Someone please help me out here. Everyone is yelling about fixing the “climate crisis”, but I still can’t find it - the crisis, that is.

There appears to be no significant change in either the frequency or intensity of hurricanes and in fact the last two seasons have been pretty quiet. Katrina hit land as a pretty standard CAT 3 and hurricane intensity isn’t measured by the measure of property damage at any rate. Global “temperatures” appear to be dropping ( if that term has any meaning at any rate ) and the solar scientists are complaining about a quiet sun which is starting to show many of the same characteristics as the Maunder Minimum, which led to the “little ice age”. Well, that’s a crisis, I suppose, but not the same color as the present one. Sea levels continue to rise a minuscule amount each year as they have since the last ice age when sea level was perhaps 400 feet lower than it is today. I just can’t see New York under water anytime in the 21st century at the present observed rates which don’t seem to be changing. Even the oceans seems to be cooling a bit based on data from the new diving buoy system, but perhaps NOAA is cooking the data and we can’t trust them any more than we can trust NASA anymore.

The Antarctic Ice Pack continues to grow and is now larger than ever in the 30+ years we’ve been able to take highly accurate radar altimeter measurements. The Arctic Ice continues to expand and shrink annually as it seems inclined to do, and we note some pretty good sized volcanoes have recently been discovered on the Arctic Ocean floor which might be helping the shrinking part a bit. Polar bear populations are at near record levels and seem healthy, and even I have seen them playing around on floating ice chunks in the Arctic summer. They are a terrestrial animal, after all, as anyone can see who visits the Churchill area in the summer and takes a polar bear cruise on one of their giant bear-proof buses.

Droughts and floods seem to be more strongly correlated with changes in ENSO and his friends than with a one degree temperature rise over the span of a hundred years, but maybe I’m missing something.  When I wrote the WE Campaign suggesting they take a closer look at things before falling off the turnip truck, I immediately started receiving email bulletins from them referring to me as a “fellow campaigner”, so I guess I now know how they grew to be a “million strong”.

So, while hordes of folks continually call for Weapons of Mass Taxation to be hauled out to fight the “climate crisis”, I still can’t seem to find the crisis anywhere and note that the likely beneficiaries of carbon taxes and such will be the folks tolling the alarm. As I said at the beginning: I’m having trouble locating the crisis, so I’m hoping some of the many experts here on this forum can give me a little guidance. See more and comments here.

Jennifer notes “this comment posted by Jim Peden in this thread at popular blog realclimate.org was disallowed. I tend to think it is the alarmist scientists that are really in denial?”

In his “Meet the Press” appearance Sunday, former Vice President Al Gore’s controversial views on the issue of global warming not only went mostly unchallenged by host Tom Brokaw, but were accepted as established scientific facts. In introducing Gore, Brokaw opened his remarks by describing Gore as a “Nobel laureate, Oscar winner, and crusader for conservation of energy and attacking the climate change that we’re all experiencing in this country.”

Brokaw continued by saying: “I think that probably our audience understands that there is a growing consensus that climate change is real. But the debate is how real is it, what are the effects of it going to be, and how serious will it affect us?”

Brokaw ignored the recent disclosure that 31,072 Americans with university degrees in science, including 9,021 Ph.Ds, have signed a petition that flatly denies Gore’s claims that human-caused global warming is a settled scientific fact, giving the lie to the claim of an alleged scientific consensus on global warming. The petition, organized by Dr. Arthur Robinson of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, stated: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will in the foreseeable future cause catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth.”

In responding to Brokaw, however, Gore said: “We are being told by scientists around the world, particularly the international group that is charged with studying this and reporting to world leaders that we may have less than 10 years in order to make dramatic changes lest we lose the chance to avoid catastrophic results from the climate crisis. We’re building up CO2 so rapidly that we’re seeing the consequences scientists have long predicted.”

