By Patrick J. Michaels on Planet Gore
Ho-hum. On January 28, in the midst of a pelting sleet storm, Al Gore told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the end is nigh from global warming. He told the Senate that “some scientists” predict up to 11 degrees of warming in the next 91 years (while failing to note that the last 12 have seen exactly none), and that this would “bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fiber of life everywhere on earth”. Hey folks, this is serious!
Besides having a remarkable knack for scheduling big speeches on remarkably cold or snowy days (it’s known as the “Gore Effect” in journalistic circles), Gore has been incredibly ineffective in bringing his message home. According to the New York Times, Gore told the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco last November, “I feel, in a sense, I’ve failed badly. [T]here is not anything anywhere close to an appropriate sense of urgency [about global warming]. This is an existential threat.”
And fail he has. The Pew Foundation recently asked Americans to choose which of 20 prominent issues is of most importance. They included the economy, crime, education, and, of course, global warming, which came in dead last.
Gore’s failure is his own fault. He gained a reputation for exaggeration during his 2000 campaign, and he’s unable to shake it - because he’s proud of it, saying that it’s just fine to emphasize extreme global warming scenarios because they get people’s attention. Telling people you’re exaggerating isn’t exactly the way to get street cred. In Washington on January 28, his campaign continued.
The fact is that the “fiber of life” can be found on this planet over a range of 140F, from Antarctica to the Death Valley. People actually live in these places. The average temperature of the planet is about 61, a temperature at which Homo sapiens au naturel will die from hypothermia. So ask yourself if raising the temperature 11 (impossible) degrees will indeed bring civilization to a “screeching halt.”
It’s not like the press is very vigilant, either. A couple of years ago, he got a free pass on Larry King Live (May 22, 2007) after making at least seven exaggerations or outright misstatements on climate change in less than a minute. Gore fielded a call asking “what issues caused by climate change globally are likely to affect the United States security during the next ten years?” He responded, “you know, even a one-meter increase, even a three-foot increase in sea level would cause tens of millions of climate refugees.”
People notice these exaggerations. They see that food is still on the table (despite the government’s attempt to burn it up as ethanol). They know the country isn’t particularly dry, nor particularly wet. They can go to the beach and see that the ocean isn’t notably higher than it was before. In other words, Gore’s lack of penetration is a result his own exaggerations. He’s created a climate of extremes that people are simply tired of, which is why his issue ranks dead last. He’s right. He’s failed. Read more here.
Patrick J. Michaels is senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and author of the forthcoming Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know.
By Deroy Murdock, Scripps Howard News Service
So-called “global warming” has shrunk from problem to punch line. And now, Leftists are laughing, too. It’s hard not to chuckle at the idea of Earth boiling in a carbon cauldron when the news won’t cooperate:
-- Nearly four inches of snow blanketed the United Arab Emirates’ Jebel Jais region for just the second time in recorded history on January 24. Citizens were speechless. The local dialect has no word for snowfall.
-- Dutchmen on ice skates sped past windmills as canals in Holland froze in mid-January for the first time since 1997. Defense Minister Eimert van Middelkoop, who inhabits a renovated 17th Century windmill, stumbled on the ice and fractured his wrist.
-- January saw northern Minnesota’s temperatures plunge to 38 below zero, forcing ski-resort closures. A Frazee, Minnesota dog-sled race was cancelled, due to excessive snow. Snow whitened Surf City, North Carolina’s beaches. Days ago, ice glazed Florida’s citrus groves.
As Earth faces global cooling, both troglodyte Right-wingers and lachrymose Left-wingers find Albert Gore’s simmering-planet hypothesis increasingly hilarious:
-- “In terms of (global warming’s) capacity to cause the human species harm, I don’t think it makes it into the top 10,” Dr. Robert Giegengack, former chairman of University of Pennsylvania’s Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, told the Pennsylvania Gazette. Giegengack voted for Gore in 2000, and says he likely would again.
-- Commentator Harold Ambler declared January 3 on HuffingtonPost.com that he voted for Barack Obama “for a thousand times a thousand reasons.” He added that Gore “owes the world an apology for his actions regarding global warming.” He called Gore’s assertion that “the science is in” on this issue “the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of mankind.”
