Category Archives: Environment

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is known for its relentless pursuit of initiatives to combat pollution and emissions it deems harmful, including carbon dioxide. However, one of its efforts designed to counter climate change has the agency attracting incoming fire, with critics charging that CARB is more concerned about the prospect of global warming than protecting the public from felons.

At issue is a CARB measure known as the “Cool Cars” rule that requires the application of certain additives to window glass. The theory behind the mandate is that reflective windshields will prevent cars from overheating, and thus reduce reliance on air conditioning, which affects how much fuel is burnt by a car. Proponents of climate change theory attribute changes in temperature to human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels, whereas skeptics charge that such theory amounts to a load of hot air.

What is certain in the debate over this mandate is that CARB’s action has a lot of people hot under the collar: While the glaze ostensibly prevents excess solar heat from entering cars, critics say it also seriously degrades the signal sent by a whole host of electronic devices, including GPS navigation systems, cellular phones and—perhaps most critically— ankle monitoring bracelets worn by felons, which utilize GPS technology.

On that point, which regulators and legislators have to-date not acknowledged, law enforcement groups and victim rights advocates have been expressing “grave concerns” about the new regulation. In a recent letter obtained by Capitol Confidential, the California Police Chiefs Association, the California Narcotics Officers Association and the California Peace Officers’ Association cautioned that the new regulation “threatens to undermine an already imperfect monitoring tool.”

Warning that prison overcrowding and budget shortfalls necessitate the release of additional felons, none of whom could be properly monitored under the regulation, the glaze would “virtually vitiate the effectiveness of GPS monitoring.” “At a time when the public safety of California communities is being challenged as never before,” the letter reads, “the crippling of important GPS monitoring and the utility of cellular phones to seek emergency assistance is not helpful.”

In line with the disconcerting reminder from law enforcement that “horrific crimes” take place when the GPS signal of ankle monitoring devices are dropped, Crime Victims United of California also wrote state regulators last month that the group had “serious concerns” with the new initiative. “Given the difficulty in adequately monitoring the prison, jail and parolee population as it is this regulation should be halted immediately as it will result in even greater problems for the state in monitoring its GPS population,” the group’s president wrote. “[T]his approach to global warming is unacceptable and has crime victims in an uproar.”

Typically, criticisms of California’s approach to combating the perceived threat of climate change have tended to center on the impact of state initiatives on jobs. Just this week, California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office indicated that the state’s climate change policy would likely lead to “modest” job losses in the short term.

This new uproar could, observers say, result in CARB easing its “Cool Cars” regulation.

If you ask people on the street (outside of Chicago) if they have ever heard of ShoreBank, the answer would likely be “no.” While ShoreBank isn’t a Goldman Sachs, a Bank of America, or a JP Morgan, to the Progressives, this “little” bank is in many ways every bit as big and important as the aforementioned “large banks.”

Why?

One of the core components of President Obama’s fundamental change for America is to create clean energy jobs, also known as “green jobs”.  During his campaign and as recently as his State of the Union Address, President Obama continues to talk about the need “green” jobs. In fact, during his State of the Union 2010 speech, the President stated, “We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities –  and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy-efficient, which supports clean energy jobs. “

In a speech given by the President in Virginia on Dec. 15, 2009, he said, “The simple act of retrofitting these buildings to make them more energy-efficient — installing new windows and doors, insulation, roofing, sealing leaks, modernizing heating and cooling equipment — is one of the fastest, easiest and cheapest things we can do to put Americans back to work while saving families money and reducing harmful emissions.”

In the  stimulus package last year, President Obama devoted nearly $60 billion of his plan for building a new green-based economy.

Retro-fitting older homes to save money on heating and cooling costs is a great idea; but in today’s economy, how many people can afford to spend that kind of money up front? And if people aren’t buying green building materials, like replacement windows, how will any of this create green jobs?   If there isn’t an increase in green jobs, then the billions spent in stimulus money would be a waste — and the President can’t let that happen.

Enter ShoreBank.

ShoreBank has been active in helping homebuyers with making their homes more energy efficient for years.  In 2005, then-governor Rod Blagojevich “announced a $10 Million Homeownership Initiative to Revitalize Homes in Chicago’s South and West Sides.”  This venture was administered by ShoreBank, which also provided homebuyers with education on “how to choose energy-efficient products…..”

ShoreBank’s own website states, “In Chicago, borrowers are rated on types of windows and light bulbs used, and a free energy audit is often required before a loan is granted.”

Recently, ShoreBank received $35 million in “new market tax credits” to finance green buildings and other projects in Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland – the communities it serves.

Now what if you just had a product that needed to be made by green jobs that could be sold by a bank?  Enter Serious Windows, made by Serious Materials.

Serious  Windows took over the Republic Windows and Door Factory in Chicago. They make energy efficient windows which have been selected by the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County to be used in their low-income multifamily dwellings that qualify under the Illinois Home Weatherization Assistance Program.  This Assistance Program was awarded $242.5 million in the ARRA stimulus money.

Serious Windows must be important windows in the Obama Master Plan. The company has been singled out (in speeches made by the administration) as being the best windows in America.  And Serious Materials received $548,100 in Recovery Act Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credits for clean energy manufacturing projects – while no other window company received this same credit.

Now you have all the pieces in place to put together a plan to create green jobs. You have a window manufacturer (Serious Windows) receiving government money. You have a weatherization project, also government funded, awarded to the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County.  And then there’s the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, which recommends Serious Windows, trains energy auditors and develops certified contractor lists.  And finally, there’s ShoreBank, a bank with long ties to the Progressives that has also received government money.  ShoreBank requires that an energy audit be completed before a home loan is approved.  (Oh, and did I mention that one of the board members for Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance works for ShoreBank?  Joel Freehling is the Manager of Triple Bottom Line Innovations at ShoreBank, whose  “… primary task is the creation of innovative financial products to promote energy efficiency and green development in urban markets, such as ShoreBank’s Homeowners’ Energy Conservation Program.” )

If ShoreBank can loan money to people to buy homes and recommend Serious Windows (which creates green jobs), it will be a win-win for the green jobs stimulus project.  Is it any wonder that Senator Dick Durbin and Rep. Jan Schakowsky are applying pressure as they ask for a $100 million bail out of ShoreBank?

A report released Monday says that California's new global warming law will increase unemployment in the Golden State.

The announcement was in stark contrast to continual claims by the Left and their media minions that proposed cap and trade legislation at the federal level will result in an explosion in green jobs.

As reported by the Los Angeles Times Wednesday, the nation's most populated state, which is the first to impose laws concerning carbon dioxide emissions, might see a net reduction in employment as a result:

The state's nonpartisan legislative analyst's office examined 2008 economic modeling by the California Air Resources Board and concluded that it "may overstate the number of jobs" attributable to future implementation of the 2006 climate law.

While acknowledging the uncertainty of such projections, the report said, "On balance, however, we believe that the aggregate net jobs impact in the near term is likely to be negative, even after recognizing that many of the . . . programs phase in over time."

The report comes at a politically charged moment, when polls show employment to be Americans' top concern. Signature gathering began last week on a November ballot initiative that would delay the law, known as AB 32, until unemployment drops to 5.5% for at least a year. California joblessness is over 12% today.

With U.S. unemployment near ten percent, and the economy consistently viewed as the nation's top priority in poll after poll, one would think this report would be quite newsworthy.

After all, with belief in Nobel Laureate Al Gore's favorite money-making myth plummeting, and Congress beginning to work on compromise cap and trade packages, the public should be informed that California's Legislative Analyst's Office believes its state's climate change legislation will result in job cuts.

Unfortunately, Google news and LexisNexis searches found that outside of California, American media have not shown much interest Monday's announcement.

The Associated Press ran a story about this Tuesday, but only on its State and Local Wire. 

Reuters also did a piece on the matter Tuesday which ran in the U.K.

From what I can tell, outside of California, the only major media outlet to find this issue newsworthy was Investor's Business Daily.

I wonder why.

This week, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South Africa’s tourism minister, was nominated to head the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC). Van Schalkwyk is a former apartheid operative who bartered his way into the black majority government by helping it smear its democratic opposition. He is a statist bureaucrat who is one of the most unpopular political figures in the new South Africa. He is just right for the job.

There is no one better to put in charge of the entire political enterprise of climate change as it is collapsing amidst failed negotiations and accusations of fraud. Van Schalkwyk will be sure to hasten the end. He did the same when he took over the rump of South Africa’s National Party, the party of apartheid, and led it to crushing defeat. He gave up and joined the African National Congress (ANC) government in return for his ministry.

That was bad news for South Africans, as Van Schalkwyk encouraged other politicians to defect from the country’s leading opposition parties to join the corrupt and hegemonic  ANC. (An angry public began referring to those who crossed the floor for political favors as “crosstitutes.”) But it is good news for critics of the UN climate change bureaucracy, who now have a target who personifies everything there is to dislike about the system.

The worldwide “consensus” on climate change is unraveling amidst mounting evidence that the UN and senior scientists manipulated the data to suit their predictions of rapid warming and their prescriptions for drastic intervention in the global economy. It is, of course, true that carbon dioxide is a “greenhouse gas” that helps warm the earth; it is true that we have pumped more of it into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution.

It is also true that there is evidence of increasing average global surface temperatures over the same time period, and reason to believe that trend could continue over the next century. But it is also true that there are other factors affecting global climate, including some that reduce temperatures. And it is also true that our most sophisticated computer models cannot predict how warmer temperatures will affect our climate in the future.

That wasn’t good enough for those eager to create a sense of alarm. They projected worst-case scenarios and tried to convince the world that the potential costs of future warming far outweighed the costs of shutting down whole industries. They never explained whether climate change could actually be reversed; they did not need to, as long as they could scare people enough to avoid having to answer tough questions.

Now, after more than a decade of temperature stagnation that the models failed to predict, and the publication of e-mails suggesting that leading scientists conspired to silence skeptical colleagues, the questions are impossible to avoid. Government-led efforts to control emissions, such as cap-and-trade, “green jobs,” and “weatherizing” homes have also been exposed as rent-seeking cronyism rather than sound policy.

Enter Van Schalkwyk. He was given the ministry of environmental affairs and tourism in 2004 despite having no prior background or interest in environmental science. He has retained his cabinet position and made a name for himself in the international climate change community through his talent as a deal-broker and his shrewd sense of political opportunity. The occult world of climate change negotiations will suit his skills perfectly.

Though ridiculed as a political leader, Van Schalkwyk is among his country’s most competent bureaucrats. Yet even he cannot save the UN’s climate change framework–and he may not care. He may simply follow the example of fellow South African Richard Goldstone, who was appointed to the apartheid bench and later re-cast himself as a human rights icon, leapfrogging up the UN bureaucracy from one failure to the next.

Those who still place great store in the UN’s climate change efforts are deeply worried about Van Schalkwyk’s appointment. “The UNFCC post must be headed by someone of integrity, and that’s not a characteristic associated with Van Schalkwyk, thanks to his chequered career as an apartheid student spy and a man who sold out his political party for a junior cabinet seat,” said Patrick Bond of South Africa’s Centre for Civil Society.

The truth is that no scientist or policymaker of integrity would want the job. The science is a mess, and the policy disagreements between developing and developed countries are intractable. President Barack Obama could not solve the UN’s climate change troubles, and neither will Marthunus van Schalkwyk. But Van Schalkwyk will be content to sit atop the rubble as the edifice crumbles. He has done it before–and done it well.

In the midst of a drive by Washington’s powerful ethanol lobby to expand what critics often deride as an artificially created, and government aided and promoted market for “fuel made from food,” the top administrator from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday testified before the Senate Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, telling lawmakers the agency will make a final determination late summer on allowing higher levels of ethanol to be blended into gasoline.

The ethanol industry is currently petitioning the EPA for a waiver to increase ethanol blends in gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent, in order to create a larger market–and artificial demand–for the fuel source.

Administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency’s decision awaits completion of Department of Energy (DOE) tests on ethanol—namely, how higher ethanol blends might adversely affect vehicle engines, a long-running concern of automakers and the marine leisure industry, among others—which she expects to receive by May. “We expect that once we get that additional data, and it will be publicly available, the EPA will be in a position to move toward a final decision on the waiver, late summer in the time period,” Jackson said in response to a line of questioning by ethanol booster Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Co-chair of Ethanol Across America, Nelson recently launched a campaign to browbeat the EPA by offering an amendment to an EPA appropriations bill demanding higher ethanol blends. The amendment failed, but sources say that Nelson and fellow proponents of ethanol remain committed to expanding use of the fuel.  This is despite frequent criticisms of ethanol from across the philosophical spectrum: Fiscal conservatives tend to regard ethanol as a boondoggle tying together the worst practices of pork-barreling and interference with the free market; progressives and some social conservatives have criticized ethanol as environmentally unfriendly, with some also pointing to the impact that using food to produce fuel has on global food prices, and thus hunger and malnutrition in poorer countries.

Once hailed as the “fuel of the future” by Henry Ford in the 1920s, ethanol opponents say that the market has roundly rejected ethanol as a viable fuel source, and emphasize that it is not a new product. Fewer than 2 percent of all refueling stations in the United States currently offer ethanol, despite extensive government subsidies aimed at its production (a 1998 report by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) observed that “the fuel-ethanol industry was created by a mix of Federal and State subsidies, loan programs and incentives. It continues to depend on Federal and State subsidies”).

One critic contacted by Capitol Confidential says that if EPA grants the waiver, it will constitute little more than further de facto federal welfare for the ethanol industry.  Another critic notes that it could also result in a problem for the administration if, as some fear, the warranties of hundreds of millions of cars were voided.

Since its founding, ShoreBank has been a progressive-minded bank focused on community development. However, it soon adopted the progressive commitment to environmentalism after founders Ron Grzywinski and Mary Houghton were approached in 1993 by Ecotrust, an environmentally-conscious firm focusing on debt for nature swaps in rainforest countries as well as environmental banking in the Pacific Northwest. The partnership of the two firms led to the establishment of ShoreTrust (now ShoreBank Enterprise Pacific) which provided financing, marketing and management assistance to small businesses in the Pacific coastal rain forest area. From there, the rest of the ShoreBank family eventually followed in adopting the green agenda.

For the entire story chronicling the founding of the bank and its move towards its environmental commitment, you may read Alka Srivastva’s dissertation for Case Western Reserve University here>>>.

From there, it did not take long for ShoreBank to incorporate environmentalism into its mission and formalize its commitment to the green agenda. In 1999, ShoreBank’s board of directors adopted a new conservation and development policy requiring the bank itself to reduce its waste and also encourage its customers to adopt more sustainable practices. The concept of environmental health then assumed its place alongside the goals of community development and profitability to form the “Triple Bottom Line” slogan that the company champions today. As evidence of its own commitment, ShoreBank has even addressed its own carbon emissions by purchasing offsets for 450 metric tons of C02 to offset emissions through 2010.

ShoreBank’s environmental advocacy is now prevalent throughout its dealings, both  in how it relates to its domestic banking customers, and in its international development objectives.

Domestically, ShoreBank’s evironmental objectives are readily apparent their website:

How does a banking corporation address environmental issues?

First, by adopting sound conservation principles for its own operations – reducing energy and paper consumption, reducing and recycling its waste and buying products made of recycled materials.

Second, by providing information to its customers that shows how their choices have long-term environmental impact. Homeowners, if they know how, can reduce their electric and gas usage, benefiting their pocketbooks as well as the environment. Businesses, if they know how, can also reduce their energy consumption, waste and potentially their use of toxic chemicals.

Third, by providing financing for physical improvements that benefit the environment. These physical improvements can include building modifications, equipment upgrades and restoring vacant buildings to new economic life. These investments also directly benefit the community by revitalizing its real estate, leading to improved perceptions and higher property values.

ShoreBank has also introduced its EcoDeposits® program where customers can directly support the green agenda. From its website:

Like Development Depositssm, EcoDeposits®, are market-rate, fully insured deposit accounts. They offer customers the opportunity to support the work of ShoreBank Pacific.

ShoreBank Pacific fulfills its goal of creating a conservation economy in the rainforest of the Pacific Northwest by lending to local companies that use energy efficiently, reduce waste and pollution, and conserve natural resources.

ShoreBank Pacific CEO Dave Williams takes it one step further, actually questioning new borrowers about their green commitment and maintaining a report card:

We put together a program where we analyze what it means to be sustainable, looking at environmental, business, and community issues. One big question is how are you treating your employees? Are you helping them to generate wealth? Are you improving their wealth, using your stock options to help your employees and enhance your business? For environmental issues, we look at how you use water, how you recover water and clean it, how you use energy, if you produce clean energy, how you manage CO2, whether you are you offsetting CO2 that your product produces, if you are using sustainably produced materials.

All of this goes on a scorecard which we use to determine how they are doing. We find some things upon which they can improve, and make those suggestions. In addition, we talk to them annually to see how they are becoming a more sustainable business.

Even more specifically, ShoreBank Pacific has developed a unique loan scoring system based on the Natural Step Framework, a scientific model to facilitate complex sustainability planning. This system evaluates loan applicants in several specific categories ranging from green engineering to landscape conservation, even managing to include the component of “social equity”.

ShoreBank apparently doesn’t just offer its customers the opportunity to go green; it highly encourages them to do it.

ShoreBank has extended its mission of environmental advocacy into the international community as well. ShoreBank is a founding member of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN). According to GIIN’s website:

The GIIN works to increase dramatically the level and effectiveness of capital that is supporting market-based solutions to social and environmental problems. Our goal is to help foster a coherent impact investing industry that channels investment capital efficiently to accelerate the development of solutions to pressing social and environmental problems.

There seems little question that ShoreBank is deeply committed to environmental globalism. We need look no further than ShoreBank Executive Vice President Jan Piercy, a former college roommate of Hillary Clinton who was appointed to the World Bank while a member of the Clinton administration. While working for the World Bank, she explained how she felt banks could become effective at providing “global public goods” in an article she wrote for a public policy conference it sponsored. Her own words lay claim to her commitment to the green agenda:

We know how to build roads. We know how to build a hospital. But how do we deal with tremendously interconnected problems such as water access and quality, or global warming, the magnitude of which threatens to overwhelm us?

She acknowledges her concern for global warming, but what’s even more enlightening is the way she marries the progressive ideas regarding economic justice with the cause of the environment:

One issue the bank is wrestling with, for example, is whether in the forestry sector, the Bank should stick with an absolute ban on logging in tropical moist forests  or — recognizing how much the poor depend on forests for their livelihood — consider selective interventions that allow us to protect the forests but at the same time provide livelihoods for the poor.

So here we see the avenue the environmental cause can be a vehicle in leveling the playing field between the haves and have-nots — and on a global scale.

Finally, while Cap and Trade is not legally mandated, ShoreBank is actively involved in the carbon offset trading market. ShoreBank Pacific is a supporter of YurtCozy, a new international carbon trading website. YurtCozy allows those who feel guilty about their own use of “dirty energy” to voluntarily offset their usage by paying for it. YurtCozy will then will make the funds available in loans through microfinance institutions like ShoreBank to foster international development efforts that produce smaller carbon footprints.

So, where does this leave us as we consider the possibility of ShoreBank receiving a state bailout? Well, as the Washington Times recently acknowledged, recent history has cast grave doubts about the very claims of man-made climate change itself. Therefore, ambitious and expensive measures to address it may need to be reconsidered. However, in the beginning, the bank’s founders chose to pursue its mission in the private sector believing the federal government could not create lasting change.  Given that, we have no reason to question the bank’s objectives. However, the potential of a bailout changes the argument. As taxpayers who would fund it, the risks are not just the bank’s, but ours — and we should question what we are paying for, including whether the claims of the green movement justify our tax money. In any case, it is the height of irony that ShoreBank, having predicated its operations on disavowing government solutions, now seeks a government solution to save it.

This week (March 3, 2010) was the deadline Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) set for Mark Crisson, President and CEO of the American Public Power Association (APPA), to explain why APPA is urging Senators to support Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s Congressional Review Act resolution to veto the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. The Senate may vote on the Murkowski resolution as soon as next week.

Now, aside from the merits of the issue, which I’ll get into in a moment, Waxman and Markey’s behavior is out of line. Waxman and Markey (W/M) are Members of the House of Representatives. What business is it of theirs if the APPA lobbies Senators about a bill pending in the Senate? Senators can conduct their own inquiries without any assistance from W/M. And why didn’t W/M copy Sen. Murkowski or at least Senate Energy Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) on their Feb. 25 letter to Mr. Crisson? Failure to “cc” any of the principals in the Senate flouts one of the most basic rules of legislative courtesy.

Besides being busybodies, Waxman and Markey are bullies.

In their letter to Crisson, Waxman and Markey demand that he “clarify exactly APPA’s position on EPA’s scientific finding,” and either “provide the scientific basis” for disputing it, or explain why APPA is urging Senators to disapprove the finding if it has no scientific “bases” for disputing it.

There is in fact a strong scientific basis for disputing EPA’s endangerment finding. Peabody Energy presents the evidence in exquisite detail in their petition for a reconsideration of the endangerment finding. The basis that eludes Waxman and Markey may be summarized in one word: Climategate.

EPA’s endangerment finding relies heavily on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. Scientists at the heart of the Climategate scandal include several lead authors and contributors to the IPCC reports. They massaged data to produce pre-determined conclusions, ignored data that did not fit into a “nice tidy story line,” conspired to bias the peer-reviewed literature by preventing “skeptics” from publishing, and violated freedom of information laws to prevent critics from checking their data and methods.

These behaviors produced a secretive, agenda-driven process that flouts EPA’s own standards of “transparency and openness,” making the IPCC reports unsuitable as a basis for EPA policy decisions.

However, although the scientific shortcomings of EPA’s endangerment finding are serious, Mr. Crisson need not engage in this debate, because the Murkowski resolution does not take a stand on EPA’s “science” one way or the other.

W/M would like nothing better than to spin the Murkowski resolution as a benighted attempt to determine scientific truth by voting. Ironically, W/M do much the same by continually invoking the alleged “consensus of scientists,” as if a head count could settle scientific controversies. But that’s a topic for another day.

My free (and unsolicited) advice to Mr. Crisson – and anyone else debating opponents of the Murkowski resolution – is to clarify what the resolution is and isn’t. It is not a referendum on EPA’s “science.” Rather, it is a referendum on whether bureaucrats with a vested interest in expanding their power, aided and abetted by trial lawyers and eco-pressure groups with no political accountability to the American people, should make climate and energy policy for the nation. It is a referendum on the constitutional propriety of EPA dealing itself into a position to implement regulatory policies Congress never approved when it enacted and amended the Clean Air Act.

A bit of background is in order here. If allowed to stand, the endangerment finding will compel EPA to establish greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for new motor vehicles. That, in turn, will automatically make carbon dioxide (CO2) “subject to regulation” under the Clean Air Act’s pre-construction and operating permit programs. As even EPA acknowledges, stretching those programs to include CO2 would lead to “absurd results” manifestly contrary to congressional intent.

For example, EPA would have to apply pre-construction permitting requirements to tens of thousands of previously non-regulated small business, and operating permit requirements to millions. The permitting programs would crash under the own weight, freezing construction activity and thrusting countless businesses into legal limbo during the worst recession in 50 years.

The endangerment finding is also precedent for economy-wide regulation of greenhouse gases under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) program. Logically, EPA would have to set the NAAQS for CO2 below current atmospheric levels. Even a global depression lasting several decades would not be enough to bring America (and the world) into attainment with such a standard, yet the Clean Air Act obligates states to attain “primary” (health-based) NAAQS within five or at most 10 years.

To have its cake and eat it (regulate CO2 without hammering small business and igniting a political backlash), EPA proposes in its Tailoring Rule to exempt small sources of CO2 from the permitting programs. This breach of the separation of powers may or may not survive judicial scrutiny. But even if it does, EPA’s proposed small business protections would terminate in six years. Moreover, the Tailoring Rule in no way reduces the threat of NAAQS regulation. The Murkowski resolution, on the other hand, would nip all this mischief in the bud.

How? The Murkowski resolution would veto the endangerment finding’s “legal force and effect.” And that is all it would do. It takes absolutely no position on the scientific validity of EPA’s reasoning or conclusions, as anyone can see who actually takes the trouble to read the text, which is only one sentence long.

And, just in case you’re wondering, Sen. Murkowski is not a global warming skeptic, nor is she opposed in principle to greenhouse gas regulation. She simply believes that climate policy is too important to be made by anyone except the people’s elected representatives.

It is thus a complete misunderstanding to claim, as Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and others do, that the Murkowski amendment is equivalent to Congress voting to overturn the Surgeon General’s report in 1964 finding that cigarette smoking causes cancer. The Surgeon General’s report was simply that – an assessment of the scientific literature. It had zero legal force or effect. In fact, the Surgeon General proposed no remedies at all. It was Congress, not the Surgeon General or any executive agency that, in 1965, required cigarette packages to carry a health warning, and that later prohibited cigarette advertising on television and radio.

If the endangerment finding were simply an assessment of the scientific literature, the Senate would have no business voting on it. But it is much more than that. It is the setup for EPA to take control of vast portions of the economy. It is the trigger for a cascade of regulations potentially more costly than any climate bill or treaty Congress has considered and either rejected or declined to enact or ratify.

W/M need to chill. Whether anyone – the APPA, other trade associations, or Members of Congress – agrees or disagrees with EPA’s “science” is irrelevant. Do W/M support politically accountable policymaking or bureaucratic end runs around the democratic process? Do they think EPA should be allowed to amend the Clean Air Act and violate the separation of powers to avoid the political fallout from regulatory excesses (“absurd results”) that the agency’s “science” would unleash on the American economy?

Finally, do W/M favor establishing NAAQS for CO2?  If not, just how do they propose to avoid this “absurd result” if the endangerment finding is allowed to stand?

Too bad W/M get to ask all the questions and don’t have to answer any. Their questions are designed to bully and intimidate – and distract public attention from serious threats to our economy and our democracy, threats the Murkowski resolution would remove.

My late father had a phrase to describe the arrogant intellectuals unacquainted with real life who foist their insane ideas on the “unenlightened” rest of us: The phrase was “educated idiots.”

Sadly, today his words ring ever truer. To witless:

(In what is rarely a good sign) a New York Times blog reports the Harvard-based Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has determined fuel prices must rise significantly to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.  Thus, in the name of discredited Leftist psuedo-science, your gas prices could reach $7 a gallon.

In this tepid spat of Think Tanks vs. Gas Tanks, we glean two things: these researchers have recession-proof jobs; and they are unconcerned you don’t.

How else to explain these researchers’ cavalier demand that your shrinking family budget must get smaller and your job must become more tenuous all so Goddess Gaia can keep her cool?

In our real world, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2009 annual summary reports that unemployment rates rose last year in all regions, divisions, and states.  And nowhere is the pain of this recessed economy deeper than in my Michigan, which had the largest increase in unemployment percentage from last year (5.3%); and has held the nation’s highest unemployment rate since this recession began (at times exceeding 15%).

In Michigan and across the country, hard-working Americans cannot afford a government-dictated increase in fuel prices or any other energy source. This simple fact is lost upon the educated idiots who egotistically believe they can control the weather by hiking your taxes and cost of living; taking your job; and dictating your life.

Ergo, the inaugural Educated Idiots Award goes to the Harvard-based Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. While you can still afford to do so, feel free to honk your displeasure at them as they segue into work.

To nominate the next Educated Idiots Award, please visit www.mccotterrocks.com or emailnominate@mccotterrocks.com.

Now that most of twelve California wind turbines retrofitted for Minnesota winters are finally operational, several cities have acknowledged to the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota that the $5 million project may be more suited for generating PR—both good and bad—than producing significant quantities of power.

The wind power project involves utilities in eleven cities scattered across the state from the metro area to East Grand Forks in a consortium called the Minnesota Municipal Power Agency (MMPA). Each of the eleven member cities received one turbine, and the twelfth was given to the MMPA owned and operated Faribault Energy Park in Faribault. It was supposed to be a step toward meeting the state renewable energy mandate that requires 25 percent of Minnesota’s power be from renewable energy sources by 2025.

It turns out, however, the twelve wind derricks will produce power for perhaps several hundred homes, hardly making a dent in the MMPA’s 57,000 household and business customers.

“They’re basically for public relations, educational purposes. They’re just not feasible for any significant amount of electrical generation,” said Dan Voss, Municipal Utilities Director for the City of Anoka.

The idea of a green energy public relations campaign is acknowledged up front in what’s called the Hometown WindPower project’s criteria for the turbine site selection on member city North St. Paul’s website. The document states the turbine must have “prominent visibility from major roads” and serve to “show each community’s commitment to clean renewable energy.”

The turbines succeeded in attracting publicity from the start, drawing national attention for all the wrong reasons, when the frigid Minnesota temperatures shut down the turbines before they ever got going.

“The original purpose was to help meet our 25 per cent requirement,” said Wally Wysopal, City Manager of North St. Paul. “The other objective is to get people to understand this is going to be a tough objective to hit and these are symbols of that.  And I think you can see they’re not easy to get going sometimes.”

At $417,000 per wind turbine, it’s an expensive campaign fueled by federally subsidized Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBS). The revenue or cost savings from the renewable energy are utilized to pay off the bonds over an average of 15 years.

