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McCain’s Embarrassing Climate Speech - While no one knows who first uttered the sentiment, “It’s better to say nothing and seem a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt,” Republican presidential hopeful John McCain’s speech this week on climate change certainly supports the phrase’s validity. (Steven Milloy, FoxNews.com)

McCain Joins Global Warming Cult - In an effort to win over those "moderates" who believe that global warming is about to destroy the planet, Republican presidential candidate John McCain spoke Monday at a Portland, Ore., training facility for Vestas Wind Technology. He claimed, "The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention, especially in Washington."

There certainly is more "hot air" on this and a lot of other subjects in Washington, but that isn't what he meant. The era of big government is so not over, as Bill Clinton claimed it was in 1996. It is just beginning and increasingly the political contests seem to be about who will manage its growth, not who will reduce its size, cost and reach. (Cal Thomas, RealClearPolitics)

Most Republicans Discount Global Warming: McCain, Bush At Odds With Most Of Party - The proportion of Americans who say that the earth is getting warmer has decreased modestly since January 2007, mostly because of a decline among Republicans, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center.

That puts most Republicans at odds with their standard-bearer, President George W. Bush, and with GOP presidential contender Sen. John McCain. Both men said this week global warming is real and must be addressed.

Republicans are increasingly skeptical that there is solid evidence that the earth has been warming over the past few decades, the survey found. In January 2007, 62 percent said they believed the evidence, compared to 49 percent in the new Pew findings. Pew found that self-described conservative Republicans are more likely than party moderates or liberals to reject the science.

Overall, 71 percent of Americans say there is solid evidence of higher global temperatures, compared with 77 percent at the beginning of last year. Fewer than half in the survey -- 47 percent -- attribute the rising temperatures to human activity.

Age played a role in opinions, Pew said. Fifty-four percent of people under age 30 believe that the earth is warming mostly because of human activity, compared with 37 percent of those ages 65 and older.

Americans cooling to global warming: Solomon - All three U.S. presidential hopefuls have made global warming a high-profile issue in their campaigns. In this they are out of step with the broad electorate, which ranks global warming well down the scale of important issues. The public's increasing skepticism is particularly surprising given the overwhelming air time that the press has given to the notion that global warming spells doom. (Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post)

Gore is right. Climate change catastrophe is imminent! - I've been having an interesting exchange on a CO2 alarmists' blog about the dangers human emissions of CO2 pose for future climate. While the exchange has generally been cordial and it has certainly been interesting while providing great insight into the rationale most alarmists agree too, I have yet to find the proverbial "smoking gun" that actually makes their case.

Nevertheless, I do have to agree with them about one thing. The danger and cost to human society from climate change will be catastrophic and is, apparently, unavoidable.

But ironically, while the catastrophe to which I refer is unquestionably human-caused, it is completely avoidable. Therein lies the rub.

The danger is not from a catastrophe arising from soaring temperatures and human misery that alarmists claim will follow (a highly debatable proposition). The catastrophe that seems unstoppable is the human misery that will unquestionably arise from the massive costs of soaring imprudent government regulation of CO2 emissions in the form of Gore-enriching "cap and trade" schemes that will, in the end, provide no discernable impact on global climate. (Bob Webster, WEBCommentary)

Global Warming: Mostly Hot Air - As more data come in, the dire predictions of Al Gore and company are being exposed as unfounded alarmism. Is the game close to being up for eco-mongers and their media enablers? (Pajamas Media)

New Inhofe White Paper, Web Page, Details Harmful Impacts of Lieberman-Warner Bill - WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, today announced the release of a new white paper by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee minority detailing the severe economic impacts of the America's Climate Security Act – S.2191 (Lieberman-Warner) bill. In addition, Senator Inhofe also announced a new web page on the minority portion of the EPW Committee website dedicated to providing an online resource center that will serve as a central hub for all information exposing the flaws of the Lieberman-Warner bill. The website can be viewed at www.epw.senate.gov/lieberman-warnerbillexposed. (EPW Blog)

Cap-And-Trade Folly - Climate Change: Legislation pending in the Senate might warm environmentalists' hearts, but not because of potential cuts in carbon emissions. Their interest is in the heavy economic costs the plans would inflict. (IBD)

The price isn't right: People like the idea of a carbon tax, they just don't want to pay it - Here in the department of the painfully obvious we're pleased to announce that polls suggest people are strongly in favour of paying carbon taxes, until they actually have to pay them.

