CO2 HOG

New Zealand [Kool-aid drinkers] to ban fossil fuel energy for 10 years

Wellington - Power generation using fossil fuels will be banned for at least 10 years under a new law promoting renewable electricity production introduced into the New Zealand parliament on Tuesday.  The Greenpeace environmental organisation congratulated the government, saying the move was 'unprecedented internationally.  Greenpeace climate campaigner Susannah Bailey. 'It will help New Zealand defend its clean green image, which has become increasingly tenuous of late.  'The ban sends a clear message to power generators that fossil fuels have no part to play in New Zealand's future.'  New Zealand already generates 70 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources and Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen said, 'the government believes New Zealand must play its part in the global fight against climate change.

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The risks of food riots and malnutrition will surge in the next two years as the global supply of grain comes under more pressure than at any time in 50 years, according to one of the world's leading agricultural researchers. Recent pasta protests in Italy, tortilla rallies in Mexico and onion demonstrations in India are just the start of the social instability to come unless there is a fundamental shift to boost production of staple foods, Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute, warned in an interview with the Guardian.  The growing appetite of China and other fast-developing nations has combined with the expansion of biofuel programmes in the United States and Europe to transform the global food situation.  After decades of expanding crop yields and falling food prices, the past year has seen a sharp rise in the cost of wheat, rice, corn, soya and dairy products.

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LONDON -- Rich countries need to increase their financial support to help the world's poorest nations adapt to the effects of climate change, Oxfam said Tuesday, describing current levels of aid as "an insult". The British-based relief agency said rich nations had so far only contributed 67 million dollars into a United Nations fund to help impoverished countries combat global warming. Americans spent more on suntan lotion each month, Oxfam calculated in a report published to coincide with the opening of the Bali conference sponsored by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is designed to pave the way for a new pact to address the problem. "This figure represents quite an insult, to be frank, given that the least developed countries will need at least one to two billion dollars to meet just their most urgent adaptation needs," said the report's author, Charlotte Sterrett. 

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If you are following the Canadian weather patterns, the Prairies are in DEEP FREEZE and I recall my Edmonton days from Spring 1971 thru December 1974. In January 1972 I remember one week then when temperatures were in the range -35 to -45C all thru the week! This is what is happening there right now. For example, Winnipeg today had a wind chill of -30C , real temperature about -20C, Regina -25C. Two days ago Regina had a parade for their football team winning the Grey Cup (equivalent of your Super Bowl) and fans were out in the street when temp was about -20C and wind chill -30C! You have to be a real football fan to be out in such a brutal weather!  This is shaping into one of the strong La NIna phase with SSTs in Nino (1+2) region very low and also elsewhere in Nino 3 & 3.4 region.

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More than 90,000 accurate chemical analyses of CO2 in air since 1812 are summarised. The historic chemical data reveal that changes in CO2 track changes in temperature, and therefore climate in contrast to the simple, monotonically increasing CO2 trend depicted in the post-1990 literature on climate-change. Since 1812, the CO2 concentration in northern hemispheric air has fluctuated exhibiting three high level maxima around 1825, 1857 and 1942 the latter showing more than 400 ppm.  Between 1857 and 1958, the Pettenkofer process was the standard analytical method for determining atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and usually achieved an accuracy better than 3%. These determinations were made by several scientists of Nobel Prize level distinction. Following Callendar (1938), modern climatologists have generally ignored the historic determinations of CO2, despite the techniques being standard text book procedures in several different disciplines. Chemical methods were discredited as unreliable choosing only few which fit the assumption of a climate CO2 connection.

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Buying locally-produced fruit and vegetables, riding bikes or taking the train instead of using private cars, buying carbon offsets and staging carbon-neutral weddings: all are part of the climate-change awareness taking root in many countries.  Individuals keen on reducing their ‘carbon footprint’ — the dangerous greenhouse gas that each of us emit through our purchases and activities — can now turn to a multiplying panoply of tools to calculate their pollution, reduce it or compensate for it.  “Our daily habits are responsible for 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions,” says France’s Agency for the Environment and Control of Energy (ADEME).