“The CREBS bonds made it reasonable. It is subsidized, it is available, and we took that opportunity,” Wysopal added. “Otherwise, we would not have done it.”

In 2007, MMPA envisioned installing 300 foot tall turbines that would generate as much as 1.5 megawatts of electricity, providing a greater portion of the cities’ daily energy use. But last fall MMPA began installing turbines less than half that height at 115 feet and with about one-tenth of the capacity at 160 kilowatts.

The estimates of how much power will be produced varies: North St. Paul’s website estimates that 110 homes will receive power when the turbines operate at full power; Anoka’s estimate is at 35-40 homes. At least one city utilities director hopes the controversy focuses attention on the danger of over-relying on wind power to meet the state’s renewable energy mandate.

“One fifth of the arable land would have to be taken up by wind turbines to meet the mandate,” Dan Voss said. “It’s just not a good policy and it’s not sustainable and unfortunately, there’s no interest in it until the lights go out.”

Check here for coverage of another controversial wind power project in Minnesota.

In the category of least surprising, and therefore most anti-climatic, decisions of all time, Jerry Brown announced that he is running for Governor of California. He did so through an Internet video. Certainly I realize how fashionable the Internet is for candidates – but Brown’s choice of venue to announce his campaign was probably less hip than hiding – much like his virtual absence from the campaign trail the last few months.

Quite frankly, the former media-hound Brown has been hiding because he has nothing relevant to say. Indeed, the most important issues of the day all run counter to Jerry Brown’s current policies. Let me count the ways . . .

1. The Budget/Taxes.  In this perennial saga, California has yet another $20 billion+ budget deficit. The Democrats and their Union patrons want more spending and higher tax rates. The Republicans, including their statewide candidates and Brown’s Republican opponents, want less spending and lower tax rates. The California voters, according to the Field Poll (never known to lean to the Right), want lower spending not higher taxes. What’s the current version of Jerry Brown to say under those circumstances? Other than saying he will leave it up to the voters to raise taxes (the so-called leader is asking to be led), he has remarkably little to say – and that is one reason he avoids the press and limelight so assiduously – including campaign announcements devoid of those annoying press questions like – would you veto a Democrat sponsored tax increase bill?

2. Jobs. Nevada is the Nation’s #1 business development State. California is either last or second to last when it comes to being employer friendly because of high tax rates and the nation’s most onerous regulatory burden. See the correlation anyone? California, like the nation, faces a simple choice: government jobs or private sector jobs. Government jobs cost money California does not have. Private sector jobs require tax relief and lower regulations. Brown can’t advocate more spending very well and he can’t seriously claim he will go against the unions and the Democrats in the legislature when it comes to taxes and regulations. So what’s the current version of Jerry Brown to say under those circumstances? Remarkably little.

3. Central Valley Water Crisis. We all know that the Obama administration does not want to use the word “terrorist” lest they offend someone. Instead they use the ludicrous euphemism: “man caused disasters.” Well, if ever there was a man caused disaster, the government imposed disaster on the Central Valley qualifies for that. Politicians and a Judge have sided with an imported bait fish, i.e. whose job it was to be eaten, over people and farms causing depression level unemployment and business losses. The solution is simple and rational: elevate human dignity over a bait fish and turn the water back on. Brown can’t advocate that because he and the Left (if they are not one in the same) don’t believe in supporting people over planned-obsolescent fish. The problem is, as Paul Rodriguez has pointed out at length, fish don’t vote. That’s a problem this time for the Democrats and Jerry Brown. So what’s the current version of Jerry Brown to say under those circumstances? Remarkably little.

4. Global Warming. Jerry Brown is a big fan of AB32 – California’s job stifling version of a global warming bill. Trouble is – voters are cooling to that bill even faster than the drop in world-wide temperatures – except on the far Left. Unfortunately for Jerry, he can’t go against the Left. So what’s the current version of Jerry Brown to say under those circumstances? Remarkably little.

5. Voter ID. There is likely to be a Voter ID initiative on the ballot this fall. Over 70% of the voters want Voter ID in California – just not Jerry. He has done all he can to keep it off the ballot. So what’s the current version of Jerry Brown to say under those circumstances? Remarkably little.

6. Universal Healthcare. The great debate of the day finds California with its own Universal Health Care bill that is projected to cost way over $200 billion dollars per year. That stunning figure is almost 250% of existing revenues. The far Left wants it – as did Jerry Brown during his failed 1992 presidential campaign – but the voters clearly do not. So what’s the current version of Jerry Brown to say under those circumstances? Remarkably little.

It should be pretty obvious by now that Jerry Brown’s policies are on the wrong side of every major issue of the day facing California – according to the voters – not just Republicans. Rather than buck his patrons on the Left, Jerry Brown has ducked the voters and press. He is proving once and for all that he is not capable of being a leader in difficult times – and there can be no more relevant issue than that.

Liberal weatherman Sam Champion appeared on Friday's Nightline to attack the idea that global warming could be dismissed because of the snowy winter suffered by much of the country. He complained, "There's really no way you can connect it to climate change or global warming. This is a seasonal pattern that we're in." [Audio available here.]

And yet, on the June 9, 2008 edition of Good Morning America, Champion reported on the late spring heat wave much America was enduring. He alerted, "Dr. Stephen Schneider of Stanford University believes climate change is also playing a role."

Schneider proclaimed, "While this heat wave, like all other heat waves, is made by Mother Nature, we've been fooling around by turning the knob and making it a little bit hotter."

The professor added, "We've already increased by 35 percent the amount of carbon dioxide, which traps heat. We've added 150 percent more methane, which also traps heat."

So, it's okay to suggest that a warm snap proves global warming, but there's "no way" to disprove climate change with an unusually snowy winter? Apparently, anecdotal evidence is only acceptable some of the time.

A transcript of the relevant section from the June 9, 2008 Good Morning America can be found below:

7:02am

SAM CHAMPION: It has been an unbelievable run and an uncomfortable run of heat in a good part of the nation. It started last week and it continues over the next day or two before it breaks, and, remember, folks, it's not anywhere near summer just yet. The heat's on across the North and the Southeast with soaring early June temperatures into the upper 90s. In some areas, oppressive humidity making it feel like 110.

...

CHAMPION: And residents in many parts of the country are suffering. In Raleigh, North Carolina, so much heat, the outdoor Special Olympics were canceled.

STEPHEN SCHNEIDER (Sanford University): While this heat wave, like all other heat waves, is made by Mother Nature, we've been fooling around by turning the knob and making it a little bit hotter.

CHAMPION: Dr. Stephen Schneider of Stanford University believes climate change is also playing a role.

SCHNEIDER: We've already increased by 35 percent the amount of carbon dioxide, which traps heat. We've added 150 percent more methane, which also traps heat.

A transcript of the relevant section of the February 26, 2010 edition of Nightline can be found below:

11:38pm

DAVID WRIGHT: Doubters of climate change point to all that white stuff as proof global warming must be a lie.

STUART VARNEY: We're in the middle of a huge snowstorm up and down the eastern seaboard and you are going to create a government agency to stubble - study global warming. It's a losing issue.

WRIGHT: Of course, others say weather should not be confused with climate change.

CHAMPION: There's really no way you can connect it to climate change or global warming. This is a seasonal pattern that we're in.

WRIGHT: So, what does account for all this accumulation?

CHAMPION: We're in an El Nino pattern really. It's that warm pool of water in the Pacific. And the storms that have been building there become these big west coast storms. This is a brand new one that's along the coastline in the past 48 hours. And then they all move directly across the country, low in the country, creating southern snowstorms and then wrap up tightly like the one that's just exiting the east coast now. They've all done that.

Al Gore emerged from his undisclosed location and took to the op-ed page of the New York Times:

I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion. But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer.

It is true that the climate panel published a flawed overestimate of the melting rate of debris-covered glaciers in the Himalayas, and used information about the Netherlands provided to it by the government, which was later found to be partly inaccurate. In addition, e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in Britain showed that scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands from climate skepticsmay not have adequately followed the requirements of the British freedom of information law.

But the scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged. It is also worth noting that the panel’s scientists — acting in good faith on the best information then available to them — probably underestimated the range of sea-level rise in this century, the speed with which the Arctic ice cap is disappearing and the speed with which some of the large glacial flows in Antarctica and Greenland are melting and racing to the sea.

Read the whole piece of performance art here. No doubt Al Gore believes that the really important thing here is that the ‘global consensus’ remains unchanged. For him and other climate-profiteers, science has been flipped; it is the conclusion, not the premises, which is set in stone. If some facts fall apart, they’ll just find some new ones to prop up their proposals.

Al Gore emerged from his undisclosed location and took to the op-ed page of the New York Times:

I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion. But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer.

It is true that the climate panel published a flawed overestimate of the melting rate of debris-covered glaciers in the Himalayas, and used information about the Netherlands provided to it by the government, which was later found to be partly inaccurate. In addition, e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in Britain showed that scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands from climate skepticsmay not have adequately followed the requirements of the British freedom of information law.

But the scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged. It is also worth noting that the panel’s scientists — acting in good faith on the best information then available to them — probably underestimated the range of sea-level rise in this century, the speed with which the Arctic ice cap is disappearing and the speed with which some of the large glacial flows in Antarctica and Greenland are melting and racing to the sea.

Read the whole piece of performance art here. No doubt Al Gore believes that the really important thing here is that the ‘global consensus’ remains unchanged. For him and other climate-profiteers, science has been flipped; it is the conclusion, not the premises, which is set in stone. If some facts fall apart, they’ll just find some new ones to prop up their proposals.

Remember Van Jones? He's trying to make a comeback, and the mainstream media seems to be lending him a helping hand in getting back into the Washington power structure. Jones, in case, you don't remember, was the administration's Green Jobs Czar. He resigned after his name appeared on a 9/11 Truther petition.

That, it turned out, was not the extent of his wackiness. He led a vigil mourning "the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world." He was an admitted communist and black nationalist. Now, it turns out, he considered Americans who shipped off to Iraq to be human shields for Saddam Hussein "heroes."

He said just that on MSNBC's "The Abrams Report" in 2003, according to a transcript of the show (relevant portion below the fold). I would post video here, but MSNBC refuses to release it:

DAN ABRAMS: If Saddam Hussein uses human shields and he’s captured alive, he’s going to be tried as a war criminal, as will anyone who works with him in that effort. The question we’re asking here is, what about these Americans, these Europeans who are sending over these American and European human shields?

VAN JONES: They’re heroes.

DAN ABRAMS: Could that — well, all right.

VAN JONES: They’re not criminals, they’re heroes.

DAN ABRAMS: All right, Van, before I even get to the intro, Van Jones is jumping in, describing them as heroes. But Ruth Wedgewood, look, apart from the fact that almost everyone doesn’t view them as heroes at all, and everyone in this country particular views the idea of them getting into soldiers’ ways — soldiers’ way in Iraq is extremely disturbing to say the least.

The video would have an impact the transcript cannot possible have. Think about it: would the now-renowned ACORN sting videos have packed the punch they did if only the transcripts--not the videos--were released? Probably not.

As written by a blogger at a site appropriately titled "Why Is MSNBC Protecting Van Jones?",

It’s important that MSNBC release the actual video of this show because many Americans will simply not believe that Jones praises traitors until they hear with their own ears him saying it. Even though the transcript is reliable, and even though anyone could confirm that the screenshot above is real by viewing it on Lexis-Nexis themselves, the issue will not impact a mainstream audience until the video itself surfaces as the final proof. Which is almost certainly the reason why MSNBC refuses to release it, since the network is well-known to have a pro-Obama bias and does not want to do anything which could damage the administration in the slightest—even something as minor as this.

Now, it is not clear that the cable network is simply refusing to release the tape for political purposes. Unlike CNN, which has blatantly shilled for Jones in covering his attempt at a comeback, MSNBC is not advocating his return to the public sphere.

But, if the folks at MSNBC really value investigative journalism, they should be ready and willing to release the tape, as it would provide the American people with significant insight into the minds of people in the upper echelons of the federal government.

For those who have neither the time nor the Red Bull required to wade through Al Gore's windy "We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change" in the New York Times, permit me to summarize:

• Record winter storms and revelations of warmist fraud notwithstanding, we "face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it."

• Unfortunately, "television" has replaced newspapers as the dominant medium.  And "television" serves as the tool of powerful forces favoring "unrestrained markets" and opposing regulatory "reform."  Though Gore stops short of naming television names, you don't have to read too hard between the lines to see that he's pointing the finger at Fox News in general and Glenn Beck in particular.

Key excerpts [emphasis added]:

• "It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it. . . But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at leas t two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

• "[C]hanges in America’s political system — including the replacement of newspapers and magazines by television as the dominant medium of communication — conferred powerful advantages on wealthy advocates of unrestrained markets and weakened advocates of legal and regulatory reforms. Some news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment. And as in times past, that has proved to be a potent drug in the veins of the body politic. Their most consistent theme is to label as “socialist” any proposal to reform exploitive behavior in the marketplace."

Gore scores bonus scare-mongering points by his mention of how the same supposed hate-filled tactics of which he accuses his opponents "in times past . . . has proved to be a potent drug in the veins of the body politic." Wonder which times, which bodies politic Al has in mind?

During his campaign for Attorney General of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli committed himself to acting with an aggressive conservative agenda. He promised voters that he would the office to aggressively fight governmental overregulation and interference wherever he could find it.

In other words, he pledged to use the office of Attorney General for good, rather than evil. After just over one month in office, he’s off to one hell of a start.

Last week, AG Cuccinelli boldly petitioned the EPA to convene a proceeding to reexamine their “Endangerment Finding” which claims that human activity has increased atmospheric greenhouse gases to a point that people’s lives are at risk. As such, they claim, the federal government must impose new caps on emissions and other climate protection policies in the energy sector.

Cuccinelli believes, rightly, that regulations based on the findings of the EPA in this sketchy case would be both legally questionable and detrimental to Virginia’s economy. (Much of the research that the EPA has based these findings upon has come from the questionable climate-gate materials). Accordingly, the AG also has petitioned a federal appeals court to review the EPA’s findings.

Keep an eye on this guy. He means business. And by picking these kinds of necessary fights, he’s certainly going to need backup.

Nobel Laureate Al Gore was mocked Thursday at the Apple shareholders meeting in Cupertino, California.

As the subject of whether or not he should be reelected to the tech giant's board of directors surfaced, one longtime shareholder stood up saying, "[Gore] has become a laughingstock. The glaciers have not melted."

According to CNET, the gentleman then wisely said, "If his advice he gives to Apple is as faulty as his views on the environment then he doesn't need to be re-elected" (h/t Gateway Pundit via Glenn Reynolds):

Gore was seated in the first row, along with his six fellow board members, in Apple's Town Hall auditorium as several stockholders took turns either bashing or praising his high-profile views on climate change.

At the first opportunity for audience participation just several minutes into the proceeding, a longtime and well-known Apple shareholder--some would say gadfly--who introduced himself as Shelton Ehrlich, stood at the microphone and urged against Gore's re-election to the board. Gore "has become a laughingstock. The glaciers have not melted," Ehrlich said, referring to Gore's views on global warming. "If his advice he gives to Apple is as faulty as his views on the environment then he doesn't need to be re-elected."

Of course, if Gore would have lost his reelection bid, I'm sure he would have asked for a recount! 

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was chewing the scenery in a Wednesday discussion of global warming on CNN’s Amanpour show. He trashed Sen. James Inhofe for demanding an investigation into U.N. climate science, suggesting Inhofe needs to be investigated: "I'd love to see all the e-mails between his office and various coal and oil companies over the last 20 years....we'll let citizens and voters decide where the real science is."

Friedman also invoked Dick Cheney, oddly comparing Iraqi WMD to climate change: "I mean, I'm a Dick Cheney guy on this. I'm with Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney said, if there's a 1 percent chance that Iraq has a nuclear weapon, we need to take that on. Well, if there's a 1 percent chance on climate change, just like Cheney said -- I'm with Cheney -- we need to prepare for it."

Friedman appeared on CNN alongside leftist NASA scientist James Hansen -- who insisted that cap-and-trade was for wimps, when we needed a massive carbon tax -- and in a surprising nod to balance, Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist. Amanpour began by asking about Inhofe’s call for an investigation:

JAMES HANSEN: Yeah, well, I'd love to have an investigation, which should include Senator Inhofe, who's one of the most well-oiled, coal-fired politicians in Washington. He's very well funded to protect the fossil fuel industry, but he was elected to support the people.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Well, let me ask -- I see Thomas Friedman, who's done a lot of work and writing, as everybody knows, on this climate debate. You just laughed when Jim Hansen described the U.S. senator in that way. What is going on here? Is there really a question about whether scientists have been illegally cooking the books?

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Well, you know, just to pick up where Jim Hansen left off, Christiane, Senator Inhofe wants an investigation. I'm for an investigation. I'd love to see all the e-mails between his office and various coal and oil companies over the last 20 years. So I bet Jim Hansen would be very happy to lay all his -- I won't speak for him -- but lay his documentation and research on the table, and we'll let Senator Inhofe lay all his e-mails on the table going back and forth between oil and coal companies, and we'll let citizens and voters decide where the real science is.

Friedman insisted that the errors and scientific manipulations exposed in the last few months are minor, and he energetically denied they matter:

AMANPOUR: Is the problem that the climate change camp never acknowledges any mistakes? Is that a problem?

FRIEDMAN: Well, you know, what you talked about the IPCC report, as Jim did, Christiane, you're talking about a report that includes, you know, thousands of pages and input from several thousand scientists. That there's one or two mistakes in there, I'm shocked. I'm devastated. And what the critics have done is seize on a small mistake and say, because that is wrong, everything's wrong.

After lecturing about the basics of how climate change is happening, Friedman concluded:

FRIEDMAN: But what we do know is this, Christiane, and this is really important. We know the gases we put up there stay there for like 3,000 years. In other words, they're irreversible. And we know that the chances of them producing possibly catastrophic climate change, some may say, is 90 percent, 80 percent, but it's not 0 percent.

AMANPOUR: OK.

FRIEDMAN: Whenever I see something -- whenever I see something that is irreversible and potentially catastrophic, I buy insurance. That's what this is all about.

After a break, Amanpour played a clip of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders comparing climate-change deniers to the people who found no threat in Hitler:

SANDERS: The reason that this debate is so important is that it reminds me in some ways of the debate taking place in this country and around the world in the late 1930s. And during that period, with Nazism and fascism growing, a real danger to the United States and democratic countries all over the world, there were people in this Congress, in the British parliament, saying, "Don't worry. Hitler is not real. It'll disappear. We don't have to be prepared to take it on."

Amanpour simply called that "pretty stark," not a smear. Friedman didn’t denounce Sanders in any way, and Amanpour never called for him to repudiate it.

AMANPOUR: That was a pretty stark statement from the lawmaker there, Sanders, in Congress, Tom. That was a pretty stark statement. What has to happen to give an irrefutable look to everybody around the world of the actual science of what's going on? Why isn't it -- why isn't there some compendium of scientific fact out there?

FRIEDMAN: Well, you know, all of these climate studies are based on models. And they look at the past, how things developed, and they project into the future. And so no one can say exactly where it's going to go, but we are on one of those paths, Christiane; we just don't know which one.

Now, what I would simply say is this. If we listen to the climate change scientists, like Dr. Hansen, and we prepare for climate change, but climate change doesn't happen, what happens? Well, let's see. We have a cleaner air, cleaner environment. We have a more energy-independent economy, new industries, and global respect.

Let's see now. If we listen to Jim Inhofe, the climate deniers, and we don't get ready for climate change and climate change comes, we're a bad biological experiment. So, like, which part of the sentence don't you understand?

I mean, I'm a Dick Cheney guy on this. I'm with Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney said, if there's a 1 percent chance that Iraq has a nuclear weapon, we need to take that on. Well, if there's a 1 percent chance on climate change, just like Cheney said -- I'm with Cheney -- we need to prepare for it.

Friedman also aggressively called Inhofe "flat-out stupid" for mocking greenhouse alarmists with an igloo during the recent D.C. blizzard:

AMANPOUR: All right. Let me put up this video, then, of what everybody probably has seen already, and that is the igloo that was created by Senator Inhofe and his family, basically saying that the snow in Washington, D.C., negates the idea of global warming. So, Bjorn Lomborg...

FRIEDMAN: Christiane, can I say one thing about the igloo? That is flat-out stupid. In the same week that that igloo was being built, it was raining in the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, on the -- on the downhill ski rack. In Jerusalem, I believe it was 96 degrees one day. And my friend and stock broker in Maine was playing golf that day, OK? So the fact that it snowed in Washington tells you nothing.

AMANPOUR: But what it does tell you is that there are very clever ways of that camp using the media...

FRIEDMAN: There are clever ways of making people stupid, yes.

It also wouldn’t be a Friedman appearance without gratuitous praise for communist China’s environmental policies. "China this year, I believe, will become the world's leading manufacturer of solar panels, and the reason that solar panel prices have fallen dramatically in China is not just because of research -- Bjorn's absolutely right about that, research is necessary -- but what brings the price of your iPod down from $500 to $100 is mass manufacturing based on deployment here and now."

Hansen agreed that China had a better energy policy, and then he insisted the alarmists at the UN’s Intergovermental Panel of Climate Change are actually "very conservative" in their forecasts:

AMANPOUR: And you, the climate scientist, do you have to change what you do? Because the "scare the pants off" brigade has resulted in a lot of skeptics around.

HANSEN: Let me -- let me correct that. The scientists have been conservative. IPCC was very conservative. All the new data comes in shows that we were too conservative. Greenland and West Antarctica are beginning to shed ice twice as fast as they were five years go. So, no, we have not been exaggerating the story at all.

But even Hansen admitted the estimates of the speed of melting in the Himalayas were exaggerated.

Even when Chris Matthews attempts to side with the conservative/Republican position on an issue, he ends up either bashing them or praising Democrats, something he did three times on Wednesday's Hardball.

First up Matthews raised a GOP concern that Barack Obama should not speak in an "elevated" position, by using a podium, at the health care summit because it would present Obama as "standing up there like God" over them.

Later on Matthews appeared to defend tea partiers when he scolded Salon's Joan Walsh for using the term "teabag" which has a "sexual connotation" but just moments earlier accused conservatives of "leaping up and down orgasmically" over Scott Brown's win.

Finally, he bashed Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders for comparing climate change skeptics to those who downplayed the Nazi threat in the thirties, as the MSNBC host explained: "One of the smart rules of politics is never...compare anything to Hitler." However Matthews couldn't help but take up Sanders' cause, as he accused those "who oppose climate change now do so, out of two motives...business and...anti-intellectualism, neither are defensible, when the victim of their position is the only planet we have."

The following exchanges were aired on the February 24 Hardball (aired at midnight due to Olympics):

Matthews deifies Obama:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Congressman Shadegg are you with the other Republicans who are putting out the word, in negotiations with the White House, that the President of the United States should not have a lectern tomorrow? Are you with that effort? Yeah he should sit at the table as the same level as you guys. Is that important to you?...Here's what I think Republicans are afraid of and then I'll let Congressman [Chris] Van Hollen speak. This is a, this was about optics I think, the question of whether the President should look elevated or not on television tomorrow. Here's a scene from the White House summit held one year ago, in an exchange between President Obama and the man he beat for President, Senator McCain. I think if you watch it you'll understand why the Republicans are sensitive about this kind of higher plane for the President.

(Clip of John McCain asking Obama a question during February 23, 2009 meeting)

MATTHEWS: You know that format Congressman Van Hollen makes the President of the United States look like the principal of the school and John McCain -- who lost a pretty good election to him – like a third grader. Do you think it's a fair format, to have the President standing up there like God and the, or principal at least and the Republicans sitting there like pupils?

Matthews hypocritically makes fun of Walsh for using sexual terms to describe conservatives:

MATTHEWS: Just two weeks ago you guys were leaping up and down orgasmically over, what's his name, Scott Brown winning and now he's being pushed out of the party. Three or four weeks ago, or a little longer ago you were jumping up and down about Chris Christie in New Jersey winning the governorship and Bob McDonnell winning the governorship, now these guys are being treated as like, "Oh they're not really one of us now."

PAT BUCHANAN: Oh no look the guys are not purists. They're basically they're regular Republicans. You got a conservative Republican in Virginia. But look at Sarah Palin. She endorses McCain in Arizona. She goes to Texas and endorses the governor because that's a buddy of hers. She endorses Rand Paul who is a non-establishment candidate in an open thing in Kentucky. Chris you've had these battles in your party, you guys tried to dump your vice presidential candidate, Joe Lieberman.

MATTHEWS: Why, why do you see Rush Limbaugh lambasting Mitt Romney, who's probably gonna be your party nominee, I think if you look down the road, probably, it looks like it, for backing John McCain, your previous party nominee? I mean how can you be more regular than that? I like, well here he is. Here's Rush Limbaugh, going after. One thing about Rush he's always on tape.

(Begin clip)

RUSH LIMBAUGH: I like Mitt Romney but I think he's risking his career over, over a guy endorsing McCain, who is so out of step with what's going on right now. It's, it's I mean well, McCain's, he's always conservative when he's running for re-election in, in Arizona. Well, you know, the, the tea parties have produced wave of conservatism that has swept Republicans In Name Only, aside.

(End clip)

MATTHEWS: You know this reminds me of the old Democratic left. I know you might disagree with me Joan, because you occasionally do. November Doesn't Count. The NDC. The old New Democratic Coalition. All they cared about was who won the primary. Happily nominating people that couldn't win general elections. It looks to me like the Republican Party is, is really is creating a pup tent.

JOAN WALSH: SALON.COM: Well they are. They're trying to fit the whole party in, into a tea bag, at this point Chris. And you know I want, I want to talk to my friend Pat who is sounding very reasonable a couple weeks ago when we, when we talked. He was defending Scott Brown.

MATTHEWS: You guys will not stop! It's the Tea Party movement! It's not the Teabag movement. I know the sexual connotation that's only weird. But why do you guys keep calling it the Teabag Party?

WALSH: I'm not. No. Hey, first of all, I didn't, I didn't call it the Teabag Party. A teabag is small. I'm just looking for-

MATTHEWS: Okay. Right.

WALSH: -a metaphor for small. Please I'm a Catholic girl. I'm not-

MATTHEWS: Okay.

WALSH: There's no sexual references here. My Lord!

MATTHEWS: Okay alright, alright, alright. My Lord. Okay.

Incidentally on Monday's Hardball Matthews, himself, used the teabag terminology when referring to John McCain's primary challenger J.D. Hayworth: "Finally, revisionism at its finest, today comes courtesy of John McCain who's clearly feeling the heat from primary challenger and party teabagger J.D. Hayworth."

Matthews comes to the defense of climate change skeptics, only to later excoriate them:

MATTHEWS: Back to Hardball. Now for the Sideshow. One of the smart rules of politics is never, never, repeat never compare anything to Hitler and the horror that he wrought on this planet. Well that's what Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has just done. Yesterday he compared climate change skeptics to those who downplayed the threat of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Here he is talking up the need for climate change action at the budget hearings for the EPA.

(Begin clip)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: The reason that this debate is so important is that it reminds me, in some ways, of the debate taking place in this country and around the world in the late 1930s. And during that period, with Nazism and fascism growing, a real danger to the United States and Democratic countries all over the world there were people, in this Congress, in the British Parliament saying, "Don't worry! Hitler is not real! It'll disappear. We don't have to be prepared to take it on."

(End clip)

MATTHEWS: Well the people who do oppose action on climate change right now do so, not out of ignorance but out of two motives. I think one is business and two is their anti-intellectualism, neither are defensible, when the victim of their position is the only planet we have.

One familiar trope about horror movies is that the characters can only survive them by abstaining from drinking, drugs, and sex, leading some movie critics to half-facetiously moan about the genre's secret social conservatism. But what about horror movies with a thuddingly obvious left-wing message of environmental alarmism inserted into the script, as part of the studio's ideological vision?

In a Sunday Arts & Leisure article on the new movie the "The Crazies," a remake of a low-budget George Romero zombie movie from the '70s, New York Times movie critic John Anderson equated left-wing environmentalism with serving the "public good."

Turns out "The Crazies" is not just another zombie movie, but a consciousness-raising piece "about the issues of weapons security and the purity of water," as the headline indicated: "Homicidally Unhinged, But for a Cause." The text box: "'The Crazies' aims to scare moviegoers and elevates their social consciousness, too."

Anderson embraced the idea of slipping in left-wing fearmongering without fans noticing:

It may come as a shock, but the fanboys reveling in the eviscerations, explosions and Car Wash of Death scene contained in the director Breck Eisner's new take on "The Crazies" will also be contributing to socially progressive cinema. Perhaps even to the public good. With any luck, they won't notice.

A reimagining of the horrormeister George A. Romero's 1973 low-budget thriller "The Crazies" is about a spill of biological weaponry into a small town's water supply and the military response to what ensues: an epidemic of homicidal mania that turns a bucolic Iowa community into a virally induced abattoir.

Anderson actually found that a "plausible premise."

Like many of the better suspense thrillers, from "Psycho" to "Jaws" to "The Silence of the Lambs," the original "Crazies" was based on a plausible premise as well as one with an ecological subtext. Enter Participant Media.