Then ... not so much.

To illustrate, a recent Canadian Press Harris/Decima poll found Canadians surveyed supported "a carbon tax levied on people and businesses based on the carbon emissions they generate" by a margin of 61% to 32%.

Except in B.C., where on July 1 people will be hit with a real carbon tax imposed by their provincial government. There, support for a carbon tax which hasn't even gone into effect yet, plunges to 49% in favour, 41% opposed.

Meanwhile, in Great Britain, where people already pay carbon taxes, a recent Opinium Research poll found almost three in four (72%) oppose paying higher taxes to fight climate change and two in three (67%) believe the government's entire "green" agenda is just a ploy to raise taxes. (Lorrie Goldstein, Edmonton Sun)

Arctic Fairy Tale: The polar bear isn't threatened, but Big Oil should be. - The decision on Wednesday by the U.S. Interior Department to declare the polar bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act is a major victory for environmentalists who have been looking for a back-door legal mechanism to limit carbon-dioxide emissions. (Roy Spencer, NRO)

Reaction from the Last Frontier (Edward John Craig, Planet Gore)

Polar bears listed as endangered, while global sea ice anomaly is above average (Climate Sanity)

Unbearable Legislation - The decision announced yesterday by the Secretary of the Interior, to list the polar bear as "threatened," removes all doubt that the Endangered Species Act is broken and in need of urgent repair. It is the environmental movement that must take responsibility for breaking it. (Iain Murray, American Spectator)

Polar Bears: More Journalistic Malpractice - How do you declare a species endangered when its numbers are increasing? (Henry Payne, Planet Gore)

A thin-ice way to save polar bears - Lawsuits are not the best way to force the public into solving planet-size problems such as climate change. In most cases, political consensus - as Al Gore is trying to achieve - brings the most fitting solutions. But the environmentalists who sued on behalf of polar bears likely knew that and shouldn't be surprised at what their suit has wrought.

On Wednesday, as a result of a 2005 suit filed by three environmental groups trying to speed up government action on global warming, the Interior Department listed the polar bear as "threatened" under the 1973 Endangered Species Act. The finding was based on computer projections of continuing climate change, caused in part by humans, and an estimated loss of Arctic ice where some 25,000 bears hunt for their main food, seals.

But for a number of reasons, the decision may end up being largely symbolic, leaving the issue of global warming right back where it belongs: with Congress.

For one, the finding is expected to bring a legal ricochet in a promised counter-suit testing the presumption that the bears face extinction within a few decades. Some polar bear populations, such as in Norway, are increasing. And it's not yet known if the bears will eventually adapt to warmer climes.

This kind of legal wrangling proves again that courts aren't the place to force the United States - or China or India - into taking bold action on a global-scale problem. Politics and diplomacy are more effective, even if they are slower. Mr. Gore's latest campaign to create grass-roots momentum against global warming is spending millions, with an eye for decisive action in Congress next year.

The lawsuit only further pushed the Bush administration into a defensive posture, setting back political progress toward taking action. (Christian Science Monitor)

The polar bears are doing just fine - Today is Endangered Species Day in the United States. And what better way to celebrate it than the decision this week by the Department of the Interior to put the polar bear on the “threatened” list. No doubt this will provide another necessary jolt for eight-year-olds who have already become obsessed with climatic Armageddon after being forced to watch An Inconvenient Truth. But then who could forget Al Gore’s little animated polar bear, paddling around desperately looking for a bit of ice on which to alight. Who could forget the following 2006 exchange between Mr. Gore and Oprah Winfrey, after showing the clip of the doomed creature: (Peter Foster, Financial Post)

A false mascot for climate change - OTTAWA -- When environmentalist activists want cuddly creatures for poster purposes, nothing beats Canadian. (Don Martin, National Post)

ANALYSIS - Polar Bear Listing Could Slow Arctic Oil Drilling - ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Oil drilling in the Arctic may need to slow down, now that polar bears, iconic symbols of global warming, are headed for protection under the US Endangered Species Act, experts said. (Reuters)

Easy fixed -- repeal ESA.

