Category Archives: Global Warming

With the passing of West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, the defining narrative among politicos will — after a few hours’ decorum — emerge as does Byrd = Kennedy? That is to say that, while so many West Virginians would never vote against Byrd, now that he’s gone there are plenty of the same Blue State voters who would vote against a non-Byrd Democrat in this Age of Obama.

I don’t follow West Virginia politics closely but assume their version of Scott Brown would be Rep. Shelley Moore Capito. His or her identity, as well as whether the same phenomenon would play out, likely depend on if the election is held this fall, vs. 2012: there are some murky legal issues to sort through involving how long a placeholder would hold the seat. Still I’m pretty sure it will be someone staunchly anti-cap-and-trade (in both parties, in fact; the last West Virginia politician to show insufficient zeal against the scheme, Rep. Alan Mollohan (D), recently lost in a primary).

Cap-and-trade of course is the vehicle by which the president vowed to cause your electricity prices to “necessarily skyrocket” as part of his effort to “bankrupt” the coal industry and anyone who sought to continue burning coal for that one-half of our electricity that it provides. Incidentally, today’s Wall Street Journal also notes how Obama’s anti-coal jihad just cost about 1,000 jobs in Wisconsin; West Virginia needs no such reminders yet as they pile up they also cannot help but be relevant.

How strongly West Virginia can inveigh, through its congressional representation, against this cruel ideological push is of increasing importance right now. Democrat staff are increasingly bold in their discussion of suckering Republicans into helping them pass it in a lame duck session, without having to vote on it in the Senate until after the elections.

The vehicle for said suckering is a “must-pass” Gulf spill bill — not that what is being proposed would have done anything to prevent the latest disaster of a company, BP, that like Enron lost the plot and fell apart as a result, any more than the financial services “reform” would have prevented the Fannie- and Freddie-precipitated meltdown.

From today’s E&E Daily story (subscription required):

What Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) puts in the Senate climate and energy bill, and what gets added on the floor, may not matter as much as simply whether some bill passes.

In the end, a joint House-Senate conference committee will likely hammer out the final version of the bill. That might not take place until a “lame duck” session after the November election, when much of the political pressure on lawmakers has dissipated.

Which means that despite the oft-repeated assertion by Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) that “cap and trade is dead,” the House’s bill based on cap and trade could be back in play — someday, given the right conditions. Even if they do not enact cap and trade, Democratic leaders could use a conference to ratchet up the climate regultions [sic] past what the Senate agreed to and beyond what Democratic House centrists want.

“We have a lot of wiggle room in conference,” said a House Democratic aide.

And it could be hard for centrists in either party or either chamber to walk away from the bill if they have taken the risk of voting for it on initial passage.

“Once you get to conference, it’s an up-or-down vote,” said Norm Ornstein, a veteran congressional expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “People who vote against it have to explain why they voted for it before they voted against it.”

That lame duck strategy is little more brazen than the Democrats’ efforts to cram-down the health care takeover. Indeed, not only will embittered losers have nothing else left to lose given the elections will be behind them. Worse, given that many Dems will be out of jobs by that point, they actually will be in a bidding war for ambassadorships or other sinecures by doing Obama a solid and seizing the ever-closing Obama Window to “fundamentally transform America”.

So the Dems think the Senate will pass a “Gulf spill” bill, the prospect of any vote against which they Dems are already styling as a vote for BP and Big Oil (they don’t say how). Then this will be merged with the House “energy” bill which was the 1,400 page monstrosity bearing cap-and-trade, among other odious delights of the Left.

It seems unlikely that Sen. Byrd would smile on this abuse of the rules of our representative democracy, but there you have it. His party will be against BP before they are for it…BP having invented carbon cap-and-trade with Enron, aggressively lobbying until this very day for the payoff it is designed to provide them.

The only issue is whether the Republicans are absorbing the message: the Dems are digging a political pit and layering its top with rhetorical palm fronds, certain that the Republicans will stumble into the “must do ’something’!” trap and pass a “Gulf spill bill”, with every sentient being knowing full well this is the Senate Dems’ ticket to a cap-and-trade, lame duck conference. And enactment of their last remaining high profile Power Grab.

Sadly, neither history nor the utterances of one Senate Republican to date provide any succor that they are on to the game.

The guys at the Glenn Beck radio show had some fun at Al and Tipper Gore's expense Thursday creating a mock interview where the host questioned the separated couple about the former Vice President's antics with a masseuse in a Portland hotel room back in 2006.

The role of the Global Warmingist in Chief was marvelously played by Pat Gray with Stu Burguiere doing an adequate Tipper.

The interview began with Beck asking the Nobel Laureate what happened in the hotel Lucia that fateful evening.

Al/Pat deliciously responded, "The global warming just became overwhelming as I was receiving massage" (video follows with more highlights and commentary):

When Tipper/Stu was introduced, Al/Pat asked, "Do you remember the time when I read you poetry? When I said, 'I was a child and she was a child in this kingdom by the sea. But we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee.'"

Tipper/Stu responded, "That really brings back memories."

Yes, Al reading Edgar Allan Poe poems to Tipper. Somehow you imagine them being more "The Raven" than "Annabel Lee," but I digress.

Later the couple renewed their claim that "Love Story" was indeed about them despite the convenient truth that Tipper didn't die of cancer.

But the highlight had to be Tipper/Stu's marvelous haiku, "Get your hands off me. Why do you touch my buttocks? Mother Earth cries rape."

Now THAT'S poetry.

Nice job, guys! 

On the June 24 "American Morning," CNN's Carol Costello trumpeted a "revitalized" environmental movement that is hoping the Gulf oil spill will "change the way we feel about oil" and is aggressively lobbying Congress to pass radical climate change legislation.

Previewing the "Gut Check" segment, Costello gleefully teased, "Coming up next, environmentalists are revitalized and it's over the Gulf oil spill. Could this disaster be what we need in this country to change the way we feel about oil?"

In lockstep with the Left's environmental agenda, the fill-in anchor pondered whether the Gulf oil spill would crystallize support for a climate bill or would "it be back to business as usual?" Costello articulated the same phrase environmental groups frequently employ to manufacture a false sense of urgency around their liberal initiatives.

Interviewing David Rauschkolb, founder of Hands Across the Sand, a liberal group opposed to offshore drilling, Costello praised the forerunner to Rauschkolb's new group – Earth Day – for "strengthening the Clean Air Act and helping President Nixon create the Environmental Protection Agency." Costello did not reach out to conservative critics who argue that draconian environmental regulations stymie economic growth and breed unemployment.

Costello also claimed that the Sierra Club, a juggernaut in the environmental movement, capitalized on conservative criticism to generate public support for liberal causes.

"When Rush Limbaugh blamed environmentalists for forcing onshore drilling offshore, the Sierra Club used Limbaugh's comments to raise $120,000 and 110,000 signatures for climate legislation," contended Costello, who failed to address the substance of the conservative talk show host's argument.

Further hyping the fringe environmental movement and its toxic agenda, Costello noted Clean Energy Works's robust lobbying campaign for "clean energy legislation" and GreenPeace's contest to design a new BP logo, without labeling either of these liberal organizations appropriately.

Back in the studio, co-host John Roberts sensibly stated that America "can't stop drilling because we're not going to stop driving cars." Channeling her inner liberal, Costello would not let her colleague's simple logic deprive her of her wide-eyed optimism: "That's true but will it drive something like climate change legislation? We just don't know yet. That's what environmentalists are hoping."

A full transcript of the segment can be found below:

CNN
American Morning
6/24/10

8:37 a.m.

CAROL COSTELLO, co-host: Coming up next, environmentalists are revitalized and it's over the Gulf oil spill. Could this disaster be what we need in this country to change the way we feel about oil? We'll try to answer that question in a "Gut Check" coming up next. It's 37 minutes past the hour.

JOHN ROBERTS, co-host: 41 minutes after the hour. A growing number of environmentalists are hoping that the oil crisis in the Gulf will change how Americans treat the environment. We've seen that kind of quick reaction after disasters in the past.

COSTELLO: I know, you know, Earth Day was born out of an oil disaster. So we wondered: will people really care? Will it change the way we feel about oil or will it be back to business as usual? A "Gut Check" for you this morning.
            
It's called Hands Across the Sand. Back in February it drew 10,000 Floridians in protest of offshore drilling. This weekend, Hands says it goes international: 599 American cities will take part, as will 20 countries.

DAVID RAUSCHKOLB, Hands Across the Sand: I believe this is a huge opportunity for us and it's time we take control of our energy future.

COSTELLO: David Rauschkolb hopes Hands will be the catalyst Earth Day was back in 1970. It was born after an oil spill in California and is credited for strengthening the Clean Air Act and helping President Nixon create the Environmental Protection Agency. The Clean Energy Works Campaign has hopes too – its launched an ad campaign pushing for clean energy legislation. GreenPeace is actively using the spill as a catalyst too, its members so intent to do something a contest to design a new BP logo has attracted half a million visitors to its Web site. The Sierra Club site is hot too. When Rush Limbaugh blamed environmentalists for forcing onshore drilling offshore...

RUSH LIMBAUGH, conservative radio host: When do we ask the Sierra Club to pick up the tab for this leak?

COSTELLO:...the Sierra Club used Limbaugh's comments to raise $120,000 and 110,000 signatures for climate legislation.

MICHAEL BRUNE, Sierra Club: This is our chance to actually move beyond oil and the outstanding question – the question that remains – is whether or not President Obama will seize this opportunity and get us off oil once and for all.

COSTELLO: While all the passion sounds good for who critics would call "tree huggers," is it real? Psychologist Jeff Gardere says while oiled birds, dirtied beaches, and black tides will raise awareness, it may not last. After all, there are government regulators already in place who are supposed to prevent disasters like this and didn't. So why bother? Environmentalists get that but say this disaster will cut through the cynicism.
                
BRUNE: We've set the ocean on fire, we've put thousands of fishermen and women out of work. The coastal tourism economy is collapsing and all of this is happening in slow motion.

COSTELLO: It may be happening in slow motion, but Americans have a complicated relationship with oil, and nowhere is that better demonstrated than in Louisiana – they're angry at BP but they sure don't want the oil industry to go away.

ROBERTS: You're right, there's so many people down there – one side of the family is in the fishing industry or the  tourism industry and the other side of the family is in the oil industry. They know that they have to co-exist. I mean, anything that raises awareness of the environment is a good thing, but you know, you've got to have – you can't stop drilling because we're not going to stop driving cars.

COSTELLO: That's true but will it drive something like climate change legislation? We just don't know yet. That's what environmentalists are hoping.

--Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.

A federal judge has, for the moment, spared already-suffering Gulf state residents from the brunt of President Obama’s most recent anti-energy Power Grab. It has enjoined the administration from implementing its moratorium on deepwater drilling. The Order is here, and the Opinion here.

The administration has vowed to appeal. Regardless of the outcome, this victory is temporary. As I detail in Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America, Obama and his administration are committed to strangling domestic energy production. At the same time they promise to also clamp down on the cost of consumption, all in a way that makes our last energy-poverty president, Jimmy Carter, appear a free-market pioneer.

This was telegraphed immediately after Obama’s inauguration by his by administration revoking massive tracts of public land from possible lease for domestic energy production, even to the point of suspending lease agreements already struck.

None of this is either accident or coincidence, but affirmed as a deliberate plan by Obama’s concurrent clamp-down on families’ access to energy with a cap-and-trade scheme he vowed would cause energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket”. Though he dared not speak the scheme’s name, Obama renewed his support for it in his Oval Office speech last Tuesday by praising the House-passed bill.

Then, he also restated his threat of imposing central planning in the guise of the state engineering a “green economy”. Although last week he also suddenly dropped reference to his specific European models – because those countries like Spain have now admitted the devastation they caused, after his praise brought scrutiny – we know that even Europe has refused to ban production of domestic energy resources.

From the moratorium blocked by a federal judge today, pending appeal by Obama, to the planned “lame-duck” Congress-wide passage of the “cap-and-trade” energy tax, Obama is affirming all that he telegraphed and which is laid out in detail in Power Grab.

You may have missed President Obama’s euphemism for massive wealth transfers involved in his “green economy” — central planning rebranded — that he said last week he will seek to use the Gulf oil spill to impose. That euphemism was:

“When I was a candidate for this office, I laid out a set of principles that would move our country towards energy independence. Last year, the House of Representatives acted on these principles by passing a strong and comprehensive energy and climate bill –- a bill that finally makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America’s businesses.”

This is his fourth high-profile use of the phrase “finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy”, most recently his State of the Union speech. I addressed this in Chapter 6, “Green Eggs and Scam: The Wholesale Fraud of ‘Green Jobs’” from Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America:

That is the objective of various “green jobs” schemes: make everything else so expensive as to give life to the uneconomical. But that is incredibly economically harmful.

Also, note what President Obama said in his September 2009 UN “global warming” speech, a comment that should strike anyone who ever took an economics course or simply possessed the capacity for critical thought:

“Most importantly, the House of Representatives passed an energy and climate bill in June that would finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy for American businesses and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

The key word there is that lawmakers passed a scheme to make inefficient projects “profitable”, not “cost-effective”. That’s corporate welfare. These mandates and subsidies would , however, add value to the investment portfolios of many leading lights among Obama’s allies, such as George Soros who, by chance, soon revealed plans to sink one billion dollars into “green jobs” schemes. Lo and behold, another of his investments, the Center for American Progress, furiously pushes “green jobs” schemes.

Recall the sage from Team Soros, Mr. [Andrew] Light, who assures us that these mandates are “gonna spur new innovation, which is gonna reward smart investment, and which is gonna make alternative energy sources competitive” with things that actually work. No. The laws of physics remain undefeated. All they will do is impose the agenda admitted to by Van Jones and his Blue-Green allies, and seize your wealth to reward the purely speculative among Obama’s Wall Street supporters underwriting the green campaign.

One way or the other, one of us is going to go down. President Obama, by insisting that he will go to the mat on his “green jobs” agenda, which is simply central planning with a coat of green paint, indicates he will risk his presidency on getting the cap-and-trade, gas tax and windmill mandate through the Senate (with a stranglehold on domestic energy production to boot), then through the House again on a conferenced bill.

If he succeeds he will have doomed us; if he fails, politically the effort will have finally, fully exposed him for what he is: a Power Grabbing Statist whose economics are recklessly dogmatic while at the same time ignoring those societies he claims are his model.

Obama reminded us how as a candidate he set out what he called a set of principles, which he acknowledged were passed by the House, in a vote almost precisely one year ago today.

Here is what he said then about cap-and-trade, which the House passed. This discussion occurred in the apparent context of how to mount his and his team’s big-ticket agenda items:

“The problem is, can you get the American people to say this is really important, and force their representatives to do the right thing. That requires mobilizing a citizenry…And climate change is a great example.”

You got it: this is the community organizer, refusing to allow a crisis to go to waste, but instead seeking to use it to do what he’s trying to do.

“Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

“Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal-powered plants, you know, natural ga — you name, it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was — they will have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money, they will pass that money [sic] on to the consumer.”

That’s right. It’s a staggeringly large tax, which he acknowledged will be borne by consumers. This reflects two signs of economic literacy: the purpose and operation of cap-and-trade, and that businesses pass taxes on to consumers. Until they can’t, of course, then they move.

Oh, speaking of this being a tax, he added:

“This will also raise billions of dollars”.

Please note, that is not “some costs”. That is what Al Gore called a “wrenching transformation of society”.

First, a note about the lack of intellectual honesty in claiming that it was a lack of candor and political courage — both of which he was implicitly manifesting — that have left us relying on the most abundant reliable energy sources man has ever known. No. Physics and economics dictate from where we derive our energy. Not a lack of statism.

Further, we are not as he said running out of oil onshore, and in shallow water. We have generations of oil in oil shale and other “unconventional oil” sources, right beneath our soil. That he has to pretend we do not, and that he is not blocking it, tells you quite a bit of what you need to know about the sincerity of this seizure of a crisis to ensure it does not go to waste.

Which raises his claim that adopting his cap-and-trade statism will “grow the economy.” Absurd.

Consider the following excerpt from Chapter 6, “Green Eggs and Scam: The Wholesale Fraud of ‘Green Jobs’” from How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America: (citations are omitted)

CAN MAKE-WORK “GROW THE ECONOMY”?

Sadly, however, such impacts, whether “opportunity” costs or otherwise, are not pressing considerations in Washington. No, we are now told that by mandating that the American economy be driven by all manner of energy sources that cannot stand on their own, we will “grow the economy.” That is the new, favorite phrase of my young Democratic congressman, Tom Periello. Mr. Periello, like a host of lawmakers desperate to find cover for their 2009 vote in support of the disastrous Waxman-Markey “cap-and-trade” bill, has since dedicated countless hours on the House floor and elsewhere to spread this tawdry exposition of economic illiteracy to those masses he and his colleagues hope are desperate or inattentive enough to fall for it….

Sadly, the best case scenario for this claim would be that it is made out of disgraceful ignorance. …

The truth is that even inherently biased administration studies of the “green job” scheme cap-and-trade, by EPA, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the Congressional Budget Office, as well as the independent Brookings Institute, Heritage Foundation, American Council for Capital Formation, and CRA International, agree that these cap-and-trade bills must reduce overall employment and lead to lower incomes than can be had without them. EIA, for example, said that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill destroys 2.3 million jobs on net when fully implemented (in 2030), 800,000 of them manufacturing jobs. Not one cap-and-trade scenario modeled by any of these entities produced net job or income growth from cap-and-trade.

Reckless and disingenuous though the claim is, agenda-driven whizzes in Washington insist that throwing away a billion dollars, confiscated from today’s and future generations, grows the economy—simply because they see a giant hamster wheel research facility go up in their district. But the claim that this will “grow the economy” is made up. These actions will do the opposite.

The government can give us nothing that it has not taken from us. The politics of envy, which underlies much of the “green jobs” hooey, have never been as strong in the United States as in Europe—and that fact gave us a chance for longer than the Europeans to stand firm against all of the promises of free ice cream. Now we are told to look to Europe, but ignore the actual lessons. Instead, accept a fairy tale.

Our German experts [at old-line and state-funded think tank RWI-Essen] summarized for us:

“German renewable energy policy, and in particular the adopted feed-in tariff scheme, has failed to harness the market incentives needed to ensure a viable and cost-effective introduction of renewable energies into the country’s energy portfolio. To the contrary, the government’s support mechanisms have in many respects subverted these incentives, resulting in massive expenditures that show little long-term promise for stimulating the economy, protecting the environment, or increasing energy security.”

I then discuss the doggerel, repeated by Obama, of Green Jobs in Red China, briefly excerpted here:

“What might be the most embarrassing aspect to this con is that the same policies supposedly ensuring that particular, politically desired goods will be produced here, because their use is mandated here, actually ensure they’ll be made somewhere else….

The lede in a November 5, 2009, Boston Globe story captured the situation well: “Little more than a year after cutting the ribbon at a new factory in Devens built with more than $58 million in state aid, Evergreen Solar said yesterday that it will shift its assembly of solar panels from there to China.” Ouch. It seems that “In exchange for receiving $58.6million in grants, loans, land, tax incentives, and other aid to build in Massachusetts, Evergreen pledged that it would add

350 new jobs,” which it did. Briefly, only to then “write off $40 million worth of equipment at Devens because of the production shift to China.” The company cited the cost of production here not faced if they build their machines elsewhere. No one told them it wasn’t polite to prove the president wrong, and send green jobs overseas, to make things for use back home in response to mandates making it more expensive to produce here, prompting others to move overseas.

Boy, Obamanomics can be exhausting.”

Tonight’s display, on substance, was sophomoric or uninformed. Politically, it was standard cynical fare.

It is difficult to be amazed by a politician but Obama’s rhetoric Tuesday night in fact betrayed a gobsmacking level of cynicism or ignorance: rationing is not a prescription for growth; the state cannot mandate defeat of the laws of physics. China is installing windmills because Western countries pay them to under Kyoto’s Clean Development Mechanism, simply because those nations get emission “reduction” crisis for doing so which they need as they’ve discovered they can’t actually reduce emissions without economic crisis driving it (like today) or resulting from it (like in Spain, cited by Obama as his model eight times). And China will stop building windmills the minute we abandon this fetish.

"Obama Chickens Out on Energy," a disgusted Ben Adler argued to Newsweek's The Gaggle blog readers this morning.

Adler's chief complaint with last night's Oval Office address: Obama didn't call for massive tax hikes to push Americans to make more politically correct spending choices.

The Newsweek writer -- formerly a self-styled "propagandist" for the liberal Center for American Progress -- avoided the T-word until his last paragraph, but he made abundantly clear that he felt that a) American stupidity and short-sightedness was threatening to literally drown Manhattan in rising sea levels and b) Obama was not doing enough to make government force people to make better choices with their own money (emphases mine):

In his address from the Oval Office on Tuesday night, President Obama eloquently laid out the case that we have failed to confront our dependence on fossil fuels, and that now is the time for us to do so. Obama acknowledged that our failure to do this so far has been caused not just by obeisance to entrenched interests, but also by "a lack of political courage and candor."

But he failed to use this opportunity to marshal public support for a logical, tangible goal that would reduce our destructive consumption of oil and coal.

[...]

The idea that we can solve this problem of our massive, inefficient energy use through investing more in R&D is ridiculous. We need to start bringing down our emissions immediately, before Manhattan finds itself under water. Spending more money on research into technologies that may or may not be more efficient, and may or may not be economically viable 10 years from now, is insufficient.

There are plenty of technologies, such as driving smaller cars, or hybrids, or taking buses, or living in smaller houses, that do not need to be researched and developed; they just need to be chosen. And they will be chosen if we make indulging in SUVs and McMansions prohibitively expensive, to reflect the social cost of global warming, and the cost of disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon oil-rig explosion that forced Obama to make this address in the first place.

Obama should know all this, and his decision to pretend otherwise reeks of the same lack of courage and candor he had just lambasted unnamed predecessors for. Tossing out the pain-free idea that we can invest our way out of this problem is politically convenient, but it is not realistic.

Obama swiftly pivoted to sounding like he was filled with steely resolve, saying, "But the one approach I will not accept is inaction." But merely investing in energy research is little better than inaction. What Obama needed to say, if he was willing to stake his presidency on combating catastrophic climate change, as he had previously staked his presidency—and won—on the proposition that Americans are all entitled to affordable health insurance, was that he would not tolerate anything short of a bill that caps or taxes carbon emissions. He did not, and we will all suffer the consequences.

The current President of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), Ed Chen – who instituted the silliness of having the organization buy carbon credits to offset the travel of this year’s dinner headliner, Jay Leno, as well as for the President’s motorcade (seriously) – is leaving Bloomberg News to lend his shallow liberal advocacy to the left-wing Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

This is the second spin for Chen through the revolving door. He was the long-time White House correspondent for the Los Angeles Times when he left the newspaper “to join the NRDC in 2006, but then jumped back into the world of journalism in 2007 with a job at Bloomberg,” Politico’s Patrick Gavin recalled in a Sunday post. (Screen shot is from an April 28, 2005 news conference with President Bush.)

In an e-mail to the Politico’s Mike Allen, Chen trumpeted that at the NRDC he will be able to perform “the Lord’s work” and that he wants to “help public officials find the wisdom and courage to do the right thing to combat climate change before it's too late.”

His e-mail message:

My regret over leaving one of the world's largest -- and certainly the most ambitious -- news organizations is offset by a sense of urgency in resuming doing the Lord's work, particularly after the BP oil spill. That debacle was a divine signal to redouble my efforts to help clean up the environment, help America kick its petroleum addiction, and help public officials find the wisdom and courage to do the right thing to combat climate change before it's too late. So, I'm returning to the Natural Resources Defense Council (in Washington), soon to be reachable at: EChen(at)nrdc.org.

Picking up on the Politico’s post for a Monday night “Grapevine” item, the FNC’s Bret Baier quoted how Politico grasped the obvious, that this latest move “will likely reinforce notions...that all journalists are biased and largely towards Democratic-friendly organizations.”

WHCA officers page with photos of Chen with President Obama.

Chen marks the 16th major media figure to have joined the Obama administration (or an aligned union, or now an aligned left-wing environmental group) -- plus one who traveled through the revolving door from helping the Obama campaign into a news media slot. For the complete list, check my June 7 MRC post:

ABC News's Deputy Political Director Jumps to Left-Wing Union, the 15th Obama Activist Through the Media's Revolving Door

June 10: “After Two Years with Obama, Linda Douglass Returns to News Media”

Baier’s June 14 ‘Grapevine” report:

Bloomberg's Ed Chen is leaving journalism to join the Natural Resources Defense Council, telling Politico the oil spill prompted his decision to resume doing what he called the “Lord's work” in fighting climate change.

Politico noted the ease with which reporters jump between journalism and advocacy seems to be increasing and that it quote "will likely reinforce notions...that all journalists are biased and largely towards Democratic-friendly organizations."

Politico noted that it, too, has struggled with the revolving door. Politico reporter Jonathan Alan left for a short time to work for a Democratic Congresswoman [Wasserman-Schultz] and had said before returning to Politico quote, “I'm hopeful I can advance the Democratic Party's goals and obviously the Congresswoman's goals.”

After wondering on Friday if President Obama should help push energy legislation through Congress, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell continued her cheerleading for a new energy agenda on Monday. On her afternoon show "Andrea Mitchell Reports," Mitchell downplayed the cost of last summer's Cap and Trade bill, and opined that solar energy should be a part of the American energy future.

"Ed Markey's bill–the Markey-Waxman bill–was a year ago, but it is a Cap and Trade bill, as you were pointing out," Mitchell said to guest Ron Brownstein of Atlantic Media. "It doesn't really require us to eat our spinach," she added.

Mitchell introduced the segment by referencing the Oval Office address that President Obama will be delivering Tuesday. "How hard will [President Obama]  press BP, and just how far will he go in proposing new energy legislation?" Mitchell asked.

After introducing Brownstein to the segment, Mitchell pitched the question she had asked of New York Magazine columnist John Heilemann on Friday: is now the time for sweeping energy legislation?

"Strong energy–almost certainly the time to pitch it," Brownstein answered. He added that it is not certain whether a climate dimension will be included in the bill.

The two then discussed Brownstein's recent trip to China and his insights on the country's energy policy.

"China is by leaps-and-bounds going to lap us on solar," Mitchell asserted, and then added that it "should be an American initiative."

Brownstein was able to maintain that while China may be making advances in the alternative energy realm, the country is still heavily dependent on coal and thus continues to oppose international efforts to stop global warming.

Mitchell chimed in once more on China's alternative energy record, "It's extraordinary, and we are falling way, way behind."

The transcript of the segment, which aired on June 14 at 1:16 p.m. EDT, is as follows:

ANDREA MITCHELL: When President Obama addresses the nation tomorrow night, how hard will he press BP, and just how far will he go in proposing new energy legislation? Joining us is Ron Brownstein, political director for the Atlantic Media, and someone who has studied energy more intensively than most of our other colleagues, so we welcome you as an expert on that as well. Let’s talk about–is this the time to pitch strong energy legislation and what are the chances of getting anything passed this year?

RON BROWNSTEIN, Political Director, Atlantic Media: You know, strong energy–almost certainly the time to pitch it. The hard part is going to be–as you were talking about with Congressman Markey, whether there is a climate dimension to that or not. I think from the beginning–right throughout his campaign, the Stimulus bill–the President has been a strong proponent of incentives to develop alternative energy, wind, solar, efficiency. They’ve always been somewhat ambivalent about whether it was politically realistic to couple that with a serious effort to control carbon emissions, which most advocates argue is the key to a long-term transition toward clean energy. But it imposes more immediate costs now than the carrots you can offer to develop things like solar. So I don’t know what we’ll see tomorrow. I assume that there will be something of a pitch there. But are they in the trenches, really telling Harry Reid, look, this has to be a comprehensive bill? It’s always been a little bit back-and-forth from the administration on that.  

ANDREA MITCHELL: And in fact, Ed Markey’s bill–the Markey-Waxman bill, was a year ago, but it is a Cap-and-Trade bill, as you’re pointing out. It doesn’t really require us to eat our spinach, and–

RON BROWNSTEIN: Well, it does have longer-term–I mean, the Waxman-Markey bill was a comprehensive bill that had a variety of incentives for alternatives, for efficiency, but also did have a Cap-and-Trade system which limited the emissions of Carbon Dioxide and the other gasses associated with Global Warming. That hits coal the hardest, harder than it does oil. It would have a big impact over time in moving the U.S. away from a reliance on coal to generate as much of its electricity. It’s impact on oil dependence might be smaller over time, but even that–because so many states rely so heavily on coal. It was always uncertain that you get the sixty votes in the Senate for that, and that’s been the delay. There’s been an entire year, as John Kerry and Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman and others have tried to find any formula that could get you to sixty votes in the Senate, while limiting carbon emissions. They’ve never found it, and now Harry Reid has to make this decision. Is this the moment to try to do it again, or do you do an energy-only bill, or maybe you can’t do anything.

ANDREA MITCHELL: As he’s of course facing his own re-election fight. You just got back from looking at the energy situation in China, and as Bill Gates, Jeff Immelt, last week–

RON BROWNSTEIN: Put out the report–

ANDREA MITCHELL: The CEO, of course, of our parent company GE put out their report on R&D, and Ed Markey has a lot of R&D in this bill that’s been sitting there for a year. You were in the Gobi Desert, where China–

RON BROWNSTEIN: Yes I was. You don’t get to say that everyday.

ANDREA MITCHELL: You know, what a great date line–China is by leaps and bounds going to lap us on solar, which should be an American initiative.

RON BROWNSTEIN: Right. China is a paradox. Because on one hand, they rely heavily on coal, and they’re a threat to any international effort to constrain Global Warming because of that. On the other hand, they have made enormous, specific goals in the area of alternative energy, solar, wind, high-speed rail, others–and they are becoming a serious competitor for those jobs that the President is counting on as a part of his long-term economic strategy. About half of the solar panels in the world are already built in China and Taiwan.

ANDREA MITCHELL: It’s extraordinary, and we are falling way, way behind. Thank you, Ron Brownstein, we are going to stay on this.

On Thursday, Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) took to the floor of the Senate and claimed that carbon dioxide -- that naturally occurring gas integral to life on this planet! -- "will be over the next 20 years the leading cause of conflict, putting our troops in harm's way" (transcript and commentary follow):

I'm going to put in the record, Madam President, a host of quotes from our national security experts who tell us that carbon pollution leading to climate change will be over the next 20 years the leading cause of conflict, putting our troops in harm's way. And that's why we have so many returning veterans who want us to move forward and address this issue, so we can create those new technologies that get us off this foreign oil. 

As bonus coverage, here's how this Senator treats higher-ups in the military:

**Written by guest-blogger Doug Powers

Al Gore is on record as calling “climate change” a greater threat to humanity than terrorism or rogue dictators with nukes, and Barbara “Ma’am” Boxer has followed suit by saying that “carbon pollution, leading to climate change, will be, over the next 20 years, the leading cause of conflict.”

And the only knock on Barbara Boxer that Carly Fiorina could make on open-mic night was about her hair? (name corrected, wrote earlier Meg Whitman said that, sorry Meg!)

If by “conflict” she means harsh opposition to the continued takeover of the U.S. from within under the guise of saving the world from a fiery death, then I suppose she’s correct — but that’s not what she means.

Boxer is saying, “Unless you want a lot of wars, support our EPA power grab!”

The real intent of course isn’t to rank climate change as being a greater threat than terrorism, but to inextricably link them as one problem and assign the blame to your SUV and dependency on the coal energy that is giving Ashley Judd the trots. It’s “blame America first” at its most twisted. “They won’t attack if you hand us billions more for clean energy and green jobs!”

Maybe Barbara Boxer believes that Al Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Centers because they were getting too warm, but I’m certainly skeptical.

In fact, the greatest threat to national security isn’t climate change, terrorism or rogue dictators — it’s the people who are running our own government right now. If we can vote out politicians like Barbara Boxer starting this November, that’s just the kind of breath of fresh air that will help save the United States.

Update: Speaking of Barbara Boxer, according to CNN, President Obama skipped the memorial service for the workers killed on the Deepwater Horizon rig to attend a Boxer fundraiser. Hopefully Babs feels special.

(h/t Weasel Zippers)

**Written by guest-blogger Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

California’s Air Resources Board (CARB)—long considered a foe of conservatives nationwide— has shelled out close to $800,000 to bolster its latest pet “green” initiative, Capitol Confidential has learned.

A study released last month, which draws positive conclusions regarding CARB’s favored “feebates” program, cost a whopping $796,641 according to a document found at CARB’s own site.  That has some observers scrutinizing CARB’s activities thinking it could come under renewed and sustained criticism.

California is currently mired in a fiscal morass that seems almost intractable, with many in the Golden State blaming overspending by government for the state’s fiscal woes.  Assembly Democrats have proposed plugging the state’s budget hole via $9 billion in loans, whereas Senate Democrats want to suspend $2 billion in corporate tax reductions, among other measures; the state budget deficit, meanwhile, is reportedly as big as $19 billion.

The “feebates” program is a CARB priority, however.  The agency sees slapping a tax on new, higher-emissions cars purchased by Californians, while offering a rebate on new, lower-emissions cars, as a key to combating climate change.

But California’s steps to curb climate change, including AB 32, have recently been taking a lot of incoming fire with the state’s finances, and economy, in the hole.  “There is a sense, even among some Californians who generally do consider themselves ‘green,’ that they’ve gone too far,” a California political source told Capitol Confidential.  “CARB in particular has come in for a lot of criticism, and their dropping this sort of money on a study that seems designed to validate their pre-existing conclusions is probably not going to help, especially when voters are angry about 12 percent-plus unemployment and the budget situation.”

Moreover, the substance of the “feebates” program is likely to anger fiscal conservatives, as well as automakers.

Anti-tax advocates say it will raise taxes both directly—i.e., for purchasers of less efficient cars—and indirectly.  In France, where “feebates” have also been used, critics say rebates wound up exceeding taxes paid, and the result, says one individual tracking the proposal with whom we spoke, has been generalized taxpayer subsidization of the program.  In Canada, meanwhile, the “fees” arising under their “feebates” program have reportedly been kept in place, but expensive rebates were ended.

Automakers, for their part, seem to see the proposal as unnecessary and redundant.  According to Dave McCurdy, President and CEO of the Auto Alliance, “automakers are [already] investing heavily in more fuel-efficient autos” which should mean that what some describe as government coercion is not in fact necessary to get consumers to purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles that emit less.

Still, CARB is expected to pursue the “feebates” program, relying on its costly survey to justify its actions.

We all know former Vice President Al Gore has a sycophantic media supporting him on his pet cause of global warming. But this might be a little over the top, or it could very well explain a lot.

In December 2007, when Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, The Washington Post's Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan argued the former vice president had won the Nobel Prize for "sexy." Well, apparently this is an inside-the-beltway notion that has existed for years.

On HBO's June 4 broadcast of "Real Time with Bill Maher," film producer, director, and screenwriter Judd Apatow harkened back to a 2000 cover of Rolling Stone magazine that revealed something about the former vice president during the Bush/Gore election cycle.

"Well, do you remember he was on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine many years ago when he was running for president and he had this giant cock on the cover?" Apatow said. "Am I the only one that saw that? ... You remember, he was on the cover of Rolling Stone, Al Gore and it was kind of the thing that he had a big bulge in his pants that was his cock."

But Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic's "The Daily Dish" fame offered the perspective a lot of us could have done without and said it was common knowledge of what people may have gleaned from that particular Rolling Stone magazine cover.

"It is well known in Washington he is the most hung politician around," Sullivan added.

Apatow offered his theory why the Gore separated with his wife earlier in the week - that something happened on a college campus giving a speech.

"He's doing his speeches, he performing at ‘colleges,'" Apatow said. "Isn't that what we all did at some point? A lot of college speeches about the environment. He wants to use it, Bill."