Best known for its Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" (based on former Vice President Al Gore's anti-global-warming crusade), Participant has a mandate to produce profitable cinema with a social-action impulse. "The Crazies," as crazy as it might seem, fits right in.

Both the issues of weapons security and the purity of water fit the Participant mission set by its founder, Jeffrey Skoll, eBay's first president, who took money he made there and established a politically focused film company.

Studio president Ricky Strauss left no doubt that this movie about a lethal virus would come with a huge spoonful of leftist medicine.

And while the anti-biological-warfare message may not be everything, it certainly figures into Participant's calculations. Following the company's mandate, a social-action campaign will follow the release, involving more than 50 environmental groups and advocating for the passage of a federal chemical-security act.

"Everything with Participant has to be socially relevant," Mr. Strauss said, "right down to its DNA." Occasionally, however, "you want to hide the medicine in the popcorn."

The Kids Post section in the Washington Post is designed, in theory, to be a fun and educational way to get young children interested in current events and exposed to the issues of the day, ostensibly understanding more than one side of any issue.

But in practice the section can give kids a one-sided presentation that gives only half the story. Such was the case with today's article, "Girl Scouts have a bright idea," which lauded an effort by the Girl Scout Council of the Nation's Capital to have each of its 63,000 members to "replace one regular light bulb with an energy-saving bulb," namely the compact fluorescent CFLs bulbs that "use about 75 percent less electricity than standard incandescent bulbs."

The article closed by quoting Girl Scout Madison Harris saying she feels "like I'm really saving the environment by just doing simple things."

Of course, environmental policy is never that quite cut-and-dried, yet nowhere in her 10-paragraph article did reporter Margaret Webb Pressler inform kids that CFLs, far from being an easy energy-reducing Earth-saving fix, actually pose potential environmental and health hazards, particularly in homes with small children or pregnant women. 

What's more, this is hardly news to the mainstream media. Here's how NPR, hardly a right-wing news outlet, noted the mercury problem in a February 2007 story:

But the bulbs contain small amounts of mercury, a neurotoxin, and the companies and federal government haven't come up with effective ways to get Americans to recycle them.

"The problem with the bulbs is that they'll break before they get to the landfill. They'll break in containers, or they'll break in a dumpster or they'll break in the trucks. Workers may be exposed to very high levels of mercury when that happens," says John Skinner, executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America, the trade group for the people who handle trash and recycling.

Skinner says when bulbs break near homes, they can contaminate the soil.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin, and it's especially dangerous for children and fetuses. Most exposure to mercury comes from eating fish contaminated with mercury,

Some states, cities and counties have outlawed putting CFL bulbs in the trash, but in most states the practice is legal.

Pete Keller works for Eco Lights Northwest, the only company in Washington state that recycles fluorescent lamps. He says it is illegal to put the bulbs in the trash in some counties in Washington, but most people still throw them out.

"I think most people do want to recycle, but if it's not made easy, it doesn't happen," Keller says. "And they're small enough to fit in a trash can. So by nature, I think most people are not recyclers. So if it's small enough to fit in a trash can, that's where it ends up."

Experts agree that it's not easy for most people to recycle these bulbs. Even cities that have curbside recycling won't take the bulbs. So people have to take them to a hazardous-waste collection day or a special facility.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency program concedes that not enough has been done to urge people to recycle CFL bulbs and make it easier for them to do so.

"I share your frustration that there isn't a national infrastructure for the proper recycling of this product," says Wendy Reed, who manages EPA's Energy Star program. That programs gives the compact bulbs its "energy star" seal of approval.

So most people are unaware that the bulbs need to be properly recycled and there's a dearth of recycling programs available for CFLs.

What's more, what happens when a CFL bulb breaks? How does one properly clean up the mess, which includes a harmful neurotoxin?

Glad you asked, here's how the EPA counsels you clean up the mess (bear with me, it's rather long):

How should I clean up a broken fluorescent bulb?

Because CFLs contain a small amount of mercury, EPA recommends the following clean-up and disposal guidelines:
1. Before Clean-up: Air Out the Room

• Have people and pets leave the room, and don't let anyone walk through the breakage area on their way out.
• Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.
• Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.

2. Clean-Up Steps for Hard Surfaces

• Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
• Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass pieces and powder.
• Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes. Place towels in the glass jar or plastic bag.
• Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.

3. Clean-up Steps for Carpeting or Rug:

• Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
• Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
• If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken.
• Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag.

4. Clean-up Steps for Clothing, Bedding, etc.:

• If clothing or bedding materials come in direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from inside the bulb that may stick to the fabric, the clothing or bedding should be thrown away. Do not wash such clothing or bedding because mercury fragments in the clothing may contaminate the machine and/or pollute sewage.
• You can, however, wash clothing or other materials that have been exposed to the mercury vapor from a broken CFL, such as the clothing you are wearing when you cleaned up the broken CFL, as long as that clothing has not come into direct contact with the materials from the broken bulb.
• If shoes come into direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from the bulb, wipe them off with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes. Place the towels or wipes in a glass jar or plastic bag for disposal.

5. Disposal of Clean-up Materials

• Immediately place all clean-up materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area for the next normal trash pickup.
• Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing clean-up materials.
• Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states do not allow such trash disposal. Instead, they require that broken and unbroken mercury-containing bulbs be taken to a local recycling center.

6. Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rug: Air Out the Room During and After Vacuuming

• The next several times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window before vacuuming.
• Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.

It's fine for the Girl Scouts to want to encourage energy efficiency, and there's nothing wrong with having a positive story on that development, but CFLs in the home come with a cost that exceeds the greenbacks forked over at Home Depot or Wal-Mart. 

It's a shame that Pressler failed to consider informing her young readers of the trade-off in convenience and safety that CFLs present over traditional incandescent bulbs.

Photo at top of post by Susan Biddle for the Washington Post. The accompanying caption in the print edition reads, "Girl Scout official Nancy Wood hands out light bulbs to Nia Anderson, foreground, Tijara Smith, left, Sekai Bonner-Flagg, Madison Harris and Alana Dickey."

Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is calling for a criminal investigation into the actions of scientists associated with the growing scandal known as ClimateGate.

The ranking Republican on the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee also wants former Vice President Al Gore to be brought back to Capitol Hill to defend comments he's made in the past to Congress concerning the theory of manmade global warming.

Such was reported by Charlie Martin Tuesday morning:

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) today asked the Obama administration to investigate what he called “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation” — the actions of climate scientists revealed by the Climategate Files, and the subsequent admissions by the editors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

Senator Inhofe also called for former Vice President Al Gore to be called back to the Senate to testify.

“In [Gore's] science fiction movie, every assertion has been rebutted,” Inhofe said. He believes Vice President Gore should defend himself and his movie before Congress.

Inhofe gave citizens a "Sneak Peek" into this report at his EPW blog Tuesday:

What emerges from our review of the emails and documents, which span a 13-year period from 1996 through November 2009, is much more than, as EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson put it, scientists who "lack interpersonal skills." Rather, the emails show the world's leading climate scientists discussing, among other things:

• Obstructing the release of damaging data and information;
• Manipulating data to reach preconceived conclusions;
• threatening journal editors who published work questioning the climate science "consensus"; and
• Assuming activist roles to influence the political process. 

Inhofe continued:

We knew they were cooking the science to support the flawed UN IPCC agenda. As I said on the Senate floor back in 2005 that "the IPCC has demonstrated an unreasoning resistance to accepting constructive critiques of its scientific and economic methods, even in the report itself...this is a recipe for de-legitimizing the entire endeavor in terms of providing credible information that is useful to policy makers."

And back in 2003 I said blaming global warming on CO2 and other man made gases is the ‘greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." I was right.

Those interested can read excerpts from this report here. The entire 84-page report is now available here.

Ed Morrissey interviewed Inhofe Monday, and posted videos of their discussion here.

It's going to be very interesting watching how this all gets reported in the next 24 hours by the global warming-obsessed media.

Stay tuned. 

On Monday's The O'Reilly Factor, FNC's Bill O'Reilly hosted a debate between global warming skeptic Joe Bastardi of Accuweather, and Bill Nye of PBS's Bill Nye the Science Guy, known for recently declaring that it was "unpatriotic" to dispute global warming. Bastardi argued that recent winter weather patterns are connected to El Nino, not global warming. He also linked sunspot activity to warming and cooling trends. Bastardi:

You want to bring up the CO2 argument. Why don’t we just look at the sunspots back here – back in 1750 – and notice that they’ve been coming up – and along with it the temperatures. Basically, it comes down to this: If you look at the strength of correlation to warming, and this is courtesy of meteorologist Joe D’Aleo, CO2 since 1895, you can see the .43, the sun .57, the oceans .85, but since 1998 CO2 has gone next to nothing because the Earth’s temperature is flatlining and CO2 is coming up.

He went to sum what he believed to be the implausiblity of the argument made by those who believe in global warming theory:

So what you have to believe, folks, is this: That the sun plus the oceans plus the volcanic activity plus natural reversal has less effect than the yearly human contribution equal to the width of a hair on a one-kilometer bridge of a trace gas needed for life. So if you want to believe that, you can go ahead and believe that. Seems kind of hard to.

Below is a transcript of the segment from the Monday, February 22, The O'Reilly Factor on FNC:

BILL O’REILLY: "Factor Follow-up" segment tonight, another global warming study debunked in the journal Nature Geoscience. A study was printed that showed the ocean’s rising because of global warming. Well, now the magazine says, "Sorry, the study was flawed." Just another in a long line of global warming problems, including the resignation last week of the U.N. warming guy. Joining us now from Los Angeles, Bill Nye the Science Guy, who believes in manmade global warming, and from State College, Pennsylvania, Accuweather meteorologist Joe Bastardi, who is skeptical. So, Joe, give me your best shot. Why are you dubious about this global warming business?

JOE BASTARDI Well, first of all, let’s take a look at what happened this winter because there are a lot of people trying to now say that all the cold and snow that we had was because of global warming. This was our forecast issued in July, and then I reissued it again in October. Notice the cold and snow in the mid-Atlantic states, snow down here in Texas, warm and dry up here, wet in California. Now, how did I come up with that? Was it global warming? No. We have an El Nino and a state of the ocean in the Pacific similar to the 60s and 70s when Bill O’Reilly was growing up and there was all that snow. The solar cycles are doing something that is reminiscent to colder times, and, amazingly, amazingly, the very thing that John Holdren opined on last year, blasting soot into the high altitudes over top of the Arctic, actually happened naturally with volcanic activity last year, led to a lot of blocking over the poles this year.

O’REILLY: All right, so, once again, you have a meteorological explanation for what happened.

BASTARDI: Oh, yes.

O’REILLY: Now, Bill, why do you believe – and Joe doesn’t believe in manmade global warming – why do you believe in it?

BILL NYE: Well, the evidence is overwhelming. Do you agree, Joe, that in 1750, the world’s carbon dioxide was about 280 parts per million? Do you agree with that?

BASTARDI: No, you don’t want to go here. You know why? Because I’m going to show the CO2 correlation.

NYE: Wait a second, do you agree?

BASTARDI: Yes, I agree.

NYE: Well, see, so you agree-

BASTARDI: I also agree-

O’REILLY: Wait, wait, Joe, wait. Let him make his point and you can reply. Go ahead, Bill.

NYE: Do you agree that the planet Venus is warm because it has a lot of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere? And when I say warm, warm enough to melt lead on its surface. Do you agree?

BASTARDI: I don’t believe we have the proper measurements of Venus from over 10 billion years ago, so I can’t tell the relationship with the Earth, but maybe you can.

O’REILLY: Go ahead, Bill.

NYE: I think you’re throwing a red herring in there.

BASTARDI: Oh, I am? I wasn’t around at the time of creation.

NYE: So, if you look at these two, this is the carbon dioxide, this is the carbon dioxide in 1750 in parts per million, as represented by fountain pen ink. This is it today, even though it’s a very, very small fraction, 4/100 of a percent, it’s still quite noticeable, and it effects the world’s climate. About your explanation with volcanoes, you know, this is a study done by the IPCC, and this is a timeline and it depicts volcanic activity. And one of the great revelations ... where they showed that there was a correlation between volcanic eruptions and the Earth’s cooling because particulate matter gets high in the atmosphere. Well, it’s only true of volcanoes near the Equator. Mt. St. Helens hardly had any effect at all. And you can see ... when you extract the trend from this data, the world it getting warmer. It’s continually getting warmer. And these data are so compelling that they overwhelm any effect that might have come from this winter.

O’REILLY: All right, Joe, your reply.

NYE: That has sort of nothing to do with it.

BASTARDI: That’s simply not true, Bill. When you blast SO2 into the atmosphere over top of the Arctic, what happens is, it absorbs sunlight, warms the stratosphere, which depresses the troposphere underneath, and cools the troposphere. That can be documented from what happened back in 1912 if you went back and looked at the following winters. But look at this-

NYE: That’s exactly what happened, Joe.

O’REILLY: Wait, wait, wait, Bill, let Joe go.

BASTARDI: You want to bring up the CO2 argument. Why don’t we just look at the sunspots back here – back in 1750 – and notice that they’ve been coming up – and along with it the temperatures. Basically, it comes down to this: If you look at the strength of correlation to warming, and this is courtesy of meteorologist Joe D’Aleo, CO2 since 1895, you can see the .43, the sun .57, the oceans .85, but since 1998 CO2 has gone next to nothing because the Earth’s temperature is flatlining and CO2 is coming up, so what you have to believe, folks, is this: That the sun plus the oceans plus the volcanic activity plus natural reversal has less effect than the yearly human contribution equal to the width of a hair on a one-kilometer bridge of a trace gas needed for life. So if you want to believe that, you can go ahead and believe that. Seems kind of hard to.

O’REILLY: Let Bill reply. Go ahead, Bill.

NYE: Actually, Joe, Mr. Bastardi, the last 10 years are the warmest on record.

BASTARDI: Since we started measuring with satellites.

Where would the world be without an independent, citizen-run type of media? It would be in a dark place, according to Media Research Center President and Founder Brent Bozell.

Bozell addressed CPAC on Feb. 20 about the state of the media. He cited how bloggers played a role in unearthing the former White House "green jobs czar" Van Jones past for signing a statement about the September 11 truthers and for stating he was a communist.

"Van Jones was a story that was broken by a blogger," Bozell said. "Say that after me - God bless bloggers, God bless bloggers, God bless bloggers. Now this blogger writes a story about one of the Obama czars. Now these czars, these guys are dangerous for all sorts of reasons. They're not elected. They're not confirmed. And they're not even announced. You just hear about them. They're like maggots. You pick up a rock and you find a czar."

More video embedded below fold

Bozell detailed how the public was in the dark on the Van Jones story.

"And the worst thing about these czars is when you start asking them questions, you find out not even they know why they're there," Bozell said. "Van Jones was asked, ‘What's your job?' And his answer was, I'm paraphrasing, ‘I don't know,' except that he was in charge of green jobs. He was theoretically in charge of billions and he didn't even know what he was supposed to do with it."

As it turned out, Jones had somewhat of a prominent role within the Obama White House, but had a checkered past that deserved media scrutiny.

"Well, what's Van Jones' background?" Bozell said. "According to the blogger, he discovers this guy has signed this document that says among other things that the United States government under George Bush is responsible for 9/11. And he's done it not once, but several times. And I'm not going to call this man a communist. I don't have to. He calls himself a communist. And this man is appointed - this communist, this self-identified communist is in charge of redistributing America's green job wealth with all the stimulus money."

Almost seemingly begrudgingly, outlets of the mainstream media covered it, but if not for other outlets pushing it - the story would not have made into the mainstream.

"Is that a story?" Bozell asked. "I -- stupid me. CBS, NBC, ABC, The New York Times, The Washington [Post]-they didn't, nobody did a story. He was fired. And why was he fired on Sept. 6? Because Fox [News] was running story after story after story, and Drudge was doing stories and Rush was doing stories and Hannity was doing stories and Levin was doing stories. And everyone was talking about it and the guy was fired three days later on Sept. 6"

But even when these traditional outlets chose to include it, they did it very haphazardly - almost kicking and screaming according to Bozell.

 "Well, when he was fired - that's when CBS did a story," Bozell explained. "And ABC did a story and NBC did a mention. And that was the end and we never heard of Van Jones again from the networks."

Yvo de Boer resigned yesterday as Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Here are three key passages from the official announcement at the UN's web site:

The top United Nations climate change official said today that he has made the “difficult decision” to step down from his position, citing his desire to pursue new opportunities to advance progress on the issue in both the private sector and academia.

.... Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that he was informed by Mr. de Boer of his decision two days ago and respected his decision, but “with regret.”

“Developing countries need to move as quickly as possible toward a future of low-emissions growth and prosperity,” he stressed, noting that millions of people in Africa and around the world are suffering from climate change’s effects.

These people are still living in the fantasy world they have constructed over the past two decades.

Sadly, so is the Associated Press.

Friday, the AP's Arthur Max composed a pathetic pity piece for de Boer while avoiding any mention of ClimateGate or the shocking admissions of Phil Jones, the true root causes of de Boer's demise. As you'll see, Max even took the opportunity in his third paragraph to put in a plug for human-caused global warming as a cause of bad weather in general:

A weary U.N. aide quits climate post

The sharp-tongued U.N. official who shepherded troubled climate talks for nearly four years announced his resignation yesterday, leaving an uncertain path to a new treaty on global warming.

Exhausted and frustrated by unrelenting bickering between rich and poor countries, Yvo de Boer said he would step down July 1 to work in business and academia. With no obvious successor in sight, fears were voiced that whoever follows will be far less forceful than the skilled former civil servant from the Netherlands.

His departure takes effect five months before 193 nations reconvene in Cancun, Mexico, for another attempt to reach a worldwide legal agreement on controlling greenhouse-gas emissions, blamed for the gradual heating of Earth that scientists predict will worsen weather-related disasters.

The resignation "comes at the worst time in the climate-change negotiations," said Agus Purnomo, Indonesia's presidential assistant on climate change. "His decision will ultimately add to the difficulties we already have in reaching a successful outcome in Mexico."

But others said the talks would move ahead unhindered and could even be a window for shifting course. "There's certainly no reason his resignation should slow progress," said Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington. "The key to progress remains with the major countries."

De Boer made the announcement two months after a disappointing summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, that ended with a nonbinding accord brokered by President Obama promising emissions cuts and immediate financing for poor countries - but even that failed to win consensus agreement.

Todd Stern, Obama's climate envoy, praised de Boer as "an enormously dedicated leader" who made a major contribution to fighting climate change.

Readers need to recall what de Boer really wanted to resolve in Copenhagen, as originally reported at the conference's web site (link is to Google-cached copy, as the original link no longer works):

1. How much are the industrialized countries willing to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases?
2. How much are major developing countries such as China and India willing to do to limit the growth of their emissions?
3. How is the help needed by developing countries to engage in reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change going to be financed?
4. How is that money going to be managed?

“If Copenhagen can deliver on those four points I’d be happy,” says Yvo de Boer.

As Lord Christopher Monckton pointed out ahead of the conference last year, Copenhagen was about creating the shell of a worldwide government with genuine authority to unilaterally enforce its will, and about the transfer of vast sums of money from rich nations to poor nations in the name of repaying so-called "climate debt."

Yesterday, shortly after de Boer's announced resignation, Claudia Rosett at Pajamas Media told us why that effort really failed, and why his usefulness had ended (internal links were in original):

Polar bears may be doing fine, but the climate commissars of the United Nations are feeling the heat, as their claims of scientific “consensus” melt under them.

... De Boer’s departure can’t come soon enough. For almost four years, this ramped-up Dutch bureaucrat has been one of the chief purveyors of climate alarmism, carbon-emitting his way around the globe from Bonn to Bali to Copenhagen, pushing UN plans for a global “climate change regime.”

... No one elected de Boer to his high-level perch. He was appointed in August, 2006 as one of the parting gifts to the world of the same former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who presided as the UN’s chief administrator of the giant scam known as Oil-for-Food. De Boer is neither a scientist nor an economist.

... Not that de Boer is recanting any of his own cant. In announcing his resignation, he tried to slide around the mush of the UN’s Copenhagen climate summit last December. He made no mention of such climategate revelations as the leaked East Anglia emails or the recent BBC interview in which one of the pillars of UN climate “science,” Phil Jones, admitted that for the past 15 years he has found no statistically signficant evidence of global warming (not that Jones seems able to keep track of his own data).

Instead, de Boer told the press: “I have always maintained that while governments provide the necessary policy framework, the real solutions must come from business.” And so, never a man to abandon his beliefs, he now believes “The time is ripe for me to take on a new challenge, working on climate and sustainability with the private sector and academia.” Apparently, his concern for the planet now impels him to move on to a consultancy with the well-heeled accounting firm of KPMG.

The only things worse than having an apparatchik like de Boer taunt the world over its refusal to totally restructure itself in the name of the now unproven and unsupported nonsense I often refer to as "globaloney" are first, knowing that a Big Four accounting firm is willing to provide him a rich refuge, and second, realizing that the establishment media in the U.S. is so invested in globaloney that it won't acknowledge reality when it delivers multiple smacks to the face.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

“I have nightmares sometimes you know. I’m gonna wake up and everyone’s gonna be driving Priuses…living in a condo…we’re all getting health insurance,” musician Kid Rock lamented during an interview with Fox News.

Kid Rock has been a constant presence overseas, offering his talent and support to lift U.S. troops in war.  Always loath to discuss or pontificate upon politics publicly, the rock star sat down with Megyn Kelly Wednesday for a short segment on “America Live.”

Citing the recent CBS/New York Times Poll which shows that Americans want a smaller government with fewer services by a wide margin over big government, Kelly asked her guest: “When you’re out there, you’re talking to people, what are they saying to you? What is your reaction to all this government spending?”

“Counting these politicians, it just seems like we’ve been eating out of the public trough for year after year,” Kid rock told Kelly.  “It seems like that’s something your supposed to do to help your country, something that’s good — not to make a career out of it, you know — just sit there and get reelected.”

On the subject near and dear to his heart — his home state of Michigan and the unending deterioration of Detroit — Kid Rock said it was extremely tough to go back and see the changes.

Kid Rock clearly feared that Detroit has become a microcosm of Detroit threatening the values and culture of the American dream: “Such ingenuity you know, cool stuff, ’57 Chevys, it came in 17 colors, every one of them red, white, and blue.  But now…it just reminds me of Europe.  Now it’s like, they’re just trying to…it just reminds me of Europe. Everyone’s gonna be driving a smart car and living in a condo.  And that’s not the American Dream, and you see that kinda starting to die.  At least it’s left for a little while from Detroit with everything that’s been going on.”

The war between Glenn Beck and Rachel Maddow continued Tuesday night when the MSNBCer told the Fox Newser to back off.

Maddow was responding to Beck's accusation on his radio show the previous day that she had intentionally omitted a key sentence of his during her attack on him last week.

During a nine minute segment designed to try to redeem herself in front of her tiny audience, Maddow refused to explain why she and her staff cut off an audio of Beck on Friday just as he was about to say something that would make her point totally absurd.

Instead, she filibustered ad nauseum with videos of previous programs without ever owning up to her shameful omission, after which she ridiculously concluded, "I didn't lie. Back off" (partial video and transcript below the fold):

RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: As little as I care about how other people who work in cable TV do their shows and make their arguments, Mr. Beck is supposedly the best they`ve got.

Mr. Beck is this phenomenon, right, who they`re keeping on the air for his ratings even as he lost so many sponsors. He`s supposedly the leader of a political movement, not just a TV host.

I get hate mail from all sorts of conservatives all the time. I always have. But it is the hate mail of self proclaimed fans of Mr. Beck that is most likely to contain death threats and threats of violence against me expressed as extension of the frenzied devotion his fans feel for him.

They think he is the second coming. And because of that, I just want to point something out here. What Mr. Beck is accusing me of - and he went on in his radio show to call me a liar and propagandist and all this other stuff because of it.

What he`s accusing me of is cutting out part of his quote. But did you notice what he just did? Just very short. Just watch his clip again. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: who`s claimed that? Dude, you have. It is one thing to be totally outrageously wrong about facts and science -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

What was that little the flip clip in the middle there? What happened there? Was there something that you cut out? To accuse me of making it up when I said Glenn Beck is among those who have claimed snow disproves global warming, he just edited out the part where I gave the evidence of him doing that, the part where I showed him and a bunch of other people on Fox saying that snow disproved global warming.

You showed no evidence because I`ve edited out the part where you did show the evidence. It`s incredible. Here`s what he edited out.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

BECK: First of all, who has claimed that this snowstorm is proof that global warming doesn`t exist?

MADDOW: Who`s claimed that? Dude, you have. A lot.

BECK: Well, the snow is hammering Washington, D.C. again. I believe god is just saying, "I got your global warming here, eh? You want a piece of global warming?"

MADDOW: Same radio show, same guy. And it`s not like that was a one- off occurrence.

BECK: I don`t think it takes a genius to see through the "more snow is proof of global warming" claim.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Glenn Beck is telling his viewers that I`m a liar and a propagandist for pointing out his cockamamie claim that snowfall disproves global warming. He has in fact made that cockamamie claim a lot, no matter how much he denies it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: It doesn`t snow very much in Virginia. And it looks like it`s going to be the worst snowfall in the state in about 20 years. And the reason I bring this up is because -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, global warming first of all.

BECK: First of all, Al Gore is full of crap. I promise now I`m going to idle my SUV 24 hours a day, seven days a week to make sure it doesn`t snow again in May in Virginia.

If we don`t find Al Gore by 5:00, I`m starting an AMBER alert. I don`t want to panic anyone, but it is strange that he has just disappeared in the largest snowfall in Washington, D.C., history.

But you`d have to think, "Wow, I really wasted my life, haven`t I? Wow, everything that I worked on seems to be a miserable failure."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: "Because my global warming contention is disproven by this giant snowfall." I commend Mr. Beck for his success. I wish his giant audience all the best. He has made a lot of people very afraid about a lot of things. And that tried-and-true strategy has reaped big financial reward for him and for Fox News.

I think it`s between you and your God or you and your conscience as to how much you`re willing to stir up Americans` fear and prejudice for profit. But it`s between you and me when you accuse me of lying. I didn`t lie. Back off.

Interesting defense, wouldn't you agree?

After all, Beck's point Monday was that Maddow and Company stopped the audio from his radio program last week just as he was going to demolish their entire premise by saying, "How many times have I said both for hurricanes and no hurricane, this doesn't, one storm, one storm does not prove anything?"

Beck's challenge to Maddow therefore was to explain WHY this audio was cut off at PRECISELY the moment her point about him would be discredited.

Instead of doing so, she defended HER omission by saying that HE didn't play the entire tape from her Friday show.

How preposterous.

This battle began when Maddow accused Beck of telling his audience that last week's snowstorms disproved anthropogenic global warming. Beck responded by demonstrating that in the very program Maddow was citing, he said he didn't believe that was the case.

As a result, he called her a dishonest purveyor of propaganda.

As such, the onus was on Maddow to explain why she and her crew cut off the audio just as Beck was going to discredit her entire point.

Alas, Beck, her tiny audience, and we are still waiting for an answer.

Readers are advised not to hold their breath.

Post facto aside: The reason the entire video and transcript of this segment were not reproduced here was due to the first five minutes largely being clips from Maddow and Beck's previous shows on this subject. I chose not to repeat what has already been covered. Then I'd be participating in Maddow's silly filibuster, which is really ironic because she lately has been complaining about this senatorial practice.

Someone cue Alanis Morissette.

Poor Barack Obama.  Hasn't put a foot wrong.  Policies just fine.  It's just that he's been dealt the cruel fate of . . . being President of the United States.

That was the essence of what Jonathan Capehart, WaPo editorialist, whistled past the liberal graveyard on Morning Joe today.  Confronted with the prez's crumbling poll numbers [by 52-44 margin people don't think PBO deserves to be re-elected], Capehart blamed anti-incumbent fever.  It's not that Americans are opposed to the Dems' policies, suggested Capehart: they're just frustrated by how little has been accomplished.

Why don't we play a little game of political prognostication?   Imagine that, far from being ineffective, Obama/Pelosi/Reid had managed to push through their entire agenda in the last year.  Let's focus on three matters:

1. Health care "reform" that would have compelled every American to join a government-approved system and fined those who didn't.
2. Cap-and-trade, imposing a huge tax on energy.
3. Closing of Gitmo.

In a Tuesday NBC Nightly News story, reporter Ron Mott actually acknowledged that the decision to use “environmentally friendly” ice resurfacing machines “that kept breaking down” had led to lengthy delays for speed skating competitions at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. In the piece on problems at the games, Mott reported:  

In the past two days, men's speed skating was slowed to a standstill because of poor ice conditions, further complicated by the environmentally friendly machines, used in place of the tried and true Zamboni, that kept breaking down. A Zamboni is being brought in from Calgary.

On USAToday.com, Tom Weir explained the malfunctions, “that delayed the women's 3,000 meters Sunday and which threatened to postpone the men's 500 Monday were unprecedented at Olympic speedskating,” and were caused by Canada putting “green” interests ahead of reliability:

The problems suffered by Olympia brand resurfacers brought into question the decision of the Vancouver Olympics to be as green as possible, and use electric-powered machines to groom the ice. To prevent further problems, a traditional, propane-powered Zamboni has been trucked in from Calgary.

