Global warming hypers are, it is often said, more than willing to destroy entire economies in order to do what they consider necessary to prevent the earth from heating up, regardless of what science tells us about the effectiveness of the measures they would like to take.

Now it seems they are also more than willing to let planes crash in order to achieve their aims (which cannot be achieved in any case).  (more…)

Scientists said on Sunday that they can no longer rule out ‘a fast-track melting of the Greenland icesheet — a prospect, once the preserve of doomsayers, that would see much of the world’s coastline drowned by rising seas.‘ (more…)

‘The only way we’re going to get action, I’d suggest, is if those who stand in the way of action come to be perceived as not just wrong but immoral. Incidentally, that’s why I was disappointed with Barack Obama’s response to Mr. McCain’s energy posturing — that it was “the same old politics.” Mr. Obama was dismissive when he should have been outraged,’ writes Paul Krugman. (more…)

Al Gore makes quite some mistakes when he tries to explain to people what they (we) should do about global warming, but Vincent Carroll explains one of those mistakes quite well: Gore’s impossible ‘plan’ for the US to “commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.” (more…)

‘The price of European emission permits is rising so rapidly that German companies are threatening to leave the country. Thousands of jobs could be lost. And the environment may, in the end, be no better off.’ (more…)

‘Despite the scientific consensus that climate change is occurring, there remain sharp political disagreements both here in the United States and around the world about how policymakers should respond. Nowhere is this gap more profound than between developed and developing countries,’ Richard G. Lugar and Henry M. Paulson Jr. write. (more…)

Although I can’t possibly say I agree with everything Joseph Romm writes in his article “Anti-science conservatives must be stopped,” I do agree with the main point that American conservatives are willfully blind when it comes to the issue of global warming. And I also agree that they have to change their attitude towards this problem. ASAP. (more…)

Hillary Clinton has talked about what making the Green Corps a central part of her environmental initiatives. (more…)

The German newspaper the Spiegel reports that “[a] new United Nations study has found that glaciers across the globe are shrinking faster than ever before. The UN says the consequences could be grim for billions of people who depend on glacial melt and urges global leaders to act swiftly on climate change.” (more…)

Several scientists have published studies recently which indicate that “it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades,” to avert “a dangerous rise in global temperatures.” The studies show that we truly have a problem and that it will be incredibly difficult (impossible) to do something about it. (more…)

And the Washington Post reports about it. As most of you will know, I’m not exactly a global warming critic. On the other hand, I’m not an expert either, so I rely on experts to inform me about this matter. Even when those experts say that humans don’t cause or increase global warming / there’s not much we can do about it. Yes, I’m open-minded like that. (more…)

I’m no scientist. Neither is Nobel Prize winning global warming alarmist and hypocrite Al Gore. Nor are the legions of global warming deniers who are pointing to a stretch of cold weather as “proof” that global warming is a myth.

We are, most of us, not qualified in any way, shape, or form to make any kind of technical or scientific judgment on most of the evidence relating to climate change unless we happen to hold an advanced technical degree and are able to examine that evidence in its totality and not pick and choose headlines that bolster one’s political position on the issue.
(more…)

This is exactly the sort of thing I’ve been fearing - and expecting - from the Democratic party - the foolish idea that western nations should throttle back on economic and technological development to fight the will-o’-the-wisp of climate change:

Former President Bill Clinton was in Denver, Colorado, stumping for his wife yesterday. (more…)

From the Washington Post:

Climatic changes appear to be destabilizing vast ice sheets of western Antarctica that had previously seemed relatively protected from global warming, researchers reported yesterday, raising the prospect of faster sea-level rise than current estimates. (more…)

I’ve long been an opponent of ethanol as a viable source of alternative energy for America. At best it’s a short sighted and inefficient attempt at energy independence at worst its just another way to subsidize corn. Over at Scientific American the recently published an article showing the results of a five year study on switchgrass and found that acre per acre it produces over twenty one times more energy than ethanol. (more…)

Global warming again. “Denver breaks record for snowfall on Christmas day.”

Who cares about Democracy anyway?

For a while most analysts thought that the climate conference on Bali would result in… nothing. The US didn’t agree with most other countries attending the conference, said that it wanted developing countries to do their share, which resulted in European countries and before mentioned developing countries once again blaming the US for, well, being egotistical, etc., but in the end, the US made a huge U-turn and an agreement was reached.

Well, a kinda-huge-U-turn. (more…)

Bush talks the global warming talk, but refuses to walk the global warming walk. O, and the EU threatens to boycott US-led climate talks. (more…)

The Daily Mail reports that Pope Benedict has “has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.”

