No Wonder the EPA is Illegally Hiding Its Temperature Data

If the radical Leftists controlling the Democrat Party had even an iota of evidence suggesting the validity of global warming, they would be clamoring to make public its data. Instead, they are unlawfully concealing the data, violating Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests and other demands.

It would seem to be common sense for the data used in a study that guides public policy and the writing of federal regulations to be publicly available. That’s not the case when it comes to EPA and air pollution data.

As J.R. Reed explained on Free Enterprise in July:

During their pursuit of regulations that would cost businesses billions of dollars, EPA officials have refused to reveal the data used to support these proposals – not to White House officials, not to Congress, not to leading environmental experts, and not to the American people. The data sets have not been analyzed by independent scientists or gone through a peer-review process, and, yet, these findings are being used to justify onerous regulations.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Science Committee, sent six letters to EPA asking for the data. In 2011, current EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy promised to do so, but never delivered it. Rep. Smith subpoenaed the agency on August 1.

ScienceInsider reports that EPA continues refusing to turn over the requested data so, Rep. Smith found EPA in default:

“You did not provide the Committee with anything new,” Smith wrote in a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. Instead, Smith wrote, the agency responded to his 1 August subpoena by providing “a file of already public information along with a letter outlining excuses for why EPA did not comply.”

In a statement, Rep. Smith explained,

EPA is using the subpoenaed data to support regulations that could cost the American people trillions of dollars. Yet the agency has refused to make the data available to Congress or the American people. Regulations based on secret data have no place in a democracy.

Ah, there's your mistake, Rep. Smith. We no longer live in a Constitutional republic, the kind in which a virtuous government does its best to hew to the letter of the law. Instead we have an out-of-control administration, with officials laced throughout the bureaucracy defying the courts and Congress.

As for "global warming"? Even the United Nations has been forced to confess the Earth is cooling.

Well, this is awkward. A leaked report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that the world is not warming but actually cooling, and will continue to get colder until the middle of the century.

You remember the IPCC, right? It’s the group whose 2007 report on global warming said that snow would disappear from everywhere but the highest mountains, icebergs would melt, sea levels would rise, deserts would spread, people would die in heat waves and pretty much the earth was going to end if we didn’t immediately destroy our carbon-fueled economy with job-killing government regulations.

Well, that’s not happening. In fact, the Arctic ice cap has grown by 60 percent since 2012.

Thanks to the IPCC’s original predictions, billions of dollars were spent on supposed green measures to curb global warming ... Now, either those measures really, really paid off, or the skeptics were right all along.

There are only three reasonable ways to explain a "belief" in global warming. In order of increasing malevolence, they are hubris, greed, and Marxism. And they are not mutually exclusive; see exhibit A: Al Gore.


Related: Global Warming Comics -- The Fraudulent And The Immoral. Hat tip: Weasel Zippers.

THE TRIFECTA: Poverty, Mass Murder, and Liberals

Guest post by The DiploMad


Words evolve. They take on new meaning over the years. Social and political movements appropriate certain words, redefine them, and then use them to shape the ideological battlefield. The classic example of that, of course, is "bolshevik" and "menshevik." The Bolsheviks were, in fact, the Mensheviks and vice-versa. The word bolshevik, derived from the word meaning "majority," was appropriated by the radicals who were in reality the minority of the old Social Democratic party. The minority labeled the majority the minority and got away with it. Clever. There are many other examples of this in history such as the insistence on calling nazis and fascists right-wing when they are clearly left-wing products.

In our once great, still beloved, but evermore daft United States, precisely those who are not liberal, as in broad minded and generous in their attitudes towards others, have appropriated "liberal" as theirs. The political philosophy of this "liberalism" is one which portrays life as a series of problems that needs addressing by the state--the state guided and run, mind you, by the "well-educated liberal elite" produced by our increasingly decrepit "liberal" universities and informed by "liberal" Hollywood and "liberal" Big Media. Modern U.S. liberals are a variant of European social democrats who believe in a big state and mistrust the individual; the big difference being that US liberals have much more power in the world than their European co-religionists ever could hope. They advocate the "positivist" attitude so aptly summed up in the motto emblazoned on the national flag of Brazil, "Ordem e Progresso," so long, of course, as they are in charge of imposing the order and defining the progress. They take positivism's emphasis on rational thought and logic, and its opposition to superstition and fantasy, and turn it on its head into a "science-based" fantasy that somehow just so happens to lead to more power for them and their state. Global climate change is one stirling example of how liberals have taken a legitimate scientific-based concern over pollution, and turned it into a monumental hoax, known as Manmade Climate Change. That hoax somehow, just somehow ends up demanding more money and power for--guess who?--the liberals and their state. As we will discuss, this philosophy comprises followers who proclaim a great love for humanity while in practice exhibiting a great hatred for people.

Sorry for the long-winded intro, but it brings us to today's topic, for which I provide the following bumper sticker, "Liberals love humanity and hate people." Oh, and by the way, liberals will get you killed. Yes, killed. Modern liberalism kills people, and does so by the millions, all in the name of humanity, of course. It should have a warning label that asks you not to practice liberalism at home, or something along the lines of "I am a trained professional, do not attempt liberalism on your own."

Liberals hate all sorts of people but their special, most lethal hatred is reserved for the poor and the "uneducated." They kill the poor by the bushel, by the ton, by the hectare . . . they kill them at home and abroad. No poor person is safe from the lethal loving embrace of the liberals.

