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Related Scary Tags:
anthropogenic change  ~ global warming  ~ stupid humans  ~ climate impacts  ~ capitalist greed  ~ governmental idiocy  ~ economic myopia  ~ carbon emissions  ~ short-term thinking  ~ corporate malfeasance  ~ weather extremes  



Sat, Nov 12, 2016
from Climate Central:
Trump Wins US Presidency
The election of Donald Trump as the nation's next president spurred celebration in some quarters and dismay in others, including among those concerned about the steady warming of the planet.... Trump's comments on climate change have included calling it a hoax and warning that Environmental Protection Agency policies are costing the country jobs, though he has talked about the importance of maintaining clean air and water. He has suggested he will pull out of the landmark Paris agreement and scuttle the Clean Power Plan, as well as boost the domestic coal and oil industries. While the U.S. is only one country, it is a linchpin to the viability of international agreements and to moving the needle on limiting warming. ...


"Sticking it to the Man," in this case, results in "F***ing Humankind."

ApocaDoc
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Sun, Jan 10, 2016
from InsideClimate News:
Vermont Governor Urges State to Divest from Coal, Exxon
Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin said on Thursday his state should take action against climate change this year by divesting public pension funds from coal and from oil giant ExxonMobil, because of its history of sowing doubt about climate change despite the company's own scientists having studied it. Speaking at his annual State of the State address, Shumlin said, "The urgency for us to take every sensible action against climate change has never been greater." He asked his legislature to send him a bill that would divest the state's public pension funds from all coal stocks, as well as from stock in Exxon. ...


Now that's what I call leadership.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Jun 29, 2015
from InsideClimate News:
Aid Package for Coal Country Goes Ignored by Congress
A massive $3 billion package to help struggling coal communities transition to a new economy is sitting unappropriated in the Republican-led Congress. And lawmakers are saying little--at least publicly--about if and how they ever plan to support it. As part of the budget proposal released in February, the White House rolled out the POWER+ plan to support towns and communities struggling to cope with the decline in coal production and use. The initiative provides coal country with an influx of cash to reclaim abandoned mines, provide job training to miners, reform health and pension funds and invest in carbon capture technology. But in the four months since the White House announced the plan, leaders in Congress have not addressed it in any detail. ...


Burn, baby, burn.

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Jun 10, 2015
from Washington Post:
Your neighbors may be turning you into an environmentalist
Recently published research in the journal Environment and Behavior has detected another factor involved in the shaping of an environmentalist, and this one is social rather than psychological (not that these two things can ever be fully disentangled). The factor? Spending more time with neighbors and friends, as opposed to spending it with your relatives. The former was associated with pro-environmental views and behaviors, and the latter, fascinatingly, with their opposite. ...


But I am supposed to go to Grandma and Grandpa Flatearth's house on Sunday.

ApocaDoc
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Wed, May 20, 2015
from Midwest Energy News:
South Dakota to require climate-change lessons in school
Students in South Dakota, like those in 13 other states and the District of Columbia, will be taught about climate change in public schools subsequent to a unanimous vote by the state's board of education this week. The South Dakota Board of Education on Monday adopted several curriculum changes including science standards that are based on the Next Generation Science Standards. A couple of those standards pertain to the science of climate change. And starting in 2018, students will be required to answer questions about climate science on a statewide standardized test. ...


First question: Why did this take so long?

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Mar 24, 2015
from ThinkProgress:
Smithsonian Stands By Wildly Misleading Climate Change Exhibit Paid For By Kochs
But what may be most shocking of all is that the Smithsonian hasn't fixed the misleading evolution exhibit at its National Museum of Natural History, which thoroughly whitewashes the dangers of modern-day climate change. This "Hall of Human Origins" was made possible by a $15 million grant from billionaire polluter David Koch. It has now been five years since Climate Progress exposed the myriad flaws in the exhibit, a story the New Yorker and others picked up. Last week I spent some time going through the exhibit again with Dr. Lise Van Susteren, a psychiatrist and climate expert who has been featured by The Smithsonian. We were both stunned by the "Don't worry, be happy" picture it paints of current climate change.... In particular, the most embarrassing and scientifically misleading display the Smithsonian designed -- which directly suggests that humans can simply evolve to deal with global warming -- is still in the exhibit. The final section about the present and future has a nonsensical interactive video that lets visitors create a "future human" who evolves over a long period of time to a variety of changing conditions. ...


Those Koch brothers are such a pair of kidders!

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Mon, Mar 9, 2015
from Miami Herald:
In Florida, officials ban term 'climate change'
The state of Florida is the region most susceptible to the effects of global warming in this country, according to scientists. Sea-level rise alone threatens 30 percent of the state's beaches over the next 85 years. But you would not know that by talking to officials at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the state agency on the front lines of studying and planning for these changes. DEP officials have been ordered not to use the term "climate change" or "global warming" in any official communications, emails, or reports, according to former DEP employees, consultants, volunteers and records obtained by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting. ...


I shoulda never named my dog Climate Change!

ApocaDoc
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Sun, Mar 1, 2015
from Huffington Post:
Jim Inhofe Brings A Snowball To The Senate Floor To Prove Climate Change Is A 'Hoax'
The Senate's most vocal critic of the scientific consensus on climate change, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, tossed a snowball on the Senate floor Thursday as part of his case for why global warming is a hoax.... "In case we have forgotten, because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the chair, 'You know what this is?'" he said, holding up a snowball. "It's a snowball, from outside here. So it's very, very cold out. Very unseasonable." ...


Not a snowball's chance of a nice afterlife for him if God isn't a denier.

ApocaDoc
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Sun, Mar 1, 2015
from InsideClimate News:
Documents Reveal Fossil Fuel Fingerprints on Contrarian Climate Research
After finishing a study contending that solar activity is increasing global warming, scientist Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics reported his news to a utility company that was a major funder of his work.... The communications show that Soon called his peer-reviewed research papers "deliverables" in return for funding from fossil fuel companies. In addition, the documents reveal that Soon and Harvard-Smithsonian gave the coal utility company the right to review his scientific papers and make suggestions before they were published. Soon and Harvard-Smithsonian also pledged not to disclose Southern's [Southern Company Services, a mega utility company in the southeastern U.S. that generates power largely from coal] role as a funder without permission. ...


Science bought and paid / for by those responsible / for our Earth's demise

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Thu, Feb 12, 2015
from The Hill:
New GOP Senate begins assault on Obama's climate rules
... Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee attempted to poke holes in the administration's carbon rules, calling the regulations "costly," "job killing," and "unnecessary." Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the committee, charged that the the rules would "do nothing to save us from global warming" and that they were "unconstitutional." ...


I thought global warming was a hoax!

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Feb 2, 2015
from Daily Climate:
A 50th anniversary few remember: LBJ's warning on carbon dioxide
It is a key moment in climate change history that few remember: This week marks the 50th anniversary of the first presidential mention of the environmental risk of carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels. President Lyndon Baines Johnson, in a February 8, 1965 special message to Congress warned about build-up of the invisible air pollutant that scientists recognize today as the primary contributor to global warming. ...


Let's celebrate this extraordinary anniversary by procrastinating a little while longer.

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Mon, Feb 2, 2015
from New York Times:
Most Republicans Say They Back Climate Action, Poll Finds
An overwhelming majority of the American public, including half of Republicans, support government action to curb global warming, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times, Stanford University and the nonpartisan environmental research group Resources for the Future. In a finding that could have implications for the 2016 presidential campaign, the poll also found that two-thirds of Americans said they were more likely to vote for political candidates who campaign on fighting climate change. They were less likely to vote for candidates who questioned or denied the science that determined that humans caused global warming. ...


Wonder what party the Koch Brothers belong to? The ApocaParty?

ApocaDoc
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Fri, Dec 12, 2014
from Climate Progress:
Top Scientists To Media: Stop Using 'Skeptic' To Describe Climate Science Deniers
Four dozen leading scientists and science journalists/communicators have issued a statement urging the media to "Please stop using the word 'skeptic' to describe deniers" of climate science.... "Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims," the letter reads. "It is foundational to the scientific method. Denial, on the other hand, is the a priori rejection of ideas without objective consideration." ...


How about we call deniers "rejects."

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Nov 26, 2014
from E&E Publishing:
Inhofe will show GOP disagreement on climate but enjoys support to lead Environment panel
Republican senators who believe that climate change is happening appear to have no qualms about Sen. James Inhofe's rise to the chairmanship of the Environment and Public Works Committee. He will, however, underscore the party's divisions about the science around warming.... Five Republican senators indicated in interviews that they disagree with Inhofe's positions on global warming, which he describes as a "hoax" and a charade to raise taxes. But none of them questioned whether he should be elevated to the top perch on the prominent panel, pointing to his experience and respectful demeanor as favorable traits for a chairman with broad jurisdiction. ...


The sweet old fox is watching the burning hen house.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Oct 20, 2014
from Huffington Post:
Proposed Texas Textbooks Distort The Truth About Climate Change, Experts Say
The opposition to new social studies textbooks in Texas is building its case. Last week, critics contended some of the proposed books distorted historical events through a conservative political and religious lens. This week, a report argues the books contain a number of inaccuracies about climate change and climate science. The report released Monday, from the National Center for Science Education, finds that some textbooks up for adoption present a false picture of scientific views on issues like global warming... Two of the books have passages stating that scientists disagree about the causes of climate change, according to NCSE. ...


Apparently, there's a debate about if there's a debate!

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Sep 30, 2014
from Cedar Rapids Gazette:
Iowa farmers criticize Ernst on climate change, RFS
A super PAC backing Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Braley enlisted a pair of central Iowa farmers to criticize his Republican opponent, Joni Ernst, for a lack of leadership on renewable fuels and climate change -- issues they said hit home with Iowa ag producers. Bill Gannon, who has been farming for six decades, said flooding was rarely a problem until 1993. Since then, the Mingo farmer has seen crop damage and soil loss nearly every year due to flooding. "Serious rain events cause great losses for farmers who are trying to make ends meet," Gannon said on a conference call sponsored by NextGen Climate. The group is working to elect Braley of Waterloo, who has served eight years in the U.S. House. Gannon believes "climate change is a given." ...


The unimportance of being ernst.

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Tue, Sep 30, 2014
from New York Times:
President's Drive for Carbon Pricing Fails to Win at Home
President Obama stood in the chamber of the United Nations General Assembly last week and urged the world to follow his example and fight global warming. But a major new declaration calling for a global price on carbon -- signed by 74 countries and more than 1,000 businesses and investors -- is missing a key signatory: the United States. The declaration, released by the World Bank the day before Mr. Obama's speech at the United Nations Climate Summit, has been signed by China, Shell, Dow Chemical and Coca-Cola. It calls on all nations to enact laws forcing industries to pay for the carbon emissions that scientists say are the leading cause of global warming. ...


Carbon pricing: It's the real solution.

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Sep 3, 2014
from Guardian:
Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we're nearing collapse
The 1972 book Limits to Growth, which predicted our civilisation would probably collapse some time this century, has been criticised as doomsday fantasy since it was published. Back in 2002, self-styled environmental expert Bjorn Lomborg consigned it to the "dustbin of history". It doesn't belong there. Research from the University of Melbourne has found the book's forecasts are accurate, 40 years on. If we continue to track in line with the book's scenario, expect the early stages of global collapse to start appearing soon.... The book's central point, much criticised since, is that "the earth is finite" and the quest for unlimited growth in population, material goods etc would eventually lead to a crash.... It's essentially resource constraints that bring about global collapse in the book. However, Limits to Growth does factor in the fallout from increasing pollution, including climate change. The book warned carbon dioxide emissions would have a "climatological effect" via "warming the atmosphere". As the graphs show, the University of Melbourne research has not found proof of collapse as of 2010 (although growth has already stalled in some areas). But in Limits to Growth those effects only start to bite around 2015-2030. ...


We can safely ignore such absurdities. Once discredited by deniers, a work is forever tainted as wrong. Right?

ApocaDoc
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Thu, Aug 21, 2014
from Grist:
Meet the climate deniers who want to be president
The Republican Party of 2008 was a big enough tent to include people who admitted demonstrable problems existed and supported free-market-oriented solutions. Not anymore. The rise of the Tea Party movement and the rightward shift of the Republican base and the politicians who pander to it put an end to all that. Whoever is the Republican nominee for president in 2016, it's a safe bet that he - and yes, it will be a he, as all the leading contenders are male - will oppose taking any action on climate change. Chances are that he won't even admit it exists. The Republicans basically fall into four categories: (1) Flat-Earthers, who deny the existence of manmade climate change; (2) Born-Again Flat-Earthers, who do the same, but who had admitted climate change exists back before President Obama took office; (3) Do-Nothings, who sort of admit the reality of climate change but oppose actually taking any steps to prevent it; and (4) Dodgers, who have avoided saying whether they believe climate change is happening, and who also don't want to take any steps to alleviate it. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker fall into the latter category. The Do-Nothings are blue and purple state governors, Chris Christie of New Jersey and John Kasich of Ohio.... ...


Who needs science? Surf's up!

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Aug 19, 2014
from Bloomberg:
Many Republicans Privately Support Action On Climate
In stark contrast to their party's public stance on Capitol Hill, many Republicans privately acknowledge the scientific consensus that human activity is at least partially responsible for climate change and recognize the need to address the problem.... Most say the reluctance to publicly support efforts to address climate change has grown discernibly since the 2010 congressional elections, when Tea Party-backed candidates helped the Republican Party win control of the House, in part by targeting vulnerable Democrats for their support of legislation establishing a national emissions cap-and-trade system. However, they see little political benefit to speaking out on the issue, since congressional action is probably years away, according to former congressmen, former congressional aides and other sources. ...