And The Nation magazine's Katrina vanden Heuvel said one should hope it was a college campus incident because that would make the Gore's break up easier to understand.

"I think people are hoping there's someone on a college campus because it's simpler," she said. "It's easier to fathom that they break up after 40 years, all the kids."

We all know former Vice President Al Gore has a sycophantic media supporting him on his pet cause of global warming. But this might be a little over the top, or it could very well explain a lot.

In December 2007, when Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, The Washington Post's Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan argued the former vice president had won the Nobel Prize for "sexy." Well, apparently this is an inside-the-beltway notion that has existed for years.

On HBO's June 4 broadcast of "Real Time with Bill Maher," film producer, director, and screenwriter Judd Apatow harkened back to a 2000 cover of Rolling Stone magazine that revealed something about the former vice president during the Bush/Gore election cycle.

"Well, do you remember he was on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine many years ago when he was running for president and he had this giant cock on the cover?" Apatow said. "Am I the only one that saw that? ... You remember, he was on the cover of Rolling Stone, Al Gore and it was kind of the thing that he had a big bulge in his pants that was his cock."

But Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic's "The Daily Dish" fame offered the perspective a lot of us could have done without and said it was common knowledge of what people may have gleaned from that particular Rolling Stone magazine cover.

"It is well known in Washington he is the most hung politician around," Sullivan added.

Apatow offered his theory why the Gore separated with his wife earlier in the week - that something happened on a college campus giving a speech.

"He's doing his speeches, he performing at ‘colleges,'" Apatow said. "Isn't that what we all did at some point? A lot of college speeches about the environment. He wants to use it, Bill."

And The Nation magazine's Katrina vanden Heuvel said one should hope it was a college campus incident because that would make the Gore's break up easier to understand.

"I think people are hoping there's someone on a college campus because it's simpler," she said. "It's easier to fathom that they break up after 40 years, all the kids."

For those of you who watched “Hannity” on Fox News last night and wondered why an “eco-entrepreneur” was left to address President Obama’s claim that the Gulf spill just means we need his cap-n-trade scheme, with no other guest, it was because a storm here in Central Virginia had me all made up pretty and sitting in the chair with the satellite connections fried out.

That was global warming, of course. Or George Bush.

But here is essentially the rejoinder that you would have heard:

Obama’s argument made in Pittsburgh goes that, with BP having been reckless and the administration incompetent…if you carry the 1 and tally it up it means a massive new tax increase on all of us to make energy more expensive.

This just makes sense in the land of never letting a crisis go to waste.

Which should remind us how to know there’s no good reason for an agenda: when the reason for the agenda, or rather the excuse, keeps changing. Now the global warming tax, which was then a climate change tax, then somehow a job-creation energy tax is now an energy tax to show how engaged and angry President Obama is at BP’s oil spill.

But in his Pittsburgh remarks announcing this new logic, the president failed to note the disconnect in lashing out at BP by… passing a light-switch tax that John Kerry admits BP helped write, and is the most aggressive lobbyist for. Yeah, take that BP!

Instead, he said “The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century.” No. That would be too good for them. Instead, he seeks to hold them hostage to his beloved windmills, which are technology of, at best, the century before that.

And if decades of eight dollar gas and windmill schemes would prompt invention of pixie dust or flying cars and our final victory over those stubborn laws of physics, wouldn’t that sort of happened in Europe after decades of such nonsense? Instead, all it has brought them is chronic double-digit unemployment, flight of manufacturing jobs (including steel jobs to Carroll Country, KY)  and now bankrupt nations, as even the Spanish socialist government has admitted.

But none of this takes away from the disconnect between one company’s negligence and one administration’s incompetence meaning we get stuck with a huge energy tax, killing jobs and harming seniors and the poor while driving us closer to Europe’s disastrous model.

The truth of course is that this is just a cynical Power Grab using whatever excuse they can find to repeat Europe’s economic disaster here as part of their fundamental transformation of America.

For those of you who watched “Hannity” on Fox News last night and wondered why an “eco-entrepreneur” was left to address President Obama’s claim that the Gulf spill just means we need his cap-n-trade scheme, with no other guest, it was because a storm here in Central Virginia had me all made up pretty and sitting in the chair with the satellite connections fried out.

That was global warming, of course. Or George Bush.

But here is essentially the rejoinder that you would have heard:

Obama’s argument made in Pittsburgh goes that, with BP having been reckless and the administration incompetent…if you carry the 1 and tally it up it means a massive new tax increase on all of us to make energy more expensive.

This just makes sense in the land of never letting a crisis go to waste.

Which should remind us how to know there’s no good reason for an agenda: when the reason for the agenda, or rather the excuse, keeps changing. Now the global warming tax, which was then a climate change tax, then somehow a job-creation energy tax is now an energy tax to show how engaged and angry President Obama is at BP’s oil spill.

But in his Pittsburgh remarks announcing this new logic, the president failed to note the disconnect in lashing out at BP by… passing a light-switch tax that John Kerry admits BP helped write, and is the most aggressive lobbyist for. Yeah, take that BP!

Instead, he said “The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century.” No. That would be too good for them. Instead, he seeks to hold them hostage to his beloved windmills, which are technology of, at best, the century before that.

And if decades of eight dollar gas and windmill schemes would prompt invention of pixie dust or flying cars and our final victory over those stubborn laws of physics, wouldn’t that sort of happened in Europe after decades of such nonsense? Instead, all it has brought them is chronic double-digit unemployment, flight of manufacturing jobs (including steel jobs to Carroll Country, KY)  and now bankrupt nations, as even the Spanish socialist government has admitted.

But none of this takes away from the disconnect between one company’s negligence and one administration’s incompetence meaning we get stuck with a huge energy tax, killing jobs and harming seniors and the poor while driving us closer to Europe’s disastrous model.

The truth of course is that this is just a cynical Power Grab using whatever excuse they can find to repeat Europe’s economic disaster here as part of their fundamental transformation of America.

Parts of the U.S. establishment press have acknowledged "climate science" reality, six months late.

The fallout from ClimateGate (link is to the NewsBusters tag), the name eventually given to the scandal resulting from the unauthorized posting of over 1,000 emails and dozens of documents obtained from University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) in the UK, goes back a full six months to November of last year.

On November 20, Australia's Andrew Bolt crisply described the contents of the aforementioned items as providing substantial evidence of: "Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more."

Six long months later, as the American Thinker's Marc Sheppard observed, both the New York Times and Newsweek have recognized the fallout while still not conceding the argument. The Times does so in an article by Elisabeth Rosenthal about crumbling public support in Great Britain and elsewhere, while Newsweek's Stefan Thiel addresses "The backlash against climate science."

What a difference three years makes, says Sheppard:

Of greater note -- the same powerhouse publication that in its August 2007 cover story -- The Truth about Denial -- described climate skepticism as “an undermining of the science” now challenges the same AGW orthodoxy it once preached.

The Times's Rosenthal bitterly clings to settled-science silliness in her first paragraph, and shortly thereafter notes a plunge in public support that has been present for three months:

Last month hundreds of environmental activists crammed into an auditorium here to ponder an anguished question: If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?

... A survey in February by the BBC found that only 26 percent of Britons believed that “climate change is happening and is now established as largely manmade,” down from 41 percent in November 2009. A poll conducted for the German magazine Der Spiegel found that 42 percent of Germans feared global warming, down from 62 percent four years earlier.

Of course the claimed scientific consensus has never really existed. But the CRU e-mails showed that there wasn't even confident consensus among scientists who presented a public front of being entirely in lockstep. This is best illustrated in a memorable passage from a Kevin Trenberth e-mail (Trenberth is head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado):

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low.

This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on Saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather). …

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Newsweek's Thiel is even harsher on the warmists' conduct and temperament:

The backlash against climate science is also about the way in which leading scientists allied themselves with politicians and activists to promote their cause. Some of the IPCC’s most-quoted data and recommendations were taken straight out of unchecked activist brochures, newspaper articles, and corporate reports—including claims of plummeting crop yields in Africa and the rising costs of warming-related natural disasters, both of which have been refuted by academic studies.

Just as damaging, many climate scientists have responded to critiques by questioning the integrity of their critics, rather than by supplying data and reasoned arguments. When other researchers aired doubt about the IPCC’s prediction that Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035, the IPCC’s powerful chief, Rajendra Pachauri, trashed their work as “voodoo science.” Even today, after dozens of IPCC exaggerations have surfaced, leading climate officials like U.N. Environment Program chief Achim Steiner and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research head Joachim Schellnhuber continue to tar-brush critics as “anti-Enlightenment” and engaging in “witch hunts.”

In a delicious piece at the American Interest, Walter Russell Mead asserts how totally unacceptable the Times's attempt at "better late than never" is. In a critique that could equally be applied to Newsweek and the vast majority of the establishment press, Mead writes:

Who knows, in a few more months or years, somebody may write a story about the damage that the culture of cocooning and coddling did to a movement that only slowly learned that it had lost the public trust. Somebody might even interview the editors and journalists involved to find out why the collapse of the climate change movement’s political momentum was too unimportant to print while the news was still fresh. Somebody else might look at that journalistic culture and write a story about how failures of aggressive reporting and news editing undermined the credibility of some of the greatest news gathering organizations on earth.

But I wouldn’t publish any of that stuff too quickly. Stories this big and this rich need to be properly aged.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Parts of the U.S. establishment press have acknowledged "climate science" reality, six months late.

The fallout from ClimateGate (link is to the NewsBusters tag), the name eventually given to the scandal resulting from the unauthorized posting of over 1,000 emails and dozens of documents obtained from University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) in the UK, goes back a full six months to November of last year.

On November 20, Australia's Andrew Bolt crisply described the contents of the aforementioned items as providing substantial evidence of: "Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more."

Six long months later, as the American Thinker's Marc Sheppard observed, both the New York Times and Newsweek have recognized the fallout while still not conceding the argument. The Times does so in an article by Elisabeth Rosenthal about crumbling public support in Great Britain and elsewhere, while Newsweek's Stefan Thiel addresses "The backlash against climate science."

What a difference three years makes, says Sheppard:

Of greater note -- the same powerhouse publication that in its August 2007 cover story -- The Truth about Denial -- described climate skepticism as “an undermining of the science” now challenges the same AGW orthodoxy it once preached.

The Times's Rosenthal bitterly clings to settled-science silliness in her first paragraph, and shortly thereafter notes a plunge in public support that has been present for three months:

Last month hundreds of environmental activists crammed into an auditorium here to ponder an anguished question: If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?

... A survey in February by the BBC found that only 26 percent of Britons believed that “climate change is happening and is now established as largely manmade,” down from 41 percent in November 2009. A poll conducted for the German magazine Der Spiegel found that 42 percent of Germans feared global warming, down from 62 percent four years earlier.

Of course the claimed scientific consensus has never really existed. But the CRU e-mails showed that there wasn't even confident consensus among scientists who presented a public front of being entirely in lockstep. This is best illustrated in a memorable passage from a Kevin Trenberth e-mail (Trenberth is head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado):

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low.

This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on Saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather). …

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Newsweek's Thiel is even harsher on the warmists' conduct and temperament:

The backlash against climate science is also about the way in which leading scientists allied themselves with politicians and activists to promote their cause. Some of the IPCC’s most-quoted data and recommendations were taken straight out of unchecked activist brochures, newspaper articles, and corporate reports—including claims of plummeting crop yields in Africa and the rising costs of warming-related natural disasters, both of which have been refuted by academic studies.

Just as damaging, many climate scientists have responded to critiques by questioning the integrity of their critics, rather than by supplying data and reasoned arguments. When other researchers aired doubt about the IPCC’s prediction that Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035, the IPCC’s powerful chief, Rajendra Pachauri, trashed their work as “voodoo science.” Even today, after dozens of IPCC exaggerations have surfaced, leading climate officials like U.N. Environment Program chief Achim Steiner and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research head Joachim Schellnhuber continue to tar-brush critics as “anti-Enlightenment” and engaging in “witch hunts.”

In a delicious piece at the American Interest, Walter Russell Mead asserts how totally unacceptable the Times's attempt at "better late than never" is. In a critique that could equally be applied to Newsweek and the vast majority of the establishment press, Mead writes:

Who knows, in a few more months or years, somebody may write a story about the damage that the culture of cocooning and coddling did to a movement that only slowly learned that it had lost the public trust. Somebody might even interview the editors and journalists involved to find out why the collapse of the climate change movement’s political momentum was too unimportant to print while the news was still fresh. Somebody else might look at that journalistic culture and write a story about how failures of aggressive reporting and news editing undermined the credibility of some of the greatest news gathering organizations on earth.

But I wouldn’t publish any of that stuff too quickly. Stories this big and this rich need to be properly aged.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

CNN founder Ted Turner said Saturday that if we don't prepare for global warming, we'll be extinct.

In a multi-part interview with CNN Newsroom anchor Fredricka Whitfield, Turner spoke about his own devotion and dedication to environmental causes. 

"Have you altered all your life, all your living so you are what one would call energy responsible?" asked Whitfield. 

"What we really have is a choice whether we want to do the right things from an energy standpoint or the wrong thing," said Turner. 

"And if enough of us choose to do the wrong thing and we don't prepare for global warming and we don't make the changes that we know we should make, then we'll be extinct" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Have you altered all your life, all your living so you are what one would call energy responsible?

TED TURNER: Yes, yes I am.

WHITFIELD: Tell me about that transition. Was it a difficult one to make?

TURNER: I did it over a period of time over the last 30 years. I've been cutting the lights out for a long time.

WHITFIELD: So how do you convince people, what would you say to those who say, you know what, the way I'm living right now is just fine. I'm happy with the light bulbs I choose. Convince me this is the way I would want to go.

TURNER: Anybody that watches CNN would know pretty well. They would already be convinced, because we've run thousands of stories about it, everything from light bulbs to saving fuel and automobiles to recycling. It's everywhere.

WHITFIELD: Is it the cost that's the barrier?

TURNER: It's the big story of our time.

WHITFIELD: It's the big story, but not everyone is onboard. That's why you're spending time on Capitol Hill and others are lobbying and arguing for it. What's the obstacle?

TURNER: It's a combination of things. There's reluctance on some people's part to cope with change very well, and want things to stay the way they were.

And really what we really have is a choice whether we want to do the right things from an energy standpoint or the wrong thing. And it's our choice.

And if enough of us choose to do the wrong thing and we don't prepare for global warming and we don't make the changes that we know we should make, then we'll be extinct. And when that happens, we'll be sorry, but it will be too late. And I'm trying to avoid that by getting the people to take action now while there's still time.

So, there it is, folks. You better change the kind of light bulbs you use and start driving a hybrid vehicle or our species is doomed.

After all, if the alarmists are right, and temperatures do continue to rise for the foreseeable future, there's absolutely NO WAY homo sapiens could possibly adapt.

That's how fragile we are as a species, you see.

We CAN'T POSSIBLY adjust to changes in temperature despite most people on the planet experiencing roughly 100 degree variances in their highs and lows each and every year.

But Ted's got to be right - he founded CNN, you know.

My show last night covered the big myths about going "green." The show will re-air tonight on Saturday at 8pm and 11pm, and Sunday at 10pm EST.

To be part of the studio audience in a future show, e-mail stosseltix@foxbusiness.com

My show last night covered the big myths about going "green." The show will re-air tonight on Saturday at 8pm and 11pm, and Sunday at 10pm EST.

To be part of the studio audience in a future show, e-mail stosseltix@foxbusiness.com

Anthony Weiner honed his political craft working for New York Senator Charles Schumer, and it shows in his recent attack on Glenn Beck and his sponsor Goldline.

Weiner and his comrades’ views are well reflected when he says in his Goldline Report:

…during troubling economic times it seems there is always someone ready to take advantage of the situation and profit from people’s fears.

In the past there is always the “product” that is either the next big thing (the dot com boom) or the investment that will never go down in price (the housing market), and in the past much of the media has failed in its duty to conduct due diligence, but never before have they worked so hand in hand to cheat consumers.  Commentators like Glenn Beck who are shilling for Goldline are either the worst financial advisors around or knowingly lying to their loyal viewers.

Goldline’s high pressure sales tactics and fear mongering about big government as well as their ability to hire sales staff and spokespeople who misrepresent their roles are case studies in why entities like the SEC and FTC are necessary.

Of course, it is the unscrupulous businessmen and their shills in the media who are preying on people’s fears to make a buck.  Guess what Mr. Weiner? It is because people like you are running our nation that is precisely why people are turning to gold, and precisely why places like Goldline can charge a premium.

You see, the reverse is true when it comes to your argument that because of the sales representatives at Goldline who “misrepresent their roles,” the SEC and FTC are necessary entities.  We need gold and thus gold salesmen because agencies like the SEC and FTC, along with you and your colleagues in Congress and over at the Fed help sanction and blow the very bubbles that you speak to and debase our currency, stealthily taxing us and leading us on a path to monetary and fiscal collapse.  It is because of your “consumer protections,” that consumers are made unsafe.  It is because of your regulations that we have distorted markets and the moral hazard that encourages imprudent risk-taking.

So can you blame people for clamoring to store their wealth in an asset that holds its value when you create such unrest, that cannot be printed and is not so easily subject to your will?  When markets crash, causing you to blame the evil shortsellers (yet curiously you never blame those who push the markets up to unjustified levels) gold-buying is the natural reaction of speculators and investors who have discovered that the artificially high prices in stocks or houses are just that – artificial, thanks to folks in Washington who enable folks on Wall Street.

And by the way, I am curious as to why you have been so quiet on GE’s advertising of their green products on NBC’s networks after the typical global warming fear-mongering that goes on on their editorial and “news” programs.

And when we find out that:

In addition, Congressman Weiner is proposing legislation to protect consumers by requiring full disclosure of:

a. Hidden fees.
b. Purchase price/Melt value/Resale value.
c. How much the cost of gold will need to rise in the value for the customers’
investment to be profitable.

This is equally breathtaking.  Even if you actually believed that enlightened bureaucrats cared about “protecting” the hapless consumer, on each point your argument is nonsensical.

How can the fees be hidden if you are announcing that there are hidden fees?  Surely, others besides you and your staffers must be aware of them.  Further, if there are these hidden fees, why wouldn’t Goldline’s customers shift to other dealers who sold gold with less onerous terms?

If the purchase price versus melt/resale value means that the company makes a big spread, are customers incapable of looking at such complex exchanges as Ebay to find comparable pricing?  Should Goldline be punished for their large profit margin if customers are willing to pay such a price?  Do you think that the average gold buyer does not consider price shopping?  I certainly doubt that it is the simple subprime home borrower investing in gold coins.

And as for making a profitable investment, while certainly there are traders that buy and flip paper gold, generally gold coins are purchased as a store of value – as they rise in price in proportion to the debasement of a dollar, prompted again by the central planner’s in chief over at the “quasi-public” Federal Reserve.  And do you really need to tell a buyer how much the price of gold needs to rise for his investment to be profitable?  Do you need to tell a drinker how many beers he has to drink before he gets drunk?  Do you need to tell a smoker how many cigarettes he needs to smoke before his lungs are full of tar?  In your world I suppose you do, but in the real world people are actually able to think and do things for themselves, or at least they were before you and your “progressive” friends spent the last hundred years coddling people with purported goodies like housing, health and retirement to recuse them from taking responsibility for themselves.

When Weiner says that Goldline “grossly overcharges for their coins,” he misses the fundamental point that this is why you have competition in markets – competition forces companies to drive prices down.  And frankly it doesn’t matter whether or not people are overpaying because the great thing about America is that you have the freedom to be stupid.

Here is a hypothetical for Rep. Weiner on market stupidity.  If one supermarket is “price gouging” by selling milk at $10 a gallon, and another undercutting the competition by selling at $1, but people still continue to frequent each supermarket, would Weiner feel a need to call out the gouger and the undercutter to “protect” some consumers from overpaying, and other companies from being hurt by the “anti-competitive practices” of one of their competitors?  Or is it only so with gold?  Actually, perhaps that question is better left unanswered.

Either way, the beauty of markets that Weiner fails to acknowledge is that they allow individuals, not bureaucrats like him to control the game by voting with their feet, leading to the decentralized coordination of infinite human interactions, which means that the supermarkets would inevitably have to charge the same price for milk somewhere between $1 and $10.  If they didn’t, the supermarket charging the cheaper price would drive the other one out of business, and the assets of the failed business would be purchased by more competent managers to the benefit of the whole economy.

Most importantly, consumers are individuals who in free markets remain sovereign, but this sovereignty is violated when politicians get in the way of consumers’ voluntary decisions.  When you regulate people’s decision-making, you regulate their very being.  You violate their freedom to think and to act in ways that they deem beneficial as individuals, which at the aggregate level benefits us all.  Meanwhile, while Weiner and friends try to protect us from ourselves, they neglect to recognize our true enemies, failing at their single most important job which is to protect us from others.

Perhaps most scary is the following statement on the matter from Mr. Weiner in the New York Observer:

“The focus of my report was not primarily [Mr. Beck's] show. I haven’t called for him to be shut down, I haven’t called for him to be sanctioned. He’s got to live with himself,” Mr. Weiner said.”

It is downright chilling that a politician would have the audacity to even consider the notion of shutting Beck down or having him sanctioned.  That Anthony Weiner would insinuate this should give us great pause.  Of course why ignore an opponent when you can threaten him by noting that the thought crossed your mind of censoring him, and in characteristic Alinsky fashion put him down with the potshot that Beck has to live with himself.  Beck should respond: “How do you live with yourself Mr. Weiner?”

Weiner goes on in his report to quote a bunch of conservative commentators who have pushed gold, sponsored by Goldline, and one wonders – how thin-skinned is this man?  Why is he so concerned about television commentators while Rome is burning?  How egotistical can he be to go on a crusade against people actively trying to help their viewers, and even if they had unseemly reasons for doing so which I do not believe to be the case, why is it his job to crucify them?  People can make decisions for themselves.  When you take that decision-making mechanism away, you get stagnancy, dependency and serfdom.  Exactly what Weiner and all of his progressive friends apparently want, not because they care about the people but because of their base lust to be the people’s masters.

Weiner’s smarminess, ad hominem attacks and lack of substance, so representative of today’s leftists continued on the O’Reilly Factor, the mind-numbingness of which can be found for your viewing displeasure below:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Anthony Weiner honed his political craft working for New York Senator Charles Schumer, and it shows in his recent attack on Glenn Beck and his sponsor Goldline.

Weiner and his comrades’ views are well reflected when he says in his Goldline Report:

…during troubling economic times it seems there is always someone ready to take advantage of the situation and profit from people’s fears.

In the past there is always the “product” that is either the next big thing (the dot com boom) or the investment that will never go down in price (the housing market), and in the past much of the media has failed in its duty to conduct due diligence, but never before have they worked so hand in hand to cheat consumers.  Commentators like Glenn Beck who are shilling for Goldline are either the worst financial advisors around or knowingly lying to their loyal viewers.

Goldline’s high pressure sales tactics and fear mongering about big government as well as their ability to hire sales staff and spokespeople who misrepresent their roles are case studies in why entities like the SEC and FTC are necessary.

Of course, it is the unscrupulous businessmen and their shills in the media who are preying on people’s fears to make a buck.  Guess what Mr. Weiner? It is because people like you are running our nation that is precisely why people are turning to gold, and precisely why places like Goldline can charge a premium.

You see, the reverse is true when it comes to your argument that because of the sales representatives at Goldline who “misrepresent their roles,” the SEC and FTC are necessary entities.  We need gold and thus gold salesmen because agencies like the SEC and FTC, along with you and your colleagues in Congress and over at the Fed help sanction and blow the very bubbles that you speak to and debase our currency, stealthily taxing us and leading us on a path to monetary and fiscal collapse.  It is because of your “consumer protections,” that consumers are made unsafe.  It is because of your regulations that we have distorted markets and the moral hazard that encourages imprudent risk-taking.

So can you blame people for clamoring to store their wealth in an asset that holds its value when you create such unrest, that cannot be printed and is not so easily subject to your will?  When markets crash, causing you to blame the evil shortsellers (yet curiously you never blame those who push the markets up to unjustified levels) gold-buying is the natural reaction of speculators and investors who have discovered that the artificially high prices in stocks or houses are just that – artificial, thanks to folks in Washington who enable folks on Wall Street.

And by the way, I am curious as to why you have been so quiet on GE’s advertising of their green products on NBC’s networks after the typical global warming fear-mongering that goes on on their editorial and “news” programs.

And when we find out that:

In addition, Congressman Weiner is proposing legislation to protect consumers by requiring full disclosure of:

a. Hidden fees.
b. Purchase price/Melt value/Resale value.
c. How much the cost of gold will need to rise in the value for the customers’
investment to be profitable.

This is equally breathtaking.  Even if you actually believed that enlightened bureaucrats cared about “protecting” the hapless consumer, on each point your argument is nonsensical.

How can the fees be hidden if you are announcing that there are hidden fees?  Surely, others besides you and your staffers must be aware of them.  Further, if there are these hidden fees, why wouldn’t Goldline’s customers shift to other dealers who sold gold with less onerous terms?

If the purchase price versus melt/resale value means that the company makes a big spread, are customers incapable of looking at such complex exchanges as Ebay to find comparable pricing?  Should Goldline be punished for their large profit margin if customers are willing to pay such a price?  Do you think that the average gold buyer does not consider price shopping?  I certainly doubt that it is the simple subprime home borrower investing in gold coins.

And as for making a profitable investment, while certainly there are traders that buy and flip paper gold, generally gold coins are purchased as a store of value – as they rise in price in proportion to the debasement of a dollar, prompted again by the central planner’s in chief over at the “quasi-public” Federal Reserve.  And do you really need to tell a buyer how much the price of gold needs to rise for his investment to be profitable?  Do you need to tell a drinker how many beers he has to drink before he gets drunk?  Do you need to tell a smoker how many cigarettes he needs to smoke before his lungs are full of tar?  In your world I suppose you do, but in the real world people are actually able to think and do things for themselves, or at least they were before you and your “progressive” friends spent the last hundred years coddling people with purported goodies like housing, health and retirement to recuse them from taking responsibility for themselves.

When Weiner says that Goldline “grossly overcharges for their coins,” he misses the fundamental point that this is why you have competition in markets – competition forces companies to drive prices down.  And frankly it doesn’t matter whether or not people are overpaying because the great thing about America is that you have the freedom to be stupid.

Here is a hypothetical for Rep. Weiner on market stupidity.  If one supermarket is “price gouging” by selling milk at $10 a gallon, and another undercutting the competition by selling at $1, but people still continue to frequent each supermarket, would Weiner feel a need to call out the gouger and the undercutter to “protect” some consumers from overpaying, and other companies from being hurt by the “anti-competitive practices” of one of their competitors?  Or is it only so with gold?  Actually, perhaps that question is better left unanswered.

Either way, the beauty of markets that Weiner fails to acknowledge is that they allow individuals, not bureaucrats like him to control the game by voting with their feet, leading to the decentralized coordination of infinite human interactions, which means that the supermarkets would inevitably have to charge the same price for milk somewhere between $1 and $10.  If they didn’t, the supermarket charging the cheaper price would drive the other one out of business, and the assets of the failed business would be purchased by more competent managers to the benefit of the whole economy.

Most importantly, consumers are individuals who in free markets remain sovereign, but this sovereignty is violated when politicians get in the way of consumers’ voluntary decisions.  When you regulate people’s decision-making, you regulate their very being.  You violate their freedom to think and to act in ways that they deem beneficial as individuals, which at the aggregate level benefits us all.  Meanwhile, while Weiner and friends try to protect us from ourselves, they neglect to recognize our true enemies, failing at their single most important job which is to protect us from others.

Perhaps most scary is the following statement on the matter from Mr. Weiner in the New York Observer:

“The focus of my report was not primarily [Mr. Beck's] show. I haven’t called for him to be shut down, I haven’t called for him to be sanctioned. He’s got to live with himself,” Mr. Weiner said.”

It is downright chilling that a politician would have the audacity to even consider the notion of shutting Beck down or having him sanctioned.  That Anthony Weiner would insinuate this should give us great pause.  Of course why ignore an opponent when you can threaten him by noting that the thought crossed your mind of censoring him, and in characteristic Alinsky fashion put him down with the potshot that Beck has to live with himself.  Beck should respond: “How do you live with yourself Mr. Weiner?”

Weiner goes on in his report to quote a bunch of conservative commentators who have pushed gold, sponsored by Goldline, and one wonders – how thin-skinned is this man?  Why is he so concerned about television commentators while Rome is burning?  How egotistical can he be to go on a crusade against people actively trying to help their viewers, and even if they had unseemly reasons for doing so which I do not believe to be the case, why is it his job to crucify them?  People can make decisions for themselves.  When you take that decision-making mechanism away, you get stagnancy, dependency and serfdom.  Exactly what Weiner and all of his progressive friends apparently want, not because they care about the people but because of their base lust to be the people’s masters.

Weiner’s smarminess, ad hominem attacks and lack of substance, so representative of today’s leftists continued on the O’Reilly Factor, the mind-numbingness of which can be found for your viewing displeasure below:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Anthony Weiner honed his political craft working for New York Senator Charles Schumer, and it shows in his recent attack on Glenn Beck and his sponsor Goldline.

Weiner and his comrades’ views are well reflected when he says in his Goldline Report:

…during troubling economic times it seems there is always someone ready to take advantage of the situation and profit from people’s fears.

In the past there is always the “product” that is either the next big thing (the dot com boom) or the investment that will never go down in price (the housing market), and in the past much of the media has failed in its duty to conduct due diligence, but never before have they worked so hand in hand to cheat consumers.  Commentators like Glenn Beck who are shilling for Goldline are either the worst financial advisors around or knowingly lying to their loyal viewers.

Goldline’s high pressure sales tactics and fear mongering about big government as well as their ability to hire sales staff and spokespeople who misrepresent their roles are case studies in why entities like the SEC and FTC are necessary.

Of course, it is the unscrupulous businessmen and their shills in the media who are preying on people’s fears to make a buck.  Guess what Mr. Weiner? It is because people like you are running our nation that is precisely why people are turning to gold, and precisely why places like Goldline can charge a premium.

You see, the reverse is true when it comes to your argument that because of the sales representatives at Goldline who “misrepresent their roles,” the SEC and FTC are necessary entities.  We need gold and thus gold salesmen because agencies like the SEC and FTC, along with you and your colleagues in Congress and over at the Fed help sanction and blow the very bubbles that you speak to and debase our currency, stealthily taxing us and leading us on a path to monetary and fiscal collapse.  It is because of your “consumer protections,” that consumers are made unsafe.  It is because of your regulations that we have distorted markets and the moral hazard that encourages imprudent risk-taking.

So can you blame people for clamoring to store their wealth in an asset that holds its value when you create such unrest, that cannot be printed and is not so easily subject to your will?  When markets crash, causing you to blame the evil shortsellers (yet curiously you never blame those who push the markets up to unjustified levels) gold-buying is the natural reaction of speculators and investors who have discovered that the artificially high prices in stocks or houses are just that – artificial, thanks to folks in Washington who enable folks on Wall Street.

And by the way, I am curious as to why you have been so quiet on GE’s advertising of their green products on NBC’s networks after the typical global warming fear-mongering that goes on on their editorial and “news” programs.

And when we find out that:

In addition, Congressman Weiner is proposing legislation to protect consumers by requiring full disclosure of:

a. Hidden fees.
b. Purchase price/Melt value/Resale value.
c. How much the cost of gold will need to rise in the value for the customers’
investment to be profitable.

This is equally breathtaking.  Even if you actually believed that enlightened bureaucrats cared about “protecting” the hapless consumer, on each point your argument is nonsensical.

How can the fees be hidden if you are announcing that there are hidden fees?  Surely, others besides you and your staffers must be aware of them.  Further, if there are these hidden fees, why wouldn’t Goldline’s customers shift to other dealers who sold gold with less onerous terms?

If the purchase price versus melt/resale value means that the company makes a big spread, are customers incapable of looking at such complex exchanges as Ebay to find comparable pricing?  Should Goldline be punished for their large profit margin if customers are willing to pay such a price?  Do you think that the average gold buyer does not consider price shopping?  I certainly doubt that it is the simple subprime home borrower investing in gold coins.

And as for making a profitable investment, while certainly there are traders that buy and flip paper gold, generally gold coins are purchased as a store of value – as they rise in price in proportion to the debasement of a dollar, prompted again by the central planner’s in chief over at the “quasi-public” Federal Reserve.  And do you really need to tell a buyer how much the price of gold needs to rise for his investment to be profitable?  Do you need to tell a drinker how many beers he has to drink before he gets drunk?  Do you need to tell a smoker how many cigarettes he needs to smoke before his lungs are full of tar?  In your world I suppose you do, but in the real world people are actually able to think and do things for themselves, or at least they were before you and your “progressive” friends spent the last hundred years coddling people with purported goodies like housing, health and retirement to recuse them from taking responsibility for themselves.

When Weiner says that Goldline “grossly overcharges for their coins,” he misses the fundamental point that this is why you have competition in markets – competition forces companies to drive prices down.  And frankly it doesn’t matter whether or not people are overpaying because the great thing about America is that you have the freedom to be stupid.

Here is a hypothetical for Rep. Weiner on market stupidity.  If one supermarket is “price gouging” by selling milk at $10 a gallon, and another undercutting the competition by selling at $1, but people still continue to frequent each supermarket, would Weiner feel a need to call out the gouger and the undercutter to “protect” some consumers from overpaying, and other companies from being hurt by the “anti-competitive practices” of one of their competitors?  Or is it only so with gold?  Actually, perhaps that question is better left unanswered.

Either way, the beauty of markets that Weiner fails to acknowledge is that they allow individuals, not bureaucrats like him to control the game by voting with their feet, leading to the decentralized coordination of infinite human interactions, which means that the supermarkets would inevitably have to charge the same price for milk somewhere between $1 and $10.  If they didn’t, the supermarket charging the cheaper price would drive the other one out of business, and the assets of the failed business would be purchased by more competent managers to the benefit of the whole economy.

Most importantly, consumers are individuals who in free markets remain sovereign, but this sovereignty is violated when politicians get in the way of consumers’ voluntary decisions.  When you regulate people’s decision-making, you regulate their very being.  You violate their freedom to think and to act in ways that they deem beneficial as individuals, which at the aggregate level benefits us all.  Meanwhile, while Weiner and friends try to protect us from ourselves, they neglect to recognize our true enemies, failing at their single most important job which is to protect us from others.

Perhaps most scary is the following statement on the matter from Mr. Weiner in the New York Observer:

“The focus of my report was not primarily [Mr. Beck's] show. I haven’t called for him to be shut down, I haven’t called for him to be sanctioned. He’s got to live with himself,” Mr. Weiner said.”

It is downright chilling that a politician would have the audacity to even consider the notion of shutting Beck down or having him sanctioned.  That Anthony Weiner would insinuate this should give us great pause.  Of course why ignore an opponent when you can threaten him by noting that the thought crossed your mind of censoring him, and in characteristic Alinsky fashion put him down with the potshot that Beck has to live with himself.  Beck should respond: “How do you live with yourself Mr. Weiner?”

Weiner goes on in his report to quote a bunch of conservative commentators who have pushed gold, sponsored by Goldline, and one wonders – how thin-skinned is this man?  Why is he so concerned about television commentators while Rome is burning?  How egotistical can he be to go on a crusade against people actively trying to help their viewers, and even if they had unseemly reasons for doing so which I do not believe to be the case, why is it his job to crucify them?  People can make decisions for themselves.  When you take that decision-making mechanism away, you get stagnancy, dependency and serfdom.  Exactly what Weiner and all of his progressive friends apparently want, not because they care about the people but because of their base lust to be the people’s masters.

Weiner’s smarminess, ad hominem attacks and lack of substance, so representative of today’s leftists continued on the O’Reilly Factor, the mind-numbingness of which can be found for your viewing displeasure below:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

We've all sort of known the media have been in the tank for the global warming alarmist movement. For evidence, look no further than a March 2008 segment that aired on ABC "World News" attacking leading climate skeptic, University of Virginia environmental scientist Professor Emeritus Fred Singer.

