I’ve been following this story since yesterday, but the details kept being somewhat nebulous. Since WaPo has it, I’ve decided it is safe to consider reasonably accurate now. It looks like TWC has ditched their entire environmental unit, and possibly also host Heidi Cullen, who once said:

“If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming.” “Meteorologists are among the few people trained in the sciences who are permitted regular access to our living rooms. And in that sense, they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy.” “If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval.”

Needless to say, I and many other current and former TV meteorologists took exception to the issue. I posted on it almost two years ago.

This Washington Post story: NBC Fires Weather Channel Environmental Unit
NBC Universal made the first of potentially several rounds of staffing cuts at The Weather Channel (TWC) on Wednesday, axing the entire staff of the “Forecast Earth” environmental program during the middle of NBC’s “Green Week”, as well as several on-camera meteorologists. The layoffs totaled about 10 percent of the workforce, and are the first major changes made since NBC completed its purchase of the venerable weather network in September.

The layoffs affected about 80 people, but left the long-term leadership of the network unclear, according to a source who requested anonymity due to the continuing uncertainty at the station. Among the meteorologists who was let go was Dave Schwartz, a Weather Channel veteran and a viewer staple due to his lively on camera presentations.

The timing of the Forecast Earth cancellation was ironic, since it came in the middle of NBC’s “Green is Universal” week, during which the network has been touting its environmental coverage across all of its platforms. Forecast Earth normally aired on weekends, but its presumed last episode was shown on a weekday due to the environmentally-oriented week.

Forecast Earth was hosted by former CNN anchor Natalie Allen, with contributions from climate expert Heidi Cullen. It was the sole program on TWC that focused on global climate change, which raises the question of whether the station will still report on the subject. Cullen’s future role at the network is not known.

Icecap Note: A mixed blessing - Heidi and Forecast Earth was nothing but alarmist propaganda that always seemed to be there when you turned to the channel to see the weather. It and the dumbed down programming and talent in recent years made the channel unwatchable as the ratings must have shown. I personally will miss Dave Schwartz. I can report first hand that Dave Schwartz worked as hard as anyone on both the weather and on air communications. He was one of the most watchable OCM (On-Camera Meteorologists) on the network. He has suffered from some serious physical issues in recent months. It is not known if that was a reason for his departure.

The way the Greens have imposed their agenda on America has largely been through deception, an often multi-layered effort to create the appearance of an environmental reality that does not exist. A classic example of that is the current effort of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate so-called greenhouse gas emissions, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2) that is wrongly presented as the cause of a non-existent global warming. Other than oxygen, there is no other gas more essential to life on Earth than CO2. Regulating it is absurd!

The Heartland Institute, a non-profit, free market think tank, has just filed its first comment on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) on “Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act” which was published in the Federal Register on July 30, 2008. The deadline for public comments is November 28, 2008. The complete Heartland comment is available online.

Among the objections The Heartland Institute noted was that the ANPR and its supporting documentation violate the Information Quality Act and “EPA Guidelines.”

“Much of the scientific evidence put forth by EPA staff in the proposed ANPR and its Technical Support Document (TSD) has taken the melodramatic form of climate alarmism without the appropriate balance of scientific and economic rationale that should have bearing on any environmental policy established by the Environmental Protection Agency.”

“There is a significant omission of climate science data published after 2006 and no coherent review of the debate in scientific literature. There is little evidence in the EPA Endangerment TSD to indicate that the climate is warming. The data provided are inaccurate and biased.” Read more here.

Liberal leadership candidates Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff would ditch the Green Shift carbon tax, outgoing leader Stephane Dion’s signature policy, on grounds it was rejected by voters on election day. The two Toronto MPs said on separate occasions this week - Rae likened the Green Shift to “cod liver oil” - that the Grits have to go back to the drawing board to replace their plan to tax diesel and other fossil fuels and redistribute the revenue in tax cuts.

