The Great global warming update:
Global harming: Ethanol, anti-nuke consequences
Sunday, Sep. 23, 2007
Two items published last week in, of all places, The New York Times, underscore the problems with plunging ahead with global warming "solutions" that bring with them unintended and costly consequences.
The first was an editorial addressing the high costs of ethanol. It may finally be dawning on even some of the enviro-extremists that these costs include a doubling of corn prices this year, which has led to sharp increases in dairy and poultry prices.
The Times apparently wakes up to this problem only when it involves world food prices, "threatening misery for the poorest countries."
Yes, misery, and environmental costs, too. Ethanol made from corn (as opposed to Brazilian sugar cane) costs energy to make, soaks up valuable farmland, and does little to lower greenhouse gas emissions. It also makes food here at home more expensive. Remember that, New Hampshire voter, when you see Presidential candidates falling all over themselves in Iowa to pledge ethanol subsidies for all.
Speaking of New Hampshire, folks hereabouts may take special interest in a Times Magazine piece by the authors of the recent "Freakonomics" best-seller.
The story concerns nuclear power and how "The China Syndrome" scare-mongering anti-nuke film of 1979, starring Jane Fonda, coupled with media hype over the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, did so much to cripple the nuclear industry in the United States.
The authors point out that as a result, "instead of becoming a nation with clean and cheap nuclear energy, as once seemed inevitable, the United States kept building power plants that burned coal and other fossil fuels. Today such plants account for 40 percent of the country's energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions."
Supporters of the Seabrook nuclear plant (reduced to one unit as a result of such hysteria) may take some solace in the authors' observation, "Anyone hunting for a global-warming villain can't help blaming such (fossil) power plants -- and can't help wondering too about the unintended consequences of Jane Fonda."
Oh, and like the surviving Seabrook plant, a second plant at Three Mile Island continues to quietly and reliably turn out nuclear power. Its owner, the Exelon company, says it is producing electricty costing 1.3 cents per kilowatt-hour. Coal's cost? Two-point-two cents, not counting the deaths each year of more than 30 miners.
Again, something to keep in mind when political candidates, local and national, start spouting their "green" policies.
Via "the Union Leader"

The Great global warming update:

Al Gore pleads, "We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth."

Gore's fantasy vs the truth

Gore fantasy; claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global warming is to blame.

The Truth; the September 2006 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate reported, "Glaciers are growing in the Himalayan Mountains."

Gore fantasy; claims the snowcap atop Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro is shrinking and that global warming is to blame.

The Truth; the November 23, 2003, issue of Nature magazine,
"Although it's tempting to blame the ice loss on global warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain's foothills is the more likely culprit. Without the forests' humidity, previously moisture-laden winds blew dry. No longer replenished with water, the ice is evaporating in the strong equatorial sunshine."

Gore fantasy; claims global warming is causing more tornadoes.

The Truth; Yet the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in February that there has been no scientific link established between global warming and tornadoes.

Gore fantasy; claims global warming is causing more frequent and severe hurricanes.

The Truth; hurricane expert Chris Landsea published a study on May 1 documenting that hurricane activity is no higher now than in decades past.

more truth; Hurricane expert William Gray reported just a few days earlier, on April 27,
that the number of major hurricanes making landfall on the U.S. Atlantic coast has declined in the past 40 years.

still more truth; Hurricane scientists reported in the April 18 Geophysical Research Letters that global warming enhances wind shear, which will prevent a significant increase in future hurricane activity.

Gore fantasy; claims global warming is causing an expansion of African deserts.

The Truth; the Sept. 16, 2002, issue of New Scientist reports,

"Africa's deserts are in 'spectacular' retreat . . . making farming viable again in what were some of the most arid parts of Africa."

Gore fantasy; argues Greenland is in rapid meltdown, and that this threatens to raise sea levels by 20 feet.

The Truth; according to a 2005 study in the Journal of Glaciology,
"the Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins and growing inland, with a small overall mass gain."
more truth; In late 2006, researchers at the Danish Meteorological Institute reported that the past two decades were the coldest for Greenland since the 1910s.

Gore fantasy; He claims the Antarctic ice sheet is melting because of global warming.

The Truth; Jan. 14, 2002, issue of Nature magazine reported Antarctica as a whole has been dramatically cooling for decades.