And the same culprit behind that 2008 segment, "World News" weekend anchor Dan Harris, was at it again with a piece that aired on May 23 attempting to link climate change skeptics to white supremacists.

But for balance, Harris included a few brief remarks, all of 10 seconds, from Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com, a news aggregator website Harris called "aggressive." But the actual interview Harris conducted with Morano was much more extensive and in depth. Throughout the interview, Harris asked Morano questions, but with premises that weren't necessarily true.

Entire Transcript Below Fold  

During the back-and-forth, Harris asked Morano about the "threat" from people who challenged global warming skeptics, the validity that ClimateGate was a real scandal, the charges from Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., that ClimateGate exposed fraud, how someone could be skeptical of global warming with such a broad consensus and what Harris deemed as "interesting," that climate skeptics were susceptible to threats as well. However, 99 percent of that was left out of the segment. What was left out of the ABC News segment? Transcript as follows:

HARRIS: So we'll just get your reaction, I know this is a complaint you've heard before, but of late, climate scientists say they're seeing a big spike in threatening e-mails, and the FBI is looking into it and the scientists say that it's stopping them from doing their work for some are quite scared. What is your - what do you think of this alleged trend?

MORANO: Well, first of all, no one advocates violence. There's always lunatics on any side of any hotly contested debate that will make threats or do threats of physical harm or death threats. No one is advocating that. But, what I will say is these scientists who for decades have been telling people that the debate was over, the science is settled and that we must act now. We must radically alter our lifestyles. We need to make all these changes in order to confront the crisis of global warming.

That's all been now exposed, especially the lie of consensus as a con job. The idea that all scientists agree with a con job, the idea, you know, that this was the best science that we can have was a con job. So right now, the public is very appropriately venting their anger to the very scientists who spend decades refusing to debate, suppressing dissenting opinion, trying to redefine what peer-reviewed literature meant and using the U.N. political process, which called -- demonized skeptics as "flat-earthers." And so, the public is appropriately angry at these scientists. And again, no one's advocating violence but it is refreshing to see these scientists hear from the public, when you go to a used car salesman and you get conned, you get a lemon, you don't go back to the used car dealer all happy and pleasant. You have a lot of anger and that's what these scientists are appropriately feeling and that is why I actually published the e-mails, publicly available e-mails, of these scientists on my Web site, Climate Depot.

HARRIS: Now, on ClimateGate, isn't it true that several of the subsequent investigations exonerated these guys from cooking the books?

MORANO:  Right, you're referring to Lord Oxburgh and these other reports? U.N. scientists have like laughed. Richard Tol, a lead author at the U.N. is laughing at this Oxburgh report and other scientists. This was essentially a light piece of paper - a couple of pages long. Didn't interview any of the skeptics. Had a very narrow focus on what they were looking at and these were all warmists. The head of it, Lord Oxburgh, had massive conflict of interests that he never would have gotten away with had it been the other way around and say a skeptic was heading an oil-funded interest. This was a complete laughingstock investigation.

And the bottom line is, we've seen the e-mails, we've heard the top U.N. scientists now turning on each other. I have a whole report of U.N. scientists turning on the U.N. saying it's run its course, it's time to disband it. Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chief should resign. So these little committees that get together that are all politically connected, full of global warmist, aren't going to change the fact there's a civil war going on within the U.N. over these ClimateGate e-mails. And the American people realize what ClimateGate was all about. You don't need a committee to read the very words of these scientists.

HARRIS: I recognize you're no longer in the employ of Sen. [James] Inhofe. Let me ask you about his recent report. Some of the scientists we have spoken to say that of all the pushback they have gotten in recent months - the most disturbing thing to them was this report from Sen. Inhofe that named the 17 scientists and tends to raise the specter of criminal investigation or criminal charges. People are calling that "McCarthyite." How do you -- what's your pushback on that?

MORANO: No, I think he's identified, if I'm not mistaken, 17 scientists that warrant further investigation. This is absolutely appropriate. These are scientists, many of them on the government dole, the United Nations money. These scientists who've actively been involved in at least the appearance of or actively involved in rebuking Freedom of Information Act requests - scientists who get public fund s to do research that have a lot of questions to answer. And for them to say, "Oh my gosh, what horror!" No, they're on the public dime in many cases and they're advocating public policy changes and radical changes to our lifestyles down to the toilet paper we use, down to the light bulbs we can use. Down to how much we're going to be paying for gas and home energy, all based on their science which has now -been credible accusations that they have cooked the books. So it's completely appropriate for the government to start looking at them and naming names.

HARRIS: When you attack the consensus, that's where I get a little confused because you can say what you want about the U.N., but you can also add in to their -- you know, NASA, NOAA, the American Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, the National Academy of Sciences in pretty much every developed nation on the planet.

How can you construct a consensus this broad on a hoax?

MORANO: First of all, it's not a "broad consensus." What you just said there were political arguments. You're insulting the intelligence of ABC News by using that as proof of a consensus. What you've done is - all those groups you've mentioned - the National Academy of Sciences, the American Meteorological Society, the American Advancement [of Science], the American Chemical Society - they've all had two dozen or so governing board members vote on a statement that is vaguely similar to what the United Nations says about global warming. Science groups don't take direct votes of their member scientists. Most of the members we find out aren't even aware these statements are issued at the time they're issued. But what's happened since is massive blowback. The American Chemical Society was shocked at the number of dissenting scientists upset at their stand. The National Academy of Sciences is having a big blowback. The American Physical Society is having a big blowback of member scientists. When you get away from that political governing board, the American Meteorological Society, it has been documented, has been staffed by former [Vice President Al] Gore staffers in their bureaucracy.

Dan, you're bringing up a political argument and masquerading it as science and that's a disservice to ABC News viewers. Look at the actual scientific conferences. In Norway, in 2008 - I can send you the documentation. There was a scientific conference held only every four years - the Geological Congress. It's called the Olympic event of scientists. Two-thirds of the scientists were estimated to be skeptical, hostile and dismissive of UN IPCC scientists. In Canada, 50,000 earth scientists canvassed - remember the member scientists, not the politically connected [20] board members - 67 percent rejected a consensus on manmade global warming. Scientists are speaking up around the world and the blowback against this call for Nuremberg trials for skeptics by Grist magazine, blowback against Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s saying coal barons who are skeptical need to be put in jail.

I had scientist join the Senate list of 700 dissenting scientists simply because the head of the U.N. compared them to flat-earthers. They say things like we can remain silent no longer. We're not going to be demonized like this. So, the idea of broad consensus is now laughable. Even the ClimateGate scientists don't have a consensus when they're talking about the U.N. and my favorite quote - it was Kevin Trenberth, I believe, who said "We can't do geo-engineering because we don't understand the climate system well enough to know what impact it will have."

That's your consensus, Dan? I think you can do better than that.

HARRIS: One last question. You alluded to this, but I want to give you the chance to flesh it out a little bit. Somebody from Sen. Inhofe's office made this point. I think it's an interesting one. You made it as well - that scientists and others who have skepticism about climate change have been harassed as well.

MORANO: Yes, I have an entire documented report. Let's start from the top. On Climate Progress, Joe Romm's blog, he defended a post saying the future generations will strangle climate skeptics in bed. Talking Points Memo had a piece that said when will climate skeptics be executed, when can we start punishing them now for what they've done? Grist magazine, I mentioned the Nuremberg-style trials. I mentioned threats and intimidation. I had two e-mails that were threatening to me that the Sergeant of Arms in the Senate had to investigate. So, I laugh when I hear these scientists say, ‘Oh these are threatening e-mails.' Skeptics have been getting these for years. Talk to Tim Ball in Canada, the climatologist who's skeptical. He's gotten death threats. There's been reports in, I want to say Europe. I can't remember the guy's name, but I can get it for you. There's been reports about skeptical scientists in Europe having their tires flattened after receiving threats. So threats are on all sides of this. There's no way we can look at this and say, "Oh these poor ClimateGate scientists" or "poor U.N. scientists." The bottom line is they were at ground zero perpetuating a con job of the illusion of a consensus. They deserve the public wrath they're getting. It's refreshing that they're finally getting a hostile reaction. They're not in their little cocoon of the U.N. or the mainstream media like ABC News.

HARRIS: Are there other points that I have not given you a chance to make that you feel like I should - that need to be made?

MORANO: Yeah, other than just public opinion - you know Richard Lindzen had a great quote: "The educated are very vulnerable to manmade climate fears, but ordinary people see right through them." And the bottom line is whether you're talking Australia, Canada, Europe, England, India, South Africa, America - skepticism has grown by leaps and bounds. We now have more Americans believing in haunted houses than manmade global warming. That's scientific progress and that is why these ClimateGate scientists and the U.N. scientists are in a panic. That and their civil war going on. Again, I can send you a report of all the scientists turning against the U.N. Lead authors, former chairmen, former members. We have reports of scientists leaving. It was the best science politics can manufacture and it's been exposed through ClimateGate and now through the civil war going on in the U.N. and it's about time. The American people can breathe a sigh of relief. People around the world can breathe a sigh of relief. This whole manufactured crisis is ending. It's dying and we're watching the last throes of it and we should all be happy about that.

HARRIS: Marc, thank you for doing this. I appreciate it.

MORANO: Thank you, Dan. I appreciate it.

HARRIS: Have a good rest of your weekend.

MORANO: Alright, I'll expect to do a rebuttal to your piece on Sunday night or Monday morning. So look for it. I don't expect the -- I think you did the Fred Singer piece last year, which was atrocious reporting. I believe that was you, right? You did the piece on Fred Singer?

HARRIS: I did the piece on Fred Singer.

MORANO: So I'm not expecting much from you, but we'll have fun.

HARRIS: Well, thank you for having low expectations.

MORANO: I have very low expectations.

HARRIS: OK.

From the "Did I Say That Out Loud?" Department: "Crashing Vor" on the Daily Kos asserted on Tuesday morning that a good crisis should never go to waste. The Gulf oil spill must be exploited, and the greens must "use this moment, use the deaths of species and the suffering of people who depend on them, in the most cynical, calculated way, as bad as a Republican after 9/11, to make real, lasting change in how we address the costs of our way of life." That means a command-and-control "climate change" bill. Get it now, before stupid Americans lose interest: 

There is only one possible redemption in this horror, and even that is a slim chance.  If the enormity of what has happened in the Gulf can hold the country's atrophied attention long enough, and if we can mobilize fast enough, we might, just might, be able to bring about a positive change from this:

Real and comprehensive energy and climate legislation.

We must act now to force our legislators to write law with teeth and real effect, law that requires consumers pay the true price of the carbon they burn, law that requires business to pay the true price of the carbon they spew, law that includes the costs of things "no one could have anticipated" into the price of doing business.

We are going to have to fight harder for this than for health care or finance reform or DADT repeal.  We are going to have to find Republicans to turn.  (You really don't think Mary Landrieu is going to oppose her owners on this, do you?)  And we are going to have to do it now, this summer.

Because, despite their never getting another decent shrimp, despite their condo in Destin halving in value, despite all the pictures of ugly, oily critters, America is going to forget this, the largest kill-off the environment will likely see in our lifetimes.  

A new crisis will erupt, a new tragedy will befall an innocent, a celebrity will fuck someone they shouldn't.  Americans will drool by their TVs, remark, "Ain't that somethin'?" and then hop in their vehicles to work and shop and play.  More holes will be dug.

And all of this will have meant nothing.

Unless we use this moment, use the deaths of species and the suffering of people who depend on them, in the most cynical, calculated way, as bad as a Republican after 9/11, to make real, lasting change in how we address the costs of our way of life.

You cannot save the Gulf.  But you can make its death mean something.

The 9/11 comparison might seem a little odd to Bush fans, since the terrorists didn't exactly take a month to arrive at the World Trade Center while the Bush team watched them for weeks without doing much. The Gulf Oil spill also has yet to cost more than 3,000 American lives.

[Hat tip: Marcol's Freak TD]

Earlier: "Crashing Vor" connects Austin suicide pilot to Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber

Also: Maybe Vor is ripping off Tom Friedman on the Obama's 9/11 thing

 The WSJ today points out that: California refutes its own 'green jobs' policy.

 Remember when Governor Arnold promised that California’s "cap and trade" law would reduce emissions and create jobs?  The Governor seemed to believe you could create something simply by passing a restrictive environmental law.

 Oops. 

“A new study by the state's own auditing agency—its version of the Congressional Budget Office—has burst that green bubble.”

The California auditors concluded that cap and trade:

“will raise energy prices, causing the prices of goods and services to rise; lowering business profits; and reducing production, income and jobs."

 No kidding.  

“Yes, some new ‘green jobs’ will be created. But the ‘net economywide impact,’ it says, ‘will in all likelihood be negative.’ Sorry.”

Gosh.  There are actually trade-offs in life.  Who knew?

“In November, Californians will vote on an initiative to suspend AB-32 until the state unemployment rate falls to 5.5%. The rate is now 12.6%, the third highest after Michigan and Nevada…”

Weeks away from defaulting on their debt, Greek politicians promised the International Monetary Fund and the European Union that they would cut spending in exchange for a bailout. But politicians are politicians. They can’t stop spending. Now the Prime Minister has a new idea on how to save Greece: Government subsidies for “green” energy.

“The focus on green economy is no longer just a case of sensitivity towards the environment, but an issue of creating a sustainable economy also,” Papandreou told the 3rd Climate and Energy Security Summit for Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean…

Now the Greek government will spend more for everything from solar panels to home energy conservation:

Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change Tina Birbili announced the subsidization of photovoltaic installations and the connection of the subsidy with the guaranteed price of kilowatt for solar energy.

In addition, the program to upgrade the energy efficiency of buildings is progressing, that is to be followed by an energy conservation program in homes, with subsidies for making structural improvements.

In the same breath, the Greek Prime Minister also blasts speculators:

“[C]loser international cooperation is needed to develop forward-thinking energy policies, as well as face the speculators who now attack Southern European countries.”

Speculators – people who invest their own, not taxpayers’, money – see that his silly policies do harm. And they see that the World Bank ranks Greece 109th, behind Egypt, Ethiopia and Lebanon, in business friendliness. No wonder the Prime Minister doesn’t like speculators.

Unfortunately for Greece, and probably America too, polls show that the people don’t get it, either: 55 percent oppose cutting government spending.

I hope Americans are smarter.

That the leader of a bankrupt country thinks he should spend more to “go green” says a lot a lot about the power of the Green myth. I’ll cover than on my FBN show Thursday.

At first, Michael Mann, a Penn State professor and a central figure in the Climategate scandal, but best known for his discredited "hockey stick graph" didn't like being mocked in a YouTube video. Now Mann is alleging he's a victim of hate groups. 

On ABC's May 23 "World News Sunday," a segment from anchor Dan Harris alleged that threatening e-mails Mann received were part of a "spike" in violence aimed at the global warming alarmist community.

"The ongoing oil spill crisis in the Gulf is keeping the debate over climate and energy very much in the headlines and that debate is becoming increasingly venomous with many prominent scientists now saying that they are being severely harassed," Harris said.

Curiously Harris makes no mention of the real violence in the form of eco-terrorism that has come from the environmental left or Greenpeace repeatedly targeting the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner, by stealing his garbage on a weekly basis, as his Web site points out. Instead, this "severe harassment" ABC warned about were e-mails from fringe Internet elements sent to Mann.

"The FBI tells ABC News it's looking into a spike in threatening e-mails to climate scientists like Penn State's Michael Mann," Harris said.

And Mann, who has a lawsuit against Minnesotans for Climate Change, a group that publicly mocked him for his discredited hockey stick graph, where he allegedly intentionally hid data to accentuate the argument of global warming alarmism, complained that the e-mailers are trying to trample his free speech rights.

"It's an attempt to chill the discourse and I think that's what most disconcerting," Mann said.

But despite overwhelming evidence that Mann's science has some flaws and that there are some bad characters among the global warming alarmists, Harris attempted to link radical fringe elements on the Internet to outspoken climate change alarmism skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.

"A white supremacist Web site recently posted Mann's picture alongside several other climate scientists, with the word ‘Jew' next to each image," Harris said. "To many scientists, however, the most disturbing recent development was a report released by Republican Sen. James Inhofe, naming 17 climate scientists, some of whom Inhofe says have engaged in potentially illegal behavior."

According to Harris and NASA's Dr. Gavin Schmidt, Inhofe's efforts to highlight the evidence that scientists deliberately manipulated data to mislead the public is "McCarthy-ite."

Harris cited internal investigations at these scientists' respective institutions to assure viewers there was nothing wrong.

"Sen. Inhofe's report was referring to an incident late last year known as ClimateGate, where stolen e-mails gave the impression that climate scientists may have been trying to hide flaws in their research, although several subsequent investigations have exonerated the scientists," Harris said.

ABC News did air a few sentences from Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com (A news aggregator site Harris called "aggressive.)

"Sen. Inhofe's former spokesman, Marc Morano, who now runs one of the most aggressive climate skeptic Web sites in the country, did agree to an interview, arguing that skeptics have been getting threats for years."

Morano explained that no one was promoting violence, but when so much on the line from a government policy perspective, the public should be engaged.

"No one is advocating violence," Morano said, "but it is refreshing to see these scientists hear from the public. When you go to a used-car salesman and you get conned ... you don't go back to the used-car dealer all happy and pleasant. You have a lot of anger, and that's what these scientists are appropriately feeling."

Nonetheless, at the end of Harris' segment, Schmidt dismissed any challenges on the theory of anthropogenic global warming and said scientists were too "hyper-competitive" to allow that to happen.

At first, Michael Mann, a Penn State professor and a central figure in the Climategate scandal, but best known for his discredited "hockey stick graph" didn't like being mocked in a YouTube video. Now Mann is alleging he's a victim of hate groups. 

On ABC's May 23 "World News Sunday," a segment from anchor Dan Harris alleged that threatening e-mails Mann received were part of a "spike" in violence aimed at the global warming alarmist community.

"The ongoing oil spill crisis in the Gulf is keeping the debate over climate and energy very much in the headlines and that debate is becoming increasingly venomous with many prominent scientists now saying that they are being severely harassed," Harris said.

Curiously Harris makes no mention of the real violence in the form of eco-terrorism that has come from the environmental left or Greenpeace repeatedly targeting the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner, by stealing his garbage on a weekly basis, as his Web site points out. Instead, this "severe harassment" ABC warned about were e-mails from fringe Internet elements sent to Mann.

"The FBI tells ABC News it's looking into a spike in threatening e-mails to climate scientists like Penn State's Michael Mann," Harris said.

And Mann, who has a lawsuit against Minnesotans for Climate Change, a group that publicly mocked him for his discredited hockey stick graph, where he allegedly intentionally hid data to accentuate the argument of global warming alarmism, complained that the e-mailers are trying to trample his free speech rights.

"It's an attempt to chill the discourse and I think that's what most disconcerting," Mann said.

But despite overwhelming evidence that Mann's science has some flaws and that there are some bad characters among the global warming alarmists, Harris attempted to link radical fringe elements on the Internet to outspoken climate change alarmism skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.

"A white supremacist Web site recently posted Mann's picture alongside several other climate scientists, with the word ‘Jew' next to each image," Harris said. "To many scientists, however, the most disturbing recent development was a report released by Republican Sen. James Inhofe, naming 17 climate scientists, some of whom Inhofe says have engaged in potentially illegal behavior."

According to Harris and NASA's Dr. Gavin Schmidt, Inhofe's efforts to highlight the evidence that scientists deliberately manipulated data to mislead the public is "McCarthy-ite."

Harris cited internal investigations at these scientists' respective institutions to assure viewers there was nothing wrong.

"Sen. Inhofe's report was referring to an incident late last year known as ClimateGate, where stolen e-mails gave the impression that climate scientists may have been trying to hide flaws in their research, although several subsequent investigations have exonerated the scientists," Harris said.

ABC News did air a few sentences from Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com (A news aggregator site Harris called "aggressive."

"Sen. Inhofe's former spokesman, Marc Morano, who now runs one of the most aggressive climate skeptic Web sites in the country, did agree to an interview, arguing that skeptics have been getting threats for years."

Morano explained that no one was promoting violence, but when so much on the line from a government policy perspective, the public should be engaged.

"The public is appropriately angry at these scientists," Morano said. "And again, no one is advocating violence, but it is refreshing to see these scientists hear from the public."

Nonetheless, at the end of Harris' segment, Schmidt dismissed any challenges on the theory of anthropogenic global warming and said scientists were too "hyper-competitive" to allow that to happen.

At first, Michael Mann, a Penn State professor and a central figure in the Climategate scandal, but best known for his discredited "hockey stick graph" didn't like being mocked in a YouTube video. Now Mann is alleging he's a victim of hate groups. 

On ABC's May 23 "World News Sunday," a segment from anchor Dan Harris alleged that threatening e-mails Mann received were part of a "spike" in violence aimed at the global warming alarmist community.

"The ongoing oil spill crisis in the Gulf is keeping the debate over climate and energy very much in the headlines and that debate is becoming increasingly venomous with many prominent scientists now saying that they are being severely harassed," Harris said.

Curiously Harris makes no mention of the real violence in the form of eco-terrorism that has come from the environmental left or Greenpeace repeatedly targeting the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner, by stealing his garbage on a weekly basis, as his Web site points out. Instead, this "severe harassment" ABC warned about were e-mails from fringe Internet elements sent to Mann.

"The FBI tells ABC News it's looking into a spike in threatening e-mails to climate scientists like Penn State's Michael Mann," Harris said.

And Mann, who has a lawsuit against Minnesotans for Climate Change, a group that publicly mocked him for his discredited hockey stick graph, where he allegedly intentionally hid data to accentuate the argument of global warming alarmism, complained that the e-mailers are trying to trample his free speech rights.

"It's an attempt to chill the discourse and I think that's what most disconcerting," Mann said.

But despite overwhelming evidence that Mann's science has some flaws and that there are some bad characters among the global warming alarmists, Harris attempted to link radical fringe elements on the Internet to outspoken climate change alarmism skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.

"A white supremacist Web site recently posted Mann's picture alongside several other climate scientists, with the word ‘Jew' next to each image," Harris said. "To many scientists, however, the most disturbing recent development was a report released by Republican Sen. James Inhofe, naming 17 climate scientists, some of whom Inhofe says have engaged in potentially illegal behavior."

According to Harris and NASA's Dr. Gavin Schmidt, Inhofe's efforts to highlight the evidence that scientists deliberately manipulated data to mislead the public is "McCarthy-ite."

Harris cited internal investigations at these scientists' respective institutions to assure viewers there was nothing wrong.

"Sen. Inhofe's report was referring to an incident late last year known as ClimateGate, where stolen e-mails gave the impression that climate scientists may have been trying to hide flaws in their research, although several subsequent investigations have exonerated the scientists," Harris said.

ABC News did air a few sentences from Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com (A news aggregator site Harris called "aggressive."

"Sen. Inhofe's former spokesman, Marc Morano, who now runs one of the most aggressive climate skeptic Web sites in the country, did agree to an interview, arguing that skeptics have been getting threats for years."

Morano explained that no one was promoting violence, but when so much on the line from a government policy perspective, the public should be engaged.

"The public is appropriately angry at these scientists," Morano said. "And again, no one is advocating violence, but it is refreshing to see these scientists hear from the public."

Nonetheless, at the end of Harris' segment, Schmidt dismissed any challenges on the theory of anthropogenic global warming and said scientists were too "hyper-competitive" to allow that to happen.

—– “What I try and do is try and, with the knowledge that I have, is offset my contribution to [carbon emissions]. I think people that don’t move around as much as me can take...

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A far-left Democratic congressman is accusing conservative commentators of improperly -- perhaps illegally -- conspiring with advertisers to shill for their products under the guise of political opinion. The accusers, however, conveniently ignore liberal commentators that do virtually the same thing, only on a far larger scale.

Rep. Anthony Weiner released a report yesterday alleging that Goldline "has formed an unholy alliance with conservative pundits to drive a false narrative and play off public fears in order to sell its products," according to a release. Under "conservative pundits," read the Fox News Channel, and specifically Glenn Beck.

Weiner has this far neglected to criticize Fox's cable news competitor MSNBC and its parent network, which consistently shill for policies that would dramatically enrich their parent company, General Electric. GE's communications arm consistently further's Weiner's own political agenda, so a double standard seems to be afoot his his failure to call NBC out on its colossal conflict on interest.

Washington Examiner columnist Tim Carney has reported extensively on NBC pushing policies that stand to make the parent company boatloads of cash.

GE spends millions lobbying to protect and expand the cornucopia of wind subsidies that includes a "production tax credit" for wind farms, government mandates on utilities to buy wind power and local subsidies. In one case in upstate New York, the GE turbines will be powering a wind farm completed using eminent domain.

GE’s coal gasification, solar power generation, electric cars and biodiesel businesses are the same: Consumers and investors acting with their own money would not patronize these technologies, but Congress, acting with your money, will. GE’s $20 million annual lobbying budget sees to it.

GE has also launched a venture dealing in "greenhouse gas credits," which are literally worthless until Congress starts limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Throw in the expensive but unattractive light bulbs they’ve convinced Congress to mandate, and the pattern is clear.

But the innocent viewer of NBC isn’t informed of the network’s vested interest in environmental laws. He is just fed a parade of beautiful celebrities talking about the virtues and necessity of "going green." If David Schwimmer and Alicia Silverstone can convince you to become an environmentalist, then GE has "grassroots" demand for the federal policies that will enrich it.

NBC's Green Week is perhaps the most striking example of NBC's concerted effort to push the green agenda, and, concurrently, laud policies that would dramatically enrich GE.

I called Weiner's office to ask whether he would also be investigating the conflict of interest inherent in NBC's pushing policies that benefit GE, given his concern about TV personalities spreading hysteria under the guise of political commentary for financial gain. Weiner's office did not return a request for comment by press time.

Green Week is an extensive operation, as Joel Makower, director of Greener World Media notes. The scope of the week's message goes far beyond simple advertisements. The project

involves the full spectrum of NBC properties, including its eponymous TV network as well as CNBC, MSNBC, NBC News, NBC Sports, SciFi Channel, Sundance Channel, Bravo, USA Network, and Telemundo — plus Universal Studios and its related theme parks, and the company's websites, including female-focused iVillage. Dozens of shows will have environmental themes or messaging, from Sami and Lucas' green wedding on "Days of Our Lives," to MSNBC's examination of green issues in the 2008 presidential campaign, to "The Office" (based at a fictional paper company) considering recycled paper, to CNBC's broadcast from a clean-tech conference. Tom Brokaw, Matt Lauer, Bob Costas, and other heavyweight talents have been conscripted into the effort. Local NBC stations will incorporate green-themed stories into their newscasts and some will run a half-hour special on "Going Green at Any Age!" Universal Pictures will run environmental public service announcements as part of its online movie trailers and as ads in theater lobbies.

There's more. You get the idea. Suffice to say it's a full-court press.

And needless to say, it a much more concerted, sustained, and large-scale effort than your average television commercial or on-air endorsement. In other words, GE's subsidiaries do far more to push the green agenda than any pundit does to sell gold to his or her viewers.

Beck postulated on his radio show yesterday that Weiner's effort is part of a campaign to get him off the air. He noted that "three advisors of this president … have launched official campaigns boycotting my sponsors" and accused Weiner of using McCarthyite tactics.



Goldline was also a bit accusatory in discussing the report. “It feels like it’s politically motivated," said CEO Mark Albarian, "in that neither the Congressman nor anybody from his office ever contacted executives form the company to really ask the important questions that they need to ask to understand this business.”

Others were simply dismissive of Weiner's allegations, such as former GOP presidential contender Fred Thompson, who told Politico,

The runaway spending policies of Congressman Weiner and his international soul mates drive up gold prices and he blames talk radio? Apparently, those correspondence courses in economics are letting him down again. Frankly, I am outraged that he thinks me so crass as to use every opportunity to pitch a product ... and by the way, my new book, Teaching the Pig to Dance is in bookstores today, or from my website: teachingthepigtodance.com.

It's a popular argument used by many in the global warming alarmist activist community - that there's a Christian basis for combating the threat of so-called anthropogenic global warming. In 2008, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean admitted as much - that his party use this issue in particular to win over the Christian community.

And it is one that has been echoed by the media as well. From The Washington Post to CNN, the press has propagated the belief that Holy Scripture teaches that man has a responsibility to combat global warming. But that's not the case, according to Dr. Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. Beisner, speaking at the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change on May 18 in Chicago, was asked if there was any Biblical basis that would lead evangelical Christians to assume they had a duty to join the anti-global warming bandwagon.

"I don't think they have any good Biblical basis at all," Beisner said. "What they do is they jump quickly from the Biblical teaching that we're supposed to be caring for the poor to ‘global warming is going to hurt the poor more than it hurts anybody else,' which by the way is true of every problem. You know, poverty makes you vulnerable, period. Wealth makes you less vulnerable, period. There's even a proverb in the book of Proverbs that says essentially that."

According to Beisner, the belief that fighting global warming was a component of helping the poor was specifically used by the Evangelical Environmental Network and endorsed by others to make this case.

"They jump quickly from, ‘We need to help the poor,' to ‘global warming is going to hurt the poor, therefore we need to fight global warming,'" Beisner said. "In 2006, a group - the Evangelical Environmental Network launched a new project called the Environmental Climate Initiative, which put out a statement, ‘Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action.' And that statement was endorsed by 86 different leading evangelicals - presidents of the evangelical colleges, admission organizations. And I went down the list of endorsers. There was no list of authors of that. I later found out the main author was an ethics professor named David Gushee. When I debated him over that at this university, he told me before the debate, ‘You know when I was preparing for this debate, I found out the science was a whole more nuanced than I realized when I wrote the paper.' I thought, ‘David, you should have known that before you wrote.'"

Beisner explained this desire stems from a misunderstanding of the science and the economic consequences of acting on this alleged threat.

"But, I asked and various reporters asked a number of different people who endorsed that statement why they endorsed it and what did they know about the science," Beisner said. "None of them knew anything about the science. I could recognize that because I knew most of them. But I knew that they didn't have the background in either the science or the economics to assess what claims are being made. One of them, a president of a very well known evangelical college said, ‘I just wanted to make it clear I wanted to help the poor.'"

The bottom line: The Bible doesn't suggest Christians have a duty to in their day-to-day behavior to limit their carbon output.

"That's about the extent of it," he continued. "There is no Biblical basis. In fact, we don't argue for a very strong Biblical world view that resists the notion that the minute change in atmospheric chemistries - CO₂ going from 28,000^ths of a percent of the atmosphere to 54,000^ths of a percent is going to cause devastation that's going to put human civilization at risk. I just don't think that fits a Biblical world view at all and we give a number of reasons why we think so."

Four days after Senate Democrats introduced a new bill to limit carbon emissions, an international conference discussing the scientific holes in the theory of man-made global warming began in Chicago.

Despite the attendance of hundreds of scientists from across the globe, as well as polls finding Americans becoming less and less convinced that man has anything to do with the warming trend the planet has experienced since 1850, our nation's media couldn't care less.

The Fourth International Conference on Climate Change included such renowned scientists as MIT's Richard Lindzen, University of Virginia's S. Fred Singer, and former NASA astronaut and Senator Harrison Schmidt.

The event kicked off Sunday evening with a detailed discussion of the facts surrounding last year's ClimateGate scandal by Climate Audit's Stephen McIntyre (videos in three parts follow with commentary):

During one of Monday's breakout sessions, Western Washington University's Don Easterbrook claimed that the recent warming trend that began in the '70s is officially over, and predicted that we have entered a lengthy period of cooling.

In a paper he published Sunday evening just as the Conference was beginning, Easterbrook cautioned:

1. A recent study showed that twice as many people are killed by extreme cold than by extreme heat.

2. Global cooling will have an adverse effect on food production because of shorter growing seasons, cooler growing seasons, and bad weather during harvest seasons. This is already happening in the Midwestern U.S., China, India, and other places in the world. Hardest hit will be third world countries where millions are already near starvation levels.

3. Increase in per capita energy demands, especially for heating.

4. Decrease in the ability to cope with problems related to the population explosion. World population is projected to reach more than 9 billion by 2050, an increase of 50%. This means a substantial increase in demand for food and energy at a time when both are decreasing because of the cooling climate.

Many other scientists present concurred with Easterbrook's claim. Some even offered far more dire predictions that the cooling which began in 1998 could end up lasting far longer than the few decades Easterbrook is forecasting.

One would think such predictions, especially given the harsh winter many Americans experienced this year, would be of interest to the weather junkies in the media.

Unfortunately, Google news and LexisNexis searches have not identified one major news outlet covering the proceedings in Chicago.

For those interested, the Conference's sponsor, the Heartland Institute, has videos available of the keynote speeches through Monday. More videos will be posted as they come available. 

Readers are advised that the Media Research Center is a co-sponsor of this conference. 

If you asked people what the two key events in the 20th century were, most would likely point to World Wars I and II because they transformed civilization. However, can something like the debate over climate change be as equally transformative? 

James Delingpole, author of "Welcome to Obamaland: I've Seen Your Future And It Doesn't Work," spoke at the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change on May 17, and insisted he wasn't being hyperbolic when he likened the climate change debate to the two world wars. Delingpole, who coined the term "ClimateGate," alleged the debate of the issue and the potential policies it may lead to would in fact shape the world as those two event had. [7:29]

"[I] think that evil people like me, people who are not afraid of taking the argument ad hominem occasionally and being a bit sort of naughty - I think we have a part to play in this war," Delingpole said. "And I use that word ‘war' quite deliberately because I think what we are fighting now is a war as important in its way as the wars of violence that our fathers and our grandfather fought in the first World War, the second World War, because ultimately what we're fighting for is exactly the same thing. What we are fighting for is liberty."

Delingpole had written for the U.K. Telegraph's blog on Nov. 20, 2009, this was the final nail in the coffin of the manmade or "anthropogenic global warming" debate. However, he had expressed concern the momentum in the debate had waned and said the battle wasn't just scientific, but ideological.

"The whole debate about AGW [anthropogenic global warming] is not just about the battle for scientific truth," he continued. "It is essentially a battle between two diametrically opposed views of the world. If you look at the entire history of the global warming movement from the junk science that was Rachel Carson's ‘Silent Spring' that killed millions of people by banning the drug that dealt with malaria and mosquitoes."

He said the global warming alarmist crowd was anti-capitalism and generally more anti-humanity, hence the obsession with Malthusian theory and mankind's role on the planet.

"You look at the entire history of the global warming movement and what you realize time and again - it is the work of not of scientists pursuing truth but of activists who have a very particular view of the world," Delingpole said. "That view is essentially a view of the world which hates humanity, which sees mankind as a blot on the landscape. They are obsessed with the idea of overpopulation. They are also very much against capitalism in any form. They talk about the limits to growth."

For evidence of this hypothesis, Delingpole offered the alarmists' view of what solutions are appropriate, through big government and the doubt in man's ability to innovate. [9:55]

"So they hate people, they hate the western economy," Delingpole said. "And that believe resources are scarce. We're going to run out very soon and we must do something about it and the only way to deal with it is not as we've dealt with them in the past by inventing new technologies but by big government stepping in and telling us what to do and controlling our lives."

Widely reviled by the left, Bush’s faith-based initiatives were claimed to be evidence that Bush was a “religious zealot” trying to destroy America with evil Christianity. Now, two years into the Obama administration, we are seeing what Obama intends to do with his continuation of Bush’s faith-based offices: he wants to use them to push the religion of Greenicanism on America’s churches.

This month Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships issued its final report of recommendations and the result is nothing short of astonishing. (download .pdf file)

The question that immediately comes to mind, of course, is if the left will explode in excoriation of Obama’s faith-based policies as it did with Bush’s?