So many examples, it's hard to know where to begin. I don't pretend to provide an exhaustive account of liberal mayhem, just a glimpse at the tip of the iceberg. So, where do we start? How about with DDT? This extremely useful pesticide was virtually banned around the globe for decades because of the bogus writings of Rachel Carson, the lesbian biological mother of today's whacky environmental movement. The ban on DDT, ostensibly to save birds, puppies, and other wonderful warm things, resulted in the deaths of millions of poor persons around the globe from malaria and dengue, which came soaring back on the wings of now safe mosquitos. This tradition of sacrificing the poor on the altar of Gaia continues to this day. The insistence on the global warming hoax, long after the "science" has been shown to be false, perpetuates policies, e.g., ethanol in gasoline, opposition to domestic drilling and nuclear energy, that increases the cost of living, promotes food shortages, stifles employment, and, yes, leads to death. The opposition to cheap energy and food, the zoning restrictions in upperclass neighborhoods, all under the guise of protecting the environment, take direct aim at the lives and welfare of the poor. Liberals kill.

Liberal welfare policies create havoc throughout our society. What slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, and racial discrimination could not do, liberal polices have done, to wit, destroy the black family and turn millions of blacks into permanent wards of the state and of the liberal political machines that control most of our cities. Liberal immigration policies, beginning with the disastrous 1965 Kennedy-Johnson immigration law, insure a constant stream of poor third world immigrants, altering irrevocably the nature of our society and ensuring that the struggling black (and white) American poor cannot compete with the ultra-poor pouring in from Mexico, El Salvador, Bangladesh, and so on. Liberal minimum wage laws ensure the disappearance of the starter jobs, once a platform for the poor to spring out of poverty. All of these people, the old poor and the newly arriving poor, need, of course, social programs and more and more government help. The liberal political machine dispenses jobs and money, and the productive sectors face rising taxes, a labyrinth of regulations, and the constant presence of "helpful" government regulators and enforcers. Let the poverty and misery spread!

Liberal gun control policies also target the poor. The poor in our cities must live with the drug dealers, gang bangers, and the other hoods in the hood. The comfortable liberals live in secure high-rises, and tony suburbs well protected by overpaid and over equipped police and fire departments and expensive security firms. The poor must put up with the inability to defend themselves; they must allow themselves to be murdered in the name of ridding America of gun violence.

Likewise liberal education policies deny the poor the right to choose the schools their children will attend. Instead an alliance of politicians and teacher unions keeps the poor trapped in failing and unsafe schools, while the wealthy liberals, well, you know what they do, and it isn't to send their own kids to those schools.

The examples are endless. From the liberal refusal to allow us to become energy independent, the liberal refusal to see what Islam does everywhere it takes root, and the liberals' seemingly endless assault on the family, everywhere we look we see the death and destruction that modern liberalism brings to our shores and promotes overseas.

To speak out on this is to risk being labeled a racist and hate-monger. To fail to speak out, however, means being complicit to some of the greatest crimes on the planet: the crimes of the liberals.


The DiploMad is a retired Foreign Service Officer who blogs at The DiploMad 2.0.

Thank the Eco-tards' rejection of Keystone XL for environmental catastrophes like Lac Mégantic

Next time you see one of the climate kooks opposed to Keystone XL, be sure to thank them for the train derailment and explosion in Quebec that has resulted in an environmental disaster.

Five bodies have been found and about 40 people are still unaccounted for in the Saturday morning derailment of a runaway train that may have reached speed of up to 90 kilometres an hour.

Hampered by heat from the charred tankers, search crews hoped to expand their small safety zone over the course of the day and begin what could be a long process of examination and identification that could finally bring anguished families some closure.

A few of the nearly 2,000 people evacuated have been allowed back home but the entire town remains under a “boil water” order from the Quebec environment ministry...

...Booms on the Chaudière were installed to hold back some of the ocean of oil that gushed from exploding tankers. Each tanker on the 72-car freight train was carrying 100 tons of crude oil, the ministry said.

Yes: the train was carrying oil. Walter Russell Mead explains the ramifications of the Obama administration's refusal to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

...crashes like this are why greens should be supporting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Canada has a lot of oil. Much of that is trapped in Alberta’s oil sands, and it is of a particularly heavy and dirty-burning variety. But Canada does not have a lot of oil infrastructure. It lacks the pipelines and the refineries needed to take advantage of its bounty.

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline would solve this problem by bringing Canadian oil down to American refineries along the Gulf Coast. Prominent greens like James Hanson and Bill McKibben see the approval of this pipeline as “game over” for the climate, due to the amount of greenhouse gas this oil would emit when burned.

Here’s why they’re wrong: that oil is coming out of the ground whether the pipeline is built or not... lacking any proper pipeline infrastructure, companies are shipping oil by train. And not in trickles, either: Canada’s rail shipments of oil have increased by 28,000 percent since 2009.

...If greens had any sense, they would be clamoring for the Obama administration to approve [Keystone XL]. The oil is coming out whether the pipeline is built or not. At this point, it’s about minimizing the risk of events like the Lac Megantic accident.

Let me repeat for the slow-to-learn Democrat readers among us: that oil is coming out of the ground whether the pipeline is built or not. Which would make refusal to approve said pipeline not only economically suicidal but also environmentally irresponsible.

