the swimsuit competition should not be held against him in this regard.

No, if Professor von Krugman concludes they are traitors, then traitors they must be, and not merely traitors to the crown, as were their predecessors in criminality, but traitors to the planet itself. Of course, the good professor is far too polite to specify the traitors’ portion, but the proper punishment is apparent. Death must be their sentence; for treason brooks no other. The gentle professor may be too kind to pronounce the verdict, but Justice herself cries out to us to do our duty. Without question or delay, the traitors must die.

But alas, are such measures truly sufficient to deal with the emergency? For certain we can and should quickly bring to the scaffold the 200-odd congressmen who openly betrayed the Earth by voting against the climate bill, but what of their hidden cohorts of planetary traitors spread throughout government at every level — state, county, village, and shire? How many acts of treason do these perform each and every day as they fail take action to save our planet from imminent, total, and utter destruction?

Treason by omission is equally heinous as treason by commission — perhaps worse, as it works its evil silently, cloaked from detection by a mask of apparent agreement with correct opinion. And it is these crypto-traitors surrounding us who threaten through their mendacious and perfidious inaction to sabotage all the efforts of our true leaders to coordinate the spirits of the good and loyal folk to submit to the sacrifice necessary for the salvation of the globe.

Yet the situation is not beyond hope. For I have divined a method that will strip the traitors of their disguises, make it impossible for any dissimulation to avail them in the slightest degree, so that in the face of the need for action, none will be able to continue to drag their feet in safety.

What is my method? It is simply this. That rather than measure loyalty by votes cast on bills or acts that are so interminable in their verbiage that no one can determine what they contain in any case, that the politicians and their henchmen be judged and sentenced based upon the climatic results they actually achieve. Those who meet their temperature quotas should be spared. Those who do not should be considered traitors, and dealt with accordingly.

Such a system need not be excessively rigid. For example, we would not (at least at first) set the same temperature standards for all regions. Rather, each state would be given a target temperature reasonably selected as well-suited for its location. For Florida, we might choose an average midsummer temperature of 85 degrees F, for Maine, 70 F, with finer-tuned temperature goals assigned to each county as well. Measurements could then be taken by well-trained and duly-authorized climate police located in stations within each district of every state.

Depending upon results achieved and scientifically measured, state and local officials could be rewarded or punished, with those incorrigibles who repeatedly deviate from the required performance by more than an acceptable margin being subject to the ultimate penalty. With many traitors thus weeded out, the executed officials could be replaced with many more loyal to the cause, while those others kept in their stations would be strongly encouraged to maintain or improve their performance. Then, with more appropriate leadership in position, increment by increment the weather standards could be minutely improved, until the world is cooled to exactly the degree desired.

The advantages of this system should be apparent; but to review, one must merely point out that it promises to be perfectly precise in its climatic outcome, impossible to deceive, and utterly fair in its method. Indeed, no lawyers need clutter the proposed climate courts, whose swift justice will be meted out in accord only with the objective and completely scientific determinations of the climate police.

In the face of the widespread treason exposed by Professor von Krugman, no lesser solution is adequate. I therefore humbly submit my plan to you, dear public, for your kind consideration, and I sincerely hope, rapid implementation, asking no recompense or remuneration for myself in return beyond that due naturally to a person largely responsible for the world’s salvation. There may be those among you who advise against the scheme’s adoption, but it should be evident that this can only be for the reason that they are traitors to the planet.

Jonathan Swift is the pen name of a scientist who contributes to Pajamas Media.

Now who can disagree with that? Unless, of course, you are a traitor yourself.

[movielib]

Re: Post #118: Green cops coming to Britain too.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle6639289.ece

From The Sunday Times
July 4, 2009
Environment Agency sets up green police
Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor

The boys in green are coming as the Environment Agency sets up a squad to police companies generating excessive CO2 emissions.

