By Lorne Gunter

So far this month, at least 14 major weather stations in Alberta have recorded their lowest-ever March temperatures. I’m not talking about daily records; I mean they’ve recorded the lowest temperatures they’ve ever seen in the entire month of March since temperatures began being recorded in Alberta in the 1880s.This past Tuesday, Edmonton International Airport reported an overnight low of -41.5 C, smashing the previous March low of -29.4 C set in 1975. Records just don’t fall by that much, but the airport’s did. Records are usually broken fractions of degrees. The International’s was exceeded by 12 degrees.

To give you an example of how huge is the difference between the old record and the new, if Edmonton were to exceed its highest-ever summer temperature by the same amount, the high here some July day would have to reach 50 C. That’s a Saudi Arabia-like temperature.Also on the same day, Lloydminster hit -35.2 C, breaking its old March record of -29.2 C. Fort McMurray—where they know cold—broke a record set in 1950 with a reading of -39.9C. And Cold Lake, Slave Lake, Whitecourt, Peace River, High Level, Jasper and Banff, and a handful of other communities obliterated old cold values, most from the 1950s or 1970s, two of the coldest decades on record in the province.This has been an especially cold winter across the country, with values returning to levels not often seen since the 1970s, which was an especially brutal decade of winters.Temperatures began to plummet on the Prairies in December. The cold weather did not hit much of the rest of the country until January, but when it hit, it hit hard.

Even against Canada’s normally frigid January standards, “this particular cold snap is noteworthy,” Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson said this past January. Many regions across the country had not been as cold for 30 years or more, he added. Does this prove fear of global warming is misplaced? On its own, probably not. But if records were being broken the other way—if several Alberta centres had recorded their warmest-ever March values—you can bet there would be no end of hand-wringing, horror stories about how we were on the precipice of an ecological disaster of unprecedented proportions. Environmentalists, scientists who advance the warming theory, politicians and reporters never shy away from hyping those weather stories that support their beliefs. But they tend to ignore or explain away stories that might cast doubt.In 2005, the summer and fall of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, when several major ‘canes pummelled North and Central America, we were told again and again that this was proof warming was happening and it was going to be bad.

Al Gore has emissions from industrial smokestacks swirling up into a satellite image of a hurricane on the DVD box for his propaganda film An Inconvenient Truth to underline the point that more and eviller hurricanes will be the result of CO2 output. But since 2005, only one major hurricane—this year’s Ike—has struck North America. And now comes a study from Florida State University researcher Ryan Maue, that shows worldwide cyclonic activity—typhoons, as well as hurricanes—has reached a 30-year low (tinyurl.com/bunynz).Indeed, the hiatus may go back more than 30 years because it is difficult to compare records before about 1970 with those since, since measurements four or more decades ago were not as precise or thorough. Current low activity may actually be the lowest in 50 years or more.If Maue had proven hurricane activity were at a 30-year high, of course his findings would have been reported far and wide. But since he is challenging the dogma of the Holy Mother Church of Climate Change, his research is ignored.For at least the past five or six years, global temperatures have been falling. Look at the black trend line on the chart at www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ put out by the man who runs NASA’s worldwide network of weather satellites.

Also, in the past few months, two studies—one by the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science and the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Germany and another by the University of Wisconsin—have shown a slowing, or even a reversal of warming for at least the next 10 to 20, and perhaps longer.Even the Arctic sea ice, which has replaced hurricanes as the alarm of the moment ever since hurricanes ceased to threaten, has grown this winter to an extent not seen since around 1980.Global warming is not only no longer happening, it is not likely to resume until 2025 or later, if then. So why are we continuing to hear so much doomsaying about climate change?There are a lot of people in every age who think they know better than everyone else and, therefore, have a right to tell everyone how to live. In the 1950s, it was country-club and parish council busybodies with their strict moral codes. In the 1970s, it was social democrats with their fanciful economic theories. Today, it’s environmentalists. Same instinct, different wrapper. Read more here. See the Weather Network’s report on the record cold here.

By Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

As I suggest today in an American Spectator piece, we may be to the point where public opinion is completely out of sync with how the best known (at least historically) news outlets are covering the global warming issue. Witness:

A poll from last summer found that the vast majority of Americans opposed Lieberman/Warner and would not be willing to pay higher prices for electricity or gasoline to combat global warming.

Pew found in January that of 20 policy issues it asked people to place in order of importance, global warming ranked last.

A series of recent Rasmussen polls determined: that more respondents believed global warming was due to planetary trends than by human causes; that voters are evenly divided over whether immediate action on global warming is necessary; that 46 percent believe giving government greater control over the economy to fight global warming will be bad for America; and that a majority (54 percent) believe the media exaggerates the dangers of global warming.

This week Gallup found a record-high 41 percent believe the media exaggerates the threat of global warming. “This represents the highest level of public skepticism about mainstream reporting on global warming seen in more than a decade of Gallup polling on the subject,” the polling firm reported.

