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Readers Digest New Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)This is ahat came in on the Reading List
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JR at GREENIE WATCH - 45 minutes ago
*Gore Blames Syria Civil War on Global Warming*
*Ya gotta laugh. He offers not a shred of proof for the way he connects
everything to global warming. And he has a good reason for that. There
has been no warming for 17 years so nothing recent CAN be attributed to
warming. Neither droughts in the middle East nor anything else can be
caused by something that does not exist. But the wackiest part below is
his claim that Canadian oil has to be shipped via the USA to reach China.
That Canadians could simply ship it via the Pacific obviously eludes him.
Mr Harper has threatened to ... more »
Since 1990 Oil Companies Have Paid Republicans $163,773,719 To Not Believe In Climate Change
My grandfather was a Socialist who was proud to have voted for FDR in 1932,
1936, 1940 and 1944. A couple of decades after his last vote for Roosevelt,
I had come on the scene and he told me too never trust the Democrats. No,
he hadn't turned Republican, of course, he just saw how the corporate
warmongers and Southern racists were able to extort effective control over
the party on crucial issues. I've usually taken his advice to heart. And
even though there were relatively plausible Republicans in office and in
contention back then-- Jacob Javits (R-NY), Mark Hatfield (R-OR), Chuc... more »
There is better around :
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/06/weekend-unthreaded-39/#comment-1493212
21 June: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: The scandal of fiddled global warming dataThe US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record
When future generations try to understand how the world got carried away around the end of the 20th century by the panic over global warming, few things will amaze them more than the part played in stoking up the scare by the fiddling of official temperature data…
But now another damning example has been uncovered by Steven Goddard’s US blog Real Science, showing how shamelessly manipulated has been one of the world’s most influential climate records, the graph of US surface temperature records published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Goddard shows how, in recent years, NOAA’s US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) has been “adjusting” its record by replacing real temperatures with data “fabricated” by computer models. The effect of this has been to downgrade earlier temperatures and to exaggerate those from recent decades, to give the impression that the Earth has been warming up much more than is justified by the actual data…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10916086/The-scandal-of-fiddled-global-warming-data.html
Meanwhile, back at the flogged memes - and the clip
actually includes a number of interesting points among
the drivel
Episode #24
The 347 climate wins you've never heard of
Inside America's #1 climate victory: the grassroots uprising that shut down 1/3 of U.S. coal plants
Obama's new carbon pollution rules are the biggest step ever taken
by the U.S. government to fight climate change—but they're not the
biggest step taken by the country. The most important win is one that's
taken place invisibly, in city by city battles over the last decade: a
grassroots campaign that's blocked 90% of proposed coal-fired power
plants (182 in all) and shut down a third of the existing coal plants in
the nation—165 and counting.
It's a wave of
unheralded victories that set the stage for surge in renewable energy,
created the political space for the new Obama policies, and could open
the door to a global climate treaty that seemed impossible just a few
years ago.
This episode of The Good Fight
brings you inside one of the most successful environmental fights in
U.S. history, the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, as recounted by
the people leading it. If you think the fossil fuel industry is
unbeatable, put on some headphones and make sure you're sitting down.
Originally posted on
June 5, 2014
Show Notes
Don't just sit there cheering: Join the Beyond Coal campaign!
The best write-up of the Beyond Coal campaign ran in Mother Jones magazine in April, 2012. How a Grassroots Rebellion Won the Nation's Biggest Climate Victory: Activists have imposed a de facto moratorium on new coal—and beat the Obama EPA to the punch. Or you can check out this shorter and also excellent account by the same writer, Mark Hertsgaard.
Want to do something useful? Update the Beyond Coal Wikipedia page. Current victory stats can be found here.
The best write-up of the Beyond Coal campaign ran in Mother Jones magazine in April, 2012. How a Grassroots Rebellion Won the Nation's Biggest Climate Victory: Activists have imposed a de facto moratorium on new coal—and beat the Obama EPA to the punch. Or you can check out this shorter and also excellent account by the same writer, Mark Hertsgaard.