Polar Bear Pushback - After 18 years of a law practice devoted to counseling landowners, home builders and commercial interests affected by the long arm and severe penalties of the Endangered Species Act, I am used to incredulous looks and outraged oaths from clients coming to grips with the Act's incredible burdens on impacted private citizens. (Hugh Hewitt, Townhall)

Major Development In Global Climate Modeling By Professor Roni Avissar and Dr. Robert L. Walko - There is a new global model (OLAM) developed by two outstanding talented scientists, Professor Roni Avissar and Dr. Robert L. Walko which provides original and important tool to study the climate system. This new global model is reported on in two accepted peer-reviewed papers for the journal, Monthly Weather Review. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)

Oh dear... A lot of hot air - Books about climate change are often flawed—some more so than others (The Economist)

The Economist is not going to increase anyone's understanding with this garbage. Absurd panic-merchant David King as "the layman's handbook"? Fred Krupp's book "is the businessman's guide"? Nigel Lawson "relies on old evidence to attack the consensus (such as an apparent disparity between temperatures on the earth's surface and in the troposphere, which was resolved two years ago)"?

I suppose if you are going to get it wrong you might as well do it BIG. See, for example, Response to 'Global warming differences resolved with corrections in readings' (note this is incomplete and Christy has more papers published since dealing with this nonsense).

It is The Economist doing the misleading here and their advocacy is showing.

A joke? Expert warns climate change will lead to 'barbarisation' - Climate change will lead to a "fortress world" in which the rich lock themselves away in gated communities and the poor must fend for themselves in shattered environments, unless governments act quickly to curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to the vice-president of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (The Guardian)

Oh Fiona! Proof found of man-made climate change - Scientists have been able to say with virtual certainty for the first time that the climate change observed over the past four decades is man made and not the result of natural phenomena. (Fiona Harvey, Financial Times)

Not even close -- the meta study basically covers the recent warming phase of cyclic temperatures and extrapolates from that (i.e., practically worthless from a scientific viewpoint). And then there's such appalling nonsense as:

Barry Brook, director of climate change research at the University of Adelaide, said: “[We should] consider that there has been only 0.75ºC of temperature change so far, yet the expectation for this century is four to nine times that amount.

No, there is no such 'expectation' -- that's merely model inflation achieved with absurd multipliers hosted on kludge boxes and have no known relationship with reality.

Luboš Motl has more on this stupid piece here: Female alarmists spam Nature (The Reference Frame)

Global Warming: A hot topic at TV6 this week - This week, TV6 is airing a three-part series on Global Warming (GW), also referred to as “Climate Change.” Meteorologist Nick Kanczuzewski has put together an excellent, balanced look at both sides of the issue and what it means for Upper Michigan.

The time constraints imposed by television news will only allow him to survey the topic. For that reason, I will use this blog to occasionally delve deeper into this controversial subject.

First of all, here is my disclaimer. I do not side with one political party—I am appalled that this branch of science has become so political. My views are counter to the consensus view that “mainstream” media repeatedly bombards us with. That does NOT mean I do not care about the environment.

For many years I kept silent on this issue; no more. (Karl Bohnak, WLUC)

Global-warming myth - By Patrick J. Michaels - On May Day, Noah Keenlyside of Germany's Leipzig Institute of Marine Science, published a paper in Nature forecasting no additional global warming "over the next decade."

Al Gore and his minions continue to chant that "the science is settled" on global warming, but the only thing settled is that there has not been any since 1998. Critics of this view (rightfully) argue that 1998 was the warmest year in modern record, due to a huge El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean, and that it is unfair to start any analysis at a high (or a low) point in a longer history. But starting in 2001 or 1998 yields the same result: no warming.

The Keenlyside team found that natural variability in the Earth's oceans will "temporarily offset" global warming from carbon dioxide. Seventy percent of the Earth's surface is oceanic; hence, what happens there greatly influences global temperature. It is now known that both Atlantic and Pacific temperatures can get "stuck," for a decade or longer, in relatively warm or cool patterns. The North Atlantic is now forecast to be in a cold stage for a decade, which will help put the damper on global warming. Another Pacific temperature pattern is forecast not to push warming, either.