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 This year is set to be the sixth warmest since records began 150 years ago, cooler than earlier predicted which means a slight respite for European ski resorts or bears trying to hibernate. “2007 will likely be near equal with 2006, so joint sixth warmest year,” Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia, told Reuters.  The unit, which provides global data for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), had predicted a year ago that 2007 could be the warmest worldwide since reliable records began in the 1860’s. It cut the prediction to number 2 in mid-year.  A sizzling start to 2007, blamed on a combination of global warming and an El Nino warming of the Pacific Ocean that meant an abnormally warm winter in the northern Hemisphere, tailed off as the El Nino ended early.

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The now familiar plot of the US climate network since 1895 shows a cyclical pattern with a rise from 1895 to a peak near 1930 and decline into the 1970s and then another rise with an apparent peak around 2000. Note the minor warming from the peak in 1930 to the peak in 2000.The short term fluctuations are driven by factors such as ENSO and volcanic eruptions. The longer term cycles are mainly driven by cycles in the sun and oceans although changes in the last half century have been increasingly blamed on anthropogenic factors. Let’s look at the three longer term factors mentioned and how well they actually correlated with the observed temperatures.Clearly the US annul temperatures over the last century have correlated far better with cycles in the sun and oceans than carbon dioxide. What's more, this correlation with carbon dioxide seems to be weakening further in the last decade.

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 Global warming acolytes have a favorite image, that of Al Gore’s fabulist tale of 20 foot waves engulfing our coast lines. Invoking that awesome image, the L.A. Times published a story last month that is supposed to be just another global warming scare piece.  Still, even the Times couldn’t lie through its teeth in every instance because, while the island of Kivalina, Alaska really has been shrinking, even the Times admits its been doing so for well over 100 years.  It’s a bit hard to pin that all on “global warming,” though, since few claim that the phenomenon has been going on for over 100 years. After all, globaloney scaremongers pin global warming on CFCs and rising CO2 levels none of which were started until after the turn of the century from 1800s to the 1900s. So, why blame global warming when normal erosion has been at work on the island for hundreds of years? Ah, because it makes a better story to fit your ideological position, of course!

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A fair and global effort to tackle climate change needs wealthy states to take the lead in CO2 cuts - The Bali summit on climate change, which starts next week, will seek to lay the foundations for a new global agreement on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause rising temperatures and climate change. Ambitious targets for emission reduction must be at the heart of that agreement, together with effective market mechanisms that encourage emission trading between countries, rich and poor. The problem of climate change involves a fundamental failure of markets: those who damage others by emitting greenhouse gases generally do not pay. Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen.  The evidence on the seriousness of the risks from inaction is now overwhelming. We risk damage on a scale larger than the two world wars of the past century.

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You probably won't read this in any US paper, but the Brits aren't too impressed with former Vice President Al Gore's sci fi flick, An Inconvenient Truth. The British high court ruled Gore's Academy Award winning global warming film cannot be shown in any public school in England without an explicit disclaimer. The high court ruled that students must be warned that the film is partisan, political advocacy, not a factual representation of what is actually happening with the climate of the world. The disclaimer must stipulate that misleading exaggerations permeate the film. The court said the film contained far too many factual errors to be shown in the public school system without a disclaimer. Makes you wonder which ultra wealthy social progressives in the Rockefeller Foundation, the Pew Foundation, the Carnegie Trust, the Nature's Conservancy and the Sierra Club own the judges in the US courts, doesn't it?

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OVER the past half-century we have become used to planetary scares of one kind or another. But the latest such scare - global warming - has engaged the political and opinion-forming classes to a greater extent than anything since, a little over 200 years ago, Malthus warned that, unless radical measures were taken to limit population growth, the world would run up against the limits of subsistence, leading inevitably to war, pestilence and famine.  This is partly perhaps because, at least in the richer countries of the world, we have rightly become more concerned with environmental issues. But that is no excuse for abandoning reason. It is time to take a cool look at global warming.  It is frequently claimed, by those who wish to stifle discussion, that the science of global warming is "settled". Even if it were, that would not be the end of the matter. But in fact, while some of the science is settled, there is much that is not. So let's start with the facts. It is customary to focus on three of them.