The left was out of its mind over Bush’s ideas. In 2004, for instance, the website TheocracyWatch.org hyperbolically said, “Under the Bush administration, our country is experiencing a major transformation from a secular to a religious government. The President’s faith-based initiative is central to this transformation and raises serious questions about church-state separation.” This was the left-wing talking points du jour on Bush’s faith-based programs.

It wasn’t just the left, but even from the libertarian side Bush’s ideas were attacked. Alex Epstein of the Ayn Rand Institute said that the faith-based initiative was a “direct violation” of the Constitution.

And the media universally hated the idea. Lew Daly of Boston Review magazine tried to color Bush’s program as a “seismic change in American politics,” and for The New York Times Ron Suskind breathlessly burbled that Bush had, “created the faith-based presidency.” And those were what passed for the civil proclamations, others were more nutty by claiming that Bush was a religious zealot that was destroying the country through that evil Christianity stuff.

Candidate Obama was widely expected to dispense with the faith-based office. But in 2008 when the AP reported that Obama intended to leave the Bush faith-based programs in place, the left was apoplectic. Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State criticized Obama over it. “I am disappointed that any presidential candidate would want to continue a failed policy of the Bush administration,” Lynn said. “It ought to be shut down, not continued.”

After the AP’s report candidate Obama himself spun reports as a distortion. In July of 2008, Obama addressed the issue in a speech in Zanesville, Ohio.

“Now, make no mistake, as someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don’t believe this partnership will endanger that idea – so long as we follow a few basic principles. First, if you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs. And we’ll also ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work.”

As with most things that Obama says, this claim that was then. While Obama is following the left-wing penchant to eschew actual religiosity, Obama has apparently decided that his own special brand of religion would be what is promulgated with his continuation of Bush’s faith-based policies. The money he’s spending to “proselytize” his green ideas apparently doesn’t strike him as a violation of his 2008 proclamations.

Recently Meghan Clyne wrote an excellent piece in the Weekly Standard that detailed how Obama is using his faith-based program to push global warming, climate change, and green initiatives on America’s churches and he’s doing so by brazenly coupling his faith-based council with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Apparently, the president’s council envisions the “partnership” between government and religious institutions as a means of spreading the administration’s environmental warnings, rather than just a way to help churches feed the hungry and clothe the poor. Faith-based organizations, the report notes, can take “a prominent leadership role in influencing policy, education, and action in those areas.”

…The council hopes the new EPA faith office will also help churches and other nonprofits improve “access to financing,” including “establishing revolving loan programs or working with utility companies to help finance greening building projects.” The ultimate aim of all this government-supported retrofitting is clear: “Regional staff would work to engage local faith-and community-based groups to help meet Obama administration targets for greening buildings and promoting environmental quality.”

So, Obama wants to use federal subsidies offered through he EPA and his faith-based outreach to get churches to promulgate the green faith.

Of course, it’s hard to see Obama’s use of faith-based initiatives to push his environmental message and spending millions of tax dollars to do so differs in any material way when measured by the left’s anti-Bush yard stick when they criticized his policies. The left universally cried that Bush was cynically using religion to further his political policies. No one can look at Obama’s current policies and see any reason to excuse him from being smeared with the same brush the left used to tar Bush.

Clyne also makes a seminal point. “Perhaps it’s only reasonable that global-warming activists would turn to God for help as the scientific case for their position collapses,” Clyne wrote. It’s all as if “Climategate had never happened,” she says.

It is indeed.

A California middle school and state university both apparently find extreme environmentalist indoctrination to be worthy of expending taxpayer dollars. Jehue Middle School and California State University at San Bernardio were both involved in the making and promotion of a video called "Environmental Police Agency" which features middle schoolers going around tackling and arresting "non-environmentalists" for crimes like having a refrigerator, leaving computer screens on, and throwing away a soda can. At the end they caution that drastic times call for drastic measures so we should institute this kind of green police state to save the world.

Read this post at the Eyeblast Blog in order to get all of the information on the video.

This week, Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) will host a press conference announcing the fifth reinvention of “cap-and-trade” global warming legislation since 2003, the “American Power Act”. Call it the American Power Grab Act, instead, for reasons that will become obvious momentarily.

The orchestrated spectacle, with a cast expected to be in the dozens and which all involved appear convinced will persuade you of the justness of their cause, is in fact a manifestation of all that is wrong with Washington and what Americans have become increasingly enraged by.

At this press conference, Sens. Kerry and Lieberman have both already indicated, they will insist that their scheme isn’t “cap-and-trade” because they aren’t going to use that term this time around. Kerry has even said that “this is not an environment bill.” It seems that the public aren’t buying that argument, either, so it’s really about whatever appeals to you. Just not what it was about the previous four times they’ve tried to slip this Power Grab past you. Except I’ve seen a copy of the bill. Yes it is cap-and-trade. And worse.

For this latest effort to hide an enormous tax and wealth transfer — a unilateral move that guarantees jobs will be shipped to China, India, Philippines, Mexico and elsewhere — – these lawmakers will be surrounded by numerous representatives of Big Green. That includes not just the wealthy pressure group industry but many among “Big Business”, numerous of whom are the benefactors enabling those pressure group chiefs’ huge salaries and vast PR budgets to scare you into accepting an agenda that uses the state to, oddly enough, enrich these same companies. Huh.

Sen. Lieberman has repeatedly teased the breadth of the organized scrum as proof that the scheme is now a good idea.  Absent from his cheerleading is the fact that you are not represented at the table when your wealth and future prospects were being divvied up.

The reason for so many businesses leaping onto the stage today is also the dog that surely will not bark when the media report on industry’s touting of an enormous energy tax and wealth transfer from individuals: why do they support this?

The answer is because they have been promised a slice of the spoils taken from the average taxpayer and ratepayer. I detail who these companies are and how they hope to cash in on this scheme in my new book “Power Grab“. For example, consider Exelon. This Chicago-based utility, which today is expected to be represented both individually by its CEO and by its trade association the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), expects more than one billion dollars in increased profits for no additional capital investment if the scheme announced today passes. Their only cost would have been the lobbyists.

That’s just one company. But the windfall, arranged by politicians, comes from average American families. The company even admits the whole sordid mess in a Forbes article from earlier this year:

“Exelon needs that legislation to happen sooner rather than later. Without a carbon price of some sort, Exelon’s fortunes aren’t so bright…. ‘The conundrums are real,’ [Exelon CEO John] Rowe acknowledges. ‘There’s nothing that’s going to drive Exelon’s profit in the next couple of years wildly. It just isn’t going to happen.’

Except, of course, carbon legislation. And because of that, the company views spending on lobbying for legislation almost like a capital expense….

Exelon has very deep ties to the Obama Administration. Frank M. Clark, who runs ComEd, helped advise Obama before he ran for President and is one of Obama’s largest fundraisers. Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, worked as a consultant to Exelon. Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, helped create Exelon. Emanuel was hired by Rowe to help broker the $8.2 billion deal between Unicom and Peco when Emanuel was at the investment bank Wasserstein Perella (now Dresdner Kleinwort). In his two-year career there Emanuel earned $16.2 million, according to congressional disclosures. His biggest deal was the Exelon merger.”

The article details how Exelon wrote the provisions allocating the energy use “allowances”, or ration coupons. Others, including (according to Sen. Kerry) BP, wrote the provisions applying to oil companies, to ensure costs are passed straight through to you.

I lay the particularly odious example of Exelon — and those of others on the dais, ranging from Duke Energy to GE to “Chicago Climate Exchange” members — bare in “Power Grab“. Before your elected representatives impose this on you later this year, as soon as by the July 4 congressional recess, educate yourself on the rhetoric and ruses employed to part you from your money and, if history is any guide, threaten your family’s lives and indeed your livelihood altogether.

It seems radical environmentalists aren't satisfied with their current level of alarmist rhetoric so they're kicking it up a notch. Now they are launching a new campaign against something they call "ecocide":

Make sure you check out this post on the Eyeblast blog for all the details on this new "ecocide" campaign.

After making a fool out of himself going up against George Will on last Sunday's "This Week," Bill Maher dug an even deeper hole five days later trying to strike back at the well-known columnist with a peculiar blend of falsehoods and Bill Clinton.

As NewsBusters previously reported, Maher was humiliated on national television last week when he errantly claimed Brazil was "off oil" only to be corrected by ABC's token conservative.

On Friday's "Real Time," the HBO host countered first by citing an ad that former President Bill Clinton did back in 2006 in favor of a California ballot initiative that would have implemented a tax on that state's oil producers.

Next, Maher absurdly claimed that "part of the reason" America isn't off oil yet is "because of global warming deniers like George Will" (video follows with transcript and oodles of commentary):

BILL MAHER: I want to say one more thing about the oil spill. I was on, I was in D.C. this weekend, and I did "This Week." I did not realize that there are shows like this on in the morning. And Sunday, they were very nice to me. George Will obviously had it out for me and doesn't like me. That's okay. That's not mutual. I've been a fan of George Will, reading, I'm just a sucker for good writing. He knows how to write, he's an excellent prose stylist...Sometimes a guy can be full of shit, but he writes well. And, you know, he got me on something technical. I said Brazil got off the oil and we could too. We were talking about the oil spill. And yes, Brazil did not exactly get off the oil, but after the '70s, the spirit of what I said was correct. After the '70s oil crisis, they tried a lot harder than we do, and like half their cars now run on, on synth-fuel, ethanol.

Okay, what I was remembering was there was an ad out here in 2006 for Prop 87, which was for us to get off oil, and Bill Clinton did the ad. And Bill Clinton said in the ad, "Imagine if we can stop being dependent on foreign oil. Brazil did it. If Brazil can do it, so can California." Now, I'm sure the conservatives are saying, "Well, yeah, there's one mushy-headed liberal listening to another mushy-headed liberal and getting your facts wrong."

The "spirit" of what he said was correct?

Hardly. As NewsBusters pointed out last Sunday:

Brazil is the eighth largest consumer of oil in the world burning 2.372 million barrels a day. That places them ahead of Canada, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Mexico, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Spain.

Furthermore, according to the CIA, Brazil is the thirteenth largest producer of oil in the world putting them ahead of Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Nigeria, Angola, Libya, and Great Britain.

As such, regardless of "spirit," Maher was dead wrong.

As for bringing Clinton in as part of his defense, let's look at what the former President said:

BILL CLINTON: Imagine if we can stop being dependent on foreign oil. Brazil did it 

Take a close look at the word before "oil." As Maher noted, Clinton was referring to FOREIGN oil. What Maher said last Sunday had nothing to do with Brazil getting off FOREIGN oil. He said they were off OIL.

Adding insult to injury, Clinton was wrong in this commercial anyway, for according to the Energy Information Administration, Brazil was a net importer of oil in 2006 when the former President made this pathetic claim:

 

As Maher jokingly implied, this indeed WAS an instance of "one mushy-headed liberal listening to another mushy-headed liberal and getting [the] facts wrong." If I only got a dollar every time THAT happened.

On the other hand, at least Maher was right about something, for as he moved back to Will, he continued to jam his feet down his throat:

Well, okay, so we didn't get it exactly right. But, you know what, the bigger question is why haven't we actually gotten off the oil? And part of the reason is because of global warming deniers like George Will. And he knows better, he knows better. And he uses facts, or parts of facts, way more erroneous than I did. In one of his columns, he said, "According to the University of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea levels now equal those of 1979." Well, there is no Arctic Climate Research Center at the University of Illinois, but there are climate scientists, and they said, "We don't know where Mr. Will is getting his information. Our data shows that in February '79, global sea ice was 16.79 million square kilometers, and in 2009 it was 15.45, a decrease in sea ice the area the size of Texas, California, Oklahoma combined."...These aren't views, these are misshapen facts.  

Let's begin with Maher's next misstatement:  "Well, there is no Arctic Climate Research Center at the University of Illinois."

Really? Well, in climate alarmist extraordinaire Joe Romm's rebuttal to Will's February 15, 2009, piece that Maher referred to, he called this group the "University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center."

On the very day Will's article was published, Romm cited the response to Will's claim by the Center which didn't challenge the name Will used either:

The group Will (mis-)cites - the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center - has become weary of having their data misreported by global warming deniers like Will. They just posted a reply on their website:

In an opinion piece by George Will published on February 15, 2009 in the Washington Post, George Will states "According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979."

We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km.

If there is no University of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Center, why did someone from the University respond to Will's piece saying "We," and why did Romm call them the same thing?

For the record, articles associated with this group go to the URL "http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/." The page header reads, "Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois." 

Clearly, this was another example of the "Real Time" host making a statement lacking any factual support. 

As for the rest of Maher's claim, Will addressed critics of his February 15 article with a follow-up on February 27:

Citing data from the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, as interpreted on Jan. 1 by Daily Tech, a technology and science news blog, the column said that since September "the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began." According to the center, global sea ice levels at the end of 2008 were "near or slightly lower than" those of 1979. The center generally does not make its statistics available, but in a Jan. 12 statement the center confirmed that global sea ice levels were within a difference of less than 3 percent of the 1980 level.

So the column accurately reported what the center had reported. But on Feb. 15, the Sunday the column appeared, the center, then receiving many e-mail inquiries, issued a statement saying "we do not know where George Will is getting his information." The answer was: From the center, via Daily Tech. Consult the center's Web site where, on Jan. 12, the center posted the confirmation of the data that this column subsequently reported accurately. 

This is the Daily Tech piece Will referenced:

Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.

Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.

The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.

 Here's what the Center wrote on January 12, 2009, in response to Daily Tech:

On January 1, 2009, an article by Michael Asher entitled "Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979" appeared on the Daily Tech website. We have received many requests for confirmation and clarification on this article from media outlets and interested individuals regarding the current state of the cryosphere as it relates to climate change and/or global warming.

One important detail about the article in the Daily Tech is that the author is comparing the GLOBAL sea ice area from December 31, 2008 to same variable for December 31, 1979. [...]

Observed global sea ice area, defined here as a sum of N. Hemisphere and S. Hemisphere sea ice areas, is near or slightly lower than those observed in late 1979, as noted in the Daily Tech article.  However, observed N. Hemisphere sea ice area is almost one million sq. km below values seen in late 1979 and S. Hemisphere sea ice area is about 0.5 million sq. km above that seen in late 1979, partly offsetting the N. Hemisphere reduction.

The dates here are important, for what Asher claimed on January 1, 2009 -- and what Will referred to about six weeks later -- was that global sea ice levels were the same on December 31, 2008, as they were on December 31, 1979.

Yet, what Maher read from the Center -- referred to in Romm's piece -- was a sea ice comparison of February 15, 2009 and February 15, 1979.

Readers are advised that sea ice conditions around the world fluctuate daily. To drive home this point, the website Global Warming Hoax compared such levels observed on January 31, 1980 and January 31, 2009 (one month after Daily Tech's comparison dates respectively):

1980 Southern Hemisphere = 4.7 million sq km

1980 Northern Hemisphere = 15.0 million sq km

Total = 19.7 million sq km

2009 Southern Hemisphere = 5.8 million sq km

2009 Northern Hemisphere = 14.1 million sq km

Total = 19.9 million sq km

January in the year 2009 showed 200,000 sq km more sea ice than 1980.

Taking this a step further, recent data show sea ice levels in the Arctic returning to historical norms since satellites first began such measurements in 1979.

Add it all up, and ice levels represent another part of the great debate between climate alarmists and realists, one that Maher was foolish to delve into on Friday, especially in an attempt to strike back at Will for calling him out on "This Week" five days earlier.

But Maher was on his home turf now, and knew he'd be safely unchallenged, even though guest David Frum did fight the host on some general points regarding climate change dogma.

Yet, the real problem with Maher is his absurdly extreme conclusions like blaming what he disgusting refers to as "global warming deniers" for America still being dependent on oil.

America has been talking about foreign oil independence since the first energy crisis in 1973. To claim the global warming debate, which has really only heated up (pardon the pun) in recent years as a result of Hurricane Katrina and Al Gore's schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth," has at all hindered this goal is preposterous.

Were "global warming deniers" responsible for the Senate unanimously voting in favor of an amendment in 1997 instructing former President Clinton to not sign the infamous Kyoto Protocol?

Did "global warming deniers" force Gore when he was vice president to say in 1997, "We will not submit [the Kyoto Treaty] for ratification until there`s meaningful participation by key developing nations?"

Certainly not. But Maher on Friday, in his zeal to do something to save face after his humiliation on "This Week," chose to point such a finger of blame without any factual support.  

Which leads to a final point: as much as Maher hates religion, his opinions regarding global warming, along with his blind faith in the views espoused by those that preach its scripture, are amazingly similar to that which he outspokenly despises.

Talk about your inconvenient truths! 

After making a fool out of himself going up against George Will on last Sunday's "This Week," Bill Maher dug an even deeper hole five days later trying to strike back at the well-known columnist with a peculiar blend of falsehoods and Bill Clinton.

As NewsBusters previously reported, Maher was humiliated on national television last week when he errantly claimed Brazil was "off oil" only to be corrected by ABC's token conservative.

On Friday's "Real Time," the HBO host countered first by citing an ad that former President Bill Clinton did back in 2006 in favor of a California ballot initiative that would have implemented a tax on that state's oil producers.

Next, Maher absurdly claimed that "part of the reason" America isn't off oil yet is "because of global warming deniers like George Will" (video follows with transcript and oodles of commentary):

BILL MAHER: I want to say one more thing about the oil spill. I was on, I was in D.C. this weekend, and I did "This Week." I did not realize that there are shows like this on in the morning. And Sunday, they were very nice to me. George Will obviously had it out for me and doesn't like me. That's okay. That's not mutual. I've been a fan of George Will, reading, I'm just a sucker for good writing. He knows how to write, he's an excellent prose stylist...Sometimes a guy can be full of shit, but he writes well. And, you know, he got me on something technical. I said Brazil got off the oil and we could too. We were talking about the oil spill. And yes, Brazil did not exactly get off the oil, but after the '70s, the spirit of what I said was correct. After the '70s oil crisis, they tried a lot harder than we do, and like half their cars now run on, on synth-fuel, ethanol.

Okay, what I was remembering was there was an ad out here in 2006 for Prop 87, which was for us to get off oil, and Bill Clinton did the ad. And Bill Clinton said in the ad, "Imagine if we can stop being dependent on foreign oil. Brazil did it. If Brazil can do it, so can California." Now, I'm sure the conservatives are saying, "Well, yeah, there's one mushy-headed liberal listening to another mushy-headed liberal and getting your facts wrong."

The "spirit" of what he said was correct?

Hardly. As NewsBusters pointed out last Sunday:

Brazil is the eighth largest consumer of oil in the world burning 2.372 million barrels a day. That places them ahead of Canada, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Mexico, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Spain.

Furthermore, according to the CIA, Brazil is the thirteenth largest producer of oil in the world putting them ahead of Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Nigeria, Angola, Libya, and Great Britain.

As such, regardless of "spirit," Maher was dead wrong.

As for bringing Clinton in as part of his defense, let's look at what the former President said:

BILL CLINTON: Imagine if we can stop being dependent on foreign oil. Brazil did it 

Take a close look at the word before "oil." As Maher noted, Clinton was referring to FOREIGN oil. What Maher said last Sunday had nothing to do with Brazil getting off FOREIGN oil. He said they were off OIL.

Adding insult to injury, Clinton was wrong in this commercial anyway, for according to the Energy Information Administration, Brazil was a net importer of oil in 2006 when the former President made this pathetic claim:

 

As Maher jokingly implied, this indeed WAS an instance of "one mushy-headed liberal listening to another mushy-headed liberal and getting [the] facts wrong." If I only got a dollar every time THAT happened.

On the other hand, at least Maher was right about something, for as he moved back to Will, he continued to jam his feet down his throat:

Well, okay, so we didn't get it exactly right. But, you know what, the bigger question is why haven't we actually gotten off the oil? And part of the reason is because of global warming deniers like George Will. And he knows better, he knows better. And he uses facts, or parts of facts, way more erroneous than I did. In one of his columns, he said, "According to the University of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea levels now equal those of 1979." Well, there is no Arctic Climate Research Center at the University of Illinois, but there are climate scientists, and they said, "We don't know where Mr. Will is getting his information. Our data shows that in February '79, global sea ice was 16.79 million square kilometers, and in 2009 it was 15.45, a decrease in sea ice the area the size of Texas, California, Oklahoma combined."...These aren't views, these are misshapen facts.  

Let's begin with Maher's next misstatement:  "Well, there is no Arctic Climate Research Center at the University of Illinois."

Really? Well, in climate alarmist extraordinaire Joe Romm's rebuttal to Will's February 15, 2009, piece that Maher referred to, he called this group the "University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center."

On the very day Will's article was published, Romm cited the response to Will's claim by the Center which didn't challenge the name Will used either:

The group Will (mis-)cites - the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center - has become weary of having their data misreported by global warming deniers like Will. They just posted a reply on their website:

In an opinion piece by George Will published on February 15, 2009 in the Washington Post, George Will states "According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979."

We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km.

If there is no University of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Center, why did someone from the University respond to Will's piece saying "We," and why did Romm call them the same thing?

For the record, articles associated with this group go to the URL "http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/." The page header reads, "Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois." 

Clearly, this was another example of the "Real Time" host making a statement lacking any factual support. 

As for the rest of Maher's claim, Will addressed critics of his February 15 article with a follow-up on February 27:

Citing data from the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, as interpreted on Jan. 1 by Daily Tech, a technology and science news blog, the column said that since September "the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began." According to the center, global sea ice levels at the end of 2008 were "near or slightly lower than" those of 1979. The center generally does not make its statistics available, but in a Jan. 12 statement the center confirmed that global sea ice levels were within a difference of less than 3 percent of the 1980 level.

So the column accurately reported what the center had reported. But on Feb. 15, the Sunday the column appeared, the center, then receiving many e-mail inquiries, issued a statement saying "we do not know where George Will is getting his information." The answer was: From the center, via Daily Tech. Consult the center's Web site where, on Jan. 12, the center posted the confirmation of the data that this column subsequently reported accurately. 

This is the Daily Tech piece Will referenced:

Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.

Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.

The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.

 Here's what the Center wrote on January 12, 2009, in response to Daily Tech:

On January 1, 2009, an article by Michael Asher entitled "Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979" appeared on the Daily Tech website. We have received many requests for confirmation and clarification on this article from media outlets and interested individuals regarding the current state of the cryosphere as it relates to climate change and/or global warming.

One important detail about the article in the Daily Tech is that the author is comparing the GLOBAL sea ice area from December 31, 2008 to same variable for December 31, 1979. [...]

Observed global sea ice area, defined here as a sum of N. Hemisphere and S. Hemisphere sea ice areas, is near or slightly lower than those observed in late 1979, as noted in the Daily Tech article.  However, observed N. Hemisphere sea ice area is almost one million sq. km below values seen in late 1979 and S. Hemisphere sea ice area is about 0.5 million sq. km above that seen in late 1979, partly offsetting the N. Hemisphere reduction.

The dates here are important, for what Asher claimed on January 1, 2009 -- and what Will referred to about six weeks later -- was that global sea ice levels were the same on December 31, 2008, as they were on December 31, 1979.

Yet, what Maher read from the Center -- referred to in Romm's piece -- was a sea ice comparison of February 15, 2009 and February 15, 1979.

Readers are advised that sea ice conditions around the world fluctuate daily. To drive home this point, the website Global Warming Hoax compared such levels observed on January 31, 1980 and January 31, 2009 (one month after Daily Tech's comparison dates respectively):

1980 Southern Hemisphere = 4.7 million sq km

1980 Northern Hemisphere = 15.0 million sq km

Total = 19.7 million sq km

2009 Southern Hemisphere = 5.8 million sq km

2009 Northern Hemisphere = 14.1 million sq km

Total = 19.9 million sq km

January in the year 2009 showed 200,000 sq km more sea ice than 1980.

Taking this a step further, recent data show sea ice levels in the Arctic returning to historical norms since satellites first began such measurements in 1979.

Add it all up, and ice levels represent another part of the great debate between climate alarmists and realists, one that Maher was foolish to delve into on Friday, especially in an attempt to strike back at Will for calling him out on "This Week" five days earlier.

But Maher was on his home turf now, and knew he'd be safely unchallenged, even though guest David Frum did fight the host on some general points regarding climate change dogma.

Yet, the real problem with Maher is his absurdly extreme conclusions like blaming what he disgusting refers to as "global warming deniers" for America still being dependent on oil.

America has been talking about foreign oil independence since the first energy crisis in 1973. To claim the global warming debate, which has really only heated up (pardon the pun) in recent years as a result of Hurricane Katrina and Al Gore's schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth," has at all hindered this goal is preposterous.

Were "global warming deniers" responsible for the Senate unanimously voting in favor of an amendment in 1997 instructing former President Clinton to not sign the infamous Kyoto Protocol?

Did "global warming deniers" force Gore when he was vice president to say in 1997, "We will not submit [the Kyoto Treaty] for ratification until there`s meaningful participation by key developing nations?"

Certainly not. But Maher on Friday, in his zeal to do something to save face after his humiliation on "This Week," chose to point such a finger of blame without any factual support.  

Which leads to a final point: as much as Maher hates religion, his opinions regarding global warming, along with his blind faith in the views espoused by those that preach its scripture, are amazingly similar to that which he outspokenly despises.

Talk about your inconvenient truths! 

So about two weeks ago Sen. John Kerry, a lead author of the looming Kerry-Graham-Lieberman global warming/cap-and-trade legislation said about his bill, to disassociate from Earth Day loopiness: This is not an environment bill.

No kidding. No one on the planet claims it would change the climate in any way our most sophisticated instrumentation could discern. It’s about power. Hence the title of books like “Power Grab“.

Today we read in E&E Daily, from another co-sponsor Sen. Lindsey Graham: “It’s not a global warming bill to me. Because global warming as a reason to pass legislation doesn’t exist anymore. ”

Oddly, both remarkable statements have been ignored by the establishment press, slavish as they are to also seeing this agenda through to the end because, as Sen. Tim Wirth said in 1988 and Barack Obama in his 2010 State of the Union address, even if you don’t buy the excuse, their agenda is still “the right thing to do.”

As I have been saying for some time and just published a book making the case: the issue is not the issue. The global warming then climate change then, uh, it’s jobs, that’s it, jobs, or maybe national security or…I dunno, what appeals to you? … agenda for promoting the energy-scarcity list of mandates, wealth transfers and lifestyle restrictions were just excuses for doing what these people have long insisted they, as your betters, be able to do to you.

Get this reality now, or wake up one day and wonder why you didn’t before it was too late.

Nobel Laureate Al Gore purchased a $9 million mansion in the luxurious hills of Montecito, California, recently, and with the exception of the Los Angeles Times and Fox News, America's media couldn't care less.

You think it might be because the Gore-loving press wouldn't want people to consider the possibility that all of his global warming hysteria was really about lining his wallet and not saving the planet?

Formulate a response to that question as you look at what all that money the former Vice President is making off of spreading this myth can buy (h/t Doug Ross):

  

 

 

Sweet, wouldn't you say? (Readers are encouraged to view more pictures of this fabulous estate here.)

Certainly not bad for a guy he supposedly was worth between one and two million dollars in 2000.

Were the "Always Fascinated by the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" press interested?

Heck no.

According to LexisNexis, apart from the Los Angeles Times that broke this story last Wednesday, and Fox News's Sean Hannity who spoke about this on consecutive nights last week, America's media were totally mum.

Why might that be? 

You think Gore's adoring press don't want folks to know how much money he's making off this scam?

Before you answer THAT question, consider what the Nobel Laureate told Congress last year as the House was deliberating cap-and-trade legislation:

AL GORE: Every penny that I have made, I have put right into a non-profit deal, Alliance For Climate Protection, to spread awareness of why we have to take on this challenge. And Congresswomen, if your, if, if you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you do not know me.

Now, imagine for a moment there were actually journalists still in America and not advocates pretending to be journalists.

A former Vice President who last year told a House committee he was putting all of his earnings into a non-profit company to "spread awareness of why we have to take on" global warming a year later buys a $9 million mansion with six fireplaces, five bedrooms, and nine bathrooms for him and his wife.

Don't you think SOMEBODY should have reported it other than Fox News, the LA Times, and conservative bloggers?

Where'd the money come from? Was this purchased by his non-profit corporation, and if so, how does he get away with that?

Did he sell some of his Google or Apple stock?

And how about some questions about how green the house is? Are there solar panels and windmills to power this facility? If not, what are their plans? 

Forgetting all of that, if the Clintons, Bushes, or Cheneys bought such a place, do you think the media would cover it, at least as a human interest story? 

For over three years, Gore's adoring press have followed virtually every move he's made since becoming the voice of global warming.

He buys a STUNNING villa as the unemployment rate stands at almost 10 percent and Americans are struggling to regain their footing after 2008's financial crisis, and the media are suddenly disinterested in him?

On exactly which planet, be it cooling or warming, does THAT make any sense?

Nobel Laureate Al Gore purchased a $9 million mansion in the luxurious hills of Montecito, California, recently, and with the exception of the Los Angeles Times and Fox News, America's media couldn't care less.

You think it might be because the Gore-loving press wouldn't want people to consider the possibility that all of his global warming hysteria was really about lining his wallet and not saving the planet?

Formulate a response to that question as you look at what all that money the former Vice President is making off of spreading this myth can buy (h/t Doug Ross):

  

 

 

Sweet, wouldn't you say? (Readers are encouraged to view more pictures of this fabulous estate here.)

Certainly not bad for a guy he supposedly was worth between one and two million dollars in 2000.

Were the "Always Fascinated by the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" press interested?

Heck no.

According to LexisNexis, apart from the Los Angeles Times that broke this story last Wednesday, and Fox News's Sean Hannity who spoke about this on consecutive nights last week, America's media were totally mum.

Why might that be? 

You think Gore's adoring press don't want folks to know how much money he's making off this scam?

Before you answer THAT question, consider what the Nobel Laureate told Congress last year as the House was deliberating cap-and-trade legislation:

AL GORE: Every penny that I have made, I have put right into a non-profit deal, Alliance For Climate Protection, to spread awareness of why we have to take on this challenge. And Congresswomen, if your, if, if you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you do not know me.

Now, imagine for a moment there were actually journalists still in America and not advocates pretending to be journalists.

A former Vice President who last year told a House committee he was putting all of his earnings into a non-profit company to "spread awareness of why we have to take on" global warming a year later buys a $9 million mansion with six fireplaces, five bedrooms, and nine bathrooms for him and his wife.

Don't you think SOMEBODY should have reported it other than Fox News, the LA Times, and conservative bloggers?

Where'd the money come from? Was this purchased by his non-profit corporation, and if so, how does he get away with that?

Did he sell some of his Google or Apple stock?

And how about some questions about how green the house is? Are there solar panels and windmills to power this facility? If not, what are their plans? 

Forgetting all of that, if the Clintons, Bushes, or Cheneys bought such a place, do you think the media would cover it, at least as a human interest story? 

For over three years, Gore's adoring press have followed virtually every move he's made since becoming the voice of global warming.

He buys a STUNNING villa as the unemployment rate stands at almost 10 percent and Americans are struggling to regain their footing after 2008's financial crisis, and the media are suddenly disinterested in him?

On exactly which planet, be it cooling or warming, does THAT make any sense?

Nobel Laureate Al Gore purchased a $9 million mansion in the luxurious hills of Montecito, California, recently, and with the exception of the Los Angeles Times and Fox News, America's media couldn't care less.

You think it might be because the Gore-loving press wouldn't want people to consider the possibility that all of his global warming hysteria was really about lining his wallet and not saving the planet?

Formulate a response to that question as you look at what all that money the former Vice President is making off of spreading this myth can buy (h/t Doug Ross):

  

 

 

Sweet, wouldn't you say? (Readers are encouraged to view more pictures of this fabulous estate here.)

Certainly not bad for a guy he supposedly was worth between one and two million dollars in 2000.

Were the "Always Fascinated by the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" press interested?

Heck no.

According to LexisNexis, apart from the Los Angeles Times that broke this story last Wednesday, and Fox News's Sean Hannity who spoke about this on consecutive nights last week, America's media were totally mum.

Why might that be? 

You think Gore's adoring press don't want folks to know how much money he's making off this scam?

Before you answer THAT question, consider what the Nobel Laureate told Congress last year as the House was deliberating cap-and-trade legislation:

AL GORE: Every penny that I have made, I have put right into a non-profit deal, Alliance For Climate Protection, to spread awareness of why we have to take on this challenge. And Congresswomen, if your, if, if you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you do not know me.

Now, imagine for a moment there were actually journalists still in America and not advocates pretending to be journalists.

A former Vice President who last year told a House committee he was putting all of his earnings into a non-profit company to "spread awareness of why we have to take on" global warming a year later buys a $9 million mansion with six fireplaces, five bedrooms, and nine bathrooms for him and his wife.

Don't you think SOMEBODY should have reported it other than Fox News, the LA Times, and conservative bloggers?

Where'd the money come from? Was this purchased by his non-profit corporation, and if so, how does he get away with that?

Did he sell some of his Google or Apple stock?

And how about some questions about how green the house is? Are there solar panels and windmills to power this facility? If not, what are their plans? 

Forgetting all of that, if the Clintons, Bushes, or Cheneys bought such a place, do you think the media would cover it, at least as a human interest story? 

For over three years, Gore's adoring press have followed virtually every move he's made since becoming the voice of global warming.

He buys a STUNNING villa as the unemployment rate stands at almost 10 percent and Americans are struggling to regain their footing after 2008's financial crisis, and the media are suddenly disinterested in him?

On exactly which planet, be it cooling or warming, does THAT make any sense?

Last week I blogged about eco-hypocrite Gisele Bundchen, model and United Nations environmental ambassador who lectures people on her website to take the stairs instead of elevators. Bundchen and husband Tom Brady are building a huge mansion in California.

Now comes word that another preachy environmentalist, Al Gore, is building another fancy mansion, which makes Mary Katharine Ham wish, "If I Could Live Like the Environmentalists..."

Al Gore has found the perfect perch from which to monitor sea levels and preach to the rest of us about the importance of living a life of modest consumption.

Ham cites a Los Angeles Times report that Gore has spent "$8,875,000 on an ocean-view villa on 1.5 acres with a swimming pool, spa and fountains... The Italian-style house has six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms."

This is in addition to the 10,000 square-foot mansion that he and Tipper own in Tennessee. A few years ago, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research reported that Gore's home burned more electricity in one month than the average Nashville home uses in a year.

Utility records showed the Gore family paid an average monthly electric bill of about $1,200 last year for its 10,000-square-foot home.

Now Gore has announced that renovations are nearly complete to turn his Tennessee manse into a model "green" home.

Gore was able to place solar panels on his roof, and he's preparing to install a geothermal system that will, among other things, drastically reduce the cost of heating his pool.

No sacrifice is apparently too great to heal the planet.

"You Can With Beakman & Jax," a science comic for children that appears in 300 newspapers across the country, once again propagandized to young readers on Sunday. The May 2 edition featured a question from an E-mailer on who "writes myths." Artist Jox Church editorialized, "There are modern myths, too. Lots have to do with politics, like the kooky myth that global warming isn't real."

Church, who also created the TV show Beakman's World, has repeatedly used his comic to lecture children about climate change.

In an Otober 5, 2008 strip, he responded to a question about how erasers work. Church digressed, "Back in the 18th century, [Joseph] Priestley was a reverend searching for proof in the natural world as a way of proving his religion. That meant he already knew what he wanted to prove and gathered evidence to support that belief. This is also how some folks now fight against ideas such as global warming."

In the December 13, 2009 comic, Church chided a young reader, yet again, on climate change: "It's important to let other people know how you feel." Supporting an alarmist environmental website, he encouraged kids to deface public property: "In San Francisco, my friend Michael Hemes and I printed out back-to 350 stickers and put them on stop signs."