And last Thursday Gore warned: “The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis.” He failed to recall that as long ago as 1989 a U.N. group of “leading experts” warned of the same dire perils from global warming in 10 years if action to stop it was not taken. According to July 5, 1989, article in the Miami Herald, the then-director of the New York office of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Noel Brown, warned of a “10-year window of opportunity to solve” global warming. According to the article, “A senior U.N. Environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ‘eco-refugees’ threatening political chaos.”

Gore did not explain that such predictions are based solely on computer models based on guesswork, which have frequently been proven unreliable, most recently in failing to predict the current global cooling. Neither Brokaw or Gore mentioned the fact that the planet stopped warming a decade ago and has now entered a cooling period scientists say could last for up to 30 years. Read more here.

Last Saturday, one of the nation’s leading climate alarmists—a government employee with a history of attacking people that don’t agree with his views on anthropogenic global warming—wrote rather disparagingly about a somewhat satirical NewsBusters piece.

Despite claiming he typically doesn’t comment on things “written about climate change in the more excitable parts of [sic] web,” NASA’s Gavin Schmidt took time out of his busy Saturday schedule to respond to something he described as “probably the most boneheaded article that I have seen in ages.”

Was this an effort by one of the founding members of RealClimate - the world’s leading website specializing in climate change hysteria - to correct errors he felt existed in my article? Or, was this a predictable attack on a popular conservative blog that not only regularly exposes the one-sided nature of media reports about global warming, but also frequently brings attention to studies that go counter to RealClimate’s, and maybe more importantly, Schmidt’s views?

It seems obvious from their behavior, and from this piece by Schmidt, that one way alarmists create the appearance of a consensus is by attacking anyone that doesn’t agree with them. Maybe it’s because some of these folks demolished Schmidt and two of his fellow alarmists in a March 2007 debate in New York City. Representing the realists at that event was Richard Lindzen, who Schmidt attacked the very next month. In fact, attacking the opposition seems to be a prerequisite at RealClimate as Roger Pielke, Jr., wrote on January 14, 2005:  “The site’s focus has been exclusively on attacking those who invoke science as the basis for their opposition to action on climate change, folks such as George Will, Senator James Inhofe, Michael Crichton, McIntyre and McKitrick, Fox News, and Myron Ebell. Whether intended or not, the site has clearly aligned itself squarely with one political position on climate change.” I guess this puts me in good company. Yet, potentially more disturbing is the power RealClimate has within the mainstream media, as well as who appears to be funding and/or supporting this website. See who is paying the bills at Real Climate in this detailed rebuttal piece here. See if you don’t agree with me that Gavin has lost the debate yet again. 

[Warning! This is satire. If there is any resemblance to reality in the text below, it is purely intentional.]

Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and winner of a Hollywood Oscar for his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”, was at it again, giving another of those “The End is Near” speeches in which he advises the rest of us to stop driving, get rid of our air conditioners, and do everything else to avoid global warming. He says we only have ten years in which to do this. After that, says Al Gore, there will be so much carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere we will all be fried like ants on the sidewalk. Considering that there’s only 0.038% of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere, listening to his idiotic bloviating can and has impaired the mental health of countless people.

His latest Gore-a-tion is that we need to stop using fossil fuels to generate electricity because, as he put it in his usual understated way, “The future of human civilization is at stake.” Briefly, it’s worth noting that coal accounts for just over 50% of all the electricity we use, nuclear for another 20%, natural gas for just under 20%, and the rest from minor sources like hydroelectric. Solar and wind power, combined, accounts for less than 4% because it remains a really stupid way to generate electricity. Instead of banning everything Al Gore and his Little Green Friends want eliminated from modern life, why can’t we just get Al Gore banned?

Frankly, I think a case can be made that Al Gore represents a compelling reason to set aside the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and free press. (But only for him!) Single-handedly, Al Gore has frightened more pre-school and school-age children in the history of the nation. I maintain that it would be a public service to put Al Gore under house arrest where he could continue to burn through more energy than twenty average homes in Nashville, Tennessee. This single act would render the entire world a Gore-Free Zone where polar bears would not be exploited for being cute to everyone except seals and some citizens of Alaska for whom the word “cute” does not come instantly to mind when one of them is in the backyard.