Science no longer provides justification for any rush to pass drastic global warming legislation. The Climate Security Act, sponsored by Joe Lieberman and John Warner, would cut emissions of carbon dioxide — the main "global warming" gas — by 66 percent over the next 42 years. With expected population growth, this means about a 90 percent drop in emissions per capita, to 19th-century levels.

Other regulatory dictates are similarly unjustified. The Justice Department has ruled that the Interior Department has until May 15 to decide whether or not to list the polar bear as an endangered species.

Pressure to pass impossible-to-achieve legislation, like Lieberman-Warner, or grandstanding political stunts, like calling polar bears an "endangered species" even when they are at near record-high population levels, are based upon projections of rapid and persistent global warming.

Proponents of wild legislation like to point to the 2007 science compendium from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, deemed so authoritative it was awarded half of last year's Nobel Peace Prize. (The other half went to Al Gore.) In it there are dozens of computer-driven projections for 21st-century warming. Not one of them projects that the earth's natural climate variability will shut down global warming from carbon dioxide for two decades. Yet, that is just what has happened. (Washington Times)

Ocean Nitrogen Only Limited Help For Climate - Study - OSLO - Rising amounts of nitrogen entering the oceans from human activities are less beneficial than previously thought as a fertiliser for tiny marine plants that help slow global warming, scientists said on Thursday. (Reuters)

Actually it'd be really nifty if people could warm the planet with atmospheric CO₂ since warming is way better than cooling but, sadly, there is no evidence we can have any such influence. Afraid we're just going to have to put up with what we get.

Studies say reactive nitrogen a growing hazard in the environment - WASHINGTON - While carbon dioxide has been getting lots of publicity in climate change, reactive forms of nitrogen are also building up in the environment, scientists warn.

"The public does not yet know much about nitrogen, but in many ways it is as big an issue as carbon, and due to the interactions of nitrogen and carbon, makes the challenge of providing food and energy to the world's peoples without harming the global environment a tremendous challenge," University of Virginia environmental sciences professor James Galloway said in a statement. (Associated Press)

Poor word choice: "but in many ways it is as big an issue as carbon" -- a complete non-issue then.

Airbus and Algae: Why Biofuels Won’t Cut It - We noted yesterday aviation’s uphill battle to replace traditional—and increasingly expensive—jet fuel with alternative fuels. Today, Airbus and Honeywell announced a new project to provide one-third of aviation’s fuel needs by 2030 using second-generation biofuels made from things like vegetable biomass and algae. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)

Don't Blame Us For Hunger, Biofuel Makers Say - SEVILLE - Biofuel manufacturers at an international gathering in Spain have strenuously denied media charges they are driving up food prices and world hunger. (Reuters)

Texas Wind: Boone Pickens’ Big, Big Bet - Oilman T. Boone Pickens’ love affair with wind isn’t brand new—he’s been touting the idea of “peak-free” energy since he decided to build America’s biggest wind farm in Texas. What’s different is the way he’s going about it. (Keith Johnson, WSJ)

Your taxes abused: Renewable Energy Tax Bill Advances In US House - WASHINGTON - Legislation that would renew billions of dollars in tax breaks for solar, wind, biomass and and other renewable energy sources and extend a proposed new tax credit for ethanol fuels not produced from corn advanced in the US House of Representatives on Thursday. (Reuters)

Coal Plant Pollution Threatens US Parks - Report - NEW YORK - US regulators are proposing to weaken air quality laws, which would allow new coal-fired power plants to pollute US parks from Shenandoah in Virginia to the Great Basin in Nevada, a new report said on Thursday. (Reuters)

No, they're actually feeding the parks and keeping them green.

R.I.P. Irena: I hope Al Gore is hanging his head - I am ashamed to admit that I had never heard of Irena Sendler, whose obituary appeared in this morning’s paper. Hers is an awesomely humbling story, even by the standards of her heroic generation. (Daniel Hannan, Daily Telegraph) | Irena's Worlds (WSJE)

When fears hurt: Measles are making a come-back - History may be one of the most important school subjects because forgetting its lessons can lead us to repeat the most costly and deadliest mistakes. Medical professionals reading the news over recent months can only watch in dismay as scares, soundly and repeatedly debunked by good science, have led parents around the world to not vaccinate their children. Before immunizations, about 500 children in the United States died each year of measles alone and others were left permanently disabled, while their parents could do nothing to prevent it. Vaccinations virtually eliminated such tragedies. (Junkfood Science)