"You Can With Beakman & Jax" isn't the only example of attempts by global warming activists to influence children. The April 18, 2010 Mini Page, which reaches 500 newspapers weekly, touted radical environmentalist Rachel Carson as a hero. (Carson promoted the discredited belief that DDT caused cancer. Millions died across the world when it was usage was stopped.)

"You Can With Beakman & Jax," a science comic for children that appears in 300 newspapers across the country, once again propagandized to young readers on Sunday. The May 2 edition featured a question from an E-mailer on who "writes myths." Artist Jox Church editorialized, "There are modern myths, too. Lots have to do with politics, like the kooky myth that global warming isn't real."

Church, who also created the TV show Beakman's World, has repeatedly used his comic to lecture children about climate change.

In an Otober 5, 2008 strip, he responded to a question about how erasers work. Church digressed, "Back in the 18th century, [Joseph] Priestley was a reverend searching for proof in the natural world as a way of proving his religion. That meant he already knew what he wanted to prove and gathered evidence to support that belief. This is also how some folks now fight against ideas such as global warming."

In the December 13, 2009 comic, Church chided a young reader, yet again, on climate change: "It's important to let other people know how you feel." Supporting an alarmist environmental website, he encouraged kids to deface public property: "In San Francisco, my friend Michael Hemes and I printed out back-to 350 stickers and put them on stop signs."

"You Can With Beakman & Jax" isn't the only example of attempts by global warming activists to influence children. The April 18, 2010 Mini Page, which reaches 500 newspapers weekly, touted radical environmentalist Rachel Carson as a hero. (Carson promoted the discredited belief that DDT caused cancer. Millions died across the world when it was usage was stopped.)

"You Can With Beakman & Jax," a science comic for children that appears in 300 newspapers across the country, once again propagandized to young readers on Sunday. The May 2 edition featured a question from an E-mailer on who "writes myths." Artist Jox Church editorialized, "There are modern myths, too. Lots have to do with politics, like the kooky myth that global warming isn't real."

Church, who also created the TV show Beakman's World, has repeatedly used his comic to lecture children about climate change.

In an Otober 5, 2008 strip, he responded to a question about how erasers work. Church digressed, "Back in the 18th century, [Joseph] Priestley was a reverend searching for proof in the natural world as a way of proving his religion. That meant he already knew what he wanted to prove and gathered evidence to support that belief. This is also how some folks now fight against ideas such as global warming."

In the December 13, 2009 comic, Church chided a young reader, yet again, on climate change: "It's important to let other people know how you feel." Supporting an alarmist environmental website, he encouraged kids to deface public property: "In San Francisco, my friend Michael Hemes and I printed out back-to 350 stickers and put them on stop signs."

"You Can With Beakman & Jax" isn't the only example of attempts by global warming activists to influence children. The April 18, 2010 Mini Page, which reaches 500 newspapers weekly, touted radical environmentalist Rachel Carson as a hero. (Carson promoted the discredited belief that DDT caused cancer. Millions died across the world when it was usage was stopped.)

“It’s China, it’s India Anywhere the middle-class is exploding, everyone’s sucking up more power. Population’s continuing to grow, you know we’re going to have to do something about it.” There it is...

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Clearly Gore’s humble Nashville abode was way too confining, so Al has purchased a new gigantic pulpit from which to preach to the rest of us about how our gas-powered leaf blowers and electric can openers are killing the planet:

Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, have added a Montecito-area property to their real estate holdings, reports the Montecito Journal.

The couple spent $8,875,000 on an ocean-view villa on 1.5 acres with a swimming pool, spa and fountains, a real estate source familiar with the deal confirms. The Italian-style house has six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

It’s perfectly understandable — when you’re full of that much s#*t you need a lot of toilets — but a seaside mansion? Gore doesn’t seem too intimidated by the imminent rising oceans his fellow enviroscammers keep predicting. What a brave soul!

Even the commenters at Democratic Underground are turning on Gore.

You know, when it comes to Al Gore, this is one time I heartily agree with Obama:

“I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

If you try to sweep your problems under the rug, they'll go away, right? Michael Mann, a Penn State professor and a central figure in the Climategate scandal and best known for his "hockey stick graph" hopes so.

On Fox News Channel's April 28 broadcast of "Your World with Neil Cavuto," Elmer Beauregard of Minnesotans for Global Warming appeared to explain the reasoning behind a video that drew the ire Mann. The video mocked the Penn State professor's alleged attempt to cover up data from tree rings that would indicate there was no global warming.

"Well, I don't know if you remember, but last fall, Obama was pushing the no cap-and-trade to go through the Senate because he wanted to have something to bring to Copenhagen," Beauregard said. "And just then Climategate broke and the mainstream press really wasn't covering it, so the coalition got together and we tried to think of a way to kind of bring this into the forefront of the American public. And I said I could make a funny YouTube video. And so, I did it to the tune of ‘Draggin' the Line' by Tommy James and The Shondells and put it up on YouTube and it went viral. And then Rush [Limbaugh] played it on his show and it went supernova."

Original "Hide the Decline" Video Below Fold

Jeff Davis of the No Cap & Trade Coalition, an organization that partnered Minnesotans for Global Warming, explained they created a second version of the video to appease Mann for the time being.

"We started a coalition, a national coalition to fight cap and trade back last fall," Davis said. "Minnesotans for Global Warming is part of that coalition. In order to kind of comply with Dr. Mann's letter, what we did is introduced a new version of ‘Hide the Decline,' ‘Hide the Decline, II,' which removes his imagine from the Penn State Web site, which he was so concerned about."

Cavuto asked Beauregard if he expected this sort of response, which he didn't. However, Beauregard explained he thought this was instead part of the cover up to downplay the Climategate scandal.

"No, not really. I just -- well, it was -- it's a little YouTube video," Beauregard said. "But I think what it did actually help is bring the Climategate scandal into the forefront and I think that now that Michael Mann has been exonerated they did an internal investigation at Penn State and I think that they're trying to cleanup the Climategate mess and they're just scouring the Internet. There's this little pesky video on YouTube and I think that's the reason he wanted to get rid of it."

And as Davis explained, although they used Mann's image in the original video, they also used his own data to mock him.

"I mean the whole video is based upon a -- a statement out of one of the e-mails in Climategate, which is hiding decline," Davis said. "You know, I mean we're using their own data to basically mock their findings. So, I think Neil that the key question that's at the heart of this controversy is whether this video defines or defames Dr. Mann. And on our Web site at NoCapAndTrade.com, we've got a white paper that addresses that question and readers can decide for themselves."

Young adults of a certain age will remember the 1992 environmental agitprop movie "FernGully," in which inhabitants of the last rainforest fight to save their environment. Well, bad ideas die hard. "Furry Vengeance," a new live-action children's movie starring Brendan Fraser and Brooke Shields, picks up where "FernGully" left off, thinly veiling its tree-hugging agenda with cheap laughs and cute, furry animals.

The story revolves around a real estate developer (Brendan Fraser) who is hired to slash down a forest in Oregon and convert it into a shopping mall (enter FernGully-like bulldozers). This, of course, upsets the local woodland critters, who, as the movie's Web site says, seek revenge by turning a "peaceful cul-de-sac under construction into a battefield of epic proportions." The movie's catch phrase reads, "He came. He saw. They conquered."

Fraser's co-star, Brooke Shields, recently said in an interview with Fox News' "Pop Tarts" that she was concerned with the growing skepticism surrounding global warming. She admitted that "Furry Vengeance" is an "eco message" but insisted that it's not "something that we're preaching." Shields must not consider infiltrating elementary schools across the nation as "preaching."

Although she didn't mention it, the Fox News article added that Shields and the rest of her "Furry Vengeance" co-stars created a social action campaign to debut in tandem with the film on April 30. The campaign was created with the help of Participant Media, an L.A.-based company that finances, produces, and distributes entertainment that advocates left-wing social change. Their list includes the tree-hugging book "Girls Gone Green" and the "global-warning" movie "An Inconvenient Truth."

"The campaign," Fox News reported, "will focus on further advocating the message of wildlife and habitat preservation in over 16,000 schools across the country and educate pupils on the effects everyday decisions have on their terrain."

This isn't the first time that environmental activists have turned their propaganda on children. Last year CMI reported on Nickelodeon's multimedia campaign called "The Big Green Help." The network encouraged its young viewers to become major finger-waggers by asking their parents to replace their lightbulbs, not buy bottled water, and turn off their car while waiting.

In case you missed it, expressing dissent about an issue that has become more and more politicized could warrant a lawsuit - even if it's just satire.

Michael Mann, a Penn State professor and a central figure in the Climategate scandal, but is best known for his "hockey stick graph" doesn't like being criticized. He has threatened to sue the creators of a video that has gone viral on YouTube mocking him. The creators of the video are a group called Minnesotans for Global Warming.

The possibility of a suit was the topic on Fox News April 27 "America Live," hosted by Megyn Kelly. Kelly asked ClimateDepot.com executive editor Marc Morano if Mann would be able to prove that this so-called YouTube spoof wasn't true and therefore win his lawsuit.

"I don't think he can," Morano replied. "I mean, this just goes to show you how the mighty have fallen. Michael Mann was a top U.N. scientist who is now in 2010 spending his time worrying about YouTube videos. This video is absolutely accurate. Michael Mann is the inventor of the temperature hockey stick which even recently the Royal U.K. statistical society said was exaggerated. Other German scientists have called it statistical rubbish. He's been called a statistical charlatan. He has had report after report attacking the foundation - the idea that 20th century temperatures are unprecedented is what Michael Mann is peddling through the U.N."

According to Morano, such a lawsuit would likely have the opposite effect on what Mann desires - for the video not to get attention.

"He's been shown to have been wrong repeatedly and he's also been shown to be thin-skinned," Morano continued. "If you don't do attention, don't do a lawsuit. Now, this video is going to be immortalized forever now."

Kelly asked Morano if recent finding in the United Kingdom and by Penn State officials that cleared Mann of some wrongdoing exonerated him and his work. Morano explained that was not the case.

"No, in the case of Penn State, it was actually just a local group of Penn State officials, and they actually referred it to further investigation," Morano said. "They cleared him on a few charges but said he needed further investigation. In the case of the U.K., it was run by a fellow named Lord Oxford who actually had tied, vested interests in the green climate industry. People said it's like Dracula guarding the blood bank. That investigation has been trashed even by U.N. sympathizers as a whitewash. Michael Mann is facing serious, serious credibility problems and this is a man who's had problems going back almost a decade now."

Specifically, Morano explained that Mann based his assertion that the temperature of the globe was increasing on data from tree rings. However, when he found that temperatures were declining based on this method, he hid that data.

"This hide-the-decline by the way, he used tree rings to reconstruct historical temperatures to show 20th century, you know, unprecedented warmth," Morano explained. "But what he failed to do, he compared apples and oranges. He then -- the tree rings showed a decline in temperatures after 1960. He hid that decline. And that's what this is all about. He compared -- he used temperature data with tree rings. It's very technical, and that's where the phrase came from. But he's been exposed as the best science politics can manufacture. That's what Climategate has done to the global warming movement."

When supermodel Gisele Bundchen was appointed United Nations environmental ambassador last year, she told reporters what inspired her activism.

"I started paying attention to what was happening with the environment when I had a visit to the Xingu area of the Amazon in 2003. I spent a week with an Indian tribe..."

Now the environmental ambassador and her husband Tom Brady are building a 20,000 square-foot home with a six-car garage, an elevator and a lagoon.

And an elevator - although that contradicts environmental advice Bundchen offers on her Web site: “take the stairs.”

“In addition to exercising, you save the electric power of the elevators,” she says on giselebundchen.com, which is festooned with references to Earth Day.

Chris Matthews spent an entire segment of Monday's Hardball sucking up to director James Cameron as the MSNBC host prodded the "Avatar" director to trash those in the "right wing media" who deny global warming, like Glenn Beck, as "very dangerous to this country." Cameron, who was on to plug the DVD version (coming soon to a landfill near you) of his pro-greenie fantasy flick, warned the Earth was being imperiled by not only the United States but also a rising middle class in places like India and China, and urged viewers to combat the "professional deniers" like Beck who are thwarting his fight against the "clear and present danger" of climate change. [audio available here]

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I'm worried about the media though. Because now we have a right wing media available. That if you feel like, if you're a business guy for example or a business woman and you want to have a good excuse, a good dodge not to do anything, well you listen to someone on the right like Beck who's willing to come in and say, "Oh you don't have to do anything. These guys are a bunch of tree huggers forget about it."

JAMES CAMERON: Right. Yeah.

MATTHEWS: What do you think of Beck's power in that direction, to give people a big excuse slip not to do anything?

CAMERON: Well guys like, like Beck and others and I think we all know-

MATTHEWS: Are they dangerous?

CAMERON: I think they're very dangerous to this country. And I think some day they're gonna have to answer to my children and to your children and their children for the world that they're helping to create right now.

The following is the full segment as it was aired on the April 26 Hardball:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Chances are if you've been to a movie in the past 20 years it was the work of James Cameron. Just to name a few: "The Terminator," "The Abyss," "True Lies," "Titanic," and now "Avatar." "Avatar is now the highest grossing movie of all-time, earning more than $2.7 billion worldwide and it's now out on DVD and Blu-Ray where it's also, just come out, and also broken all the world's records. James Cameron's concern about protecting the environment, which was such a big part of that movie, is evidenced in that film and it's also echoed in his life. Yesterday he spoke at the Earth Day rally here in Washington on the National Mall and I managed to catch up with him and hook him for the show. James Cameron.

JAMES CAMERON: Reporting for duty, sir.

MATTHEWS: No, no. I think what struck me about "Avatar" which everybody who's watched it has probably saw, was that there is a stake at some point the piggishness on this planet, the, the use of our resources just gets to the point where you gotta go out and get something else and go out and colonize some other world. Now maybe it's imagined in your movie but your feelings about that, that reality?

CAMERON: Well it's, it's a fantasy. I mean the film is a fantasy but, but it's about a very real reality which is our relationship with nature and how we have, we have this kind of attitude of entitlement that we can take what we need. Historically inn the colonial period, in North and South America, we took what we needed, you know? Or, or we took Australia or we took from what we needed from Africa. Speaking as kind of the way European community just kind of spread out. And we, we've never really backed off that model. We take the resources we needed, need. We take everything. We don't give enough back. And we're, we're crossing over a threshold where the Earth is not gonna be able to sustain us.

MATTHEWS: Why do you think business fights concerns about climate, about energy depletion, about the need to find renewables? Why do they fight it? These people from the oil patch, from Oklahoma especially-

CAMERON: Yeah.

MATTHEWS: -constantly carping and denying.

CAMERON: Sure.

MATTHEWS: People like Glenn Beck-

CAMERON: Sure.

MATTHEWS: -making a living by, by not telling the truth.

CAMERON: If you make your living in oil and the answer is a different answer, a different solution, and, and renewable energy like wind or solar or something like that, you're gonna deny that answer exists or, more probably, you're gonna deny that the problem exists and that's what these kind of professional deniers and skeptics are doing. They're swaying the public dialogue away from this major crisis that's looming.

MATTHEWS: Well the first person I ever heard, who I think has an IQ, like Glenn Beck, and he's obviously smart enough, I heard him on radio a couple years [ago] just denying-

CAMERON: Yeah.

MATTHEWS: -that there's climate. What do you make of that? Just saying it's not true.

CAMERON: Well you know look I think that people are, well people are just in denial in general. You know the public are in denial. And it's getting worse. And in, in a recession economy makes that denial worse. Two years ago according to polls, 50 percent of people believed in climate change and it being caused by, by, you know human activity. Now we're down to 34 percent. So we've gone from half to, to a third. We're going the wrong direction.

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

CAMERON: We should be raising awareness and consciousness on this and really, you know, believing that there's a clear and present danger to our nation, to our children and-

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

CAMERON: -and we're moving the wrong direction.

MATTHEWS: What do you make the decision a couple days ago to just dump it, just shelve it, by people like the Democratic leadership of the Senate. We are going towards an energy, combination energy, climate change bill? Just saying, "Oh we'll put it aside. We're gonna do something else. Immigration."

CAMERON: Well there's always going to be something. It's gonna be health care. It's gonna be immigration. It's gonna be financial reform. There's always gonna be something right in front of us that's more important. But in reality if we don't solve this problem, all of that stuff isn't gonna make any difference. Health care is not gonna help us in a fundamentally unhealthy planet. Financial reform is not gonna help us in a, in a, in a planet where we can't afford to, to live in a, in a healthy way or in even a non-chaotic way.

MATTHEWS: I gotta get to something that's fascinating. I read that Stephen Hawking-

CAMERON: Smart guy.

MATTHEWS: -obviously one of the smartest people in history. He was talking about alien life, meaning not aliens like we're fighting about with border fights here in America but-

CAMERON: Right, right.

MATTHEWS: -about real aliens over, from another planet. Quote: "We have only, we only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships having used all the resources from their home planet. If aliens ever visit us, I think it the outcome would be much, as when Christopher Columbus landed in America which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans." What about the notion that horrific notion that aliens coming here, if we ever meet them there, would be like the ones in your movie? Avaricious and frightening.

CAMERON: I didn't know Stephen Hawking did, did science fiction. But I think he's right on the money. The history of the, of the human race is that any technologically superior nation when it met a technologically inferior – you know kind of guns against bows and arrows – they always took over. They took what they needed. They would, it was either genocide or the population was displaced or it was assimilated in some kind of paternalistic manner.

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

CAMERON: They were, you know, converted to Christianity or whatever it was. And this has been our history. So why would expect aliens be any different?

MATTHEWS: Well he, he puts us with bows and arrows and the aliens with the machine guns.

CAMERON: That's right, that's right. Exactly!

MATTHEWS: But you, in your movie, in "Avatar" at least put us on the side of the advanced weaponry but we end losing the war any way.

CAMERON: We were the bad aliens in "Avatar." I was turning it around. You've seen all these movies where the super advanced aliens come to Earth and they to try to be like us...

MATTHEWS: Yeah. The Orson Welles guys, yeah.

CAMERON: ...take over. Well "Avatar" is just the story turned around. Our main character is trying to blend in and be one of the, one of the, the aliens on their planet. It's just the same story-

MATTHEWS: So, so putting it all together – you have to go – putting it all together the idea that this country is leading the world in the depletion of resources in the world. We use more, we're the most poor sign of any people on the planet. We use up more gas, more everything, compared to our numbers. If the world keeps going in this direction heating up the planet, using up our resources, are we gonna end up on those space ships?

CAMERON: Yeah it's not just us. It's China, it's India, it's in places where the, where the middle class is, is exploding. Everybody is sucking up more power. Populations continuing to grow. You know we're gonna have to do something about it. The, the planet just can't sustain-

MATTHEWS: Do you have your faith, do you have faith in any - I'm gonna let you leave on this. Do you have faith in any political leader who will take the, the, the noise and the heat and perhaps the political defeat that will come from a person who really stands up and defends this planet?

CAMERON: Lisa Jackson at the EPA is standing up. You know she's using the Clean Air Act to go after polluters. But the reality is that, that the leadership in the House and Senate, it doesn't have a strong public mandate right now because the public isn't aware enough of the problem. They gotta, they gotta start critically thinking, denying the deniers, doing their own research, not, not, not going with the rhetoric, not going with the talk radio. Actually learning the issues. And believing what the science community is trying to warn us about and then there will be a public mandate for our leaders to do something. You know, you know on the Hill they don't do anything unless we tell them to do it.

MATTHEWS: I know. I'm worried about the media though. Because now we have a right wing media available. That if you feel like, if you're a business guy for example or a business woman and you want to have a good excuse, a good dodge not to do anything, well you listen to someone on the right like Beck who's willing to come in and say, "Oh you don't have to do anything. These guys are a bunch of tree huggers forget about it."

CAMERON: Right. Yeah.

MATTHEWS: What do you think of Beck's power in that direction, to give people a big excuse slip not to do anything?

CAMERON: Well guys like, like Beck and others and I think we all know-

MATTHEWS: Are they dangerous?

CAMERON: I think they're very dangerous to this country. And I think some day they're gonna have to answer to my children and to your children and their children for the world that they're helping to create right now.

MATTHEWS: Okay. Thank you very much, James Cameron. Congratulations. I've ever seen anything like this in the movies. I've never seen anything like it. You are winning all the awards and you're getting everything. Thank you for coming on.

CAMERON: Alright thanks Chris. A pleasure.

MATTHEWS: James Cameron, the maker of "Avatar" which has just broken all the records again on DVD.

So we know that Sen. Lindsey Graham has stormed away from today’s scheduled 11 a.m. Eastern Senate press conference stage, and taken with him his support climate legislation, putting on hold what will surely in this latest form also represent the biggest tax increase in our history. All of which is, of course, “for now”.

No, that won’t last. But the unfolding/ongoing theater deserves commentary for when it returns.

This is the same bill that John Kerry now says was put off until this week from last so the voters didn’t confuse it around “Earth Day” as an “environmental” measure, and that Graham now says is an “energy independence” bill. This is even though the bill was breathlessly touted instead by all of its supporters just months ago as what it is designed to be: a “global warming” law to address what they apparently no longer view as that big an issue.

Or else they took Stanley Greenberg’s advice and realized you aren’t buying and are scrambling to re-brand their Power Grab. And this seems more likely given what we know about the bill is that it’s core design remains, with tweaks aimed at luring political support by various constituencies –

First, about this dance, Rich Galen wrote in his Mullings blog last night that “So, by putting off – perhaps until the next Congress – meaningful legislation which might have led to reducing our dependence on foreign oil, in favor of legislation which may maintain our dependence on foreign workers Harry Reid and Barack Obama have chosen convenient politics over good policy.”

To which I respond (and did to Rich), this conclusion of course assumes/accepts the climate/energy bill was “good policy”. With that questionable — we don’t know what’s in it other than cap-n-trade for electricity, but Reid announced a suspension of the committee process and spent ten days bringing in constituencies asking what they need in return for supporting cap-n-trade, so we have an idea it ain’t all that good policy — I’d say the more appropriate trade was the politics of one base for those of another.

Reid it seems is working to excite (and register more of) the Hispanic base in Nevada, a base which experienced among the three fastest growth rates “among competitive states” between the 2006 and 2008 election cycles (as I read on Mullings).

Oddly, in today’s WSJ we read the strange assertion “‘We can’t pass it without’ Mr. Graham, [Sen. Joe] Lieberman said. ‘We need him to come back.’” (The Journal uses a parenthetical to replace ‘it’ with ‘the climate and energy proposal’, which editing I ignore here, as it is unwarranted for reasons noted above.)

Lindsey Graham is unlikely to bring many if any other senators with him on this bill. So that belief expressed by Sen. Lieberman is probably not one premised in a vote count, but rather the cutesy “tripartisanship” label the Three Amigos attached to themselves to give a tax increase what passes for cachet in Washington.

Lieberman’s comment seems to be a sign that only with the protective cloak of Republican political cover — to go along with the business support being purchased with your (new) energy tax dollars — will the Left move forward with a long-held wish-list to “organize society” while raising hundreds of billions in revenues on the path to coercing you out of your lifestyle if ostensibly, and somewhat miraculously, save the planet slash create energy independence.

Also, the bill was just crafted behind closed doors, and Graham’s objection is that it’s much further along than immigration which still has to go through the committee process — which Reid suspended for the climate bill. Then Graham says in the Journal piece that “‘Moving forward on immigration—in this hurried, panicked manner—is nothing more than a cynical political ploy,’ Mr. Graham said Saturday in his statement, citing the ‘hundreds of hours over many months’ that he spent trying to pass immigration legislation in 2007.”.

Ahem. Cap-and-trade, despite Graham’s assistance, failed on the Senate floor with the fewest votes in three stabs at ramming it through, if in a less hurried and panicked fashion than the present attempt, which occurred in 2003, 2005, and yes in 2008. Graham’s argument is a tad weak and runny.

My take on his walkout is that Graham feared putting this bill out there only to not ram it through, but instead leave it to be scrutinized.

And people are cynical about Washington.

On Saturday's Fox News Watch, while discussing media coverage of environmental issues on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, host Jon Scott cited a special report from the Media Research Center's Business and Media Institute: "The Media Research Center posted a special report this week claiming networks generally hide the decline in credibility of claims of climate change."

Scott went on to add that: "48% of Americans, according to a March 2010 Gallup poll, think the threat of global warming is greatly exaggerated." Show panelist and Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers admitted: "It probably is exaggerated by some people....I know some very smart environmentalists who think that Al Gore has exaggerated it too much and has made it to a point where it's losing credibility." However, she quickly added: "it's still a very serious threat and so, just because it's exaggerated, doesn't mean it's not a serious threat."

Earlier in the discussion, Powers argued that environmentalists warning of global warming is similar to calls to stop using toxic lead paint: "people who believe in global warming, like myself, you know, are called 'doom and gloom people.' Well, guess what they used to be called when they were talking about lead paint and they were talking about the water being polluted, 'doom and gloom people.'"

At the top of the segment, fellow panelist Judith Miller observed: "I think the press has grown accustomed to covering this annual event as people are accustomed to exploiting it....Earth Day is big business." Fox News Watch regular, columnist Jim Pinkerton, also noted of environmentalism: "Eric Hoffer, the famous philosopher who coined the phrase 'true believer,' said every movement starts out idealistic, then becomes a corporation, and then eventually becomes a racket."

Columnist Cal Thomas described the media's adherence to environmentalist dogma as the practice of a "secular religion." At the end of the segment, Powers argued: "I mean, come on, this is not just a liberal left-wing conspiracy." Picking up on Thomas's phrase, Miller jokingly added: "That's right...It's become gospel."

Here is a full transcript of the segment:

2:41PM

JON SCOTT: Earth Day turned 40 this week, originally inspired by former U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, the day brings attention to environmental issues worldwide. I'm old enough to remember the first one. Judy, it helped – it does help keep environmental issues on people's minds without pointing fingers, Earth Day does, but what about the press? The media coverage of it?

JUDITH MILLER: Well, you know, I think the press has grown accustomed to covering this annual event as people are accustomed to exploiting it. And what's happened is Earth Day has, for both the media and I think for the mainstream world, have become a kind of victim of its own success or a – it's now a big business. So you have, as Leslie Kaufman wrote in an extraordinarily good article in the business section, Earth Day is big business, including the umbrella that enables to you drain and reuse water.

SCOTT: But you know, I remember, I remember growing up in Denver as a kid, we had terrible pollution problems in the '70s and that has gotten a lot better now. Does – does that get the kind of-

JIM PINKERTON: Right, it has gotten better and environmentalists should celebrate that. Of course, they're too busy dooming and glooming about global warming to worry about that. But look, Eric Hoffer, the famous philosopher who coined the phrase 'true believer,' said every movement starts out idealistic, then becomes a corporation, and then eventually becomes a racket.             

CAL THOMAS: In this case, a cabinet level position of EPA, brought in by Richard Nixon of all things.

SCOTT: How have you seen the coverage change?

THOMAS: Well, first of all, you have to understand that most of the media approach this as a secular religion, you're to worship the Earth. We did quite well in my father's generation with conservationism. You had things like the Izaak Walton League. Even the media were involved in saying, you know, don't throw those things on the ground, keep the water supply clean, you want a nice place to fish, all of that worked out fine. But now we have environmentalism, which is, as I said, a kind of secular religion, you have to love your mother the Earth, you have to worship trees. And we've had scares from ALAR on apples to the crazy global warming cult of Al Gore.

KIRSTEN POWERS: I'm sorry, who says you have to worship trees?

MILLER: Oh, no, no, no, Cal, come on.

THOMAS: Oh, you know all about loving your pine tree, you know, hug your tree.

POWERS: I mean, the people now – the environmentalists are people who believe in global warming, like myself, you know, are called 'doom and gloom people.' Well, guess what they used to be called when they were talking about lead paint and they were talking about the water being polluted, 'doom and gloom people.' You know, they were described as being sort of crazies and tree-huggers and it's because of them that kids now don't have, you know, to get lead poisoning from their paint. So, you know, it is, it is the same group of people-

PINKERTON: There's a slight difference between the toxic effect of lead and the nontoxic effect of CO-2. CO-2 actually creates life.

POWERS: But what I'm saying is that your kind back then.

THOMAS: Your kind!

[LAUGHTER]

POWERS: Was attacking my kind, who were, you know, who were pushing these environmental protections and I think it's the same thing again. And I think what Judy-

THOMAS: Being right once doesn't give you-

POWERS: -but I think what Judy said is a point though – or maybe you said they're a victim of their success, whoever said that, I think that it's a lot easier when rivers are catching on fire to say, 'oh, we have an environmental problem,' it's a lot more complicated to explain global warming.

SCOTT: The Media Research Center posted a special report this week claiming networks generally hide the decline in credibility of claims of climate change and that 48% of Americans, according to a March 2010 Gallup poll, think the threat of global warming is greatly exaggerated.

POWERS: It probably is exaggerated by some people. I think – you know, I know some very smart environmentalists who think that Al Gore has exaggerated it too much and has made it to a point where it's losing credibility because he exaggerates so much, but that it's still a very serious threat and so, just because it's exaggerated, doesn't mean it's not a serious threat.

PINKERTON: Fortunately for the 'Greens,' they have the White House Press Corps, which announced that it would – that its participation in the White House Correspondent's Dinner will be carbon neutral. Hats off to Mike Allen of Politico for catching theses people being green and pious.

POWERS: And hats off to Rupert Murdoch who makes this company very green, and we have things all over, we have posters telling us to be green. I mean, come on, this is not just a liberal left-wing conspiracy.

MILLER: That's right.

POWERS: This is something that most Americans-

MILLER: It's become gospel.    

[LAUGHTER]   

America's media might hate the Tea Party movement, but Sting appears to love it.

"This is like a 'Green Tea Party' out there," Sting told CNN's Don Lemon Sunday about the Earth Day climate rally taking place in the nation's capital.

"People who care. People who care about clean water and fresh air for their children to breathe. Food that doesn't kill you. A better planet. A safer planet. And it is a tea party movement."

Of course, Lemon didn't ask Sting or his wife Trudie Styler if they believe folks that don't support this movement actually want dirty water, polluted air, and food that kills them, nor did he question the couple about their own astoundingly LARGE carbon footprint that makes them green hypocrites.

He also didn't point out the absurdity of referring to this rally as a "tea party movement" while in the same breath calling for "big government" to solve the world's problems (video follows with partial transcript and commentary, h/t Weasel Zippers): 

STING: Why are we doing this?

 

DON LEMON,HOST: Yes.

 

STING: Well, we've been in this struggle for over 20 years, Trudie and I, you know, trying to get the message out, and as you can see, this is like a "Green Tea Party" out there. People who care. People who care about clean water and fresh air for their children to breathe. Food that doesn't kill you. A better planet. A safer planet. And it is a tea party movement.

 

LEMON: Yes. Trudie, what do you think about what he said?

 

TRUDIE STYLER, CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVIST: Of course I agree with him not because I'm the little wife, but because, you know, we've been on this -- we've been on this mission together. We went to the rain forest in the '80s. We've been in a foundation for 21 years now. And really, speaking on behalf of the people who are in the rainforest whose rights are being abused and exploited by big business, it's very hard to see that. And we care passionately about all those indigenous groups that we've met and become friends with over the years, so that Rainforest Fund really fights on their behalf.

 

LEMON: What do you -- what do you think of what he said -- it's a green tea party? What do you make of that? What are you saying by that, Sting? And then you can respond, Trudie.

 

STING: Well, you can see the enthusiasm out there. And people are here to really tell big government that we want big government to make big decisions about the most important problems we face. And also to pressure our corporations to behave properly, as consumers, but we're here to -- we're asking for big government, basically.

 

LEMON: You want big government?

 

STING: Of course we do. This is a huge problem, and only the government can solve it. You know, the man on the street can do a little bit, but big governments need to make decisions. We need to stop clear-cutting forests. We need to protect the forests. That's the simplest way of cutting greenhouse gases.

 

LEMON: Yes.

 

STING: And prevent global warming.

 

LEMON: I have to ask you and either of you can respond. But what do you make of those who say that -- who question climate or global warming? Because, Trudie, you said you have been in the fight for years.

 

STYLER: Well, I addressed the U.N. Assembly -- General Assembly five days before they went to Copenhagen and there was a great feeling from the representatives of the U.N. that something was going to happen in Copenhagen. And I think all our hopes were dashed when not one government member was prepared to say, not one government leader was prepared to say, we are really going to do something about climate change, we're going to cut our carbons emissions by "x." Nobody came forward.

 

And that was just a terrific, terrible waste of time and resources and money, and has left everybody feeling, I think, quite rebellious now that we really, this is the time, we cannot wait any longer. We have to really lean on our governments to do something. Because I think that we're going to maybe not in my lifetime, but towards the end of our children's, we're going to reach a tipping point, that we will no longer be able to support life on this planet earth. I believe in that defiantly and passionately and strongly. 

Hey Don: how about asking them why they're carbon footprint is larger than the combined amount of CO2 released by many small towns in America?

Or didn't you see Styler's admission almost exactly two years ago that they're both hypocrites?

As NewsBusters reported on April 26, 2008:

The hypocrisy surrounding the global warming positions of actors and rock stars is certainly not news, except when one of them actually admits it.

With that in mind, when the wife of the environmentally outspoken leader of the Police discusses the huge carbon footprint she and her husband have, sycophantic green media should pay attention and recognize that virtually all such wealthy alarmists are advocating policies for the masses that they themselves will NEVER adhere to.

We then quoted from the previous day's piece in Britain's Daily Mail:

When it comes to the carbon footprint, Sting puts his hand up immediately and says 'I'm a musician and I have a huge carbon-footprint",' [Styler] said.

She then asked: "Are we being hypocritical?' before seeming to answer the question herself.

"He has a 750-person crew to bring around the world and it is a difficult challenge." [...]

Environmental experts labelled Sting's band, The Police, the dirtiest in the world because of the amount of pollution created during last year's reunion tour of the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Sweden, Germany, the UK, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan. [...]

She was also accused in a recent tribunal of forcing her chef to travel 100 miles to prepare a bowl of pasta.

Wouldn't want to bring any of this up for your viewers would you Don?

That might lead folks to not only reconsider the veracity of anything these two hypocrites say but also make you seem like a journalist rather than an advocate. 

Couldn't have that, could we? 

America's media might hate the Tea Party movement, but Sting appears to love it.

"This is like a 'Green Tea Party' out there," Sting told CNN's Don Lemon Sunday about the Earth Day climate rally taking place in the nation's capital.

"People who care. People who care about clean water and fresh air for their children to breathe. Food that doesn't kill you. A better planet. A safer planet. And it is a tea party movement."

Of course, Lemon didn't ask Sting or his wife Trudie Styler if they believe folks that don't support this movement actually want dirty water, polluted air, and food that kills them, nor did he question the couple about their own astoundingly LARGE carbon footprint that makes them green hypocrites.

He also didn't point out the absurdity of referring to this rally as a "tea party movement" while in the same breath calling for "big government" to solve the world's problems (video follows with partial transcript and commentary, h/t Weasel Zippers): 

STING: Why are we doing this?

 

DON LEMON,HOST: Yes.

 

STING: Well, we've been in this struggle for over 20 years, Trudie and I, you know, trying to get the message out, and as you can see, this is like a "Green Tea Party" out there. People who care. People who care about clean water and fresh air for their children to breathe. Food that doesn't kill you. A better planet. A safer planet. And it is a tea party movement.

 

LEMON: Yes. Trudie, what do you think about what he said?

 

TRUDIE STYLER, CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVIST: Of course I agree with him not because I'm the little wife, but because, you know, we've been on this -- we've been on this mission together. We went to the rain forest in the '80s. We've been in a foundation for 21 years now. And really, speaking on behalf of the people who are in the rainforest whose rights are being abused and exploited by big business, it's very hard to see that. And we care passionately about all those indigenous groups that we've met and become friends with over the years, so that Rainforest Fund really fights on their behalf.

 

LEMON: What do you -- what do you think of what he said -- it's a green tea party? What do you make of that? What are you saying by that, Sting? And then you can respond, Trudie.