The absolutely stunning global warming revelations this weekend by the man in the middle of the ClimateGate scandal have gone almost completely ignored by America's press.

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, Phil Jones, the head of the British Climatic Research Unit at the heart of ClimateGate, told the BBC: the recent warming trend that began in 1975 is not at all different than two other planetary warming phases since 1850; there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995, and; it is possible the Medieval Warm Period was indeed a global phenomenon thereby making the temperatures seen in the latter part of the 20th century by no means unprecedented.

Jones also admitted that he and his fellow scientists manipulated figures to hide a decline in crucial tree-ring data thereby questioning the validity of the entire global warming theory.

Despite the seriousness of these revelations, much as what happened when the ClimateGate scandal first broke, with the exception of Fox News, America's media have almost totally boycotted this amazing story:

• No mention by the New York Times
• No mention by the Washington Post
• No mention by USA Today
• No mention by ANY major U.S. newspaper EXCEPT the Washington Times
• No mention by the Associated Press
• No mention by Reuters
• No mention by UPI
• No mention by ABC News
• No mention by CBS News
• No mention by NBC News
• No mention by MSNBC 

For its part, CNN FINALLY got around to covering this story with a very brief mention Tuesday:

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: There's also something else that's out there. Phil Jones from the University of East Anglia, the climate research unit, the guy that was at the center of this recent e-mail controversy late last year, has said in an interview with the BBC that he has not seen any, quote, "statistically significant warming since 1995," though he says he still believes that the earth's temperature has warmed. And he also said that he might be missing some of the data that is responsible for his climate models.

Of course, skeptics are jumping all over this, saying the whole thing is a farce. Global warming doesn't exist.

What do you think of the Professor Jones situation, the lack of statistically significant warming, and the fact that he may have misplaced some of the records?

JOHN CHRISTY, PROFESSOR, ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE, UNIV. OF ALABAMA- HUNTSVILLE: Well, I think what Phil Jones is saying is that Mother Nature is perfectly capable of making the temperature rise and fall through the past several hundred years. And in terms of the data problems, well, we do have to be careful when we're talking about public policy, that means trillions of dollars, and we haven't had that very hard and critical situation where you take care of data and make it publicly available to everyone. And that needs to be done now.

That's it!

Bear in mind that the Jones BBC interview was published Saturday. NewsBusters reported the revelations at 6PM Eastern Time the same day. And yet CNN first mentioned the story possibly as much as 72 hours AFTER the BBC piece.

I guess that's why CNN is no longer considered the most trusted name in news.

Speaking of which, much as it did when ClimateGate broke, FNC has been all over this story addressing it on "Fox News Sunday," on Monday's "Glenn Beck Show," on Monday's "Special Report," and on Monday's "Hannity."

By contrast, for their part, the rest of the news media have found filmmaker Kevin Smith being thrown off a Southwest plane for being too fat MUCH more important:

• The New York Times reported it
• The Washington Post reported it
• The Associated Press reported it
• UPI reported it
• ABC News reported it
• CBS News reported it
• CNN reported it -- 14 TIMES!

Well, I guess "journalists" have to have their priorities, don't they?

Once again, much as what happened with ClimateGate, America's press are asleep at the wheel concerning a major story involving global warming.

There's no other way of saying it: when it comes to Al Gore's favorite money-making myth, the American media are almost criminal in their behavior.

Shame on them!!!

*****Update: Marc Sheppard has more.

The U.S. Chamber strongly supports efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, but we believe there’s a right way and a wrong way to achieve that goal.

The wrong way is through the EPA’s endangerment finding, which triggers Clean Air Act regulation. Because of the huge potential impact on jobs and local economies, this is an issue that requires careful analysis of all available data and options. Unfortunately, the agency failed to do that and instead overreached. The result is a flawed administrative finding that will lead to other poorly conceived regulations further downstream.

Today the Chamber is filing a formal petition indicating it will challenge EPA’s decision to trigger Clean Air Act regulation, based on lapses in EPA’s process in making that decision. The Chamber’s legal challenge will focus specifically on the inadequacies of the process that EPA followed in triggering Clean Air Act regulation, and not on scientific issues related to climate change or endangerment.

We continue to call for Congress to address climate change policy through the legislative process, rather than having EPA misapply environmental statutes like the Clean Air Act or Endangered Species Act that were not created to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Emphasis mine.

In addition to ignoring its own internal rules and working outside the legislative branch, the EPA is acting on a 2007 Supreme Court Ruling, which, based on new developments in the Climategate scandal, should be revisited. The ruling states the EPA was found to have the authority to regulate emissions that contribute to global warming and climate change. In addition, the Court stated:

Based on respected scientific opinion that a well-documented rise in global temperatures and attendant climatological and environmental changes have resulted from a significant increase in the atmospheric concentration of “greenhouse gases,” a group of private organizations petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin regulating the emissions of four such gases, including carbon dioxide, under §202(a)(1) of the Clean Air Act, which requires that the EPA “shall by regulation prescribe…

The EPA, in concert with with Obama administration, is attempting to force through a modified version of cap-and-trade through regulation, a signal that Obama realizes cap and trade is dead in the Senate–especially after this death blow to the global warming/climate change movement:

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon. And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

It will be interesting to watch the Obama administration attempt to circumvent and spin lead scientist Professor Jones’ statements. Will the EPA revise its final report based on this new information?

Global warming, climate change, and cap and trade will be that much harder for the Left to sell. Americans weren’t buying them in the first place. Cap and trade was recognized for what is was and is–the legislation that provided the trigger for the transfer of wealth to poor nations–wealth redistribution on a global scale.

What, now, is the fate of the “Copenhagen Accord” non-binding agreement where:

The Copenhagen Accord is a 12 paragraph document that sets a 2 degree Celsius limit on future warming. Its provisions address emissions cuts, verification and deforestation. It would also commit 100 billion dollars from wealthy countries and global institutions over the next 10 years to help poor countries adapt to climate change.

Based on all of the new information on climate change and the manipulation of the “science” for some 15 years, it will be revealing if the United States adheres to this agreement. If Obama continues with this nonsense of climate change and insists on transferring United States’ wealth to third world countries, my assertions have been correct all along–that the core intentions of the Obama agenda are to place severe hardship on the American people by destroying the nation’s wealth. After all, Obama is intentionally proposing, supporting, and forcing policies through–by any means–that bankrupt the United States and weaken our economy, discourage businesses from investing and hiring workers, deepening unemployment and stifling innovation, and squeezing the American people into desperation for federal aid (there is a record number of food stamp recipients now, for example) and health care benefits.

It seems the end goal of the Obama Administration is to make people dependent upon the federal government. How’s that for some hope and change.

Back to back Washington, D.C. blizzards prompted conservatives to mock the global warming crowd last week.

Grandchildren of Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., built an igloo on the National Mall and christened it "Al Gore's New Home." Fox News anchor Glenn Beck employed his trademark sarcasm to make fun of the "disappearance" of warming priest Al Gore and devotee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. since the snowfall. Beck picked on Kennedy because of a 2008 op-ed lamenting that global warming had changed the D.C. climate leading to "anemic winters."

Left-wingers online at place like Huffington Post and Daily Kos, as well as members of the national news media were furious that the "wingnuts" were using the blizzard to make fun of them. They rushed to defend their theory of man-made global warming (anthropogenic global warming or AGW) by claiming that the snowpocalypse was, in fact, caused by global warming.

"Science Guy" Bill Nye was so upset by it he attacked "unpatriotic" climate skeptics on Feb. 10 during the "Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC.

"To deny what scientists or scientific evidence is showing, is inappropriate. And as I said earlier, to me, when I get wound up, it's unpatriotic," Nye declared. But there are more questions than ever regarding the science. Prof. Phil Jones, formerly of the Climate Research Unit, admitted this week to losing track of climate change data used to support warming theory and that there hasn't been "statistically significant" global warming since 1995.

Some of the critics lied about what most conservatives were arguing, accusing the right of saying the historic snowfall disproved global warming. That wasn't the case, conservatives were merely turning the tables on the left: using mockery to show the absurdity of assigning a cause and effect relationship from weather events to climate change.

The fact is that the weather is not climate. Before the "snomageddon" (as many in D.C. called it), AGW believers constantly connected every weather event from heat waves killing thousands in Europe to Hurricane Katrina with global warming. It wasn't until the weather started acting against them and conservatives suggested it might undermine their theories that they got touchy on the subject.

ABC's Bill Blakemore admitted that weather is not climate on Jan. 8 in a feeble attempt to prevent critics from saying that a "cold snap" across the northern hemisphere disproves global warming. Blakemore has a long history of advocating for global warming alarmism on ABC.

Of course weather isn't climate, but the global warming alarmists like Blakemore want it both ways. They want weather and natural disasters to be proof of warming, but never proof contradicting it.

But it's not just weather. The media and the left have even more ridiculous assertions about climate change. Like the Kevin Bacon game they seem willing to connect everything to AGW.

Actor Danny Glover blamed global warming for the Haitian earthquake in January 2010. Leaving no tragedy unturned, Joseph Romm, a former Clinton official, actually wondered if the Minnesota bridge collapse in 2007 was a result of global warming.

In a blog post, Romm wrote: "some may object to even asking the question, 'Did climate change contribute to the Minneapolis bridge collapse?' My guess is those are the same people who deny that global warming is caused by humans or that it is a serious problem - the same people who inevitably say 'we can adapt to whatever climate change there is.'"

A media outlet called GMANews.TV based in the Philippines was concerned that global warming was forcing poor women into prostitution. The Nov. 19, 2009 story said, "The effects of climate change have driven women in communities in coastal areas in poor countries like the Philippines into dangerous work, and sometimes even the flesh trade."

Contradictions like growth or shrinking of coral reefs, destruction or growth of bananas, and heavy or reduced snowfall were all on his list. A number of health ailments including allergies, asthma, cardiac arrest, cancer deaths in England, West Nile fever, cholera, malaria and yellow fever have also been linked.

Snowpocalypse Can't Stop Faith in Warming

According to AGW believers in and out of the news media, weather can only ever support global warming theory. Not even back-to-back East Coast blizzards that dumped more than two feet of snow in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area can freeze their faith.

The "snowpocalypse" that shut down the federal government, schools and many businesses for several days became one more "extreme" weather phenomenon in a long list attributed to global warming. It joined heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, tropical storms, cyclones, tornadoes, ice shelf and glacial melt, dying polar bears and even lack of snowfall.

MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan told viewers on Feb. 9, "Here's the problem - these ‘snowpocalypses' that have been going through D.C. and other extreme weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing and anticipating because of global warming."

Ratigan and others have been upset by conservative mockery about global warming, given the record snowfall of the 2009-2010 winter. The MSNBC host criticized an ad by the Va. GOP designed to ridicule proposed climate change policies that could hurt the state's job situation.

Talk about polar opposites. In 2010, Ratigan blamed blizzards on global warming. But just one year ago, NBC's (MSNBC's parent company) presidential historian Michael Beschloss claimed global warming could be responsible for the lack of Inauguration Day snow.

As the camera turned to President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and their two children walking to the reviewing box, Beschloss described the scene: "And this wooden path that they're walking down actually dates to many previous inaugurations because a lot of them had snow. It may just be that because of global warming the last few have not."

That was a frigid January day - 28 degrees at noon plus a severe wind chill - and the coldest inauguration since 1985. Still, according to the news media it was a sign of the destruction caused by fossil fuels, SUVs and other human activity. 

But that's just it. Logic doesn't matter, according to alarmists the planet is warming, its mankind's fault and so everything is a result of global warming.

Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Business & Media Institute that "global warming alarmism isn't really a scientific theory as much as it's a political program." That becomes most obvious, Ebell said, when they "explain away the facts" such as more snowfall in the mid-Atlantic despite the IPCC prediction of less snow in the region due to global warming.

Even a tragic Air France plane crash was connected with global warming in Russia Today (RT) on June 4, 2009. Alexei Kokorin, a climatologist for the left-wing World Wildlife Fund's Russia Climate Program, told RT ""A consequence of global warming is that the frequency and severity of such events (severe weather conditions) is higher. Unfortunately, the risk for airplanes, especially in tropical areas above water, will be higher. This could be difficult for pilots to understand."

Another horrible disaster, Hurricane Katrina was also linked to manmade climate change. On May 23, 2006, "Good Morning America" featured two previews: one of the hurricane season and one of Al Gore's global warming movie, "An Inconvenient Truth." Gore has been criticized by some for his "very heavy-handed" use of Katrina footage in the film.

Diane Sawyer linked the two saying, "And of course, there are a lot of people who believe that global warming is in fact to blame, in part, for this surge in hurricanes. One of them, former Vice President Al Gore, who has re-emerged, leading a kind of call to action." She wasn't alone, CBS's Hannah Storm and NBC's Robert Bazell all tied hurricanes to global warming that year.

But there are scientific problems with that assertion that even television meteorologists have criticized. And in May 2008, National Geographic reported that a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study found global warming could actually decrease hurricane activity by about 18 percent.

Newsweek, a newsmagazine that had repeatedly attacked climate skeptics as "deniers," has stated that there is "unequivocal" evidence of global warming and "90 percent certainty" that humans are responsible. In July 2007, the magazine called the 2003 European heat wave that killed thousands "a human fingerprint" of global warming. They didn't consider any other factors such as the lack of air conditioning in much of Europe.

Citing a scorching U.S. heat wave in 2006, CBS's Bob Orr declared: "Gulledge says there's no longer any serious debate" on climate change. When it comes to the media there certainly isn't "serious debate," there isn't a debate at all since skeptics are outnumbered 13-to-1 on the broadcast networks and often excluded or buried in other reports.

According to the media, everything is proof of warming, even if scientists - including CNN meteorologists - contradict them. Ebell offered one reason that for the media's constant defense of AGW.

"I think part of it is that the media which from time to time portray itself as anti-establishment is actually an integral part of the establishment (the liberal establishment). So you can be a bomb-thrower if you're going after Richard Nixon," Ebell said. "but if they went after someone on their side" they would lose support. So whenever challenged on an issue like global warming, the media "circle the wagons and defend their own."

Want to know what else the media have blamed on global warming? Find the rest of the article at Business & Media Institute. 

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank Sunday said the recent snowstorms in the nation's capital were inconvenient for Nobel Laureate Al Gore.

Such a remark seems destined to draw the ire of climate alarmists from coast to coast who have been burning the candle at both ends to not only convince the public that these storms are evidence of global warming, but also to criticize anyone that has jokingly claimed the contrary.

What will also likely anger Gore's sycophants was Milbank's use of facts in his column Sunday:

This latest snowfall, though, is more likely the result of a strong El Niño cycle that has parked the jet stream right over the mid-Atlantic states.

Still, there's some rough justice in the conservatives' cheap shots. In Washington's blizzards, the greens were hoist by their own petard.

For years, climate-change activists have argued by anecdote to make their case. Gore, in his famous slide shows, ties human-caused global warming to increasing hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, drought and the spread of mosquitoes, pine beetles and disease. It's not that Gore is wrong about these things. The problem is that his storm stories have conditioned people to expect an endless worldwide heat wave, when in fact the changes so far are subtle.

Other environmentalists have undermined the cause with claims bordering on the outlandish; they've blamed global warming for shrinking sheep in Scotland, more shark and cougar attacks, genetic changes in squirrels, an increase in kidney stones and even the crash of Air France Flight 447. When climate activists make the dubious claim, as a Canadian environmental group did, that global warming is to blame for the lack of snow at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, then they invite similarly specious conclusions about Washington's snow -- such as the Virginia GOP ad urging people to call two Democratic congressmen "and tell them how much global warming you get this weekend."

Exactly. 

Since Gore became the front-man for this myth, he and his followers have tied virtually every malady on the planet to global warming while blaming each and every extreme weather event on the new, more adaptable "climate change."

As a result, skeptics now have taken to humorously depict any cold weather event as disproving that which has made Gore a very rich man -- and the alarmists can't stand it.

But Milbank wasn't done:

In a conference call arranged Thursday by the liberal Center for American Progress to refute the snow antics of Inhofe et al., the center's Joe Romm made the well-worn statements that "the overwhelming weight of the scientific literature" points to human-caused warming and that doubters "don't understand the science."

The science is overwhelming -- but not definitive. Romm's claim was inadvertently shot down by his partner on the call, the Weather Underground's Jeff Masters, who confessed that "there's a huge amount of natural variability in the climate system" and not enough years of measurements to know exactly what's going on. "Unfortunately we don't have that data so we are forced to make decisions based on inadequate data."

Inadequate is an understatement, for even ClimateGate's Phil Jones has now admitted the paleoclimatic data from tree-rings is flawed. 

Beyond this, in the grand scheme of man's existence on this planet, the timeframe the alarmists work with is statistically insignificant. 

Take for example a recent report the alarmists jumped on concerning January being the "hottest month on record" according to satellite data taken by the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).

As satellites have only been measuring global temperatures since 1979, that means this was the warmest January in 32 years.

Is that statistically significant over the millions of years the planet has been in existence? Does this tell us anything about what Januaries were like during the Dust Bowl era or the Medieval Warm Period?

No. 

But alarmists use such data to prove global warming, which makes it that much more enjoyable to poke fun at them when blizzards hit parts of the country that rarely see such things. 

As my colleague Mark Finkelstein reported Friday, global warming-obsessed media have been hysterically blaming this year's record snowstorms on climate change under the theory that Al Gore's favorite myth will increase moisture in the atmosphere thereby raising the amount of the white stuff falling from the sky.

As Finkelstein pointed out, the problem with this postulate is that this season's storms in our nation's capital all occurred on abnormally cold days.

Another case in point: Dallas, Texas, has just seen the greatest 24-hour snow total in the city's history with temperatures nearly 20 degrees below normal (picture courtesy Story Balloon): 

Large, fluffy snowflakes fell heavily across North Texas for about 24 hours Thursday, bringing record snowfall that sailed past the previous all-time one-day record.

A new record of 12.5 inches of snow in a 24-hour period was set at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (11.2 on Thursday) -- and flakes were still coming down after midnight. The previous daily record was 7.8 inches on Jan. 15, 1964, and Jan. 14, 1917 and the previous 24-hour record was 12.1 inches.

Why did it snow instead of rain? According to the Star-Telegram:

The ingredients for a snowy season are simple: multiple upper-level storm systems supported by temperatures low enough to turn moisture to snow.

Those two elements have collided more than once over North Texas this season.

"It's definitely one of those winters," said Bill Bunting, a meteorologist with the weather service. "You never really know when you’ll get one."

If temperatures in this region had been at their norm for this time of year, all this extra moisture would have fallen as rain. The average temperature in Dallas on February 11 is 50 degrees. The average low is 40. Temperatures in Dallas are forecast to continue to be abnormally low the rest of the week.

As such, Dallas just go pummeled with snow because it was too cold to rain as it normally would have this time of year.

And therein lies one of the lies concerning this issue: if global warming is increasing moisture in the atmosphere AND temperatures, parts of the globe that RARELY see snow shouldn't suddenly be seeing more than they ever have.

Certainly, the coldest parts of the planet that experience greater amounts of moisture will see more snow if the alarmists are correct.

But America's deep south setting snowfall records as the planet is supposedly warming defies anything approaching logic - unless of course you're a journalist tied to Al Gore's hip.  

After taking time out of his last few broadcasts to try to clarify his Feb. 8 remarks that the "snowpocalypse" was because of global warming, one would hope MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan would have learned his lesson.

Ratigan spent a portion of his Feb. 10 and now a portion of his Feb. 11 shows trying to clarify his statement - that "these ‘snowpocalypses' that have been going through D.C. and other extreme weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing and anticipating because of global warming," as he said - but that he didn't necessarily believe that premise.

"Now, in addition to that being completely wrong on so many levels, it's also a total misrepresentation over the climate change theory that I was attempting to explain," Ratigan said. "Let me be very clear - I do not believe that this storm is proof of climate change. And I do not believe that this storm is not proof of climate change. But I do believe that you, Mr. Beck, did a tremendous disservice to your viewers by bastardizing the most basic science behind the theory, period. That's not very good."

Ratigan then revealed his own Glenn Beck-style chalkboard to play amateur climatologist and make the case that this winter precipitation "could" be the result of global warming. He also showed the temperature has increased based on U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models.

"But thankfully, guess who else has a chalkboard," Ratigan said. "Mr. Beck, let me try to explain this to you once again. There is a data set from the U.N. that claims that there has been a global temperature rise over the past 100 years or so of about 1.3 degrees. Come on in here, you can take a look at it. The theory basically states that the warmer climate would cause higher ocean temperatures, which means more ocean water evaporating. Think of this yellow line as the temperature curve. Sometimes it's hot, sometimes it's cold.  A hundred years ago, think of this line as the new temperature curve. Sometimes it's hot, sometimes it's cold and the average change between hot and cold running at 1.3 degrees."

What Ratigan didn't explain was why the previous snowfall record occurred back in 1899, more than 100 years ago or question the plausibility IPCC models after the ClimateGate scandal. Instead, he went with carrying the global warming alarmist argument that these storms could have been caused by global warming.

"The idea basically that warmer air, yeah, warm, you can do this, yes, warm air, my handwriting's not so great, but you get the point. As warmer air goes up, it takes H20, water, into the air. More water in the air results in more precipitation on earth. You know what the saying is, after all. What goes up must come down. Now, it might come back as more snow. It also might come back as more rain, depending on the temperature, hot or cold, on the specific place on the earth at the time."

To his credit, for the first time Ratigan not only attacked conservative opponents of the anthropogenic climate change theory, but also those who have used it politically, like former Vice President Al Gore, to promote enacting policy to combat the threat with fear.

"Let's be phenomenally clear, Mr. Beck - I do not believe this storm is proof of climate change, nor have I ever said as much," Ratigan said. "My point very simply was that strong winter storms like the one so many in this country have lived through over the past couple of days do not by any stretch of the imagination rule out climate change as conservatives like Mitch McConnell, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and yourself have suggested. At the same time, it is equally dumb for anyone to say that these storms do somehow prove that climate change is actually happening. One thing we can probably agree on Glenn is that I think the fear-mongering among the many climate change proponents, like Al Gore for example, is completely out of whack with the current body of scientific evidence."

Ratigan patted himself on the back for "extensively and personally" covering ClimateGate, even though he still gave credence to the IPCC models. And he also challenged Beck to take him on one-on-one and brandished his own version of Beck's famous red phone.

"To that end, I also covered the reports of climate data manipulation extensively and personally felt like it was a disgusting breach of scientific ethics," Ratigan said. "But I also know that you can cover the climate change debate without reducing yourself to this level of stupidity, just to have fodder for your lefty-righty games. So, Glenn, the next time you'd like me to explain something that was said on this show, or otherwise, we have red phones, too. You can call me, invite me on your show if you'd like. You can come on mine unless that sort of in-context direct engagement scares you a little too much."

East Anglia University, which came under fire a few months ago for the now infamous ClimateGate email scandal, announced yesterday that it is launching an independent probe into the work of its Climate Research Unit (CRU).

Wall Street Journal's Guy Chazan reports the story today  -- found on page A15 of the print edition -- noting that the independent review led by Sir Muir Russell will "reappraise the CRU's scientific conclusions."

But Chazan noted that some critics argue that a deeper problem underpinning ClimateGate is not addressed by the probe:

"To do an assessment of the scientific research...is sort of beside the point," said Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "The main issue is to provide open access to the data and the metadata ... and let the broader community assess the data sets."

British wire service Reuters has a full story on the development here, and FoxNews.com also has an article on the story, written by British sister network Sky News.

It remains to be seen how American print and broadcast outlets will cover the story.

The global warming scandal keeps getting worse. Revelations over the last few weeks show that many important assertions in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were based on misquotes and false claims from environmental groups, not on published academic research as originally claimed. This is on top of the recent mess regarding data, where the three most relied-on data series used by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 assessment report still not been released. Other information indicates that data have been systematically biased to produce a rise in measured temperatures when actual temperatures were falling or flat.

Take some of the false claims in the 2007 IPCC report.

– The IPCC claims that the Himalayan glaciers could melt away as soon as 2035. The forecast was based on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999, and the Indian glaciologist who was interviewed, Syed Hasnain, says that he was misquoted, indeed he had provide no date. Professor Hasnain discovered the mistake in 2008 when he read the IPCC’s published report, but he said: “There are many mistakes in it. It is a very poorly made report. . . . My job is not to point out mistakes. And you know the might of the IPCC. What about all the other glaciologists around the world who did not speak out?”

Even more disturbingly, Rajendra Pachauri, the U.N.’s climate chief, first denied that he knew about the error before the Copenhagen global warming conference. He only admitted that he knew about it before the conference when a writer for the journal Science, Pallava Bagla, pointed to email correspondence that he had with Pachauri last fall.

– The IPCC warned that because of global warming the world had “suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s.” They cited one study to support their claim, but when the research was published in 2008, after the IPCC report was released, the study noted: “We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses.”

– The IPCC warned that up to 40 percent of the Amazon rain forest might be wiped out by global warming, but the sole source for that claim was a non-refereed report authored by two people who the Sunday Times of London referred to as “two green activists,” one of them with the World Wildlife Fund.

– The IPCC even got wrong the percentage of the Netherlands that is below sea level. The report claims that the percent is 55 percent, when the right number is 26 percent.

On February 3rd, Mr. Pachauri however defended the UN’s IPCC report by saying that the critics “are people who deny the link between smoking and cancer; they are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder. I hope that they apply [asbestos] to their faces every day.” While Pachauri admits that the IPCC was inaccurate about the Himalayan glaciers melting, he claimed that the attacks were motivated by “business interests” who “spread a lot of disinformation.”

Finally, it should be noted that Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office, which enforces that country’s freedom of information act regulations, has come to some conclusions regarding Climategate. The ICO found that the University of East Anglia breached violated British law by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming. The UK Daily Mail reports that “the scientists will escape prosecution because the offences took place more than six months ago.” Out of 105 freedom of information requests, Professor Phil Jones, who headed the university’s Climate Research Unit, only complied with 10 requests.

For too long global warming proponents have claimed that their claims can’t be questioned. Science should be more transparent than this. But relying on misreported news stories and white papers put out by non-scientists from advocacy cases isn’t science.  Why these climate temperature data has been hidden and why researchers won’t answer questions on adjustments that they have made has become quite troubling. In this age of computers and website, there is no excuse for hiding data.

Immediately after taking shots from some conservative voices for his Feb. 8 remarks that heavy snowfall in the Mid-Atlantic is "reportedly" a result of global warming, MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan fired back at his detractors on his Feb. 10 program. 

The once seemingly rational host of CNBC's "Fast Money" voiced his frustration with the entire global warming debate as it stood in the wake of this record-setting winter weather event. Ratigan suggested neither side should use the crippling snowfall as evidence to further their respective arguments. However he did direct the lion's share of his criticism at conservatives.

"The weather we know is frightful, but my goodness me, so is the political back-and-forth over climate change in the context of these storms that are hitting D.C. especially," Ratigan said. "Both sides trying to use hometown ‘snowpocalypse' as free advertising for their chosen position on climate change, baby. Conservatives today, using the blizzard to pull a snow job on Al Gore and his liberal brethren. From South Carolina, Sen. Jim DeMint says quote, ‘It's going to keep snowing in D.C. until Al Gore cries uncle.' That was a good one. Meanwhile, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asks ‘Where is Al Gore now?'"

Of course Ratigan took the obligatory contemptuous shot at MSNBC punching bag Sarah Palin.

"And not to be outdone, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin - I like to call her Professor Palin - calling the idea that the snow can be tied to global warming, ‘a bunch of snake oil science,' as long as we have her professional opinion. And, we're even taking hits here at the D.R. show for a story we ran the other day busting the GOP for an ad along the exact same lines of the rhetoric I just shared with you."

Ratigan appeared be very concerned about being called out by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

"Rush Limbaugh - taking me on by name today, even though I actually don't subscribe to either of the theories - liberals or conservatives," Ratigan said, was wrong because Ratigan contended that he was just the messenger.

"Now, Rush, what you failed to point out or maybe you missed it, I don't know, was that at no time did I ever agree with either side of the debate," Ratigan said. "I was simply reporting a scientific fact that some scientists say that higher air temperatures, when the air mass is warmer it can retain more moisture and as a result these scientists believe that the warmer air mass, which retains more moisture, may subsequently offer more precipitant. That a word? I believe it is - precipitation, something that would fall from the sky. There will be more of it as a result of the retained moisture."

And although he claimed not to have a dog in the fight, his choice of words argued otherwise.

"These exact types of storms may reflect that," Ratigan suggested. "I honestly have no idea. I was simply reporting that that is part of the science. So to the argue the snow is evidence there is not global warming borders on moronic. And yes, it is scientifically possible that overall warmer temperatures can cause more snow in some areas for that reason. I honestly don't know." [emphasis added]

So what does the host of "The Dylan Ratigan Show" actually believe? He's not sure.

"In fact here is my take - I don't necessarily agree with that being the case," Ratigan said. "That's just the theory on that side of the aisle. I believe along with most scientists that while there is strong data suggesting higher temperatures overall, it is far too complex to make any ironclad assumptions about how high they will get and what will happen because of them, good or bad."