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The Earth has been seeing significant rises and falls in both temperature and CO2 levels since the dawn of time. It is ludicrous to think that man has control over the climate on a large scale. If we could change the weather, wouldn’t we eliminate killer tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons and the like?  How many active volcanoes are there in the world right now? Those spew billions of tons of pollutants (and CO2) every year, many times more than man and industry combined.  By the way, the No. 1 greenhouse gas in concentration is water vapor. The sun causes warming! If you check solar output against global temperature measurements you will find that they follow the same path. The sun heats us, and when it is hotter, it stands to reason that we get hotter too.  Some scientists need ongoing jobs so they create an ongoing crisis. Most scientists are not on board with the global warming fraud.  There is the Petition Project, where more than 17,000 verified scientists signed the following statement against the signing of the Kyoto Protocol: www.oism.org/pproject/s33p37.htm.  The world will not end in 2020, as the UN infers.  Mark C. Corcoran

  WASHINGTON – Al Gore says switching from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescents can help save the planet from global warming.  California, Canada and the European Union are so persuaded he's right, the three governments are in the process of banning the sale of incandescent light bulbs, following the trailblazing paths of Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.  Even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is on board, urging American citizens to do their part for the environment and switch to the twisty little CFL bulbs that last longer and use less electricity.  But opposition is building among other environmentalists who say the threat of mercury contamination as a result of hundreds of millions of broken CFLS, each containing about 5 milligrams of the highly toxic substance, outweighs any benefits from a switch from Thomas Edison's trusty old invention.

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If international leaders were as united as the scientific community on climate change, warming might be a thing of the past. This year the UN's Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a series of reports that laid to rest any doubts that global warming is real — and outlined the frightening consequences of continued inaction. At the release of the IPCC's final summary last month, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon — who has made climate change a top priority of his administration — laid out the threat in stark terms. "The world's scientists have spoken clearly, and with one voice," he said. "I expect the world's policymakers to act the same."  Unfortunately, the global political community is a long way from speaking with one voice on anything, and climate change is no exception. We'll know for sure next week, when environment and energy ministers from around the world meet on the Indonesian island of Bali, for the UN's climate change conference.

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United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali Hijacked by European Liberals

(CHICAGO, Illinois - November 30, 2007) -- As the first goals of the Kyoto Protocol are about to expire, the United Nations is preparing a "Conference of the Parties," the highest decision-making authority. The meeting will take place in Bali, Indonesia from December 3 to December 5.  Instead of "negotiations" and "debate," which the United Nations claims is the decision-making process, European liberal groups have hijacked the conference and are pushing a pre-determined outcome called the "Bali Mandate" of "effectively reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050 compared to the 1990 level." Satu Hassi of the Finnish Green Party has declared the European Parliament delegation's intention is to force binding targets for industrialized nations, mandate a global "cap and trade" scheme for carbon emissions, and require "Clean Development Mechanism" processes.

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U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Declined 1.5 Percent in 2006

Total U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were 7,075.6 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) in 2006, a decrease of 1.5 percent from the 2005 level according to Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 2006, a report released today by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Since 1990, U.S. GHG emissions have grown at an average annual rate of 0.9 percent. The 2006 emissions decrease is only the third decline in annual emissions since 1990. U.S. GHG emissions per unit of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or “U.S. GHG-intensity,” fell from 653 metric tons per million 2000 constant dollars of GDP (MTCO2e/$Million GDP) in 2005 to 625 MTCO2e /$Million GDP in 2006, a decline of 4.2 percent. Since 1990, the annual average decline in GHG-intensity has been 2.0 percent.

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Global Temperatures are Uncorrelated with Carbon Dioxide Trends This Last Decade

Temperatures peaked in 1998 and have shown no warming for a decade now. Many scientists have been remarking about this trend for several years but no one takes heed, preferring to believe models than actual data. Here is the satellite derived global temperature trend since 1979. Note the cooling globally near the volcanically active periods of the early 1980s and 1990s. Note also the warm spike associated with the super El Nino that seemingly marked the beginning of the end of the warm Pacific trend that began in 1978.  Note the subsequent cooling as a series of 3 La Ninas in 4 years helped cool the earth in the late 1990s. Temperatures rebounded a bit in the early 2000s with a slight rebound in the Pacific warmth, three El Ninos and a volcanic aerosol-free stratosphere, but the trend since 2001 has been flat and at a level considerably below the peak of 1998. This lack of warming has occurred despite the increases in carbon dioxide.