IT'S COME TO THIS: Al Gore Says That Warmal Colding Turned the Earth Upside Down!

Jonah Goldberg, at the G-File, relays the most horrifying climate news I've come across since the motion picture The Day After Tomorrow:

In 1998, the Washington Post ran a picture of Earth from space. I can't remember why, but I think it was a picture from the international space station.

The picture infuriated then-vice president [Al] Gore. He called the Post's executive editor to tip him off about the "error."

"I decided I just had to call because you've printed a picture of the Earth upside-down."

It didn't occur to Gore that, from space, there is no upside down.

Really.

Democrat Pride: And Al Gore is the intellectual giant upon whom Obama relies to guide America's industrial and regulatory policies.

Oh, and this just in: according to Vermont's self-professed Socialist-cum-Democrat Senator Bernie Sanders, weather is the greatest planetary crisis that we face.

Every summer the planet gets warmer and every winter the planet cools. It's called "the seasons".

The Earth lies within the heliosphere. That is, within the atmosphere of the sun. And all of the warmal colding religionists have completely omitted the sun from their computerized models.

Yes, really.

BUT HE'S NOT BITTER: By conceding in 2000, Al Gore says he averted a "violent revolution"

Al Gore may have a gift for grift, but he is an exceedingly dimwitted individual when it comes to law and the Constitution.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV from the Milken Global Conference in Beverly Hills, former Vice President Al Gore claims American democracy has been "hacked." Gore also opined on former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor recently commenting that she regretted her decision in Bush v. Gore.

"[America] has been hacked. That is a computer term when the operating system of a computer is taken over and the computer does things the owner does not want it to. That is what has been happening to American democracy. You have 90% of the people in favor of background checks for gun purchases [sic] and the congress is incapable of doing what the American people want.

They have not been able to regulate these phony baloney financial derivatives that caused the financial crisis [sic]. They voted to invade Iraq even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Unfortunately there are a lot of examples. They can't pass a budget. I can't keep the country from facing financial danger and the main reason is simple, the influence of the money is at un-healthy levels..."

While addressing Bush v. Gore, the former Vice President said "there is no intermediate step between a final Supreme Court decision and a violent revolution."

"I did not know she was going to say it. I made the decision in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision 12 years ago, to respect the rule of law. I strongly disagreed with their opinion, said so, but the rule of law is the bedrock of American democracy. There is no intermediate step between a final Supreme Court decision and a violent revolution. what was best for the country, the answer was very simple, to respect the rule of law and avoid undermining it and dragging the court into a partisan squabble where the outcome would not change in any case. So I am going to stand by my decision to respect the judiciary," Gore said.

Violent Revolution? Pot-smoking hippies vs. Bible-thumping, gun-owning bitter clingers? Gee, who would I put my money on?

As Constitutional attorney Mark R. Levin has patiently explained -- repeatedly -- once Governor Jeb Bush certified the names of the electors, there was no way Al Gore could "win" the election. Not the Florida legislature, not the Florida Supreme Court, and not even the U.S. Supreme Court could change the Constitution's process.

Gore could have challenged the election of George W. Bush in court post facto, but only after Bush had won the election.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

Still Life with Interloper

Spotted at Matt Dawson's Twitter feed:


Click to explodify

FIGURES: Gore Turned Down U.S. Offer for Current TV In Favor of Despotic, Misogynistic, Anti-Gay, Anti-Semitic Slave State

And doesn't that just say it all?

The Wall Street Journal reports that Glenn Beck–who approached Current TV about a sale last year–was too right-wing for the network to even consider his offer. But an authoritarian-Islamist government that has criminalized homosexuality, discriminates against non-Muslims, prosecutes journalists, and has a “Not Free” rating from Freedom House? That was fine:

According to The Wall Street Journal, Glenn Beck’s media company, The Blaze, approached Current Media about a sale last year, but was told in the words of one source that “the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view.”

"[W]e are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view?"

Qatar, where Al Jazeera is headquartered, therefore appears to align with Al Gore's point of view. It, according to human rights watchers:

• Tolerates slavery: "...expatriate workers from nations throughout Asia and parts of Africa are routinely subjected to forced labor and, in some instances, prostitution..."

• Promotes human-trafficking: "...men and women who are lured into Qatar by promises of high wages are often forced into underpaid labor..."

• Severely punishes LGBT relationships: "...[Qatar] tend[s] to view homosexuality and cross-dressing negatively [and sex] between consenting [gay] adults in Qatar is illegal, and subject to a sentence of up to five years in prison..."

• Allows no open practice of religions other than Islam: "The government uses Sunni law as the basis of its criminal and civil regulations. However, ...[f]oreign workers, and tourists, are free to affiliate with other faiths... as long as they are discrete and do not offend public order or morality."

Kudos to Time Warner Cable for dropping Current like a hot potato once the sale to Al Jazeera was announced.

Oh. And. Wait. Just. A. Second.

Doesn't the husky sex poodle known as ManBearPig want to have "skin in the game" (in the words of Joe Biden)?

...The former vice president will pocket an estimated $100 million on the sale. According to the New York Times, which first broke the story Wednesday, Gore wanted to complete the sale before Jan. 1, 2013 to avoid getting slammed with higher taxes.