A Gore-Free Zone would be one in which the rest of us could devote more time to figuring out what to do as the Earth enters its second decade of atmospheric cooling and, unless the Sun warms up soon, slides into the next Ice Age. Read more here.

These are the seven graphs that should make the Rudd Government feel sick. These are the seven graphs that should make you ask: What? Has global warming now stopped? Look for yourself. They show that the world hasn’t warmed for a decade, and has even cooled for several years. See for yourself:

Click here to view the graphs in detail.

Sea ice now isn’t melting, but spreading. The seas have not just stopped rising, but started to fall. Nor is the weather getting wilder. Cyclones, as well as tornadoes and hurricanes, aren’t increasing and the rain in Australia hasn’t stopped falling. What’s more, the slight warming we saw over the century until 1998 still makes the world no hotter today than it was 1000 years ago. In fact, it’s even a bit cooler. So, dude, where’s my global warming? These graphs should in fact be good news for the Government and all the other warming preachers who warned we were doomed by our gases, which were heating the world to hell.

Now Prime Minister Kevin Rudd can at last stop sweating about the warming terrors he told us were coming - the horrific droughts, the dengue fever, the malaria, the devastation to our land and economy. And he can announce that, hey, emergency over for now. His emissions trading scheme will go into deep freeze while he checks this good news. As for his promise this week to make your power bills go up $200 a year to stop global warming? His promise to make even food more expensive? To put gassy companies out of business, and their workers out of a job? Cancel all that. As you were, soldier. Good news has come from the front. But now you can see why these graphs terrify Rudd, who has never admitted to a single fact they contain. Read more here.

Global Warming Hype Turns to Terror in Young Children! In her new book, Deb & Seby’s Real Deal on Global Warming, veteran comedy writer Al Sonja L. Schmidt uses her wit to ease the growing fears of children who are concerned over the earth’s future destruction and offers an alternate view on climate change than what they may have heard in the media or learned at school.

“Images of the earth drowning and beloved animals becoming extinct are plaguing children of all ages, striking fear that we are doomed!” says Schmidt. This dilemma, dubbed “eco-phobia,” is a result of the scare tactics that have successfully worked on younger audiences. Children are also worried that they are not doing enough to help the environment.  With the remnants of Earth Day lingering, environmentally-friendly activities have moved from planting flowers and cleaning up parks to political rallies and protests that only further a sense of doom to impressionable youth. “Let’s restore a sense of earth to Earth Day. Rather than using fear to provoke a reaction, why not offer positive encouragement to ease the concern children have for our planet?” asks Schmidt.

In the book, animated characters Deb & Seby explore the issues, answering questions like:
• Who’s Telling Us this Scary Stuff and Why?
• If Industry is So Bad, Why does the Rest of the World Want It?
• Why Global Warming Seems So Real
• Are People Really the Biggest Greenhouse Gas Polluters?
• If there’s Another Side, Why Haven’t We Heard It?
• What makes it “The Most Serious Issue of our Time”?

Deb & Seby’s Real Deal on Global Warming presents the views of many respected scientists, researchers and professors from around the world who oppose the global warming predictions that have taken the world by storm. It exposes why we can all “chill-lax” about global warming, man’s real input into this “problem,” wacky so-called solutions to global warming and other eco-predictions that turned out to be wrong.
“Is the global warming movement about caring for the Earth or about politics, a feel-good philosophy and control over our lifestyles?” asks Schmidt. “The ‘real deal’ is there’s no scientific consensus to prove that adults, much less children, have anything to worry about.”

Al Sonja L. Schmidt is a comedic writer who has brought her talent to award-winning children’s programming, including That’s So Raven, The Famous Jett Jackson and Cory in the House, as well as primetime comedy series In Living Color and NBC’s Hidden Hills.

People are exchanging their flip-flops and shorts for close-toed shoes and fleece more than usual this summer. The cool, gloomy weather is almost as hot a topic in town as steep gas prices.