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TORONTO - After years of warmer-than-normal winters that spurred constant talk of global warming, winter this year is expected to be the coldest in almost 15 years and should remind everyone of what real Canadian cold feels like, Environment Canada said Friday. With the exception of only small pockets of northern Canada and southwestern Ontario, this December through February is forecast to be one of the harshest winters in recent memory across the country, said senior climatologist David Phillips.  "It is somewhat remarkable that we're seeing the same situation from coast to coast to almost coast - from Vancouver Island to Bonavista, Nfld., we're showing the country as being colder than normal," Phillips said.  "The last time Canada had a significantly cold winter was back in 1994, more than a decade ago, and this may very well rival that one in terms of coldness."

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OSLO - Forests in the European Union are expanding surprisingly fast and could be enlisted to help the EU achieve goals for fighting climate change, researchers said on Thursday.  Forests grew by a net 10 percent in western EU countries and by 15 percent in the east from 1990 to 2005, they said. The reasons included better conservation, migration to the cities, and increased productivity on farms that need less land.  "Forests in Europe have captured and stored very much carbon in the past 15 years -- we were surprised by the numbers," said Pekka Kauppi, who led the University of Helsinki study, published in the British journal Energy Policy.

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Despite the hysteria over ‘global warming’ in the UK, the British Isles are probably one of the worst places on Earth to try to ascertain long-term climate trends from extreme weather events.  Britain’s weather is a constant battleground between competing air masses, from the Sahara and the Azores to the icy Arctic; from the moisture-laden Atlantic Ocean to freezing-dry Russia. Above all, our weather depends on which air mass happens to gain ascendancy at any one time. If we have an air mass from the Sahara, our cars are encrusted with rusty-red sand; if we have a north wind from the Arctic, we need the antifreeze.

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LONDON - One in five carbon credits issued by the United Nations are going to support clean energy projects that may in fact have helped to increase greenhouse gas emissions, environmental group WWF said on Thursday. The United Nations runs a scheme under the Kyoto Protocol that allows rich nations to invest in clean energy projects in developing countries and in return receive certified emissions reduction credits (CERs) to offset their own emissions.  But WWF said in a report that the credits are being delivered to projects that would have gone ahead anyway, even without the extra incentive provided by UN approval under the scheme, called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

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Last winter Sault Ste. Marie didn't see much snow nor did we experience a typical Northern Ontario Winter - This year, it's another story.  Environment Canada says the weather phenomenon, La Nina will bring Canada one of the coldest winters in 15 years.  In fact, most of Canada will see below normal temperatures for the months of December - January and February says Environment Canada on Friday.  David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada told media that La Nina is thought to occur due to increases in the strength of normal patterns of trade wind circulation meaning an increase of the amount of cooler waters in the Pacific ocean.

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When the international global warming alarm-ocracy gathers for its annual convention on the balmy island of Bali next week, is there any chance that the delegates will look up at the big yellow ball in the sky and ask, “Could it be the Sun, stupid?”  New research suggests that would be a great question for them to consider.  A recent study from the Journal of Geophysical Research (November 2007) reports that the sun may have contributed 50 percent or more of the global warming thought to have occurred since 1900. Researchers from Duke University and the U.S. Army Research Office report that climate appears to be insensitive to solar variation if you accept the global temperature trend for the past 1,000 years as represented by the so-called “hockey stick” graph — which claims to show essentially unchanging temperatures between from 1000 to 1900 and then a sharp uptick from 1900 to the present. But the hockey stick-graph has been relegated to the ash heap of global warming history.

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When Ellen Goodman likened climate skeptics to holocaust deniers last February, she raised more than a few eyebrows.  Yet, hers was not the first reprehensible use of that fetid analogy, nor, unfortunately, would it be the last.  In truth, environmentalists' deplorable trivialization of Hitler's genocide can be traced as far back as the late 1980's (by an ambitious senator from Tennessee) and as recently as last month by the scientist considered to be the world's premiere global warming researcher.  In 1989, Al Gore wrote a scare piece for the New York Times under the improbable title An Ecological Kristallnacht. Listen. Predicting a laughable 5 degree Celsius rise in global temperatures "in our lifetimes," he warned that unless we