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Don’t spread this around, but global warming is really . . .

June 29th, 2009, 3:25 pm by Mark Landsbaum

We know you’ll find this just too difficult to believe (ha!), but it seems that the EPA may have suppressed an internal analysis that questioned the science behind global warming alarmism.

Altogether now: That’s too incredible to believe!

So much for sarcasm. The fact is, an administration that bullies congress into rushing through a 1,000-plus pages of global warming fix-it legislation before anyone in the building could even read everything it says probably isn’t beyond bullying mid-level bureaucrats into silence if they don’t toe the party line.

This from FOXNews.com:

“The 98-page report, co-authored by EPA analyst Alan Carlin, pushed back on the prospect of regulating gases like carbon dioxide as a way to reduce global warming. Carlin’s report argued that the information the EPA was using was out of date, and that even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased, global temperatures have declined.

“”He came out with the truth. They don’t want the truth at the EPA,” Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, a global warming skeptic, told FOX News, saying he’s ordered an investigation. “We’re going to expose it.”

Don’t government public servants get a long leash in pursuit of the truth? Says the story:

“According to internal e-mails that have been made public by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Carlin’s boss told him in March that his material would not be incorporated into a broader EPA finding and ordered Carlin to stop working on the climate change issue. The draft EPA finding released in April lists six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, that the EPA says threaten public health and welfare. . .

“Carlin told FOXNews.com on Monday that his boss, National Center for Environmental Economics Director Al McGartland, appeared to be pressured into reassigning him.

“Carlin said he doesn’t know whether the White House intervened to suppress his report but claimed it’s clear “they would not be happy about it if they knew about it,” and that McGartland seemed to be feeling pressure from somewhere up the chain of command. Carlin said McGartland told him he had to pull him off the climate change issue.

“It was reassigning you or losing my job, and I didn’t want to lose my job,” Carlin said, paraphrasing what he claimed were McGartland’s comments to him. “My inference (was) that he was receiving some sort of higher-level pressure.”

Gee, we’re shocked, shocked to find the Obama Administration playing hardball when someone dares dispute the holy alarmism.

House passes cap-n-tax 219-212

What? Not another global warming oops moment?

Some of that global warming alarmists’ dignity & grace

Some good news on global warming

Greenhouse gas fines coming to a trash can at your

Posted in: Individual Liberty | 3 Comments »

Those reasonable global warming alarmists

June 15th, 2009, 3:36 pm by Mark Landsbaum

What we find most persuasive about the global warming alarmists is their reasonableness, their willingness to hear other sides, to weigh criticism and, well, just their out-and-out tolerance for disagreers. Just kidding.

Here’s a sampling from a buddy of ours, Mark Tapscott at SFExaminer.com:

Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lashed out at skeptics of 2007, declaring “This is treason. And we need to start treating them as traitors.’ In 2009, RFK, Jr. also called coal companies ‘criminal enterprises’ and declared CEO’s “should be in jail… for all of eternity.”

NASA’s James Hansen has called for trials of climate skeptics in 2008 for “high crimes against humanity.”

A post on Talking Points Memo by “The Insolent Braggart” who poses an interesting question: “So when the right wing f–ktards have caused it to be too late to fix the problem, and we start seeing the devastating consequences and we start seeing end of the World type events - how will we punish those responsible. It will be too late. So shouldn’t we start punishing them now?”

In 2006, the eco-magazine Grist called for Nuremberg-Style trials for skeptics. In 2008, Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki called for government leaders skeptical of global warming to be thrown “into jail.”

Heart-warming, no?

Ever wonder why they froth so? Could it be because if they don’t shout down or intimidate the other side into silence, they might be found out for advocating a fraud? Nah, that couldn’t be it, could it?

Some good news on global warming

Greenhouse gas fines coming to a trash can at your curb

Global warming quote of the day…

Curbing global warming: costs vs. benefits

Global warming fix, well, maybe not exactly a fix

Posted in: Global Warming | 2 Comments »

Global warming “evidence,” using term loosely

June 12th, 2009, 3:43 pm by Mark Landsbaum

Climatologist, author and former NASA scientist Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D., suggests that the best evidence to prove global warming exists and is harmful and is caused by man probably doesn’t meet the test for admissibility in court.

“In summary,” Spencer says, “I would say that a totally impartial judge might well find that climate models are inadmissible as scientific evidence in a court of law under the 5 criteria implicit in the Daubert standard. Of course, it might be difficult to find an impartial judge on the subject of global warming.”

In short, here are the deficiencies:

1. Has the technique been tested in actual field conditions (and not just in a laboratory)? Spencer says this is “where climate models are particularly weak. Climate modelers increasingly rely on theory, and rely less on actual testing with real observations.”

For how GW alarmism measure up on the next four criteria, continue reading…

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Global Warming | 2 Comments »

Curbing global warming: costs vs. benefits

June 9th, 2009, 3:41 pm by Mark Landsbaum

One of the wonderful things about being a global warming alarmist is apparently that you don’t have to live in the real world where costs must be balanced against what’s to be gained.

You know, like when you buy a car, you weigh all those benefits against the thirty grand or so you agree to pay for years. Same with a house. Same with a pair of shoes. Generally, the utilitarian gains must outweigh the financial costs or you won’t pony up the dough. Unless of course there are intangibles involved. (More on that later.)

“Fixing” the threat of global warming (and we use the terms “fixing” and “threat” loosely), has definite costs associated. We like the way climatologist Chip Knappenberger weighs the pluses and minuses, as reported today by Jonah Goldberg:

“If everything worked exactly according to plan, it would cost the economy trillions of dollars over the coming decades. Meanwhile, climatologist Chip Knappenberger — administrator of the World Climate Report, an avowedly global-warming-skeptical blog — uses standard climate models to show that the payoff would be to reduce global temperatures by about 0.1 degree Celsius by 2100. Sponsors of the legislation haven’t offered a competing analysis.”

That’s a tenth of a degree. Not a degree. Not 10 degrees. A tenth. Can you tell the difference when the temperature is 77 and when it’s 77.1? Just asking. Goldberg’s column continues:

“The costs would be more than 10 times the benefits,” writes Manzi, “even under extremely unrealistic assumptions of low costs and high benefits.” All the while, China, India and other countries are simply scoffing at the suggestion they curtail their carbon emissions.”

Admittedly, we have not factored in the intangibles. Like feeling green. Like following the herd mindlessly. There is some bliss, we suspect, in being hip and cool. Even if you can’t tell whether the temperature’s any cooler.

Global warming fix, well, maybe not exactly a fix

Global warming quote of the day, and then some

Obama’s green isn’t enviable

Pay up, it (may be) getting warm here

Pelosi wants to inventory YOUR life

Global warming quotes of the day

Posted in: Individual Liberty | Post a Comment »