His remarks “will be made in his annual message for World Peace Day on January 1, but they were released as delegates from all over the world convened on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali for UN climate change talks” the Daily Mail explains. (more…)

Yesterday (my apologies, this was put on the timer for yesterday but, for some reason, didn’t get published) former Vice President Al Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. To watch his acceptance speech, click here (entire text follows below). One of the main points he made:

One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life’s work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because of his invention — dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace. Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others that bear his name. (more…)

“15,000 politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, activists, journalists and other assorted celebrities, hangers-on and others have descended on Nusa Dua, Bali in Indonesia to discuss global warming.

“Over the course of the eleven-day meeting, these people will discuss how to limit carbon emissions. These same people will generate an estimated 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide in travel to and from the conference and lord knows how much energy and consumables while they are there.”

Read more at Blue Crab Boulevard.

Paul Kedrosky, a San Diego based tech-blogger, suggests we are witnessing the first disaster that uses the full slate of Web 2.0 offerings.  The Google Map mashup indeed is very instructive.

To say that Tom Friedman does not exactly like the energy bill that recently passed the US Senate would be quite an understatement:

When you watch a baby being born, after a difficult pregnancy, it is so painful and bloody for the mother it is always hard to tell the truth and say, “Gosh, that baby is really ugly.” But that’s how I feel about the energy legislation passed (and not passed) by the Senate last week.

The whole Senate energy effort only reinforced my feelings that we’re in a green bubble — a festival of hot air by the news media, corporate America and presidential candidates about green this and green that, but, when it comes to actually doing something hard to bring about a green revolution at scale — and if you don’t have scale on this you have nothing — we wimp out. Climate change is not a hoax. The hoax is that we are really doing something about it.

No question, it’s great news that the Democrat-led Senate finally stood up to the automakers, and to the Michigan senators, and said, “No more — no more assisted suicide of the U.S. auto industry by the U.S. Congress. We’re passing the first bill since 1975 that mandates an increase in fuel economy.” If the Senate bill, which now has to go through the House, becomes law, automakers will have to boost the average mileage of new cars and light trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, compared with about 25 miles per gallon today.

But before you celebrate, pay attention to some fine print in the Senate bill. If the Transportation Department determines that the fuel economy goal for any given year is not “cost-effective” — that is, too expensive for the car companies to meet — it can ease the standard. That loophole has to be tightened by the House, which takes up this legislation next week.

But even this new mileage standard is not exactly world leading. The European Union is today where we want to be in 2020, around 35 miles per gallon, and it is committed to going well over 40 m.p.g. by 2012. Ditto Japan.

Obviously, that is quite sad. On the other hand, what matters right now is that America is actually doing something. For a long time, Europe was willing to act, Europe showed that it was willing to do something about global warming, and now, finally, America joins Europe, at least to a degree.

The New York Times reports that the US Senate voted yesterday evening “to raise fuel-economy requirements for cars and sport utility vehicles, demanding that they get 35 miles per gallon by 2020.”

One of the people who working on this deal - in an attempt to reach a “tough compromise” - is Senator John Kerry, who wrote a guest post about this matter for The Democratic Daily.

From the Times‘ article:

The lawmakers first announced their agreement on raising the standards, then quickly adopted it by voice, without a roll-call vote. Although the standards are a bit looser than originally called for in the energy bill being debated in the Senate, they are apparently still strict enough to gain the support of environmental interests.

I gave voice to both supporters of this bill and to those who oppose it. What matters most, in my opinion, is that this issue is finally taken seriously, and that the US Senate is acting. Something is being done.

Although the Democrats won that particular battle (against the auto industry), they also lost one (against big oil):

While the auto industry suffered a setback, the oil industry and its supporters in Congress scored a big victory this afternoon as Senate Republicans blocked a package of tax breaks for renewable energy that would have been paid for by the major oil companies.

Fifty-seven senators, most of them Democrats, voted in favor of the package, and 36 voted against it. But under Senate rules requiring 60 votes to shut off debate, the measure fell three votes short.

We’ll see where that one goes.

Senator (of Massachusetts) John Kerry published a post at The Democratic Daily (where I’m helping out Pamela) about energy. Be sure to read it. I disagree with Senator Kerry on quite some issues, but energy is not one of them.

Excerpt:

It’s amazing to me that some people still refuse to see the gravity of the situation staring us in the face, with the best science telling us we may only have a decade to act before the climate crisis reaches a dangerous tipping point. But there are the same interests throwing up the same roadblocks. Take CAFE standards – I and many others are demanding that the standards be raised to 35 mpg by the end of the next decade, with light trucks and SUVs included in that and other mandatory requirements for medium and heavy trucks. And we want to close the loopholes that allow automakers to miss even those targets. But the Bush Administration has written to Congress that they are opposed to ANY numerical requirement in the statute. Think about that for a moment … they say they want fuel economy to get better, but they don’t want to put any numeric requirements about what that means. And they want medium and heavy trucks exempted from even that!