More truth; scientists reported in the September 2006 issue of the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Series A: Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences, that satellite measurements of the Antarctic ice sheet showed significant growth between 1992 and 2003.

Still more truth; And the U.N. Climate Change panel reported in February 2007 that Antarctica is unlikely to lose any ice mass during the remainder of the century.

The Great global warming update:
Even the New York Times seems to be turning on Gore.
No longer drinking the Green Global warming Koolaid.

Al Gore had barely sat down in the hearing room and accepted warm greetings from legislators before critics on the Internet began calling him a showman and charlatan.

“There is strong evidence that Al Gore does not believe his own end-of-the-world hype,” Robert Ferguson of the Center for Science and Public Policy wrote in an e-mail news release. “He travels the world emitting CO2 into the atmosphere, while enriching himself with $100,000 payoffs for telling people to inflate their car tires, change their light bulbs and drive less.”

via new york times

The Great global warming update:

This is the show that aired in Britain.
A must see.
"The great Global Warming swindle"

The Great global warming update:

'The Great Global Warming Swindle'
Tashi Tagg
Fri, 09 Mar 2007

A juicy new documentary called The Great Global Warming Swindle has just been broadcast (on 8 March, 2007) on the UK's Channel 4.

Based on the thesis presented in the book The Chilling Star by Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark, the documentary claims that humans have absolutely no control over Global Warming and that all the hype about it is simply propoganda inspired by the huge amounts of money given to what's become a popular cause.

I caught an interview with one of the scientists involved with it on CNN on Thursday night and everything he had to say made total sense. The argument the scientists are making is that the sun impacts on clouds and clouds impact on how the suns rays get distributed, which results in changes to the earths temperature.

They're saying that carbon dioxide omissions have a miniscule, if any, impact on this process and that it's proven by the fact that most Global Warming took place prior to 1940 - before people started pumping out CO2 gasses.

The mouldy oldy Einstein dude being interviewed (I can't remember his name) said that huge amunts of information gets kept from the public about what's actually happening with the earth and used Antarctica as an example.

He referred to all the media reports about the icecaps melting and the pictures they show etc and said that these are simply around the edges of Antarctica and that at it's core it's actually getting colder. He also said that something we're never told is that the earth's global temperature has remained constant for the past five years.

Read the rest here

The Great global warming update:

This is an excellent article!

A certifiable paranoiac would have a high old time tracing out the patterns behind the global warming campaign of the past month. The effort has the feel of something long planned, well scripted, and worked out to the final detail. It's hard to avoid thoughts of conspiracy when contemplating the activities of the Greens.

Not that it's necessary to believe any such thing. (In analyzing cases like this, I apply Dunn's First Law: With enough idiots, you don't need a conspiracy.) It's part of the natural order -- birds flock, insects swarm, and Greens campaign. But the actual point is, whether carefully-hatched scheme, herd instinct, or sheer accident, it's clear at this juncture that the effort has failed.

Read the rest of it here

The Great global warming update:

Allegre's second thoughts
The Deniers -- The National Post's series on scientists who buck the conventional wisdom on climate science

LAWRENCE SOLOMON, Financial Post
Published: Friday, March 02, 2007

Claude Allegre, one of France's leading socialists and among her most celebrated scientists, was among the first to sound the alarm about the dangers of global warming.

"By burning fossil fuels, man increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which, for example, has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," Dr. Allegre, a renowned geochemist, wrote 20 years ago in Cles pour la geologie.." Fifteen years ago, Dr. Allegre was among the 1500 prominent scientists who signed "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity," a highly publicized letter stressing that global warming's "potential risks are very great" and demanding a new caring ethic that recognizes the globe's fragility in order to stave off "spirals of environmental decline, poverty, and unrest, leading to social, economic and environmental collapse."

In the 1980s and early 1990s, when concern about global warming was in its infancy, little was known about the mechanics of how it could occur, or the consequences that could befall us. Since then, governments throughout the western world and bodies such as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have commissioned billions of dollars worth of research by thousands of scientists. With a wealth of data now in, Dr. Allegre has recanted his views. To his surprise, the many climate models and studies failed dismally in establishing a man-made cause of catastrophic global warming. Meanwhile, increasing evidence indicates that most of the warming comes of natural phenomena. Dr. Allegre now sees global warming as over-hyped and an environmental concern of second rank.