The agency is creating a unit of about 50 auditors and inspectors, complete with warrant cards and the power to search company premises to enforce the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), which comes into effect next year.

Decked out in green jackets, the enforcers will be able to demand access to company property, view power meters, call up electricity and gas bills and examine carbon-trading records for an estimated 6,000 British businesses. Ed Mitchell, head of business performance and regulation at the Environment Agency, said the squad would help to bring emissions under control. “Climate change and CO2 are the world’s biggest issues right now. The Carbon Reduction Commitment is one of the ways in which Britain is responding.”

The formation of the green police overcomes a psychological hurdle in the battle against climate change. Ministers have long recognised the need to have new categories of taxes and criminal offences for CO2 emissions, but fear a repetition of the fuel tax protests in 2000 when lorry drivers blockaded refineries.

The central unit, based in Warrington, Cheshire, can call on the agency’s national network of hundreds of pollution inspectors, many of whom will soon be trained in CO2 monitoring.

It will also be able to demand energy bills from utilities without the companies under investigation knowing they are being watched.

Perhaps most worrying, for managers will be the publication of an annual league table ranking companies by performance in cutting emissions. The government hopes the potential shame of a lowly placing will drive organisations to greater energy efficiency.

Mitchell predicted the unit would audit about 1,200 businesses a year. The first stage would be a desk study of their energy bills and activities, followed by a visit when numbers do not add up. “The inspectors will carry warrant cards giving them powers of entry to collect evidence. We will also have access to company accounts with suppliers,” he said.

The CRC was designed to force medium-size and large companies to pay attention to energy efficiency. Under the scheme they will have to use their energy bills to calculate the carbon dioxide generated by their activities. For each tonne of CO2 emitted, companies will have to buy a carbon allowance, with the money being paid into a central pool. At the end of each reckoning period, they will get a payment from the fund.

The least energy efficient will get back less than they paid in, with the surplus going to those that have performed best. The gains and losses will be small at first but the system is designed to ratchet upwards, so business finds it increasingly expensive to ignore energy efficiency.

Initially the allowances will cost £12 per tonne but from 2013 they will be sold through auctionso the price is likely to rise. Eventually thousands of big private and public sector groups will feel compelled to spend serious money on energy efficiency — or face even bigger bills.

The government-funded Carbon Trust said a main aim would be to halt the rise in emissions from such companies. This was predicted at about 17% between 2005 and 2025.

The government has argued that the £5m-plus annual costs of administering the commitment will be met by a charge on the companies and that they will be dwarfed by the savings. John Sauven, director of Greenpeace, said: “We must be able to enforce these new rules. We saw how the absence of enforcement led to chaos with the new rules on energy efficiency in building standards.”

See comments. Almost 100% negative.

[movielib]

Gore says the fight against global warming is like the fight against the Nazis.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6658672.ece

From The Times
July 7, 2009
Al Gore likens fight against climate change to battle with Nazis
Ben Webster, Environment Editor and Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor

Al Gore today compared the battle against climate change with the struggle against the Nazis.

The former US Vice President said the world lacked the political will to act and invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill by encouraging leaders to unite their nations to fight climate change.

He also accused politicians around the world of exploiting ignorance about the dangers of global warming to avoid difficult decisions.

Speaking in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by The Times, Mr Gore said: “Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War II.”

He added: “We have everything we need except political will but political will is a renewable resource.”

Mr Gore admitted that it was difficult to persuade the public that the threat from climate change was as urgent as the threat from Nazi Germany.

“The level of awareness and concern among populations has not crossed the threshold where political leaders feel that they must change.

“The only way politicians will act is if awareness raises to a level to make them feel that it’s a necessity.”

Mr Gore, who brought the issues around climate change to a mass audience with the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, said the great hope for the future lay in a high level of environmental awareness among young people.

He said sceptics who refused to believe dramatic cuts in carbon emissions could be delivered should consider the example of the young scientists in the NASA team which put a man on the moon on 1969.