And although Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has forced cap-and-trade legislation that would come at an estimated cost of up to $200 billion, or $1,761 per household, according to the Treasury Department through the U.S. House of Representatives that is now pending in the U.S. Senate, Ratigan urged everyone "cool off" and take a harder look when more data is available. He failed to criticize the alarmists the Left who are insisting immediate and urgent action on the climate change issue.

"Look at the weather guy," Ratigan said. "They have a hard time forecasting ten days in front of us because of all the complex variables that go into what happens on this earth. So, how can we make trustworthy predictions about what could happen 20 years from now? Now that doesn't mean we shouldn't be looking at the issue closely. One thing that is clear is that this political debate about climate change needs to cool off a little bit until perhaps we have a touch more data and a little more rational thought, especially when both sides are claiming victory off of one or two random snowstorms."

And the MSNBC host had a parting shot and challenge for Limbaugh.

"As for Mr. Limbaugh, I would be delighted to come on your show and explain this to you directly," Ratigan said. "Or if you prefer, you're more than welcome to come on here anytime you want, phone in or whatever you're into - unless of course you have an issue with direct engagement on these types of issues where you actually deal in fact. Something to think about."

Chevron oil company is being sued in Ecuador for $27 billion. It’s a big number. The gross domestic product (GDP) of Ecuador in 2008 was $54 billion. So $27 billion is 50% of the GDP of the entire country. And the $27 billion claim is sheer fantasy. The damage claim against Chevron is based on a gigantic scam.

Donald Moncayo (yellow shirt) of the Amazon Defense Coalition (the named financial beneficiary in the case) assisting the court's “independent expert” Richard Cabrera (leaning on tree) during a site inspection.

It goes back a while. Between 1965 and 1990, the old Texaco company developed oil concessions in Ecuador. (Texaco merged with Chevron in 2001, hence Chevron is now in the dock.) Between 1977 and 1990, Ecuador progressively nationalized Texaco assets, and transferred them to the state oil firm, Petroecuador.

In the early 1990s, Texaco and Petroecuador agreed to clean up a number of oil sites. Texaco kept its side of the bargain, and in 1998 the government of Ecuador certified that Texaco successfully cleaned up its share of the operations.

Nonetheless, in 1994 a group of U.S. attorneys sued Texaco in the U.S. They made novel legal claims for “environmental justice.” Eventually, the case was dismissed in the United States and a new case was filed against Chevron in Ecuador.

The Ecuadorean court appointed an “expert witness” to make factual findings and to calculate damages. Turns out that the “expert” is a mining engineer named Richard Cabrera, who has direct financial ties to the plaintiffs and as we learned this week, hidden ties to Petroecuador.

Cabrera’s mandate from the Ecuadorean court was to assess environmental damages. To do this, Cabrera hired assistants recommended by the plaintiffs. He transcribed entire passages from plaintiffs’ pleadings into his “reports” And where evidence was lacking, Cabrera made up entire categories of damage out of thin air. Here’s a summary.

Cleaning Up Old Oil Pits

The Ecuadorean court asked Cabrera to calculate the cost to clean up old oilfield pits. Cabrera’s number was $2.7 billion, to be assessed against Chevron.

Problems abound. Cabrera ignored the fact that Texaco previously cleaned up dozens of pits under its agreement with Petroecuador. Cabrera ignored the release of liability from the government of Ecuador. Cabrera overlooked the fact that Petroecuador is under contract with Texaco to remediate the remainder of the pits.

Indeed, according to Cabrera, Chevron should pay to clean up problems that occurred after 1990, caused by Petroecuador’s post-nationalization operations.

Even if Texaco (now Chevron) ought to act as some sort of environmental sugar daddy and pay to clean up more pits, can it possibly cost $2.7 billion?

Cabrera’s damage estimate is over 150 times the amount Petroecuador estimated for cleanup work. Cabrera counts over 4 times as many pits needing cleanup as does Petroecuador. And his cost estimate per pit is over 30 times the Petroecuador number. In short, Cabrera’s $2.7 billion number for cleaning the pits is sheer fantasy.

Groundwater Cleanup

Cabrera’s report assesses $3.2 billion in damages against Chevron for groundwater remediation. Yet there’s no evidence for the claim. Cabrera’s report includes no samples from streams, wells or other water sources.

Cabrera’s only basis for the water claim is a small number of samples that come from oil pits currently operated by Petroecuador. The claim for groundwater remediation is entirely specious.

Surface Damages

Cabrera included a damage claim for $1.7 billion for “deforestation.” That is, Cabrera slams Chevron because Texaco built roads, drill pads, pipelines and other facilities within the Amazon jungle.

It’s Catch-22. In the 1960s and 1970s, Texaco wanted to develop the oil concession without building an extensive road network. Texaco wanted to use helicopters for logistics. However, from the outset, the Ecuadorean government insisted that Texaco build roads. Now Cabrera’s report recommends assessing damages for the roads.

The entire footprint of former Texaco operations in Ecuador totals under 44 square kilometers — including 37 square kilometers of government-mandated roads. The total disturbed area is about 1% of the total 4,400 square kilometer oil concession.

Cabrera’s damage calculation comes to over $38 million per square kilometer. It’s just astronomical. Cabrera has turned these roads and oil pits into some of the most valuable real estate in all of South America.

Cancer Deaths

Going far beyond his court-ordered mandate, Cabrera included a rogue claim in his report by assessing Chevron over $9.5 billion for something called “excess cancer deaths.” The idea is that somehow, Texaco’s operations in the 1970s and 1980s caused untold cancer deaths to local people.

However over 16 years of litigation, the plaintiffs have never provided the name of even one cancer “victim.” Nor are there medical records, death certificates, pathology reports, or any other evidence of cancer deaths caused by former Texaco operations.

According to Ecuadorean government mortality statistics, the cancer death rate in the area of former Texaco operations is lower than the national average. This statistic doesn’t even scratch the surface of why people get cancer, such as genetics, smoking, diet, and other factors. The point is that Cabrera’s report doesn’t demonstrate any “liability” by Chevron for illness to local Ecuadoreans, now or in decades past.

Unjust Enrichment

The Cabrera report makes a hyperbolic claim of over $8.4 billion against Chevron, for something called the “unjust enrichment” of Texaco in years past.

Unjust enrichment? Texaco operated in Ecuador for about 25 years (1965 to 1990), with the last 13 years under progressive nationalization. Texaco’s Ecuadorean profits, over the 25 years, totaled $490 million, according to government tax records. Meanwhile, the government of Ecuador received over $25 billion in oil income and royalties.

Yet somehow, according to Cabrera’s bizarre logic, Chevron is liable for an unjust enrichment claim in Ecuador. It’s perverse.

Other Damage Claims

Cabrera includes a slew of other assessments against Chevron, none of which have any legal basis.

There’s a “health” claim for $480 million against Chevron, because much of the drinking water in the area is contaminated by human waste. Then he adds a $430 million charge against Chevron to construct a “potable water system.” But these are current problems with no relation to past Texaco operations.

Then there’s a $430 million claim for something called “impacts on indigenous populations.” Cabrera wants to slam Chevron today because, in the past, the Ecuadorean government encouraged outsiders to move into the oil concession region — using roads that the government told Texaco to build.

Finally, Cabrera includes a $375 million claim against Chevron to rebuild oil infrastructure that Petroecuador uses today. This is despite the fact that Petroecuador started nationalizing Texaco operations in 1977, and completed the process in 1990. So Petroecuador has controlled all oil operations for the past 20 years, generating over $50 billion in oil sales. But Cabrera recommends that Chevron buy Petroecuador an entirely new set of infrastructure.

Bizarre, Groundless Claims

There’s an Alice in Wonderland nature to the Cabrera report. Yet most news accounts of the Chevron trial in Ecuador pay no attention to the fantastical, groundless basis for the $27 billion “damage” claim.

With just a quick review, the “expertise” of the Cabrera report simply disintegrates. The report has no basis in fact, except that Cabrera spells Chevron’s name correctly.

The Cabrera report is a travesty, displaying unvarnished bias against Chevron. It’s a model of outrageous prejudice, if not a template for legal incompetence. Clearly, Cabrera is deep in the tank with the plaintiffs.

Cabrera’s sordid report is playing out within a legal proceeding in a foreign jurisdiction. For as bad as the Cabrera report is, there’s something worse. It’s the blind acceptance, within many elements of the mainstream news media, of the farcical Witch Trial going on against Chevron in Ecuador.

Keith Olbermann Wednesday claimed that conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are trying to kill us all by disinforming the public about the dangers of global warming.

Speaking with Newsweek's Howard Fineman about how conservatives are using the recent snowstorms in the Northeast to refute Al Gore's catastrophic climate claims, the "Countdown" host said, "[L]ife on earth is going to be threatened because the people who recognized and warned about climate change did not just go with that phrase, climate change, and instead chose global warming, opening this opportunity up for Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin to kill us all."

Earlier the factually-challenged MSNBCer declared, "And, of course, we have Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, the Wall Street water carriers, the corporate clowns, who get rich by tricking listeners into voting against their own interests, laughing about how silly it is to believe in extreme weather change in the middle of extreme weather" (video embedded below the fold with full transcript and commentary, h/t Story Balloon):

KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST: Good evening from New York.

A blizzard has buried much of the northeast, much of the nation`s capital, and much of Congress`s sanity. What the record snowfall has exposed, however, is just how ignorant leading deniers are about what even the Bush Pentagon recognized as a threat: climate change. They think it`s disproved by snow.

And Democrats are responding to a snowstorm that, in fact, may exemplify climate change by naturally backing down on legislation to combat climate change -- legislation Republicans opposed because even though it would have cut taxes for the middle-class, too, you know, you, it also would have cut the profits of big polluters.

While the snowfall shut down much of the capital`s day-to-day business, including progress on the jobs bill, key Democrats now say it now might also spell the end, for now, of the climate change bill. Why? Because people are idiots!

Senate Energy Chairman Jeff Bingaman remarking about this storm, quote, "It makes it more challenging for folks not taking time to review the scientific arguments. People see the world around them and they extrapolate." And no one is extrapolating stupider than the people in the pockets of the energy industry. Quote, "It`s going to keep snowing in D.C. until Al Gore cries `uncle.`" Get it? Al Gore. Quote, "Where`s Al Gore now?" See, Al Gore.
And, of course, we have Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, the Wall Street water carriers, the corporate clowns, who get rich by tricking listeners into voting against their own interests, laughing about how silly it is to believe in extreme weather change in the middle of extreme weather!

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS HOST: The snow is hammering Washington, D.C., again. I believe God is just saying, "I got your global warming here, eh? You want a piece of global warming?"

(END AUDIO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIMBAUGH: It`s just another nail in the coffin of the whole global warming thing. And each -- you know, every day like this, where is Al Gore? Where is the media asking Al Gore what`s going on with this?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: It`s snowing, moron! No one is asking about Al Gore,
of course, because the former vice president did not personally invent climate change. Scientists have predicted for decades that climate change will bring with it extreme weather. And, yes, last month was the hottest January on record since satellites were first used to track global temperatures.

What happens when the earth warms up? More water evaporates from the oceans, like steam -- meaning for those places where it`s still below freezing, there will be more snow. The National Weather Service today confirmed this -- surprise -- the snowiest winter on record for Washington, so far.

Let`s bring in, fresh from the Iditarod dogsled race, relocated this year from Nome to D.C., MSNBC political analyst, Howard Fineman, also a senior Washington correspondent and political columnist of "Newsweek" and the author of the "The Thirteen American Arguments."

Much thanks for your time and your travel efforts tonight, Howard.

HOWARD FINEMAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: No problem. No problem, Keith.

OLBERMANN: Virginia Republicans posted and then quickly pulled today this Web ad mocking the Democrats for supporting climate change legislation. Is there no sense that Virginia, the state they are from and represent, happens to be suffering right now acutely due to this storm, precisely because of the kind of climate change they are defending?

FINEMAN: No, I don`t think there is any sense of that. I think that -- number one, Republicans have had their eyes on this cap-and-trade bill, the climate change bill, from the very beginning. They`ve been out to kill it from the very beginning. That`s number one.

Number two, a lot of the attacks on climate change data and theory have had an effect, especially on Republicans. There was a poll recently, Keith, that said, now, about only half of people who call themselves Republicans believe that the climate change thing is for real. And that has resulted in a change in the overall numbers, but these are the Republicans speaking to their own base.

OLBERMANN: But in 2000, during the Bush administration, the National Intelligence Council concluded that more than 30 U.S. military installations face heightened risk because of rising sea levels, which is a direct consequence of climate change. Why don`t McConnell and DeMint care about the troops?

FINEMAN: Well, as it happens, I was talking to Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, earlier today. And I`ve covered Mitch forever, going back to --

OLBERMANN: Yes. Yes.

FINEMAN: -- when he was county judge in Kentucky. And Mitch sees the world through the eyes of the Kentucky coal operators. This is a coal opportunity, in his view, and that`s how he sees things. He sees the energy problems as having coal as one of the main answers, if not the main answer. And as far as changing river levels and coastlines and so on, that`s what the Corps of Engineers in the Navy are for. Come on.

OLBERMANN: All right. And there`s not much of a danger in the sea rising to cover Kentucky -- is that the idea? So he doesn`t care.

FINEMAN: Yes. You know, we`ve -- they`ve already rearranged all the rivers and lakes there anyway. That`s why I say, the Corps of Engineers, you bring them in and they rearrange them some more. No problem.

OLBERMANN: Cut off the tops of the mountains.

FINEMAN: Sure. Sure.

OLBERMANN: This is what this boils down to, though: life on earth is going to be threatened because the people who recognized and warned about climate change did not just go with that phrase, climate change, and instead chose global warming, opening this opportunity up for Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin to kill us all.

FINEMAN: Well, I do think that labels matter. And in retrospect, simply focusing on warming was a mistake, just in terms of the politics and the salesmanship of what is undoubtedly a really, really big problem. But it`s also now gotten all wrapped up in Obama, in Gore, in the whole big government idea.

You know, conservatives and Republicans, they worry about big government. Unless it`s the national security state, then they want a lot of big government. But in this case, they`d rather let the coal operators and the nuclear plant operators and so on, you know, have their -- have their way.

OLBERMANN: Three of my four questions to you tonight have been about Republican idiocy on this subject. Now, let me turn to Democratic idiocy on this subject.

FINEMAN: Right.

OLBERMANN: How is the majority party`s takeaway from the display of extreme weather turning out to be surrender on a bill that fights manmade or man-influenced extreme weather?

FINEMAN: Well, I think -- I think, I`m sure from the White House`s point of view, I think, what Jeff Bingaman said -- which is basically giving up in a sense -- is not what they wanted to hear.

On the other hand, I`m not sure how committed the White House is to the cap-and-trade bill that they put forward and jammed through the House at the beginning of the session. You know, at the beginning of last year, they were all proud of themselves for that, but the thing is complete languished. This is a case where presidential leadership and explanation is required.

You know, we keep saying that Barack Obama gives such a good speech and he`s a good explainer. I don`t really know how good an explainer he is. He didn`t end up explaining the health care reform bill all that well. It was very complex.

Same here -- it`s a big, complex bill. But you can`t assume everybody understands the science behind it. And that`s what the president has to do. He`s got to get out there and explain it if he expects to have political activity on this.

OLBERMANN: Maybe he can just get up and say, "You know what? If it weren`t snowing already and we`d eliminated snow, it would be too late to do anything and doesn`t make a difference how much of a deficit we have. So, let`s spend $800 trillion a day, because we`re all going to die in nine years, anyway."

FINEMAN: He should try that. Yes.

OLBERMANN: I`ve written a speech for him.

MSNBC political analyst, Howard Fineman, also of "Newsweek," also author of "The Thirteen Arguments," now --

FINEMAN: You didn`t have to say all of that, but thank you.

OLBERMANN: Now out in paperback and available without a prescription -- thank you, Howard.

FINEMAN: You`re welcome, Keith.

So, in the course of seven minutes, Olbermann accused Limbaugh and Palin of trying to kill people with global warming skepticism while claiming that Limbaugh and Beck are getting rich by tricking the public into voting against their best interests.

During the same segment, Fineman accused Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) of ignoring the dangers of climate change because he's more concerned with coal producers in his state, and isn't worried about the supposed threat to rivers and the coastline since the Corps of Engineers has already rearranged Kentucky's waterways.

It really is disgusting, isn't it?

Challenging someone's patriotism is a pretty hefty charge to level in the political arena, based on the response when Barack Obama's patriotism was challenged during the 2008 election cycle.

However, there seems to be a different set of rules when it comes to questioning the authenticity of the manmade global warming argument in the wake of record-setting snowfall in the Mid-Atlantic. And this different standard applied to Bill Nye "The Science Guy," who appeared on MSNBC's Feb. 10 "Rachel Maddow Show" and aired his disapproval of manmade climate change skeptics and labeled them "unpatriotic."

"[T]here's more energy in the atmosphere and this is stirring things up," Nye said. "If you want to get serious about it, these guys claiming that the snow in Washington disproves climate change are almost unpatriotic. It's really, they're denying science. So they're very happy to have the weather forecast be accurate within a few hours, but they're displeased or un-enchanted by predictions of the world getting warmer. It's really, it shakes me up."

According to Nye, it's easier to sell the theory of anthropogenic global warming to younger generations since "older people" have a harder time with the concept. He agreed with the show's host Rachel Maddow, who likened the snowfall in Washington, D.C. to a full-court one-handed buzzer-beating basketball shot earlier in her program.

"Well, my thinking is, I thought about this a lot as an educator, spent a lot of time with a lot of people," Nye said. "It's mostly generational, it seems to be. This is anecdotal for me. Older people just have a much harder time grasping the idea that you have many billions of people on the planet with a very, very thin atmosphere - you're able to affect its climate. Younger people are able to sort of embrace it, understand the evidence and move forward. Just as you say, making a full-court one-armed shot happens now and then. There are snowstorms in Washington, D.C., now and then."

Nye explained that he subscribed to the idea that it was warmer ocean temperatures causing this weather by "putting more energy in the atmosphere."

"Well, the world, overall -- the world's getting warmer," Nye said. "If you like - these phenomenon, by the way, this week, are just generally a result of El Niño, where the Pacific Ocean surface gets a little warmer and this affects the weather in North America like crazy and this is very well-documented, and you can go to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Web sites and you can look at this data. The sea surface is warmer, putting more energy in the atmosphere, and making things more turbulent."

But Nye, without a single mention of the ClimateGate scandal, which showed that Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists manipulated data and conspired to destroy information to further the cause of global warming alarmism, cited the IPCC's Nobel Prize as a reason to believe that theory.

"The main thing is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change got a Nobel Prize," Nye said. "They got a scientific prize for making a discovery. They didn't get a minor award. This is a big deal. They discovered climate change, through all kinds of evidence, and it's something we should all be very, very concerned about."

And Nye then returned to his earlier point, questioning the patriotism of global warming skeptics, calling their questioning of the theory inappropriate and suggested it was bad for what made the United States "a technological leader."

"This thing, of denying science - you know, science has done so much to make this country what it is, a technological leader," Nye said. "It's improved the quality of life for so many people, here and around the world. To deny what scientists or scientific evidence is showing, is inappropriate. And as I said earlier, to me, when I get wound up, it's unpatriotic."

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After Climategate, Glaciergate, Amazongate and the cold hard facts on the ground it’s become obvious that manmade global warming is a scam.

Big government politicians and scientists were hoping they could convince people that their junk science was real. Then they could further control the energy industry through taxation and regulation. Unfortunately, for them the scam is falling apart right in front of their eyes.

So what better time for a contest?

If you would like to have some fun and make a little cash while you’re snowed in then this is just the contest you’ve been waiting for. Here are the rules:

1.) Create a sign.

2.) You must then get your sign in a position so that it can be seen on TV.

For each local TV spot you will receive $100.00.

If a sign is placed on a national TV network the prize will jump to $300.00.

If two or three signs are on one TV spot then the prize would be divided by the participants.

The most original sign would receive and additional $500.00.

The funniest sign will receive an additional $500.00.

Get the details at Gateway Pundit Blog.

The contest runs until Sunday February 14, 2010.

Hardball host Chris Matthews on Wednesday ranted that "clowns" and "hyenas" like Sean Hannity "don't care" about the awful things global warming will do to the planet. The Fox News host on Monday highlighted the winter storms that the D.C. area has been suffering and then mocked Al Gore.

After quoting similar remarks by Republicans Jim DeMint and Mitch McConnell, Matthews frothed, "It isn't something to laugh about, gentlemen, unless you don't care about what happens to this planet down the road. And I suspect that some of you folks, sadly, don't."

Previewing the segment a few minutes earlier, Matthews lashed out at Hannity and the Republican Senators: "Up next, the anti-science crowd in the Republican Party is saying that that the snow storms we're having are evidence against global warming." Continuing the name-calling, the MSNBC anchor slammed, "These guys, these clowns- go to high school!"

A transcript of the segment, which aired at 5:30pm EST on Febuary 10, follows:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Up next, the anti-science crowd in the Republican Party is saying that that the snow storms we're having are evidence against global warming. These guys, these clowns- go to high school!

5:30

CHRIS MATTHEWS:  Next, hyena time. Here’s Sean Hannity on Fox, Monday. Quote.  Here’s Sean talking, "It's the most severe winter weather in- winter storm in years, which would seem to contradict Al Gore's hysterical global warming theories." Here's Senator Jim DeMint twittering yesterday. Quote, "It's going to keep snowing in D.C. until Al Gore cries uncle." And here's Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell when asked about passing climate change legislation, just yesterday. Quote, "Where’s Al Gore now?" Well, here are the facts, gentlemen. The average global temperature last year was the second highest on record. The past decade was the warmest ever.  Cold weather in one area over several days doesn't change the reality of what’s happening to this planet, the only one we've got, by the way. It isn't something to laugh about, gentlemen, unless you don't care about what happens to this planet down the road. And I suspect that some of you folks, sadly, don't.

Our good friends at Minnesotans for Global Warming have done it again.

This time, they've taken The Who's rock anthem Baba O'Riley (aka Teenage Wasteland) and converted it into the Al Gore-bashing "Frozen Wasteland."

As always, they're asking for some global warming, 'cause it's gosh darned cold where they live (video embedded below the fold with lyrics):

FROZEN WASTELAND

Up here on the farm
We chop wood To stay Warm
We all could use some Global Warming

We all need to fight
To preserve our rights
I don't want to be taxed a just for breathing

Open your eyes
Don't believe their lies
It's just a Frozen Wasteland

Al Gore is a liar
His pants are on fire
Plus he's getting rich from carbon offsets

He's loose with the facts
All he wants is a tax
Lets get together
Before it gets much colder

Frozen Wasteland
Its just a Frozen Wasteland
Frozen Wasteland
Frozen Wasteland

WE'RE ALL FROZEN!!

Absolutely delicious. Thanks, Elmer!

Time after time, the Obama White House has demonstrated a desire to control the message and flow of information, whether it's issues on health care, the economy, bailouts and the latest - climate science. 

With cap-and-trade legislation waiting in the wings that would come at an estimated cost of up to $200 billion, or $1,761 per household, according to the Treasury Department, the federal government recently announced a new service to "help businesses adapt to the impact of climate change."

But AccuWeather.com's chief long-range and hurricane forecaster Joe Bastardi, who appeared on the Fox Business Network's Feb. 9 "Cavuto," warned there are other implications with the government having an expanded role in climate forecasting. According to Bastardi, it could lead to an effort to shut out other opinions.

"What I'm trying to say is there are a lot of other non-governmental opinions in this debate that have been shut down," Bastardi said. "So I'm asking myself, well, is it going to be like NOAA? They get to say whatever they want and influence things? And then folks that have other opinions aren't allowed to say anything about it or are pushed off to the side?"

Bastardi showed where long-range climate models diverge and explained three factors that are causing the earth to cool.

"Science and Public Policy Institute - take a look at this graph here - since the satellite era, you can see temperatures have been going up," Bastardi continued. "The computer models are up even higher, but we've leveled off in the past 10 or 15 years. The question is, with the natural reversal, the solar activity, the volcanic activity, what I have labeled the ‘Triple Crown of Cooling,' are we simply, in 20 or 30 years, going to be back to where we were 20 or 30 years ago.

And as Dr. William Gray, a hurricane forecaster at Colorado State University, has predicted, Bastardi said changes in the ocean are going to play a significant role in the cooling trend, as he had forecasted.

"Yes, I think that is the answer," Bastardi said. "Part of the reason we got this winter forecast right -- and again I'll show you this winter forecast - is I knew that with the Pacific cooling, we are getting back toward those times in the '60s and '70s. That's where winters are going to go. When the Pacific cools, the Atlantic cools, guess what happens? You cool those big bodies of water, you are going to cool the atmosphere around it. The models aren't capable of handling this. Look at the forecast or the guidance that came out of NOAA for the month of February. At this time, when this came out, we were forecasting brutal cold in February and a top 10 cold February for the United States to my clientele."

Bastardi explained the importance of having accurate weather and climate data and not have a monopoly on a government that could favor a certain policy measure. For example, he explained how this data is used in the private sector.

"I'll give you example what that means," Bastardi said. "You get this kind of guidance, someone that's a retailer, well we don't need any snow shovels; no big deal. Another company, say one of my companies, actually purchased more snow shovels this year because they felt it was - they trusted the forecast. So they made money."

However, with the federal government's entrance into the climate forecasting business, Bastardi said he fears the government would push out competitors and regulate thought.

"But when you get situations like this - and I'm not saying that this isn't guidance that people can use. I'm not saying that. When you start having it so a government agency is literally in some way, indirect way, regulating what people are thinking, then you push other people out that may be people of goodwill and want to compete."

And that’s the point, I guess. Watch this ad for a “clean diesel” car by Audi, and good luck getting this slightly modified version of the Cheap Trick classic “Dream Police” out of your head. I couldn’t get it out with a lobotomy. It’s been playing off and on in my brain since it first aired during the Super Bowl.

But beyond the diddy, I also can’t get the vision of a fascist “green” future out of my head — even if it’s portrayed with a heavy dollop of of “Reno: 911“-style cop-show parody. Good comedy has to have a grain of truth in it to work, and this spot has plenty. It’s not just a peek at a ridiculous future, but a look at our “be green or else” present. An overreaction? Tell that to the chief of America’s Green Police, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, who Tweeted:

“Ok .. That ‘green police’ Audi commercial hits home..”

And hits home hard. San Francisco, which proudly considers itself the greenest city in America, has mandated composting for all residents and businesses. Failure to comply results in an escalating scale of fines. No word on whether Newsom was proud or embarrassed to see his Green Police state in San Francisco reflected in an ad.

There’s no doubt the ad is funny, but one is left to wonder what Audi’s purpose was? I’m still a bit flummoxed. Did Audi intend to produce a screed against the Green Police as a way to appeal to those who are fed up with years of constant eco-scolding? One would think not, since the “punch line” is that if you own a clean-diesel Audi, you get to drive right through a green checkpoint. But the other 40 seconds of the one-minute spot dovetail nicely with the growing fatigue and skepticism the public feels about the “green” initiatives of government — especially in the wake of the ClimateGate scandals.

Or did Audi believe the public is in lock-step with the green agenda, and figured people would get a laugh out of a satire of paranoid, know-nothing skeptics, and actually want a car that keeps you on the “good side” of environmental policy. If so, it strikes me as a horrible miscalculation to assume the country is full of people who think like Al Gore and Barbara Boxer. The German carmaker, too, seems to be a bit confused about its own ad.

The Green Police are a humorous group of individuals that have joined forces in an effort to collectively help guide consumers to make the right decision when it comes to the environment. They’re not here to judge, merely to guide these decisions.

Ha ha ha! Just “guide” us, eh? By slamming a dude’s head into the checkout line for choosing plastic? Not here to judge? Tell that to the folks scrambling away from their too-hot hot tub. (I know. It’s only a commercial, and a funny one to boot. Still, to pretend there’s no judgment being made on people’s freedom to make decisions about how they may go about their ordinary lives is ridiculous.)

There’s been a good bit of commentary about this ad in the blogosphere. Ben Boychuk at Infinite Monkeys thought the ad was “cleverly written and produced (the anteater was a cute touch)… and utterly horrifying.”

Two bits in particular really bothered me: The part where the Green Police put some hapless homeowner in the back of a squad car as a news reporter explains the perp was caught using incandescent lights; and the Cops-like scene where the bewildered couple is rousted for setting their hot tub’s thermostat too high.

Ben notes how Audi explains there are “numerous real Green Police units globally that are furthering green practices and environmental issues.”

For example, Israel’s main arm of the Ministry of Environmental Protection in the area of enforcement and deterrence is called; you guess it, the Green Police. New York has officers within the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation that are fondly called the “Green Police”. The Green Police is also the popular name for Vietnam’s Environmental Police Department and the UK has a group who dresses in green as part of the Environment Agency’s squad to monitor excessive CO2 emissions.

Wait. What? A Western carmaker is holding up Communist Vietnam as a good example to follow? And we’re supposed to admire the fact that “free” countries like Israel and Great Britain send bureaucrats around to monitor the emissions of its citizens? I don’t care if they wear cute green outfits, that’s a bit creepy and fascist to me. Such agencies don’t merely “further green practices and environmental issues.” They enforce government-desired life practices through a knock on the door. Big difference.