His break with what he now sees as environmental cant on climate change came in September, in an article entitled "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" in l' Express, the French weekly. His article cited evidence that Antarctica is gaining ice and that Kilimanjaro's retreating snow caps, among other global-warming concerns, come from natural causes. "The cause of this climate change is unknown," he states matter of factly. There is no basis for saying, as most do, that the "science is settled."

Dr. Allegre's skepticism is noteworthy in several respects. For one, he is an exalted member of France's political establishment, a friend of former Socialist president Lionel Jospin, and, from 1997 to 2000, his minister of education, research and technology, charged with improving the quality of government research through closer co-operation with France's educational institutions. For another, Dr. Allegre has the highest environmental credentials. The author of early environmental books, he fought successful battles to protect the ozone layer from CFCs and public health from lead pollution. His break with scientific dogma over global warming came at a personal cost: Colleagues in both the governmental and environmental spheres were aghast that he could publicly question the science behind climate change.

read more at the National post

The Great global warming update:

POWER: GORE MANSION USES 20X AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD; CONSUMPTION INCREASE AFTER 'TRUTH'
Mon Feb 26 2007 17:16:14 ET

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization committed to achieving a freer, more prosperous Tennessee through free market policy solutions, issued a press release late Monday:



Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.

Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk to walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.

For Further Information, Contact:
Nicole Williams, (615) 383-6431
editor@tennesseepolicy.org

Urgent

On Wednesday, we launched an important petition to

"Stop Albert Gore
and Reject the UN's Global Warming Treaty."

Gore is re-energizing the
movement advocating Kyoto compliance -- the biggest UN power-grab in
history.

I urge you to sign this petition now, please. We already have over
30,000 electronic signatures. We want to deliver 100,000 signatures to
the Senate by the time Al Gore reaches the podium at this Sunday's
Academy Awards.

It takes only 20 seconds to sign online, link to:
http://PatriotPetitions.US/StopGore

The Great global warming update:

A History of Hoaxes

E. Ralph Hostetter

The perpetration of a hoax follows a fairly well-established pattern.

First, there's the initial propaganda stage. As skepticism increases to the point the hoax may be foiled, desperation sets in. The second stage begins by attacking the skeptics.

America is entering the second stage, and it's not very pretty.

A review of the most recent hoaxes is important.

One Hot Hoax: The Ice Age Cometh

The "ice age" hoax of the late 1970s took advantage of the general population's unfamiliarity with climate. A massive climatic change, like an ice age, normally taking centuries to develop, can be encapsulated in seconds by computers into a form that may be interpreted as short term as weather. The marketing ploy is based on fear � not the type of fear generated by such incidents as 9/11, but a distant fear of "We're all going to die."

The ice age hoax was melted away with warmer weather. However, the perpetrators were not.

The devil's workshop was still intact.

Very cleverly, the great deceivers of the "ice age" hoax turned up the thermostats on their computers and developed models which revealed a greater threat to mankind than an ice age.

It was global warming.

Unlike the ice age hoax, where there was no real identifiable cause, they found one for global warming. It was man himself and the use of the love of his life, his automobile, particularly his SUV.

And what did his automobile do for the global warming hoax? It produced carbon dioxide in its exhaust, an atmospheric gas that constitutes 378 thousandths of one percent (0.00378) or 378 parts per million. It is a trace. One part per million has been equated to one bogey in 3,500 golf tournaments.

Not seeming to get traction in the early 90s, the global warming hoax was relegated to the back burner.

The Dreaded Y2K

The hoaxers saw a bigger fish. The 20th century was soon to fade into history, a monumental event. And they identified for this hoax a cause, the computer itself.

The issue selected was the changing of the date on the computer from Dec. 31, 1999 to Jan. 1, 2000. That simple change was going to prove disastrous to the nation and its economy. Present computers would confuse the "00" date identification as being the year 1900. The computers would become confused and "crash," losing all their information. Upgrades of old computers or purchase of new computers would be necessary.

Banks would be forced to close (translation: horde cash), power plants would cease to operate (buy electrical generators), aircraft would be unable to land (don't fly) were just a few of the dire predictions. Other nations of the world had done nothing to prepare for the great catastrophe of Y2K. It turned out to be a non-event, the greatest hoax of the 20th century.

Global warming is back once again on the front burner.