Their positions were aired as an official with the Prime Minister’s Office signalled the Conservatives are readying lines of attack on Ignatieff and Rae on the issue. Briefing reporters on condition he not be named, the official noted that Ignatieff advocated a carbon tax in the 2006 race and that Rae helped write the Liberal election platform which contained the carbon tax.

Rae said the Green Shift was pursued without applying common sense, good judgment or the daily experience of ordinary people. “Politics is not about philosophy or theory,” he said in an interview with Canwest News Service. “You go back to the drawing board on how do you get to where we want to get to in a way that’s going to be eminently practical and a way that’s going to raise the interest and the passion of Canadians. It’s not like cod liver oil. You’ve got to make sure that what we’re providing for people is something that they actually want.” Ignatieff renounced the Green Shift in two television interviews Tuesday evening. “The voters have told us to come back and think again about how to reconcile environmental sustainability and economic progress,” he said. Read story here.

Meanwhile see this Financial Post story on the same Canada.com site, entitled Lawyers Lust for Global Warming as Very, Very Good for Business by Donalee Moulton.  Lawyers ‘sprint’ to be ready on climate change - Climate change is bad for the environment, but it may be good for business. Very, very good."Climate change is the growth sector,” says Charles Campbell, chief financial officer at Superior Credit Union in Thunder Bay. “Renewable energy has never been more economically viable with the pressures of peak oil and carbon-reduction mandates. The retooling of much of the world’s infrastructure to address climate change is also a huge project we face as a civilization."For lawyers, readying for those opportunities will be more of a sprint than a marathon, at least in the short term. “[Climate change] is a $100-billion market that sprang out of nowhere. It didn’t exist five to six years ago,” notes Mike Richmond, chairman of the energy law practice at McMillan LLP in Toronto. Expect increased work in three legal areas, adds Doug Tingey, associate counsel with Davis LLP in Toronto. First is environmental law, particularly compliance. Projects law is also a boom market for those with experience in finance and structuring. Last are new opportunities for growth and business legal work.

Green Week is upon us again, time for more global warming scare-mongering by the NBC family of networks.  Kicking things off during half-time of last night’s NBC Sunday Night Football, Meredith Vieira put Al Gore’s alarmism to shame. [H/t reader Mick L.] Gore predicted a measly 20-foot rise in sea levels, enough to drown much of Manhattan. Vieira outdid him by a factor of 10, raising the spectre of a sea-level rise of 200 feet . That exaggerates the increase predicted by scientists by literally hundreds of times. Vieira, speaking from Sydney, Australia, where she is focusing on water shortages, chatted with Bob Costas.

BOB COSTAS: Where are Matt, Al and Ann this go-around?

MEREDITH VIEIRA: Matt [Lauer] is in Belize, he’s off the coast at a place called the Blue Hole.  It is the home to some of the most exotic marine life in the world, and all sorts of beautiful coral reefs and they’re all being threatened because the water temperatures are rising. Al [Roker] on the other hand is in Iceland looking at the glaciers which store most of our fresh water.  And if they were to melt, the oceans could rise at least 200 feet. And our intrepid reporter Ann Curry, well she is climbing Mount Kilimanjaro as I speak.  She hopes to reach the summit by Friday.  The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro are rapidly melting, and that is threatening the people of Tanzania. Now, it is apparently true that a melting

Note: NBC is pure comic relief. Pure comedy. For a sea level rebuttal see this report.

Also, NBC appears to be trumpeting Kilimanjaro ice melt as result of global warming. Pure scientific nonsense!! See this PDF with numerous studies showing that Kilimanjaro changes are a combination of natural and related to land use changes. Temperatures have DECLINED.

Also tomorrow another global warming rally scheduled in Washington. The forecast is for snow showers and temperatures in the 30s and 40s with strong winds and low wind chills. This is what is called the Gore Effect. See in this pdf the 13 links (H/T Marc Morano) to such days the last year.