The ApocaTea Party wields the Great Hammer of Denial.

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Aug 13, 2014
from Financial Review:
Coal always wins and will stay No. 1, says carbon king Boyce
Peabody Energy chief executive Greg Boyce is calling on coal producers to spend more time and money fighting "symbolic" movements against the industry and is confident China will not adopt a cap on carbon emissions. As the anti-coal collective gathers more mainstream backers, St Louis-based Mr Boyce says the industry needs to do more to counter the attacks, particularly the global fossil fuels divestment campaign. But he is confident that "coal always wins out". ...


In fact, coal will even vanquish us.

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Aug 4, 2014
from London Guardian:
World's top PR companies rule out working with climate deniers
Some of the world's top PR companies have for the first time publicly ruled out working with climate change deniers, marking a fundamental shift in the multi-billion dollar industry that has grown up around the issue of global warming. Public relations firms have played a critical role over the years in framing the debate on climate change and its solutions - as well as the extensive disinformation campaigns launched to block those initiatives. Now a number of the top 25 global PR firms have told the Guardian they will not represent clients who deny man-made climate change, or take campaigns seeking to block regulations limiting carbon pollution. ...


Good PR for them!

ApocaDoc
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Mon, Aug 4, 2014
from New York Times:
A Dozen States File Suit Against New Coal Rules
Twelve states filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration on Friday seeking to block an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate coal-fired power plants in an effort to stem climate change. The plaintiffs are led by West Virginia and include states that are home to some of the largest producers of coal and consumers of coal-fired electricity.... The suit was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The other plaintiffs are Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming. ...


The dirty dozen.

ApocaDoc
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Thu, Jul 31, 2014
from Climate Progress:
How Climate Denial Could Cost This Iowa Senate Candidate An Election
Storm clouds are beginning to gather for Joni Ernst, the Republicans' contender for Iowa's Senate seat this November. Within the last month, several liberal and environmental groups have targeted her with campaigns aimed at highlighting her climate positions and the money she's received from the Koch Brothers and other fossil fuel groups.... Back in June, [NextGen Climate] hit Ernst for opposing the Clean Water Act in a debate and for stating in May that "I have not seen proven proof that [climate change] is entirely man-made." According to a round-up of climate research by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, scientists are 95 percent certain that human activities drove 74 percent of the observed global warming since 1950. ...


According to my calculations, we are 169 percent screwed.

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Jul 30, 2014
from Climate Progress:
Legislators, Corporations Gather For Secret Meeting Against Clean Energy And You're Not Invited
...Going into their annual meeting in Dallas, Texas on Wednesday, ALEC -- the secretive organization that brings together conservative politicians and major corporate interests -- is looking to recalibrate their approach to repealing or obstructing a range of clean energy initiatives after a year of state-level defeats. The 40-year-old group, which has been pushing a corporate-backed, free market-driven agenda for decades, is beholden to a number of utilities and fossil fuel companies that bankroll them and they are expected to show results. At the same time, with renewable energy gaining momentum across the country and homeowners increasingly eager to get in on the rapid growth and falling prices, ALEC risks alienating itself from the public yet again. ...


You dirty rats.

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Jul 29, 2014
from The Hill:
Inhofe blocks climate change resolution
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) blocked Senate Democrats on Monday from passing a resolution that would have acknowledged the reality of climate change. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) asked unanimous consent to pass S.Res. 524, which is a measure that expresses the sense of the Senate that climate change is occurring and poses a risk to the United States. But Inhofe objected.... Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who is a sponsor of the resolution, said Inhofe was living in an "alternate reality." ...


Let's all go live in Inhofeland.

ApocaDoc
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You're still reading! Good for you!
You really should read our short, funny, frightening book FREE online (or buy a print copy):
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
We've been quipping this stuff for more than 30 months! Every day!
Which might explain why we don't get invited to parties anymore.
Thu, Jul 17, 2014
from AFP, via Daily Times (Pakistan):
Australia abolishes divisive carbon tax
Australia on Thursday axed a divisive carbon tax after years of vexed political debate, in a move criticised as regressive and out of step with the rest of the world. The upper house Senate voted 39-32 to scrap the charge, which was imposed by the former Labor government on major polluters from 2012 in a bid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.... Prime Minister Tony Abbott went to the polls in September with repealing the pollution levy as a central campaign platform, arguing the cost was being passed to consumers, resulting in higher utility bills. "Scrapping the carbon tax is a foundation of the government's economic action strategy," said Abbott, who once said evidence blaming mankind for climate change was "absolute crap". ...


Carbon taxes may be a third rail in politics, powered by demagoguery.

ApocaDoc
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Sun, Jul 13, 2014
from Mother Jones:
Don't Call Them "Climate Deniers." Call them "Climate Optimists."
Las Vegas is parched. A 14-year drought has left Lake Mead, the local water source, dangerously low. It has dropped 100 feet in the past decade. If it drops 12 more feet, federal water rationing rules will kick in. Some climate scientists predict that will happen in the next year. And most believe the situation will only worsen over time. The view from inside Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, however, is considerably rosier. That's where scientists, activists, and bloggers have assembled this week for the Heartland Institute's 9th International Conference on Climate Change, which I've been following via live stream. It's the world's largest gathering of "climate skeptics"--people who believe, for one reason or another, that the climate change crisis is overblown.... ...


or call them "Wishfully Thinking Mass Murderers."

ApocaDoc
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Sun, Jun 8, 2014
from Huffington Post:
Will New Climate Regulations Destroy the Economy? (Hint: No.)
There is a long history of claims that new rules to protect the environment or human health will seriously harm the United States economy. These claims are political fodder, they are provocative, and they are always wrong. In fact, the evidence shows the opposite: environmental regulations consistently produce enormous net benefits to the economy and to human health. In 2008, for example, the United States' environmental technologies and services industry supported 1.7 million jobs. The industry at that time generated approximately $300 billion in revenues and exported goods and services worth $44 billion... Some polluting industries might suffer, but it is past time to unleash American ingenuity in the name of reducing the devastating threat of climate change. ...


We can have our cake and eat it, too?

ApocaDoc
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Sun, May 11, 2014
from Huffington Post:
Wyoming First State To Reject Science Standards Over Climate Change Denial
Wyoming, the nation's top coal-producing state, is the first to reject new K-12 science standards proposed by national education groups mainly because of global warming components. The Wyoming Board of Education decided recently that the Next Generation Science Standards need more review after questions were raised about the treatment of man-made global warming. ...


Even if global warming existed, it would be caused by fairies.

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Sun, May 11, 2014
from London Guardian:
Fox News climate change coverage is now 28 percent accurate, up from 7 percent
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has just published an analysis of 2013 climate coverage by the three major American cable news networks.... The UCS analysis found that Fox News Channel hosts and guests were the most likely to accuse scientists of manipulating or hiding climate data. Fox hosts and guests often conveyed misinformation about scientific findings, including many false claims that global warming is not occurring.... Despite just 28 percent of Fox's coverage being accurate in 2013, this was a significant improvement for the network. A 2012 UCS report found that Fox News' representation of climate science was accurate just 7 percent of the time over a six-month study period. ...


And the hens shall inherit an unlivable earth.

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Tue, Apr 29, 2014
from Times of Northwest Indiana:
IDEM chief: Obama climate change plan bad for Hoosiers
Indiana's top environmental official on Friday said the president's plan to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants is bad for Hoosier residents and businesses. "Indiana is based on low-cost electricity," said Indiana Department of Environmental Management Commissioner Tom Easterly. "The economy and the businesses we have are. Having those businesses leave the country is not going to help worldwide greenhouse gas emissions at all and it certainly isn't going to help Hoosiers." ...


Apparently, Indiana's top environmental official has never heard of renewable energy.

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Thu, Apr 10, 2014
from Indianapolis Star:
Activists press Rokita on climate question
Activists want Congressman Todd Rokita to rethink his stance on global warming and support limits on greenhouse gasses to stem the pace of climate change. About 20 people gathered Tuesday evening around Rokita's Lafayette office at Fourth and Columbia Streets to draw attention to Rokita's belief that Earth is undergoing a natural cycle of environmental changes, not a sudden shift caused by man. ...


"Rokita" means "skeptic."

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Fri, Apr 4, 2014
from Indianapolis Star:
Global warming comment sets off tempest at IDEM
Keith Baugues is not a scientist, but that didn't stop him on a recent wintry day from expressing skepticism about global warming -- something that is broadly accepted in the scientific community... Baugues is assistant commissioner in the Office of Air Quality in the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the man in charge of cleaning up Indiana's air... Baugues wrote to his staff on March 19 trying to tamp down the outcry. But he stuck by his position. "I am a skeptic on global warming," he declared. ...


The fox is wrecking the henhouse.

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Mon, Mar 31, 2014
from E&E Publishing:
Heartland Institute says more CO2 is good for the planet
The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based libertarian group, is raising its rhetoric a notch by claiming that rising greenhouse gas levels will actually help the world more than harm it. The group points to increased plant and forest growth, bigger crop yields and longer growing seasons as benefits derived from rising concentrations of carbon dioxide. ...


And let's not forget the benefits of growing crops on a completely flat planet!

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Thu, Mar 27, 2014
from Center for Public Integrity:
Inside the Koch brothers' campus crusade
Billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch may rank among the nation's biggest bankrollers of conservative causes and Republican campaign vehicles. But Koch proselytizing of government deregulation and pro-business civics is increasingly targeted not just at creatures of Capitol Hill, or couch sitters in swing states, but at the hearts and minds of American college students, as well. In all, two of the six private charitable foundations the Koch brothers control and personally fund combined in 2012 to infuse colleges and universities with more than $12.7 million, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Internal Revenue Service tax filings. The vast majority of this cash was spread among 163 U.S. colleges and universities -- many with reputations for liberal faculty and left-leaning patrons -- throughout 41 states and the District of Columbia. It came on top of tens of millions of dollars more Koch foundations have given colleges and universities during the past decade, tax filings show. ...


Bet the frat parties are awesome!

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Sun, Mar 16, 2014
from The Hill:
Senate Dems Stage All-Nighter to Wake Up "Stubborn" Climate Deniers in Congress
At least 28 Senate Democrats are pulling an all-nighter on Monday to wake up "stubborn" climate change deniers in Congress. With substantial climate change legislation all but dead in Congress, the senators involved in Monday's climate-fest just want to get to a point where lawmakers can agree that climate change is a scientific fact. ...


Welcome to the modern world where facts do not matter.

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Tue, Mar 4, 2014
from The Daily Caller:
Warren Buffett: Global warming not causing extreme weather
Business magnate Warren Buffett contradicted a major Obama administration talking point by saying that global warming was not causing extreme weather. The CEO of Berkshire Hathaway told CNBC that he has not changed the way his companies calculate the likelihood of a natural disaster because of global warming. Berkshire Hathaway owns several insurance companies that often have to pay out huge claims when natural disasters strike. Environmentalists and the Obama administration have warned that global warming has caused natural disasters like hurricanes to become fiercer and more common. ...


From Oracle of Omaha to Nimrod of Nebraska.

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Sat, Mar 1, 2014
from E&E Publishing:
Republicans no-shows at Senate meeting with foreign legislators on climate change
U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres called yesterday for urgent action and an end to partisanship on global warming, warning that the planet is on "borrowed time." Speaking in the U.S. Senate, where climate change has been the focus of bitter ideological battles, Figueres' lament over how polarizing the issue has become was echoed by the World Bank as well as U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern. Yet the event sponsored by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), aimed at galvanizing domestic legislation on climate change worldwide, seemed hardly an auspicious start to an attempt to reach climate change bipartisanship. With not a single congressional Republican present, House and Senate Democrats placed the burden of shifting the tone in the United States squarely on GOP shoulders. ...


This partisanship is sinking.

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Thu, Feb 20, 2014
from Salt Lake Tribune:
Utah lawmaker: Our atmosphere needs more carbon dioxide
Arguing that we need more carbon dioxide, not less, in the atmosphere, Rep. Jerry Anderson, R-Price, has proposed legislation that would limit the state's ability to regulate emissions of the greenhouse gas. HB229 narrows the definition of the term "air contaminants," clarifying that "natural components of the atmosphere," including nitrogen, oxygen and other stable, or noble gases, are not pollution. ... "We are short of carbon dioxide for the needs of the plants," Anderson, a retired science teacher, told the committee overseeing environmental programs in the the state on Tuesday. "Concentrations reached 600 parts per million at the time of the dinosaurs and they did quite well. I think we could double the carbon dioxide and not have any adverse effects." ...


Science teacher turned legislator turned science fantasy writer!

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Mon, Feb 17, 2014
from Sydney Morning Herald:
John Kerry: climate change a 'weapon of mass destruction'
US Secretary of State John Kerry has warned Indonesians that man-made climate change could threaten their entire way of life, deriding those who doubted the existence of "perhaps the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction". Mr Kerry described those who do not accept that human activity causes global warming as "shoddy scientists" and "extreme ideologues", and said big companies and special interests should not be allowed to "hijack" the climate debate. Aides said Mr Kerry had chosen Indonesia for the first of what is to be a series of speeches on the topic this year partly because, as an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, it is particularly at risk from rising sea levels. ...


If only he'd called climate change "A grave threat to continued episodes of Dancing with the Stars."