So not only is Al Gore making millions from dirty dirty Big Oil interests, but he’s cheating the government and trying to get out of his “fair share” of taxes!!

According to the Fiscal Cliff deal, earnings above $400,ooo will be taxed at a rate of 39.6 percent, up from the current 35 percent. That means Al Gore saved $4.9 million by selling out early – but I thought the wealthy don’t “need” or “want” those tax savings, right Obama?

If you hooked these Democrats up to Hypocrisy-Meters, you'd have to wear a helmet and goggles to avoid the shrapnel when the damn things exploded.

I would call Al Gore pond scum, but that would unfairly tarnish perfectly innocent and productive algae.

AL GORE'S CURRENT TV IS NO MORE: Assets sold -- and Gore will serve as adviser -- to... wait for it... Al Jazeera

The New York Times' Brian Stelter reports that Al Gore's Current network was just acquired by Al Jazeera and will dissolve as an independent entity. And Gore will serve as an adviser to Al Jazeera.

BREAKING: Al Jazeera is finalizing a deal to take over Current TV. nyti.ms/VvhxMe

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 2, 2013

After years of trying, Al Jazeera is buying its way into American homes. A huge moment for the Qatar-based news giant. nyti.ms/VvhxMe

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 2, 2013

Al Jazeera's going to position this as an AMERICAN news channel. 60% out of New York, 40% out of Qatar. nyti.ms/VvhxMe

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 2, 2013

Current will cease to exist. Gore will serve on the "advisory board" for "Al Jazeera America," according to internal memo.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 2, 2013

Among the assets Al Jazeera is buying from Current: its carriage deals w/ DirecTV, Comcast, Dish, Verizon, AT&T. But NOT Time Warner Cable.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 2, 2013

Time Warner Cable's pithy goodbye to Current: Our agreement "has been terminated... We are removing the service as quickly as possible."

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 3, 2013

I consider Gore joining forces with Al Jazeera a powerful merger of propagandists.

THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED: Global Warming Responsible for Worst-Ever Storm to Hit New York

I refer, of course, to the New England Hurricane of 1938.

The New England Hurricane of 1938 (or Great New England Hurricane, Yankee Clipper, Long Island Express, or simply the Great Hurricane) was the first major hurricane to strike New England since 1869. The storm formed near the coast of Africa in September of the 1938 Atlantic hurricane season, becoming a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale before making landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on Long Island on September 21...

...The hurricane was estimated to have killed between 682 and 800 people, damaged or destroyed over 57,000 homes, and caused property losses estimated at US$306 million ($4.7 Billion in 2012). Even as late as 1951, damaged trees and buildings were still seen in the affected areas. It remains the most powerful, costliest and deadliest hurricane in recent New England history, eclipsed in landfall intensity perhaps only by the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635.

Whether or not "global warming" was to blame for the 1938 (or the 1635) storm I leave as an exercise for the reader.


Related: Scientists reject Sandy-Climate Change Link.

Ruh Roh: Little More Than a Year Remains Until the the Polar Ice Caps Melt Completely

In 2008, while speaking at a museum in Germany, Nobel Prize-winner Al Gore made yet another sales pitch for Global Warming™. You know, that's the problem where humans are spewing too much toxic Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere. And that's the same problem that can only be solved by purchasing roughly $250 billion in "carbon offsets", preferrably from companies Al Gore is involved with.

Gore stated that because of man's outrageous use of Carbon Dioxide -- you may remember the molecule from a little-known process called "photosynthesis" -- the entire Polar Ice Cap will have melted by 2013. Seriously, he said that.

Gore's statement, in part, was: "The entire polar icecap [will be] gone... ...in five years, the period in which it is now expected to disappear."

You may remember that Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, depicted rising ocean levels due to ice melt. And Gore predicted our shores will flood and coastal cities would sink beneath the water, thereby causing millions of homeless to relocate to Red States. In fact, the movie posits that melting ice could release enough water to cause a 20-foot rise in sea level "in the near future."

Pity that Gore's scientific knowledge is just a couple of notches below that of Britney Spears. Because even Brit-Brit knows that the loss of sea ice by itself can't contribute to a rise in sea levels, just as an ice cube that melts in a glass of water doesn't raise the level.

And, by the way, weren't we warned all this was going to happen by, say, 2010? I guess maybe it took a rain-check and now it's 2013. Put in simple terms for the liberals progressives reading along (moving their lips, I'm sure), global warming appears to be nothing less than a UN-backed bunko scam that aims to regulate and control the U.S. economy.

But just in case, I've created a Polar Ice-Cap Countdown Clock:

If the North Pole really does melt, I'm hoping Santa and his elves take over one of Gore's three mansions. Maybe the one in Nashville that consumes 20 times the average American household's electricity. At least the little toy-makers will be producing something useful.

Yes, Al, you hack. I remember these predictions. I'm like an elephant. I don't forget your B.S.


Related:
• The UN's Global Warming Bunko Scam
• Al Gore's Inconvenient Fiction: a $250 Billion Scam
• Global Warming Frenzy Ignores China and Iran
• Crushing Al Gore's Global Warming Profiteers
• Al Gore's Carbon Offset Going-Out-of-Business Sale!

Photo: This is the whack-job who thinks you need to be medically "treated" for questioning the U.N. climate scam

I realize you can't judge a book by its cover, but -- oh, my.