But, I suppose the joke’s on me. Steve Hayward at No Left Turns sees this as a victory for those of us who’ve had enough of the enviro-scolds:

What’s more over than Mark Sanford’s marriage or John Edwards’ reputation? The environmental movement, that’s what. … Is [the ad] mocking environmentalism?  Um. . . yeah. Your moral authority is pretty thin when a major advertiser finds it safe to take this approach. Think anyone would ever try something like this about the civil rights movement? Or the feminist movement?

Point taken. And it should be a source of comfort that those who believe in bossing us around in the name of “saving the planet” (which doesn’t need saved) are a little worried about the mixed messages in this ad. But I live in a state, California, which recently:

• proposed fining and jailing people for the crime of driving with under-inflated tires;

• considered a bill banning cars with black paint from being sold (because black cars trap more heat in the summer and require more use of the air conditioner to make the driver comfortable);

• banned wood-burning fireplaces in new home construction (and restricts it in “grandfathered-in” homes from time to time by bureaucratic fiat); and

• outlawed 25 percent of flat-screen TVs on the market because a panel of bureaucrats say they use too much power;

I could list more examples, including a bit from the Audi ad that is actually true: Incandescent light bulbs will be contraband in the United States starting in 2012. Sure looks like the Green Police are real to me. Happily, Audi has now armed those who would oppose the reordering of society through environmental mandates with a nice bit of video to splice into footage of Al Gore, Barbara Boxer, John Kerry, Henry Waxman, Barack Obama and others ordering us how to live our lives.

Get crackin’, YouTube fiends! A golden propaganda moment awaits.

No matter what former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin does, she's not going to win any friends in the mainstream modern feminism activist movement in the United States. But that might not be a bad thing.

On HLN's Feb. 8 "The Joy Behar Show," Eve Ensler, the writer of the infamous "The Vagina Monologues" appeared on the broadcast to promote her new book "I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World." During the interview, she was asked by the show's host Joy Behar what she thought about Sarah Palin, her political prospects and her belief system.

"Back with me is a woman who has done more for the vagina than the Brazilian wax - the talented Eve Ensler," Behar said. "You know, I must talk about Sarah Palin quickly with you because you do mention her in one monologue in the book. And you say a woman running for U.S. vice president believes in creationism but not global warming. What were you driving at there? May I ask?"

Ensler took the global warming opening and ran with it, but probably should have exercised better judgment. She took a shot at Palin's anthropogenic skepticism, either by mistake or by exhibiting a total ignorance of natural disasters, by suggesting Palin look at "earthquakes and tsunamis" if she needed to evidence (emphasis added):

ENSLER: Well, I just think the idea that she doesn't believe in global warming is bizarre.
BEHAR: Every scientist at every note believes in it but Sarah Palin doesn't believe in it.
ENSLER: And I think we just kind of have to walk around the world at this point and look at what is happening to nature and earthquakes and tsunamis.
BEHAR: Right.
ENSLER: And weather changes to just feel it. But I think that idea that she doesn't believe in global warming and she could actually run for vice president, and we have a country where that is possible, it seems insane.
BEHAR: It's unbelievable. It does seem insane and the fact that she has not negated the possibility of running in 2012.
ENSLER: But we have. We have negated the possibility of her winning.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), earthquakes are a phenomenon of "sudden rolling or shaking events caused by movement under the Earth's surface," not the earth's atmosphere which concerns the theory of anthropogenic global warming.

Ensler also took issue with the Tea Parties, particularly last week's Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tenn., where Palin spoke and insisted that the media should give her V-Day events (an inspiration of The Vagina Monologues) more coverage:

ENSLER: But I think part of it is like why are we giving her so much attention. You know I was looking at that Tea Party thing last night. How many people were there? 600? Why is the entire media covering an event with 600 people.
BEHAR: I don't know.
ENSLER: V-day has 5,000 events this year. At one event there's 600 people, why are they covering that? What do we choose to cover in the media? Why is anyone giving attention to people who have really have a level of intelligence that hasn't really evolved yet?
BEHAR: I agree with you.
ENSLER: You know, you know, it's problematic. It's problematic.

But the shots kept coming at Palin from both Behar and Ensler - why she is so popular, why she didn't criticize Bush more and her ideologically conservative stances on certain social and economic issues:

ENSLER: Well I'm not talk you can about the people who necessarily are following Sarah Palin. Because I think people have the right to be afraid right now. I identify with working people. I feel for people are out of jobs and they don't have money. What` I'm talking about is people who are creating Sarah Palin and Sarah Palin herself putting out information that is manipulated, that's distorted, and illusory. That's the people I have problems with.
BEHAR: Well she plays fast and loose with facts.
ENSLER: Oh, does she ever.
BEHAR: And the other thing I wanted to bring up about her with you is that I saw her being interviewed by Chris Wallace on FOX yesterday. Or was it Saturday, I think it was yesterday. And he says -- she says that, you know, Obama is losing some sting right now. People have short memories. They forget what happened eight years ago.
ENSLER: Hmm.
BEHAR: When Bush was here. But she says, I'm saying she'd like to change his image around. How would she do it? She's saying, I'm saying if he did things would dramatically change, if he decided to toughen up and do all that he can do to secure our nation and our allies, I think people would perhaps shift their thinking a bit and decide, well, maybe he's tougher than we think that he is today. In other words, I think that she's talking about going in and starting more wars. I mean, I can't believe that she gets away with statements like that.
ENSLER: Well, I think it's the whole mentality of being in the NRA, of believing in drilling. Of shooting all those animals from the plane, of drilling, this constant -- she wouldn't drill.

As for the "drilling" metaphor, Behar couldn't let the opportunity to take a cheap shot at Palin at her daughter's expense and mock the concept of abstinence:

BEHAR: Isn't that how her daughter got in trouble in the first place?
ENSLER: I thought it was abstinence myself.
BEHAR: Oh yes, abstinence, that really works.
ENSLER: Really successful technique.

With Washington, D.C. buried beneath at least 20 inches of snow, and with more in the forecast, common sense would suggest global warming alarmists look elsewhere to make the argument to raise awareness for their concerns.

But no, Dylan Ratigan thinks it's ridiculous to suggest all the snowfall totals could cast doubt on the theory of anthropogenic global warming. On MSNBC's Feb. 8 "The Dylan Ratigan Show," Ratigan criticized those who would dare express misgivings about climate change based on the so-called "snowpocalypse."

"Here's the problem - these ‘snowpocalypses' that have been going through D.C. and other extreme weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing and anticipating because of global warming," Ratigan said.

In fact, Ratigan told viewers during the "Busted" segment of his program, that the heavy snowfall totals were evidence of global warming.

"Why is that? The thinking that warmer air temperatures on the earth, a higher air temperature, has a greater capacity to hold moisture at any temperature," Ratigan said. "And then as winter comes in, that warm air cools full of water, and you get heavier precipitation on a more regular basis. In fact, you could argue these storms are not evidence of a lack of global warming, but are evidence of global warming - thus the 26 inches of snowfall in the DC area and the second giant storm this year." [Emphasis added]

Ratigan criticized a TV spot by Virginia Republicans designed to ridicule proposed climate change policies that could hurt the state's job situation. He suggested there was some sort of schism in that state's GOP because the Republican governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell has said global warming is potentially an issue.

"On a side note, Virginia's newly elected Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell says he accepts the science that is out there and warned that planet warming is quote, ‘a real concern.' So I don't know where the Virginia GOP is at, maybe they don't know the science, or maybe they want to win at any cost. I don't know, maybe they just wanted to make a commercial."

If you’re the President of the United States or one of his political appointees and you’re ideologically opposed to new oil and natural gas development offshore, what do you do when the public registers its overwhelming support for new drilling in public opinion polls?

You dance, delay, and deceive. You speak melodious words about seeking the wisdom of the public in making these decisions and then ignore evidence of the public will when you get it, or worse, you hide it.

First came the dance.  In August 2008, after soaring gas prices and a dramatic shift in public opinion caused President Bush, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and Republican presidential candidate John McCain to reverse their positions on offshore drilling, then-Senator Obama also changed. The Democratic presidential nominee reversed his own position and that of his party, saying he was open to offshore drilling as part of an overall energy plan.  The Democratic Congress followed a month later by quietly dropping the 25-year Congressional ban on offshore drilling.

Then came the delay. In January 2009, President Obama inherited a draft five year offshore drilling plan prepared by the outgoing Bush administration.  The plan was already receiving public comment as part of the elaborate rule making process followed by federal agencies.  Ken Salazar, Obama’s new Secretary of Interior, determined the decision about new offshore drilling was so important that he ordered a six-month extension to the comment period.

Third comes the dishonesty.

In April of 2009, during a discussion about offshore exploration in San Francisco, Salazar said that President Obama directed him to “to make sure that we have an open and transparent government” and that “these are not decisions that are going to be made behind closed doors.” Salazar went on to say that President Obama wanted to make sure that DOI was “maximizing the opportunity for the public to give us guidance on what it is that they want to do.”

Yet, more than four months after the comment period ended, the Department of the Interior has failed to make any public announcement about the results, even though sources have told American Solutions for months the comments show a 2-1 advantage in support of offshore drilling.

It took American Solutions almost four months and the power of the Freedom of Information Act to finally uncover indirect confirmation that, out of over 530,000 comments submitted, pro-drilling comments outnumbered anti-drilling comments by a 2-1 margin.

In an email dated October 27, 2009, Liz Birnbaum, director of the Minerals Management Service, informs other Interior officials that a preliminary tabulation of the results of the comment period had not yet gone to Secretary Salazar, adding “[s]o the Secretary can honestly say in response to any questions that he’s [SIC] has not yet seen the analysis of the comments – staff is still working on it. I did, however, confirm to him the 2-1 split that these guys [at American Solutions] are emphasizing.”

When a public employee is on record condoning purposeful deception of the American people, the taxpayer should no longer have to fund his or her job.  Secretary Salazar should immediately fire Liz Birnbaum for purposefully deceiving him, and in turn, the American people.  It’s not possible for the Secretary to honor pledges of openness, honestly, and transparency in government if his staff is going to deliberately undermine such pledges.

Public opinion polls already measure near 70% support for offshore drilling, so the results from a public comment period that reflect the same public sentiment should not be surprising.  But after all this talk of wanting the public’s input, Secretary Salazar and his team must find it a real stumbling block to have to explain all their anti-energy development actions in light of the comment period results to which they previously attached such great importance.

This newly gained insight into the anti-energy exploration mindset within the Department of the Interior allows a new perspective of President Obama’s mention of offshore development in his recent State of the Union address.  Here is the one paragraph in which the President described offshore development:

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.  It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.  It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies.  And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.

To the passive listener, it sounded like President Obama expressed at least rhetorical support for offshore drilling.

But the President only says we must make “tough decisions” on offshore drilling, deliberately refusing to apply that standard to other decisions on energy.

But tough for whom? Certainly not for the public that overwhelmingly supports more offshore drilling.

Indeed, the only person facing a tough decision is the President since an important part of his political base is opposed to new American energy development.

Bucking public opinion would indeed be a tough decision for this President, but he has shown himself quite comfortable with bucking public opinion to pursue stunningly unpopular policies on health care and cap and trade.

In short, it’s a fair conclusion that the tough decisions the President identified in his State of the Union was his intended decision not to pursue any new offshore oil and gas development. The actions by Salazar and his team are entirely consistent with that conclusion.

What makes all of this dispiriting, especially this month, is that with 15 million Americans out of work and with the President’s recently submitted budget projecting trillion dollar annual deficits for the next ten years and a near tripling of the national debt by 2020, the President is throwing away a golden opportunity over the next three decades to create millions of new jobs and generate more than $270 billion in annual economic growth from new oil and gas development, including $54 billion annually in federal tax receipts that could help lower the federal deficit and the national debt.

These extraordinary benefits of job creation and economic growth – all without requiring any federal spending – are, sadly, not on President Obama’s agenda, notwithstanding all the phony rhetoric to the contrary.

Indeed, we can look forward to the President’s continued strategy of dance, delay, and deceive.

From ABC News:

The Obama administration on Monday proposed a new agency to study and report on the changing climate.

Also known as global warming, climate change has drawn widespread concern in recent years as temperatures around the world rise, threatening to harm crops, spread disease, increase sea levels, change storm and drought patterns and cause polar melting.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, announced NOAA will set up the new Climate Service to operate in tandem with NOAA’s National Weather Service and National Ocean Service.

“Whether we like it or not, climate change represents a real threat,” Locke said Monday at a news conference.

Lubchenco added, “Climate change is real, it’s happening now.” She said climate information is vital to the wind power industry, coastal community planning, fishermen and fishery managers, farmers and public health officials.

NOAA recently reported that the decade of 2000-2009 was the warmest on record worldwide; the previous warmest decade was the 1990s. Most atmospheric scientists believe that warming is largely due to human actions, adding gases to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

Read the whole article here.

One of the reasons many people watch the Super Bowl is for the ads, and one that surely will be talked about at watercoolers Monday is Audi's Green Police commercial.

In it, ordinary citizens are arrested for using plastic instead of paper, throwing away batteries, not recycling orange rinds, possessing incandescent light bulbs, and setting their hot tub thermostats too high all while Robin Zander sings refashioned lyrics to Cheap Trick's '70s classic "The Dream Police."

To give you an idea just how scary this futurist vision of environmentalism running amok was, even the New York Times found it "misguided" (video embedded below the fold, h/t Seton Motley):

AUDI Officious "green police" punish citizens who are not sufficiently eco-conscious, but an owner of an Audi A3 TDI with clean-diesel technology drives away scot-free. This misguided spot put the "mental" in "environmental." 

Imagine that. I guess environmentalism can even go too far for the good folks at the Gray Lady.

Who'd have thought it? 

One of the reasons many people watch the Super Bowl is for the ads, and one that surely will be talked about at watercoolers Monday is Audi's Green Police commercial.

In it, ordinary citizens are arrested for using plastic instead of paper, throwing away batteries, not recycling orange rinds, possessing incandescent light bulbs, and setting their hot tub thermostats too high all while Robin Zander sings refashioned lyrics to Cheap Trick's '70s classic "The Dream Police."

To give you an idea just how scary this futurist vision of environmentalism running amok was, even the New York Times found it "misguided" (video embedded below the fold, h/t Seton Motley):

AUDI Officious "green police" punish citizens who are not sufficiently eco-conscious, but an owner of an Audi A3 TDI with clean-diesel technology drives away scot-free. This misguided spot put the "mental" in "environmental." 

Imagine that. I guess environmentalism can even go too far for the good folks at the Gray Lady.

Who'd have thought it? 

The 13th Annual Energy & Environment Conference, held in Phoenix Feb. 1-3, isn’t the sort of place where global warming “deniers” are exactly welcome. In fact, by my observations, the skeptical caucus at the event consisted entirely of: James M. Taylor, a senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute; Keith Lockitch, a fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights; and me. All the other attendees spent their time discussing how the U.S. government — or, even better, a “global government” — needs to compel us all to live “greener” lives through schemes like cap-and-trade. Environmentalists are a bossy and power-hungry lot.

Lockitch gave a presentation arguing free-market economies are better positioned than socialist societies to deal with any severe weather events caused by climate change — and was called a “denier” and compared to a shill for “Big Tobacco” for his trouble. Taylor got off a little easier, receiving only scoffs and curious-to-annoyed glances for asking inconvenient questions.

But that’s not to say we were the only people to question the assumptions of the attendees who believe the “science is settled” on global warming. Perhaps the greatest challenge came from one of their own — renowned climate scientist William Sprigg — who urged his colleagues to stop treating the ClimateGate scandal as irrelevant noise promoted by “deniers.” In an amazingly telling moment, green energy consultant Andy Van Horn, who introduced Sprigg, admitted he’d never heard of ClimateGate until Sprigg suggested it a few weeks ago as a topic worthy of discussion. (Who are the real “deniers” again?)

Sprigg, adjunct research professor in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona, believes the planet is on a potentially dangerous warming path and atmospheric carbon dioxide is to blame. He also led the technical review of the first global warming report issued by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1990. Clealry, Sprigg is no “outlier” or “rebel,” but one of the most respected and “mainstream” scientists in the field of climatology. So it came to a bit of shock to the audience when Sprigg expressed concerns about how contrarian scientists are treated with contempt by many of his colleagues.

It’s not right, he said, that the game is rigged to keep skeptics out of peer-reviewed journals. It violates the scientific method to refuse to release raw data so others can test your theories. And it’s a big mistake to keep defending the likes of infamous “Hide the Decline” emailers Phil Jones and Michael Mann. The very credibility of the entire discipline of climate science is at stake, Sprigg said, and it’s time to stop ignoring this fact. As one might imagine, this all did not go over very well in the audience — who were undoubtedly expecting to hear a lecture ratifying their view that ClimateGate was no big deal when they saw Sprigg’s topic on the agenda.

I recorded Sprigg’s remarks on video for Heartland, and (from what I could tell) mine was the only camera in the room. The footage below features Taylor — who is also managing editor of Environment & Climate News — asking Sprigg what he thinks the future holds for the wholly corrupted IPCC. Sprigg nodded as Taylor referred to “mounting scandals” at the IPCC and then responded:

“There will be some reform. I think there are going to be big changes in the peer review process for the IPCC. There will be — there are — calls for the head of [IPCC Chairman Raj] Pachauri. Some of my colleagues have written letters saying that he needs to be taken off the job.”

In his 24-minute lecture, Sprigg also:

• warned of a growing perception that “the IPCC is biased, conflicted, [and] pushing political agendas.”;

• called for a new climate research agency supported not entirely by the government, but in conjunction with the private sector;

• and declared: “We need to stick to our scientific principles,” and “improve our peer preview process, and expand the stakeholders’ role to keep us all honest.”

It was a remarkable presentation, one that The Heartland Institute has summarized with commentary in the video below. One gets the feeling Sprigg has put himself on the path to pariah status among the true-believers of global warming, But this honest scientist deserves praise from all sides of the debate for demanding politics, group-think and a desire to control our lives through government mandates not replace scientific rigor.

On Thursday’s CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric lamented the impact ClimateGate and other recent scandals involving fraudulent global warming data have had on the climate change debate: “Experts insist the overall conclusion remains the same, that climate change is real, but...such errors provide ammunition to skeptics.”

In a report that followed, correspondent Mark Phillips cited accusations of data tampering against Penn State University climatologist Michael Mann, but explained: “An academic board today cleared Mann, saying his science holds up, but the damage may have already been done.” Phillips went on to detail other data errors, including a false United Nations climate panel report on melting Himalayan glaciers and the ClimateGate scandal at Britain’s East Anglia University.

Phillips observed how the “series of gaffes by climate change scientists,” has created “a frustrating time for those who believe the basic science in global warming remains true.” A clip was then played of Imperial College London climatologist Brian Hoskins fretting: “it appears the whole edifice has been undermined by these couple of bricks that are flaking a bit.”

Phillips concluded his report by explaining the real problem facing global warming advocates: “The scientists may still believe they’re winning the scientific argument, but they’re in danger of losing the public relations war.”    

Here is a full transcript of the segment:

6:47PM TEASE:

KATIE COURIC: When we come back, new doubts about climate change thanks to some sloppy work by scientists.

6:50PM SEGMENT:

KATIE COURIC: The U.N.’s climate chief admitted today scientists made mistakes in a major study of melting glaciers in the Himalayas. Experts insist the overall conclusion remains the same, that climate change is real, but as Mark Phillips tells us, such errors provide ammunition to skeptics.

MARK PHILLIPS: You know you’re in trouble when you’re being spoofed on YouTube.

PARODY SONG: Making up data the old hard way, fudging the numbers day by day.

PHILLIPS: The subject of the spoof is Michael Mann of Penn State University, who is accused of tampering with climate data to produce his famous hockey stick graph, which shows that the rise in manmade greenhouse gases corresponds to a rise in world temperatures. An academic board today cleared Mann, saying his science holds up, but the damage may have already been done.

SONG: Hide the decline.

PHILLIPS: The biggest splash these days in the global warming argument may not be caused by the world’s melting glaciers. It may be caused by a series of gaffes by climate change scientists. The latest one involves temperature data from weather stations in China used in global warming calculations. The problem is that where weather stations are matters. One located in the city will give a consistently higher temperature reading than one out in the country. The allegation is that the researchers used Chinese data when they didn’t really know where their weather stations were. It’s just a small part, they say, of a worldwide database, but it’s the little mistakes that matter. Mistakes like the line in the last report by the U.N. panel on climate change, which claimed glaciers in the Himalayas might disappear by the year 2035. The panel had to admit the claim was wrong and the climate change skeptics jumped in.

PATRICK MICHAELS [SENIOR FELLOW, CATO INSTITUTE]: Any scientist that read that 2035 figure just laughed because they knew it couldn’t be true. There’s no doubt the trust in the U.N. panel has been undermined.

PHILLIPS: Trust was already undermined by the series of leaked e-mails at Britain’s University of East Anglia, one of the world’s big climate science centers, would seem to show that inconvenient facts were being hidden. It’s a frustrating time for those who believe the basic science in global warming remains true.

BRIAN HOSKINS [PROFESSOR, IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON]: I am concerned that it appears the whole edifice has been undermined by these couple of bricks that are flaking a bit.

PHILLIPS: And that’s a danger, in your view?

HOSKINS: It is a danger. Oh, I totally agree.

PHILLIPS: The scientists may still believe they’re winning the scientific argument, but they’re in danger of losing the public relations war. Mark Phillips, CBS News, London.

On November 30^th, the same day the Food and Drug Administration was scheduled to issue a statement regarding the long-used plastics additive Bisphenol A (BPA), the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editors urged the agency with the headline “Get on with it!”  They charged that “the agency blew its own self-imposed deadline for issuing a ruling on the safety of the ubiquitous chemical,” and went on to complain that “The FDA is taking more time to have its scientists analyze studies of the chemical’s effects.”

The Milwaukee newspaper, along with the Los Angeles Times health blog, called on Congress to ban the product.  Then, on December 14, the examiner.com reported that Democrat Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand had proposed a bill outlawing the use of BPA in food container linings for infant and toddler food.  Washington, with its Senate vote on Friday, is the latest among several states that are not waiting for federal bans.

But as reported here, in the fall, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) had announced the award of $30 million in research grants, $14 million of which represents Obama administration stimulus money, to study BPA further.

What might account for such odd behavior?  There are enough peculiarities and strange connections to suggest that the media, the academy, and liberal political forces are working together to pursue an ideological agenda—with the help of stimulus funds.

The competing goals between normally cooperative anti-BPA forces in the environmental advocacy science community and a newspaper could stem from the fact that the newspaper invested much in a series that nonetheless earned them only the position of finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Yet, the same scientists that the newspaper relied on as authorities to make claims about BPA’s dangers find themselves recipients of government money to “study” the issue further.  The newspaper could hardly be expected to drop the topic it had invested so much in—one that has produced attention-grabbing headlines for much of the mainstream media, and windfalls for producers of “BPA-free” products.

So, on December 29 the Journal-Sentinel again expressed dismay that the FDA would miss another self-imposed deadline, the third, by year’s end, to inform consumers about the safety of BPA.  “The repeated delays have angered health advocates who consider the chemical a threat to human health,” Meg Kissinger, co-author of the original “investigative series” on BPA, wrote.

On January 5, the newspaper fired another salvo that claimed a desire to hear the FDA’s opinion, while proclaiming, “BPA is a hazard for both kids and adults.  It’s time to act.”  Quite obviously, the editors want to hear only one kind of opinion from the FDA, one that matches their own, which is based on questionable scientific research.

Such badgering seems to be having an effect on the agencies in the Obama administration.  The Wall Street Journal on January 30 noted that the FDA is sending out mixed messages regarding BPA, telling the public that it does not pose a risk at low levels of human exposure, yet recommending ways to limit exposure.

The NIEHS seems to be sending a self-contradictory message, as well. Although grants had been awarded by the end of September on the presumption that BPA required further study, Linda Birnbaum, director of the NIEHS, on December 11, 2009, told the Journal Sentinel that people should avoid ingesting the chemical, which has been used for more than 50 years in such plastic products as eyeglasses and bottles.

But Birnbaum, along with NIEHS Scientific Program Administrator Jerrold Heindel, signed the Chapel Hill Bisphenol A Expert Panel Consensus Statement, which emerged from a meeting of anti-BPA scientists and environmental activists at Chapel Hill in 2006.  (At the time Birnbaum was with the Environmental Protection Agency.)  Of the ten awardees of the Recovery Act NIH Grand Opportunities grants focusing on BPA research six scientists were signatories to this Consensus Statement.

And as the final decisions about awardees were being made, seven of those who would receive the grants put their signatures on a September 21 letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and Birnbaum expressing their concern about the “review process” and objecting to the allocation of $10 million to the FDA and National Toxicology Program for studies on BPA.  Thirteen of the thirty-three signatories had been part of the Chapel Hill Consensus.

Christine Flowers, Director of Communications at NIEHS, stresses that, even though only six months had elapsed from the request for applications to the announcements of the awards, the agency’s usual rigor—thanks to extra hours put in by employees–was used in determining these stimulus funds grants.

Certainly, the fact that NIEHS officials and some awardees were at the same “consensus” meeting in 2006 raises questions about the review process.

One recipient of these stimulus funds and signatory of the September 21 letter, Frederick vom Saal, has been a long-time crusader against BPA.  Along with signatories Patricia Hunt, Csaba Leranth, and Wade V. Welshons, he is cited frequently as an expert on the dangers of BPA in articles published by the Environmental Working Group, which receives support from George Soros’s Open Society Institute.

Pete Myers, a main signatory of the letter and member of the organizing committee of the Chapel Hill conference, however, serves on the Board of the Environmental Working Group.  He also runs a lab that is a “sister organization” to the Advancing Green Chemistry organization, whose executive director came from the environmental and nuclear non-proliferation advocacy group, W. Alton Jones Foundation (which Myers himself previously had directed).  Birnbaum was a speaker at a 2008 conference sponsored by Advancing Green Chemistry.

According to Human Events’ Rowan Scarborough, The Environmental Working Group is a client of Fenton Communications, which “pitches for trial lawyers, collectively the largest contributors to the Democrat Party, as well as for the hard line environmental group Greenpeace; Venezuela’s socialist leader Hugo Chavez; anti-war demonstrator Cindy Sheehan; and gay and abortion advocates.”  They also pitch for George Soros’s Open Society Institute and were behind the infamous MoveOn.org “General Betray Us” smear campaign and Obama’s Campaign to Rebuild and Renew America Now, and represent a manufacturer of “BPA-free” products.

Vom Saal was also the primary expert quoted in the Consumers Union article, which reinvigorated the scare about BPA last fall.  Consumers Union has received support from Soros for its “Democratic Pluralism in Media Project” and supports other leftist causes like the Democrat-sponsored health care reform bill.  It’s also significant that vom Saal’s lab conducted the experiments for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel for its series on BPA that won several environmental reporting prizes and finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting.

While vom Saal and signatories to the letter charged that industry-supported studies have a flawed “review process,” Trevor Butterworth at George Mason University’s STATS Center, claims that vom Saal himself is in disrepute among the international scientific community and calls the review process for the Journal-Sentinel series “incestuous.”   The “outside expert” used to evaluate vom Saal’s lab work was Patricia Hunt whose work has been championed by vom Saal.  She has also coauthored articles with vom Saal and signed the Chapel Hill Consensus statement and the letter to the FDA with vom Saal.

In a 2008 JAMA article, vom Saal and Myers charge that “The FDA and the European Food Safety Authority have chosen to ignore warnings from expert panels. . . .”  Yet the only “expert panel” they cite in the footnoted reference is their own Chapel Hill “consensus” meeting.

In addition to the “incestuous” relationship among some scientists, there seems to be an “incestuous” relationship between newspapers and environmental activists claiming to be health experts.  Consider that the “health advocates” quoted in the December 29 Journal-Sentinel article by almost-Pulitzer Prize winner Meg Kissinger are Janet Nudelman of the Breast Cancer Fund and Alex Formuzis.

The Breast Cancer Fund’s agenda, despite its name, is environmental issues.  On December 14 the deceptively named News-Medical Net cited the organization for its claim that “immediate action” is needed “to protect the public while the [FDA] agency finalizes safety review [of BPA].”   Alex Formuzis is with the Soros-supported Environmental Working Group.

Inquiring minds should be curious about these connections.

I have looked over the Penn State University’s report issued yesterday, “RA-10 Inquiry Report: Concerning the Allegations of Research Misconduct Against Dr. Michael E. Mann, Department of Meteorology, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences”. Below are eight points addressing my initial impressions, in the order they appear in the report (with one bracketed exception from page 4, moved up slightly in order of appearance here].

Findings_Mann_Inquiry –

My take-away, to spoil the ending for you, is that the panel revealed most of what we need to know about the ability of this internal inquiry to credibly assess charges of misfeasance, by limiting their evidentiary pursuit outside of select blogs and media reports to speaking with Mann, aided by a supportive NAS report (to the exclusion of the Wegman Committee report, inexplicable including for a factor cited, below) and one panel member interviewing ex parte two Mann supporters.