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Fri, Feb 14, 2014
from Topeka Capital Journal:
House Energy and Environment Committee discusses human involvement in climate change
A Kansas House committee weighed a resolution Thursday that urges Congress to resist following President Barack Obama's plan for addressing climate change. The nonbinding resolution is before the House Energy and Environment Committee. It declares that the federal goals for addressing climate change are based on false assumptions about the role of carbon dioxide and human activity. Supporters of the resolution said they doubt that human-caused climate change even exists, despite a body of scientific research that suggests it does. ...


Toto, I have a feeling we're in Kansas.

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Thu, Jan 23, 2014
from Baton Rouge Advocate:
Poll: Most Louisianians see climate change as serious problem
In a state not known for progressive thinking on the environment, a recent poll showed 72 percent of Louisiana residents believe climate change is a serious problem that threatens everyone, in sharp contrast to what many elected leaders have said and done about the issue. ...


The big hard

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Mon, Dec 23, 2013
from London Guardian:
Conservative groups spend up to $1bn a year to fight action on climate change
Conservative groups may have spent up to $1bn a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change, according to the first extensive study into the anatomy of the anti-climate effort. The anti-climate effort has been largely underwritten by conservative billionaires, often working through secretive funding networks. They have displaced corporations as the prime supporters of 91 think tanks, advocacy groups and industry associations which have worked to block action on climate change. Such financial support has hardened conservative opposition to climate policy, ultimately dooming any chances of action from Congress to cut greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet, the study found. ...


It costs a lot of money to lie about something this obvious.

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Mon, Dec 9, 2013
from The Telegraph:
Smog makes you funnier and smarter, Chinese media claims
Toxic air pollution may be pulverizing the alveoli of hundreds of millions of Chinese but it is also making them more equal, more humorous and even more intelligent, state media claimed on Monday. In a controversial and widely mocked comment piece entitled, "Five unexpected gains the haze has brought", a journalist from state television channel CCTV argued that while Chinese people might "hate" the pollution, it was not a "completely useless" phenomenon. For while filthy air was a dangerous "enemy", it was simultaneously bringing "major benefits" including making people more united, more sober, more equal, more humorous and better informed. ...


Everybody knows smog makes you sexier, too.

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Sun, Dec 8, 2013
from InsideClimate News:
Worst-Case Scenario for Oil Sands Industry Has Come to Life, Leaked Document Shows
As environmentalists began ratcheting up pressure against Canada's tar sands three years ago, one of the world's biggest strategic consulting firms was tapped to help the North American oil industry figure out how to handle the mounting activism. The resulting document, published online by WikiLeaks, offers another window into how oil and gas companies have been scrambling to deal with unrelenting opposition to their growth plans. The document identifies nearly two-dozen environmental organizations leading the anti-oil sands movement and puts them into four categories: radicals, idealists, realists and opportunists -- with how-to's for managing each. It also reveals that the worst-case scenario presented to industry about the movement's growing influence seems to have come to life. ...


A fifth category: people who care about their children and grandchildren.

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Thu, Dec 5, 2013
from London Guardian:
ALEC calls for penalties on 'freerider' homeowners in assault on clean energy
An alliance of corporations and conservative activists is mobilising to penalise homeowners who install their own solar panels -- casting them as "freeriders" -- in a sweeping new offensive against renewable energy, the Guardian has learned. Over the coming year, the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) will promote legislation with goals ranging from penalising individual homeowners and weakening state clean energy regulations, to blocking the Environmental Protection Agency, which is Barack Obama's main channel for climate action. ...


The people united will never be defeated (by ALEC).

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Wed, Nov 27, 2013
from Mother Jones:
Why Climate Change Skeptics and Evolution Deniers Joined Forces
All across the country -- most recently, in the state of Texas -- local battles over the teaching of evolution are taking on a new complexion. More and more, it isn't just evolution under attack, it's also the teaching of climate science. The National Center for Science Education, the leading group defending the teaching of evolution across the country, has even broadened its portfolio: Now, it protects climate education too. ...


Let's send these folks to the moon -- oh wait, that's right, we never went to the moon!

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Tue, Nov 5, 2013
from Omaha World-Herald:
UNL plans separate state report that will include human impact on climate change
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln said it will issue a report that includes the role of humans in climate change -- now that the state's climate committee apparently plans to exclude the impact of humans in a separate study. University officials on Friday said that they will complete their own unrestricted study by September 2014 so that its publication coincides with anything released by the state. ...


Academia, as usual, out of step with the mainstream.

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Thu, Oct 31, 2013
from Omaha World-Herald:
Nebraska lawmakers spar over intent of $44,000 climate change study
The Nebraska lawmaker who initiated the Legislature's first study of climate change now prefers to see the study abandoned rather than continue along what he called a politicized, scientifically invalid path. State Sen. Ken Haar of Malcolm said Tuesday the state committee handling the study is disregarding the intent of the Legislature. Haar, a Democrat, is asking his fellow senators to help him salvage the $44,000 study by encouraging the committee to reconsider the restrictions it published Monday in the official request for study assistance. The request says researchers "should consider 'cyclical climate change' to mean a change in the state of climate due to natural internal processes and only natural external forcings such as volcanic eruptions and solar variations." The use of the term "natural" would rule out the primary cause of the climate changes that have occurred in the last half-century: humans. The issue of "cyclical" climate change was successfully amended into Haar's bill by Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha, a Republican candidate for governor. McCoy on Tuesday elaborated on his opposition to using state tax dollars to study man-made climate change: Humans aren't capable of influencing climate patterns. "I firmly believe our planet goes through cyclical weather patterns. There have been hotter times, colder times, wetter times and drier times," he said. ...


Nebraska's education system must really be in shambles.

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Tue, Oct 15, 2013
from Yes! Magazine:
Pro-Coal Kids' Pages Pulled from Government Site as Public Pressure Increases
The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity has removed coal-related educational sections from its website, less than two weeks after the launch of a grassroots campaign demanding that the pages be taken down. The website sections were supposed to educate children about energy, but had been widely denounced because they focused on misleading pro-coal messages. It wasn't just environmentalists who objected to the way Illinois was talking about coal to kids. Last month, a state-commissioned evaluation of the Illinois coal education program determined that the curriculum, including the website, was "biased towards a positive image of coal." ...


Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

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Tue, Oct 15, 2013
from The Hill:
Activists urge papers to follow LA Times on climate letters
An environmental group is pressing four large newspapers to follow The Los Angeles Times by refusing to print letters denying that humans are causing climate change. The Times revealed its policy in a recent editor's note that declares: "Letters that have an untrue basis (for example, ones that say there's no sign humans have caused climate change) do not get printed." ...


Liberal media.

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Tue, Oct 8, 2013
from Grist:
Who created the global warming "pause"?
In a major report [PDF] released late last month, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's leading authority on climate science, told us it was more certain than ever that humans are causing global warming.... This, you might think, would be quite a media story. Yet instead, something funny happened on the way from the scientists' heads to the public's ears, and many journalists instead embraced a very different narrative -- in many ways, almost the opposite narrative. Global warming, they suggested, had "paused" or was slowing down. And scientists didn't really understand why. How could this disconnect, this huge divergence of narratives, have happened? What follows is the story of a communications failure that is ultimately harmful to all of us. And it was brought on by combination of causes that, unfortunately, we've seen work together before to mar the communication of climate science: Misinformation from climate skeptics, false balance and just plain bad science reporting from much of the media, and to top it all off, poor communication by scientists themselves. ...


A perfect storm, so to speak.

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Wed, Oct 2, 2013
from Huffington Post:
Illinois Residents Call on State & National Groups to Join Gov. Quinn Petition: Stop Lying to Kids on Coal
Outraged by the misleading information on the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity's website for children on coal, former coal miners and citizen groups in the coal country of southern Illinois have launched a CREDO petition to bring the state's infamous coal education fiasco to an end. Calling on statewide and national citizens groups and education organizations to join their efforts, the petition goes straight to the point: Gov. Quinn: Stop Lying to Kids About Coal. As part of a coal education curriculum that has been widely denounced as inaccurate, deceiving and outdated--at best--the state continues to host a website for kids rife with erroneous marketing lingo that overlooks the workplace crisis of black lung disease among coal miners, as well as rising health and environmental costs from coal mining and burning, and climate change. The petition also cites a recent study that found the state of Illinois loses nearly $20 million annually to maintain the coal industry. ...


Hey, kids, your future's so blighted you gotta wear shades.

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Mon, Sep 30, 2013
from NewScientist:
Climate report: Lull in warming doesn't mean we're safe
Humanity's role in driving climate change is more certain than ever before, but the most extreme scenarios of future warming are looking less likely than a few years ago. This is the upshot of the latest scientific assessment from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published today.... The new report leaves no doubt that a storm is brewing. It is unequivocal -- temperatures are rising and human activity is to blame. Without drastic action to curb emissions, it says, the world faces a century of strong warming, in which glaciers and ice sheets melt, sea levels rise, the oceans acidify, weather systems shift and rainfall patterns change.... this stark warning will be sidelined by the scientific conundrum over the "missing heat" that should, according to most climate models, have been warming the atmosphere ever faster these past few decades. This may be a short-term blip -- perhaps a result of the oceans temporarily taking up more heat from the atmosphere, says one of the IPCC's lead authors, Myles Allen of the University of Oxford. The report underlines that, whatever is happening to the atmosphere, the oceans continue to warm dramatically. ...


Damn you, ocean, for trying to save us all.

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Fri, Sep 20, 2013
from Mother Jones:
Why Bother Debunking Climate Change Deniers?
...Because, sadly, the people who deny the reality around them have a very large megaphone, and in some cases have a lot of motivation to use it. Money, power, riling up the electorate, or, perhaps worst of all, pure zealotry. Nothing is as impenetrable as an armor wrought from fervent ideology. It's also upsetting to know that we have the facts, the science, the scientists, and really all of reality on our side. But human nature is a contrary beast, and doubt is a seed that grows lushly in dark places. ...


Sometimes, all of reality is simply too much reality.

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Thu, Sep 19, 2013
from Association for Psychological Science:
After the Storms, a Different Opinion On Climate Change
Extreme weather may lead people to think more seriously about climate change, according to new research. In the wake of Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, New Jersey residents were more likely to show support for a politician running on a "green" platform, and expressed a greater belief that climate change is caused by human activity. ...


Another revelatory report from the University of Duh.

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Mon, Sep 16, 2013
from Center for American Progress:
States of Denial: States with the Most Federal Disaster Aid Sent Climate-Science Deniers to Congress
The United States suffered from numerous extreme weather events in 2011 and 2012. In fact, there were 25 severe storms, floods, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires that each caused more than $1 billion in economic damages, with a total price tag of $188 billion. To help communities recover from these violent weather events, the federal government spent nearly $62 billion for disaster relief in fiscal years 2011 and 2012. These federal funds only cover a portion of recovery costs; private insurance and individuals harmed by the events also spent billions of dollars. There is recent evidence that climate change played a role in the extreme weather events of 2012.... Interestingly, many of the states that received the most federal recovery aid to cope with climate-linked extreme weather have federal legislators who are climate-science deniers. The 10 states that received the most federal recovery aid in FY 2011 and 2012 elected 47 climate-science deniers to the Senate and the House. Nearly two-thirds of the senators from these top 10 recipient states voted against granting federal emergency aid to New Jersey and New York after Superstorm Sandy. ...


Now that's a superstorm of irony!

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Thu, Sep 12, 2013
from Lexington Herald-Leader:
Beshear to implement science standards in wake of panel's rejection
Gov. Steve Beshear plans to implement the new Kentucky Next Generation Science Standards under his own authority, after a legislative review panel rejected them as deficient during a meeting Wednesday. That would let the standards move forward, but the regulation still could be killed by the full General Assembly when it returns in January.... Robert Bevins, president of Kentuckians for Science Education, a group that backs the standards, contended the subcommittee vote resulted from intense lobbying by the Tea Party and the Family Foundation of Kentucky. ...


AKA members of the Dark Ages Coalition.

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Tue, Sep 10, 2013
from New York Times:
Young Students Against Bad Science
Your parents may have had to walk uphill, both ways, to get to school. But as ideological warfare threatens the teaching of climate science and evolution in many schools, it is clear that today's students face their own obstacles on the road to a respectable science education -- and some are speaking out. For his high school senior project, Zack Kopplin started a campaign to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act, a 2008 law passed in his home state that opens a "back door" to teaching creationism in public schools, he says. ...


And the ignorant shall inherit the earth.

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Tue, Sep 10, 2013
from Associated Press:
Texas Group Says Textbook Publishers Pressured to Adjust Evolution, Climate Change Lessons
Publishers producing high school biology textbooks that could be used in classrooms across Texas are being pressured to water down lessons on evolution and climate change, a progressive watchdog group said Monday. The State Board of Education is considering new science books which, if adopted, could be used by some Texas public school students, as well as schools in other states, for a decade. The board will hold a public hearing on the books next week.... Texas Freedom Network says that of the 12 reviewers who traveled to Austin to participate in group reviews, at least five had previously publicly stated creationist beliefs. ...


Fortunately, U.S. students don't read textbooks anymore anyway.

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Mon, Sep 2, 2013
from Salt Lake Tribune:
Scientists leave GOP due to attitudes toward science
Scientists used to be well represented among the nearly half of Americans who voted Republican. But that's changed over the years, and one poll found that just 6 percent of scientists call themselves part of the GOP now. What happened? There might not be textbook answers, but there are theories. Barry Bickmore, a professor of geology at Brigham Young University and onetime Republican convention delegate in crimson-red Utah County in the nation's reddest state, has pondered the issue at length. He contends his party is increasingly ruled by zealots and a demand for "ideological purity" that turns off scientists. ...