“The average age of scientists in the space centre control room was 26, which means they were 18 when they heard President Kennedy say he wanted to put a man on the moon in 10 years. Neil Armstrong did it eight years and two months later.”

He said future generations would put one of two questions to today’s adults.

“It will either be ’what were you thinking, didn’t you see the North Pole melting before your eyes, didn’t you hear what the scientists were saying?’ Or they will ask ’how is it you were able to find the moral courage to solve the crisis which so many said couldn’t be solved?’.”

Sir David King, the Government’s former chief scientist and now director of the Smith School, also berated politicians for failing to follow up their statements on climate change with a clear programme of action.

“I do think it’s relatively easy for a prime minister to make a speech on climate change which sounds committed and very much more difficult for that prime minister to persuade the Treasury to put the finance behind that commitment to make it a reality.

“There is a long distance in government between saying what you think needs to be said and then doing in terms of making budgets available.”

Sir David expressed disappointment that no senior British politician had taken up his invitation to address a conference attended by the world’s top climate scientists, senior business leaders and the presidents of the Maldives and Rwanda.

“I tried to pull in a lot of IOUs. But where was Lord Mandelson (the Business Secretary), where was Ed Miliband (the Energy and Climate Change Secretary)? Where was David Cameron? Where was William Hague?”

Keep talking Al. The more you talk, the more people see what an exaggerating extremist you are. The backlash is getting real good.

Extra added irony: Holocaust victims and their descendants and just about any decent person might take exception. Not to mention Al likes to call skeptics "deniers" to mine the unspoken implication of a parallel between Holocaust deniers and CAGW skeptics.

[classicman2]

I don't know if this has been posted - T. Boone Pickens supports the president's energy plan.

[OldDude]

Oh, oh, I don't think Al will like this plan. Lets name names, and fine individuals.

They are on to you, Al.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090707...FuZmxvYXRlZHQ-

Plan floated to target individual carbon emitters

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US researchers have proposed a new strategy to tackle the global climate dilemma: target the biggest polluters in a country, who also tend to be the wealthiest individuals.

Under the framework, a universal cap -- rather than different caps for different countries -- would be placed on carbon emissions and countries would then be tasked with getting individuals living beyond that cap to reduce their carbon footprint.

"Most of the world's emissions come disproportionately from the wealthy citizens of the world, irrespective of their nationality," said lead author Shoibal Chakravarty, a research scholar at the Princeton Environmental Institute.

"We estimate that in 2008, half of the world's emissions came from just 700 million people," he added, noting that many emissions owe to lifestyles that involve airplane flights, car use and the heating and cooling of large homes.

The plan, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, proposes to use national income distribution data for each individual country in order to estimate how carbon emissions are shared out among individuals.

After estimating global carbon emissions, the researchers proposed a rule to derive a universal cap on global individual emissions and determine corresponding limits.

The study did not say how the countries would implement the plan, although it noted that "a well-designed national policy would contain costs and not exacerbate inequalities."

About half of global greenhouse gas emissions come from less than a billion of the world's inhabitants, the researchers noted in explaining the logic behind their approach.

"Our proposal moves beyond per capita considerations to identify the world's high-emitting individuals, who are present in all countries," the University of Princeton research team wrote in its study.

The Kyoto Protocol, the current carbon-capping pact, charges rich countries with cutting most of the emissions while developing countries, including rapidly-developing China and India, are not required to reduce the emissions blamed for global warming.

The researchers said they hope their approach will garner the support of rich and poor countries less than six months before key UN climate change talks in Copenhagen.

As an example, they said that if global leaders set a target to maintain carbon emissions in 2030 at today's levels, no individual could emit more than 11 tons (10 tonnes) of carbon per year.

According to the projections, 1.13 billion people would be above the cap out of an estimated 8.1 billion-strong world population in 2030.