So what does this say after 20+ years of irresponsible media exaggeration of the issue? It tells me a few things: that there is no such thing as a dominant “mainstream media” any more that captivates the news-consuming public. That while it’s nice to have one of these news outlets do your story, it’s not vital, and it’s not necessary to agonize over whether they do so or not. That these historically well-known news outlets are not only losing readership and revenues because of advertising losses, but because of credibility loss and disconnect with their communities. News consumers are smarter these days and know how to detect biased reporting, and they are not buying the product any more. With the speed and efficiency of the Web, it almost doesn’t matter any more where your information gets published; it’s that it does get published, gets found by a few key constituents, and gets launched from there. Can anyone purchase a Sunday paper in any city these days and honestly say it was worth the money?

Yet too many in political activism, public relations, and business believe that if your message hasn’t penetrated these media dinosaurs, then you’ve failed. Well, as the global warming issue illustrates, the skeptics are at least tied with the alarmists if they are not outright winning, despite the lack of respect and attention from the dying news giants. The polls show it clearly. So if the big businesses (you know who you are) who are in bed with the cap-and-taxers in big government and big environmentalism only so they can reap benefits for themselves, while passing costs to consumers and electricity users, you risk a backlash from those who will pay the bill. You are believing the wrong messengers and the evidence is clear. See post here.

Senator James Inhofe

You should never underestimate the intelligence of the American people. Sadly, that is exactly what the promoters of man-made climate fears have been consistently doing, and the American people have consistently rejected climate alarm. Despite world-wide media frenzy, Americans remain as skeptical of global warming fears as they were in 1989 according to last years Gallup poll.

A previous Gallup Poll, released on Earth Day 2008, showed that the American public’s concern about man-made global warming is unchanged from 1989. The number of Americans who “worry a great deal” about man-made global warming remains practically unchanged from 1989 (35% in 1989 vs. 37% in 2008). After one of the slickest and most expensive climate change fear campaigns in our nation’s history, there is no change in global warming concern by Americans in the past two decades.  This skepticism persists despite a Nobel Peace Prize jointly shared by former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations climate panel. Skepticism persists despite an Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth. Skepticism persists despite a $300 million campaign by Gore to spread climate fears. Skepticism persists despite a daily drumbeat of scary scenarios promoted by the UN and the media of what could, might, or may happen a 20, 50, 100 or even 1000 years from now. In fact, global warming skepticism appears to have grown stronger as the shrillness of the climate fear campaign has intensified. The latest Gallup Poll, released March 11, 2009, further reveals the American public’s growing skepticism. Most telling, Americans ranked global warming dead last—eight out of eight - out of a list of environmental issues. 

Not only does global warming rank last on the basis of the total percentage concerned either a great deal or a fair amount, but it is the only issue for which public concern dropped significantly in the past year.” “However, the solitary drop in concern this year about global warming, among the eight specific environmental issues Gallup tested, suggests that something unique may be happening with the issue. It is not clear whether the troubled economy has drawn attention away from the global warming message or whether other factors are at work” “Importantly, Gallup’s annual March update on the environment shows a drop in public concern about global warming across several different measures, suggesting that the global warming message may have lost some footing with Americans over the past year.”

“Since 1997, Republicans have grown increasingly likely to believe media coverage of global warming is exaggerated, and that trend continues in the 2009 survey; however, this year marks a relatively sharp increase among independents as well.” These dramatic polling results are not unexpected as prominent scientists from around the world continue to speak out publicly for the first time to dissent from the Al Gore, UN IPCC and media driven man-made climate fears. In addition, a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real world data and inconvenient developments have further refuted the claims of man-made global warming fear activists.

Americans are finally catching on in large numbers that the UN IPCC is a POLITICAL—not scientific organization. Man-made global warming fears have proven simply unsustainable - to use a nice green term. If new peer-reviewed studies are to be believed, today’s high school kids watching Gore’s movie will be nearing the senior citizen group AARP’s membership age (50 years) by the time warming allegedly “resumes” in 30 years!  See: Climate Fears RIP…for 30 years!? - Peer-Reviewed Study Finds Global Warming could stop ‘for up to 30 years! Warming ‘On Hold?...’Could go into hiding for decades’ study finds - Discovery.com - March 2, 2009 -

Dr. John Brignell, a skeptical UK Emeritus Engineering Professor at the University of Southampton wrote in 2008: Professor Brignell wrote: “The warmers are getting more and more like those traditional predictors of the end of the world who, when the event fails to happen on the due date, announce an error in their calculations and a new date.” Furthermore, I have always believed that the more global warming information people have, the less concerned they will become. Confirming this unintended consequence is a study by the scientific journal Risk Analysis released in February 2008 which found that Gore and the media’s attempts to scare the public “ironically may be having just the opposite effect.” The study found that the more informed respondents “show less concern for global warming.” The study found that “perhaps ironically, and certainly contrary to… the marketing of movies like Ice Age and An Inconvenient Truth, the effects of information on both concern for global warming and responsibility for it are exactly the opposite of what were expected. Directly, the more information a person has about global warming, the less responsible he or she feels for it; and indirectly, the more information a person has about global warming, the less concerned he or she is for it. Read full testimony here.