Daily Archives: August 30, 2011

Alaska Says Climate Change is no Threat to Polar Bears

Posted on August 30, 2011 | 1 Comment

Alaska Says Climate Change is no Threat to Polar Bears, Opposes Protection

The state of Alaska will appeal a federal judge’s ruling that continues to list the polar bear as a threatened species. In a notice filed Friday, the state argued that the bears have successfully survived past climate changes.

The threatened species status of the polar bear was upheld by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in June, after the state of Alaska sued the federal government in 2008 over the Bush administration’s decision to protect polar bears under the Endangered Species Act. The listing was based on the warning by the Department of the Interior that warming of the Arctic climate and the melting of sea ice was threatening the polar bear’s habitat.

Gov. Sean Parnell, a Republican, said the world population of polar bears has grown from a low of between 8,000 and 10,000 in the late 1960s to the current count of about 20,000 to 25,000. “The Endangered Species Act was not intended for species that are healthy with populations that have more than doubled in the last 40 years,” Parnell said. (IBT)

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Posted in Climate change, Wildlife

NIPCC interim report 2011

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NIPCC interim report 2011
Aug 30, 2011

The Heartland Institute’s NIPCC interim report has just been published – see here. This is a summary of the new scientific literature since 2009.

I’ve taken a glance through the paleoclimate bits and it appears to have been put together in a very professional manner. I was blissfully unaware of just how much evidence has been emerging for the existence of a MWP in the world outside Europe.

If I had a criticism based on what I have read, I would say it’s over the authors’ tendency to slip into editorial mode – discussion of Mann being engaged in “subterfuge” looks out of place in a scientific report.

Lots of people are not going to like the report of course. Peter Gleick, the president of the Pacific Institute, tweets that the report makes himsick and refuses to link to it. Barry Woods and I have politely asked which bits in particular he is concerned with and he has told us that he doesn’t need to do this when someone is arguing that the Earth is flat. (Bishop Hill)

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Posted in Climate, Research

Dennis Byrne: The real science trashers

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The real science trashers
Dennis Byrne
August 30, 2011

Today I am writing about religion. Specifically, about those who worship in the Church of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. More specifically, about those who, as a matter of faith, believe that the science of climate change is settled.

These believers preach that mankind is steering the planet onto an irreversible and cataclysmic course unless we do something. They have engaged in a clever ploy of labeling those who disagree with their dogma as “deniers” and “anti-science.” When actually they’re the ones trashing science.

Let’s take the latest scientific research that demonstrates, again, that the science of climate change is too complex to lend itself to simplifications and claims of “consensus.” (Chicago Tribune)

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Posted in Climate change, Research

The Real History of the Standard Oil Company Part II

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The Real History of the Standard Oil Company (Part II: The Phenom)
by Alex Epstein
August 30, 2011

[Editor Note: This five-part series by Mr. Epstein revisits the Standard Oil Trust controversy in this the 100th anniversary of the breakup of the Trust. Part I yesterday reviewed the flawed textbook interpretation of Rockefeller's accomplishment.]

The Standard story begins during the U.S. Civil War. In 1863, the first railroad line was built connecting the city of Cleveland to the Oil Regions in Pennsylvania, where virtually all American oil came from. Clevelanders quickly took the opportunity to refine oil—as had the residents of the Oil Regions, Pittsburgh, New York, and Baltimore. Cleveland had the disadvantage of being one hundred miles from the oil fields but the advantage of having far cheaper prices for materials and land (Oil Regions real estate had become extremely expensive), plus proximity to the Erie Canal for shipping. (MasterResource)

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Posted in Development, Energy

Keystone XL gets the nod while Grandpa Hansen gets lost & is collected by police

Posted on August 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

It seems possible Grandpa contributed significantly to Ozone Al’s DiOCarb Spectrum Disorder (DOCSD), suggesting DOCSD is actually a manifestation of mass sociogenic illness (MSI). The alternative is that DOCSD is the world’s first demonstrated communicable delusion but no physical evidence for this exists.

Obama Administration Backs Oil Sands Imports From Canada
Tuesday, 30 August 2011 08:20 John M Broder and Clifford Krauss, The New York Times

The State Department gave a crucial green light on Friday to a proposed 1,711-mile pipeline that would carry heavy oilfrom oil sands in Canada across the Great Plains to terminals in Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast.

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Posted in Development, Dioxycarbophobia, Energy, Enviros

Nothing destroys the environment quite like ‘saving’ it

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UK Government Destroying Countryside In ‘Get Rich Quick’ Solar Plan
Tuesday, 30 August 2011 10:29 Simon de Bruxelles, The Times

A green electricity initiative that promised big returns for energy producers has led to hundreds of acres of countryside disappearing beneath solar panels in the past few months.

Developers have been busy installing the panels on dozens of greenfield sites across the south of England in a rush to meet a government deadline and reap the rewards of vastly inflated prices for the electricity they produce. The Feed-In Tariff scheme, launched in April last year, promised to pay four times the going rate for electricity generated by solar power for 25 years.