New study casts further doubt on risk of death from higher salt intake - Contrary to long-held assumptions, high-salt diets may not increase the risk of death, according to investigators from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. They reached their conclusion after examining dietary intake among a nationally representative sample of adults in the U.S. The Einstein researchers actually observed a significantly increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) associated with lower sodium diets. They report their findings in the advance online edition of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. (Albert Einstein College of Medicine)

A step towards healthier model figures - America’s Next Top Model was just announced. The lovely Whitney Thompson is the first winner for the show to look closer to what healthy, average-size women look like. Clothes sizes vary, but she is said to wear a size 10, while the average American woman wears a 14. This may seem a trivial moment, but for many young women at a time in their lives when their figures seem paramount and believe they’re supposed to weigh 100 pounds and look like the thin figures they see in magazines, she brings an especially valuable, and hopefully more healthful, reality. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. (Junkfood Science)

Couldn't make it up: Obesity Contributes To Global Warming - Study  - GENEVA - Obesity contributes to global warming, too.

Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.

This adds to food shortages and higher energy prices, the school's researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in the journal Lancet on Friday. (Reuters)

No, fellas, you've got it wrong! Fat people are composed of more carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere for many decades and slowing gorebull warming.

The sneak attack - The President of the Citizens’ Council on Health Care, Twila Brase, RN, just issued an emergency notice that may be of interest to JFS readers who’ve been following the legislation in Minnesota [background here] to allow the State to take DNA from every newborn to store in its genomic biobank and share with genetic researchers without parental consent, or in adulthood without the person’s consent. (Junkfood Science)

Green Economics: How Do You Value the Environment? - Is the environment best served—or served at all—by economics?

Strange as it sounds, especially when the Republican presidential candidate is offering climate-change stump speeches that appear cribbed from an environmental economics syllabus, that debate is rattling around politics, academia and the blogosphere these days. The gist of the argument boils down to this:

Are environmental goods—be they polar bears, tropical forests, or clean air—best preserved with a dollar sign on them? Or does the attempt to put a price on everything lead to knowing the value of nothing? (Keith Johnson, WSJ)

That Sinking Feeling - The highly-respected Lausanne-based Institute for Management Development (IMD) has just issued its 20th anniversary ‘World Competitiveness Yearbook 2008’ [see: ‘Britain slips down key economic league table’, The Times, May 14/15]. It is not a pleasant read for the UK.

In this annual assessment of national competitiveness, the UK has fallen one place from twentieth, to twenty-first, having been overtaken by Israel. But, more significantly, the IMD report downgrades the UK’s position against its global rivals on the crucial factor of economic performance, from seventh out of 55 countries to an alarming sixteenth.

And the cause of this decline? Yes, you have guessed it - the rising tax burden and worsening business environment. As ever, Carl Mortished of The Times pens an excoriating piece [‘Alistair Darling counts cost as party over for UK plc’ (The Times, May 14/15)]: (Global Warming Politics)

Uh-huh... Climate change threatens Norway's moose - Already chased by hunters and often run down by cars and trains, the popular Norwegian moose now faces another threat: Global warming. (Aftenposten)

An epidemic of extinctions: Decimation of life on earth - Species are dying out at a rate not seen since the demise of the dinosaurs, according to a report published today – and human behaviour is to blame. Emily Dugan counts the cost (The Independent)

Massive extinction rate, eh? Can you name 10 this month? Oh, well how about this past year? No? 10 in a decade? ... you think maybe over a century? Very impressive -- how does that compare with expected rates? Nothing abnormal... very worrying.

SOP: No newts is bad news as council spends £1m - A council spent £1 million protecting a colony of rare newts on a building site only to discover that none lived there.

Leicestershire County Council delayed a major road-building scheme for three months after evidence of great crested newts was found on the site. The species is protected by law, but after the authority paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for special newt-fencing and traps, not one of the rare creatures was discovered.

The action was taken on the strength of a report from environmental experts, which found there could have been between one and 10 of the 6in amphibians on the site.

Officials yesterday lodged a complaint with the government, claiming the outlay would have a knock-on effect on local services.

The council leader David Parsons said: "I'm not happy that we have gone a million pounds over on the bypass and then found no great crested newts. (Daily Telegraph)

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