Want to do something useful? Update the Beyond Coal Wikipedia page. Current victory stats can be found here.
--------------------------------------------------------- This is the Weekly digest for Talk To Action [http://www.talk2action.org].
---------------------------------------------------------A Refresher on Samuel Rodriguez By Frederick Clarkson, 2014-06-15 22:36:59 <-- --="" analysis="" christian="" front="" of="" page="" right="" section:="" topic:=""> We have written a great deal at Talk to Action about Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. For a number of years he was sold to us (along with Rick Warren) as epitomizing a new, moderate, social justice oriented evangelicalism. Even liberals and Democrats [http://www.talk2action.org/story/2012/11/11/204033/82/Front_Page/On_the_D NC_Cutting_Ties_with_Rev_Samuel_Rodriguez] were supposed to like him. The media puffed him as the most important Latino Christian leader in America. But like all things that seem to be too good to be true, there were many problems. Even as he was celebrated by DC insiders as a bridge builder, he was, among other things, an overt religious supremacist [http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/9/2/133338/8422] and, his denials not withstanding, a leader [http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/9/24/155523/590] in the New Apostolic Reformation, and the beneficiary [http://debatingobama.blogspot.com/2011/10/cindy-jacobs-and-lisa-millers-l ingering.html] of some very odd journalism. Over the past year or so, I have written several times for Political Research Associates about Rev. Rodriguez, who continues to play an outsized and undeserved role in American public life. Here are a few excerpts from those articles which taken together, may serve as something of a refresher about a man who remains prominent in public life. http://www.talk2action.org/story/2014/6/15/223659/896
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Posts
what if the public were informed that a carbon price is meant to increase every year, with an attendant CO2 emissions trading derivatives bubble?
what if the public understood the real cost of wind & solar?
23 June: SMH: Tom Arup/Lisa Cox: Poll finds support growing for carbon pricing laws
An annual poll by the Climate Institute found the number of Australians who disagree with the laws fell to 30 per cent, down from 52 per cent in 2012 when the Coalition’s attack on the carbon tax was at its peak. It also represents an 11 per cent decline in opposition from last year…
At the same time the percentage of Australians who supported the carbon price rose six per cent, to 34 per cent, over the past year. It is the first rise in support under the Climate Institute poll since the laws were first introduced by the Gillard government…
The poll – carried out by JWS Research, which surveyed 1100 people online late last month – also found just 22 per cent of people supported the government’s Direct Action scheme, which will replace the carbon tax…
Former federal Liberal leader John Hewson has urged the Abbott government to keep the carbon tax, saying the policy is working and now is not the time to shift the burden of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to taxpayers, The Australian Financial Review reports.
Joining forces with the Climate Institute for a ”Stop the Dinosaurs” campaign, Dr Hewson, an economist, said the carbon tax was reducing emissions, not hurting the economy and the scare campaign by the Coalition and its supporters about the impact of the policy had proved baseless…
In other results the polling found 61 per cent of people wanted Australia to be a global leader on solutions for climate change…
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/poll-finds-support-growing-for-carbon-pricing-laws-20140622-zsi40.html
haven’t seen one mention in the above MSM coverage that discloses Hewson’s conflict of interest:
27 March: ABC Lateline: Monash letters reveal secretive attitude over fossil fuel investments
KERRY BREWSTER: Monash won’t reveal to Lateline where it invests its money but if it follows a similar pattern to other funds then about 50 per cent of its 400 million will be in carbon-intensive stocks like oil, gas and coal with only about two per cent in low-carbon assets.