A whole slew of new “research” on conservatives’ and global warming skeptics’ “brains” has hit the academic circuit.

First off, environment and sociology Prof. Kari Norgaard’s [Ed: pictured at right] new study claims skeptics of man-made global warming fears should be “treated” for their skepticism. The study compares skepticism to man-made climate fears to the struggle against racism and slavery.

Prof. Norgaard’s concept of “treating” those who do not follow the current day’s political or social orthodoxy is, frighteningly, not new. A quick look at the 20th century totalitarian super states reveals many similar impulses.

It’s even more chilling that there is a whole new movement afoot by the promoters of man-made global warming theory to intimidate climate skeptics by using new brain “research.”

Other researchers have attempted to tie conservatism (which is identified with the highest number of climate skeptics) to “low brainpower.” ... Finally, still other climate activists have actually implied that we need to consider “human engineering” to combat global warming... NYU Prof. S. Matthew Liao of Center for Bioethics says his human engineering solution “involves the biomedical modification of humans to make them better at mitigating climate change'"

Sounds like the climate movement is pushing back against the numerous disclosures that have exposed "global warming" as nothing more than a money-making scam for NGOs and academics.

And it also would appear that they would like to use the same tactics the Nazis used to suppress opposition, all in pursuit of their totalitarian, anti-science vision.

Yet another reason to praise our country's founders for their wisdom vis a vis the Second Amendment.


Hat tip: Doug Powers.

Global Warming Comics -- The Fraudulent And The Immoral

One of the great warriors against the United Nations' Global Warming Scam is Christopher Lord Monckton. Lord Monckton is touring the United States giving presentations to a variety of interested parties.

On Wednesday, he presented to the California State Assembly to describe the extent of the climate fraud and its sheer immorality, representing nothing less than a war against the world's poorest people.

The following text is Monckton's, which I've left outside of the normal "block quote" in order to format the presentation.

---

Two-thirds of the warming predicted by the IPCC’s (non-peer-reviewed) models is supposed to arise from temperature feedbacks. None of these feedbacks can be measured. There is no consensus about how big they are. There are powerful scientific reasons to suspect the IPCC has very greatly overstated them...

The principal conclusions of each of the four IPCC Assessment Reports are questionable:

2007: The IPCC twice concludes that the rate of warming is speeding up and we are to blame. But it uses a false statistical technique to reach its conclusion.
2001: The IPCC concludes that today’s temperatures are warmer than in 1300 years. How it reached this conclusion is under criminal investigation.
1995: The scientists had concluded that no discernible human effect on climate could be found. Just one man rewrote the report to say the opposite.
1990: The IPCC predicted rapid warming. A generation has passed and the predicted warming has not happened...

...This and many other [of the IPCC's] predictions are overblown:

• Global temperature is rising more slowly than IPCC’s least estimate;
• Sea level has been rising for eight years at just 1.3 inches/century;
• Ocean heat content has barely risen in 6 years;
• Hurricanes and tropical cyclones are quieter than for 30 years;
• Global sea-ice extent has changed little in 30 years;
• Methane concentration is up just 20 parts per billion since 2000;
• The tropical hot-spot the IPCC predicts as our footprint is absent;
• Outgoing radiation is escaping to space much as usual.

California’s carbon tax, with other statewide measures to curb CO2 emissions, will cost $450 billion by 2020. Even if 25% of California’s emissions are abated by 2020, just 0.4% of global emissions will have been abated; CO2 concentration by 2020, instead of the business-as-usual 413 parts per million by volume the IPCC predicts, will be 412.9 ppmv; just one-thousandth of a Fahrenheit degree of warming will be abated; the cost of abating the 0.3 F° warming the IPCC predicts to 2020 by measures as cost-(in)effective as California’s policies would be $180 trillion, or $25,500 per head of global population, or a third of global GDP over the period; and the cost of preventing the 6 F° warming the IPCC predicts by 2100 would be $2700 trillion, or more than 10 times the maximum 3%-of-GDP cost of climate-related damage arising from not mitigating this predicted 21st-century warming at all.

Environmental over-regulation, cap-and-tax, “renewable”-energy mandates, and a 40-year ban on most offshore drilling are crippling California. The Monterey Shale holds 15 billion barrels of oil, yet over-regulation has cut production by more than a third to just 200 million barrels a year. Now 11% are jobless in California, second only to Nevada in the US (50% are jobless in construction); the 2012/13 State deficit is $6 billion; unfunded pension liabilities are $250 billion; 50,000 rich Californians (one-third of them) fled in 2007-2009, taking their businesses and jobs with them: twice as many firms fled the once-Golden State in 2011 as in 2010; Intel says it will never build another plant here; Globalstar, Trizetto, and eEye fled in just one month; Boeing, Toyota, Apple, Facebook, and DirecTV have all fled. The wagons are heading East.

The bottom line: No policy to abate global warming by taxing, trading, regulating, reducing, or replacing greenhouse-gas emissions will prove cost-effective solely on grounds of the welfare benefit from climate mitigation. CO2 mitigation strategies that are inexpensive enough to be affordable will be ineffective; strategies costly enough to be effective will be unaffordable. Focused adaptation to any adverse consequences of any warming that may occur is many times more cost-effective. Since the premium greatly exceeds the cost of the risk, don’t insure. Every red cent spent now on trying to stop global warming is a red cent wasted. Don’t mitigate: sit back, enjoy the sunshine, and adapt only if and when and to the extent necessary. That, however unfashionable, is the economically prudent and scientifically sensible course.