In my opinion, by this approach they did not do, and will in hindsight not be deemed as having done, themselves or their institution any favors.

1. This is simply a point of interest but, in describing the CRU e-mail cache that finally (not first) shined a light on Mann’s practices so as to bring the sort of scrutiny that can yield direct professional consequence, the panel chose the word “purloined”, vs. hacked or stolen. P. 3, p. 5.

This is an odd word choice in the general style and vocabulary of the document, and I am guessing that this was selected as the most neutral term; even if it includes “to steal”, the word also contemplates the actions of a suddenly unwelcome “whistleblower”, that erstwhile celebrated creature which the facts available indicate was the source of the documents long-sought under the UK’s freedom of information law.   p. 3

2. The panel considered the NAS report that Mann’s suspect practices had prompted, but not the Wegman Committee Report p. 3. The University’s odd decision had already been noted by others, for its sheer incomprehensibility. Even CRU emails acknowledge the importance of reading both, not one of them (go here and hit search for the numerous entries; why, even Mann delves into the Wegman problem his CRU emails at issue — assuming this mail wasn’t weeded out in the paring down from 377 “Mann” emails to focus on 47 of them). “No inquiry, even (especially?) threshold , can be credible if it excludes that detailed assessment of relevant behavior even if it addresses work predating Mann’s tenure at PSU..so did the NAS report the panel reviewed.” Not that the reports predated his tenure, they addressed work that did.

3. Just as a point of interest, I was struck by the panel’s inclusion of this assessment in a ten-page summary of two-months’ work. “Throughout the interview, Dr. Mann answered each question carefully:”    p. 4  ["... In addition, Dr. Mann provided a ten page supplemental written response to the matters discussed during his interview." P. 4]

4. In the in-person interview, “He explained the content and meaning of the emails about which we inquired;”  p. 4

It is problematic that they only interviewed Mann even to reach a threshold determination. If the content and meaning of the emails is important, as is implicit, then why would they not speak to the authors of these important emails mentioning him, and many others not written by him, which made the final cut for scrutiny and assessment?

Consider this in a judicial context and you see the curiosity of calling in Mann but only Mann to explain what other people wrote and meant. Happens in trials all the time. Um, like when the authors are dead.

5. “He explained that he never used inappropriate influence in reviewing papers by other scientists who disagreed with the conclusions of his science;” though I note that this does not cover Mann pressuring others re: reviewing and publication. Seems sort of relevant, even if he did also issued a blanket denial of any inappropriate behavior.

6. “On January 22, 2010, the inquiry committee and Dr. Brune met again to review the evidence, including but not limited to Dr. Mann’s answers to the committee’s questions, both in the interview and in his subsequent submissions. All were impressed by Dr. Mann’s composure and his forthright responses to all of the queries that were asked of him.” (emphasis added) The assertion of Mann’s “forthrightness” alone, given inter alia the panel did not, as noted above, apparently interview others necessary to make such a determination (outside of one panel member meeting ex parte with two well-known Mann supports, see bottom of page 4), is troubling. But I suppose that’s what internal inquiries and other self-policing often produces.

7. The money conclusion, except for any that inform your assessment of the credibility of the inquiry, is this:

Finding 4. After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee could not make a definitive finding whether there exists any evidence to substantiate that Dr. Mann did engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities.” Pp. 6-7.

Reading the panel’s quantification of this finding over the next two pages, they sure look like a band edging over toward the outcome, when the music (inquiries) stops, that leaves them standing pretty squarely on the spot staked out in the initial wagon-circling, dismissive response of the relevant and cloistered scientific community detailed by Wegman et al. Maybe they behaved less purely than is the driven snow, but that’s more a matter of perception derived from “private” correspondence never intended for outside assessment; who has not been indiscreet? However that is not the same as violating laws, etc.

The wagon-circlers in ClimateGate’s early days involved climate scientists waving away the actions of fellow climate scientists with whom they shared parallel interests of not seeing their gravy train derailed; Indeed, the panel summarizes that response of others as “nothing more than the private discussions of scientists engaged in a hotly debated topic of enormous social impact.”

Penn State risks the appearance of waving away the actions of a fellow Penn Stater with whom they share the interests in this not being a drawn-out tawdry affair for the University. We will see how they distinguish their own, surely more verbose ultimate conclusions from the wagon-circlers’ pithy dismissal.

8. Also troubling is the panel’s selective notation that “some may seek to use the debate over Dr. Mann’s research conduct and that of his colleagues as a proxy for the larger and more substantive debate over the science of anthropogenic global warming and its societal (political and economic) ramifications”. P. 8.

Yes. And some may seek to diminish the scrutiny of Mann’s research and conduct and that of his colleagues to protect the larger and more substantive industry that they represent. Why only one of these interests is worth mentioning is of a part with the panel being taken by just how forthright their subject was, despite not acquiring context to make that judgment but which assertion was material for inclusion in a ten-page assessment of more than two months’ work.

Sadly, the panel’s express focus, the only one among the relevant issues which troubles them for further inquiry — “questions in the public’s mind about Dr. Mann’s conduct of his research activity, given that this may be undermining confidence in his findings as a scientist, and given that it may be undermining public trust in science in general and climate science specifically” (p. 9) — is likely to be viewed in hindsight as having revealed a driving desire of dispelling questions and rehabilitating Mann, “science” and/or the University, not into fairly exploring the substance.

In conclusion, these points all remind us of the frequent need for and widespread use of independent inquiry when seeking to truly discern the meaning and importance of credibly alleged misfeasance. Penn State is heading toward concluding that this is all a big misperception, a matter of appearances more than substance. Something similar can be said about their initial assessment. Appearances matter, and this doesn’t appear good.

In looking at four “possible allegations” of research misconduct against meteorology professor Michael Mann, a Penn State University panel has determined that further investigation is warranted for one of them.

The allegations — or “possible allegations” as they put it — stem from Mann’s alleged involvement in the “ClimateGate” e-mails scandal that surfaced in early December and seemed to show evidence of fraud and conspiracy among the research scientists and others whose work formed much of the basis of calls for extreme climate change regulation.

At the center of the scandal was Mann, the inventor of the famous “hockey stick” graph which claimed to show that, after 1,000 years of decline, global temperatures had shot up to their highest level in recorded history. It was made famous in Al Gore’s Academy Award®-winning documentary on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

While this is good news, I suspect panel members are secretly hoping someone else will shoulder responsibility for determining Mann’s guilt or innocence before they’re forced to reach any conclusion(s).

Below is the text of the release about the inquiry issued by members of the panel a short while ago:

University Park, Pa. — An internal inquiry by Penn State into the research and scholarly activities of a well-known climate scientist will move into the investigatory stage, which is the next step in the University’s process for reviewing research conduct.

A University committee has concluded its inquiry into allegations of research impropriety that were leveled in November against Professor Michael Mann, after information contained in a collection of stolen e-mails was revealed. More than a thousand e-mails are reported to have been “hacked” from computer servers at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England, one of the main repositories of information about climate change.

During the inquiry, all relevant e-mails pertaining to Mann or his work were reviewed, as well as related journal articles, reports and additional information. The committee followed a well-established University policy during the inquiry (http://guru.psu.edu/policies/ra10.html ).

In looking at four possible allegations of research misconduct, the committee determined that further investigation is warranted for one of those allegations. The recommended investigation will focus on determining if Mann “engaged in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting or reporting research or other scholarly activities.” A full report (http://www.research.psu.edu/orp) concerning the allegations and the findings of the inquiry committee has been submitted.

In the investigatory phase, as in the inquiry phase, the committee will not address the science of global climate change, a matter more appropriately left to the profession. The committee is charged with looking at the ethical behavior of the scientist and determining whether he violated professional standards in the course of his work.

The investigatory committee will consist of five tenured full professor faculty members who will assess the evidence in the case and make a determination on Mann’s conduct.

Worth noting is the time frame set forth by university policy:

If an investigation is undertaken pursuant to this policy, the investigation should normally be concluded, and a decision made by the Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, within 120 days from the initiation of the investigation.

Stay tuned!

Politics is a game of addition – successful politics anyway.  Great leaders, when faced with a divided electorate, not to mention difficult economic times, use a limited agenda to forge consensus out of broken paradigms.  Once they achieve an initial success, they seek a broader consensus.  In the 1980’s Reagan faced a divided Republican Party and a fractured and dispirited nation.  Concentrating on the prosperity issue and our national prestige, Reagan first brought Republicans together and then independents and even many Democrats.  Indeed, so successful was Reagan at bringing people together, that in time he could rely on a group of Reagan Democrats.  Few other Presidents have had such success at building consensus let alone are able to claim a voting block from the other party in their name.

There is little doubt that Obama faced a divided electorate when he first took office and a difficult economic climate.  Rather than start with a limited agenda designed to build consensus, Obama did the opposite.  Obama chased too many rabbits at once and preferred ideological fights over practical solutions.  As a result, the Country is more divided than ever – not less.

The most recent manifestation of that divisive M.O. is the White House’s amazing decision to insist on a terror trial in New York.   Of course, it remains a jarring ideological decision to treat KSM as a “criminal” versus the warring “terrorist” that he is.  As I wrote, in my article Internment, CSI and Eric Holder’s Disarming of America, that decision will have profound negative consequences for decades to come.  To the point of this article, Obama is compounding his initial divisive decision (treating him as a criminal) by fighting with New York over the place of the trial.  It is a political fight which he cannot win regardless of the outcome of the trial.

In addition to that fight, Obama’s first year featured a huge and controversial agenda that has not served his Party or his Presidency well.  Keep in mind that successful Presidents achieve but two, maybe three, lasting achievements during their terms – many less than that; hence the need for a targeted and consensus building agenda – not a controversial far-reaching agenda.

Out of the gate, this President chose controversy over consensus.  His massive, $800 billion spending/stimulus bill divided Americans.  To be sure, there is not a majority in this country for uncontrolled deficit spending.  Indeed, the deficit is at the height of American worries and more Americans than not think the bill has not worked.

Next, Obama took on Cap and Trade.  While it is unsurprising that those on the Left – who  arrogantly think they can socially engineer the lives of free people also think they can engineer the climate of a 4.7 billion year old planet – there is little doubt that pushing that major agenda was not a consensus building maneuver.  Witness the fate of that bill and the cries of moderate Democrats if you think otherwise.

From there, Obama pushed a massive ideological takeover of 17% of the US economy in the form of the Health Care bill.  It has been anything but a consensus builder for the Democrats – ask Scott Brown if you are uncertain of that – not to mention the meteoric rise of the Tea Party.

As you can see, on the heels of a massive spending bill, Obama chased at least 3 major ideological rabbits, cap and trade, health care and redefining the war on terror– all within one year.  Obama failed to build a consensus on any of those three let alone passed legislation establishing one of them – leaving Obama without a signature achievement at the outset of his Presidency – the time in which most Presidents achieve their success if at all.

Of course, Obama blames the problems he inherited for his troubles.  Rather than looking to the economy he inherited, however, Obama should look at the divisive political climate he fostered for his failing polling numbers – much like Johnson did in 1966 and Clinton in 1994.

Although, after the first of the year,  Obama promised to focus on jobs, his ridiculous fight with New York over terror trials, and his promise to continue pushing his health care take and cap and trade, demonstrates he is not up to the job of bringing this country together.  It will be up to the Republicans to fill that leadership void in the 2010 elections.

Well, the problem that we’re having up in the north, mainly with the polar bears. There’s not enough ice forming up there, so the time for them to hunt for their food is being diminished.... If the polar bears can’t hunt and bring food out in the winter time for the arctic fox, we’re going to see them probably –  either their numbers decreasing also or possibly moving south and interfering with other species that would rely on the foods that they would be using.

8:30AM TEASE:

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: Ahead in this half hour, we have some visitors to the studio of the animal variety. Some of them are cute and cuddly. Maybe not that one. But they’re all in trouble due to climate change and you’re going to see these animals from the San Diego Zoo and hear about their precarious situation ahead this morning.

8:33AM SEGMENT:

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: The world famous San Diego Zoo has a new exhibit showing us how climate change is affecting some of the world’s most beautiful animals. Senior keeper Rick Schwartz has brought some of the cute critters this morning with us. Hi Rick, good morning.

RICK SCHWARTZ: Good morning. Thanks for having us.

RODRIGUEZ Good morning, Mr. Fox or Miss Fox.

SCHWARTZ: This is Miss Fox.

RODRIGUEZ: Miss Fox.

SCHWARTZ: This is Tundra.

RODRIGUEZ: She’s an arctic fox, right?

SCHWARTZ: Yeah, she’s a 5-year-old arctic fox. And-

RODRIGUEZ: She’s shivering.

SCHWARTZ: Yeah, she’s a little nervous with all the lights and everything, but she’s also comfortable in the arms like this. This is not, absolutely, you know, something that would be a pet by any means, but something that is an animal that’s been hand raised and worked with by professionals.

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Critters & Climate Change; How Global Warming Is Affecting Animals]

RODRIGUEZ: This is an animal that thrives in frigid temperatures, hence the name.

SCHWARTZ: Yes.

RODRIGUEZ: How is this animal in danger now?

SCHWARTZ: Well, the problem that we’re having up in the north, mainly with the polar bears. There’s not enough ice forming up there, so the time for them to hunt for their food is being diminished. The arctic fox can rely on other food sources during the summer months, but during the winter months, they follow polar bears around. Anybody who’s seen any footage of polar bears in the wild, we always see arctic foxes chasing after them to get all the scraps, basically the leftover food. So there’s a very important relationship there with that. If the polar bears can’t hunt and bring food out in the winter time for the arctic fox, we’re going to see them probably –  either their numbers decreasing also or possibly moving south and interfering with other species that would rely on the foods that they would be using.

RODRIGUEZ: Right, right.

SCHWARTZ: So everything is connected. And it’s kind of an interesting effect that’s occurring up there.

RODRIGUEZ: Important education. Alright. Thank you so much.

Well, the problem that we’re having up in the north, mainly with the polar bears. There’s not enough ice forming up there, so the time for them to hunt for their food is being diminished.... If the polar bears can’t hunt and bring food out in the winter time for the arctic fox, we’re going to see them probably –  either their numbers decreasing also or possibly moving south and interfering with other species that would rely on the foods that they would be using.

8:30AM TEASE:

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: Ahead in this half hour, we have some visitors to the studio of the animal variety. Some of them are cute and cuddly. Maybe not that one. But they’re all in trouble due to climate change and you’re going to see these animals from the San Diego Zoo and hear about their precarious situation ahead this morning.

8:33AM SEGMENT:

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: The world famous San Diego Zoo has a new exhibit showing us how climate change is affecting some of the world’s most beautiful animals. Senior keeper Rick Schwartz has brought some of the cute critters this morning with us. Hi Rick, good morning.

RICK SCHWARTZ: Good morning. Thanks for having us.

RODRIGUEZ Good morning, Mr. Fox or Miss Fox.

SCHWARTZ: This is Miss Fox.

RODRIGUEZ: Miss Fox.

SCHWARTZ: This is Tundra.

RODRIGUEZ: She’s an arctic fox, right?

SCHWARTZ: Yeah, she’s a 5-year-old arctic fox. And-

RODRIGUEZ: She’s shivering.

SCHWARTZ: Yeah, she’s a little nervous with all the lights and everything, but she’s also comfortable in the arms like this. This is not, absolutely, you know, something that would be a pet by any means, but something that is an animal that’s been hand raised and worked with by professionals.

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Critters & Climate Change; How Global Warming Is Affecting Animals]

RODRIGUEZ: This is an animal that thrives in frigid temperatures, hence the name.

SCHWARTZ: Yes.

RODRIGUEZ: How is this animal in danger now?

SCHWARTZ: Well, the problem that we’re having up in the north, mainly with the polar bears. There’s not enough ice forming up there, so the time for them to hunt for their food is being diminished. The arctic fox can rely on other food sources during the summer months, but during the winter months, they follow polar bears around. Anybody who’s seen any footage of polar bears in the wild, we always see arctic foxes chasing after them to get all the scraps, basically the leftover food. So there’s a very important relationship there with that. If the polar bears can’t hunt and bring food out in the winter time for the arctic fox, we’re going to see them probably –  either their numbers decreasing also or possibly moving south and interfering with other species that would rely on the foods that they would be using.

RODRIGUEZ: Right, right.

SCHWARTZ: So everything is connected. And it’s kind of an interesting effect that’s occurring up there.

RODRIGUEZ: Important education. Alright. Thank you so much.

Sources in Washington say Sen. Frank Lautenberg is drafting a new version of his Kids Safe Chemicals Act, which stalled out in 2008 after environmentalists complained the bill was toothless and didn’t grant the EPA enough power to regulate chemicals used to make products. Lautenberg’s new version of the bill is likely to increase the EPA’s authority to limit – or even ban – the use of common chemicals.

As the EPA’s carbon “endangerment finding” in December has demonstrated, it might not be such a good idea to vest virtually unlimited power in a single government agency, especially one that has become as politicized as the EPA.

And like the global warming hysteria the “endangerment finding” was supposed to address, the argument in favor of this aggressive power grab is thin, based on emotional, not scientific appeals, and fairly obviously designed to encroach on the free market. One organization advocating for the EPA power grab, “Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families,” is actually sponsoring a virtual Million Baby Crawl on Washington. Expect the stunts to get more ridiculous after Lautenberg’s bill drops.

There’s actually one really good reason to not grant the EPA the unilateral authority to ban any and all chemicals used in the products we buy: Chemicals are used to make nearly all products we buy. Consider the computer you are using right now. Dozens of chemicals were used during its manufacturing to keep it from overheating, blowing up, or melting down. Many of these chemicals are hazardous but all are safe for their intended use. If Lautenberg overreaches with his bill and the EPA changes the standard for what it considers safe for intended use, American manufacturers who rely on these chemicals could be out of the game while foreign competitors gain yet another leg up. Remember: The EPA would have the authority to ban chemicals used in American-made products, not those made in China or any other country that already flouts laws and commonsense.

The Toxic Substances Control Act, the law Lautenberg is looking to reform or replace, hasn’t been modernized since 1976. It might very well make sense to take another look at the law. But handing over more power to a politicized government agency would be a disaster.

The hot air emitted from almost a century of White House Correspondents' Association Dinners has surely done its fair share to warm the Earth. So this year, Washington's journalistic community is going green. Cue the self-congratulatory pomposity.

Of course taking dramatic measures to reduce the carbon footprint of the nation's journalistic establishment is not without cost; "the most eco-friendly dinner ever hosted by the association" will cost $225 a head, up from $200 last year. Calls for attendees to offset carbon they emit on the way to the gala fit nicely with the Association's, er, shall we say affiliation with the liberal agenda.

Yes, it's all well and good that these folks want to help out the environment. But do they really need another reason to pat themselves on the backs while the President lavishes praise upon the Association and its members satisfy what the Weekly Standard describes as a "shameless and apparently indestructible need to give awards to one another, in a kind of daisy chain without end"?

In all, prices will be raised, the Association will be using paper products for the dinner, and attendees will be encouraged to carpool or buy carbon offsets.

The WHCA released this announcement on its website late last month:

...for the first time in its 96-year history, the association is taking action to reduce the carbon impact of its annual black-tie gala; these actions include using as much as possible renewable energy for the event, paper products, supplies and services that reduce the threat of global warming, deforestation, toxic wastes, hazardous chemicals and species extinction.

="This will be the most eco-friendly dinner ever hosted by the association,'' said Edwin Chen, the group's president and a Bloomberg News White House correspondent.

"And we encourage our members and guests to join in that effort, such as by car-pooling, using hybrid vehicles and, for long-distance travelers to Washington, buying carbon-offsets,'' Chen said.

Graham Smith of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has revealed to Jonathan Leake of the London Sunday Times that his office has uncovered wrongdoing on the part of the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) Climate Research Unit (CRU). In a letter to Leake, Smith writes:

The emails which are now public reveal that Mr Holland’s requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Freedom of Information Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information..

Climate Email -

Currently the law prevents the authorities from taking any action against CRU, and the ICO office will recommend changes to the law to close the loophole.

On Nov 19^th after I alerted the internet to the Climategate files, I contacted Andrew Revkin of the New York Times. The message: follow the FOIA. He didn’t; Leake did. Score one for the London Times. As the story unfolded Tom Fuller and I grumbled about with the coverage of the FOIA story. A book fell out of that. Climategate:the Crutape letters, now available on Kindle and as a Lulu Ebook.

The story behind Holland’s FOIA request (here and here) requires close reading of blogs, scientific papers, leaked mails, FOIA requests, IPCC drafts, and expert reviewer comments. There is no simple take away. Except this: the Climate scientists corrupted the IPCC process, the science journal process, the statistical process, and the FOIA process to silence one man– Stephan McIntyre –and to waterboard the climate data till it delivered the message they wanted delivered, an icon more compelling than the “Hockey Stick.”

No one who can put two brain cells together can argue that these processes and the people who abused them are untainted. Instead, they will argue that nothing changes in the science. But without a trusted process there is no science. Surely, the specter of global warming does not earn a last place in the concerns of Americans. But it’s been driven there by the public’s lack of trust in the process. In their rush to judgment, the climate scientists, convinced of the nobility of their cause, have engaged noble cause corruption. Lucky for them a loophole in the law may save them from prosecution, but should not save them from disbarment.

The case is clear. In an effort to shoe horn a paper into the IPCC report, the scientists working together with Stephen Schneider of Climate Change journal, destroyed the credibility of chapter 6 of the 4^th Assessment of the IPCC. And they knew as they hijacked the process that Stephen McIntyre was watching. Yet they persisted and were caught. One scientist, Phil Jones, even suggested changing the dates on papers to hide the misdeed. But there was no hiding of the misdeed as they left a paper trail of violations.

The critical violation revolves around the submission of comments outside the IPCC process. All comments must pass through official channels. Overpeck, the task master for chapter 6 makes this clear in the mails. But the “Jesus Paper”, the paper that will save the Hockey stick is different. In defiance of process the lead author, Keith Briffa, contacts and is contacted by the authors of the “Jesus Paper,” Casper Ammann and Eugene Wahl.  That correspondence, evident to McIntyre, a reviewer of chapter 6, was one target of Holland’s FOIA.

The details of Holland’s requests are covered at Climate Audit. On May 6^th 2008 CRU acknowledged his request. On the 3^rd of June they denied his request. On the 4^th he appealed and they rejected his appeal on June 20^th.

At 6:30 on May 27^th 2008 , the scientists in CRU  were directed by FOIA officer Palmer to contact Ammann and find out if he considered his mails confidential. That was the predetermined excuse Palmer had suggested for rejecting Holland’s request. Palmer, fearing an appeal wanted to do things “by the book.” Which in this case meant suggesting to Ammann that his mails were confidential. Ammann appears to think otherwise. His response, however, was not taken into account and the refusal was issued.

Between the time when Palmer suggested that confidentially would be the excuse (May 27^th) and the denial (June 3^rd), Phil Jones would close the door on any potential appeal. He would request that everyone involved delete their mails.

The deletion of the mails might have worked. But buried in a mail from Wahl to Briffa, we have Briffa’s original mail, detailing the circumvention of the IPCC process. Worried that he cannot be objective in evaluating McIntyre, Briffa shipped a confidential file to Wahl in direct violation of the policy that Overpeck had explained to Roberts, in essence asking Wahl to evaluate his “Jesus Paper.”

In the end, of course, the full extent of the misdeeds will be detailed by the ICO, this is my take on the matter given the evidence in the climategate files. And while they have escaped prosecution, it’s clear that CRU and CRU employees cannot be trusted with the public interest. Beyond that we can wonder if action will be taken against them under the laws of misconduct in a public office, or under conspiracy laws in the UK. The legal status of destroying email in the US bears investigation.

Graham Smith of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has revealed to Jonathan Leake of the London Sunday Times that his office has uncovered wrongdoing on the part of the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) Climate Research Unit (CRU). In a letter to Leake, Smith writes:

The emails which are now public reveal that Mr Holland’s requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Freedom of Information Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information..

Climate Email -

Currently the law prevents the authorities from taking any action against CRU, and the ICO office will recommend changes to the law to close the loophole.

On Nov 19^th after I alerted the internet to the Climategate files, I contacted Andrew Revkin of the New York Times. The message: follow the FOIA. He didn’t; Leake did. Score one for the London Times. As the story unfolded Tom Fuller and I grumbled about with the coverage of the FOIA story. A book fell out of that. Climategate:the Crutape letters, now available on Kindle and as a Lulu Ebook.

The story behind Holland’s FOIA request (here and here) requires close reading of blogs, scientific papers, leaked mails, FOIA requests, IPCC drafts, and expert reviewer comments. There is no simple take away. Except this: the Climate scientists corrupted the IPCC process, the science journal process, the statistical process, and the FOIA process to silence one man– Stephan McIntyre –and to waterboard the climate data till it delivered the message they wanted delivered, an icon more compelling than the “Hockey Stick.”

No one who can put two brain cells together can argue that these processes and the people who abused them are untainted. Instead, they will argue that nothing changes in the science. But without a trusted process there is no science. Surely, the specter of global warming does not earn a last place in the concerns of Americans. But it’s been driven there by the public’s lack of trust in the process. In their rush to judgment, the climate scientists, convinced of the nobility of their cause, have engaged noble cause corruption. Lucky for them a loophole in the law may save them from prosecution, but should not save them from disbarment.

The case is clear. In an effort to shoe horn a paper into the IPCC report, the scientists working together with Stephen Schneider of Climate Change journal, destroyed the credibility of chapter 6 of the 4^th Assessment of the IPCC. And they knew as they hijacked the process that Stephen McIntyre was watching. Yet they persisted and were caught. One scientist, Phil Jones, even suggested changing the dates on papers to hide the misdeed. But there was no hiding of the misdeed as they left a paper trail of violations.

The critical violation revolves around the submission of comments outside the IPCC process. All comments must pass through official channels. Overpeck, the task master for chapter 6 makes this clear in the mails. But the “Jesus Paper”, the paper that will save the Hockey stick is different. In defiance of process the lead author, Keith Briffa, contacts and is contacted by the authors of the “Jesus Paper,” Casper Ammann and Eugene Wahl.  That correspondence, evident to McIntyre, a reviewer of chapter 6, was one target of Holland’s FOIA.

The details of Holland’s requests are covered at Climate Audit. On May 6^th 2008 CRU acknowledged his request. On the 3^rd of June they denied his request. On the 4^th he appealed and they rejected his appeal on June 20^th.

At 6:30 on May 27^th 2008 , the scientists in CRU  were directed by FOIA officer Palmer to contact Ammann and find out if he considered his mails confidential. That was the predetermined excuse Palmer had suggested for rejecting Holland’s request. Palmer, fearing an appeal wanted to do things “by the book.” Which in this case meant suggesting to Ammann that his mails were confidential. Ammann appears to think otherwise. His response, however, was not taken into account and the refusal was issued.

Between the time when Palmer suggested that confidentially would be the excuse (May 27^th) and the denial (June 3^rd), Phil Jones would close the door on any potential appeal. He would request that everyone involved delete their mails.

The deletion of the mails might have worked. But buried in a mail from Wahl to Briffa, we have Briffa’s original mail, detailing the circumvention of the IPCC process. Worried that he cannot be objective in evaluating McIntyre, Briffa shipped a confidential file to Wahl in direct violation of the policy that Overpeck had explained to Roberts, in essence asking Wahl to evaluate his “Jesus Paper.”

In the end, of course, the full extent of the misdeeds will be detailed by the ICO, this is my take on the matter given the evidence in the climategate files. And while they have escaped prosecution, it’s clear that CRU and CRU employees cannot be trusted with the public interest. Beyond that we can wonder if action will be taken against them under the laws of misconduct in a public office, or under conspiracy laws in the UK. The legal status of destroying email in the US bears investigation.

In his State of the Union Address Wednesday night, President Obama called on folks to let him know if there are better health care solutions he and congress should be considering:

As temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we’ve proposed…

…But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.

He echoed this sentiment at today’s House GOP retreat.  Some might say he was being sarcastic, reminding us of how hard it is to govern (especially in light of all he has inherited from you-know-who.)  But that would be cynical, particularly in this post-partisan era.

Just before Christmas my colleague Peter Fotos and I penned a “wish list” of simple policy proposals that constitute substantive health care reform – and it didn’t even take 1,000 pages! The health care snitch line was disabled, so we’ll give the President the benefit of the doubt that it ended up in his spam folder.

President Obama and his Congressional allies talk a lot about the need to control health care costs and avoid pressure from special interests.  Unfortunately, neither the House nor the Senate versions of “ObamaCare” that he called upon congress to reconsider withstand either litmus test.

Health care industry lobbyists have enjoyed unprecedented access to this White House during the crafting of both the House and Senate bills. Contrary to the President’s claim of upholding a standard of ultimate transparency, his White House fought tooth and nail to conceal the visitor logs that list these very guests. Despite his anti-industry rhetoric, President Obama has actually raked in record numbers of campaign contributions from the health care sector.

As a recent WellPoint study indicates, costs are expected to increase, not decrease, for most individuals and families well beyond forecast increases under the status quo. What’s more, there’s no shortage of political giveaways in the Senate bill—bribes for “on the fence” legislators to bring cloture to the bill, such as Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback” and Mary Landrieu’s “Louisiana Purchase.”

