PRNewswire - USNewswire
Chinese government endorses the establishment of a diverse volunteer grassroots force to deliver slideshow presentations based on Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis
WASHINGTON and NASHVILLE—Former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore, the Alliance for Climate Protection, The Climate Project, and the China-U.S. Center for Sustainable Development will host a training session in Beijing, China June 9-11, 2010. The event, held with the support of the Chinese government, led by the Ministry of Science and Technology, will see Vice President Gore personally train a cross-section of 300 Chinese citizens who share a commitment to reduce the harmful effects of climate change.
“I am so honored that I will be returning to China to deliver my slideshow and present the latest updated information about the climate crisis and how we can solve it. China has rapidly emerged as a leader in renewable energy and it is very encouraging to see the Chinese people take a direct role in beginning to help solve global warming,” said former Vice President Al Gore.
The Beijing event will focus on the science of climate change and provide tools for effective communication about the issue. Those trained will become Presenters for The Climate Project. Presenters deliver an updated version of the slide show featured in the Academy-Award winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. The upcoming training will also be the first to incorporate slides and material from Vice President Gore’s latest book, Our Choice, A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.
The Climate Project (TCP), a program of the Alliance for Climate Protection, supports the work of more than 3,000 volunteers in 55 countries around the world. The Climate Project has eight official branches - Australia, Canada, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Spain, the U.K. and the United States and with the new training will now add China.
“The Alliance for Climate Protection is excited about the opportunity for The Climate Project to work in partnership with citizen volunteers and the Chinese government in an educational campaign about the urgency and solvability of the climate crisis,” said Maggie L. Fox, President and CEO of the Alliance for Climate Protection.
“The training and establishment of an official branch of Al Gore’s The Climate Project in China represents a historic and landmark opportunity to build international collaboration between volunteers who can educate their local communities on the urgency of taking action on climate change,” added Jenny Clad, Director of The Climate Project.
The vision for TCP China goes well beyond the initial training event. TCP will also establish a secretariat to provide post-training support to TCP-China Presenters and coordinate future TCP-China initiatives.
Global climate change is recognized as the defining agenda for the 21st century - impacting every natural resource and human habitat. Immediate action on multiple fronts is necessary to more deeply understand the significance of climate change and to identify actions that can responsibly address the global climate crisis. These actions are critically important in both the U.S. and China - the world’s leading producers of greenhouse gases.
About The Alliance for Climate Protection:
The Alliance for Climate Protection was founded in 2006 by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. With more than five million members and supporters worldwide, the Alliance is a unique non-profit, non-partisan organization that is committed to educating the global community about the urgency of implementing comprehensive solutions to the climate crisis.
About The Climate Project
The Climate Project, Al Gore’s climate change leadership program, is an initiative of the Alliance for Climate Protection. TCP’s mission is to educate the public about the harmful effects of climate change and to work toward solutions at a grassroots level worldwide. Official TCP branches are located in the United States, Australia, Canada, India, Spain, the United Kingdom, Indonesia and Mexico.
The China-U.S. Center for Sustainable Development
The China-U.S. Center for Sustainable Development (CUCSD) is a public-private collaboration that aims to accelerate adoption of sustainable practices and technologies by connecting stakeholders and forging mutually beneficial environmental, social, and economic partnerships. The Center is guided by a Board of Councilors from China, the U.S. and internationally. Management of initiatives is coordinated through joint secretariats - in China, the Administrative Center for China’s Agenda 21, a government agency, and in the U.S. by the International Sustainable Development Foundation, a 501c (3) non profit organization. For more information, please visit www.chinauscenter.org.
Press inquiries: Carrie Criado, 615-327-7577, press@theclimateproject.org
Kalee Kreider, 615–327-2227, press@carthagegroup.com
Giselle Barry, 202-567-6800, press@climateprotect.org
Read more here.
Be sure and contact them and tell them what you think of their project.
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IMPORTANT:Hearings Planned On Mass. Greenhouse Gas Limits
BOSTON (AP) - A series of public hearings are being planned for the public to weigh in on the state’s goal of setting a greenhouse gas limit by 2010. Massachusetts’ 2007 Global Warming Solutions Act requires state Environmental Secretary Ian Bowles to set a 2020 greenhouse gas emissions target of between 10 and 25 percent below the state’s 1990 greenhouse gas emission level. The 2007 law also requires Bowles to come up with a plan to meet that goal. Bowles wants an even more ambitious goal of no less than 18 percent lower than the state’s 1990s greenhouse gas emissions.
The first public hearing is set for Tuesday at the Berkshire Athenaeum in Pittsfield. Other hearings are planned for Worcester, Lowell, Lakeville, Springfield, Boston and Woods Hole. See more here.