Al Gore Hardest Hit: Most Polar Ice Ever Recorded

Didn't the pudgy grifter named Al Gore claim that the polar ice caps would melt completely "in just a few years?"

Turns out that Climategate was only the beginning. The United Nations' global warming scam (which is the term they prefer, I hear) is unraveling faster than a pair of Michael Moore's spandex bike shorts.

Exhibit 4,035? March 6, 2012 represented the "Most polar ice ever recorded":

So much for an ice-free Arctic. Henry Hudson’s long-ago dream of a Northwest Passage that would link England to the Orient by sea will have to wait another century as Mother Earth gives him the cold shoulder. Again.

From Real Science: “1979 was the peak year for Arctic ice, yet 2012 has more ice around Greenland and Alaska than 1979 did.”

Same date satellite data seems to show that Iceland and everywhere else is iced over this year when they were feeling a little green 33 years ago.

Of course, our moral and intellectual superiors elsewhere in the press keep banging the drums of Man Caused Global Warming.

Don Surber has the rest.


Related: "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow..."

"CO2 Lies": German Media Destroys the Global Warming Scam; Al "Three Mansions" Gore Unavailable for Comment

And the hits just keep on coming for the United Nations' global warming scam:

“THE CO2 LIES … pure fear-mongering … should we blindly trust the experts?”

That’s what Germany’s leading daily Bild (see photo) wrote in its print and online editions today, on the very day that renowned publisher Hoffmann & Campe officially released a skeptic book – one written by a prominent socialist and environmental figure.

This is huge. More than I ever could have possibly imagined. And more is coming in the days ahead! The Bild piece was just the first of a series.

Mark this as the date that Germany’s global warming movement took a massive body blow.

Today, not one, but two of Germany’s most widely read news media published comprehensive skeptical climate science articles in their print and online editions, coinciding with the release of a major climate skeptical book, Die kalte Sonne (The Cold Sun)...

What has set it all off? One of the fathers of Germany’s modern green movement, Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a social democrat and green activist, decided to author a climate science skeptical book together with geologist/paleontologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning. Vahrenholt’s skepticism started when he was asked to review an IPCC report on renewable energy. He found hundreds of errors. When he pointed them out, IPCC officials simply brushed them aside. Stunned, he asked himself, “Is this the way they approached the climate assessment reports?”

Vahrenholt decided to do some digging. His colleague Dr. Lüning also gave him a copy of Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion. He was horrified by the sloppiness and deception he found. Persuaded by Hoffmann & Campe, he and Lüning decided to write the book. Die kalte Sonne cites 800 sources and has over 80 charts and figures. It examines and summarizes the latest science.

Conclusion: climate catastrophe is called off.

Hey, John Boehner: you listening? The EPA needs to be de-funded completely.

That agency is a multi-billion dollar organization built on a series of lies and crimes, as the horrific story of DDT reminds us.

And if Boehner won't do it, we need to find a House Speaker -- like Michele Bachmann or Allen West -- with the stones to shred this taxpayer-funded boondoggle benefiting the Marxist Left.


Hat tip: Vicki.

Warmal Colding strikes Europe: record cold snap kills hundreds; thousands trapped by "heaviest snow... ever recorded"

Al Gore hardest hit.

Bosnian authorities on Sunday used helicopters to evacuate sick people and deliver food to thousands of people who have been cut off by the heaviest snow the country has ever recorded... Across Eastern Europe thousands of people were digging themselves out from heavy snow that followed a weeklong cold snap that has killed hundreds.

More than 100 remote Bosnian villages are cut off by snow over 6 1/2 feet high in the mountains. More than three feet has fallen in the capital Sarajevo, where a state of emergency has been declared...

London's Heathrow Airport—Europe's busiest—canceled a third of Sunday's flights and warned of delays amid heavy fog.

...Rome is struggling under its first heavy snowfall in 26 years, and snow has also fallen on Spain's Balearic islands in the Mediterranean... Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday said the snowfall was beautiful, but he is wishing spring will come soon.

Please take note of the reaction of the global warming cult to news stories like these. When record cold temperatures savage the planet -- which some scientists believe herald the onset of a new ice age -- they screech that "weather isn't climate".

But when temperatures hit 100° in Manhattan during the month of July, they're the first to shriek about "evidence" of warmal colding.

How stupid do they think we are? Stupid enough to think that they can continue to pull off the United Nations' latest multi-billion dollar scam, courtesy of corrupt scientists seeking grant money and the Marxist left, who desperately want to regulate the economies of the West through cap-and-trade.

Your Handy Dandy EnergyGate Cheat Sheet #solyndra [Updated]

Trying to keep track of all of the government-authorized theft of taxpayer dollars in the name of "green energy"? I know: it's difficult, given that new disclosures seem to occur daily.

For that reason, I've assembled a running cheat sheet to help keep all of the Democrat politicians, the crony capitalists, the conflicts-of-interest, and the outright criminality straight. I know, I know -- it's a difficult job, but someone's got to do it.