Here’s a short wish list of three things not in any ObamaCare proposal that are absolutely essential for real health care reform:

Cross-State Purchasing

Obama and others have touted a “public option,” government health insurance, as a competitor that would “keep insurance companies honest.” One additional player in the market will do nothing, however, unless of course it has a competitive advantage, a claim these proponents adamantly dismiss as “fear-mongering.” In any case, the new player is unnecessary.

A loose interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause currently prevents the purchase of health insurance across state lines. Virtually all other forms of insurance—car, life, home—can be purchased by customers in a national, wide-open marketplace. If health care consumers were afforded the same freedom, individuals and families who reside in one state would be able to purchase more affordable health insurance domiciled or licensed in another state. Americans would no longer be restricted to the anti-competitive, counterproductive regulations and mandates governing the health insurance markets in many states.

This simple fix would multiply the markets consumers could access by a factor of fifty, allowing consumers to choose policies that fit their needs and budgets.

Tax Reform

It’s time to spread the health around. The federal tax code creates a bias favoring third-party payers of health insurance and puts individual purchasers at a disadvantage. This results in health care being owned by the federal government and employers instead of by individuals. Our health care system should empower people to make their own health care decisions, not subjugate them to HR managers and government bureaucrats. A system of refundable tax credits would remove third-party payers from the equation, leaving health insurance and health care decisions to individual consumers.

Tort Reform

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean famously admitted medical malpractice reform was left out of the health care reform debate because the authors “did not want to take on the trial lawyers.” But medical malpractice abuse is a primary driver of our nation’s skyrocketing health care costs.  There isn’t a single provision in Democrat’s health care bills to address this.

Malpractice insurance and the need for “defensive medicine” make the practice of medicine unappealing and costly, reducing the number of primary care physicians and increasing costs to consumers. According to the American Medical Association, defensive medicine costs our health care system between $84 and $151 billion every year. In another AMA report, 45 percent of hospitals reported concerns over liability resulted in the loss of physicians or reduced coverage in emergency departments.

The regulatory and spending proposals currently on the table will at best avoid (though more likely exacerbate) the underlying problems of our current health care system. No amount of bureaucratic shell games or grandstanding against special interests will change that.

It needn’t take thousands of words and bitter, partisan battles to enact significant change that will help millions of Americans get affordable health insurance. If the President and his allies in Congress are serious about health care reform, they should start from scratch and consider serious solutions.

President Barack Obama encouraged some business interests by mentioning nuclear energy and offshore drilling during his Jan. 27 State of the Union speech. Those less popular energy solutions joined the usual alternative rhetoric of wind, solar and bio-fuels.

But on CNBC's Jan. 28 "Street Signs," Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's "Mad Money" noted something was missing - an important onshore energy source, natural gas. And as for the nuclear energy signals - he wasn't convinced Obama was serious.

"I mean, I want to point out I thought the nuke thing was just the boilerplate nuke," Cramer said. "[Energy Secretary Steven] Chu is a research director, the Energy Secretary, really is more of a professor. Offshore oil and gas, the issue is onshore. Natural gas wasn't mentioned, got to be really careful about that."

And according to T. Boone Pickens' PickensPlan.com Web site, natural gas could be a "bridge" to better energy policy that the President advocated, but was lacking from Obama's SOTU speech.

"Natural gas is not a permanent or complete solution to imported oil," PickensPlan.com site explains. "It is a bridge fuel to slash our oil dependence while buying us time to develop new technologies that will ultimately replace fossil transportation fuels. Natural gas is the critical puzzle piece that will help us to keep more of the $350 to $450 billion we spend on imported oil every year at home, where it can power our economy and pay for our investments in wind energy, a smart grid and energy efficiency."

The other key thing coming from the SOTU speech according to Cramer that had a big impact on the United States economy was Obama's vote of confidence for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

"The most momentous thing that happened he embraced Geithner," Cramer said. "Now why is this important? Because Geithner, while viewed now as a tool of Wall Street is in reality a guy who saved the banking system by making them raise a lot of equity with serious stress tests that everybody now realizes weren't a joke. So we want Geithner in because there's no Geithner rule to break up the banks. It's just the Volcker rule. Had he come in and snubbed Geithner and somehow do a bear hug around [head of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board Paul] Volcker, the bank group, the only group that's up today, would be in shreds."

Geithner had been grilled earlier in the day by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the AIG bailout and took some punches from lawmakers. However, Cramer explained Geithner's impact on saving the banks shouldn't have been taken lightly.

"Kangaroo court and show trial with a guy who is substance," Cramer said. "It's so much easier to not be substantive and take those questions. I felt it was one of those things was very like point of order with [Former U.S. Sen.] Stu Symington stalking out and [former head counsel for the U.S. Army Joseph] Welch asking, ‘Gentlemen, do you have no decency.' This was really a travesty - those hearings. I don't know how these guys can live with themselves. Do people really think that Geithner's just a big joker who like goes to a lot of Washington Redskins and Nationals games, which in itself would really mean that he has lost his mind?"

Leonardo DiCaprio and a list of Hollywood's finest have just released a public service announcement encouraging people to petition Congress to pass the Clean Energy & American Power Act aka cap and trade.

The ad was paid for by the left-leaning NRDC Action Fund, a group whose board of directors includes Ari Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and John Podesta, Bill Clinton's former Chief of Staff.

The PSA encourages viewers to click on an embedded link which sends them to a petition saying the following (video embedded below the fold, h/t Story Balloon):

Dear Senator,

President Obama's call for comprehensive climate and energy legislation during the State of the Union speech has the support of the American people, and I urge you to support it as well. Among the reasons to support clean energy and climate legislation:

-- Less dependence on fossil fuels and enhanced national security: A climate bill will cut our oil imports by 5 million barrels a day and reduce our one billion dollar-a-day imported oil habit.

-- More innovation in our economy: A strong climate bill will help America's large and small businesses to grow again - that's why it has the support of 80 major companies and thousands of small businesses.

-- More jobs, and more sustainable jobs: A strong climate bill would create 1.9 million new clean energy jobs through investments clean and safe energy sources.

-- A healthier, safer environment for future generations.

I am counting on my senators to vocally and visibly express your support for the comprehensive climate and energy legislation that will achieve these goals and to reject proposals, like the "Dirty Air Act" proposed by Senator Murkowski (S.J. Res 26) which would undermine healthy air, clean energy and our national security.

Please let me know whether you will support comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation.

Just what America needs: more brainwashing from America's movie stars.

As if we don't get enough of that from their films. 

The State of the Union Address that Barack Obama delivered last night bore little, if any, resemblance to the speech that, in my opinion, he should have delivered. The actual speech was, in fact, all too typical of the genre. It ran for an hour or more, and it consisted of an interminable laundry list of putative accomplishments and proposals. When, near the end, the President said, “I don’t quit,” I found myself thinking, “No, surely! But I very much wish you would.” In the course of an hour, I felt as if I had spent three weeks listening to the man. I very much doubt that I was alone.

Seven things stood out.

First, at no point did Barack Obama acknowledge that the promises that he made in campaigning for the so-called stimulus bill have gone unredeemed and that unemployment has continued to grow in a fashion that, he told us, it would not.

Second, much of the speech consisted in self-praise that, in the grim circumstances that we now face, seemed out of place.

Third, despite what the Climategate scandal has revealed concerning the dishonesty of those who have shilled for bills like the cap-and-trade measure passed by the House of Representatives, the President insists on our basing American public policy on discredited science.

Fourth, our President is still telling the same old lies concerning the healthcare reform measures passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives; and, despite everything that has happened, he intends to push for their reconciliation and passage into law by one means or another.

Fifth, he intends to raise taxes on the investing class — both by means of imposing a tax on the large banks and investment operations which will be passed on to those who make use of the services they provide, and by allowing the tax cuts introduced by President Bush to lapse for those making over $250,000 a year — and he has no appreciation for the role which the investing class, if not denied the rewards for which it has incurred considerable risks, can play in creating new jobs and fostering prosperity.

Sixth, Barack Obama has a vast array of programs that he wants to put in place, and he provided no information as to how these would be paid for.

Seventh, he is not in any way serious in the arguments that he makes for fiscal prudence.

I doubt that President Obama helped himself or his party with his State of the Union Address. A year ago, such a speech might have done him some good and would have done him no harm. By now, however, too many people are aware that they are being had. If anything, his decision to continue pushing his signature measures — cap and trade and healthcare reform — is likely to wreak havoc on his party in November.

The State of the Union Address that Barack Obama delivered last night bore little, if any, resemblance to the speech that, in my opinion, he should have delivered. The actual speech was, in fact, all too typical of the genre. It ran for an hour or more, and it consisted of an interminable laundry list of putative accomplishments and proposals. When, near the end, the President said, “I don’t quit,” I found myself thinking, “No, surely! But I very much wish you would.” In the course of an hour, I felt as if I had spent three weeks listening to the man. I very much doubt that I was alone.

Seven things stood out.

First, at no point did Barack Obama acknowledge that the promises that he made in campaigning for the so-called stimulus bill have gone unredeemed and that unemployment has continued to grow in a fashion that, he told us, it would not.

Second, much of the speech consisted in self-praise that, in the grim circumstances that we now face, seemed out of place.

Third, despite what the Climategate scandal has revealed concerning the dishonesty of those who have shilled for bills like the cap-and-trade measure passed by the House of Representatives, the President insists on our basing American public policy on discredited science.

Fourth, our President is still telling the same old lies concerning the healthcare reform measures passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives; and, despite everything that has happened, he intends to push for their reconciliation and passage into law by one means or another.

Fifth, he intends to raise taxes on the investing class — both by means of imposing a tax on the large banks and investment operations which will be passed on to those who make use of the services they provide, and by allowing the tax cuts introduced by President Bush to lapse for those making over $250,000 a year — and he has no appreciation for the role which the investing class, if not denied the rewards for which it has incurred considerable risks, can play in creating new jobs and fostering prosperity.

Sixth, Barack Obama has a vast array of programs that he wants to put in place, and he provided no information as to how these would be paid for.

Seventh, he is not in any way serious in the arguments that he makes for fiscal prudence.

I doubt that President Obama helped himself or his party with his State of the Union Address. A year ago, such a speech might have done him some good and would have done him no harm. By now, however, too many people are aware that they are being had. If anything, his decision to continue pushing his signature measures — cap and trade and healthcare reform — is likely to wreak havoc on his party in November.

The State of the Union Address is ordinarily a bore. It generally consists of a laundry list of proposals, and the list nearly always seems interminable. If Barack Obama has moxie, however, tonight could be different. His State of the Union Address could be a real game changer.

Here is how he could do it – if he was really intent on saving his Presidency and on turning a disgraceful performance in that office into something worthy of eulogy. This evening, after the usual formalities, he could say.

My fellow Americans, let me begin by stating the obvious. The state of our union is not good. We seem to be – we may be – coming out of a recession. But, if so, the recovery is not only jobless; it is accompanied by an increase in unemployment.

This is contrary to my expectation. When I became President, my economic advisers told me that the rate of unemployment would be considerably lower now than it is. They were mistaken, and I erred in taking their advice. The fault is mine. I may not have gotten us into a severe recession, but I advanced proposals and I pursued policies which have prolonged and deepened it. I am at fault.

To be precise, I signed into law a so-called stimulus bill that has thus far retarded economic growth by greatly increasing the size of the federal bureaucracy, the expense of supporting it, and the national debt. I urged Congress to pass cap-and-trade legislation that, had it become law, would have greatly increased the cost of energy, and I encouraged Congress to pass a healthcare reform that would have increased not only the cost of medical care but the burden on employers attendant on hiring. Everything that I did in my first year in office contributed to economic uncertainty and made employers less likely to hire and investors wary of investing. I am at fault.

When I became President, I knew next to nothing about economics. I had never run a business, and the only political experience that I had had was in running for office. I have now had a tutorial, and the lessons have been learned at a considerable expense – not just to me but to you. The fault is mine.

I have now learned those lessons, and I am now intent on doing everything within my power to promote an economic recovery and prosperity. To that end, I invite everyone in Congress – Republicans as well as Democrats – to join with me in reversing course.

First, I propose that we move towards a balanced budget and even towards a reduction in the national debt. To this end, I propose that Congress repeal the stimulus bill and enact a spending freeze and a hiring freeze with regard to all domestic programs, and I ask that Congress sanction the establishment of a bipartisan commission – made up of Republicans and Democrats in equal numbers – to recommend which federal programs should be eliminated. At the national level, we have been living beyond our means, and we cannot continue to do so. There are, I suspect, departments in the federal government that have no reason to exist: departments that concern themselves with matters – such as education – which are best left to the states, the localities, and individual citizens.

Second, I ask Congress to make permanent the tax cuts initially proposed by President Bush. I once spoke of the government creating jobs. I now realize that jobs in the government are parasitic on jobs in the private sector and that a tax code that punishes entrepreneurs for their success is a tax code that discourages the creation of jobs by the only people genuinely capable of creating the jobs that matter.

Third, I ask that for a three-year period Congress relieve employers of the payroll contribution made to the Social Security administration so that they can hire new workers and rehire as many as possible of those laid off.

Fourth, I call on Congress to set aside the cap-and-trade bill passed last year by the House of Representatives. To my dismay and embarrassment, we have recently learned  that the work done by the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, which formed the basis for the four reports issued by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is a sham – that the data was doctored, that the computer simulation was a fraud, and that systematic efforts were made by the most prominent climate scientists to corrupt the peer-review process and suppress legitimate criticism: all for the purpose of imposing a strait jacket on the world economy. In my inaugural address, I promised to “roll back the specter of a warming planet” and “restore science to its rightful place.” I intend to be true to my word. Until there is a genuine consensus among the scientists dealing with climate change, I would urge that we do nothing at all. Above all, I urge that nothing be done that would slow down this country’s economic recovery or inhibit economic growth.

Fifth, I call on Congress to set aside the question of healthcare reform. I objected, when I ran for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency, to the notion that American citizens should be forced to buy health insurance. I regret having deviated from that position. I have learned in recent days by way of careful study that only a small proportion of those lacking health insurance lack it because it is unavailable to them. I now recognize that most of those without such insurance are either illegal immigrants, who do not deserve our support, or young people or well-to-do people with no need or desire for insurance. I do not doubt that changes need to be made in our healthcare system, but I am now persuaded that we should enact only those changes that can be made without adding directly or indirectly to the cost of insurance or the burden of taxation.

Sixth, I have decided to keep the prison at Guantamo open and to have all terrorists whom we catch tried by military tribunals. Here also I was in error. We are at war, ladies and gentleman. We have to win this war – and coddling terrorists is not the way to do it.

There is, of course, much else that could be said, but this is not the time. As a nation, we need at this point in our history to focus our attention on the economy and on the twilight war against Islamic terrorism in which we are now engaged.

I doubt very much whether President Obama will say anything of the sort. But if he did – and if he followed through – I am confident that he could restore his stature, regain a measure of popularity, and rescue his party from the cataclysmic defeat in store for it in November. I am told that Newt Gingrich once said of William Jefferson Clinton that the man never stopped learning. Can anything of the sort be said of Barack Obama? Soon – all too soon — we will learn.

Yesterday, Media Research Center (MRC) President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell sat down in the MRC studio for a Skype interview with Breitbart.tv's "B-cast." [see video embed below the page break]

The topic: the latest MRC special report, "Omitting for Obama," which is a study of four stories --- Van Jones, Anita Dunn, ACORN, and ClimateGate -- "highlighted by the New Media in 2009 that were damaging to the Obama 'brand'" but were avoided like the plague by the old guard mainstream media.

MARCIANO: All right, one of many things we’re talking about out here later today [at the 21st annual Weather Summit in Steamboat Springs, Colorado]- we’re going to talk about climate, some of the- some top climate scientists are out here, and I got to talk to one of them yesterday, Jim White, and asked him about the IPCC report- you know, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There was a bit of snafu the past week or so, where they said that the glaciers in Himalayas we’re going to be gone by 2035. Well, that ended up being bad science, and this is what Jim had to say about that.

JIM WHITE, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: Too much is riding on the fact that we get it right as scientists. I know that they got it right in their scientific literature, all right? It was just put down wrong in the IPCC report. But that itself is inexcusable.

MARCIANO: It is inexcusable, and it’s hurting the credibility somewhat of that Nobel Prize-winning organization, and it’s frustrating climate scientists here certainly in the U.S.

SANCHEZ: And here we go- time now for the ‘List You Don’t Want to Be On.’ It’s a tricky name to pronounce, but it’s an important story. He is Rajendra Pachauri. He is not just a global warming expert. He is in charge of the United Nations panel on climate change. He signed off on a memo that said the Himalayan glaciers will melt by the year 2035. Really? That soon? Just 25 years from now, you say?

If the global warming opponents needed more ammunition, he just gave it to them, by overreaching. Pachauri’s group has since apologized. Oops.

MARCIANO: All right, one of many things we’re talking about out here later today [at the 21st annual Weather Summit in Steamboat Springs, Colorado]- we’re going to talk about climate, some of the- some top climate scientists are out here, and I got to talk to one of them yesterday, Jim White, and asked him about the IPCC report- you know, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There was a bit of snafu the past week or so, where they said that the glaciers in Himalayas we’re going to be gone by 2035. Well, that ended up being bad science, and this is what Jim had to say about that.

JIM WHITE, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: Too much is riding on the fact that we get it right as scientists. I know that they got it right in their scientific literature, all right? It was just put down wrong in the IPCC report. But that itself is inexcusable.

MARCIANO: It is inexcusable, and it’s hurting the credibility somewhat of that Nobel Prize-winning organization, and it’s frustrating climate scientists here certainly in the U.S.

SANCHEZ: And here we go- time now for the ‘List You Don’t Want to Be On.’ It’s a tricky name to pronounce, but it’s an important story. He is Rajendra Pachauri. He is not just a global warming expert. He is in charge of the United Nations panel on climate change. He signed off on a memo that said the Himalayan glaciers will melt by the year 2035. Really? That soon? Just 25 years from now, you say?

If the global warming opponents needed more ammunition, he just gave it to them, by overreaching. Pachauri’s group has since apologized. Oops.

Drudge is pointing to this damning story to proclaim “TRIPS TO COPENHAGEN COST OVER $1,000,000… ” for Congressional trips across the pond. What did you get for it, other than the joy of sending “106 people from the House and Senate” which included “spouses, a doctor, a protocol expert and even a photographer”? Nothing. No climate deal (thankfully). While you gave the shirt off your back, you didn’t even get this:

On the list of insane public policy moves we have come to expect from the current administration, Cap and Tax, Obamacare and Union Card Check, a fourth has garnered relatively little attention, although the implications for all Americans may be among the most far-reaching.  The recurring theme is centralized control.

On Monday, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California will host a rare Congressional “Field Hearing“.  A Congressional delegation will venture out of the beltway and actually devote time to a problem in our country.  Better yet, they will be listening to real citizens.  Sort of.

At issue is what residents are calling a government-made drought in the Central and San Joaquin Valleys of California.   Legal and environmental regulations in the Endangered Species Act has resulted in the diversion of 200 billion gallons of water from the agricultural heartland of California into the Ocean.  According to California farmer Rose Corona,

“Potentially over $20 billion of California’s $43 billion of agricultural revenue could be decimated in America’s greatest breadbasket as farmers lose their farms and residents are forced to import food from China. While the solutions are not simple, local government officials are not even able to attempt them.”

Two thirds of California’s water is in Northern California, but two thirds of the people live in Southern California.  Over the last generation, a series of aquaducts and canals was built to divert some of the plentiful water in the North so that instead of raising the sea level (as Al Gore warns us is imminent) the fresh water will irrigate incredibly productive land.  The five counties effected provide tens of thousands of jobs and a stunning $20 billion of food output.

So why would politicians in California, a state that is already bankrupt, do anything other that mount a united battle to find a solution?  That is hard to say.  Instead there are deep and often ugly divisions and battle lines such as radical environmentalist on one side and farmers and migrant workers on the other.

Officials are perplexed to find an explanation for the declining population of the delta smelt, a small bait fish.  It is also true that the salmon industry is concerned.  So it is understandable that regulators would force action.  What is not understandable is why the game of man vs beast is tilted at every turn toward the beast.

Consider that the judicial solution holds that if the fish population is declining, we will leave more water in the river and see if that works.  No one knows if it will.  Maybe there is a chemical or biological explanation, but we will take a chance because the lives of fish are at stake.

So when a compromise solution is proposed, called the “Two Gates” project, that would restore water and possibly protect fish, the Obama administration’s Interior Secretary, Ken Salzar put the brakes on it.  So we will experiment to put fish over people, but we will not experiment to put people over fish. How is that Hope and Change working for you?

As for the rest of us, the implications are huge, not just for our food bills, but for establishing the precedent of allowing the Federal government this level of control over water.  When government takes your water, they take the value of your land nay, they steal the value of your land.

Missouri lost this battle over the last several years and unlike California, we have to drive hundreds of miles to find anything that looks like a desert.  Nevertheless, the Government used the same Act to withhold water from the State after which the river is named, favoring the pallid sturgeon over farmers.  Get the pattern?

Now consider for a moment that we are not just talking about California farmers, nor just our food supply, we are talking about who controls the food supply.

This area of California is some of the most productive in the Country producing nearly half of America’s produce including 55% or our asparagus, 90% of our strawberries and 100% of our olives.  When the 35,000 unemployed residents of the region look for help at the food pantries they drive past idle asparagus fields to get their canned asparagus from China.  So we depend on Islamists for oil and now China not just for cash but for food!

So residents of California, and really the rest of us, have no other hope than Congressional action.  They need Congress to immediately pass Congressman Devin Nunes‘ Bill, the aptly named “Turn the Pumps on Act“.  Amazingly, the legislation to help California out of this crisis is bottled up in Committee by a Californian–Nancy Pelosi.  Nunes is asking his colleagues to sign the discharge petition.  Is your Congressman on the list?

Although Rose Corona and others are pleased with the leadership of Congressmen Nunes and McClintock who have pursued the “Field Hearing” that will take place Monday,  they remain angry about several points including:

• Why the hearing is located in Los Angeles, over 200 miles from the effected area?
• Why Democrats get five witnesses and Republicans only one?
• Why was the “Two Gates” solution postponed indefinitely under the radar last week by the Obama administration?
• Whether California’s Congressional Democrats are willing to move the majority Party in Congress to act?

Because the travel distance is such a strain on both the farmers and the concerned citizens in that area, Corona and other Pro-water coalition groups are calling on all Patriots and Tea Party Activists to come and show their support for a solution in two locations.  A Town Hall meeting with Representatives Nunes, McClintock, McCarthy and Bishop (R-Utah) will be held on Monday:

8:30am-10:30am
Fresno City Council Chambers
2600 Fresno Street, 2nd floor
Fresno, CA 90012-2944

The Oversight Field Hearing will be held:

1:00pm
700 N. Alameda Street, Los Angeles, CA

If you will be anywhere in Southern California on Monday, please make one of the meetings.  If you cannot, please be sure your Congressman is on the discharge petition.  The administration that wants to control your health care, your energy and your bank, now wants to control your water.

At NewsBusters last night, Noel Sheppard posted about a UK Daily Mail report that "A scientist responsible for a key 2007 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warning Himalayan glaciers would be completely melted by 2035 has admitted that the claim was made to put political pressure on world leaders." Noel also noted that U.S. media coverage of this damning admission has been sparse.

The basis for the now-discredited claim was "a 2005 report by the environmental campaign group WWF (World Wildlife Fund)." Further, the WWF report contained a basic math error causing it to assert that "one glacier was retreating at the alarming rate of 134 metres a year should in fact have said 23 metres."

The Daily Mail reported that "Friday, the WWF website posted a humiliating statement recognising the claim as ‘unsound’, and saying it ‘regrets any confusion caused’."

The statement must be humiliating, because if its text is anywhere on a WWF web site, it seems to be well-hidden, and perhaps deliberately so (see Update at the end of this post).

The most recent entry at WWF-US's Climate Blog is an announcement that "Earth Hour" is returning this year in March (oh boy) dated January 21 at 6:55 a.m.

As you'll see from the left side of the graphic that follows, the list of Recent Blog Posts shows that four other posts have been created since the Earth Hour post. The right portion of the graphic shows what happens when you click on the "After Slipping on Himalayan Glaciers, IPCC Reaffirms Commitment to High Standards and Thorough Review" in the Recent Blog Posts list:

I even became and then logged in as a registered user in an attempt to work around the access denial. Nothing changed.

Now it's true that two of the other three more recent posts are also inaccessible. But the "National Scientist Telepresser Audio MP3" link works fine, as does the audio when you go there. I did not get access denials on several older posts I clicked on at the WWF's Climate blog.

Multiple attempts to search the WWF's UK site for anything relevant to the statement of regret using various word strings came up empty. (See Update below)

A Google search on ["regrets any confusion caused" glaciers] (input as indicated between brackets) came up with no WWF links, nor did a similar search using "glacier" in singular form or replacing "glacier" with "WWF."

It seems more than a little convenient that WWF's "humiliating" statement of regret is inaccessible. I wonder if and when it will ever reappear? Further, I wonder how the establishment press would handle a conservative organization that had a humiliating statement acknowledging its mistakes hidden from view?

Maybe they should rename it the Worldwide Weasels Fund.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

UPDATE: NB commenter Locutus has located WWF-UK's statement. I was unable to locate it earlier today because my searches at the UK site used the word "regrets" instead of "regret" based on the Daily Mail's reported quote. 

WWF's U.S.-based Climate Blog still denies access to its related Himalayan glacier post, supporting the notion that it would prefer that as few people as possible in the U.S. learn of their grievous error. With the help of the U.S. establishment press, they will probably largely get their way.

A scientist responsible for a key 2007 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warning Himalayan glaciers would be completely melted by 2035 has admitted that the claim was made to put political pressure on world leaders.

Such was revealed by the British Daily Mail Sunday in an article destined to further reduce the credibility of the world's so-called leading authority on manmade global warming.

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, the IPCC acknowledged earlier this week that its claim concerning these glaciers was based on junk science.

According to the Mail, those involved were quite aware of the faulty nature of this assertion, and did so for reasons consistent with what skeptics have been saying for years is at the very heart of the global warming myth (h/t Marc Morano):

Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’

Unlike the glaciers, the plot thickens:

The claim that Himalayan glaciers are set to disappear by 2035 rests on two 1999 magazine interviews with glaciologist Syed Hasnain, which were then recycled without any further investigation in a 2005 report by the environmental campaign group WWF.

It was this report that Dr Lal and his team cited as their source.

The WWF article also contained a basic error in its arithmetic. A claim that one glacier was retreating at the alarming rate of 134 metres a year should in fact have said 23 metres – the authors had divided the total loss measured over 121 years by 21, not 121.

Last Friday, the WWF website posted a humiliating statement recognising the claim as ‘unsound’, and saying it ‘regrets any confusion caused’.

Dr Lal said: ‘We knew the WWF report with the 2035 date was “grey literature” [material not published in a peer-reviewed journal]. But it was never picked up by any of the authors in our working group, nor by any of the more than 500 external reviewers, by the governments to which it was sent, or by the final IPCC review editors.’

As shocking as this seems, it is not at all surprising that it was uncovered by a British newspaper. NewsBusters has been reporting for years that the foreign press, in particular outlets in Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, do a far better job of reporting on matters relating to global warming than those based in America.

This has certainly been true the past couple of months as stateside media outlets withheld reports about the ClimateGate scandal, and largely ignored this Himalayan glacier issue.

As the global warming myth unravels before our very eyes, are Americans going to continue to have to rely on British journalists for the truth?

Or will news outlets on this side of the Atlantic ever abandon their devotion to this clearly dying cause and start doing their jobs?

Stay tuned. 

Just days after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted it used junk science to predict Himalayan glaciers would vanish by 2035, its claim that global warming is linked to increased natural disasters has also been found to be wrongly concluded.

The British Times Online reported moments ago:

THE United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny — and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak. The report's own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.

The article continued:

The new controversy also goes back to the IPCC's 2007 report in which a separate section warned that the world had "suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s".

It suggested a part of this increase was due to global warming and cited the unpublished report, saying: "One study has found that while the dominant signal remains that of the significant increases in the values of exposure at risk, once losses are normalised for exposure, there still remains an underlying rising trend."

The Sunday Times has since found that the scientific paper on which the IPCC based its claim had not been peer reviewed, nor published, at the time the climate body issued its report.

When the paper was eventually published, in 2008, it had a new caveat. It said: "We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses."

Despite this change the IPCC did not issue a clarification ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit last month. It has also emerged that at least two scientific reviewers who checked drafts of the IPCC report urged greater caution in proposing a link between climate change and disaster impacts — but were ignored.

With Wednesday's announcement by the IPCC "that a paragraph in the 938-page Working Group II contribution to the underlying assessment refers to poorly substantiated estimates of rate of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers," the credibility of this organization at the heart of global warming hysteria is brought into further question.

But will American media report this new revelation?

After all, as NewsBusters reported Saturday, television news outlets other than Fox competely ignored Wednesday's announcement by the IPCC, as did many print publications.

Will this new revelation of IPCC incompetence garner more attention?

Stay tuned.