The global warming hoax has passed through the "We're-all-going-to-die" phase and is now entering the next phase: "Attack the skeptics." The global warming debate degenerated several notches when Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goldman equated those who question the present dominant media hype on climate change with Holocaust deniers.

Holocaust denial is the belief that the genocide of Jews during World War II, either did not occur, or did not occur to the extent described.

Shameful Holocaust Deniers

A resolution co-sponsored by more than 100 countries was adopted by consensus in the United Nations on Jan. 26, 2007, which "rejects efforts to deny the Holocaust."

This resolution elevates the issue to a level of criminalization within the nations which endorsed the resolution, including the United States.

Holocaust denial had already been criminalized in Israel, France, Germany, and Austria. Prosecutions under racial defamation and hate laws have occurred in Canada, with resulting prison sentences. David Roberts, staff writer for Grist Magazine, wrote on Sept. 19, 2006, "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and when we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for those bastards � some sort of climate Nuremberg."

The Weather Channel's communication director, Heidi Cullen, who hosts a weekly global warming program, "The Climate Code," is advocating that the American Meteorological Society revoke the "seal of approval" for any television weatherman who expresses skepticism that human activity is creating a climate catastrophe.

This is vicious. It could cost weathermen the loss of their careers.

Within the past several weeks, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, threatened to fire State Climatologist George Taylor for speaking out against the issue of global warming.

Dan Webster, an Ohio TV meteorologist, claims that 95 percent of the nation's weathermen are skeptical of man-made global warming fears. Scores of global warming skeptics seem to be coming out of the woodwork.

Of note is U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, former chairman, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and at present the ranking minority member of the committee. Sen. Inhofe is a long-time skeptic of the present global warming hype which he describes as the "hoax of the century."

Sen. Inhofe congratulated Czech President Vaclav Klaus for calling man-made global warming a "myth."

A list of the skeptics and skeptic organizations is too numerous to mention here. Rest assured, skepticism is increasing by leaps and bounds as the basis of global warmers' "science" is exposed.

E. Ralph Hostetter, a prominent businessman and agricultural publisher, also is a national and local award-winning columnist. He welcomes comments by e-mail sent to eralphhostetter@yahoo.com.

The Great global warming update:

Contact: David Bromwich
Bromwich.1@osu.edu
614-292-6692
Ohio State University

Antarctic temperatures disagree with climate model predictions

COLUMBUS , Ohio – A new report on climate over the world's southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models.

This comes soon after the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that strongly supports the conclusion that the Earth's climate as a whole is warming, largely due to human activity.

It also follows a similar finding from last summer by the same research group that showed no increase in precipitation over Antarctica in the last 50 years. Most models predict that both precipitation and temperature will increase over Antarctica with a warming of the planet.

David Bromwich, professor of professor of atmospheric sciences in the Department of Geography, and researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, reported on this work at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at San Francisco.

"It's hard to see a global warming signal from the mainland of Antarctica right now," he said. "Part of the reason is that there is a lot of variability there. It's very hard in these polar latitudes to demonstrate a global warming signal. This is in marked contrast to the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula that is one of the most rapidly warming parts of the Earth."

Bromwich says that the problem rises from several complications. The continent is vast, as large as the United States and Mexico combined. Only a small amount of detailed data is available – there are perhaps only 100 weather stations on that continent compared to the thousands spread across the U.S. and Europe . And the records that we have only date back a half-century.

"The best we can say right now is that the climate models are somewhat inconsistent with the evidence that we have for the last 50 years from continental Antarctica .

"We're looking for a small signal that represents the impact of human activity and it is hard to find it at the moment," he said.

The Great global warming update:

Contrary Evidence Piles Up

Now that the initial media blitz of "global warming" has passed, the opposition and skeptics are firing both barrels back at the hype and media-induced-hysteria.

First, we have the "global warming" debate-is-over hearings postponed...by snow and ice.

Indian experts are questioning global warming and its effect on glaciers:

Some experts have questioned the alarmists theory on global warming leading to shrinkage of Himalayan glaciers. VK Raina, a leading glaciologist and former ADG of GSI is one among them.

He feels that the research on Indian glaciers is negligible. Nothing but the remote sensing data forms the basis of these alarmists observations and not on the spot research.

Raina told the Hindustan Times that out of 9,575 glaciers in India, till date, research has been conducted only on about 50. Nearly 200 years data has shown that nothing abnormal has occurred in any of these glaciers.