Dear Colleagues:

One day back in February on a ski-lift, I commented to the others that 2008 would be the year when the “Anthropic Global Warming” (AGW) bubble would burst. My prediction seems to be coming true. 

Owing to bad economic conditions, most of the countries in Europe are fleeing from the commitments they once made to the “Kyoto treaty” to reduce emissions of CO2.  Scientists all over the world are speaking up against the notion of a “consensus”, the presumption that “everybody agrees” that global warming is caused by mankind (the AGW hypothesis).  Nobody has any confidence any more in long-range computer calculations that are unable to predict the past, let alone the future. And most of all, people are beginning to remember that CO2 is plant food.

This all comes at the time when the incoming administration of Obama seems about to impose draconian and expensive regulations (on CO2 emissions) upon American industry and utilities.

The article about NASA’s embarrassing correction of faulty data, is typical of what is going on in the world.  Five years ago, a blunder like this would have been swept under the rug by the mentality that “it’s so important that we raise awareness of people that we should overlook little things like numerical facts.” But now when it happens, it gets publicized. 

The whole “sure thing” AGW tapestry began to unravel about 5 years ago when a widely-publicized historical temperature graph known as the “hockey stick” was completely discredited based on statistical analysis. That began a slow trickle of scientists saying “Oh yeah and another thing”.  Gradually the number of scientists willing to speak out (against the presumption that mankind causes global warming) has increased, and by now you can read of controversy every day.

Probably what will happen in the USA will mirror the European response.  Dire predictions about climate will have to wait “just a little bit” while economic recession is cured, but “we’ll get to it right away just as soon as we can.” With the passage of a few more years of unexciting world temperature data, while CO2 from India and China continues to climb, perhaps the whole AGW issue will finally be discarded.

Dr Thomas Sheahen is an MIT trained Physicist and writer of the popular newspaper column “Ask the Everyday Scientist.”

Al Gore launched An Inconvenient Truth at just the right time to exploit fears that Hurricane Katrina was a sign of things to come. Check his poster. And when a cyclone hit Burma, there was Gore again, picking over the corpses for more “proof” of his theory: “(W)e’re seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming.”

But, once again, the climate refuses to behave as the alarmists predicted: The past two years have seen a “remarkable” downturn in hurricane activity, contradicting predictions of more storms, researchers at Florida State University say. The 2007 and 2008 hurricane seasons had the least tropical activity in the Northern Hemisphere in 30 years, according to Ryan Maue, co-author of a report on Global Tropical Cyclone Activity.

“Even though North Atlantic hurricane activity was expectedly above normal, the Western and Eastern Pacific basins have produced considerably fewer than normal typhoons and hurricanes,” he said. Maue’s results dovetail with other research suggesting hurricanes are variable and unconnected to global warming predictions, said Stan Goldenberg, a hurricane researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. One day many more people will look back and wonder how stupid they were to have been duped by such alarmists and carpetbaggers.

UPDATE from Professor Bob Carter: “When viewed in historical context, and assessed against empirical data, the greenhouse hypothesis fails. There is no evidence that late-twentieth-century rates of temperature increase were unusually rapid or reached an unnaturally high peak; no human-caused greenhouse signal has been measured or identified despite the expenditure since 1990 of many billions of dollars searching for it; and global temperature, which peaked within the current natural cycle in 1998, has been declining since 2002 despite continuing increases in carbon dioxide emission.” See Andrew Bolt’s post here.

Like any movement which inspires belief in its values, environmentalism also fosters a proportion of fundamentalists. One who attracted some media attention in the UK this week was a lady called Joan Pick, who has taken energy saving about as far as its possible to go in a modern society, and then a bit further. Hailed as an “eco-heroine”, the 67 year old has avoided all use of energy she considers unnecessary for the last 36 years.