The GOP is soooo rocking the Dark Ages!

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Tue, Aug 13, 2013
from Cedar Rapids Gazette:
Wacky weather changing Iowans' climate change perceptions
Scientists say annual weather proves little about climate trends, but this year and last, at opposite ends of the extreme weather spectrum, have strengthened Iowans' belief that the state's climate is changing....The annual poll conducted by Iowa State University, shows that the percentage of farmers who believe that climate change is occurring increased from 67.7 percent in 2011 to 74.3 percent in 2013, while the percentage who believe it is not dropped from 4.5 percent in 2011 to 2.5 percent this year. The questionnaire, which is sent to about 2,000 Iowa farms with half of them responding, also found that the percentage of farmers who think climate change is caused by human activity increased from 10 percent in 2011 to 17.3 percent this year. ...


Perhaps they are reluctant to acknowledge their own role in climate change.

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Tue, Aug 13, 2013
from The Hill:
Rep. King: Global warming 'more of a religion than a science'
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who might be flirting with a presidential bid, is leaving no doubt about his position on climate change. "It is not proven, it's not science. It's more of a religion than a science," he said at a rally in Fort Dodge, Iowa, on Tuesday, according to The Messenger. The Iowa paper reported on King's appearance at a rally sponsored by the conservative Americans for Prosperity, which has launched a bus tour attacking Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) as the Democrat runs for Senate. ...


King of the nitwits.

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Sat, May 25, 2013
from Tom Englehardt:
Terracide: The Biggest Criminal Enterprise in History
We have a word for the conscious slaughter of a racial or ethnic group: genocide. And one for the conscious destruction of aspects of the environment: ecocide. But we don't have a word for the conscious act of destroying the planet we live on, the world as humanity had known it until, historically speaking, late last night. A possibility might be "terracide" from the Latin word for earth. It has the right ring, given its similarity to the commonplace danger word of our era: terrorist.... And yes, when it comes to terror attacks, the Boston Marathon bombings weren't pretty either. But in both cases, those who committed the acts paid for or will pay for their crimes. In the case of the terrarists -- and here I'm referring in particular to the men who run what may be the most profitable corporations on the planet, giant energy companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, and Shell -- you're the one who's going to pay, especially your children and grandchildren. You can take one thing for granted: not a single terrarist will ever go to jail, and yet they certainly knew what they were doing. ...


Terrarism in the name of the Profit is still a crime.

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Tue, Apr 23, 2013
from Sioux Falls Argus Leader:
Politics, science tangle over climate change in school standards
South Dakota took part in a 26-state effort to update the way K-12 schools teach science, but the resulting standards face a series of hurdles on the way to implementation. The Next Generation Science Standards, released this month, emphasize the practice of science and critical thinking in place of rote memorization. But the standards, which map out what students should know and be able to do, already are drawing both praise and criticism for their unskeptical take on humans' role in climate change... But many politicians consider man's influence on global climate change to be unresolved. ...


Politicians' influence on global climate change is nothing short of ghastly!

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Mon, Apr 8, 2013
from TomDispatch:
Is the Keystone XL Pipeline the "Stonewall" of the Climate Movement?
...Recently, I had a long talk with an administration insider who kept telling me that, for the next decade, we should focus all our energies on "killing coal." Why? Because it was politically feasible. And indeed we should, but climate-change science makes it clear that we need to put the same sort of thought and creative energy into killing oil and natural gas, too. I mean, the Arctic -- from Greenland to its seas -- essentially melted last summer in a way never before seen. The frozen Arctic is like a large physical feature. It's as if you woke up one morning and your left arm was missing.... ...


And, the missing arm returned to choke you to death!

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Mon, Apr 8, 2013
from International Herald Tribune:
U.S. Moves Toward Teaching Climate Change; Britain Does the Opposite
New science teaching standards in the United States will include extensive lessons on human-made climate change. Expected to be unveiled this week, the guidelines will bring the subject to classrooms in up to 40 states, in many cases for the first time. Eighth-grade pupils should understand that "human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth's mean surface temperature (global warming)," according to the Next Generation Science Standards. The proposed changes are causing some controversy in a country where the acceptance of man-made climate change is a political issue. ...


Teach your children well/Their father's hell did slowly go by... So just look at them and sigh and know they love you...

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Wed, Apr 3, 2013
from Center for Climate Change Communication:
A National Survey of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents on Energy and Climate Change
This short report is based on a January 2013 national survey of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents. We found that they prefer clean energy as the basis of America's energy future and say the benefits of clean energy, such as energy independence (66 percent) saving resources for our children and grandchildren (57 percent), and providing a better life for our children and grandchildren (56 percent) outweigh the costs, such as more government regulation (42 percent) or higher energy prices (31 percent). By a margin of 2 to 1, respondents say America should take action to reduce our fossil fuel use. Also, only one third of respondents agree with the Republican Party's position on climate change, while about half agree with the party's position on how to meet America's energy needs. ...


So much for lockstep Republicans.

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Fri, Mar 29, 2013
from USA Today:
Report: Most insurers not prepared for climate change
Most insurance companies do not have comprehensive strategies to cope with climate change despite mounting weather-related claims, says a report to be released Thursday. Of 184 companies surveyed, only 23 had such strategies, and 13 of those that did were foreign-owned, according to report by Ceres, a Boston-based non-profit that promotes eco-minded business practices. The report says the most prepared tend to be the largest companies with scientists on staff and those that insure property rather than life or health. Many companies "won't talk about climate change" and if they do, they use "hedged" language to avoid the controversial issue of whether it's man-made, says author Sharlene Leurig, senior manager of Ceres' insurance program. She says the issue is less politically divisive in Europe, where insurers are often better prepared. ...


Could be our weird weather these days might or might not have not a little something to do with stuff we might or might not be doing.

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Tue, Mar 26, 2013
from USA Today:
Poll questions shift public views on global warming
...The majority of the public pretty much understands that global warming is happening, and has for a long time, the authors say. Some of what looks like confusion about what folks think may result more from the poll questions themselves, rather than from the people answering the questions....ask people what they believe and they will mostly say they believe global warming is happening. If you pile on top of that question the additional task of asking people to assess what they know of the evidence (which may be very little), they become more doubtful in their answers. ...


Do you not agree or disagree that you don't think global warming isn't happening?

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Tue, Mar 5, 2013
from InsideClimate News:
Climate Change Science Poised to Enter Nation's Classrooms
New national science standards that make the teaching of global warming part of the public school curriculum are slated to be released this month, potentially ending an era in which climate skepticism has been allowed to seep into the nation's classrooms.... They recommend that educators teach the evidence for man-made climate change starting as early as elementary school and incorporate it into all science classes, ranging from earth science to chemistry. By eighth grade, students should understand that "human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth's mean surface temperature (global warming)," the standards say. ...


Hey, kids! It's important you know all about the shitstorm we're handing off to you.

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Mon, Feb 25, 2013
from Grist:
Not-so-smart ALEC: How the lobbying group uses bad data to fight clean energy
Renewable energy is clean, sustainable, non-polluting, reduces our dependence on fossil fuels, improves the health of communities surrounding power plants, and protects the natural environment. Who could be against it? Answer: The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a lobbying group that is active in drafting and advocating controversial state legislation.... ALEC wants to speed up the permitting process for mines, oil and gas wells, and power plants -- and to eliminate all state requirements for the use of renewable energy. The latter goal is packaged as the "Electricity Freedom Act.” ...


I hear ALEC is changing their name to Enhanced Volition for Independent Legislation (EVIL).

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Mon, Feb 25, 2013
from Forbes:
Yes! We Should Defund The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
It seems that along with 17 years of flat global temperatures there is some evidence that we are witnessing some cooling on global warming hype and hysteria in Washington as well. Following President Obama's State of the Union pledge to double down on his frenetic "green” war to prevent climate change, U.S. Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) has introduced legislation to discontinue any more taxpayer green from being used to advance the U.N.'s economy-ravaging agendas. ...


Finally! Some fellows with whom I can see eye to eye.

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Thu, Feb 21, 2013
from Associated Press:
TransCanada: Pipeline would not affect climate
In a shift in strategy, the company that wants to build an oil pipeline from western Canada to Texas said Tuesday that the project will have no measurable effect on global warming. Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada's president for energy and oil pipelines, said opponents of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline have grossly inflated its likely impact on emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. ...


So it was just a nightmare, after all!

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Tue, Feb 5, 2013
from Arizona Daily Star:
AZ bill would let teachers dismiss global warming
PHOENIX - Saying students are getting only one side of the debate, a state senator wants to free teachers to tell students why some believe there is no such thing as human-caused "global warming." More specifically, SB 1213 says school boards and officials cannot prohibit a teacher from helping students analyze and review the "strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories," which means teachers would be free to tell students not only that they believe global warming is a myth, but would open the door for teachers to argue for the scientific validity of "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution. ...


Welcome to the state of Airhead-azona.

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Tue, Feb 5, 2013
from University of British Columbia:
Blowing Hot and Cold: U.S. Belief in Climate Change Shifts With Weather
A University of British Columbia study of American attitudes toward climate change finds that local weather -- temperature, in particular -- is a major influence on public and media opinions on the reality of global warming. The study, published February 5 by the journal Climatic Change, finds a strong connection between U.S. weather trends and public and media attitudes towards climate science over the past 20 years -- with skepticism about global warming increasing during cold snaps and concern about climate change growing during hot spells. ...


Americans. So bloody literal.

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Sat, Feb 2, 2013
from Indiana Living Green:
Study: Mainstream media coverage of environment pretty much sucks
On Jan. 31, the non-profit organization Project for Improved Environmental Coverage released a report detailing how the media is handling coverage of the issues affecting the environment. Their goal centered on establishing where environmental coverage ranks among news headlines both nationally and locally, along with how concerned the American population is with such coverage and how it can be improved. Headed by Tyson Miller and Todd Pollak, PIEC's data was gathered by the Pew Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism over a 17-month period spanning from early 2011 to 2012. The study found that only 1.2 percent of news headlines in the United States was represented by environmental coverage. ...


Here, at the ApocaDocs Project, it's always 100 percent!

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Tue, Jan 22, 2013
from CNN:
TRENDING: CNN Poll: Do Americans agree with Obama on climate change and immigration?
...According to the poll, which was conducted last week, 49 percent agree with the White House that global warming is a proven fact and is due to emissions from cars, power plants and factories. That's twice as high as the number who say that global warming has not been proven, as well as the 24 percent who say that it is a proven fact but is not due to manmade sources. But the 49 percent figure is down seven points from 2007. There's an expected partisan divide on the question, with two-thirds of Democrats saying global warming is man made. That number drops to 48 percent among independent voters and is at 28 percent among Republicans. ...


The American Dream means you have the right to living in a fantasy world.

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Tue, Jan 15, 2013
from London Guardian:
Climate change inaction the fault of environmental groups, report says
A Harvard academic has put the blame squarely for America's failure to act on climate change on environmental groups. She also argues that there is little prospect Barack Obama will put climate change on the top of his agenda in his second term. In a research paper, due to be presented at a Harvard forum next month, scholar Theda Skocpol in effect accuses the DC-based environmental groups of political malpractice, saying they were blind to extreme Republican opposition to their efforts.... That fatal misreading of the political realities - namely, the extreme polarisation of Congress and the Tea Party's growing influence among elected officials - doomed the effort to get a climate law through Congress. It will also make it more difficult to achieve climate action in the future, she added. ...


You mean just being right isn't enough?

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Wed, Jan 9, 2013
from Science:
New Head of NIH Appropriations Panel Known for Conservative Views and Support for Research Spending
Representative Jack Kingston (R-GA), the incoming chair of the U.S. House of Representatives panel that controls the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has a long-standing reputation as a conservative budget hawk intent on reducing government spending. He's also known for being skeptical that humans are contributing to climate change and for rejecting Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. ...


Thank goodness the Tooth Fairy is funded by NIH!

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Tue, Jan 1, 2013
from London Guardian:
2012: the year we did our best to abandon the natural world
It was the year of living dangerously. In 2012 governments turned their backs on the living planet, demonstrating that no chronic problem, however grave, will take priority over an immediate concern, however trivial. I believe there has been no worse year for the natural world in the past half-century. Three weeks before the minimum occurred, the melting of the Arctic's sea ice broke the previous record. Remnants of the global megafauna -- such as rhinos and bluefin tuna -- were shoved violently towards extinction. Novel tree diseases raged across continents. Bird and insect numbers continued to plummet, coral reefs retreated, marine life dwindled. And those charged with protecting us and the world in which we live pretended that none of it was happening. ...


Who'd want to be in charge of this ecotastrophe?

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Mon, Dec 31, 2012
from DeSmog Blog:
Why Climate Deniers Have No Scientific Credibility - In One Pie Chart
Polls show that many members of the public believe that scientists substantially disagree about human-caused global warming. The gold standard of science is the peer-reviewed literature. If there is disagreement among scientists, based not on opinion but on hard evidence, it will be found in the peer-reviewed literature. I searched the Web of Science for peer-reviewed scientific articles published between 1 January 1991 and 9 November 2012 that have the keyword phrases "global warming" or "global climate change." The search produced 13,950 articles.... By my definition, 24 of the 13,950 articles, 0.17 percent or 1 in 581, clearly reject global warming or endorse a cause other than CO2 emissions for observed warming. ...