You don't say.

via the Jawa report

Who said that God does not have a sense of humor?:


HOUSE HEARING ON 'WARMING OF THE PLANET' CANCELED AFTER SNOW/ICE STORM
HEARING NOTICE
Tue Feb 13 2007 19:31:25 ET

The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing scheduled for Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building has been postponed due to inclement weather. The hearing is entitled “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?”

The hearing will be rescheduled to a date and time to be announced later.

DC WEATHER REPORT:

Wednesday: Freezing rain in the morning...then a chance of snow in the afternoon. Ice accumulation of less than one quarter of an inch. Highs in the mid 30s. Northwest winds around 20 mph. Chance of precipitation 80 percent.

Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy. Lows around 18. Northwest winds around 20 mph.

The Great global warming update:

Alarmists on a hot tin roof: Global warming psychology
By Robert E. Meyer (02/12/07)

An issue that has garnered much attention lately, in between the media bites about Iraq and the salacious lives of celebrities, is the controversy over global warming. Both the pro and the con side consider their opponents the heretical misfits and purveyors of junk science.

But the debate is not so much about whether the earth is actually warming, but whether the phenomenon is man-made, and must culminate in catastrophe.

While most of us lack any academic credentials to have an informed opinion on the matter, we do possess the logical faculties to philosophically cross-examine the cogency of any theory presented to us.

I remain skeptical of the alarmist approach, and wish to offer some concerns I have.

Geologists tell us that we had a glacial ice age only several thousand years ago. How did the earth warm by over several degrees without any man-made carbon dioxide to account for it?

Whenever people say: "Most credible scientists believe..." The statement following becomes subjective and almost meaningless, because unless someone first believes in particular interpretations of a given phenomenon, they won't be considered "credible" to begin with.

In general, people confuse two concepts: expertise and objectivity. Having great intelligence or specialized knowledge isn't assurance against a person remaining unbiased in their public opinions. Persons of all stripes are generally loyal to their source of income. We shouldn't assume that every expert begins their search tabula rasa, that is to say, without an agenda or wholly independent of prevailing consensus.

Why do we assume that a variance in the 5% of carbon dioxide caused by human activity is sufficient to put the climate out of kilter, but changes in the 95% of naturally produced carbon dioxide is irrelevant? Notice also, that whether it is warm or cold, global warming is given as the reason, thus inoculating the concept from falsification.

How come developing countries such as China or India are held to lesser pollution standards under the provisions of the Kyoto Treaty? Does the environment care which countries contaminate the atmosphere?

The whole psychology of catastrophe is hardly new. When my parents were young, they were told we would soon run out of the earth's supply of coal. At various times, the same was predicted of crude oil. When I was younger, I sat in science classes where documentary films were shown that predicted the earth was cooling, and that we would all need gas masks by the mid 1980's because of pollution. Such was predicted in a Newsweek editorial in the April 28th, 1975 edition. http://denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm

In the 1960's we were terrorized by the specter of Paul Ehrlich, and his "population bomb" statistics. When we moved into the 1980's, we were warned of the ominous "Jupiter Effect," an event where all the planets were in orbital alignment, causing a catastrophic gravitational force for the inhabitants of earth.

In the fall of 1983, we had a Sunday night television premier of the "The Day After." The movie depicted a nuclear holocaust, and how it impacted residents of small town Kansas. The movie terrified a nation that had endured over three decades of cold-war threat. After the movie, a network anchor interviewed then Secretary of State George Shultz, asking the prophetical question borrowed from Charles Dickens story, A Christmas Carol: "Are these shadows of the way things must be, or only shadows of the way things might be"? Schultz emphatically answered "neither."

read more here

The Great global warming update:

Scenes from the Climate Inquisition

By Kenneth P. Green, Steven F. Hayward
Posted: Monday, February 12, 2007

On February 2, an AEI research project on climate change policy that we have been organizing was the target of a journalistic hit piece in Britain's largest left-wing newspaper, the Guardian. The article's allegation--that we tried to bribe scientists to criticize the work of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)--is easy to refute. More troubling is the growing worldwide effort to silence anyone with doubts about the catastrophic warming scenario that Al Gore and other climate extremists are putting forth.

"Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today," read the Guardian's lead. The byline was Ian Sample, the paper's science correspondent, and his story ran under the headline "Scientists Offered Cash to Dispute Climate Study."

Sample spoke to one of us for five minutes to gather a perfunctory quotation to round out his copy, but he clearly was not interested in learning the full story. He found time, however, to canvass critics for colorful denunciations of the American Enterprise Institute as "the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra," with nothing but "a suitcase full of cash."

As we were completing this article, a letter arrived from senators Bernard Sanders, Pat Leahy, Dianne Feinstein, and John Kerry expressing "very serious concerns" about our alleged "attempt to undermine science." Show-trial hearing to follow? Stay tuned.

Every claim in the story was false or grossly distorted, starting with the description of the American Enterprise Institute as a "lobby group"--AEI engages in no lobbying--funded by the world's largest oil company. The Guardian reports that "AEI has received more than $1.6 million from ExxonMobil." Yes--over the last seven years, a sum that represents less than 1 percent of AEI's total revenue during that period.

The irony of this story line is that AEI and similar right-leaning groups are more often attacked for supposedly ignoring the scientific "consensus" and promoting only the views of a handful of "skeptics" from the disreputable fringe. Yet in this instance, when we sought the views of leading "mainstream" scientists, our project is said to be an attempt at bribery. In any event, it has never been true that we ignore mainstream science; and anyone who reads AEI publications closely can see that we are not "skeptics" about warming. It is possible to accept the general consensus about the existence of global warming while having valid questions about the extent of warming, the consequences of warming, and the appropriate responses. In particular, one can remain a policy skeptic, which is where we are today, along with nearly all economists.

The substantive backstory, in brief, is as follows

The Great global warming update:

Chill out on climate hype

By Mark Steyn
February 5, 2007

From the "Environmental News Network": "Science is solid on climate change, Congress told." "The science is solid," says Louise Frechette, deputy secretary-general of the United Nations. "The science is solid," says California's Sen. Dianne Feinstein. "The science is really solid," says TV meteorologist Heidi Cullen. "The science is very solid."
And at that point, on "Larry King Live" last week, Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, remarked: "Heidi says the science is solid and I can't criticize her because she never says what science she's talking about." Indeed. If the science is so solid, maybe they could drag it out to the Arctic for the poor polar bears to live on now that the ice is melting faster than a coed's heart at an Al Gore lecture.
Alas, the science isn't so solid. In the 1970s, it predicted a new ice age. Then it switched to global warming. Now it prefers "climate change." If it's hot, that's a sign of "climate change." If it's cold, that's a sign of "climate change." If it's 53 with sunny periods and light showers, you need to grab an overnight bag and get outta there right now because "climate change" is accelerating out of control.
The silliest argument is the anecdotal one: "You only have to look outside your window to see that climate change is happening." Outside my window in northern New England last week, it was minus 20 Fahrenheit. Very cold. Must be the old climate change kicking in, right? After all, December was very mild, itself a sign of climate change. A few years ago, the little old lady who served as my town's historian for many decades combed over the farmers' diaries from two centuries ago that various neighbors had donated to her: From the daily records of 15 Januarys, she concluded three were what we would now regard as classic New Hampshire winters, ideal for lumbering or winter sports; eight had January thaws; and four had no snow at all. This was in the pre-industrial 18th century.
Today, faced with eight thaws and four entirely snowless Januarys, we would all run around shrieking that the great Gaia is displeased. Wake up and smell the CO2, people. We need to toss another virgin into the volcano. A virgin SUV, that is. Brand new model, straight off the assembly line, cupholders never used. And as the upholstery howls in agony, we natives will stand around chanting along with High Priestess Natalie Cole's classic recording: "Unsustainable, that's what you are."
As we say in the North Country, if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes. And if you don't like the global weather, wait three decades. For the last century or so, the planet has gone through very teensy-weensy warming trends followed by very teensy-weensy cooling trends followed by very teensy-weensy warming trends, every 30 years or so. And, even when we're in a pattern of "global warming" or "global cooling", the phenomenon is not universally observed -- i.e., it's not "global," or even very local. In the Antarctic, the small Palmer Peninsula has got a little warmer but the main continent is colder. Up north, the western Arctic's a little warmer but the eastern Arctic's colder. So, if you're an eastern polar bear, you're in clover -- metaphorically, I hasten to add. If you're a western polar bear, you'll be in clover literally in a year or two, according to Al Gore.
And, if you really don't like the global weather, wait half-a-millennium. A thousand years ago, the Arctic was warmer than now. Circa 982, Erik the Red and a bunch of other Vikings landed in Greenland and thought, "Wow. This land really is green. Who knew?" So they started farming it, and were living it up for a couple of centuries. Then the Little Ice Age showed up, and they all died. A terrible warning to us all about "unsustainable development": if a few hundred Vikings doing a little light hunter-gathering can totally unbalance the environment, imagine the havoc John Edwards' new house must be wreaking.
The question is whether what's happening now is just the natural give-and-take of the planet, as Erik the Red and my town's early settlers understood it. Or is it something so unprecedented we need to divert vast resources to a transnational elite bureaucrats so they can do their best to cripple the global economy and deny much of the developing world access to the healthier and longer lives capitalism brings?
To the eco-chondriacs that's a no-brainer. As Mark Fenn of the Worldwide Fund for Nature says in the new documentary "Mine Your Own Business":
"In Madagascar, the indicators of quality of life are not housing. They're not nutrition, specifically. They're not health in a lot of cases. It's not education. A lot of children in Fort Dauphin do not go to school because the parents don't consider that to be important. ... People have no jobs, but if I could put you with a family and you could count how many times in a day that family smiles. Then I put you with a family well off, in New York or London, and you count how many times people smile. ... You tell me who is rich and who is poor."
Well, if smiles are the measure of quality of life, I'm Bill Gates; I'm laughing my head off. Male life expectancy in Madagascar is 52? years. But Mark Fenn is right: those l'il children sure look awful cute dancing up and down when the big environmentalist activist flies in to shoot the fund-raising video.
If "global warming" is real and if man is responsible, why then do so many "experts" need to rely on obviously fraudulent data? The famous "hockey stick" graph showed the planet's climate history as basically one long bungalow with the Empire State Building tacked on the end. Completely false.