Hearings on Massachusetts’ proposed range for the 2020 greenhouse gas emissions limit and draft implementing plan will be conducted under the provisions of M.G.L. Chapter 30A on:
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Berkshire Athenaeum
One Wendell Avenue
Pittsfield, MA
Thursday, June 3, 2010
5:30-7:30 p.m.
MassDEP Central Regional Office
627 Main Street
Worcester, MA
Monday, June 7, 2010
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Pollard Memorial Library
401 Merrimack Street
Lowell, MA
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Lakeville Public Library
4 Precinct Street
Lakeville, MA
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Springfield Public Library
220 State Street
Springfield, MA
Monday, June 14, 2010
1:30-3:30 p.m.
McCormack Building
21st Floor, Rooms 1 & 2
One Ashburton Place
Boston, MA
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Clark Building, 5th Floor Conference Area
Quisset Campus
Woods Hole, MA
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
6:00-8:00 pm
Tobin Community Center
1481 Tremont Street
Boston, MA
Testimony may be presented orally or in writing at the public hearing. Written comments also will be accepted until 5:00 p.m. on July 15, 2010. Written testimony must be submitted by e-mail or mail to: climate.strategies@state.ma.us, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Waste Prevention, One Winter Street 6th Floor, Boston, MA 02108, Attn: Lee Dillard Adams.
A copy of the 2020 Framework Implementation Plan is posted on the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s (MassDEP’s) web site .
For special accommodations for these events or hearing information in an alternate format, please contact Donald Gomes, MassDEP’s ADA Coordinator at 617-556-1057, BAS/HR, 3rd Floor, One Winter Street, Boston, MA 02108.
By Order of the Office
Ian A. Bowles, Secretary
By Suzanne Bohan, Contra Costa Times
A few years ago, Ben Santer, a climate scientist with Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, answered a 10 p.m. doorbell ring at his home. After opening the door, he found a dead rat on his doorstep and a man in yellow Hummer speeding away while “shouting curses at me.”
Santer shared this story last week before a congressional committee examining the increasing harassment of climate scientists, and the state of climate science.
After the online posting in November of 1,073 stolen e-mails from climate scientists, including some from Santer, the threats took a more ominous turn,” Santer told members of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, chaired by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass. Skeptics of climate change have dubbed the e-mail incident “Climategate.”
“The nature of these e-mail threats has been of more concern,” Santer said. “I’ve worried about the security and safety of my family.”
In the already-heated debate over the cause of and “” to a diminishing extent “” the existence of global warming, the stolen e-mails ratcheted up the rhetoric. And while skeptics of human-induced climate change have tried to use the e-mails to discredit established climate science and to derail policies such as the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions or cap-and-trade initiatives, climate scientists are fighting back.
They penned a consensus letter earlier this month, testified before congressional committees to explain why they’re certain human activity is dangerously warming the world, and they’re openly airing what they call the growing harassment of climate change researchers. In the written version of his testimony, Santer mentioned concerns “about my own physical safety when I give public lectures.”
Santer is accompanied by bodyguards at some conferences, Stephen Schneider, a prominent climate scientist with Stanford University, said earlier this month. Santer and the lab declined to discuss details about security for Santer, saying it would be inappropriate to do so. Schneider, who testified at the congressional hearing, told the committee he"s a veteran at fielding abusive e-mails. A typical one, he said, accuses him of being a “Communist dupe for the United Nations,” and states that “you’re a traitor and should be hung.
The threats escalated after the publication of the hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia in England. On blogs, talk shows and other forums, people heatedly discussed the content of certain e-mails, and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., has requested a criminal investigation of 17 climate scientists, including Santer and Schneider, whose correspondences were among the stolen e-mails. Inhofe believes human-induced global warming is a hoax and that there is no scientific consensus on the matter.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., also wrote the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which produces reports widely regarded as the most authoritative assessments on climate change, requesting that the 17 scientists be banned from contributing to the panel’s next report.
Those hacked e-mails revealed some climate scientists involved in a pattern of stonewalling, discussing ways to conceal data that didn’t agree with their findings, and deriding skeptics of global warming. In one e-mail, Santer wrote that when he next encountered a certain climate skeptic at a scientific meeting, “I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted.
In an interview with Associated Press about the e-mail, Santer said, “I’m not surprised that things are said in the heat of the moment between professional colleagues. These things are taken out of context.
Two independent investigations by British academic panels, however, found no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct in the e-mails” contents, nor did an Associated Press analysis of all the e-mails.
The hacked e-mail incident was followed by the discovery of several embarrassing errors in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. In light of the errors, this month a review of the IPCC report began in Amsterdam, conducted by a 12-person panel selected by the Inter-Academy Council. The council is independent of the United Nations, which publishes the IPCC report.