 

STING: Well, you can see the enthusiasm out there. And people are here to really tell big government that we want big government to make big decisions about the most important problems we face. And also to pressure our corporations to behave properly, as consumers, but we're here to -- we're asking for big government, basically.

 

LEMON: You want big government?

 

STING: Of course we do. This is a huge problem, and only the government can solve it. You know, the man on the street can do a little bit, but big governments need to make decisions. We need to stop clear-cutting forests. We need to protect the forests. That's the simplest way of cutting greenhouse gases.

 

LEMON: Yes.

 

STING: And prevent global warming.

 

LEMON: I have to ask you and either of you can respond. But what do you make of those who say that -- who question climate or global warming? Because, Trudie, you said you have been in the fight for years.

 

STYLER: Well, I addressed the U.N. Assembly -- General Assembly five days before they went to Copenhagen and there was a great feeling from the representatives of the U.N. that something was going to happen in Copenhagen. And I think all our hopes were dashed when not one government member was prepared to say, not one government leader was prepared to say, we are really going to do something about climate change, we're going to cut our carbons emissions by "x." Nobody came forward.

 

And that was just a terrific, terrible waste of time and resources and money, and has left everybody feeling, I think, quite rebellious now that we really, this is the time, we cannot wait any longer. We have to really lean on our governments to do something. Because I think that we're going to maybe not in my lifetime, but towards the end of our children's, we're going to reach a tipping point, that we will no longer be able to support life on this planet earth. I believe in that defiantly and passionately and strongly. 

Hey Don: how about asking them why they're carbon footprint is larger than the combined amount of CO2 released by many small towns in America?

Or didn't you see Styler's admission almost exactly two years ago that they're both hypocrites?

As NewsBusters reported on April 26, 2008:

The hypocrisy surrounding the global warming positions of actors and rock stars is certainly not news, except when one of them actually admits it.

With that in mind, when the wife of the environmentally outspoken leader of the Police discusses the huge carbon footprint she and her husband have, sycophantic green media should pay attention and recognize that virtually all such wealthy alarmists are advocating policies for the masses that they themselves will NEVER adhere to.

We then quoted from the previous day's piece in Britain's Daily Mail:

When it comes to the carbon footprint, Sting puts his hand up immediately and says 'I'm a musician and I have a huge carbon-footprint",' [Styler] said.

She then asked: "Are we being hypocritical?' before seeming to answer the question herself.

"He has a 750-person crew to bring around the world and it is a difficult challenge." [...]

Environmental experts labelled Sting's band, The Police, the dirtiest in the world because of the amount of pollution created during last year's reunion tour of the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Sweden, Germany, the UK, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan. [...]

She was also accused in a recent tribunal of forcing her chef to travel 100 miles to prepare a bowl of pasta.

Wouldn't want to bring any of this up for your viewers would you Don?

That might lead folks to not only reconsider the veracity of anything these two hypocrites say but also make you seem like a journalist rather than an advocate. 

Couldn't have that, could we? 

America's media might hate the Tea Party movement, but Sting appears to love it.

"This is like a 'Green Tea Party' out there," Sting told CNN's Don Lemon Sunday about the Earth Day climate rally taking place in the nation's capital.

"People who care. People who care about clean water and fresh air for their children to breathe. Food that doesn't kill you. A better planet. A safer planet. And it is a tea party movement."

Of course, Lemon didn't ask Sting or his wife Trudie Styler if they believe folks that don't support this movement actually want dirty water, polluted air, and food that kills them, nor did he question the couple about their own astoundingly LARGE carbon footprint that makes them green hypocrites.

He also didn't point out the absurdity of referring to this rally as a "tea party movement" while in the same breath calling for "big government" to solve the world's problems (video follows with partial transcript and commentary, h/t Weasel Zippers): 

STING: Why are we doing this?

 

DON LEMON,HOST: Yes.

 

STING: Well, we've been in this struggle for over 20 years, Trudie and I, you know, trying to get the message out, and as you can see, this is like a "Green Tea Party" out there. People who care. People who care about clean water and fresh air for their children to breathe. Food that doesn't kill you. A better planet. A safer planet. And it is a tea party movement.

 

LEMON: Yes. Trudie, what do you think about what he said?

 

TRUDIE STYLER, CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVIST: Of course I agree with him not because I'm the little wife, but because, you know, we've been on this -- we've been on this mission together. We went to the rain forest in the '80s. We've been in a foundation for 21 years now. And really, speaking on behalf of the people who are in the rainforest whose rights are being abused and exploited by big business, it's very hard to see that. And we care passionately about all those indigenous groups that we've met and become friends with over the years, so that Rainforest Fund really fights on their behalf.

 

LEMON: What do you -- what do you think of what he said -- it's a green tea party? What do you make of that? What are you saying by that, Sting? And then you can respond, Trudie.

 

STING: Well, you can see the enthusiasm out there. And people are here to really tell big government that we want big government to make big decisions about the most important problems we face. And also to pressure our corporations to behave properly, as consumers, but we're here to -- we're asking for big government, basically.

 

LEMON: You want big government?

 

STING: Of course we do. This is a huge problem, and only the government can solve it. You know, the man on the street can do a little bit, but big governments need to make decisions. We need to stop clear-cutting forests. We need to protect the forests. That's the simplest way of cutting greenhouse gases.

 

LEMON: Yes.

 

STING: And prevent global warming.

 

LEMON: I have to ask you and either of you can respond. But what do you make of those who say that -- who question climate or global warming? Because, Trudie, you said you have been in the fight for years.

 

STYLER: Well, I addressed the U.N. Assembly -- General Assembly five days before they went to Copenhagen and there was a great feeling from the representatives of the U.N. that something was going to happen in Copenhagen. And I think all our hopes were dashed when not one government member was prepared to say, not one government leader was prepared to say, we are really going to do something about climate change, we're going to cut our carbons emissions by "x." Nobody came forward.

 

And that was just a terrific, terrible waste of time and resources and money, and has left everybody feeling, I think, quite rebellious now that we really, this is the time, we cannot wait any longer. We have to really lean on our governments to do something. Because I think that we're going to maybe not in my lifetime, but towards the end of our children's, we're going to reach a tipping point, that we will no longer be able to support life on this planet earth. I believe in that defiantly and passionately and strongly. 

Hey Don: how about asking them why they're carbon footprint is larger than the combined amount of CO2 released by many small towns in America?

Or didn't you see Styler's admission almost exactly two years ago that they're both hypocrites?

As NewsBusters reported on April 26, 2008:

The hypocrisy surrounding the global warming positions of actors and rock stars is certainly not news, except when one of them actually admits it.

With that in mind, when the wife of the environmentally outspoken leader of the Police discusses the huge carbon footprint she and her husband have, sycophantic green media should pay attention and recognize that virtually all such wealthy alarmists are advocating policies for the masses that they themselves will NEVER adhere to.

We then quoted from the previous day's piece in Britain's Daily Mail:

When it comes to the carbon footprint, Sting puts his hand up immediately and says 'I'm a musician and I have a huge carbon-footprint",' [Styler] said.

She then asked: "Are we being hypocritical?' before seeming to answer the question herself.

"He has a 750-person crew to bring around the world and it is a difficult challenge." [...]

Environmental experts labelled Sting's band, The Police, the dirtiest in the world because of the amount of pollution created during last year's reunion tour of the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Sweden, Germany, the UK, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan. [...]

She was also accused in a recent tribunal of forcing her chef to travel 100 miles to prepare a bowl of pasta.

Wouldn't want to bring any of this up for your viewers would you Don?

That might lead folks to not only reconsider the veracity of anything these two hypocrites say but also make you seem like a journalist rather than an advocate. 

Couldn't have that, could we? 

"Our intelligence analysts and our military folks tell us that environment factors, exactly -- environmental factors determine who we’re going to be fighting, where we’re going to fighting them, whether we’re going to be fighting them," said Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.).  "And so for me, for my colleagues, climate change is a national security issue."

Make sure you read the full CNS News story about Israel's comments.

ABC's Nightline on Thursday provided a welcome look at the significant number of meteorologists in America who are skeptical of man-made global warming. Instead of simply dismissing their views, reporter David Wright interviewed Accuweather's Joe Bastardi and allowed him to assert, "I think that the warming that we're having is cyclical in nature."

Such sentiments are not often seen on Nightline or other mainstream media programs. However, the program did put a more positive spin the agenda of climate scientists. Talking to Michael Mann, one of those involved in the ClimateGate scandal, Wright asserted, "Penn State's Michael Mann is one of the scientists who last year had his E-mails hacked and quoted worldwide by climate change skeptics as proof that scientists were cooking the books."

The journalist didn't explain what was in the hacked E-mails or even what the controversy was. (Mann and others discussed climate "tricks" and how to fudge and delete unfavorable data.) Instead, Wright sympathized, "You see this as a smear campaign?"

When Mann piously proclaimed, "I see my job a scientist to make sure that the public discourse is informed by an accurate understanding of the science," the ABC correspondent had no follow-ups or skeptical questions about how CliamteGate fit into that world view.

Pivoting off the above comment, Wright opined on the power of local weathermen: "And that may be one reason that doubting meteorologists have had such a huge opening to convince the public otherwise."

Despite this, ABC should be commended for at least acknowledging another side in the global warming debate. At one point during Wright's conversation with Bastardi, the meteorologist derided Al Gore's famous documentary: "It was a great movie, but so was The Wizard of Oz. I think Inconvenient Truth has a lot of things in it that I don't believe."

Nightline has come a long way from this insulting comment by former anchor Ted Koppel in 1997:

Karen Kerrigan, Small Business Survival Committee: "To say that the science is conclusive...is actually bunk."

Host Ted Koppel: "I was just going to make the observation that there are still some people who believe in the Flat Earth Society, too, but that doesn’t mean they’re right."

— Exchange on the December 9, 1997 Nightline.　

For more examples of journalistic advocacy on global warming, see a new report by the Business and Media Institute.

A transcript of the April 22 segment, which aired at 11:45pm EDT, follows:

CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: We turn now to Mother Nature on this 40th anniversary of Earth Day. President Obama today called on Congress to pass a comprehensive energy and climate bill to, as he put it, safeguard our planet from such threats as global warming and climate change. But, not everyone is a believer. And one group of skeptics may come as a surprise, as David Wright reports.

DAVID WRIGHT: When it comes to throwing cold water on the biggest forecast of them all-

BILL O'REILLY: Tonight another global warming study debunked in the journal Nature Geo-Science.

WRIGHT: -it isn't just the usual suspects.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: It's just another nail in the coffin of the whole global warming thing.

WRIGHT: In fact, you may be surprised who's chiming in.

JOHN COLEMAN: Hello, I'm John Coleman. Founder of the Weather Channel, original weatherman on Good Morning America.

WRIGHT: Some of the most trusted names in weather business dispute that global warming exists

COLEMAN: There isn't any climate crisis. It was totally manufactured.

WRIGHT: Or they tend to doubt that Mother Nature has anything to do with it.

CHAD MYERS (CNN): Mother nature is so big. The world is so big. The oceans are so big. I think we're going to die from a lack of fresh water or we're going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming.

WRIGHT: It turns out that view is very common among TV meteorologists.

DOUG HILL: In the next few hours-

WRIGHT: Folks you trust every night with that five-day forecast. A recent study from George Mason University and the University of Texas found that only one out of three forecasters surveyed believe climate change is caused mostly by human activities. One out of four agreed with thee statement, "Global warming is a scam. To find out why, we turn to one of the most prominent of the doubters.

JOE BASTARDI: What are we worried about now?

WRIGHT: Accuweather's Joe Bastardi, who has become a frequent guest on Bill O'Reilly.

BILL O'REILLY: You have a meteorological explanation for what happened.

BASTARDI: Oh,yes.

WRIGHT: So, you actually don't believe in global warming?

BASTARDI: Oh, I believe there may be some linkage to it. I think that the warming that we're having is cyclical in nature.

WRIGHT: Bastardi is a charming guy who seemed reticent at first to take issue with the scientific establishment. An Inconvenient Truth? What do you think of Al Gore?

BASTARDI: Which is a wonderful movie. By that- By that I mean by this: It's very well made.

[Clip from An Inconvenient Truth]

BASTARDI: It was a great movie, but so was The Wizard of Oz. I think Inconvenient Truth has a lot of things in it that I don't believe.

WRIGHT: But, once he's warmed up, stand back.

BASTARDI: Here's the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. PDO.

WRIGHT: Bastardi can quote a blizzard of statistics and point to charts that he says indicate that the Earth was in a cyclical waming stage but is now starting to cool.

BASTARDI: Watch what happens. There are things turning around now. We have the way to actually measure this. The Earth is going the cool back to where it was in the late '70s by 2030. That's my forecast.

HEIDI CULLEN (Climate Central): I think it is one big forecast. I think you have got to be careful separating weather with climate.

WRIGHT: Heidi Cullen is a climatologist who used to work at the Weather Channel. Now, Cullen works for a non-profit at Princeton that tries to explain the science of climate change to the general public. She says Bastardi is right about one thing, that the instruments are far more accurate for measuring nuances in temperature data. Is this the kind of thing that Joe Bastardi is saying, "Hey, let's watch this for 30 years and see what happens?"

CULLEN: I think to a certain extent, he's- yeah. That's kind of what he's saying.

WRIGHT: Can we afford to wait 30 years?

CULLEN: If you ask a climate scientist, they will tell you we cannot afford to wait that long. In many respects, you can think of it as the mother of all forecasts. But this is a forecast that we can ultimately change. Right? So, your standard five-day forecast is take an umbrella. With climate change, we say if we continue to do the things we're doing, this is the future that we will inherit.

WRIGHT: And yet, a large section of the public clearly remains skeptical.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN IN YOU TUBE-STYLE VIDEO: Attention Al Gore. It's global warming up all over the east coast. Check it out. The icecaps are melting! The polar bears are dying!

WRIGHT: A recent study by Yale and George Mason Universities found that 56 percent of Americans don't trust public figures like Al Gore and Sarah Palin on climate change as much as much as they do the local weather forecaster.

UNIDENTIFIED WEATHERMAN: And your seven day forecast will show those showers-

WRIGHT: And the climate change scientists are scientists, they are scientists. They freely admit they have not always been effective spokes people.

MICHAEL MANN: I plead guilty. I don't think we've always done the best job that we could have done.

WRIGHT: Penn State's Michael Mann is one of the scientists who last year had his E-mails hacked and quoted worldwide by climate change skeptics as proof that scientists were cooking the books. You see this as a smear campaign?

MANN: I think every inquiry that's been done, that's looked at it, has said the statements are being taken out of context and used to misrepresent what scientists are actually saying. I believe it is a smear campaign.

WRIGHT: But, Mann insists the science is sound.

MANN: There's no serious debate within the scientific community about the reality of human-caused climate change.

WRIGHT: And yet, part of your job is to convince all of us, isn't it?

MANN: I don't see my job as convincing anybody of anything. I see my job a scientist to make sure that the public discourse is informed by an accurate understanding of the science.

WRIGHT: And that may be one reason that doubting meteorologists have had such a huge opening to convince the public otherwise.

BASTARDI: But, then again, you know, I'm just a ditch-digging meteorologist with just a bachelors of science.

WRIGHT: [Onscreen video of polar bears.] This is the biggest forecast of them all and the stakes are much higher than whether to bring an umbrella.

National Journal ran a piece yesterday (behind a paywall) by the German Marshall Fund’s Bruce Stokes, making the arguments that will be ratcheted up in the Senate beginning on Monday in favor of mandating windmills and solar panels: if we don’t mandate them, we not only won’t be using them but we won’t be making them either! This dire situation will leave the Chinese only themselves to sell the things to. Carry the one and you see how that harms our competitiveness.

Where to begin? At the root of this ritual case is a strange notion that being a leader in something – here, it’s windmills or solar panels – is intrinsically a desirable end. As I discuss in “Power Grab”: if we’re not the world’s windmill king…so what? It’s a windmill. It is not, as President Obama said, a new technology”, one of his rhetorical repetitions the curiosity of which should require no elaboration. Windmills are not a strategic industry. We have centuries of fossil fuels.

And after all this time windmills have come about as far as they can and will come with the possible exceptions of improvements in efficiency at the margins(solar is spectacularly worse). The laws of physics will not be repealed, the wind cannot be made to blow any more or regularly, and you will not decrease the host of very troubling NIMBY and other issues elaborated here by George Will.

Even rabid demander of such mandates, Obama’s Science Czar” (and population nut) John Holdren implicitly acknowledges the falsehood of the sales pitch that we can replace energy sources that work with windmills and solar panels. This leaves us with the principal argument in favor of these costly schemes, reported by E&E News last week as even acknowledged by Brookings Institute economist Adele Morris, as “the immediate need to reduce emissions”.

That’s about Strike Five I think, given that not only does no one say any posited emission reductions—under Kyoto, or cap-and-trade legislation – would remotely, detectably impact the climate, but the world’s most aggressive windmill and solar panel schemes have not in fact reduced emissions. Obama models Spain and Denmark are Europe’s two biggest Kyoto violators, seeing emission increases of over 40% under the treaty’s relevant period (vs. in the mid-teens for us).

These schemes have yet to result in the closure of one fossil fuel plant. That’s not for lack of trying, spending, or mandating (and the concomitant harms to competitiveness and family budgets, as I also detail in “Power Grab”). The, ahem, “backup” still has to exist, and do most of the work. This is all pain, no gain, just as would be requiring you buy two cars because the first one only runs every fifth day.

Still, we are told again in NJ that, apparently, requiring such redundant costs is good for the economy. Then comes argument made most aggressively, that failing to mandate these inefficiencies – remember, the premise includes an admission that without mandates, they will not come, saying quite a bit about their net benefits – will result in our becoming less competitive.

That’s absurd. It’s clear even in Stokes’ piece that what they’re really saying, without saying it, is that we would only become less competitive in the things we have decided not to mandate and without which mandates will not be in demand. We aren’t competitive in producing Concordes or civilian hovercraft, either.  Thank goodness we left that to Europe, too.

So the final claim is the resulting failure to create jobs in these industries. Of course, even mandating windmills and solar panels would only ensure more jobs in those industries (other than installation) in China, the Philippines, and elsewhere where they are now being made due to comparative advantages. Larding on more costs of production here with renewable mandates won’t improve that situation.  Which raises the most glaring in this irritating free ice cream pitch is the willful blindness to the costs of these mandates.

If you really believe that hurricanes and the Chicago Fire were good for the economy because, look, you saw how it put people to work, then the NJ article and green-jobs mantra are both compelling. But the fact that at this late hour this sort of fantasy-making remains the lead argument for demanding we leap forward to old energy technologies shows you just how dire things are, and hints at how bad they will get if the rationers succeed.

And they begin their effort to do so in the Senate, by whatever means necessary (the committee process has already been suspended by Harry Reid) on Monday.

The Pentagon rescinded the invitation of evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at its May 6 National Day of Prayer event because of complaints about his previous comments about Islam.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation expressed its concern over Graham's involvement with the event in an April 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. MRFF's complaint about Graham, the son of Rev. Billy Graham, focused on remarks he made after 9/11 in which he called Islam "wicked" and "evil" and his lack of apology for those words.

Col. Tom Collins, an Army spokesman, told ABC News on April 22, "This Army honors all faiths and tries to inculcate our soldiers and work force with an appreciation of all faiths and his past comments just were not appropriate for this venue."

In a press release, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins called the Army's decision "further evidence that the leadership of our nation's military has been impaired by the politically correct culture being advanced by this Administration. Under this Administration's watch we are seeing the First Amendment, designed to protect the religious exercise of Americans, retooled into a sword to sever America's ties with orthodox Christianity."

Graham's comments could certainly be considered inflammatory, but it should be noted that the Obama Administration hasn't always backed away from controversial religious leaders.

An April 17 front page Washington Post article by Krissah Williams on Rev. Al Sharpton detailed how he has been an "ally" to Barack Obama since the 2008 election:

Sharpton has been among the president's chief defenders against criticism from television host Tavis Smiley that "black folks are catching hell" and that the president should do more to specifically help blacks.

"We need to try to solve our problems and not expect the president to advocate for us," Sharpton said on his radio show. "It is interesting to me that some people don't understand that to try to make the president do certain things will only benefit the right wing, who wants to get the president and us."

Williams also noted several times in the article the link between Obama cabinet officials and Sharpton, with officials speaking at his National Action Network conference and regularly appearing on his radio program.

But Sharpton is not without his own controversies, to say the very least. Earlier this spring he told Fox News "The American public overwhelmingly voted for socialism when they elected President Obama."

Last fall Sharpton played a role in blocking Rush Limbaugh's ownership bid of the NFL's St. Louis Rams, going so far as to send a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The letter read in part, "Rush Limbaugh has been divisive and anti-NFL on several occasions, with comments about NFL players, including Michael Vick and Donovan McNabb, and his recent statement that the NFL was beginning to look like a fight between the Crips and the Bloods without the weapons was disturbing."   

Furthermore, Sharpton, the race huckster, owes his current status to his involvement in a string of contemptible incidents in New York. In the 1987 Tawana Brawley case, he slandered an innocent man in the course of defending an infamous "race crime" hoax. He was sued and lost a judgment for $345,000, without ever retracting or apologizing for his accusation. His race demagoguery resulted in violence and deaths on more than one occasion.

Safe to say, Franklin Graham's remarks about Islam, however objectionable, didn't incite murder.

The Pentagon rescinded the invitation of evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at its May 6 National Day of Prayer event because of complaints about his previous comments about Islam.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation expressed its concern over Graham's involvement with the event in an April 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. MRFF's complaint about Graham, the son of Rev. Billy Graham, focused on remarks he made after 9/11 in which he called Islam "wicked" and "evil" and his lack of apology for those words.

Col. Tom Collins, an Army spokesman, told ABC News on April 22, "This Army honors all faiths and tries to inculcate our soldiers and work force with an appreciation of all faiths and his past comments just were not appropriate for this venue."

In a press release, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins called the Army's decision "further evidence that the leadership of our nation's military has been impaired by the politically correct culture being advanced by this Administration. Under this Administration's watch we are seeing the First Amendment, designed to protect the religious exercise of Americans, retooled into a sword to sever America's ties with orthodox Christianity."

Graham's comments could certainly be considered inflammatory, but it should be noted that the Obama Administration hasn't always backed away from controversial religious leaders.

An April 17 front page Washington Post article by Krissah Williams on Rev. Al Sharpton detailed how he has been an "ally" to Barack Obama since the 2008 election:

Sharpton has been among the president's chief defenders against criticism from television host Tavis Smiley that "black folks are catching hell" and that the president should do more to specifically help blacks.

"We need to try to solve our problems and not expect the president to advocate for us," Sharpton said on his radio show. "It is interesting to me that some people don't understand that to try to make the president do certain things will only benefit the right wing, who wants to get the president and us."

Williams also noted several times in the article the link between Obama cabinet officials and Sharpton, with officials speaking at his National Action Network conference and regularly appearing on his radio program.

But Sharpton is not without his own controversies, to say the very least. Earlier this spring he told Fox News "The American public overwhelmingly voted for socialism when they elected President Obama."

Last fall Sharpton played a role in blocking Rush Limbaugh's ownership bid of the NFL's St. Louis Rams, going so far as to send a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The letter read in part, "Rush Limbaugh has been divisive and anti-NFL on several occasions, with comments about NFL players, including Michael Vick and Donovan McNabb, and his recent statement that the NFL was beginning to look like a fight between the Crips and the Bloods without the weapons was disturbing."   

Furthermore, Sharpton, the race huckster, owes his current status to his involvement in a string of contemptible incidents in New York. In the 1987 Tawana Brawley case, he slandered an innocent man in the course of defending an infamous "race crime" hoax. He was sued and lost a judgment for $345,000, without ever retracting or apologizing for his accusation. His race demagoguery resulted in violence and deaths on more than one occasion.

Safe to say, Franklin Graham's remarks about Islam, however objectionable, didn't incite murder.

In a sign of just how deep the MSM is in the global-warming tank, the White House Correspondents Association [WHCA] has announced that it is buying carbon credit offsets for travel connected with its big annual dinner [h/t Mike Allen's Politico Playbook].

WHCA president Ed Chen of Bloomberg announced the move, along with the dinner menu that included at least one "organic" item, then boasted [emphasis added]:

"The menu is consistent with our greening of the entire event -- a first in the 96-year history of WHCA. It includes WHCA buying carbon offsets for Leno's travels (air and ground) and POTUS motorcades to and from; ditto for WHCA board members and staff travel."

How much fair-and-balanced reporting of global-warming issues can be expected out of a media with such trendy green sensibilities?

For more than two decades, the so-called mainstream media have preached the dangers of manmade global warming, insisting American businesses and consumers must make massive economic sacrifices to ward off a global climate catastrophe. Not even last November’s exposure of e-mails from leading scientists on the alarmist side of the debate — showing them conniving to fudge or suppress data, discredit critics and distort the peer review process — has caused journalists to finally take a skeptical approach to radical environmentalists’ doomsaying.

A new study from the MRC’s Business & Media Institute documents how ABC, CBS and NBC have been just as strident in their advocacy in the months following “ClimateGate” as they were in the 20 years that preceded the scandal. At the same time, a review of the Media Research Center’s archives going back to the late 1980s shows just how strongly reporters have pushed the liberal line on global warming. Here are just some of the many examples:

■ “Global warming could mean economic upheaval. It could bring suffering. It could bring starvation....The causes of global warming are no mystery. The biggest culprit is carbon dioxide, or CO2, a bi-product when man burns fossil fuels to run cars or generate electricity....If we fail to act, there may be hell to pay in a hotter world....Global warming is not a fact, just a widely-held theory. The problem is, if man waits for proof, it may be too late.”
— Host Don Harrison narrating CNN’s primetime Climate In Crisis special, August 1, 1989.

■ “As the science editor at Time, I would freely admit that on this issue we have crossed the boundary from news reporting to advocacy.”
— Time’s Charles Alexander at a September 16, 1989 global warming conference at the Smithsonian Institute, as quoted in the October 5 Wall Street Journal.

■ “If the world is to head off the risk of global warming, with its danger of massive crop failure, or rising sea levels, or spreading starvation in the poorest countries, then America — the largest producer of the gases that cause global warming — is in the spotlight.”
— ABC reporter Ned Potter on World News Tonight, April 7, 1992.

■ “Environmentalists see catastrophes of biblical proportions, from droughts to melting ice caps that send sea levels rising.”
— Correspondent Barry Petersen on the CBS Evening News, December 1, 1997.

■ Karen Kerrigan, Small Business Survival Committee: “To say that the science is conclusive...is actually bunk.”
Host Ted Koppel: “I was just going to make the observation that there are still some people who believe in the Flat Earth Society, too, but that doesn’t mean they’re right.”
— Exchange on the December 9, 1997 Nightline.

■ “After decades of rancorous debate, only a handful of the most doctrinaire die-hards still dispute the idea that human activity is heating up the planet.”
— Time’s Michael Lemonick in a special edition for Earth Day, 2000.

■ “Despite the danger that climate change poses, the resources currently devoted to studying this problem — and combating it — are inconsequential compared with the trillions spent during the Cold War. Twenty years from now, we may wonder how we could have miscalculated which threat represented the greater peril.”
— Time contributor Eugene Linden, September 4, 2000.

■ “Around the world, the anger runs as deep as the flood waters being blamed on the global warming the Kyoto treaty was supposed to fight. President Bush says he’s putting American economic interests first in rejecting Kyoto, and in Britain, where they’re having their wettest winter ever, they sadly agree....Others point to severe weather conditions around the planet — flooding for the second consecutive year in Mozambique, drought and famine in the Sudan — and they say the U.S. is substantially to blame.”
— Mark Phillips on the March 29, 2001 CBS Evening News.

■ “Frankly, this notion that there isn’t enough science, I mean that’s right up there with does smoking cause lung cancer.”
— Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift discussing global warming on the McLaughlin Group, June 16, 2001.

■ “Glaciers are receding. Oceans are rising. Alaska is thawing. As officials from nearly 180 nations start to gather Monday in Bonn, Germany, to confront the vexing problem of global warming, the issue is no longer whether it is real, but what should be done about it.”
— Opening of July 16, 2001 USA Today front-page article, “Six ways to combat global warming,” by Traci Watson and Jonathan Weisman.

■ Weatherman Mark McEwen: “Up and down the East Coast, it’s coming our way, but we will probably see just rain in the big cities.”
Co-host Bryant Gumbel: “We never get any snow.”
McEwen: “Do you think it’s global warming?”
Gumbel: “Yes, yes.”
McEwen: “Do you, Jane?”
Co-host Jane Clayson: “Yeah.”
McEwen: “We’re unanimous....It’s global warming.”
— Exchange on CBS’s Early Show, February 6, 2002.

■ “ExxonMobil — I think this is a real group of bad guys, considering that they have funded all the anti-global-warming propaganda out there in the world. And Bush is just not going to go against guys like that. They are bad, bad guys, because of what they are doing in fighting the science of global warming.”
— New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman in an interview published in Rolling Stone, October 17, 2002.

■ Peter Jennings: “We’re going to take ‘A Closer Look’ tonight at why the temperature matters to all of us when it is affected by global warming. And just to be clear again, global warming is the gradual increase of the temperature of the Earth’s lower atmosphere as a result of the increase in manmade gases since the industrial revolution....”
Reporter Bill Blakemore: “Severe climate change is accelerating....Polar bears are starving as the ice they hunt on vanishes, along with the seals they eat. Millions of birds are affected as spring comes too early and the fish they eat [have] gone to seek cooler waters.”
— ABC’s World News Tonight, November 8, 2004.

■ “The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming....Unfortunately, very few people in America know the real name of Hurricane Katrina because the coal and oil industries have spent millions of dollars to keep the public in doubt about the issue....As the pace of climate change accelerates, many researchers fear we have already entered a period of irreversible runaway climate change.”
— Former Washington Post and Boston Globe reporter Ross Gelbspan in an August 30, 2005 Boston Globe op-ed.

■ “No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth....Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us....Something has gone grievously wrong. That something is global warming.”
— Time’s Jeffrey Kluger in the magazine’s April 3, 2006 global warming cover story: “Be Worried. Be Very Worried.”

■ “It is getting hot here on Earth. How hot? Well, maybe hotter than it has been in 2,000 years and it is our fault. Humans, that is.”
— Anchor Bob Schieffer on the CBS Evening News, June 22, 2006.

■ Tom Brokaw: “About 10 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by ice, most of that in the polar regions. But if enough of that ice melts, the seas will rise dramatically and the results will be calamitous....If this worst-case scenario should occur, in the coming centuries New York could be abandoned, its famous landmarks lost to the sea.”
Dr. James Hansen, Goddard Institute for Space Studies: “Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Miami — they would all be under water.”
— From Brokaw’s two-hour Discovery Channel special, Global Warming: What You Need to Know, excerpt shown on the July 15, 2006 NBC Nightly News.

■ “Scientists are more certain than ever that humans are heating the globe very quickly with potentially severe consequences.”
— NBC’s Robert Bazell, Dec. 16, 2006 Nightly News.

■ “So I’m running in the park on Saturday, in shorts, thinking this [warm weather] is great, but are we all gonna die? You know? I can’t, I can’t figure this out.”
— Co-host Meredith Vieira talking about global warming on NBC’s Today, January 8, 2007.

■ “It seems like we’re reaching critical mass when it comes to this issue. And all the experts agree. Well, almost every expert. (There are a handful of scientists — many of them on the payroll of big oil companies — who wonder if global warming is a reality.) But my fervent hope is that Hollywood’s embrace of Al Gore doesn’t give people an excuse to condemn and mock the effort — and oppose taking steps that we as a society need to take to deal with the issue of climate change.”
— Anchor Katie Couric writing about the Oscars on her CBSNews.com blog, “Couric & Co.,” February 26, 2007.

■ “I really don’t think climate change is a political issue.... Everyone agrees it’s happening. If it’s a political issue, it’s whether the political will exists to address that change. We know we need to do something, and this is a way to heighten awareness.”
— NBC Senior Vice President Dan Harrison quoted in the July 9, 2007 Washington Post defending NBC Universal’s 75-hour multi-network coverage of Gore’s “Live Earth.”

■ “Global Warming is a Hoax* Or so claim well-funded naysayers who still reject the overwhelming evidence of climate change. Inside the denial machine.”
— Cover of the August 13, 2007 Newsweek.

■ “Climate experts say whether hired guns or honest dissenters, deniers are confusing the issue and delaying solutions....The scientific debate is no longer over society’s role in global warming. It is now a matter of degrees.”
— NBC’s Anne Thompson on the August 16, 2007 Nightly News.

■ “There are a few, I guess you could call them dead enders out there. There are a few that are still holding true to the notion that maybe this is some sort of natural cycle....It is a tiny fraction of a minority of scientists out there. And when you look at those scientists and trace their funding, frequently you are led to the fossil fuel industry. So, really, it’s not a scientific debate anymore.”
— CNN environment correspondent Miles O’Brien talking about scientists who dispute Al Gore’s premise of a coming climate catastrophe, during CNN Newsroom, October 12, 2007.

■ “The verdict from the Nobel committee must be sweet vindication....[But] even the Nobel Prize is not going to be enough to silence the naysayers, some of whom still believe that man is not responsible for global warming.”
— ABC’s David Wright on Al Gore’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, World News, October 12, 2007.

■ “The President of the U.S. can better shape the response to climate change than any other person in the world. Given the importance of this issue and the fact that you have emerged as its global spokesman, don’t you have a moral obligation to put yourself forward for the presidency?”
— Time’s Bryan Walsh in an interview with former Vice President Al Gore, who was runner-up in the magazine’s December 31, 2007 “Person of the Year” edition.

■ “Could global warming one day force us into space to live?”
— ABC’s Sam Champion, Good Morning America, February 8, 2008.

■ “Not doing it [fighting global warming] will be catastrophic. We’ll be eight degrees hotter in 10, not 10 but in 30 or 40 years, and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals. Civilization will have broken down.”
— CNN founder Ted Turner on PBS’s Charlie Rose, April 1, 2008.

■ “Global warming naysayers are claiming that e-mails stolen from this research university show climate scientists discussing how to fudge results to promote the idea that humans are altering the planet....[But] the science is solid, according to a vast majority of researchers, with hotter temperatures, melting glaciers, and rising sea level providing the proof.”
— ABC correspondent Clayton Sandell talking about the ClimateGate scandal on World News, December 6, 2009.

■ “Does this controversy change the science? A team of explorers will present findings on Arctic ice melt in Copenhagen, findings that have nothing to do with the e-mails....Beyond just the lack of summer sea ice, scientists also point to some other things happening around the planet. The increased melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, earlier springs....All of those things are certain things that are happening, that they say it doesn’t matter what’s in those e-mails — the Earth is changing.”
— NBC’s Anne Thompson on NBC’s Today, December 7, 2009.

■ Correspondent Wyatt Andrews: “To many Republicans, Climategate proves that global warming is a deception....But if that’s true, it’s a fraud adopted by most of the world’s leading scientists, along with NASA, the U.N., the American Medical Association, and the National Academies of Science of 32 countries, including the United States. To most of them, ClimateGate is a sideshow compared to one overwhelming fact:”
Professor Michael Mann: “The last decade is the warmest decade on record.”
— CBS Evening News, December 9, 2009.

In advance of Earth Day, the Mini Page, a children's supplement that appears in 500 newspapers across the country, touted radical environmentalist Rachel Carson, whose baseless crusade against DDT caused the death of millions. (To read about her deadly legacy, go here.) 

Under the headline, "Happy Birthday, Earth Day," the April 18 edition provided no information on the negative impact of Carson's efforts. Instead, editor Betty Debnam enthused, "In 1962, a scientist, Rachel Carson, published a book called 'Silent Spring.' She caught everyone’s attention with her accounts of birds dying from pesticides. She warned that people were in danger too."