Each individual now emits a global average of five tons (4.5 tonnes) of carbon dioxide each year. Each European emits about 10 tons (nine tonnes) annually, while each American produces twice that amount, according to the study.

The researchers noted that some existing strategies based on energy use are considered unfair because they conceal the emissions of wealthy major polluters.

Allocating responsibility for carbon emissions has been the thorniest issue confronting negotiations between developed and developing countries ahead of the UN conference in December, which aims to strike a new global warming pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012

[movielib]

Followup to Post#121: Times Online scrubs out Nazis from Al Gore story.

This is unbelievable. Read the story in Post #121. Now read the revised story (which is the one that is now found at my link in Post #121):

From Times Online
July 7, 2009
Al Gore invokes spirit of Churchill in battle against climate change
Ben Webster, Environment Editor and Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor

Al Gore invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill today by encouraging political leaders to follow the example of Britain’s wartime leader and unite their nations to fight climate change.

The former US vice-president accused politicians around the world of exploiting ignorance about the dangers of global warming. He said lack of awareness among voters allowed governments to avoid taking difficult decisions.

Speaking in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment , sponsored by The Times, Mr Gore said: “Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War II.” He added: “We have everything we need except political will but political will is a renewable resource.” Mr Gore admitted that it was difficult to persuade the public that the threat from climate change was as urgent as the threat during World War 2.

“The level of awareness and concern among populations has not crossed the threshhold where political leaders feel that they must change.

“The only way politicians will act is if awareness raises to a level to make them feel that it’s a necessity.” Mr Gore, who brought the issues around climate change to a mass audience with the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, said the great hope for the future lay in the high level of environmental awareness among young people.

He said sceptics who refused to believe dramatic cuts in carbon emissions could be delivered should consider the example of the young scientists in the Nasa team which put a man on the moon on 1969.

“The average age of scientists in the space centre control room was 26, which means they were 18 when they heard President Kennedy say he wanted to put a man on the moon in 10 years. Neil Armstrong did it eight years and two months later.” He said future generations would put one of two questions to today’s adults.

“It will either be ’what were you thinking, didn’t you see the North Pole melting before your eyes, didn’t you hear what the scientists were saying?’ “Or they will ask ’how is it you were able to find the moral courage to solve the crisis which so many said couldn’t be solved?’.” Sir David King, the Government’s former chief scientist and now director of the Smith School, also berated politicians for failing to follow up their statements on climate change with a clear programme of action.

“I do think it’s relatively easy for a prime minister to make a speech on climate change which sounds committed and very much more difficult for that prime minister to persuade the Treasury to put the finance behind that commitment to make it a reality.

“There is a long distance in government between saying what you think needs to be said and then doing in terms of making budgets available.” Sir David expressed disappointment that no senior British politician had taken up his invitation to address a conference attended by the world’s top climate scientists, senior business leaders and the presidents of the Maldives and Rwanda.

“I tried to pull in a lot of IOUs. But where was the Lord Mandelson [the Business Secretary], where was Ed Miliband [the Energy and Climate Change Secretary]? Where was David Cameron? Where was William Hague?”

The Nazis are gone. Gone from the headline, gone from the story. If only World War II had been as easy.

Our friends at Watts Up With That? have shots of the before and after:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/07/gore-and-nazis/

Before:


After:


And for good measure before and after together:


Obviously, it was recognized immediately that Gore was embarrassing himself. Certainly the Time Online did not make the shift to try and give the Goracle cover he so richly does not deserve.

Shameful "journalism" yet again. Not to mention, you can't hide the past in our computer-internet-blogging age. And no notice even that the article had been revised whitewashed. So just plain stupid to boot.

WUWT notes: "But they forgot to change the base HTML which still has the original title." As you can see in the heading for both the before and after.

[movielib]

Cache link to "old" Gore/Nazi story (as long as it lasts):

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache...ece?FORM=ZZNR4