JOHN HEWSON: How do they defend running that sort of risk? Let’s assume that tomorrow there is a catastrophic – series of catastrophic climate events which dramatically affects the value of some of their investments, the share prices collapse…
KERRY BREWSTER: Some of the world’s largest asset owners, including AXA group, Calpers and ASL are working with John Hewson’s asset owners disclosure project which is ranking the top 1,000 funds on how they’re responding to climate change. He is urging them to move some of their combined $80 trillion out of fossil fuels and into low-carbon alternatives…
KERRY BREWSTER: But the private advice from Monash’s David Pitt to his vice chancellor implies that most of Australia’s eight large universities will not participate in the Hewson survey…
KERRY BREWSTER: Even Britain’s Oxford University has turned John Hewson down…
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2014/s3973194.htm
John Hewson: Chairman, The Asset Owners Disclosure Project
The Asset Owners Disclosure Project is an independent not-for-profit global organisation whose objective is to protect members’ retirement savings from the risks posed by climate change by improving the level of disclosure and industry best practice.
http://aodproject.net/about/our-board/33-john-hewson-chair.html
PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: The Federal Government this week introduced a bill into Parliament for its so-called direct action plan to tackle climate change. $1.9 billion is to be put aside for activities such as tree planting in what is often described as carbon farming.
However, many West Australian landowners who invested in a form of carbon farming some years ago will miss out. They planted oil mallees, which can also produce renewable fuels and tackle salinity.
But as Sean Murphy reports, the early adopters of this new industry are on the verge of giving up…
SEAN MURPHY: Farmers like Ian Stanley hoped they’d become an alternative cropping enterprise, providing feed stock for a renewable energy industry and storing carbon in their vast root systems.
But failure to develop a market for the trees has meant they’re now draining the soils they helped to save…
SEAN MURPHY: In 2007, Ian Stanley was also optimistic about potential new industries for biofuel and power generation using the oil mallees. None of it has happened and now he says many growers are losing patience.
IAN STANLEY: The industry stalled, pretty much. The trees are now grown and they’ve done all those things we’ve asked of them, but they’re to the point now where they have started to impact severely on our ability to grow crops alongside them. The industry’s in a bit of a crisis point, quite frankly, because I know there’s trees now being pushed up. Once they get pushed up, they’re lost forever…
DAVID MCFALL, CONSULTANT: Once you cut the tree, it re-shoots, so it’s a non-destructive management regime we put on there. But it’s very critical – if you want to sustain this system, you have to cut these trees. Beause the alternative is the tree will keep foraging out, particularly if we get drying conditions in the wheatbelt. Then a lot of farmers are faced with 30 or 40 per cent crop reduction in their alleys, which is totally unsustainable…
SEAN MURPHY: The West Australian Government invested $27 million in this pilot power plant at Narrogin in 2005. It proved that oil mallees could be used to generate electricity as well as produce biofuels and biochar, but they were all too expensive and the plant was closed after 12 months…
SEAN MURPHY: (Talking to David McFall) Was it a waste of money?
DAVID MCFALL: Well, look, it is, in context, if nothing goes forward, for sure.
SEAN MURPHY: The Narrogin pilot plant was mothballed in 2006 and so was a government business plan to build nine similar generators in regional areas…
GREG HUNT, FEDERAL ENVIRONMENT MINISTER: I’ve often spoken publicly about revegetation through mallee and mulga and other appropriate species. Mallee, of course, has the value of not just being a great storehouse or form of sequestering carbon, but the oil is a valuable product of and in itself. So under us, it’s in.
SEAN MURPHY: It’s good news for farmers wanting to plant oil mallees, but it’s come too late for many tree nurseries in WA. About eight have closed down since the Rudd government’s decision to reduce the cost of carbon in line with Europe early last year…
SEAN MURPHY: Keith Parnell says he has little faith in the government’s new carbon farming initiative.
KEITH PARNELL: Until world market conditions pick up and the need for mitigating carbon in the atmosphere through new industry…
SEAN MURPHY: The Government says it won’t change the existing 2007 cut-off for the trees which qualify. But it is making the CFI more flexible, with farmers no longer having to lock up land for 100 years to qualify for carbon credits.
GREG HUNT: We can’t repair the historic problems created by the ALP, but we can fix things going forwards…
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2014/s4030485.htm
22 June: Financial Times: Madison Marriage: Pension funds urged to publish climate risks
The hope in political and academic circles is that increasing the transparency around pension funds’ exposure to carbon-intensive industries such as coal and oil will make them more aware of the risks and encourage them to invest elsewhere.