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The Great global warming update:

Czech president Vaclav Klaus has criticized the UN panel on global warming, claiming that it was a political authority without any scientific basis.

In an interview with "Hospodárské noviny", a Czech economics daily, Klaus answered a few questions:

Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that the global warming is a false myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?•

A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people don't wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the "but's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses.• This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians. If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.•

Q: How do you explain that there is no other comparably senior statesman in Europe who would advocate this viewpoint? No one else has such strong opinions...•

A: My opinions about this issue simply are strong. Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice.

• Q: But you're not a climate scientist. Do you have a sufficient knowledge and enough information?•

A: Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable and this fact scares me. The second part of the sentence should be: we also have lots of reports, studies, and books of climatologists whose conclusions are diametrally opposite.• Indeed, I never measure the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don't know how to do it and don't plan to learn it. However, as a scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don't have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we may see in the media simply don't appear. But let me promise you something: this topic troubles me which is why I started to write an article about it last Christmas. The article expanded and became a book. In a couple of months, it will be published. One chapter out of seven will organize my opinions about the climate change.• Environmentalism and green ideology is something very different from climate science. Various findings and screams of scientists are abused by this ideology.•

Q: How do you explain that conservative media are skeptical while the left-wing media view the global warming as a done deal?•

A: It is not quite exactly divided to the left-wingers and right-wingers. Nevertheless it's obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism.•

Q: If you look at all these things, even if you were right ...•

A: ...I am right...•

Q: Isn't there enough empirical evidence and facts we can see with our eyes that imply that Man is demolishing the planet and himself?•

A: It's such a nonsense that I have probably not heard a bigger nonsense yet.•

Q: Don't you believe that we're ruining our planet?•

A: I will pretend that I haven't heard you. Perhaps only Mr Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person can't. I don't see any ruining of the planet, I have never seen it, and I don't think that a reasonable and serious person could say such a thing. Look: you represent the economic media so I expect a certain economical erudition from you. My book will answer these questions. For example, we know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one side and the wealth and technological prowess on the other side. It's clear that the poorer the society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa.• It's also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected uncomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.• That's why I ask: how can you pronounce the sentence you said? Perhaps if you're unconscious? Or did you mean it as a provocation only? And maybe I am just too naive and I allowed you to provoke me to give you all these answers, am I not? It is more likely that you actually believe what you say.

[English translation from Harvard Professor Lubos Motl]