Debnam made no mention of the fact that Carson's "warning" was wrong. The National Academy of Sciences has called DDT the "greatest chemical ever discovered, a lifesaver of 500 million whose deaths were otherwise inevitable." Carson's claims that the pesticides could be linked to cancer have been thoroughly debunked. Yet, the Mini Page spun this activist as a hero to children across the country.

A May 23, 2007 op-ed by Ayn Rand fellow Keith Lockitch explained:

On May 27, environmentalists will celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of Rachel Carson, the founding mother of their movement.

But Carson's centenary is no cause for celebration. Her legacy includes more than a million deaths a year from the mosquito-borne disease malaria. Though nearly eradicated decades ago, malaria has resurged with a vengeance because DDT, the most effective agent of mosquito control, has been essentially discarded--discarded based not on scientific concerns about its safety, but on environmental dogma advanced by Carson.

The crusade against DDT began with Carson's antipesticide diatribe "Silent Spring," published in 1962 at the height of the worldwide antimalaria campaign. The widespread spraying of DDT had caused a spectacular drop in malaria incidence--Sri Lanka, for example, reported 2.8 million malaria victims in 1948, but by 1963 it had only 17. Yet Carson's book made no mention of this. It said nothing of DDT's crucial role in eradicating malaria in industrialized countries, or of the tens of millions of lives saved by its use.

...

But the scientific case against DDT was, and still is, nonexistent. Almost 60 years have passed since the malaria-spraying campaigns began--with hundreds of millions of people exposed to large concentrations of DDT--yet, according to international health scholar Amir Attaran, the scientific literature "has not even one peer reviewed, independently replicated study linking exposure to DDT with any adverse health outcome." Indeed, in a 1956 study, human volunteers ate DDT every day for over two years with no ill effects then or since.

Debnam, however, portrayed Carson and her agenda as part of "how the world's people started to care for Planet Earth." The headline above her photo read "People wake up." It seems as though even a newspaper for kids is not free from liberal bias.

The December 14, 2008 Mini Page also pushed the green agenda on children and guilt-tripped young minds about the effects of Christmas waste: "If you already have a plastic tree, it is fine to keep using it. But don't buy a new one."

For years the global warming alarmists' mantra has been "the science is settled." But a recent series of shocking disclosures about climate science has shaken the credibility of that claim.

The first scandal - ClimateGate - came Nov. 20, 2009, after someone leaked thousands of e-mails from a major climate science group: University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The e-mails were full of startling admissions like this one: "We can't account for the lack of warming at the moment."

Since then there has been an avalanche of admissions and disclosures spreading online through Web sites and foreign newspapers. The cumulative effect has impacted the truthworthiness of the climate science movement. Yet the networks haven't even adjusted their news coverage of the global warming issue to reflect the discoveries.

As President Obama readies his push for cap-and-trade at a potential cost of trillions of dollars, the news networks maintained warnings about the "precarious" state of the environment. They depicted the Earth as threatened by global warming and only discussed climate science errors in one-sixth of climate change stories.

The Media Research Center's Business & Media Institute examined every network report containing the terms "global warming" or "climate change" on morning and evening newscasts between Nov. 20, 2009, (the day the ClimateGate scandal broke) and April 1, 2010. These were some of BMI's findings:

• Broadcasts Silent about Scandal, Then Defend Alarmist Science: It took ABC, CBS and NBC 14 days to even mention the ClimateGate e-mail controversy. When they couldn't get away with it any longer they downplayed its threat to the credibility of the global warming movement. CBS's Wyatt Andrews defended alarmists against accusations of "fraud" and "deception" saying "if that's true, it's a fraud adopted by most of the world's leading scientists ..."
• Networks Bury Climate Science Revelations with Avalanche of Warming Stories: The networks aired more than six times as many global warming alarmism reports than they did stories mentioning any of the problems with climate science research (86 to 13). ABC and NBC both aired stories about Arctic photographers that indicated their pictures were proof of global warming, even though they were not part of any scientific analysis.
• Media ‘Disappointed' by Lack of Results in Copenhagen: There has been no media attempt at objectivity: all three networks supported the purpose of the Copenhagen climate conference. CBS's Sharyl Attkisson said, "Few would argue with the U.S. having a presence [there]." But by the end of the conference some reporters fretted about the lack of a binding agreement. NBC's Lester Holt said the conference "fell far short of what many hoped for." ABC's Charles Gibson said the non-binding nature of the agreement makes "you wonder if this really is worth the paper it's printed on."
• NBC the Worst: Seventy-five percent of stories on NBC (42 out of 56) promoted the global warming movement's perspective, compared to 48 percent on CBS (16 out of 33). During the Copenhagen summit, NBC described left-wing protests (demanding more action be taken to prevent climate change) in flattering terms, despite hundreds of arrests. "The protest has a bit of a feel of a street fair," NBC's Anne Thompson cheerfully claimed.
• CBS the Best: In addition to the lowest percentage of alarmist reports, CBS was also the only one of the three networks to mention climate science errors beyond ClimateGate. On Feb. 4, 2010, the "Evening News" reported the incorrect Himalayan glacier prediction as well as problems with Chinese weather station data.
  

To improve coverage, BMI recommends:

• Don't Ignore Problems with Alarmists' Data: All three networks avoided reporting on ClimateGate for 13 days; it wasn't until the 14^th day that NBC finally broke the silence. If the cover-up and potential manipulation had been done by scientists arguing against the threat of climate change, would the networks have ignored such a scandal?
• Report Both Sides of Climate Science Debate, Don't Advocate One Side: Reporters have a professional responsibility to remain objective and avoid inserting their own opinions into stories. Many network reporters have sorely missed that mark when it comes to reporting on global warming and climate change.
• Be Skeptical of Scientists and Politicians Pushing Threat of Warming, Not Just ‘Naysayers:' Journalists should always look for ulterior motives, possible biases and sources of funding on the part of their subjects rather than taking their word for it. A healthy dose of skepticism especially toward the politicians and scientific alarmists would have resulted in much better reporting on climate change.
• Find Other Scientific Viewpoints: There are many scientists who are not part of the global warming consensus. The media often unfairly lump them into one group with labels like "skeptic," "denier" and "naysayer." This is an injustice given the widely divergent views in the scientific community. Network reporters should reach out to such scientists and hear what they have to say instead of dismissing and disparaging them. They could begin by attending the 4^th International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago May 16-18.

Read the entire Business & Media Institute Special Report here

Brent Bozell joined "Fox & Friends" on the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day to discuss a new Business & Media Institute Special Report about the broadcast networks' distorted coverage of ClimateGate and other climate scandals.

Bozell highlighted the way the networks have barely reported ClimateGate and the other climate science scandals that have eroded the credibility of the global warming alarmism movement. Such stories were ignored because they didn't fit the "narrative" of the network news.

"What's been going on in the press; however, for a number of years is this systematic push to say that we can only have one point of view on this which is that it's settled science and it's over," Bozell told Fox News Channel.

Then ClimateGate and subsequent scandals happened. Bozell called it the "East Anglia eruption," referring to the e-mails and files showing "campaigns to manipulate the data in their favor," to destroy evidence, and to bully journalists to "not listen to critics of this."

But the networks downplayed those scandals and attempted to discredit critics of global warming alarmists as Bozell explained after "Fox & Friends" showed a clip from ABC News (video):

"Note the words Gretchen, ‘naysayers.' They might as well be calling them Flat Earth Society. ‘Stolen data.' Look at the pejorative. No evidence of this, of this -- they simply dismiss it at the end by saying it's settled science. And oh by the way, it took ABC 16 days before they did their first story on this."

BMI found that between Nov. 20, 2009, (the day the ClimateGate e-mails were leaked) and April 1, 2010, less than 10 percent of global warming stories mentioning any of the numerous scandals involving climate science. 

ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening newscasts also aired more than 6 times as many alarmist stories during the same time period.

It took the networks 14 days to even mention the ClimateGate e-mail controversy. When they couldn't get away with ignoring it any longer they downplayed its threat to the credibility of the global warming movement. CBS's Wyatt Andrews defended alarmists against accusations of "fraud" and "deception" saying "if that's true, it's a fraud adopted by most of the world's leading scientists ..."

In its puffy celebration of Earth Day on Thursday, The Washington Post found the green movement in "midlife crisis." Sadly, reported David Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin, the American people aren't grasping the immediacy of global warming, or see their exhalations as pollution:

The problems are more slippery: pollutants like greenhouse-gas emissions, which don't stink or sting the eyes. And current activists, by their own admission, rarely muster the kind of collar-grabbing immediacy that the first Earth Day gave to environmental causes.

"I don't think we've come up with a good way in the conservation movement of making it real for people," said Arturo Sandoval, who was 22 when he organized activities across the West on the first Earth Day.

In 1970, "you could say, 'Have you been down to the river lately?' And people would say, 'Oh my God, I don't even let my kids go there,' "said Sandoval, now 62 and still working on environmental causes in Albuquerque. "Global warming, to most people, is an abstract issue."

The Post duo at least seem to identify Earth Day explicitly as "liberal" activism. They don't really find anything extreme or authoritarian at the deep end of the green movement, other than hinting at it with irony: "In 1970, students at San Jose State buried a car as a protest against consumerism. In 2010, there will be Earth Day events in Washington put on by Chevrolet and Ford."

They championed how a raft of anti-pollution laws has made the nation cleaner -- and made the urgency of environmental pleas fade.

Public opinion polls show that, while Americans care about the environment, they generally rank it behind other priorities like jobs, terrorism and health care. And, on climate change -- the environmental movement's defining issue now -- polls show Americans seeming less concerned, not more, than in previous years.

"I don't think the environmental movement is deep enough, broad enough, to have the impact we want," said Bill Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society, who, like many of today's most prominent environmental leaders, took part in Earth Day events in 1970. "We're a strong interest group, but we have yet to have the kind of political clout you really need in today's political world."

In fact, many also seem to have absorbed the lesson that the best thing for the environment is to buy things.

This year, a poll conducted by professors at George Mason, Yale and American universities showed that respondents who were most alarmed about climate change were more than eight times more likely to express their concern through shopping for "green" products than by contacting an elected official multiple times about it.

From the anti-consumer bent of the first Earth Day, "we've gone to the opposite extreme. We're too respectful of business," said Adam Rome, a professor at Pennsylvania State University who studies environmental history. He said that Americans have continued to buy more goods and use more energy in the past four decades -- and that, in many ways, American pollution was outsourced, as manufacturing moved overseas.

Now that's the environmental movement too often papered over by the press -- the ones who hate consumerism, hate energy use, and when it comes down to it, just thinks there are too many ignorant and piggish humans befouling the planet. There's a deep streak of misanthropy lurking, going back to Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb, predicting a "die-back" as the inevitable consequence of mass ignorance. Except it never happened -- just like catastrophic global warming may never happen.

A day after Minnesotans For Global Warming pulled their "Hide the Decline" video from YouTube at the request of ClimateGate scientist Michael Mann, all versions of this global warming satire were apparently removed from the powerful website.

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, M4GW received a threat from Mann's representatives stating that if the video was not taken down, he would sue.

After M4GW complied with Mann's request, the No Cap and Trade Coalition posted a new version of "Hide the Decline" on YouTube.

Unfortunately on Wednesday, this new version AND all related videos were removed from YouTube supposedly due to a copyright claim by JibJab Media, Inc.

According to M4GW's Elmer Beauregard, this makes no sense ("Hide the Decline II" video embedded below the fold courtesy Breitbart TV):

It is true the original version did contain JibJab content, the claymation video with Michael Mann's head on it was made on JibJab's website. I also put a disclaimer at the beginning of the website that JibJab was not responsible for this content.

The new version "Hide The Decline II" did not, however, contain any JibJab content or the image of Michale Mann that was in dispute in the letter from Mann's attorney. So I'm wondering why it got yanked. I'm sure it was a little like playing Whack-A-Mole for youTube, everybody and their sister was uploading the original version to their youTube channel. Maybe in their zeal youTube inadvertently wiped out the new version.

With Blip TV allowing the new version to be posted, it will be interesting to see whether its management receives a complaint from JibJab.

Stay tuned. 

In honor of Earth Day 2010, the Washington Post dedicated eight tree-killing pages to a special advertising supplement titled "Environmental Leadership." (Unavailable online).

Although it was woefully short on actual ads, the advertising supplement featured thirteen columns that sponsored, championed, and moralized the environmental catastrophe sure to result if Americans - and sometimes others - don't dramatically overhaul the economy and lifestyles. It predictably featured loud calls for more and more government while consciously downplaying the costs to the American economy.

Sources for the special "Environmental Leadership" supplement include:

• Sources for the special "Environmental Leadership" supplement include:
• New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg urging Congress to adopt the Green Taxis Act requiring all taxi owners to buy hybrids when retiring old vehicles.
• Greensburg, Kansas Mayor Bob Dixson recommending every city emulate Greensburg's environmental standards for buildings.
• Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency showing environmentalism and economic growth aren't mutually exclusive
• David Saperstein, director of the left wing Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism on morality and evironmentalism.
• Dorothy Robyn, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment arguing that green technology will improve the military's effectiveness (Environmentalism as a national security issue.)
• Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of the Orthodox Church pontificating that environmentalism and morals are mutually inclusive.
• Bill Scanlon, writer for National Renewable Energy Laboratory calling for increased funding of wind energy.
• Joan Ogden, co-director of the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways Program at University of California, Davis saying government aid is needed for zero-emission vehicles.
• Marchant Wentworth from the left wing Union of Concerned Scientists
• Rick Fedrizzi, CEO of U.S. Green Building Council on trapping carbon-emission from coal plants
• Joan Fitzgerald, Director, Law, Policy and Society Program at Northeastern University urging one and all to move beyond talk of market forces and embrace the true nature of "environmental reform and economic stimulus" - "our friends, families and neighbors"

Jon Entine, a Visiting Fellow at the conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute, was also included - promoting smarter corporate environmentalism.

And Richard A. Meserve, president at Carnegie Institution for Science argued that nuclear energy must be included in energy strategies going forward.

The Post, which can't be accused of restraint in pushing its political agenda, must have been disappointed in the roughly three pages of ads in its eight-page ad supplement. But it isn't really surprising when it's offering solutions to a non-existing problem where debate really is over.

 

Another country is looking into whether or not Al Gore's schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth" should carry a warning before it is shown in public schools.

In October 2007, a British judge ruled that there were so many material falsehood's in the film that they had to be disclosed to students before it was aired.

Now, a petition is being distributed in New Zealand for similar provisions to be implemented.

As New Zealand's National Business Review reported Wednesday:

Politicians have been asked to consider whether New Zealand's students are protected from political indoctrination in schools after the showing of Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth prompted a petition to Parliament.

The petition of former ACT MP Muriel Newman asked that New Zealand school children be protected from political indoctrination by inserting into the Education Act provisions similar to those in the British act.

The petition was signed by 250 people.

Dr Newman said concerned parents contacted her after An Inconvenient Truth was shown in schools in 2007.

They were concerned that teachers were not pointing out inaccuracies in the film and were not explaining that there were alternative viewpoints.

"As a result parents were concerned that their children were being subjected to political propaganda at school," she said. [...]

Parliament's education select committee will now consider the petition.

As NewsBusters reported in 2007:

In order for the film to be shown [in England], the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children. 

How will New Zealand's parliament rule? 

Stay tuned. 

ClimateGate scientist Michael Mann has threatened Minnesotans For Global Warming with legal action if their hit video "Hide the Decline" is not removed from YouTube.

As NewsBusters reported in November, M4GW, in response to highly incriminating e-mail messages hacked from the British Climatic Research Unit weeks earlier, created an absolutely delicious version of the Tommy James and the Shondells' classic "Draggin' the Line."

On Tuesday, M4GW informed their many fans that for financial reasons they have complied with Mann's request.

Fortunately, the No Cap and Trade Coalition has made a new version of "Hide the Decline," and they are hoping Mann tries to sue them claiming, "The legal discovery process would give us an opportunity to expose Dr. Mann's research - or lack thereof to public and legal scrutiny" (new video follows with excerpts of M4GW's announcement):

Penn State University's Michael Mann, one of the central figures in the Climategate scandal, has threatened legal action against Minnesotans for Global Warming (M4GW) over the group's popular satirical YouTube video "Hide the Decline." The No Cap-and-Trade Coalition, a group that includes M4GW, responded today at an event at the National Press Club, releasing Mann's threatening letter and an updated version of the "Hide the Decline" video.

"We understand why Michael Mann is eager to silence public discussion of the hockey stick scandal," said Jeff Davis of No Cap-and-Trade, "but truth is an absolute defense." [...]

When asked why he removed the video, Beauregard said "Right now, the last thing I need is a lawsuit. I can barely afford my electric bill." [...]

Minnesotans for Global Warming did comply with Mann's cease and desist demand, taking the "Hide the Decline" video down from their YouTube account and webpage. The No Cap and Trade Coalition unveiled a new video they're calling "Hide the Decline 2," however. It was screened at a press conference on April 20th and is available on YouTube and NoCapAndTrade.com.

"I hope Dr. Mann does sue us," Said Davis, "The legal discovery process would give us an opportunity to expose Dr. Mann's research - or lack thereof to public and legal scrutiny."

To further goad Mann, NCTC has posted the original version of "Hide the Decline" at its website. 

Will Mann take the bait?

Stay tuned. 

It’s appreciably more difficult for Washington politicians to amaze Americans who paid any attention at all to what has been transpiring in Washington. And that number is growing. But the Democrats are giving it their best shot.

Read this just out from Politico, explaining that the Senate’s committee process simply must be suspended to jam through Obama’s energy/cap-and-tax Power Grab, because it is so expansive that it would invoke the jurisdiction of six Senate committees. These include the tax-writing Finance Committee, because cap-and-trade and the new gas tax (styled by some cheerleaders who think you’re stupid as a “carbon-linked fee”).

So, again, Harry Reid is going to write a couple of thousand pages — and try to buy off the U.S. Chamber of Commerce with revenues taken from you — in closed-door, back room deals. The ability to do so is one reason the bill in its House version grew to 1,400 pages, bigger and bigger with each closed-door deal. There are so many ways to design this takeover and the wealth transfers and lost freedoms involved, and to hide and target the hurt.

If that sounds like the health care takeover, it should. It’s the same thing. As the perpetrators admit to Politico. So possibly C-SPAN might ask to be involved. Surely the White House can come up with a better response than last time.

I’ve mentioned that “Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America” was just published this week, right? That’s the only reason I can say something nice about these people and their tricks. They prove me right. So cause problems by reading what they don’t want you to know.

For example, although the popular discussion in Washington is now trending toward the likelihood of a European-style Value Added Tax (VAT), this is being rhetorically cushioned with the explanation that it is the only politically viable or even foreseeable way to raise the revenue that Obama’s Leviathan State requires. That’s untrue.

Team Obama is hiding its cap-and-tax cram-down behind closed doors because, as documents I obtained under the Freedom of Information Act — drafted within days of Obama’s victory in preparation for just such a moment — reveal, the bureaucrats believe they can  plunder an equivalent of the entire corporate income tax haul per year from cap-and-trade, designed the way Obama has called for it.

That is $400 billion per year. That’s several percentage points of GDP. That’s the biggest tax increase in American history in constant dollars, by far. All of which I detail in Power Grab.

Meanwhile, as Reid et al. plot to continue the hijacking of democracy, EPA is conducting a video contest soliciting public video entries that support growing the regulatory state, on the odd argument that regulations already touch almost every aspect of your life. Oh. Then surely more is better.

And responding by providing the requested video advocacy is just the sort of helpful grassroots activity that community organizing is all about. And probably just what the “stimulus” bill had in mind when it dedicated millions in wealth transfers to the same groups. As I also detail in Power Grab. You are taking my hard-earned money to pay people to speak out in favor of you taking more of my hard-earned money. I hate to be so Bob Dole but, where’s the outrage?

As you’ll see in Politico, the Democrats’/Lindsey Graham’s argument distilled is that such an enormous undertaking would overwhelm the poor dears, so Harry Reid and whomever he brings back into the room with him need to hammer the couple of thousand pages out. It’s for everyone’s own good.

I remind you, that’s their defense.

Maybe, instead, these perils are ones that our Founders would have read as indicating that you either a) do this with particular attention to the Constitution’s clear presumption of transparent and accountable policymaking, or b) you don’t do it at all.

So, we see here proof that they really are that radical. And they’re scared that their opportunity to “organize society” is short-lived and is creating a backlash, such that they’d better cram as much down now as they can.

This isn’t news. But this latest Power Grab is. So far the Republicans have raised eyebrows but not their voices. Will they shut down the Senate in protest, or at least to stall this and draw attention to the sleaze being employed to no media opprobrium — all of the proper people know that this is a very fashionable issue, so long as the windmills are placed out there next to the unwashed.

Will you let them get away with it? Or, as I hopefully note at the end of my book, will you have something to tell your kids and grandkids that you did in this war?

We have now reached the apex of "heads I win, tails you lose" global-warming alarmism. In his April 18 op-ed for the LA Times, author Eli Kintisch warned that "the world is running short on air pollution, and if we continue to cut back on smoke pouring forth from industrial smokestacks," global warming consequences could be "profound."

Having painted themselves into an environmental conundrum, Kintisch and climate scientists are left debating how they are going to proceed with sulfate aerosols - a natural and anthropogenic air pollutant believed to have cooling properties on the earth's atmosphere.

"Thanks to cooling by aerosols starting in the 1940s, however, the planet has only felt a portion of that greenhouse warming. In the 1980s, sulfate pollution dropped as Western nations enhanced pollution controls, and as a result, global warming accelerated," Kintisch wrote.

"There's hot debate over the size of what amounts to a cooling mask, but there's no question that it will diminish as industries continue to clean traditional pollutants from their smokestacks. Unlike CO2, which persists in the atmosphere for centuries, aerosols last for a week at most in the air. So cutting them would probably accelerate global warming rapidly."

Kintisch and environmentalists will be happy to find out some scientists have predicted that recent fireworks in Iceland may become the norm the next 50 to 60 years, as volcanic ash is a major source of the atmospheric-cooling aerosol.

The LA Times article actually acknowledged that hasty policies the government social-engineers have imposed in years past have resulted in unforeseen and unintended consequences.

"[M]odelers forecast what would happen if nations instituted all existing pollution controls on industrial sources and vehicles by 2030," Kintisch stated. "They found the current rate of warming - roughly 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit per decade - doubled worldwide, and nearly tripled in North America."

"Despite intransigence on carbon emissions, even China is taking aggressive steps to cut sulfate pollution, and temperatures have risen as a result."

And so, because all the other fixes have been so successful, Kintisch suggested we may need to resort to geo-engineering.

Stock image via howstuffworks.com

The more I read scripts that come out of Hollywood, the more I wonder how Tinseltown manages to make money. Oh wait, I remember – the Palace Guards hype the tripe so that the peasants...

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The ultimate in Obama’s Big Government schemes that still await us is the “global warming” agenda, a necessary component of which is the “green jobs” boondoggle. “Green jobs” is certain to be a central part of the Senate’s stab at cramming down “cap-and-trade”, commencing with introduction of the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman legislation now moved back to a week from tomorrow (to divorce itself from the originally intended association with the loopiness of Earth Day).

Deconstructing the Big Lie of “Green Jobs” is the focus of a key chapter in my new book just out today, “Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America.” Go grab it.

Legislating “green jobs” programs means incurring massive debt to pay for make-work as part of a campaign mandating enormous inefficiencies on the economy. It therefore also ultimately means concomitant taxes. It kills real jobs in a trade off for far fewer temporary jobs, largely make-work and at enormous per-job subsidies. This creates a “bubble” that must be constantly pumped full of taxpayer cash simply to maintain it, also ensuring a bust to go with any putative boom.

Read the below excerpt from Power Grab expanding a bit on this appealing sounding (”jobs”!) sales pitch for statutorily mandating enormous inefficiencies on the economy — heck, read the whole book — and you will have a substantially better idea why Barack Obama surrounded himself with Greek columns at his DNC coronation in Denver. That’s the sort of debt we’re talking about. The fella’s prescient, I’ll give him that much. Now, from Power Grab Chapter 5, “Green Jobs and Scam: The Wholesale Fraud of ‘Green Jobs’”:

Consider the Center for American Progress’s (CAP) Andrew Light, whom I will use as our green guinea pig for these purposes, having by chance viewed him repeating his movement’s vacuous catch-phrases to Fox News late in Obama’s first year in office while I was pulling material together for this book. There he stammered, either naively or disingenuously, “you, sort of, if we’re gonna move the world towards a fundamentally new suite of mechanisms for creating energy, that’s, you need people to do that and that, that’s how you make, you’re gonna create jobs.”

Is it possible that the greens actually think that that is the sum total of these mandates’ impacts?

Of course not. These people are ideologues, not complete idiots (even if they seem to think you are). If mandating things is beneficial to employment and the economy, why stop at adding these new great ideas? Let’s mandate many, many more things in the name of global warming. If we wanted to “move” the world onto (feel free to say force, or otherwise use the full weight of government to coerce), say, a vegan diet and stop all of that destructive bovine flatulence, why, that would create jobs making tofu and selling it in vegan food stores, too. Same is true for rickshaws instead of automobiles, both of which are logical extensions of the “green jobs” case. We’d be the richest country in the world, if only we could get beyond old ways of thinking and our resistance to success. There are no downsides at all to this free lunch, and all it will produce is jobs, jobs, jobs.

Readers over the age of thirty may recall that this sort of ministration of the economy by our superiors has been tried in East Germany, and worked so well they had to build a wall to keep all the millionaires in.

Further, this philosophy is absurd on its face given that it tells us that Hurricane Katrina, the Chicago Fire, and other horribles global warming is supposed to bring more of, are actually good for the economy. …

Then there’s the free-lunch fallacy on which “green jobs” depends and which our policy sages ignore. After in effect mandating the destruction of windows in order to replace them, everyone is left with a full window pane if lighter in the wallet, liberated from the confiscated wealth they would have put to productive uses. But, that wealth was transferred to the Burgemeister’s glazier brother in law, in whose faltering alternative-window business the town’s former vice president heavily invested before running around warning townspeople about the horrors of old windows causing hellfire to be rained down on the village. Which, under this theory of economics, would actually be beneficial.

“Green jobs” legislation would be the ultimate cash for clunkers program, except that cash for clunkers applied to automobiles simply moved September’s likely vehicle purchases up to August without actually creating new demand. Green jobs programs do create new demand, if via mandates, for that which otherwise is not demanded (hence the mandate). Therefore, this involves moving forward purchases not of what would be purchased later, but what was unlikely to ever be purchased. Imagine not incentivizing car purchases, but mandating them—for the Amish.

So, there’s a feel for Power Grab. Upset Team Obama and rush out and grab one at your local retailer today, or get it online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Borders.

Remember the summer of 2009, when the Obama administration tried to push through a cap and trade bill?  It passed the U.S. House, and it’s been sitting in the U.S. Senate ever since, where I expect it will stay.   In short, it failed to pass muster with federal leaders who perhaps recognized that its passage would be both detrimental to our limping economy and to their political futures if they supported it.

Fast forward to 2010.   New Mexico has decided to go it alone and unilaterally pass its own Cap and Trade program, making it the only state in the country to ignore the federal decision on this issue.  More specifically, NM Governor Bill Richardson and his lame-duck administration have decided to use administrative process alone to force through Cap and Trade, and even bypass our state legislature.

This is the second time the Richardson administration has ignored the legislative process to force through rules that cripple our state’s energy industries.  I’ve decided to do something about it.

To stop this abuse of executive authority, I filed a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on Monday, April 12^th to stop the Governor and his crew.  The legal action requests a temporary restraining order against the administration, allowing the state legislature to consider the regulation in January 2011.

Following the federal failure to pass Cap and Trade, most states began to see the wisdom of re-evaluating cap and trade regulations.  Some involved in the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) are even backing out, largely because of the anticipated costs.  Arizona, citing the recession, has pulled out of the cap and trade emissions program involving several Western states and Canadian provinces. Utah is following suit: in February the state House voted to urge the governor to withdraw from the WCI.

In New Mexico, our current administration, which includes Lt. Governor Diane Denish, is fighting against the national will.  Our leaders continue to push through potentially unlawful and inane regulations that threaten to completely destroy our state’s fragile economy, despite the fact that the oil and gas, utility and extractive industries are the economic back-bone of our state.  Putting an end to this kind of madness is the reason I filed my restraining order and one of the reasons I’m running for Governor of New Mexico.

First, they forced through a regulation called the “pit rule” that has already forced many small oil and gas producers to move operations across state lines into Texas or Colorado.  A boon for surrounding states, but detrimental to our state. New Mexico’s treasury is currently feeling the effects of the pit rule. In the past, the state could depend on oil and gas royalties to keep the big spending going.  Now, those rigs have moved elsewhere, and citizens are finally feeling the financial impact of unnecessary special interest environmental regulations.

Second, an environmental group has called for a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. The Governor-appointed Environmental Improvement Board (EIB) is currently running a public hearing charade around the state on this petition.  It is a charade because the EIB chairman is a lobbyist for one of the very environmental groups seeking the petition.   Talk about conflict of interest.

The third blow to our energy industry now comes from yet another government agency.   In March, the state’s Environment Department (NMED) published proposed regulations that could establish an emissions cap and trade program without ever being subjected to legislative review and approval.   That’s right, whether voters like it or not, and whether our elected legislators like it or not, the Richardson/Denish Administration will still force through Cap and Trade.

With a decision due in June, the timing of this regulation does not give the citizens of New Mexico and interested groups enough time to consider such broad and sweeping regulations that will drastically affect the state’s economy. Keep in mind that Governor Richardson’s term ends on December 31. Obviously the clock is ticking on the Richardson/Denish administration to leave some environmental legacy on the state, at any cost.

Are you angry yet?  I am, and I’m just getting started.

On Monday when I showed up at the First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe to file the petition, the first judge refused to sign it.   The second judge also refused to sign it, but has granted a hearing scheduled for next week.

When people ask me, “isn’t this a political stunt?”  My straightforward answer is “yes.”  If that’s what it takes to bring attention to this issue, I’m okay with that. This injunction and this action is to stop a potential train wreck and the dictatorial abuse of administrative rule-making that circumvents the state’s legislative process.

We don’t allow it on a national level.  We didn’t allow it before 2003.  We shouldn’t allow it to happen here and now, either.

Britain's left-of-center daily - "The Guardian" - has reported that former international environmental lawyer Polly Higgins has launched a new campaign urging the United Nations and the International Criminal Court to deem environmental damage on par with genocide and crimes against humanity in international courts.

"Supporters of a new ecocide law also believe it could be used to prosecute ‘climate deniers' who distort science and facts to discourage voters and politicians from taking action to tackle global warming and climate change," Juliette Jowit, "Guardian's" environmental editor wrote April 9.

"Higgins makes her case for ecocide to join that list with a simple equation: extraction leads to ecocide, which leads to resource depletion, and resource depletion leads to conflict. ‘The link is if you keep over-extracting from your capital asset we'll have very little left and we will go to war over our capital asset, the last of it,' adds Higgins, who has support in the UN and European commission, and among climate scientists, environmental lawyers and international campaign groups."

Among the "10 reasons why we need ecocide as the 5th international Crime Against Peace" on Higgins' "Thisisecocide" website, number five states "action can be taken against any individual. As an international crime against peace, no-one escapes liability" (emphasis theirs).

The existing definition of "ecocide" as described by Merriam-Webster is "the destruction of large areas of the natural environment especially as a result of deliberate human action," but in order to make "ecocide" more conducive to prosecution and sidestep "legal wrangling," Higgins' UN proposal plans to expand upon the definition.  

"The International Criminal Court was formed in 2002 to prosecute individuals for breaches of 4 Crimes Against Peace," the "thisisecocide" campaign site states. "They are: Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes and Crimes of Aggression. A 5th crime against peace is proposed: The extensive destruction, damage to or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished."

And as for all the accusations arguing environmentalists only care more about the earth - and see humans as the problem/enemy? Aside from the fact Polly Higgins is the founder of the "Trees Have Rights Too" website, and her group could care less about the fact that, "Developing countries accused the rich world of trying to ‘bully' the poorer nations into signing up to a weak deal by withholding aid":  

"Higgins is suggesting ecocide would include damage done to any species - not just humans," Jowit wrote. "This, she says, would stop prosecutions being tied up in legal wrangling over whether humans were harmed, as many environmental cases currently are: ‘If you put in a crime that's absolute you can't spend years arguing: you take a soil sample and if it tests as positive it's bang to rights.'"

Although Jowit noted how Higgins' UN proposal "would have a profound effect on industries blamed for widespread damage to the environment like fossil fuels, mining, agriculture, chemicals and forestry," dissenting voices were not consulted for the story. She closed with Higgins' opinion that although industries may oppose an "ecocide" law initially, adapting to the new UN law would not be a problem in the least.

"Higgins hopes the UN's ‘one member, one vote' system will help over-ride likely opposition of some nations and vested business interests," Jowit said. "She also believes many businesses favour clear regulation because they fear a future public backlash. And she cites how, when the US entered world war two, its car manufacturers - despite initial opposition - made 10 times the number of aircraft originally asked for. ‘It shows you how industry can turn around very fast.'"

Image via: villiagejournal.org

Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert on Tuesday actually moderated a debate about global warming.

In fairness, it was less of a debate and more a vehicle for him to make fun of his guests Joe Bastardi of Accuweather and Brenda Ekwurzel of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Regardless of the comedic intent on the part of the host, there were indeed some wonderful moments, in particular Bastardi pointing out that we're going to know in the next five to ten years whether there really is a connection between increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and global temperatures (video follows with highlights and commentary):

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Science Catfight - Joe Bastardi vs. Brenda Ekwurzel
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

JOE BASTARDI: I think that there is some argument that climate, in climate science, that CO2 may have a part of this. But we're going to find out very, very soon. You know why? Because the drivers that have been, we believe, have been pushing the temperature up over the last 20 or 30 years, the Pacific Ocean being warm, the Atlantic being warm, they're all going to come off. So if CO2 continues to rise, and the temperature which has flattened out the last five, ten years starts falling, we'll know. It's a simple answer. 

Exactly.

The reality is that if you ignore the comedy, Bastardi was quite right.

If temperatures do indeed decline in the next five to ten years as CO2 rises, the position of the climate alarmists will be completely invalidated.

This is why there's such a rush to get cap and trade legislation passed quickly, for the alarmists quite understand that recent weather events are conspiring against their beloved theory.

If global temperatures are lower ten years from now despite rising CO2 levels, it will be almost impossible for the alarmists to convince anyone but the hopelessly devoted that their theory has any merit.

Somewhat surprising that such an inconvenient truth would be so prominently displayed on the left-leaning Comedy Central, don't you agree?

That’s right; we red meat eaters aren’t the problem. And poor cows have been getting a bum rap. Via Don Surber: From the London Telegraph: “In the past environmentalists, from Lord Stern to Sir Paul McCartney, have urged people to stop eating meat [...]

One would think that in a story about how a four-year move-up of higher fleet gas mileage requirements being imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency would at least look at which manufacturers might be more or less affected by them based on what they currently sell, and how those sales are trending.

Well, most readers here don't think like writers at the Associated Press. Heck, in his report last Friday, the AP's Ken Thomas didn't even mention the fact that the EPA's regs represented a four-year move-up, and to a slightly higher standard -- apparently because doing so would have required him to mention the B-word (Bush) in connection with something seen as environmentally positive. Thomas also allowed "global warming" advocacy support to go unchallenged, as if the ClimateGate scandal that has wrecked the alarmists' entire case didn't exist.

Here are selected paragraphs from the AP report:

New mileage rules: Pay more for cars, less at pump

Drivers will have to pay more for cars and trucks, but they'll save at the pump under tough new federal rules aimed at boosting mileage, cutting emissions and hastening the next generation of fuel-stingy hybrids and electric cars.