Her car has stayed in the garage since 1972. Since then she has only been in a motorised vehicle twice: to be taken to hospital in an ambulance and to go to her mother’s funeral in a hearse. Instead she jogs about 12 miles a day from her flat in Croydon. But when she’s at home, she uses no heating, and her electricity bill (reported at 7 pounds a month) is for a single (low energy) light bulb and a kettle to make tea and provide hot water for washing and laundry. Plus a second hand radio; television was turned off permanently in 1975.

If this isn’t extreme enough, she eats only raw seeds, grains and fruit: she has had no hot food for more than half her lifetime. Of course, there is a bit of cheating: her flat is kept warmer than otherwise by the heating of her neighbours in the block, and she spends part of each day in the (heated and lighted) local library reading the papers. Nevertheless, her personal energy use has been reduced just about as far as is humanly possible.

But although she takes this much further than most, Miss Pick is by no means unique in her zealotry. The Sunday Times ran an article about “carborexia” or energy anorexia, which is said to be an appropriate description for 7% of the American population. These dark greens indulge in practices the average person would regard as eccentric, for example urinating in the garden (urea is an excellent fertilizer), reusing freezer bags for years on end or going without conventional heating.

Such behaviour can become obsessive. One person is quoted as saying “Being green has taken over my life. I feel constantly guilty about the state of the world, and I inflict that guilt on my boyfriend, too. I really infuriated his parents recently when I went round there and turned off all the switches on their Sky box, TV and DVD. It took them an hour and a half to re-programme everything, but I couldn’t sleep knowing they’d left them on standby.” And here’s another: “I’m so worried about the ozone layer that I’ve turned my fridge off. Now I line up my milk, cheese, yoghurt and vegetables on my balcony. Even though there’s every chance the seagulls will eat them.” This sort of all-pervading worry and guilt is something which some people are prone to. At one time, it may have led them to dedicate their lives to God in an monastery or convent, or even as a hermit. Read more here.

Update:  Record snow falls in Europe and North America mean ski resorts open early.

Michael Plummer was looking forward to the ski season after sitting out all of last year because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament. But he didn’t think it would come this early.

Tuesday’s snowstorm kicked off a five-day accumulation that has reached about 46 inches of snow, allowing Snowbird Ski Resort to open Friday, the second-earliest start in the resort’s 38-year history. The resort didn’t open until Nov. 28 last year.

“It feels fantastic to be out this early. I forgot how it felt to be out here,” said Plummer, who was at the resort with his son and some friends. “It’s pretty good skiing. There’s some rocks showing through, but I’m not picky. I’m hoping this means a long and epic season.”

Snowbird is the only resort open so far, giving skiers and snowboarders a head start on the season. Most resorts typically open after Thanksgiving. The Aerial Tram, as well as the Gadzoom and Mid-Gad lifts, were open on Friday and open terrain included Regulator Johnson from the top of Hidden Peak, as well as Big Emma and Bassackwards.

Even though the runs and lifts are limited, Ben Hauber has been out every day since Friday and hasn’t gotten bored yet. It is the Pittsburgh native’s first ski season since moving to Utah. “According to my friends, it’s a bad day, but this [would be considered] a great day back home,” Hauber said. “The first day was awesome. All I plan on doing is working and being here [at Snowbird].”

Snowbird does not release figures but Public Relations Director Jared Ishkanian said the resort has seen a steady flow of skiers and snowboarders. The tram, which accommodates 125 people per trip, has been consistently about 80 percent full on each of the three days since the resort opened for the season. Ishkanian is hoping the early start is a good omen for the rest of the season. “By getting an early start, it helps us with word of mouth and gives us good publicity,” Ishkanian said. “If people have snow in their backyards in the valley, it shifts their mind-set from fall to winter. They think of snow and they think of skiing. The economy is a factor this year, but in our experience, if we get snow early and often, it goes a long way in assuring a positive experience.’’ Read more here.