Investors realised that meant an annual return on their money of more than 15 per cent. Developers had a deadline of August 1 to get their schemes approved and up and running before the amount paid for solar-generated electricity by the National Grid fell back in line with other forms of energy. This led to a flurry of development that has given rise to about 20 “solar farms”, covering an estimated 200 acres. (GWPF)

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Posted in Green scams

Germany increases “renewable” supply – and fears of blackout

Posted on August 30, 2011 | 1 Comment

Green Energy Use Jumps in Germany

During the first half of 2011, the share of renewable energy sources used by Germans in their total energy mix grew to one-fifth — a hefty boost over 2010. It’s a small step toward Germany’s ambition to phase out nuclear power. (Der Spiegel)

Will The Lights Go Out In Germany?
Continue reading →

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Posted in Development, Energy

Biofuels suck land and water and according to German motorists, simply suck

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German government, oil lobby clash on biofuel use target

Germany’s government and its oil industry association on Tuesday disagreed about whether the country can reach its 2011 biofuel use quotas as sales of a new gasoline blend with a higher biofuel content remain sluggish. (Reuters)

Testing the water for bioenergy crops
Water significant limiting factor in growing crops like switchgrass

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Posted in Biofuel

Mike Shaw: Doing something about the health of lower-income Americans

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Doing something about the health of lower-income Americans

That’s the title of my latest HND piece. I use the so-called epidemic of type 2 diabetes as a springboard to describe how a community-based organization—operating on shoestring—does plenty of good.

Also discussed is the Promotores model, employed by this organization and others—often with wonderful results.

Read the complete article. (Shaw’s Eco-Logic)

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Posted in Health care

The health scam of “detox therapy” is in the news again

Posted on August 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

Detox: flushing out poison or absorbing dangerous claptrap?
The alternative-medicine version of detox has real-world side-effects that outweigh its imaginary benefits

Colonic irrigation has been the subject of many newspaper articles in recent weeks. So one might think the debate about this subject has come and gone. But, as so often when it comes to alternative medicine, much of what was written did not make a lot of sense. Time, perhaps, to look at this treatment and any new evidence in some detail.

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Posted in Chemophobia, Green scams, Health care

Climate superstition comes with real costs

Posted on August 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

Government mismanagement kills 2,500 people a year

Bad governments don’t just “waste millions of dollars” — mismanagement kills.

We live in one of the richest nations on Earth. But waiting times for one type of cancer treatment in Australia have blown out to the point where 2,500 people are dying every year. Why do we have money to waste on fruitless efforts to change the weather? (Jo Nova)

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Posted in Climate change, Green scams, Health care, PlayStation® climatology, Solar, Wind

The de-development (velopment?) of Europe: bovine homeopathy

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Brussels propose spending millions on homeopathy for cows
MEPs want to spend millions of pounds of tax payers’ money on homeopathy for cows.

The European Agriculture Committee approved 2 million euros (£1.7 million) for research into homeopathic medicines or ‘phytotherapy’ for farm animals.
Tory MEPs condemned the decision as “sheer madness”. (TDT)

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Posted in Agriculture, Rubber room

The never-ending “ozone hole” story

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They’re still milking this farce! The so-called “hole” has been there as long as people have been paying attention, discovered in 1956, not ’86 as claimed. There is no real indication it has anything to do with humans whatsoever and certainly is of no consequence unless you try sunbathing at the South Pole in springtime. See this file to get an idea just how variable global ozone is at the best of time.

Mysteries of ozone depletion continue 25 years after the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole

DENVER, Aug. 29, 2011 — Even after many decades of studying ozone and its loss from our atmosphere miles above the Earth, plenty of mysteries and surprises remain, including an unexpected loss of ozone over the Arctic this past winter, an authority on the topic said here today. She also discussed chemistry and climate change, including some proposed ideas to “geoengineer” the Earth’s climate to slow down or reverse global warming. The talk happened at the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), being held this week. (EurekAlert)

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Posted in Propaganda, Research

Pity the poor misanthropic activists, prophesied disasters just won’t materialize

Posted on August 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

Global Warming Has Not Caused Predicted Marine Life Apocalypse, Instead Marine Life Enhanced Says New Study

Read here. The predictions of alarmist scientists are frequently hysterical, and most often wrong, as was globally witnessed with the Hurricane Irene forecasts. Another example of an incredibly bad “climate science” prediction was that marine life would be decimated by human-induced global warming. Scientists and empirical evidence prove that prediction wrong. (C3 Headlines)

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Posted in Activists, Climate change, CO2 benefits, Misanthropy, Research

Looks like Perry’s learned, Gore hasn’t

Posted on August 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

Inhofe: Perry won’t cave to ‘extreme’ environmentalists
By Ben Geman

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) made his planned endorsement of Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) for president official Monday with a statement predicting the apparent front-runner will stand up to environmentalists.

“Rick Perry is strong against the Cap and Trade tax that would further devastate our economy and do nothing but move jobs overseas to places like China. He is one of the few who understand this, and he won’t cave in to the extreme environmental activists or the Hollywood crowd and their liberal agenda,” Inhofe said in a statement. (E2 Wire)

Perry Vs. Gore

Junk Science: The governor of a state under assault by the EPA takes on the patron saint of climate change over whether “warmers” or “deniers” benefit financially from the debate. Meanwhile, the nation loses.

Is Texas governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry a racist? According to the increasingly bombastic Al “expletive deleted” Gore, who was interviewed by Climate Reality Project collaborator Alex Bogusky on Ustream last Friday, Perry’s global warming skepticism qualifies him as one. (IBD)

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Posted in Cap and tax, Climate change, Enviros, EPA