Another area where I’m pushing is to require that at least 20% of our electricity come from renewable sources by 2020. This has been a part of my energy plan since 2002, and I mentioned this over and over (and over) during the campaign in 2004. There has been significant support for this change now in Congress, but there are still the powerful interests arrayed against it.

Dogmatic refusal to consider new approaches to this crisis can have such enormous consequences, it boggles the mind how people can do it.

It is quite interesting to note that with a different Republican President, Kerry might accomplish quite some of his goals: Rudy Giuliani, for instance, has already said that he wants to do something about global warming (and related problems / issues) and wants to make America energy independent (as have quite some other candidates of course). It seems to me that, over time, the two parties will grow towards each other on this issue (it will be quite problematic if they don’t).

I am wondering what Senator Kerry’s thoughts are about that.

As I said, I agree with Kerry on this issue: it is about time that something is done about it.

UPDATE
Senator Kerry answered my question:

Michael

I welcome all efforts to fight global warming from anyone. My bill is a bipartisan bill (with Olympia Snowe), so I know there are some Republicans who believe in action on this, in fact Newt Gingrich seems to be moving in that direction, but they’re vast outnumbered by the flat-earth caucus on this issue.

Trust me, I’ve debated Jim Inhofe on this – the widespread denial of the science hasn’t abated. I’ll wait to see some action before I comment any further.

Even George Bush has said some things about dealing with global climate change, but then his Administration turns around and promises to veto anything that would move us forward.

A big thank you to the Senator for the (rapid) response. Let me just say: very true, some of them talk the talk every now and then, it’s time for those people to walk the walk as well.

Perhaps Bush et al. could explain to the people of this village that they’re all just making it up.

The sturdy little Cessnas land whenever the fog lifts, delivering children’s bicycles, boxes of bullets, outboard motors and cans of dried oats. And then, with a rumble down a gravel strip, the planes are gone, the outside world recedes and this subarctic outpost steels itself once again to face the frontier of climate change.

“I don’t want to live in permafrost no more,” said Frank Tommy, 47, standing beside gutted geese and seal meat drying on a wooden rack outside his mother’s house. “It’s too muddy. Everything is crooked around here.”

The earth beneath much of Alaska is not what it used to be. The permanently frozen subsoil, known as permafrost, upon which Newtok and so many other Native Alaskan villages rest is melting, yielding to warming air temperatures and a warming ocean. Sea ice that would normally protect coastal villages is forming later in the year, allowing fall storms to pound away at the shoreline.

Figment of their imagination I am sure. Bad luck. Nothing to do, whatsoever, with so-called ‘global warming’ (and besides, the warmer the better! More days on the beach!).

Al Gore received an Oscar for a documentary about global warming; more and more people realize that global warming is a major problem; Europe is willing to take the lead; America, meanwhile, continues to act as if nothing is wrong.

The US has rejected any prospect of a deal on climate change at the G8 summit in Germany next month, according to a leaked document.

Despite Tony Blair’s declaration on Thursday that Washington would sign up to “at least the beginnings” of action to cut carbon emissions, a note attached to a draft document circulated by Germany says the US is “fundamentally opposed” to the proposals.

The note, written in red ink, says the deal “runs counter to our overall position and crosses multiple ‘red lines’ in terms of what we simply cannot agree to”.

Chuck Adkins writes:

What he’s really saying is, “If it causes the oil companies and the big businesses I am protecting, any kind of pain or inconvenience, I’m not going to support it”

I wouldn’t go that far. It’s a nuanced, difficult subject: global warming is bad for business. Thus no global warming is good for business. Thus, there is no global warming.

Yes, that headline is correct:

HAVING large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a 4×4 car and failing to reuse plastic bags, according to a report to be published tomorrow by a green think tank.

The paper by the Optimum Population Trust (OPT) will say that if couples had two children instead of three they could cut their family’s carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York.

John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said: “The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights. An extra child is the equivalent of a lot of flights across the planet.

Goody! Here is another solution: lets just stop helping the poor in Africa and Asia. If we stop helping them, many will not be able to survive: the less people the merrier!

Ah, environmentalists, they are always entertaining, aren’t they.

Is China moving in to the direction of the Dutch?

With China’s carbon footprint expected to outsize America’s within a year, officials in Beijing appear to be backing away from their view that global warming is a Western problem that developed countries must solve.

While still insisting on their right to industrialize hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty, Chinese leaders are showing the first tentative signs of readiness to accept mandatory emissions-reductions targets. And they are setting themselves all kinds of green goals.

The world going green?

Good news after the reports that more and more countries are planning to break with Kyoto.