• James Johnson, erstwhile Fannie Mae chairman during the height of its subprime lending, was a bundler for Obama in 2008 and is listed as raising as much as $500,000 for the 2012 race
• Johnson also heads Washington-based Perseus Group
• Johnson's Perseus investments include the Vehicle Production Group, which received $50 million in "clean energy" loans

• Patrick Murphy, a confidant of Harry Reid, was paid at least $290,000 by "clean energy" company SunPower
• Murphy wasn't the only beneficiary; SunPower's political action committee also gave more than $16K to Democrat Congressional candidates in 2010
• The son of Rep. George Miller (D-CA) is SunPower's top lobbyist and Miller visited SunPower last October with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar
• Miller and Murphy appear to have helped SunPower get $1.2 billion in loan guarantees from the DOE

• Harry Reid, according to The New York Times, "was instrumental in securing" DOE financing for "clean energy projects on government-owned land"
• Reid, in particular, helped secure $145 million for a company called "Nevada Geothermal Power"
• Reid has not publicly commented on a recent audit by Deloitte & Touche that expressed doubt that the company would survive
• Reid also hasn't called for investigations of where the taxpayers' money went; he's apparently too busy

• Anthony Podesta raised over $350,000 for Democratic campaign committees this year
• Podesta's lobbying company has received roughly $670,000 in the last two years lobbying on behalf of a "green energy company" called SolarReserve
• Podesta's lobbying apparently helped get SolarReserve a $737 million DOE loan last week

• Ronald Pelosi is the brother-in-law of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
• Pelosi is an executive with Pacific Corporate Group, a private equity group
• Pelosi's firm invested in SolarReserve
• Pelosi's firm benefited directly when the DOE approved a $737 million loan last week

• Billionaire George Kaiser raised at least $50,000 for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.
• Kaiser's company, Solyndra, received a $535 million loan guarantee from DOE.
• Kaiser's company received the loan before DOE received final copies of outside reviews of the deal.
• Kaiser is also listed as a board adviser with SolarReserve, the Pelosi-linked firm that received a a $737 million DOE loan last week

• Steven Spinner raised $500,000 for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.
• Spinner then became one of Energy Secretary Steven Chu's key loan advisers.
• Spinner later wrote that he "helped oversee the more than $100 billion" in loans and guarantees.
• Spinner executed 29 stock trades in energy companeis while serving as a DOE adviser
• Spinner held shares in at least four companies that received DOE loans
• Spinner's wife's law firm collected around $2.5 million while representing Solyndra
• Spinner's wife's law firm also represented two other companies that received $34 million from DOE

• Steve Westly raised $500,000 for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.
• Westly then became one of Energy Secretary Steven Chu's key advisers.
• Westly was an investor in five firms that received half a billion dollars in energy grants and loans from DOE.

• John V. Roos raised $500,000 for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.
• Roos' law firm (the same firm Spinner's wife worked for) collected "millions" from DOE-funded companies.

Call it "Crony Marxism", call it outright theft, call it an egregious breach of trust. It's the inevitable result of government tampering in areas forbidden to it by the Constitution.

And please consider: if the Climatards are willing to waste billions enriching themselves in the name of green energy, they really can't take the global warming scam seriously.

In other words, the green tech movement no more believes in global warming than you or I.

And, once again, where's the special prosecutor?


Related:
• The Bush administration rejected Solyndra's requests for loans for two years citing incomplete documentation
• Solyndra employee: from day one, everyone knew that our solar panels were uncompetitive... including President Obama
• Bruce Krasting Blows Obama's Solyndra Scandal Sky High
• Oh, my: Emails show White House knew Solyndra was a disaster before it issued $535M crony loan


Hat tip: Laughing Conservative.

More Green Grift: EPA Certifies Taxpayer-Funded Luxury Electric Vehicle With Total Range of... 32 Miles

Gee, a range of 32 miles in electric mode and 20 mpg on gasoline doesn't strike me as especially... eh, helpful:

Fisker's Karma extended-range EV just received its official certification from the EPA, but the numbers aren't exactly what the company hoped for.

While Fisker had predicted a rating of 67 mpge and an all-electric range of 50 miles, the EPA disagreed, certifying the car with 52 mpge, a range of 32 miles, and 20 mpg in gasoline mode after that. Ouch.

Of course, the affordable price makes up for it:

Our tax dollars at work… a half-billion dollar loan (actually $529 million) from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a hybrid toy for the wealthy and/or celebri-licious (like Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the first customers) that, in real world driving, won’t get much better mileage than your average crossover utility vehicle. Not only that, but the cars are manufactured in Finland — that’s right, Finland – and shipped here for sale, where their purchasers will then receive a $7,500 tax credit for buying one (the “cheap” base model starts at $96,895, with the full-zoot Eco Chic model going for a bargain $108,900).

...the Federal government [was] a major financial partner in Fisker Automotive... We the taxpayers are on the hook for more than half a billion dollars, about the same amount that got loaned to Solyndra, another “green manufacturer,” before they went bankrupt. At least Solyndra was manufacturing their products in this country, providing American manufacturing jobs (if short-lived jobs), and making a product that average Americans could conceivably afford. Fisker is manufacturing these gorgeous Leonardo DiCaprio toys in Finland. And the kicker, for those of you who would still claim that the risk of half a billion tax dollars is justified by environmental gains… contrary to the company’s initial hype, the Karma will only run for thirty-two miles on its electric motors before its turbocharged gasoline engine needs to kick in (as opposed to the initial estimate of fifty miles). Once that occurs, the Karma gets about the same mileage as a Ford Explorer. Not the new Explorer, even. The older, gas-hog, body-on-frame model. We’re talking twenty miles per gallon, folks. So much for your “green investment.”