There are probably more than 24 articles disputing gravity.

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Mon, Dec 31, 2012
from The Morning Call:
EPA successor faces fracking fight
Lisa Jackson's exit as head of the Environmental Protection Agency leaves her successor to combat global warming and set rules for hydraulic fracturing over the objections of businesses and Republican lawmakers... Jackson used a combination of technical expertise and political charm to try to ease complaints from Republicans, such as Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe. "Lisa Jackson and I disagreed on many issues and regulations while she headed the EPA; however, I have always appreciated her receptivity to my concerns, her accessibility and her honesty," Inhofe said in a statement Thursday. "She was one of the few at the EPA that was honest with me." ...


So she's the one who told Inhofe global warming is a hoax!

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Thu, Dec 27, 2012
from New York Times:
EPA Chief to Step Down, With Climate Still Low Priority
Lisa P. Jackson is stepping down as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency after a four-year tenure that began with high hopes of sweeping action to address climate change and other environmental ills but ended with a series of rear-guard actions to defend the agency against challenges from industry, Republicans in Congress and, at times, the Obama White House... She informed the E.P.A. staff of her decision on Thursday morning and issued a brief statement saying that she was confident "the ship is sailing in the right direction." ...


I would counter the ship is sinking!

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Tue, Dec 11, 2012
from University of California - Berkeley:
Conservatives Can Be Persuaded to Care More About Environmental Issues When Couched in Terms of Fending Off Threats to 'Purity'
When it comes to climate change, deforestation and toxic waste, the assumption has been that conservative views on these topics are intractable. But new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that such viewpoints can be changed after all, when the messages about the need to be better stewards of the land are couched in terms of fending off threats to the "purity" and "sanctity" of Earth and our bodies. ...


So much for my "Depraved Whores for Sustainable Energy" meet up group.

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Thu, Nov 29, 2012
from NUVO:
"We've super-sized our weather"
...Every day, we get better at connecting the dots of climate change and extreme weather. As NASA's James Hansen said in August: "The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year can each be attributed to climate change." The 2012 drought that hit Indiana will very likely be connected to climate change as well, but scientists, who are conservative by nature, are still totaling up their data. Who better than your local, trusted weathercaster to walk you through how climate change influences weather? ...


We are fair weather fans, by nature.

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Tue, Nov 13, 2012
from High Country News:
A Western obstructionist gets obstructed
James Inhofe, a 77-year-old senator from Oklahoma, a grown man with no history of mental illness, claims to have uncovered divine logic that refutes the science of global warming. He has sanguinely decoded the rubric among verses in the first book of the world's most famous text -- the Bible... Since Democrats control the upper chamber, California Senator Barbara Boxer from California will retain her chairmanship of the committee. She'll steer legislation dealing with climate change, EPA regulations and a number of large water infrastructure projects coming down the pipe. Inhofe's minority lead role in the committee is term-limited by the Republican caucus, so he will pass the torch as ranking member to David Vitter (R-La.), a more moderate climate skeptic. (If such a thing exists.) ...


Inhofe is an Inhoax.

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Tue, Nov 13, 2012
from Omaha World-Herald:
Global warming views hinge on gender
Aside from people's political leanings, there's a dominant trait that helps define Nebraskans' views on global warming: their gender... While 63 percent of women believe that reports on the seriousness of global warming are correct or underestimated, just 45 percent of men feel the same way. By contrast, 51 percent of male survey respondents think those reports are exaggerated, compared with 31 percent of females. ...


Men can be soooo dim.

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Mon, Nov 5, 2012
from Postmedia News:
Federal scientists muzzled on oilsands
Environment Canada scientists have confirmed results published by researchers from the University of Alberta showing contaminants accumulating in the snow near oilsands operations, an internal federal document has revealed. Testing by the Environment Canada scientists also found contaminants in precipitation in the region. But the federal researchers were discouraged from speaking to reporters about their findings, presented at a November 2011 conference in Boston of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, says the document, released to Postmedia News through access to information. ...


Science bites.

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Tue, Oct 23, 2012
from London Guardian:
US presidential debates' great unmentionable: climate change
The Pentagon ranks it as a national security threat and, left unchecked, climate change is expected to cost the US economy billions of dollars every year -- and yet it has proved the great unmentionable of this election campaign. Amid unprecedented melting of the Arctic summer sea ice, new temperature records in the US and a historic drought, the last of three presidential debates wound up on Monday night without Barack Obama or Mitt Romney ever uttering the words climate change. ...


They didn't say toilet paper either.

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Mon, Oct 22, 2012
from Salon.com:
No debate on climate change
"Climate change" -- the words that dare not be spoken when candidates for the presidency of the richest and most powerful nation in the world meet in the storm and clamor of a debate. That's been true for the first two meetings between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and it will most likely continue to be the same sad story again in Monday night's foreign policy-focused debate. But it shouldn't be. The latest reason why comes from Europe, in the form of a 274-page report on the cost and frequency of extreme weather events in North America, courtesy of the giant resinsurance company Munich Re. The short version: Across the entire globe, North America is experiencing the most marked increase in both the number of extreme events and their price tag. ...


Now I'm reterrified!

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Mon, Oct 22, 2012
from The Daily Climate:
Fake 'addendum' by conservative group tries to undo federal climate report
A new "addendum" to be released as soon as this week purports to update with the latest science a 2009 federal assessment on the impacts to the United States of climate change. The addendum matches the layout and design of the original, published by the U.S. Global Change Research Program: Cover art, "key message" sections, table of contents are all virtually identical, down to the chapter heads, fonts and footnotes. But the new report comes from the conservative Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute. And its findings -- that science is questionable, the impacts negligible and the potential policy solutions ineffective -- are more a rebuke than a revision of the original report and of accepted science both then and today. ...


Cato puts the "dum" in addendum.

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Mon, Oct 22, 2012
from Associated Press:
'War On Coal' Label Obscures Reality During Presidential Campaign
...Blame the president, the script goes. Blame the Environmental Protection Agency. And now that it's election season, blame all incumbent politicians -- even those who have spent their careers in a delicate dance, trying to make mines safer while allowing their operators to prosper. The war on coal is a sound bite and a headline, perpetuated by pundits, power companies and public relations consultants who have crafted a neat label for a complex set of realities, one that compels people to choose sides... In reality, U.S. Department of Labor figures show the number of coal jobs nationwide has grown steadily since 2008, with consistent gains in West Virginia and Virginia, and ups and down in Kentucky. ...


Who needs reality when making shit up is sooooo much more fun!

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Mon, Oct 15, 2012
from TakePart:
Climate Change Whiplash: 71 percent of Americans Now Link Extreme Weather to Global Warming
It appears that this summer's record-breaking heatwave has lit a fire under our collective climate change views. "Nearly three-quarters of Americans say global warming influences U.S. weather and made this year's record-hot summer worse,” Reuters reported this morning. In a new survey conducted by Yale and George Mason universities, results showed 74 percent of Americans believe that global warming is affecting weather, which is five percentage points higher than it was as recently as March 2012... Other surveys have in fact observed a bit of a see-sawing in American's opinion on the subject of climate change. In a July report, Business Week said, "Following a winter of record snowfall in 2010, the public's acceptance of climate change fell to a low of 52 percent, according to the National Survey of American Public Opinion on Climate Change, which was published by the Brookings Institution in Washington. After this year's mild winter, support jumped to 65 percent, the same as that found by the UT Energy Poll in March.” ...


If only the extreme weather chaos would continue we'd be saved!

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Mon, Oct 8, 2012
from Climate Progress:
American Newspapers Give Far More Coverage To Climate Deniers And Skeptics Than Other Countries
America is unique when it comes to giving a platform to climate deniers and skeptics. According to a new analysis of data released last year, American newspapers are far more likely to publish uncontested claims from climate deniers, many of whom challenge whether the planet is warming at all and are "almost exclusively found” in the U.S. media. The study was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters... the U.S. emerged as a unique leader in promoting climate denial in the press. ...


Land of the free and the home of the misinformed.

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Mon, Oct 8, 2012
from E&E Publishing:
Most farmers see climate change but can't see humans causing it
... A new crop of opinion polls suggests many U.S. farmers believe the climate is changing, but few lay the blame on man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Fewer still favor policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions. And many are turned off by even the mention of "climate change," which they consider a highly politicized phrase. A February survey of 4,778 farmers across the nation's Corn Belt found that while roughly two-thirds believe the climate is changing, just 8 percent believe human activities are the primary cause... Perhaps unsurprisingly, polls also show few growers are willing to accept measures designed to combat climate change. ...


Apocalypse Cow

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Mon, Oct 1, 2012
from Bloomberg News:
Global Warming Links Democrats, Independents Isolating Romney
Democrats and independent voters overwhelmingly accept the scientific evidence that human activity is warming the earth's temperature, while almost two out of three Republicans don't. Among likely voters, 78 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of independents believe humans are warming the earth, according to a Bloomberg National Poll. That finding is consistent with other polls that show undecided voters, and majorities in contested states such as Ohio and Virginia are in line with President Barack Obama and most Democratic candidates in wanting to address the issue. ...


Hey, 2/3s Republicans. Get with the science or go find your own planet to ruin!

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Mon, Oct 1, 2012
from The Earth Institute at Columbia University :
High-Arctic Heat Tops 1,800-Year High, Says Study; Modern Spike Outmatches Naturally Driven 'Medieval Warm Period'
Summers on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard are now warmer than at any other time in the last 1,800 years, including during medieval times when parts of the northern hemisphere were as hot as, or hotter, than today, according to a new study in the journal Geology... The naturally driven Medieval Warm Period, from about 950 to 1250, has been a favorite time for people who deny evidence that humans are heating the planet with industrial greenhouse gases. But the climate reconstruction from Svalbard casts new doubt on that era's reach, and undercuts skeptics who argue that current warming is also natural. ...


I am svo svad about this.

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Wed, Sep 26, 2012
from Live Science:
Fox News Climate Coverage 93 percent Wrong, Report Finds
Primetime coverage of global warming at Fox News is overwhelmingly misleading, according to a new report that finds the same is true of climate change information in the Wall Street Journal op-ed pages. Both outlets are owned by Rupert Murdoch's media company News Corporation. The analysis by the science-policy nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) finds that 93 percent of primetime program discussions of global warming on Fox News are inaccurate, as are 81 percent of Wall Street Journal editorials on the subject. "It's like they were writing and talking about some sort of bizarre world where climate change isn't happening," study author Aaron Huertas, a press secretary at UCS, told LiveScience. ...


Murdoch. Nothing but a hack.

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Tue, Sep 25, 2012
from The Hill:
Poll: Swing voters want more from Obama, Congress on climate
Most undecided voters want more action from President Obama and Congress to fight global warming, and a substantial percentage say the topic will influence their ballot for president, a new poll shows. The joint Yale University/George Mason University (GMU) survey found that undecided voters' beliefs about the existence and causes of global warming are far closer to President Obama's likely voters than GOP rival Mitt Romney's. Sixty-four percent of undecided voters believe Obama should be doing more to address climate change, and 72 percent say Congress should be doing more. ...


At least they have decided something.

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Thu, Sep 20, 2012
from Think Progress:
Republican Meterologist To Romney: Top 10 Reasons The GOP Needs To Accept The Climate Reality
...As a Republican business owner, entrepreneur, meteorologist and father of two upbeat, optimistic boys, I may not fit the stereotype of a "global warming alarmist.” I'm an Evangelical Christian. I'm enthusiastic about streamlining government and letting the markets work. But unlike some, I see no inherent struggle between my faith and the ability of science to improve our understanding of the world. The Creator gave me a brain, to think and reason, and react to facts on the ground. And I'm disillusioned, because some in my party are pro-science-denial, and on the wrong side of history ... Will the GOP rise to the occasion, or bet the farm on carbon, and ask our grandkids to deal with the mess? It's time for bold leadership. Climate change is a threat, but it is also an opportunity to transition to a cleaner, greener, more sustainable economy. American Exceptionalism shouldn't stop when it comes to innovating new energy sources. We have the technology and entrepreneurial DNA to mitigate climate change, foster innovative, job-producing clean energy technologies, and reinvent America's economy. Let's put it to work, Governor Romney. As one prominent supporter said at the convention: "Go ahead, make my day!” ...


Didn't Clean Harry say that?

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Tue, Sep 11, 2012
from InsideClimate News:
America Is Only Nation Where Climate Scientists Face Organized Harassment
The harassment faced by U.S.-based climate scientists has been well documented in the media--but not the harassment of scientists in Europe, Canada or the rest of the world. That's because there hasn't been much to report. While outspoken scientists of human-caused climate change in the United States endure torrents of freedom of information requests, hate mail and even death threats from skeptics, their counterparts abroad have been free to do their work without fear. ...


America: home of the free, the brave, and the idiotic.

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Wed, Sep 5, 2012
from Melbourne Age:
Cold on warming
PRINCESS Diana's death was not an accident. The Apollo moon landings never happened. HIV does not cause AIDS, and smoking does not cause lung cancer. Then there is the elaborate hoax by corrupt climate scientists who claim humans are causing the Earth to become warmer. Strange as they seem, these are the views held by people who see a conspiracy wherever they look. Yet, despite the enormous media attention climate "deniers" attract in Australia and elsewhere, their numbers are tiny... "It is important to understand the role of perceived consensus among scientists because it highlights how damaging the media's handling of climate issues can be when they create the appearance of a scientific debate where there is none," Professor Lewandowsky says. "More than 90 in 100 climate researchers agree on the basic fact that the globe is warming due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions." ...