Peter Norman, Sweden’s minister for financial markets, says he wants global pension funds to “publish their carbon footprint”, although he adds that he does not want there to be restrictions on where pension funds can invest…
George Serafeim, assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, agrees that it is “very important and very feasible” for pension funds to measure their carbon exposure…
From September, more than 1,000 UK-based companies listed on the main exchanges will have to report their carbon emissions in their annual reports, says Mr Simpson.
The European Union has also recently drawn up its accounting directive, which will require more than 6,000 companies to report regularly on environmental, social and governance factors from 2016.
In 2011, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US regulator, issued guidance encouraging companies to publish their climate risk in their 10-k filings (documents that detail a company’s performance on an annual basis).
***Although few US companies have begun doing this, roughly 70 per cent of companies in the S&P 500 voluntarily provide similar data to CDP, which shares the information with 767 institutional investors representing more than $92 TRILLION in assets…
***An asset manager who counts many pension funds among his clients, says: “Pension funds generally don’t worry about [carbon exposure] at all – it is just not something they associate with being an investment risk.
“There is a lot of talk about how pension funds should be more sustainable, but if you look at their portfolios, asset selection is not done with carbon risk in mind.”
He adds that forcing big investors to publish their exposure through regulatory initiatives could cause friction within the pension fund community.
“The unintended consequence of forcing that is that maybe everyone chases the next clean-tech bubble,” he says. “Right now, pension funds’ ears are ringing from all of the regulatory demands on them. There is a strong pushback and a sense that maybe regulators have gone too far.” …
One of the worries for pension funds is that the pressure to reduce their exposure to carbon-intensive stocks in sectors such as oil and transport will hamper their investment performance…
***Companies such as General Electric, Alstom and Siemens, which sell equipment for power plants, wind turbines and solar panels, could also benefit as investors switch out of carbon-intensive stocks…
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1c5e0b58-f795-11e3-90fa-00144feabdc0.html#axzz35QKx7XZ6
So what is a nonscientist to think ?Having said this, and from a layman perspective there is much ado about nothing. This basically summarizes this whole global warming / climate change nonsense in a nut shell. To paraphrase, “Never has so much been said by so many about so little!”
I personally think that everything about this subject is BS, politically motivated and nothing but a big money grab to feed the useless so called ‘climate scientists’ that have contributed basically nothing and have constructed nothing at all that is minutely beneficial to mankind.
When I read arguments that point to “…an error margin of +/- 0.05 C per decade straddling the zero line…” and blah, blah, blah; I can’t help but think “who cares.”
Weather (and climate in general) changes at its own pace depending on inputs and outputs of nature and generally nature keeps a pretty good handle on the maintenance of life on this lovely planet of ours.
When I went to bed last night the temperature was supposed to drop to 13 C over night and was to climb up to about 21 C by this afternoon. This was an 8 C change and it didn’t kill me. Likewise, if, whatever the made up global average temperature is and should it increase by 1, 2 or even 3 degrees C, who cares. Humans throughout history have done nothing if not adapted.
Now as far as this so called evil CO2 goes, it has been demonstrated by posts here and links to papers, etc that CO2 has been much higher in the past and that civilization has thrived (Roman warm period – I think it was called; and there were others), but civilization suffered when we went into mini ice ages.
So, CO2 – good! It greens the planet, improves crop yield and if the temperature goes up some degrees C, great! Life will be wonderful. That is really all we need to continue down this journey of life.
The challenge is to once and for all ‘kill the beast’ of global warming / climate change / climate interruption and so forth. The trillions of dollars squandered world-wide in promoting this nonsense (wind mills, solar panels, closing of coal plants is a crime of global proportions. This money that was squandered (trillions of dollars) could have done so much good in making the world a better place!
Thank you to those who know and understand the ‘real science’ and give of their time and energies to kill this dragon. I only wish this long, dragged out nonsense could be killed with one final fatal blow to rid the world of this cancer.
You can’t shame a person who is too stupid to be shamed by the nonsense they spew.