-- “Not only is it false that human activity has any significant effect on global warming or the weather in general, but for the record, global warming is over,” retired Navy meteorologist Dr. Martin Hertzberg wrote on carbon-sense.com. The physical chemist and self-described “scientist and life-long liberal Democrat” added: “The average temperature of Earth’s atmosphere has declined over the last 10 years. From the El Nino Year of 1998 until Jan. 2007, it dropped a quarter of a degree Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit). From Jan 2007 to the spring of 2008, it dropped a whopping three-quarters of a degree Celsius (1.35 degrees Fahrenheit). Those data further prove that the fear-mongering hysteria about human-caused global warming is completely unjustified and is totally counterproductive to our Nation’s essential needs and security.”
-- “It is a tribute to the scientific ignorance of politicians and journalists that they keep regurgitating the nonsense about human-caused global warming,” veteran Left-wing commentator and Nation magazine columnist Alexander Cockburn wrote. “The greenhouse fear mongers rely on unverified, crudely oversimplified models to finger mankind’s sinful contribution—and carbon trafficking, just like the old indulgences, is powered by guilt, credulity, cynicism, and greed.”
Some Leftists believe the collective hallucination of warmism distracts from what they consider urgent progressive priorities:
-- “The most destructive force on the planet is power-driven financiers and profit-driven corporations and their cartels backed by military might,” University of Ottawa physics professor Dr. Denis Rancourt has written. “The global warming myth is a red herring that contributes to hiding this truth.”
-- Social historian Dr. David Noble of Canada’s York University concurs. He has lamented that warmism is “diverting attention from the radical challenges of the global justice movements.”
-- Geophysicist Dr. Claude Allegre, previously Education Minister in France’s late 1990s Socialist government, denounced the “prophets of doom of global warming.” He sounded amused in a September 2006 L’Express article. “The ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people.”
“The so-called ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is not holding up,” Senator James Inhofe (R—Oklahoma) told his colleagues January 8. “It is becoming increasingly clear that skepticism about man-made global warming fear is not a partisan left vs. right issue.” So-called “global warming” has accomplished the impossible: It has united liberals and conservatives in laughter. Read more here.
By Erika Lovley, Politico
Initially, the confirmation of Energy Secretary Steven Chu seemed to have brightened the future of both nuclear power and clean coal -two controversial energy lobbies vying for green stimulus funding. But for now, coal is emerging as the favorite.
The most recent version of the House economic stimulus package, set for a floor vote on Wednesday, allots $2.4 billion for carbon capture technology but nothing for nuclear power. The issue, though, is expected to be raised again in the Senate, where environmental groups are already decrying a new stimulus provision that includes a $50 billion expansion of federal loan guarantees available to advance low-carbon technology, including nuclear power.
The issue is expected to be raised again as the Senate debates its own stimulus measure. But even if some nuclear funding is included, the issue will still battle some tough opponents in a joint House-Senate conference committee. The new House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), has said the stimulus should work on improving the economy rapidly over two years -not enough time to build complicated, heavily regulated nuclear plants.
It’ a slightly different tune than what nuclear power advocates were expecting after Chu’ Senate confirmation hearing earlier this month, where the Nobel Prize-winning physicist expanded on his intentions to push more research on nuclear waste recycling options, build several new clean coal plants and streamline loan guarantees for the nuclear power industry.
President Barack Obama has been somewhat vague about his views on nuclear power, causing nuclear industry lobbyists to wonder how closely Chu would mirror the president. And Chu, a staunch supporter of nuclear energy, had previously referred to coal as “y worst nightmare,” which sent not-so-small tremors through coal industry.
“If the world continues to use coal the way it has been - I mean China, India, Russia - then it is a pretty bad dream,” Chu clarified at his confirmation hearing, noting that he’d urge the Energy Department to develop clean coal solutions that could be shared with the international community.
“Chu was a bit of a surprise,” said Scott Campbell, a senior policy adviser at the Baker Donelson law firm and president of the American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness. “It was good news all the way around,” he said. “And it’s a sign that he really understands what options work. We’re at the point where the energy secretary has to make hard calls on energy, and he’s the right man.” Nuclear energy lobbyists say some lawmakers may try to include more provisions to make some money available to any clean energy alternative, which would mean that nuclear power could get some funds.
But at least one of those attempts has already failed. House Democrats last week scuttled a proposal by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) that would have made it possible for coal and nuclear to apply for renewable energy loan guarantees.
The House measure still has money for carbon capture and storage, despite two back-to-back coal ash spills last month that prompted a strong outcry from environmentalists and the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). “One ash spill is enough,” said Greenpeace legislative director Rick Hind. “The more money they get, the more dollars they steal from clean energy solutions like solar and wind.”
In comparison, the nuclear industry hasn’t had a serious incident in decades. But its estimated $6 billion-per-plant price tag may help explain its absence in the $825 billion House stimulus package. See full story here.