...Al Gore is on the list of customers waiting to receive their Fisker Karmas, having put in his order before the DOE signed off on the company’s half-billion dollar loan. Oh, and by the way, it just so happens that several major investors in the company are also major donors to the Democratic Party. And here’s information on John Doerr, an advisor to President Obama who is also a major investor in Fisker Automotive. Can you say, “crony capitalism?”

Oh, good.

Our children and grandchildren will pay for this green scam with interest.

I wonder how many billions have been laundered from the taxpayers to President Obama's contributors under the banner of "green jobs"?

'Not including the Ocean, more than half of all the water in California is polluted, according to the EPA'

Gee, I wonder if this means another unconstitutional power grab by the EPA?

The Environmental Protection Agency released a new report on the condition of the lakes and rivers in California. Over a million acres of waterways aren't meeting safety standards.

Not including the Ocean, more than half of all the water in California is polluted, according to the EPA. Water officials say pesticides, bacteria, and metals are the most common pollutants.

Really? So half of all of California's water is polluted?

Then it should be easy to point to statistical evidence including increased numbers of birth defects, instances of poisoning, premature deaths and other symptoms in areas suffering from "pollution". Right?

Don't hold your breath waiting for the EPA to show evidence before it uses a tyrannical ruling to seize more power.

If we don't obliterate these leftists at the ballot box in 2012, this country is toast.

Third World Starvation, Brought to You by Ethanol and the Global Warming Scam Artists™

The "Arab Spring" -- violent revolts in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen -- can be traced back to rising food prices, food shortages and imminent starvation. Prior to the Yemeni uprising, for example, seven million citizens "were forced to reduce their number of daily meals from three to one."

And what caused these rising food prices?

You guessed it: the global warming scam, which forces otherwise edible crops to be burned as inefficient fuels like ethanol. A new research paper models food prices and arrives at statistical proof that the global warming scam is, in great part, helping starve children in the third world.

The Food Crises: A quantitative model of food prices including speculators and ethanol conversion

Recent increases in basic food prices are severely impacting vulnerable populations worldwide. Proposed causes such as shortages of grain due to adverse weather, increasing meat consumption in China and India, conversion of corn to ethanol in the US, and investor speculation on commodity markets lead to widely differing implications for policy. A lack of clarity about which factors are responsible reinforces policy inaction...

Here, for the first time, we construct a dynamic model that quantitatively agrees with food prices. The results show that the dominant causes of price increases are investor speculation [Ed: market forces, i.e., supply-and-demand] and ethanol conversion. Models that just treat supply and demand are not consistent with the actual price dynamics...

...Both causes of price increase, speculative investment and ethanol conversion, are promoted by recent regulatory changes—deregulation of the commodity markets, and policies promoting the conversion of corn to ethanol. Rapid action is needed to reduce the impacts of the price increases on global hunger.

It's time for the government to get out of the fuel business. It's time to stop subsidizing ethanol; to disband the regulatory state that prevents exploitation of our natural resources; and to let the free market dictate what we use to power our society.

Because the destruction wrought by the environmental, flat-earth, no-growth Marxist left must be stopped.

If for no other reason than to save the children who today starve to death thanks to the likes of Al Gore and the climate grifters.


Related: In the name of global warming, 20,000 Ugandan villagers burned out of their homes.

In the name of global warming, 20,000 Ugandan villagers burned out of their homes

It's not enough that the environmental agenda has wasted billions on phony "green jobs"; or made millionaires out of the U.N.'s ethically challenged climate change panel; or helped cause the deaths of tens of millions with its senseless ban of DDT. No, not enough.

Now, tens of thousands of Ugandans have been burned out of their homes to help a company issue "carbon credits", the fraudulent currency of the climate scam.

According to the company’s proposal to join a United Nations clean-air program, the settlers living in this area left in a “peaceful” and “voluntary” manner...

...People here remember it quite differently... villagers described gun-toting soldiers and an 8-year-old child burning to death when his home was set ablaze by security officers... “They said if we hesitated they would shoot us,” said William Bakeshisha, adding that he hid in his coffee plantation, watching his house burn down. “Smoke and fire.”

According to a report released by the aid group Oxfam on Wednesday, more than 20,000 people say they were evicted from their homes here in recent years to make way for a tree plantation run by a British forestry company, emblematic of a global scramble for arable land.

...Across Africa, some of the world’s poorest people have been thrown off land to make way for foreign investors... in this case, the government and the company said the settlers were illegal and evicted for a good cause: to protect the environment and help fight global warming.

The case twists around an emerging multibillion-dollar market trading carbon-credits under the Kyoto Protocol, which contains mechanisms for outsourcing environmental protection to developing nations.

The company involved, New Forests Company, grows forests in African countries with the purpose of selling credits from the carbon-dioxide its trees soak up to polluters abroad. Its investors include the World Bank, through its private investment arm, and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, HSBC.

Carbon trading is -- provably -- a scam. The Chicago Climate Exchange went bust late last year. The European Union has seen billions lost to fraudulent carbon trading.

Remember, though, it's all worth it because "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow...."


Hat tip: Climate Depot.