The new standards, announced Thursday, call for a 35.5 miles-per-gallon average within six years, up nearly 10 mpg from now.

By setting national standards for fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions from tailpipes, the government hopes to squeeze out more miles per gallon whether you buy a tiny Smart fortwo micro car, a rugged Dodge Ram pickup truck or something in between.

The rules will cost consumers an estimated $434 extra per vehicle in the 2012 model year and $926 per vehicle by 2016, the government said. But the heads of the Transportation Department and Environmental Protection Agency said car owners would save more than $3,000 over the lives of their vehicles through better gas mileage.

... "Because of these standards, Americans will drive vehicles that save them money at the pump, cut the country's oil dependence and produce a lot less global warming pollution," said Jim Kliesch, a senior engineer in the Union of Concerned Scientists' Clean Vehicles Program.

... The changes will cost the auto industry about $52 billion, but the government says the program will provide $240 billion in savings to consumers, mostly through lower fuel consumption. The changes also could help U.S. manufacturers who produce advanced vehicles, batteries and engines, the government said.

The EPA is setting a tailpipe emissions standard of 250 grams (8.75 ounces) of carbon dioxide per mile for vehicles sold in 2016, equal to what would be emitted by vehicles meeting the mileage standard. This represents the EPA's first rules ever on vehicle greenhouse gas emissions, following a 2007 Supreme Court decision.

Each auto company will have a different fuel-efficiency target, based on its mix of vehicles. Automakers that build more small cars will have a higher target than car companies that manufacture a broad range of cars and trucks. For example, passenger cars built by General Motors Co. will need to hit a target of 32.7 mpg in 2012 and increase to 36.9 mpg by 2016. Honda Motor Co., meanwhile, will need to reach passenger car targets of 33.8 mpg in 2012 and ramp up to 38.3 mpg in 2016.

An interesting item found after digging into the numbers a bit is that the two car companies controlled by the government are so far the ones who are on balance doing the least about their gas-hungry mix of vehicles, based on this look at the top five best-selling brands in the US (data is from the Wall Street Journal's March Auto Sales report):

Governent/General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have the three highest mixes of "light trucks" (SUVs, pickup trucks, etc.). But GM's mix is tilting a bit towards light trucks, not away from them. It would appear that Ford's light vehicles sales percentage will drop below GM's in the near future. Chrysler wouldn't even exist without light trucks, and its mix is so high that it will take years (assuming it hangs on) for its mix to come down to even Ford's or GM's current levels. I should also not that since its the smallest of the five U.S. sellers listed above, it will likely be the least able to afford whatever fixed costs are associated with EPA compliance.

If the company-defined targets identified in Thomas's report are fixed, as he implies by not qualifying the specific numbers with an "about," GM will have to reverse its product-mix trend and move from higher-profit light trucks at a time when it's still losing money even after going through a government-orchestrated bankruptcy.

As to the Bush-related news, it comes from this item carried at the New Mexico Independent:

A renewed focus on increasing fuel efficiency standards came in 2007, when President George W. Bush signed the federal Energy Independence and Security Act which required automakers to increase fuel efficiency to 35 miles per gallon fleetwide by 2020.

Of course, many sensible people believe that the government has no business dictating fleet mileages, especially since the entire global warming enterprise has been exposed as the fraud that it has always been. There seems to be no reasonable basis for the requirements, other than to give the EPA a reason to feel self-important while driving up the cost of vehicles and compromising driver safety -- another factor Ken Thomas chose to ignore.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Once upon a time, liberals didn't much like Ronald Reagan - his policies, his ideology or even just because they thought he was a lousy executive and an "amiable dunce." 

"The Tower commission did not find Reagan a lousy orator; they found him a lousy president," Rep. Barney Frank said of Reagan to Time magazine in the aftermath of the Iran-Contra Affair in 1987.

And more recently, those on the left, and also some on the right, have declared the era of Reagan over for the Republican Party - a point more rational voices on the right aren't willing to concede.

So why are some supporters of liberal causes attempting to co-opt Reagan to promote their own ideals?

Asking "WWRD?" ("What would Reagan do?") is becoming a trend on myriad issues, including global warming alarmism, health care legislation, attacks on the Tea Party movement and, surprisingly, liberal pundits seeking to put the best face on President Barack Obama's leadership.

Videos Embedded Below Fold

Reagan a ‘Climate Champion'?

Imagine a scenario where former Vice President Al Gore and Reagan would team up for a common cause. Doesn't sound at all plausible, unless you're buying into a campaign that a group called Republicans for Environmental Protection is trying to promote.

On their Web site, ClimateConservative.com, visitors can find a number of radio spots the group is airing during the Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck programs on stations in New Hampshire. These ads suggest Reagan would have been all about combating the so-called threat of manmade global warming.

"Reagan knew that good stewardship is a conservative value," the announcer says in one ad after a Reagan speech. "Scientists found chemicals were depleting the earth's ozone layer. Reagan pushed through the treaty that fixed the problem. He ignored radio pundits who claimed ozone depletion wasn't real. Today, scientists warn that heat-trapping pollution is dangerously altering our climate. Once again, some want us to ignore the problem, but that would endanger our children's future - contrary to the conservative values Reagan stood for. It's time to ask, what would Reagan do?"

The other two ads convey the same message to suggest Reagan would have been on board reacting to climate change alarmism with domestic policies that wouldn't necessarily translate into solving this supposed problem and would cripple the U.S. economy. However, according to John D. Heubusch, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, that's speculation, and it's hard to imagine a scenario Reagan would be on board an economy-challenging obstacle like cap and trade.

"I know that, particularly in this economic climate, he would want to promote policies that protect our environment in a way that doesn't cost us jobs or place an unfair burden on the U.S. taxpayer," Heubusch said to the April 3 Los Angeles Times, reacting to the ad.

The Gipper Against the Tea Parties? 

Ron Reagan, one of the sons of the former president, is a liberal whose political views that are very different from his father's. For whatever reason, the younger Reagan didn't seem to think his father would have been on board with a movement that advocates for smaller government, one of the fundamental tenets of Reagan-style conservatism.

Back on HLN's Jan. 26 "The Joy Behar Show," host Joy Behar asked Ron Reagan what his father would have thought about the modern tea party movement. Ron said that his father, the conservative icon wouldn't have looked upon the Tea Party movement favorably.

"Oh, I think he would be unamused by the tea partiers with their Hitler signs and all the rest of it. No, I don't think he'd be cottoning to that much at all," Reagan replied.

That curious claim is counter to what the elder Reagan wrote in the Dec. 7, 1973 issue of National Review. In that article, Reagan clearly laid out the stakes as he saw them in the battle against bloated government and massive taxation, writing, "[the idea of limited government] must prevail because if it does not, the free society we have known for two hundred years, the ideal of a government by consent of the governed, will simply cease to exist."

As Reagan's other son, Michael Reagan recently explained to the Business & Media Institute, the 40th president would have been a staunch advocate of the Tea Party movement.

"I think that my father would have been supportive of a grassroots movement, as he was always supportive of grassroots movements, you know, in this country," Michael Reagan said. "I mean, people need to remember without the grassroots, Ronald Reagan probably doesn't become president of the United States of America and he worked the grassroots on a regular basis during his political career, and especially between the years of 1976 and 1980 after the loss in Kansas City."

Obama: The Next Reagan?

Since his death in 2004 - and despite all the hostile coverage he has got from the media during his presidency - Reagan is often compared to his ideologically opposite successor President Barack Obama, who has been shown to be a media darling.

Newsweek senior Washington correspondent and MSNBC regular Howard Fineman spoke glowingly of the similarities between Reagan and Obama in the Nov. 30, 2009, issue of Newsweek:

There are some remarkable affinities, personal and historical. Like Reagan, Obama shares a celebrity's sense of comfort on the (public) stage, a belief in sticking to the script, and a faith in the power of the written word spoken from an imposing rostrum. He also shares Reagan's reverence for the power of a narrative in politics - Reagan, because he was an actor; Obama, because he is a writer. Obama came of age politically when he arrived on the mainland in the Reagan years.

He watched Reagan attack with bold ideas the Carter era's sense of hopelessness and ‘malaise'; saw him and his party get hammered in the first midterm election in 1982; saw him, during a severe economic downturn, rebound to a sweeping second-term ‘morning in America' victory in 1984.Around the White House right now - beset by a weak economy and dire midterm election prospects - the story of the Gipper is uplifting, at least to the man in the center chair at the cabinet table.

And Fineman isn't alone. Ed Schultz, a liberal radio talker and host of MSNBC's "Ed Show" made a similar comparison on his April 5 program. However, Schultz's evaluation was done in an effort to attack the GOP for opposing the extension of unemployment benefits.

"Ronald Reagan was called the great communicator," Schultz said. "There's simply no question that Barack Obama is also a great communicator. He needs to be speaking up aggressively and making it clear that in this moment, what Tom Coburn is doing is not making a point about the deficit. What Tom Coburn is doing is slowing down the economic recovery, because when you stop these unemployment benefits, you squeeze money out of the towns that are hardest hit across this country."

And some have taken it a step further - that Obama is better at being Reagan than Reagan. According to CNN's Soledad O'Brien, the comparison was not only valid but Obama had exceeded Reagan's abilities as a communicator.

"The good news for this president, of course, is that he, like Reagan, is the great communicator, gets very high marks on that," O'Brien said on CNN's Jan. 27 "The Situation Room. "And in fact when we asked in the polls how do you rate him as a communicator, Obama - now 90 percent say he's a great communicator, a good speaker and communicator. Reagan 84 - 84 percent said that President Reagan was a great speaker and great communicator. So he's beating Reagan, who was known as ‘The Great Communicator.'"

But even where Obama has failed, particularly the economy, pundits have managed to trot out the Reagan comparison to prop up the current command-in-chief.

"If we can just - I've been wanting to share this on ‘Meet the Press' for some time," former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw said on NBC's March 14 "Meet the Press." "Looking forward beyond the elections this fall about the political future of President Obama, here are some numbers that people may want to keep in mind. These are the unemployment rates in key states in 1982, well into President Reagan's first term. Look at the screen. Michigan, 16.8 percent; Alabama, 14.3; Ohio, 13.9; down through 12 and above. That went on into 1983. Did it spell the end of the Reagan presidency? Not exactly."

And although it's convenient for the left to draw these comparisons for the sake of political expediency, Peter Berkowitz, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, says Barack Obama is hardly cast in the mold of Ronald Reagan.

"One can quarrel about the efficacy and justice of the Reagan tax cuts and the Obama health care expansion, but one thing is plain from the political styles that these presidents have brought to the passage of their signature domestic legislation," Berkowitz wrote for The Weekly Standard on Aug. 10, 2009. "Reagan's forthright approach is more consistent with democratic norms and the presuppositions of a free society than Obama's hide-the-ball tactics."

Finally, global warming gets the kind of attention it deserves: public mockery.  Even West Village audiences have to laugh when nature attacks in James Nguyen’s grade-Z environmental “thriller,”...

View Original Post

YouTube is assisting Al "Eco-Prophet" Gore throw a Hail Mary pass to the growing segment of Americans who are "deniers" of the earth's "climate crisis."

This time, Gore and his organization, the Alliance for Climate Protection, has issued a call-to-arms for young hipsters to make a video about climate change for a YouTube Video Volunteer contest.

"[A]s we celebrate our 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, we need action on all fronts," Gore said on the weekend YouTube sermon. "We need to build on our individual and family commitments and use this historic moment facing our nation to make a difference in changing our laws and creating a better world for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren."

Gore's message was the same - humans cannot wait another minute preventing the doomsday catastrophe of global warming, and thus America's youth must demand a drastic and immediate overhaul of the entire U.S. economy. 

"This Earth Day, we need more than just another celebration - we need a revolution - a clean energy revolution," the former vice president continued. "One that tells our leaders we can't afford to wait any longer to pass meaningful climate and energy legislation. Now I'm asking you to join me in launching this clean energy revolution by participating in YouTube Video Volunteers; create your own video to raise awareness for an organization like Repower America that's working to stop climate change and push our leaders to act now on this critical issue."  

On the April 22nd Earth Day, the top three YouTube videos will be featured front and center - on YouTube's homepage.   

"Let your leaders know why you care," Gore exhorted. 

This should not come as surprise to anyone familiar with the YouTube's parent company Google. Google CEO Eric Schmidt is a liberal - he campaigned heavily for Barack Obama's presidential campaign (even serving as an informal advisor for Obama), and has been a long-time ally and partner of Gore's.  

Google may feel that by playing its part in Gore's efforts it is being a responsible "corporate citizen." However, as the Culture and Media Institute found when it reported on YouTube's inappropriate comment, Google's sense of responsibility is selective.

On the same day that Time magazine published a scare piece about the melting Arctic seas, a British paper reported recent findings that the amount of ice in northern waterways has dramatically increased to levels not seen in almost a decade.

"Reports about the melting ice caps are distressing" frantically began Time's "Putting a Price Tag on the Melting Ice Caps" Saturday.

Yet, moments earlier, Britain's Daily Mail reported:

The amount of sea ice covering the Arctic dramatically increased last month, reaching levels not seen at this time of year for nearly a decade.

Returning ice - after years of declining cover - has astonished climate scientists who blamed unusually cold weather over the Bering Sea.

Researchers said they recorded the most ice in March since 2001 - and that the cover is approaching long-term average levels for the first time in ten years.

This on the SAME DAY Time published a piece dealing with the price of melting ice caps.

Pretty amazing, wouldn't you agree?

Of course, NewsBusters readers shouldn't be the least be surprised, for we have been reporting for years just how abysmal climate coverage is in America versus other parts of the world.

For instance, several British news agencies besides the Mail covered this expanding ice revelation, as did some in Australia and New Zealand. 

Unfortunately, despite the statistics coming from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado -- yes, right here in America!!! -- LexisNexis identified NOT ONE states-based media outlet EXCEPT for bloggers reporting the NSIDC's findings.

I guess our media only think Arctic ice is important when it's melting.

How disgraceful. 

In 1841, Charles MacKay first published Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.  It’s a classic, and remains required reading (and fun, too) for anyone who wants to understand, well, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

From Amazon:

“Why do otherwise intelligent individuals form seething masses of idiocy when they engage in collective action?  Why do financially sensible people jump lemming-like into hare-brained speculative frenzies- only to jump broker-like out of windows when their fantasies dissolve?  We may think that the Great Crash of 1929, junk bonds of the ’80s, and over-valued high-tech stocks of the ’90s are peculiarly 20th century aberrations, but Mackay’s classic – first published in 1841 – shows that the madness and confusion of crowds knows no limits, and has no temporal bounds.  These are extraordinarily illuminating, and, unfortunately, entertaining tales of chicanery, greed and naivete.  Essential reading for any student of human nature or the transmission of ideas.”

As MacKay explained way back when, idiotic crazes such as global warming hysteria are nothing new.  Throughout history, societies have fallen prey to similarly idiotic – yes I’ll say it again – Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.  The book covers witch-burning, dueling, alchemy, the tulip mania, and much more.  To these – one more time – Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, a future edition is sure to add a chapter on global warming hysteria.

And don’t get me started about the 53% of Americans who voted for Barack Obama!

New fuel standards make both the left and the media happy. It's easy to tell. There wasn't a single voice of opposition criticizing the latest act of Big Government on major prime-time news outlets ABC, CBS or NBC.

"Environmentalists are hailing the move as nothing short of historic," NBC's Lee Cowan said of the federal government's new fuel efficiency standards. The networks did much the same. Broad consensus from NBC's "Nightly News" and CBS's "Evening News" reflected praise for the Obama administration's latest regulatory efforts.

The federal government took a historic step April 1 to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. As part of a joint proposal by EPA and Transportation Department officials, the government implemented new fuel efficiency standards for all vehicles.

"This ends a debate that lasted nearly a decade," Cowan kicked-off the "Nightly News" segment. "But now that these so-called ‘clean-car standards' are going to be mandatory across the board, it makes it the first time ever that the federal government has limited greenhouse gas emissions."

"Nightly News" featured the opinions of three individuals who praised the new regulations. "This is sort of the first time that the United States government has stepped forward, to take the biggest single step forward to solving global warming," Bernadette Del Chiaro of Environment California said.

Cowan did note the immediate cost to consumers however.

"But reaching that efficiency does come at a price," Cowan acknowledged. "An estimated $52 billion for car manufacturers to be paid, eventually, by the consumer - about a thousand dollar per-car maybe added onto the sticker price."

Still, even the "thousand-dollar" figure was a bit misleading. Sandra Stojkovski, president of a consulting firm specializing in systems engineering, projected the sticker-price of compact cars, mid-sized cars, and a full-sized pickup will go up $1,800 to $2,000, $4,500 to $6,000, and up to $9,000, respectively.

Mary Nichols of the California Air Resources Board, an organization claiming energy efficiency and fuel diversification "Will Lead to Job Growth, Energy Savings, and Rises In Personal Income," rebutted the estimated costs for automakers cited by Cowan.

"We are a car culture, we love vehicles, we like them to be new and we like them to be clean. And we think we can have both," Nichols stated.

Over at CBS "Evening News," Anthony Mason acknowledged that though the new federal requirements will be a challenge to automakers, the industry will be aided by the "dawn" of a new era.

"Well it's a real challenge," Mason told anchor Katie Couric. "But Katie we are at the dawn of the electric era, we're actually seeing that now. For example, GM just rolled the first test of its Chevy Volt off of production line in Detroit this week - ahead of schedule, defying doubters."

At Newsweek, the global warming crusade remains an important mission. The magazine's latest push came in an interview by CNN contributor Fareed Zakharia of Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Zakaria threw softballs to Chu throughout the article, as Newsweek showed it was simply a matter of when - not if - the administration should continue to pursue a drastic environmental agenda.

It was revealing which questions were - and were not - asked of the president's Energy Secretary. Zakaria made zero reference to ClimateGate, the economic consequences of cap-and-trade and alternative energy, and no mention of the actual validity of climate change.

"Do you think that having a price on carbon is crucial?" Zakaria asked.

"I absolutely believe a price on carbon is essential - that will send a very important long-term signal," Chu said. "[But] if it's five years from now, I think it will be truly tragic, because other countries, notably China, are moving ahead so aggressively. They see this as their economic opportunity to lead in the next industrial revolution."

Chu went on to state the controversial cap-and-trade legislation remains a high priority for the administration. And while Zakaria did not bother with any of the legitimate concerns and objections, he questioned whether the current bill was large and drastic enough (read: stimulus bill):   

"When you look at the cap-and-trade bill that is floating around Congress, is it strong enough to do what you think needs to be done?" Zakaria asked.

"[G]et it going," Chu replied, alluding to alleged successes of the Clean Air Act. "Once you get it going and start making progress, very clever people start to dream up better solutions. So rather than wait around for a perfect bill that might be delayed for four or five years or forever, get it going."

Chu parroted Obama's rhetoric regarding the economic boon of alternative energy throughout the interview, but Zakaria was loath to challenge him on even the most basic economic realities of green-jobs - something Europe has come to see the hard way.

The skewed interview is typical given the magazine's past environmental coverage, where readers are left to assume any dissenting opinion is nonexistent.

As the public has grown more and more educated and less and less concerned over climate change, just over the past four years Newsweek has:

• Published a cover story equating "well-funded" climate "deniers" to the tobacco industry misleading the public on the dangers of smoking;
• Attributed extreme weather patterns in 2008 to climate change;
• After acknowledging an unpopular Al Gore cover story received a highly disproportionate number of negative comments, published a letter equating "deniers" to (what else) Holocaust deniers with nary a contrarian reader viewpoint published;
• Had senior editor Sharon Begley justify Newsweek's imbalanced reporting og climate change because giving the other side would be akin to granting space to moon-landing deniers;
• Finally admitted to its role in the global-cooling hysteria back in the 1970s;
• Published a proselytizing piece hailing Gore as an "Eco-Prophet" in late 2009.  

Newsweek cover image (from the April 16, 2007 edition), via PRWatch.org.  

After the divisive debate over health care “reform” and the problems that are already emerging from it (see young people, the states, AT&T, Verizon, John Deere, Caterpillar, etc.) you would think The One and Congress would take a breather. Wrongo! Here comes another hard left. A new “bipartisan” Cap and Tax bill is on the way.

Three senior US lawmakers are piecing together a sweeping bipartisan energy and climate bill, which looks set to include sweeteners to galvanize support among Republicans and industry groups…

The senators have hosted meetings with industry groups over the past two weeks, revealing details about their plan that would cap carbon emissions while expanding offshore oil drilling and nuclear power generation.

We definitely need to expand offshore drilling and remove some of the regulations that make it so hard to build a nuclear power plant, but it’s not worth the unnecessary increase in cost every American will pay for our energy (and everything that uses energy) that will come with the rest of this bill.

Will these “sweeteners” to get industry to go along include corporate welfare?

According to people briefed by the senators, the bill aims to cut carbon emissions from 2005 levels by 17 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050, largely by implementing separate caps on utilities and manufacturers. The federal government would sell separate pollution permits to each sector, using a “hard price collar” to limit greenhouse gas allowances to between $10 and $30 per ton, and committing to flood the market with credits if the price ceiling is exceeded…

The senators hope to send details of the bill to the Environmental Protection Agency this week. The bill is likely to be introduced by late April.

There is no need for any Cap and Tax bill. Let’s keep our focus on real pollution, not what we breathe out. Our water and air is now cleaner than it was in the 70s. Our politicians are acting as if the manmade global warming scandal didn’t happen. They are ignoring polls of scientists, Americans, weather forecasters and even the Germans who say the science isn’t settled. And we’re picking it up again just when the French are dropping it. We’re moving to the left of France!

If Congress doesn’t pass a new law devastating our energy production and our economy, the enviroMentals are ready to go around the people.

Environmentalists, unable to squeeze “cap and trade” rules through the U.S. Senate, have a new strategy for combating what they believe is man-made global warming:

They’re going to sue…

The environmentalists allege that individual companies are responsible for climate change because they have emitted greenhouse gases during the course of their operations. Those gases, they say, have “harmed” them by fostering Hurricane Katrina, eroding the shorelines of America’s coasts and causing global warming.

They are using the tort of “public nuisance” as the basis for these suits. They say it doesn’t even matter if all the companies complied with the clean water and air act, they are still guilty because the earth has warmed. Of course they can’t prove the CO2 emissions caused global warming, or Hurricane Katrina or that reducing these CO2 emissions would do anything to stop future warming. But that’s not really the point. They simply want to harass these companies into out of court settlements and scare every business into toeing the manmade global warming line.

There is also a real possibility some crazy judge will go against common sense and precedent and side with the Goreaphiles.

It’s time to stand up and stop the madness.

Don’t forget to check out the Big F@#&* Deal this week and a new term to fan the flames of class warfare.

After the divisive debate over health care “reform” and the problems that are already emerging from it (see young people, the states, AT&T, Verizon, John Deere, Caterpillar, etc.) you would think The One and Congress would take a breather. Wrongo! Here comes another hard left. A new “bipartisan” Cap and Tax bill is on the way.

Three senior US lawmakers are piecing together a sweeping bipartisan energy and climate bill, which looks set to include sweeteners to galvanize support among Republicans and industry groups…

The senators have hosted meetings with industry groups over the past two weeks, revealing details about their plan that would cap carbon emissions while expanding offshore oil drilling and nuclear power generation.

We definitely need to expand offshore drilling and remove some of the regulations that make it so hard to build a nuclear power plant, but it’s not worth the unnecessary increase in cost every American will pay for our energy (and everything that uses energy) that will come with the rest of this bill.

Will these “sweeteners” to get industry to go along include corporate welfare?

According to people briefed by the senators, the bill aims to cut carbon emissions from 2005 levels by 17 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050, largely by implementing separate caps on utilities and manufacturers. The federal government would sell separate pollution permits to each sector, using a “hard price collar” to limit greenhouse gas allowances to between $10 and $30 per ton, and committing to flood the market with credits if the price ceiling is exceeded…

The senators hope to send details of the bill to the Environmental Protection Agency this week. The bill is likely to be introduced by late April.

There is no need for any Cap and Tax bill. Let’s keep our focus on real pollution, not what we breathe out. Our water and air is now cleaner than it was in the 70s. Our politicians are acting as if the manmade global warming scandal didn’t happen. They are ignoring polls of scientists, Americans, weather forecasters and even the Germans who say the science isn’t settled. And we’re picking it up again just when the French are dropping it. We’re moving to the left of France!

If Congress doesn’t pass a new law devastating our energy production and our economy, the enviroMentals are ready to go around the people.

Environmentalists, unable to squeeze “cap and trade” rules through the U.S. Senate, have a new strategy for combating what they believe is man-made global warming:

They’re going to sue…

The environmentalists allege that individual companies are responsible for climate change because they have emitted greenhouse gases during the course of their operations. Those gases, they say, have “harmed” them by fostering Hurricane Katrina, eroding the shorelines of America’s coasts and causing global warming.

They are using the tort of “public nuisance” as the basis for these suits. They say it doesn’t even matter if all the companies complied with the clean water and air act, they are still guilty because the earth has warmed. Of course they can’t prove the CO2 emissions caused global warming, or Hurricane Katrina or that reducing these CO2 emissions would do anything to stop future warming. But that’s not really the point. They simply want to harass these companies into out of court settlements and scare every business into toeing the manmade global warming line.

There is also a real possibility some crazy judge will go against common sense and precedent and side with the Goreaphiles.

It’s time to stand up and stop the madness.

Don’t forget to check out the Big F@#&* Deal this week and a new term to fan the flames of class warfare.

"A study released this year by researchers at Yale and George Mason found that 56 percent of Americans trusted weathercasters to tell them about global warming far more than they trusted other news media or public figures like former Vice President Al Gore."

So wrote the New York Times's Leslie Kaufman in a rather surprising piece published Tuesday.

Shhh. Wait. It got better -- A LOT better:

A study released on Monday by researchers at George Mason University and the University of Texas at Austin found that only about half of the 571 television weathercasters surveyed believed that global warming was occurring and fewer than a third believed that climate change was “caused mostly by human activities.” 

More than a quarter of the weathercasters in the survey agreed with the statement “Global warming is a scam,” the researchers found.

The Times even quoted and/or referred to some of the more prominent weathercasting skeptics:

Joe Bastardi, for example, a senior forecaster and meteorologist with AccuWeather, maintains that it is more likely that the planet is cooling, and he distrusts the data put forward by climate scientists as evidence for rising global temperatures.

“There is a great deal of consternation among a lot of us over the readjustment of data that is going on and some of the portrayals that we are seeing,” Mr. Bastardi said in a video segment posted recently on AccuWeather’s Web site. [...]

Several well-known forecasters — including John Coleman in San Diego and Anthony Watts, a retired Chico, Calif., weatherman who now has a popular blog — have been vociferous in their critiques of global warming. 

Kaufman even referred to recent events that have put a cloud on Nobel Laureate Al Gore's favorite money-making theory:

The dissent has been heightened by recent challenges to climate science, including the discovery of errors in the 2007 report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the unauthorized release of e-mail messages from a British climate research center last fall that skeptics say show that climate scientists had tried to suppress data. 

And even mocked the Global Warmingest-in-Chief:

A study released this year by researchers at Yale and George Mason found that 56 percent of Americans trusted weathercasters to tell them about global warming far more than they trusted other news media or public figures like former Vice President Al Gore or Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential candidate. 

Wow. Imagine the New York Times reporting that Americans trust ANYONE more than Al Gore when it comes to his favorite money-making theory.

I guess the editors felt they were covered by including Palin in that sentence.

The very definition of irony. Submitting without comment, only because I don’t wish to go to hell. From Jammie Wearing Fool: Famed global warming activist James Schneider and a journalist friend were both found frozen to death on Saturday, about 90 miles from South Pole Station, by the pilot of a ski [...]

The very definition of irony. Submitting without comment, only because I don’t wish to go to hell. From Jammie Wearing Fool: Famed global warming activist James Schneider and a journalist friend were both found frozen to death on Saturday, about 90 miles from South Pole Station, by the pilot of a ski [...]

Global warming alarmists are now alarmed because they cannot account for the cooling trend that has been evident since the late 1990s in contradiction to their climate models. In fact, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests the planet has entered a cooling cycle that could persist for decades. Dr. Don Easterbook, for instance, a geologist and professor emeritus at Western Washington University, has concluded that sea surface temperatures will experience a drop that could last for the next 25 to 30 years based on his observations of the Pacific Decadal Oscilliation or PDO, a weather phenomenon that reverts between warm and cool modes.

Researchers who have long questioned the premise of man-made global warming theories point out that alarmist claims are driven more by computer models that omit key variables than they are by actual observations. The growing “climategate” scandal goes a long way toward vindicating the scientific skeptics who have been ostracized in the media and the academic community. Emails that have been leaked to the Internet from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia show that researchers have deliberately fudged and manipulated data in an effort to account for predicted catastrophic warming that has not materialized.

In his testimony before the British Parliament, Phil Jones, the CRU director, suggested that he would be cleared of any wrongdoing once a fuller body of evidence is presented. The emails that have been made public were only a “tenth of one percent” of his correspondence, Jones said.

If anything, the more recent email revelations serve to invalidate the use of climate models that figure prominently into the reports issued through the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“The fact is we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,” Kevin Trenberth, an IPCC author wrote in an email addressed to other alarmists in October of last year. “The CERES data published in August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data surely are wrong.  Our observing system is inadequate.”

In another email addressed to Tom Wigley, a physicist with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Trenberth makes the following comment:

“Hi Tom — How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!”

This exchange is particularly significant because it demonstrates that climate models that have been used to rationalize expansive regulatory schemes are in error, Steve Milloy editor and founder of JunkScience.com said in interview.

“We’ve had no warming for the past 10-15 years, even though carbon dioxide emissions have increased,” he observed. “The upper atmosphere should be warming at a much greater rate than the lower atmosphere but this is not happening. It means that we don’t understand energy flows, and if you don’t understand how something works it cannot be modeled. It’s insanity to go forward with regulations that are not based on something we understand, but that’s what is being proposed.”

Although “climategate” is properly viewed as an “unexpected gift” to skeptics in that it shows  “Big Science in its natural state,” it is not exactly new, laments David Berlinski, a senior fellow with The Discovery Institute.

“In the 1970s, the Club of Rome was on everyone’s lips with their hysterical warnings of mass disasters that were shortly to arrive,” he wrote in an email message. “My first book, On Systems Analysis, which I wrote for the MIT press, was an expose and a denunciation of the kind of stuff then current. I cannot see that anything has changed. Then as now, the people doing the hustle were doing it for money. Phil Jones and the CRU, after all, took 23 million dollars of public funds to fudge their data and the Club of Rome in their time took in as much.”

Berlinski continues:

“The overwhelming consensus is, as it always is, utter nonsense because it is in the first place an illusion: There are very many scientists who dissent from global warming. And it is utter nonsense because it is based on nothing more than a trend line. No one has the faintest idea what the trend represents or whether it will continue or whether even the trend itself was based on data so fudged as to be meaningless. The latter, I think.”

“What is at work deep down is a delusion as striking as various Zulu beliefs and no more credible: To wit, that because there is something that might for the sake of convenience be designated as the global atmosphere, there is as well a science of the global atmosphere, one in which for various initial conditions of the GA, laws of its evolution might be adduced from which explanations and predictions would flow. There is no such science; there are no such laws. To be sure one can say with easy confidence that the GA is determined by fundamental physics.”

Berlinski appeared in the 2008 documentary “Expelled : No Intelligence Allowed,” which probes into the mistreatment of scientists who have raised questions about Charles Darwin’s 150 year old theory of evolution.  Ben Stein, the former Nixon speechwriter turned Hollywood actor, served as the film’s narrator. The film is built around the idea that free thinkers who dissent from the orthodoxy of “Big Science” are being silenced and marginalized. In light of the “climategate” scandal, “Expelled” now appears quite prescient.

Berlinski, who is also a noted mathematician, is not himself a proponent of Intelligent Design theory, but he does defend biologists and astronomers appearing in the documentary who are open to the idea as an alternative to Darwinian views that continue to dominate the scientific academy.

In reality, science has never operated by consensus. Over time, prevailing views are either substantiated or dismissed as new evidence emerges. The momentum is now very much with Easterbrook and other researchers who have identified natural forces as opposed to human activity as the primary driving force behind warming and cooling trends. Ideally, they should find greater expression.

But Berlinski is not so confident over the long term.

“Climate science stands exposed but only for the moment,” he wrote. “It will be back. I cannot see much difference between evolutionary science and climate science and I have no expectation that the winds of dissent will ever blow from the one to the other. Why should they? In just the past few years, large scale econometric models have, once again, been shown to be unreliable and intellectually worthless. The world-wide economy tanked and not one — not one! — econometric model predicted it.”

Global warming alarmism as a movement appears to have peaked; that’s the good news. A new Gallup Poll shows the American public now dismisses catastrophic claims. Unfortunately, the political agenda that always stood behind the man-made global warming scare remains in motion. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) endangerment finding aimed against greenhouse gasses could open the way to centralized planning and government control that irrevocably transforms American society.

Sen. Lisa  Murkowsi (R-Alaska) has introduced a resolution to block EPA action under the Congressional Review Act. It deserves the full support of small government activists. But the economic case against new regulations, as important and compelling as they are, may be insufficient standing alone.

The grand designs of the statists who now hold sway in Washington D.C. can only be uprooted and defeated by attacking the nexus that exists between Big Government and Big Science. Swollen federal agencies that have victimized private property owners, business owners and private citizens in the name of environmentalism could become quite vulnerable in short order.

Good Morning America's weatherman and resident environmental alarmist Sam Champion on Friday promoted Earth Hour 2010, a call for people to sit in the dark at 8:30pm local time on Saturday and reflect on global warming. Champion enthused, "So, tomorrow night at 8:30, you can turn your lights off and join people around the world as they say 'Hey, we simply care and that climate change is something we want to make a statement about.'"

To make the concept very clear, the weatherman (see file photo above) repeated, "That statement is simply that you care." Of course, Champion and GMA found no such time to report on the ClimateGate scandal. On December 09, 2009, when asked about this on Twitter, Champion Tweeted back: "i kno what u refer to! [sic] there is quite a controversy surrounding the veracity of that stolen info...not reportable as such."

On Friday, Champion trumpeted, "We want to tell you that something very special is happening tomorrow night at 8:30 local time around the world. Something that you can take part in by flipping a light switch. It's called Earth Hour." The weatherman didn't explain what specific good Earth Hour will accomplish, other than showing that "you care."

Champion has a long history of pushing climate change alarmism. On January 31, 2007, he hosted a segment that fretted "Will Billions Die from Global Warming? New Details on Thirst and Hunger."

For the 2009 event, NBC's Today show featured actor Ed Norton to talk about Earth Hour. He compared the occasion to the civil rights march on Selma:

ED NORTON: I think it's, it's a call to action. It's, it's, it's-, turning off the lights won't solve the problem, obviously. But in the same way that the, the march on Selma, Alabama was a symbolic gesture for the civil rights movement I think those who care about climal [sic] change, climate change and carbon mitigation - which is a global movement - are, are trying to find ways to symbolically demonstrate the, the unity of purpose around the planet and, and really get our leadership to take action.

A transcript of the brief segment, which aired at 8:04am on March 26 EDT, follows:

SAM CHAMPION: We want to tell you that something very special is happening tomorrow night at 8:30 local time around the world. Something that you can take part in by flipping a light switch. It's called Earth Hour. And last year, nearly a billion people in 87 countries in seven continents turned off their lights to make a statement. Take a look. [Video of people turning off lights all around the world.] And out go the lights. That statement is simply that you care. And the World Wildlife Fund is spearheading this. It's called a call to action. And it's expected to be even bigger than last year, this year. So, tomorrow night at 8:30, you can turn your lights off and join people around the world as they say "Hey, we simply care and that climate change is something we want to make a statement about."