Sam Albanese, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Anchorage said “Normally, Anchorage has 14 or 15 days in the summer that reach the 70-degree mark, Albanese said. This year, there have been two. And the city didn’t see 70 at all until July 2. That threshold typically comes in early to mid-June, according to weather records. So far this month, the daily high temperature has fallen below the average high for the date more than half the time. In fact, the temperature has missed the mark every day for the past week. And in June, temperatures fell below the average high on 24 of 30 days.”

Plants are blooming later and slower because of the low temperatures, said Barbara Miller, senior horticulturist at the Alaska Botanical Garden. “Some of the later-blooming plants are probably going to have problems,” she said. “They’re going to run out of summer and their buds will probably be frozen.” It’s not been good for some tropical annuals, like impatiens, that depend on warmer weather. “They’re just in the ground, sitting there, not growing,” Miller said. Pat Mulligan, president of the Alaska Pioneer Fruit Growers, said the low temperatures are making it harder to grow produce. “If people in the (fruit growers) club are growing apples that are pushing the envelope to ripen before frost, now the growing season is shorter,” he said. “You’re talking substantial loss of growing time.”

Judging by the pattern of June weather over nearly two decades, this should’ve been a warm summer, meteorologist David Vonderheide said. “Every four to five years we would get a cool June, and then bang—something has happened to interrupt this little cycle,” Vonderheide said. He thinks the strong forces of La Nina are the culprit. La Nina, a phenomenon that causes ocean temperatures to dip below average, kicked in this year and resulted in a drop in land temperatures, Albanese said. Another cause could be Pacific decadal oscillation, a cyclical period of lower ocean temperatures that comes every 20 to 25 years. There’s a warm phase and a cold phase of the climate pattern, Vonderheide said. “We were in a warm phase of the Pacific decadal oscillation in the ‘80s and ‘90s,” he said. “(Some forecasters) believe we may have entered into the cold phase.” As in any coastal area, the ocean’s temperature has great influence on the weather in Anchorage, forecasters say. Land both heats and cools more easily than water, so subtle temperature changes in the Pacific Ocean can mean dramatic variations on Alaska land. Read more here.

It’s hard to find a voice outside the Midwest or Archer Daniels Midland buildings that support the use of biofuels and ethanol as a means for filling gas tanks. Environmentalists and especially world hunger groups are adamantly expressing their concern about the unintended consequences of biofuels policy.

Christopher Booker and Richard North have a terrific piece in the Telegraph discussing the unique story of biofuels and how this policy went from pipedream to absolute disaster. It chronicles the history of biofuel policy and how its implementation has led to rising food prices. They note that “According to the World Bank’s top economist, Don Mitchell, biofuels had been responsible for three-quarters of the 140 per cent rise in world food prices between 2002 and 2008.”

Oxfam International says that these policies have pushed 30 million people into poverty. Even the head of Britain’s Renewable Fuels Agency is calling for a change: “So devastating has been this onslaught on biofuels that last Monday, Ed Gallagher, chairman of our new Renewable Fuels Agency, published a report recommending that Britain should drastically review its policy, slowing the introduction of biofuels and concentrating on “second-generation biofuels”, such as crop wastes and wood chips, that do not compete with food production.” It’s time politicians here at home seriously consider changing its biofuel policy and repeal the ethanol mandate along with any tariffs that discourage imports.

Read more here.

Also see this posting on Time Wasting on Nuclear Waste. The Heritage Foundation recently released the chart called, U.S. a Nonstarter in Nuclear Power. The point of the chart was to show those that continue to question the value of nuclear power that other countries are making concrete decisions and moving forward in earnest. The bottom line is that nuclear energy has strong opponents that have made careers out of being anti-nuclear and their propaganda continues to permeate the national debate. So long as this dynamic manifests itself as fence sitting elected officials that will not take the right steps on nuclear energy policy, America’s nuclear renaissance remains in doubt. And it is these reluctant lawmakers that, despite this country’s thirst for new energy, continue to deny U.S. citizens access to nuclear energy and assure that to date, when it comes to building new nuclear plants, the U.S. unfortunately, is a nonstarter.