By Examiner Editorial
Prospects for passage of President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade solution for global warming have become decidedly chillier since the idea was first proposed in 2002. Obama wants to cut CO2 emissions 80 percent by 2050.
He’s got his work cut out for him. Not only are hundreds of credible climate scientists now publicly debunking former vice-president Al Gore’s claims of apocalyptic environmental disaster, a new Gallup poll reveals that 41 percent of Americans believe such alarms are “exaggerated.” Most significantly, more than 650 prominent international scientists now oppose the findings of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC), which are the basis of the Obama proposal.
By our math, the 52 authors of the IPCC report who are climate scientists are out-numbered 12-to-1 by their scientific critics. Former Senate Environmental Committee chairman James Inhofe, R-OK, insists that the IPCC report, funded by government grants and liberal-leaning foundations, was written by “bought and paid for” scientists with a pre-determined agenda. Inhofe has opposed the cap-and-trade concept ever since the original McCain-Lieberman bill was introduced in the Republican-controlled Senate. Only two of his Senate colleagues offered to join Inhofe then. Now, more than two dozen have joined the growing ranks committed to defeating the identical Warner-Lieberman bill.
Citing a recent Pew Poll in which Americans ranked the economy at the top - and global warming at the bottom - of a market basket of political issues, Inhofe calls cap-and-trade legislation “a form of global taxation” and believes it can be defeated again, even though it has the full backing of the Obama administration. The realization is slowly but surely growing here that duplicating Europe’s failed cap-and-trade scheme would be a knock-out blow for the U.S. economy because it would dramatically increase energy costs and cripple the nation’s dwindling manufacturing base.
The Detroit News aptly called cap-and-trade “a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation’s heartland.” Even Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-ND, warned that the president’s $3.5 trillion budget “can’t pass here” if it contains cap-and-trade provisions that virtually guarantee a stratospheric rise in energy costs for families and businesses.
The Obama administration has already signaled its intention to limit the supply of energy by blocking funding for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain and canceling existing federal oil and gas leases. Less supply inescapably means higher prices. So let us hope that Inhofe’s bold assertion that “we are winning the argument with the American people” is correct. If it is, it comes just in the nick of time. Read more here.
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.