Schneider and other climate scientists note that only a handful of errors were found, and that the report’s conclusion is solid that human activity is very likely the reason for the rise in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century.
While four scientists at the Washington D.C. hearing detailed why most climate scientists fear the ecological and economic consequences of a buildup of greenhouse gases, a fifth scientist offered a counterpoint.
William Happer, a physics professor at Princeton University, expressed far less concern about the heat-trapping threat of carbon dioxide from human activity and said scientists on the other side of the debate also face intimidation.
“Indeed, we read testimony by Dr. James Hanson (of NASA) in the Congressional Record that climate skeptics are guilty of “high crimes against humanity and nature,-” Happer said. “There are many similarly intimidating statements made by establishment climate scientists and by like-thinking policymakers “” you are either with us or you are a traitor.”
Happer called for the creation of a “B-team” of scientists given steady funding to investigate other possibilities besides human-caused warming for the Earth"s changing climate. He said the approach is intended to establish a group of scientists to play a “devil’s advocate” role.
The Department of Defense, the CIA “and many others routinely establish robust team B"s; that is, groups of experts who work full time, sometimes for several years, to challenge the establishment position,” Happer said. “This has given us much better weapons systems and intelligence.”
Happer said he believes increased carbon dioxide levels may only cause an inconsequential rise in temperatures and that plant life will flourish with more atmospheric carbon dioxide. He concurred when one congressman asked if he was in a “minority position” among scientists in asserting that climate change doesn’t pose a serious threat. “Oh yes, I certainly agree,” Happer said. “And in many cases in the history of science the minority has been right.”
But Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, detailed the science that reinforces most climate scientists views. Cicerone at the hearing described a 1 degree Fahrenheit rise since 1979 documented by NASA and other agencies. Declassified U.S. Navy data and satellite data show Arctic ice sheet thickness has declined 50 percent in 50 years, he said, and sea levels are now rising 3.2 millimeters per year. He said the average ocean surface temperature “has increased significantly since 1980,” which scientists say lead to more extreme weather events.
“The year 2009 was the warmest on record for the entire world south of the equator,” he added. It was in response to the attacks on conclusions embraced by the majority of climate scientists and the escalating threats that Schneider and others decided to cast aside their usual scientific reserve and publicly speak out.
On May 7, Science published a letter signed by 255 National Academy of Sciences members “” including 32 from Northern California “” decrying the political assaults on climate scientists.
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo applauded the climate scientists” emerging outspoken position. “I support our scientists one hundred percent for speaking louder and clearer to the American public about the seriousness of this issue,” Speier said. “If sea level rise continues unchecked, it will put major parts of the Bay Area underwater.” Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said that with trillions of dollars at stake by shifting to a lower-carbon economy, especially within industries reliant on fossil fuels, there are “lots of sharp elbows” in the debate.
The institute is regarded as a conservative Washington D.C. think tank, although Ornstein defies the stereotype. But he noted that even among his colleagues skeptical about some climate science data, “they"re not going to deny there"s climate change going on.” And they"re “getting brickbats” from those “who basically think it"s all a hoax.”
He also supports climate scientists stepping into a more public role in explaining their science. “You’ve got to find a way to make powerful a point, that there really is a common set of facts, and those who don"t support that common set of facts are truly outside any kind of mainstream,” Ornstein said.
Read more here.
Greenhouse gases aren’t warming Earth
Reply by Dr Fred Singer
The report of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences (NRC-NAS) claims that the climate is warming and the cause is human. The first claim of this federally funded $6 million exercise is meaningless and trivial; the second claim is almost surely wrong ("Tax dollars perpetuate global-warming fiction,” Comment & Analysis, Wednesday).
The report’s recommendation is for the United States to put a price on carbon to staunch emissions of carbon dioxide, which is pointless, counterproductive and very costly.
The climate certainly has warmed considerably in the past 10,000 years (when the last Ice Age ended), but much less since 1850 (the end of the Little Ice Age). No one disputes these facts. But the climate has not warmed during the past decade, in spite of the steady rise in human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. According to Phil Jones, head of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, there has been no warming trend since 1995.
The 2007 report of the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) furnished no credible evidence for anthropogenic global warming (AGW). The NRC-NAS panel did not add any new relevant information - nor did it have the expertise to do so.
The IPCC panel was made up of many qualified atmospheric scientists who are active in research. The NAS panel was politically chosen and listed among its “climate science experts” a sociology professor and a professor of “sustainable development,” whatever that means. That certainly doesn’t inspire much confidence in the NAS conclusions.
“This is our most comprehensive report ever on climate change,” said Ralph Cicerone, president of the NAS, at a briefing to discuss the effort. It “analyzes the reality of climate change and how should the nation respond. ... It emphasizes why the United States should act now.”
Looking back, this may well have been a low point for the NAS, one that inevitably will discredit all other NAS activities. But it will provide a useful lesson to other scientific organizations that have uncritically jumped on the AGW bandwagon.
By The Washington Times, Tuesday, May 25, 2010
$6 million study is used to lobby for cap-and-tax
With public faith in the global-warming myth on the wane, leftist zealots are desperate to spin a new tale - and they’re spending your tax money to do it. Three years ago, Congress appropriated $5,856,600 for the National Academy of Sciences to complete a climate-change study. This bureaucratic attempt to cook the books, which was completed last week, may be too late to save this dying religion.
The academy now offers the taxpayer-funded research for download in three separate sections for $44 each. The first volume presents the case that human activities are warming the planet and that this “poses significant risks.” A second report urges that a cap-and-trade taxing system be implemented to reduce so-called greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The final section of the study explores strategies on adapting to the “reality” of climate change, meaning purported “extreme weather events like heavy precipitation and heat waves.”
None of the big-government recommendations are worth the 1,089 pages of presumably recycled paper on which they are to be printed if planetary warming is actually a phenomenon beyond human control, so the first volume is of primary interest. “Advancing the Science of Climate Change” asserts that the Earth’s temperature has risen over the past 100 years and that human activities have resulted in sharp increases in carbon dioxide. The coincidence of these facts on their own, of course, proves nothing. The Earth has been as warm or warmer in past periods, such as the medieval and Roman warm periods, long before the internal combustion engine and coal plants were around to take the heat for a particularly sweltering summer day.
“Both the basic physics of the greenhouse effect and more detailed calculations dictate that increases in atmospheric GHGs should lead to warming of Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere,” the National Academy report goes on to assert. That is to say, the theory that mankind’s increased carbon-dioxide output is responsible for warming is true because the theory’s calculations say so. “Detailed simulations” of climate provide verification in the eyes of these left-leaning scientists. The same climate models that can’t predict tomorrow’s weather accurately are supposed to forecast decades into the future.
That this logic is entirely circular is not lost on the public, only a third of whom believe mankind’s collective exhalations are about to destroy the planet. A recent Rasmussen survey found that a majority (59 percent) think it’s more likely that scientists are falsifying research data to support their own personal theories about global warming.
The overall message of climate alarmists is “Trust us,” but the Climategate e-mails exposed these hacks’ lack of credibility, as they are willing to manipulate and suppress data to try to prove their point. Science should not be abused to push a political agenda - and here the National Academy is doing the work of Democrats by taking tax dollars to pimp for higher taxes on gasoline, electricity and other essential elements of modern life. In return, these ideological leftists are rewarded with even more of your money to conduct additional “research.”
It’s time to pull the plug on public funding for these science-fiction writers.
Amen. The NAS was established by Abraham Lincoln but under recent appointees and President Ralph Cicerone it has become a joke...an advocacy group for government policy not the trusted impartial agency for science issues parallelling the CBO with respect to the budget.
See this excellent post here.
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Regarding climate change, Kerry should heed science
By William Yeatman, Energy policy analyst, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) argued his climate bill, the American Power Act, is a national security imperative, because climate change will inject “a new major source of chaos, tension and human insecurity into an already volatile world.” ("Climate change: The new national security challenge” May 20) As evidence, he reeled off a doomsday list of looming climate crises, including, “more famine and drought, worse pandemics, more natural disasters, more resource scarcity, and staggering human displacement.” On every count, the senator is wrong.
Regarding the potential for climate change-induced drought, Sen. Kerry got his facts backwards. He wrote that, “Scientists now warn the Himalayan glaciers, which provide fresh water to a billion people in India and Pakistan, will face severe impacts from climate change,” but a recent study published in the Annals of Glaciology suggests the Karakoram glaciers - those in the western Himalayas that feed into the Indus River shared by India and Pakistan - are growing. And the apparent cause is climate change.
Unfortunately for Senator Kerry, only days before he wrote in The Hill that climate change will lead to “worse pandemics,” a major study was published in Nature, the most prestigious scientific journal, asserting the exact opposite. According to the latest science, pesticides and sleeping nets will be the primary determinant governing the spread of malaria, not rising temperatures.
Senator Kerry claimed rising temperatures will cause “more famine,” but he failed to elaborate. Not long ago, the Senator could have cited the Nobel prize-winning 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which warned that global warming would halve North African food production by 2020. Recently, however, the British newspaper The Times discovered that this “fact” was based on dubious sourcing and misleading language.
At no point did Senator Kerry acknowledge the national security threats of climate change policies. After all, the bedrock of the U.S. military is the
American economy. Is the U.S. national interest truly served by shackling the American economy with carbon controls while China builds a coal fired power plants every week to stoke its red-hot economy? See post here.