Marc Sheppard, American Thinker

It’s still uncertain whether Heidi Cullen, who once wrote that the American Meteorological Society should pull the certification of any weatherperson daring to question AGW, will be a casualty of last week’s Weather Channel employee purge.  But yesterday’s rabid multi-front name-calling attack on an energy and environment reporter who dared question greenhouse gas canons quashed any doubt that the choir of green-snobbery has many voices. Two pieces by Erika Lovley were published at The Politico Tuesday, one serious, the other - mostly for laughs.  But the Big Green Scare Machine was amused by neither. Scientists urge caution on global warming opened by getting right down to business:"Climate change skeptics on Capitol Hill are quietly watching a growing accumulation of global cooling science and other findings that could signal that the science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation."The article attempted to present a rational examination of the impact recent cooling - an alarmist conundrum - may have on emissions trading schemes Democrats promise to pass through Congress next year. 

But what should have been seen as a moment of MSM balance was instead seen by the usual suspects as a philosophical punching bag.  Indeed, it didn’t take long for Think Progress - the George Soros-backed liberal propaganda machine - to label it as “toxic stupidity about global warming,” containing what they call “zombie lies” about sun-cycles and dissenting scientists.  Or for Joe Romm at Climate Progress to accuse Lovley of ‘pimp[ing] global cooling for Hill deniers,” demean her work as “laughable,” and demand she be either fired or pulled “from the environmental/energy beat.”

You’ve got to wonder - If these guys are so convinced of their position’s immutability, then why does the slightest challenge to it unleash such frenzied behavior? Read more here.

By Chris Horner, Planet Gore

This piece in Politico yesterday, daring to acknowledge scientific debate about “global warming,” was not about to go untouched by the opprobrium of the Green noise machine, which is dedicated to teaching anyone who dares speak up that it might not be beneficial to their careers.

On cue, aspiring Obama administration climate thug Joe Romm of the Soros-funded Climate Progress - who blamed the Minneapolis bridge collapse on global warming, among other absurdities - and David “Nuremburg-syle trials for those b@$tards” Roberts of Grist did what they’re paid to do: change the subject by attacking the person with names and slurs.

Upon seeing the story yesterday, I wrote the reporter, Erika Lovely (whom I do not know and to whom I have never spoken) to note as much - commenting that, if she knew this going in, she was brave (surely braver than most journos) and if not, well, she should just take what’s about to come her way as instructive. What does it tell you that some people rush to lash out with (typically personal) nastiness at the public expression of ideas of which they do not approve?

After all, while we’re used to the Left’s mindset - that every one of their ideas needs to be a law and tolerance only extends so far as it suits their ideology or biases - as I have demonstrated, there is a remarkable Gang Green that seizes upon all heretical thought or speech and seeks to teach its purveyor a painful lesson.

This is indeed a movement premised on fear - fear of debate, democracy, and science. Their biggest problem is that numbers don’t lie and the public are still allowed to look out the window. So, children: throw your sticks and stones, and take your taxpayer-funded billions to play with computer models to create the scariest future scenarios you can engineer - and the scenarios are engineered - and it still won’t change the fact that the sky is where it always was and there remains no observational evidence to suggest it’s falling.  Life’s tough. See post and more here.

Also today in the American Thinker piece, When Warming Idealogues Attack, Marc Sheppard noted “It’s still uncertain whether Heidi Cullen, who once wrote that the American Meteorological Society should pull the certification of any weatherperson daring to question AGW, will be a casualty of last week’s Weather Channel employee purge.  But yesterday’s rabid multi-front name-calling attack on an energy and environment reporter who dared question greenhouse gas canons quashed any doubt that the choir of green-snobbery has many voices. Two pieces by Erika Lovley were published at The Politico Tuesday, one serious, the other—mostly for laughs.  But the Big Green Scare Machine was amused by neither.

Scientists urge caution on global warming opened by getting right down to business:"Climate change skeptics on Capitol Hill are quietly watching a growing accumulation of global cooling science and other findings that could signal that the science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation."The article attempted to present a rational examination of the impact recent cooling—an alarmist conundrum—may have on emissions trading schemes Democrats promise to pass through Congress next year. 

But what should have been seen as a moment of MSM balance was instead seen by the usual suspects as a philosophical punching bag.  Indeed, it didn’t take long for Think Progress—the George Soros-backed liberal propaganda machine—to label it as “toxic stupidity about global warming,” containing what they call “zombie lies” about sun-cycles and dissenting scientists.  Or for Joe Romm at Climate Progress to accuse Lovely of “pimp[ing] global cooling for Hill deniers,” demean her work as “laughable,” and demand she be either fired or pulled “from the environmental/energy beat.”

You’ve got to wonder—If these guys are so convinced of their position’s immutability, then why does the slightest challenge to it unleash such frenzied behavior?

By Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times

Just as the world seemed poised to combat global warming more aggressively, the economic slump and plunging prices of coal and oil are upending plans to wean businesses and consumers from fossil fuel. From Italy to China, the threat to jobs, profits and government tax revenues posed by the financial crisis has cast doubt on commitments to cap emissions or phase out polluting factories. Automakers, especially Detroit’s Big Three, face collapsing sales, threatening their plans to invest heavily in more fuel-efficient cars. And with gas prices now around $2 a gallon in the United States, struggling consumers may be less inclined than they once were to trade in their gas-guzzling models in any case.

President-elect Barack Obama and the European Union have vowed to stick to commitments to cap emissions of carbon dioxide and invest in new green technologies, arguing that government action could stimulate the economy and create new jobs in producing sustainable energy. But as the United Nations prepares to gather the world’s environment ministers in Poznan, Poland, next week to try to agree on a new treaty to reduce emissions, both the political will and the economic underpinnings for a much more assertive strategy appear shakier than they did even a few weeks ago.

“Yes things have changed,” said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in a phone interview. He is organizing the meeting in Poland. “European industry is saying we can’t deal with financial crisis and reduce emissions at the same time,” he said. “Heads of government have other things on their minds.” The economic decline also could complicate the political calculus of limiting emissions in developing countries, especially China.

There are signs of considerable backpedaling in at least near-term commitments to invest in green technology and alternative energy. Italy’s environment minister, Stefania Prestigiacomo, said last month that “profound changes” were needed in the European Union climate package because of the global economic crisis. Coal-based economies like Poland’s have expressed similar worries. Theolia, one of France’s largest alternative energy companies, has canceled plans for a subsidiary devoted to emerging markets, and pulled back on its goals of how much energy it could produce by 2009.

In the United States, T. Boone Pickens, the Oklahoma oil tycoon who leased hundreds of thousands of acres in West Texas for a giant wind farm, has now delayed the project. He told reporters at a recent news conference that fossil fuel prices would have to rise again before it was economically viable. Barbara Helfferich, the European Commission spokeswoman on the environment, said, “Investing in reducing emission is more difficult to do in times of economic downturn than when you have money to spend.” See story here.