The Socialist Obama is really a star child from the planet Nibiru.

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Tue, Aug 28, 2012
from The Hill:
Obama aide hints climate will stay in campaign background
A spokesman for President Obama's reelection campaign suggested Thursday that climate change is unlikely to take center stage in the 2012 White House battle, noting that Obama's contrast with GOP rival Mitt Romney is already apparent. "Clearly [climate change] is something that is important to the administration, but right now we are obviously going to be focusing on jobs and the economy and talking about what our contrast is," said Tom Reynolds. Climate change has played little role in the Obama-Romney match-up, disappointing advocates including Al Gore. ...


I don't see any reason why the most important election ever should address the most important issue ever.

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Wed, Aug 22, 2012
from Guardian:
US court overturns coal pollution ruling
A US appeals court overturned a key Obama administration rule to reduce harmful emissions from coal-fired power plants on Tuesday. The Columbia district circuit appeals court said in a 2-1 decision that the Environmental Protection Agency had exceeded its mandate with the rule, which was to limit sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants in 28 mostly eastern states and Texas.... The decision was cheered by Republicans who have made the EPA and President Barack Obama's environmental policies a major campaign issue ahead of November elections. The agency is risking a fragile economic recovery by saddling US industries with costly new rules, Republicans say. "The Obama-EPA continues to demonstrate that it will stop at nothing in its determination to kill coal," said Republican senator James Inhofe, one of the most vocal EPA opponents in the US Senate. ...


Mandate exceeded. Do not pass "Go." Do not collect environmental protection.

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Mon, Aug 13, 2012
from Winston-Salem Journal:
Editorial: Sea-level rise must be taken seriously
Plan for the worst; hope for the best. That's the best strategy to follow with regard to global warming, rising sea levels and development along the North Carolina coast. But our General Assembly and Gov. Bev Perdue are using a totally irresponsible approach in planning for the best and hoping that the worst doesn't happen any time soon. Legislators drew international scorn earlier this year when they considered setting the official estimate of sea-level rise for the next 88 years at 8 inches, a hugely irresponsible projection considering that legitimate scientific projections go as high as 5 feet. ...


They are unwilling to face the shorror of climate change.

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Tue, Jul 31, 2012
from Indiana Living Green:
Kicked out of the tribe: An interview with Chris Mooney
Excerpt from the interview: MOONEY: ... People who deny global warming, deep down, are engaged in us vs. them thinking and they think the environmental movement is really a socialist movement and wants to wreck economies. ILG: How is common ground possible when people are thinking in this way? MOONEY: You know, I really wish that conservatives would let liberals back into the tribe with them. Environmentalists are not allowed. It doesn't make sense to have things that way when both are living in the same country. Everybody gets their own information now; everybody has their own media. We're divided into teams and the other team is the bad guy. American politics is not integrally complex, it's very binary and the media is very binary. ...


I would never want to belong to any tribe that would have someone like me for a member.

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Tue, Jul 31, 2012
from ClimateWire:
1988 vs 2012: How heat waves and droughts fuel climate perception
Coming on the heels of decades of research, the 1988 North American drought bridged the gap between scientific and popular understanding, pulling climate change down out of the atmosphere and planting it firmly in the minds of the U.S. public. From that union came the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the modern climate movement and its counterpart, the climate skeptic movement. More than two decades later, the drought of 2012 has reignited national interest in global warming. National news coverage is up, and a recent poll found that recognition of climate change rose 5 percent on the back of the July heat wave. Yet the debate today is framed within fundamentally different parameters, polarized by party lines and upstaged at every turn by the woes of a flagging global economy. For a significant portion of Americans' belief in climate change seems inextricably linked to the weather, rising with the temperature only to fade again as the seasons turn. ...


Americans are fair weather fans.

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Mon, Jul 30, 2012
from New York Times:
The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic
CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I'm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause. ...


Just in time to be too late!

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Mon, Jul 23, 2012
from The Hill:
GOP ex-lawmaker: Facts will "overwhelm" GOP opposition to climate change
Former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), who is trying to build support for a carbon tax, said the facts on global warming will "overwhelm" GOP resistance to climate change action and alter the party's stance. "What we have been doing so far is sort of shrinking in science denial and holding onto shaky ideology that really will be overwhelmed by the facts," the former GOP lawmaker said in an interview broadcast Sunday. "You can hold back the facts only for so long and eventually they overwhelm you," Inglis said on Platts Energy Week TV. "I think that is happening on climate change. The science is pretty clear." ...


Great! Just in time to be too late!

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Tue, Jul 17, 2012
from The Daily Climate:
Generation X on climate change: Meh
Generation X may not be the stereotypical slackers of those '90s cult classic movies, but here's one issue they have trouble caring about: climate change. The generation that was once poked fun at in pop culture for being underachieving slackers has grown into an educated, wired and scientifically literate generation. But record-breaking heat waves, epic droughts and killer tornadoes haven't sounded the climate change alarm for these adults, aged 32 to 52, according to a University of Michigan report released on Tuesday. With careers, families and kids, Gen X just has bigger concerns, the long-term survey found. They are only slightly more interested in climate change than their parents' generation -- even though more than half of those surveyed believed climate change is a real problem, the study found. ...


Dude, where's my SUV?

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Wed, Jul 4, 2012
from Reuters:
North Carolina lawmakers reject sea level rise predictions
Lawmakers in North Carolina, which has a long Atlantic Ocean coastline and vast areas of low-lying land, voted on Tuesday to ignore studies predicting a rapid rise in sea level due to climate change and postpone planning for the consequences. Opponents of the measure said it was a case of legislators "putting our heads in the sand" to avoid acknowledging the possible effects of global warming. Backed by real estate developers, the Republican-led General Assembly passed a law requiring that projected rates of sea level rise be calculated on historical trends and not include accelerated rates of increase. ...


When I ignore my problems they always go away!

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Tue, Jul 3, 2012
from Washington Post:
Global warming no longer Americans' top environmental concern, poll finds
Climate change no longer ranks first on the list of what Americans see as the world's biggest environmental problem, according to a new Washington Post-Stanford University poll. Just 18 percent of those polled name it as their top environmental concern. That compares with 33 percent who said so in 2007, amid publicity about a major U.N. climate report and Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary about global warming. Today, 29 percent identify water and air pollution as the world's most pressing environmental issue. ...


My top environmental concern is the EPA wants to shut down NASCAR!

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Tue, Jun 5, 2012
from Bloomberg News:
Romney against tax breaks for wind energy
Mitt Romney's opposition to tax breaks for wind farms puts him at odds with conservative support for renewable energy in states such as Iowa and Texas that have built the largest wind industries with taxpayer help. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee favors more oil drilling and fewer clean-air regulations and has voiced opposition to government backing for wind and solar projects. Romney hasn't taken a position on renewing a federal tax credit for wind power that's set to expire Dec. 31, though he's ridiculed government subsidies for turbines. ...


Might mess up his hair.

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Mon, May 28, 2012
from USA Today:
Culture splits climate views, not science smarts
Support for climate science doesn't increase with science literacy, a survey suggests. Rather, people with technical backgrounds just dig in harder on their views about global warming, finds the study in the Nature Climate Change journal. Overall, technically astute people are more "culturally polarized" than other folks and tend to side with the views of people in their social setting about global warming, concludes the survey of 1,540 people nationwide.... Fitting in with your friends matters a lot more to people than getting climate science right... ...


With friends like these... who needs facts?

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Tue, May 22, 2012
from London Guardian:
Peter Gleick cleared of forging documents in Heartland expose
A review has cleared the scientist Peter Gleick of forging any documents in his expose of the rightwing Heartland Institute's strategy and finances, the Guardian has learned. Gleick's sting on Heartland brought unwelcome scrutiny to the organisation's efforts to block action on climate change, and prompted a walk-out of corporate donors that has created uncertainty about its financial future. Gleick, founder of the Pacific Institute and a well-regarded water expert, admitted and apologised for using deception to obtain internal Heartland documents last February. ...


Peter bagged the wolf, after all!

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Mon, May 21, 2012
from London Guardian:
Heartland Institute facing uncertain future as staff depart and cash dries up
...as the latest Heartland climate conference opens in a Chicago hotel on Monday, the thinktank's claims to reasoned debate lie in shreds and its financial future remains uncertain.... Its entire Washington DC office, barring one staffer, decamped, taking Heartland's biggest project, involving the insurance industry, with them. Board directors quit, conference speakers cancelled at short-notice, and associates of long standing demanded Heartland remove their names from its website... [president Joseph] Bast defended the ads, writing: "Our billboard was factual: the Unabomber was motivated by concern over man-made global warming to do the terrible crimes he committed." He went on to describe climate scientist Michael Mann and activist Bill McKibben as "madmen". ...


Mann? McKibben? Count me among the madmen!

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Tue, May 15, 2012
from London Guardian:
Heartland Institute grows isolated as three more donors disassociate
Heartland Institute was cut off by three more corporate donors on Monday, further isolating the ultra-conservative thinktank from the mainstream business world. The defections reinforce the sense of Heartland's isolation, ahead of its major climate contrarian conference in Chicago next week. A number of prominent speakers also pulled out of the conference after Heartland put up a billboard on a Chicago expressway suggesting believers in climate change were akin to serial killers. In statements to advocacy groups, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, BB&T bank and PepsiCo confirmed they would not fund Heartland in 2012 -- dealing a blow to the thinktank's plans of building long-term relationships with major corporations. ...


Bye-bye brainless thinktank.

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Wed, May 9, 2012
from London Guardian:
Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama's clean energy strategy
A network of ultra-conservative groups is ramping up an offensive on multiple fronts to turn the American public against wind farms and Barack Obama's energy agenda. A number of rightwing organisations, including Americans for Prosperity, which is funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, are attacking Obama for his support for solar and wind power. The American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which also has financial links to the Kochs, has drafted bills to overturn state laws promoting wind energy. Now a confidential strategy memo seen by the Guardian advises using "subversion" to build a national movement of wind farm protesters. ...


These thinktanks are sure full of gas.

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Tue, May 8, 2012
from USA Today:
Public support slips for steps to curb climate change
From gas-mileage standards to tax breaks for windmills, public support for "green" energy measures to tackle global warming has dropped significantly in the past two years, particularly among Republicans, a new poll suggests.... Overall, support for various steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions has dropped an average of 10 percentage points since 2010, from 72 percent to 62 percent, lead researcher Jon Krosnick says. "Most Americans (62 percent) still support industry taking steps aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions," Krosnick says, "but they hate the idea of consumer taxes to do it."...Krosnick suggests that distrust of environmental scientists among Republican voters, expressed by about 41 percent of them in the poll, may explain much of the drop. ...


Distrust in science is a greenhouse gas.

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Fri, May 4, 2012
from London Guardian:
Heartland Institute compares belief in global warming to mass murder
...The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based rightwing thinktank notorious for promoting climate scepticism, has launched quite possibly one of the most ill-judged poster campaigns in the history of ill-judged poster campaigns. I'll let its own press release for its upcoming conference explain, as there's simply no need to finesse it further:... Still believing in man-made global warming -- after all the scientific discoveries and revelations that point against this theory -- is more than a little nutty. In fact, some really crazy people use it to justify immoral and frightening behavior.... The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen. ...


Heartland should change their name to Hateland.

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Wed, May 2, 2012
from New York Times:
Clouds' Effect on Climate Change Is Last Bastion for Dissenters
...polls say 97 percent of working climate scientists now see global warming as a serious risk. Yet in recent years, the climate change skeptics have seized on one last argument that cannot be so readily dismissed. Their theory is that clouds will save us. They acknowledge that the human release of greenhouse gases will cause the planet to warm. But they assert that clouds -- which can either warm or cool the earth, depending on the type and location -- will shift in such a way as to counter much of the expected temperature rise and preserve the equable climate on which civilization depends. ...


I've always said climate skeptics have their heads in the clouds.

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Mon, Apr 30, 2012
from Washington Post:
EPA official resigns after enforcement philosophy causes furor
A top Environmental Protection Agency official resigned Monday after comments that the agency should make examples of polluters the way Romans crucified people to quash rebellions caused a furor. In an internal memo to EPA employees, Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said Alfredo Juan "Al” Armendariz had "offered his resignation” as regional administrator for the agency's South Central region... Congressional Republicans had demanded that Armendariz be fired after Oklahoma Republican Sen. James M. Inhofe's staff discovered a YouTube video of the official's comments in Dish, Texas, and posted a clip on the senator's Web site. ...


My God, why have you forsaken me?

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Tue, Apr 3, 2012
from Neorenaissance:
A Message from a Republican Meteorologist on Climate Change
I'm going to tell you something that my Republican friends are loath to admit out loud: climate change is real. I am a moderate Republican, fiscally conservative; a fan of small government, accountability, self-empowerment, and sound science. I am not a climate scientist. I'm a meteorologist, and the weather maps I'm staring at are making me uncomfortable. No, you're not imagining it: we've clicked into a new and almost foreign weather pattern. To complicate matters, I'm in a small, frustrated and endangered minority: a Republican deeply concerned about the environmental sacrifices some are asking us to make to keep our economy powered-up, long-term. It's ironic. The root of the word conservative is "conserve." A staunch Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, set aside vast swaths of America for our National Parks System, the envy of the world. Another Republican, Richard Nixon, launched the EPA. Now some in my party believe the EPA and all those silly "global warming alarmists" are going to get in the way of drilling and mining our way to prosperity. Well, we have good reason to be alarmed. ...


You know you're in big trouble when the Republican meteorologist is uncomfortable!

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Mon, Apr 2, 2012
from The Daily Climate:
Military sees threats, worry in climate change
...Making the SEALs into a leaner, greener tactical force is one of many such steps being taken by all branches as the U.S. military reduces its environmental footprint. The Army is targeting net-zero energy use at several bases, and the Navy and Air Force are experimenting with running jets on biofuels that use wood waste and algae and less petroleum. In Afghanistan, patrols now carry eco-friendly solar blankets and LED lamps. Connecting the military's fossil-fuel and overall energy use with risks to our national security hasn't been easy in this political environment, especially with the presidential election looming. Congressional Republicans have repeatedly questioned and criticized the Armed Forces' new-energy strategies, portraying initiatives as political favors to clean-energy businesses. But current and retired military leaders insist the policies are essential. The efforts protect soldiers and help them carry out missions. They also help curb climate change and its potential to intensify military conflicts. ...


I have an idea. Let's stop fighting other countries and start fighting Republicans.

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Fri, Mar 30, 2012
from Los Angeles Times:
Conservatives' trust in science has declined sharply
A study released Thursday in the American Sociological Review concludes that trust in science among conservatives and frequent churchgoers has declined precipitously since 1974, when a national survey first asked people how much confidence they had in the scientific community. At that time, conservatives had the highest level of trust in scientists. Confidence in scientists has declined the most among the most educated conservatives, the peer-reviewed research paper found, concluding: "These results are quite profound because they imply that conservative discontent with science was not attributable to the uneducated but to rising distrust among educated conservatives." ...


PhDumbasses

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Wed, Mar 14, 2012
from Postmedia News:
Feds discreet about foreign funding of climate skeptics
While it has aggressively slammed environmental groups for using foreign dollars to finance a small portion of their budgets, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is being tight-lipped about revelations that climate change skeptics in Canada are getting money from an American think-tank with corporate funding. Newly released documents have revealed three Canadians were part of a network of academics receiving monthly payments from the Chicago-based Heartland Institute as part of its advocacy work to cast doubt on scientific evidence linking human activity to global warming observed in recent decades. Two of the three Canadians mentioned in the internal records have confirmed they were getting paid by the Heartland Institute. ...


Heartland Institute... the Mephistopheles of think-tanks.

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Mon, Mar 12, 2012
from Washington Post:
As eco-terrorism wanes, governments still target activist groups seen as threat
Ben Kessler, a student at the University of North Texas and an environmental activist, was more than a little surprised that an FBI agent questioned his philosophy professor and acquaintances about his whereabouts and his sign-waving activities aimed at influencing local gas drilling rules. "It was scary,” said Kessler, who is a national organizer for the nonviolent environmental group Rising Tide North America. He said the agent approached him this past fall and said that the FBI had received an anonymous complaint and were looking into his opposition to hydraulic fracturing, also known as "fracking." The bureau respected free speech, the agent told him, but was "worried about things being taken to an extreme level." ...


Beware of extreme free speech!

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Mon, Mar 5, 2012
from Washington Post:
In climate wars, radicalization of researchers brings risks
...Some researchers are taking on a greater public-advocacy role to confront what many of them consider an existential crisis. But this strategy carries inherent risks, since scientists' influence stems from the public perception that their credibility is beyond reproach. That's why many in the scientific community recoiled when Peter Gleick, a respected hydrologist, admitted he had tricked the Heartland Institute , a free-market think tank that questions whether human activity contributes to global warming. ...


Given that public belief in climate change has decreased over the last decade, how's this working out?

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Wed, Feb 22, 2012
from InsideClimate News:
GOP Not Listening to Its Own Scientists on Climate Change
A number of prominent U.S. climate scientists who identify themselves as Republican say their attempts in recent years to educate the GOP leadership on the scientific evidence of man-made climate change have been futile. Now, many have given up trying and the few who continue notice very little change after speaking with politicians and their aides. ...


Dear Supreme Being: Is there nothing you can do?

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Tue, Feb 21, 2012
from New York Times:
Activist Says He Lied to Obtain Climate Papers
A prominent environmental researcher, activist and blogger from California admitted Monday night that he had deceitfully obtained and distributed confidential internal materials from the Heartland Institute, a libertarian group based in Chicago devoted in part to questioning the reality of global warming. Peter H. Gleick, founder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, wrote in a statement published on The Huffington Post that he had posed as someone else to get the materials, which include fund-raising and strategy documents intended only for the board and top executives of the group.... he wrote, "and in a serious lapse of my own professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else's name.” ...


The friggin' deniers never apologize so you shouldn't either!

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Mon, Feb 20, 2012
from Los Angeles Times:
Climate denial in the classroom
...if we're about to enter a battle over classroom instruction on climate change, it won't go on for decades, because the impacts of global warming are already patently obvious. Seven of the 10 warmest years since global record-keeping began in 1880 have occurred in the 21st century. Despite an intense campaign to discredit his work, Pennsylvania State University professor Michael Mann's "hockey stick" graph, which shows that temperatures in the latter half of the 20th century soared to their highest level in 1,000 years, has been validated repeatedly. Last year set a record for the most climate-related disasters in the United States costing more than $1 billion in damage each... ...


Take that, puckheads!

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Mon, Feb 20, 2012
from London Guardian/The Observer:
Attacks paid for by big business are 'driving science into a dark era'
Most scientists, on achieving high office, keep their public remarks to the bland and reassuring. Last week Nina Fedoroff, the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), broke ranks in a spectacular manner. She confessed that she was now "scared to death" by the anti-science movement that was spreading, uncontrolled, across the US and the rest of the western world. "We are sliding back into a dark era," she said. "And there seems little we can do about it. I am profoundly depressed at just how difficult it has become merely to get a realistic conversation started on issues such as climate change or genetically modified organisms." ...


Perhaps enlightenment is just around the corner!

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Wed, Feb 15, 2012
from Desmogblog:
DenialGate: Heartland Institute strategy, budget documents leaked
An anonymous donor calling him (or her)self "Heartland Insider" has released the Heartland Institute's budget, fundraising plan, its Climate Strategy for 2012 and sundry other documents (all attached) that prove all of the worst allegations that have been levelled against the organization. It is clear from the documents that Heartland advocates against responsible climate mitigation and then uses that advocacy to raise money from oil companies and "other corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies." Heartland particularly celebrates the funding that it receives from the fossil fuel fortune being the Charles G. Koch Foundation. Heartland also continues to collect money from Philip Morris parent company Altria as well as from the tobacco giant Reynolds American, while maintaining ongoing advocacy against policies related to smoking and health. ...


Maybe they'll see the light, and rename themselves Heaarthland Institute.

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Tue, Feb 7, 2012
from Colorado Independent:
Santorum and Gingrich dismiss climate change, vow to dismantle the EPA
A day before Colorado Republicans voice presidential preferences at the caucuses, Rick Santorum dismissed climate change as "a hoax" and advocated an energy plan heavy on fossil fuels. "We were put on this Earth as creatures of God to have dominion over the Earth, to use it wisely and steward it wisely, but for our benefit not for the Earth's benefit," Santorum told an audience at the Colorado School of Mines where he was a guest speaker Monday at the Colorado Energy Summit. "We are the intelligent beings that know how to manage things and through the course of science and discovery if we can be better stewards of this environment, then we should not let the vagaries of nature destroy what we have helped create," Santorum said to applause from the conservative crowd. ...


What a frothy mix of nonsense coming out of Santorum!

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Fri, Feb 3, 2012
from The Daily Climate:
Authors of Wall Street Journal climate piece downplay industry ties
Half of the 16 scientists who penned a controversial Wall Street Journal opinion piece proclaiming there is "no need to panic" about global warming have ties to either the oil and gas industry or groups dedicated to debunking climate science, a DailyClimate.org investigation has found. ...


Occupy this article.

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Tue, Jan 31, 2012
from Associated Press:
Natural resources chief wants mission statement change
The commissioner of the state's Department of Natural Resources wants to change the agency's mission statement, and the proposed changed is not sitting well with at least one lawmaker and conservation groups who are worried about a pro-development bent. The current statement says the department's mission is to "develop, conserve and enhance natural resources for present and future Alaskans," KSKA reported. The new statement removes "conserve" and "enhance," leaving only "develop" in the statement. It also removes the reference to "future Alaskans." ...


In the crazy world of doublespeak this level of honesty is downright admirable!

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Tue, Jan 17, 2012
from London Daily Telegraph:
Michael Mann vows to keep up the "street fight" against climate change deniers
The Director of Penn State Earth System Science Center said the so-called "climategate" scandal was meant to "intimidate" scientists. He said personal emails between himself and colleagues at the University of East Anglia were stolen in a "malicious and intentional" attempt to make scientists afraid to express their opinions. "What they are trying to do is to blur the distinction between private correspondence and scientific data and methods, which of course should be out there for other scientists to reproduce," he said.... "Scientists have to recognised they are in a street fight," he warned. ...


When you're a Jet / You're a Jet all the way / From your first cigarette/ To your last dyin' day.

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Fri, Jan 13, 2012
from US Chamber of Commerce:
The State of American Business 2012, Address by Thomas J. Donohue President & CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
As we begin 2012, we can say that the state of American business is improving -- but it is doing so weakly, slowly, and insufficiently to put our nation back to work.... Recent discoveries have confirmed that this nation is truly blessed with energy resources. We have 1.4 trillion barrels of oil, enough to last at least 200 years. We have 2.7 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to last 120 years. We have 486 billion tons of coal, enough to last more than 450 years -- and we need to use more of this strategic resource cleanly and wisely here at home while selling it around the world. To tap our energy resources, we must speed up permitting and end many of the restrictions that have put key areas off-limits. Instead of handpicking a few technologies, we must harness all our resources, traditional and alternative --while expanding nuclear power and driving greater efficiency. Our biggest and most reliable foreign energy supplier is Canada. The proposed Keystone XL pipeline would bring Canadian oil sands down to our Gulf Coast refineries and to other destinations along the way. ...


Welcome to the Mouth of the Beast.

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Thu, Jan 12, 2012
from Toronto Globe and Mail:
Canadian climate scientist finds fame, hate mail in U.S.
She once was a science-minded undergrad who spent her nights minding the telescopes on the top floors of the University of Toronto's McLennan building. Katharine Hayhoe is now a figure of some fame and controversy in the United States, for her sin is that she is an evangelical Christian who is also a climate scientist trying to convince skeptics that climate change is for real. Dr. Hayhoe made headlines after the Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich came under pressure and dropped plans to have her write an opening chapter on climate change for his upcoming book. ...


His upcoming book is entitled The Make-Believe World of Newt Gingrich.

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Tue, Jan 3, 2012
from The Daily Climate:
Climate coverage down again in 2011
Media coverage of climate change continued to tumble in 2011, declining roughly 20 percent from 2010's levels and nearly 42 percent from 2009's peak, according to analysis of DailyClimate.org's archive of global media. ...


What we don't know can't hurt us!

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Fri, Dec 30, 2011
from Jakarta Globe:
Science Taboo for Republicans Seeking White House
Many of the Republican candidates vying for their party's nod to take on President Barack Obama, dismiss science in favor of strong evangelical faith, playing to a hard-line conservative electorate. Only one of the White House contenders, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, has come out with force to proclaim a belief in man-made climate change, as he condemned his party's hostility to science.... In Iowa, where caucuses kick off the months-long nominating process on Tuesday, just 21 percent of Republican voters said they believe in global warming, and 35 percent in the theory of evolution, according to a Public Policy Polling survey. ...


Heaven help us.

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Wed, Dec 28, 2011
from Politico:
Are GOP pledges to nix agencies undoable?
Republican presidential candidates are promising to save taxpayers a buck by turning entire government agencies into dust. The familiar conservative rallying cry is met with almost universal skepticism from anyone who's seen the wreckage from past bungled attempts to ax big bureaucracies like the Education, Commerce and Energy departments. ...


As the anti-science party, perhaps the GOP should be turned to dust.

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Mon, Dec 19, 2011
from Washington Post:
Virginia residents oppose preparations for climate-related sea-level rise
...A well-organized and vocal group of residents has taken a keen interest in municipal preparations for sea-level rise caused by climate change, often shouting their opposition, sometimes while planners and politicians are talking. The residents' opposition has focused on a central point: They don't think climate change is accelerated by human activity, as most climate scientists conclude..."Environmentalists have always had an agenda to put nature above man," said Donna Holt, leader of the Virginia Campaign for Liberty, a tea party affiliate with 7,000 members. ...


Man comes first; nature second. Women are a distant third.

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Thu, Nov 24, 2011
from London Guardian:
Climate scientists defend work in wake of new leak of hacked emails
Climate scientists have mounted a robust defence of their work and debates over science after more than 5,000 personal emails were leaked onto the internet in an apparent attempt to undermine public support for international action to tackle climate change. More than 39,000 pages of emails to and from scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) were loaded onto a Russian server and a link to them posted on climate sceptic websites on Tuesday, almost exactly two years after a similar release of hacked or leaked emails in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009....Following the 2009 emails, the university set up an inquiry led by Sir Alastair Muir Russell, which concluded last year that the university had not been open enough in answering requests under the Freedom of Information Act, but backed the scientists' published work on climate change and said there was no evidence they were deliberately keeping information out of the IPCC reports or journals. ...


This time around, the deniers are pissing into the wind.

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Mon, Nov 21, 2011
from Washington Post:
Congress kills request for National Climate Service
At first look, the proposal is as dull, bureaucratic and routine as an agency request to Congress can be. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wanted to reshuffle its offices to establish a National Climate Service akin to the agency's National Weather Service. It asked for no new funding to do so. But in a political climate where talk of the earthly kind of climate can be radioactive, the answer in last week's budget deal was "no." Congress barred NOAA from launching what the agency bills as a "one-stop shop" for climate information. ...


Welcome to the New Dark Ages.

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Mon, Nov 14, 2011
from Guardian:
Is climate scepticism a largely Anglo-Saxon phenomenon?
During a trip to Italy earlier this year, I asked a local journalist whether climate sceptical views get much of an airing in the Italian media. My query was greeted with an air of slight bemusement, which was followed by a request for me to explain what I meant by the term "climate scepticism". Their facial reaction alone told me that this was something of an alien concept to them. It supported a hunch I have long believed to carry some substance: climate scepticism is a predominantly Anglo-Saxon phenomenon. Or, rather, it is a phenomenon that tends to get amplified to a much greater extent in the various English-language media outlets around the world - particularly, in the US, UK and Australia - than it does in other languages or countries. Until now, there has been very little beyond the anecdotal to support this theory. But the proposition is now on a firmer footing thanks to a new report published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, based at the University of Oxford, which firms up some related findings it published last year. ...


That just has to be wrong.

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Fri, Nov 4, 2011
from Media Matters for America:
Fox Scraping The Barrel For Attacks On UN Climate Panel
Citing what it calls "a scathing new expose on the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change," Fox News is trumpeting claims that IPCC reports "have often been written by graduate students with little or no experience in their field of study." Fox's article, titled "U.N. Hires Grad Students to Author Key Climate Report," comes as the IPCC prepares to issue a new report on weather extremes. Fox's "expose" is an e-book by Canadian writer Donna Laframboise, who recruited "a team of citizen auditors" to pore over IPCC reports from the past two decades. Drawing from the book, Fox identifies four IPCC authors since 1994 who were in, or had recently completed, grad school. Here are the facts Fox characteristically avoided: There were over 450 lead authors for the 2007 assessment report, plus 800 contributing authors and more than 2,500 reviewers. Fox identified only one graduate student who worked on the 2007 report. 1 out of over 1250 authors. ...


My sources tell me Fox News is really run by hens.

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Mon, Oct 31, 2011
from Associated Press:
Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real
A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly. The study of the world's surface temperatures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers. He pursued long-held skeptic theories in analyzing the data. He was spurred to action because of "Climategate," a British scandal involving hacked emails of scientists...One-quarter of the $600,000 to do the research came from the Charles Koch Foundation, whose founder is a major funder of skeptic groups and the tea party. ...


Better late than never... I guess.

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Thu, Oct 20, 2011
from BBC:
Global warming 'confirmed' by independent study
The Earth's surface really is getting warmer, a new analysis by a US scientific group set up in the wake of the "ClimateGate" affair has confirmed. The Berkeley Earth Project has used new methods and some new data, but finds the same warming trend seen by groups such as the UK Met Office and Nasa. The project received funds from sources that back organisations lobbying against action on climate change.... The Berkeley group found about 40,000 weather stations around the world whose output has been recorded and stored in digital form. It developed a new way of analysing the data to plot the global temperature trend over land since 1800. What came out was a graph remarkably similar to those produced by the world's three most important and established groups, whose work had been decried as unreliable and shoddy in climate sceptic circles. ...


This just proves that the warmists have corrupted everyone!

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Tue, Oct 11, 2011
from Los Angeles Times:
A GOP assault on environmental regulations
Republicans in the House are best known for their inflexible opposition to tax hikes and government spending, but that's nothing new for the GOP; what marks this group as different is that it is perhaps the most anti-environment Congress in history. So far, that hasn't had much impact because Republicans control only one house, and Democrats in the Senate have blocked their most extreme attempts to gut the Clean Air and Clean Water acts. But recent legislative moves in the House provide a preview of what's to come in 2013 if the balance of power shifts further in favor of a GOP that is more united than ever in opposition to environmental regulation. ...


Does Mother Earth get a vote?

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Thu, Sep 29, 2011
from The Independent:
World's leading climate sceptic sees his funding melt away fast
Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and bete noire of climate change activists around the world, has been told that the incoming Danish government will cut off his 1m a year funding. Mr Lomborg, whose 2001 book suggested the planet should adapt to global warming rather than wasting resources trying to prevent it, has made his name by accusing scientists and others of exaggerating the extent and effects of climate change.... "The reason he received funding in the first place was ideological," said Ms Auken, environment spokesman for SF, the junior partner in the incoming coalition. "We believe that it is wrong to give funding to specific ideological researchers."... The centre has received funding from private sources in the past, including the Carlsberg Group and the EU. However, the lion's share of its income comes from the Danish state. ...


Cue the conspiracy-theorist outrage.

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Wed, Sep 28, 2011
from Salon:
One Republican candidate's hellfire
George Bush Park burst into flames on Sept. 13, one month to the day after Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced his candidacy for president of the United States. In a summer of fierce wildfires across Texas, the George Bush Park blaze was the first big fire to erupt inside the city limits of a major metropolis -- in this case, Houston, the nation's fourth largest city and the headquarters of the oil and gas industry, a major contributor to the man-made global warming that Gov. Perry famously insists does not exist... Sizable though it was, the George Bush Park fire was a minor fire in the context of Texas 2011. Some 3.7 million acres of Texas have burned in the last 12 months, an area roughly equal to the state of Connecticut. Fires are still burning today, as the Texas Forest Service reports, yet Gov. Perry has offered little in the way of relief but the power of prayer and positive thinking. ...


Dear God: Please don't vote for Rick Perry.

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Thu, Sep 15, 2011
from Agence France-Press:
Nobel physicist quits US group over climate stance
Norwegian physicist and Nobel laureate Ivar Giaever has quit a major US physics society due to its stance on global warming, a spokeswoman for the group told AFP Thursday. "I can confirm he has resigned," American Physical Society spokeswoman Tawanda Johnson said, noting that Giaever, 82, sent a letter to that effect to the group's executive director Kate Kirby on Tuesday. "His reason is that he takes issue with APS's stance on climate change." The APS, which is a member organization of 48,000, adopted a national policy statement in 2007 which states: "The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring." ...


Old farts produce the most methane.

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Mon, Sep 12, 2011
from Mongabay, and others:
Northwest Passage open as sea ice falls to lowest cover ever recorded
Arctic sea ice cover fell to its lowest level on record, report researchers from the University of Bremen.... Heygster said this year's mark is "most probably" the lowest Arctic sea ice extent "since the last climate optimum about 8,000 years ago." He added that the record could be extended if sea ice continues to melt in coming weeks. Sea ice is no longer melting from the surface; instead if it melting from underneath due to warmer water below.... Melting of sea ice opened the Northwest Passage to navigation again this summer. The ice retreat has set off a scramble between Canada, Russia, the U.S., Denmark, Sweden and Norway which are all seeking to claim rights to the Arctic's rich mineral and gas deposits.... Predictions range widely, but many experts expect the Arctic to be free of sea ice entirely within a few decades. By almost all standards, however, sea ice is disappearing faster than expected, partly a consequence of a positive feedback loop triggered by retreating ice. ...


Some days, saying "I told you so" doesn't help. At all.

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Fri, Sep 9, 2011
from Associated Press:
UN chief calls for urgent action on climate change
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that urgent action was needed on climate change, pointing to the famine in the Horn of Africa and devastating floods in northern Australia as examples of the suffering caused by global warming. Ban lashed out at climate change skeptics during a speech at the University of Sydney, arguing that science has proven climate change is real..."Watching this high tide standing on the shore of Kiribati, I said, 'High tide shows it's high time to act,'" Ban said. "We are running out of time." ...


"High" this... "high" that... I just want to get high.

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Thu, Sep 1, 2011
from Associated Press:
Federal agency lifts Alaska scientist's suspension
An Alaska scientist whose observations of drowned polar bears spurred national publicity on climate warming returned to work Friday at the federal agency that oversees offshore petroleum drilling. Dr. Charles Monnett was suspended from his job at the Anchorage office of the Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Regulation and Enforcement after federal inspectors said he helped a polar bear researcher prepare a proposal even though he was the government official responsible for determining whether the proposal met minimum qualifications. He was away from his job for the last six weeks. But advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has claimed Monnett was targeted for his 2006 paper in a scientific journal on the drowned polar bears. ...


It would seem scientists are a threatened species as well.

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Thu, Aug 25, 2011
from Reuters:
Romney says he would not put limits on emissions
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, in danger of losing his 2012 Republican primary front-runner status, on Wednesday he would not place restrictions on carbon emissions if elected. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, also said he does not know if human activity is the primary cause of climate change and does not favor spending heavily on climate solutions.... "Do I think the world's getting hotter? Yeah, I don't know that but I think that it is," he said. "I don't know if it's mostly caused by humans." "What I'm not willing to do is spend trillions of dollars on something I don't know the answer to." ...


Crazy idea: get experts in the field to tell you the answer!

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Tue, Aug 23, 2011
from ABC News:
Jon Huntsman Comes Out Swinging Against GOP Rivals
Former Utah Governor and U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman came out swinging against his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, taking aim at Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann for statements made on the campaign trail about global warming, gas prices, and the Federal Reserve. Huntsman warned that his opponents' stances on the "extreme end" may make them "unelectable" in the general election.... "The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party -- the anti-science party, we have a huge problem," Huntsman told ABC News Senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper. "We lose a whole lot of people who would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012." "When we take a position that isn't willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said -- about what is causing climate change and man's contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position," Huntsman added. ...


A pro-science Republican? What's the world coming to?

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Sat, Aug 20, 2011
from Greenwire:
Presidential Candidate Perry Championed Pesticides, Torpedoed Regs as Texas Ag Chief
As the harvest season approached in 1995, Texas cotton farmers had a boll weevil problem... Then-Agriculture Commissioner Rick Perry had a solution. The Republican urged the cotton farmers to buy into a program to eradicate the pests using 250,000 gallons of the pesticide malathion. It didn't go as planned. Malathion may have gotten rid of the boll weevils, but it also killed beneficial insects that helped keep the crop free of cotton-eating beet armyworms that invaded. As a result, the valley yielded 54,000 bales of cotton -- a far cry from the projected 450,000 bales. According to some estimates, malathion cost cotton growers $140 million in crop losses and put them $9 million in debt to the eradication program. ...


Sounds like the perfect leader for the most profligate nation on earth!

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Thu, Aug 18, 2011
from Associated Press:
Perry says he doesn't believe in global warming
GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry told New Hampshire voters Wednesday that he does not believe in manmade global warming, calling it a scientific theory that has not been proven. "I think we're seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists that are coming forward and questioning the original idea that manmade global warming is what is causing the climate to change," the Texas governor said on the first stop of a two-day trip to the first-in-the-nation primary state. He said some want billions or trillions of taxpayer dollars spent to address the issue, but he added: "I don't think from my perspective that I want to be engaged in spending that much money on still a scientific theory that has not been proven and from my perspective is more and more being put into question." ...


How do we know for sure that Rick Perry exists?

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Tue, Aug 16, 2011
from Michael Stafford, on DailyWorld:
A conservative's conversion on climate change
I am a "climate change convert." Like many conservatives, I was traditionally skeptical of the science supporting anthropogenic global warming. Today, I am skeptical no longer. Like conservative blogger D.R. Tucker, on this issue, I was ultimately "defeated by facts."... In my own case, I finally reached a point where I could no longer in good conscience deny the implications of the cumulative weight of so large a corpus of evidence. That body of evidence is extensive, and growing. For example, in 2010 the National Academy of Sciences issued what its president, Ralph J. Cicerone, deemed "the most comprehensive report ever on climate change." The report echoes many of the same findings as the earlier 2007 IPCC report that played a key roll in Tucker's conversion but includes five additional years' worth of evidence and data. And in 2010, the Pentagon identified climate change as a threat to our nation's security in its Quadrennial Defense Review for the first time.... In the end, my own reading and research made the following conclusions inescapable: today, there is no debate in the scientific community about whether the Earth is warming -- it is. There is also a nearly unanimous consensus that human activity is responsible for this warming. Given the foregoing, addressing climate change today is an ethical and moral imperative. Failing to do so is a repudiation of our responsibilities both to each other, and most particularly, to future generations. It is a breach of faith, trust, and duty, of enormous magnitude. ...


That's... so... beautiful....

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Sun, Aug 7, 2011
from Grist:
The new normal: billion-dollar disasters
The National Climatic Data Center's (NCDC) latest "Billion Dollar U.S. Weather Disasters" report finds the U.S. has racked up more mega-expensive natural disasters in 2011 than ever before. So far we've suffered more than five times the huge disasters typical at this time of year. Already damage costs have reached nearly $32 billion. Compare that to the first half of the average year -- prior to the onset of "big" hurricane season -- between 1980 and 2010, where disaster costs typically run $6 billion.... All told, the U.S. has suffered 99 weather-related disasters over the past 31 years, where overall damages and economic costs reached or exceeded $1 billion. The normalized losses (that is, the numbers adjusted for the GNP inflation index) add up to more than $725 billion for those 99 disasters. ...


Ain't much compared to the shareholder value the coal and oil companies have provided to the economy.

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Wed, