Like a mirage in the desert, climate change-the term that has replaced global warming-looks real, but disappears in shimmering rays when approached. Of course there’s climate change. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Its history is about climate change. Such changes occur over centuries.

What drives up the cost of electricity is the failure to use the centuries’ worth of abundant coal that exists in the United States, some of which is off limits thanks to former President Clinton declaring its location in Utah to be a national historical site. What drives up the cost of electricity is the refusal to allow liquid natural gas storage facilities to built in order to have access to this other source of power generation. Famously, the resistance to the building of nuclear generation facilities is also causing prices to rise. The utility’s advertisement does make one thing clear, stating that, “the cost of producing electricity has gone up dramatically.”

For that you can thank environmental organizations like Friends of the Earth and others who continue to do everything they can to thwart the building of new power facilities or access to the oil and gas reserves that exist in the U.S. This is not a problem about climate change. This is a supply and demand problem. This is about requiring utilities to spend billions to lower emissions that, in fact, have no impact whatever on climate. Worse, not only have utilities bought into the global warming/climate change myths, the media continues to repeat all the scientifically discredited claims. There’s the truth and there’s the billions that will be sucked out of the pockets of American consumers by utilities using the climate change mirage to hide the fact that ample natural gas and coal exists to produce electricity or that nuclear is clearly the way to go in the future. No matter what the advertisements and corporate statements say, climate change is something that occurs over centuries and is something over which no nation, nor all the nations of the world, has any control. History has taught us this over and over again. As for global warming, we are emerging out of a record-breaking and record-setting cold winter that hit, not only the northern hemisphere, but reached down into South America and South Africa. So, who do you believe? The utilities? The environmentalists? The government? Or the simple evidence of recent massive blizzards, rapidly growing glaciers, increased polar ice shelves, and snow where snow has not fallen in a very long time? Read full story here.

Since 1942, the Ad Council has been creating important public service announcements that have ranged from Smokey Bear’s “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires,” The Crash Test Dummies, McGruff the Crime Dog, “A Mind is a Terrible Thing To Waste,” and “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk.”

Sadly, this non-profit organization has not only decided to take on the most recent liberal bogeyman known as anthropogenic global warming, but do so by using young children. In the ad embedded to the right, a young girl is actually about to be hit by a train to disgracefully demonstrate that our inaction today will kill our children tomorrow. In another, kids imitate ticking clocks as they list the predicted climate change horrors of massive heat waves, severe droughts, and devastating hurricanes. I don’t know about you, but irrespective of my position on this issue, I find using children in this fashion to be indefensible and way over the line of decency. How ‘bout you? Read more and see the commercials in question here.

Big Media bloviation by The Washington Post and other gasbags about man-made global warming pretends that political science is science. The bias at most news outlets about climate alarmism—and the indifference about reporting anything that diverges from the alarmist orthodoxy—can be seen in a Post story on the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), as Lorne Gunter of Canada’s National Post reminded recently.

The NIPCC is a counterbalance to the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which blames man for global warming. Washington Post readers learned the NIPCC has ties to conservative politicians and that the Heartland Institute, which sponsored the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change this month, received money from Big Oil and Big Health Care.  The Washington Post got it half right. Not taking anything at face value is wise, especially regarding such a white-hot issue. But since it’s not settled science, both sides should face the same exposure.

Skeptics of the Al Gore orthodoxy blaming man must be looked at closely by the media—and should welcome that to help establish their credentials to a brainwashed public. But Mr. Gore/ true believers must be held to the same standard. Science and reason don’t generate the hot air produced by politicians and the U.N.

THE WINTER this year was unusually long and harsh. What possibly could explain the occurrence of unusual cold wave conditions this year throughout the globe when environmentalists voicing their concerns about the human-led global warming had predicted that the rise in carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere would result in shorter winters with no significant dip in the mercury? Was this winter an exception to the rule or is it simply following a trend? After all, studies conducted by a small group of ‘sceptic’ scientists reveal that global warming has been waning since 2001. Latest studies supported by satellite data cast doubt on the climate fears propounded by environmentalists supported by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Satellite measurements available since 1979 show no warming in the southern hemisphere and the trend in the northern hemisphere appears to have waned since 2001. In August 2007, the UK Met Office acknowledged that obvious global warming had stopped. Paleo-climate scientist Bob Carter testifying before the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has noted that the accepted global average temperature statistics used by IPCC show no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998. According to UN scientist Madhav L. Khandekar, a retired Environment Canada scientist and an expert IPCC reviewer in 2007, the recent worldwide analysis of ocean surface temperatures shows that sea surface temperatures over world oceans are slowly declining since mid-1998.

The mainstream media seems to be purposely ignoring the bulk of the findings by renowned researchers throughout the globe that the current global warming fear attributed solely to carbon dioxide rise is utterly unfounded. Why is the IPCC, which has been blamed for relying on climate models based on wrong assumptions, continuing with its false prophecy? Read more here.

To hear the mainstream media tell it, we have a Titanic problem with global warming. Not large, but Titanic in that they believe “unsinkable” mankind is facing a looming cataclysm. How do they know? Because some scientists tell them that’s the way it is. But when other scientists tell them that might not be the case, they only half listen and soon forget. Such is the fate of the unprecedented 2008 International Conference on Climate Change put on by the Heartland Institute. That event drew 500 scientists, economists and public policy experts to New York to discuss the flaws in the Al Gorean “consensus” on global warming.

It should have been big news, but the media never gave it a fair chance. Reporters mischaracterized the three-day event as “quirky” or a “roast” of Al Gore and called attendees “flat Earthers,” as if we would sail right off the edge of the world. The event had such promise. Along with about 100 scientists from around the globe, actual members of the mainstream media attended representing The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and major networks like ABC and CNN.  But no stories. That was typical. None of the broadcast network coverage the week of the event even acknowledged the conference existed.

Print coverage was nearly as bad. While some discussed the conference intelligently - like Investor’s Business Daily or columnist John Tierney from the Times - others used it as one more chance to sink opposition to the hype surrounding manmade global warming. Those stories, and hundreds more like them, helped prove one of the very points the conference intended to make - that the mainstream media have given up the role of observer and become advocates for one side in the climate debate.

Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Fellow and vice president of the Media Research Center’s Business & Media Institute. He can be seen Thursday afternoon each week on Fox Business Network.

Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer conceded today that the Lieberman-Warner global warming cap-and-trade bill would be pulled if “weakening amendments” are added during the scheduled June 2008 floor debate. Boxer’s pledge today appeared to signal the 2008 exit strategy for pulling the Lieberman-Warner bill (America’s Climate Security Act - S2191.) Greenwire reporter Darren Samuelsohn described Boxer as “pledging to punt the issue into 2009 if any amendments get added that weaken the legislation.” “Boxer made combating global warming her top priority after she became chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee” reported an October 19, 2007 article in the Sacramento Bee. Political reality now appears to be denying Boxer the achievement of her “top priority” during the current Congress.

During today’s press conference, Boxer pledged to use the failed bill as a political tool during this election year. “We will hold those who weakened it accountable in November,” Boxer said at a press conference with the heads of 15 environmental groups today. “We will pull the bill and bring back the legislation after we have a new Congress and a new President,” Boxer added, sounding a political warning to opponents of the bill. During the question and answer, Boxer said she would play “hardball” with Senators who vote against the bill.

Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), commented on Boxer’s warning to her fellow lawmakers. “This should send a chilling message to any Senator who wishes to make any changes to the bill to lessen the economic impact on their constituents,” Inhofe said. “It’s clear from Chairman Boxer’s comments today that she does not anticipate being able to move this bill this year,” Inhofe said. “As Chairman Boxer is aware, several amendments designed to protect the economy and to deploy low emission energy sources like nuclear are likely to pass during a floor debate. Even ardent supporters of cap-and-trade in the business community, notably Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, believe this bill is the wrong approach for America. It’s inconceivable to me that supporters of this bill would try to force upon Americans more burdensome regulations while China remains exempt,” Inhofe added. [Note: Opponents of the bill include Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, prominent businessmen, and Senators normally open to cap-and-trade legislation). Read more here.

Update: The United States “would lose between 1.2 and 1.8 million jobs in 2020 and between 3 and 4 million jobs in 2030,” according to a new study conducted by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). Job losses would result because of “lower industrial output due to higher energy prices, the high cost of complying with required emissions cuts, and greater competition from overseas manufacturers with lower energy costs.” See more here.

All right, let’s talk about the money. After I asked readers to focus on the substance of the skeptics’ arguments at this week’s conference on global warming, readers insisted that I should have focused on the financing of the sponsor, the Heartland Institute. Others objected to my (and my colleague Andy Revkin) even writing about a conferenced sponsored by this group. I’m used to this sort of criticism, but I still find it baffling. Do the critics really think there’s more money and glory to be won by doubting global warming than by going along with the majority?

I ask this question not because I doubt the integrity or competence of the researchers and environmental groups who are getting billions of dollars from government agencies, corporations, foundations and private donors concerned about climate change. Yet even before the program was announced for this week’s conference, even as Heartland was (without success) inviting Mr. Gore and scientists on his side to come debate, the event was dismissed as impossibly tainted by money. At RealClimate , the blog that touts its devotion to sober scientific analysis, the Heartland Institute was written off as “a front group for the fossil fuel industry,” the same theme that was picked up by some commenters on this blog. Here’s a response from Joseph Bast, Heartland’s president: “Donations from energy companies have never amounted to more than 5 percent of our budget in any year, and there is no corporate sponsor underwriting any of this conference. These criticisms are just a standard left-wing smear.”

If readers insist on debating the pecuniary motives of scientists and their patrons, I’d be curious to see figures comparing how much money corporations, foundations and government agencies today give to global-warming skeptics versus how much they give to the other side. Again, I’m not suggesting that the researchers taking this money are corrupt, or that scientists will suppress the truth if it turns out the current prevailing view of climate change is wrong. If contradictions emerge, scientists will debate and revise their theories eventually. But it will take longer to figure out what’s happening if dissent is stifled and skeptics are demonized. The skeptics in the minority start off with a disadvantage in getting their message heard simply because of the media’s bias for bad news and horror stories. When there’s a well-financed majority dominating the public debate, I find it odd to hear complaints that anyone else should receive money or attention. Read more of this right on point analysis here.

The first time Li Gengxuan saw the dump trucks from the nearby factory pull into his village, he couldn’t believe what happened. Stopping between the cornfields and the primary school playground, the workers dumped buckets of bubbling white liquid onto the ground. Then they turned around and drove right back through the gates of their compound without a word. This ritual has been going on almost every day for nine months, Li and other villagers said.

In China, a country buckling with the breakneck pace of its industrial growth, such stories of environmental pollution are not uncommon. But the Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co., here in the central plains of Henan Province near the Yellow River, stands out for one reason: It’s a green energy company, producing polysilicon destined for solar energy panels sold around the world. But the byproduct of polysilicon production—silicon tetrachloride—is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards. “The land where you dump or bury it will be infertile. No grass or trees will grow in the place. . . . It is like dynamite—it is poisonous, it is polluting. Human beings can never touch it,” said Ren Bingyan, a professor at the School of Material Sciences at Hebei Industrial University.

The situation in Li’s village points to the environmental trade-offs the world is making as it races to head off a dwindling supply of fossil fuels. Forests are being cleared to grow biofuels like palm oil, but scientists argue that the disappearance of such huge swaths of forests is contributing to climate change. Hydropower dams are being constructed to replace coal-fired power plants, but they are submerging whole ecosystems under water.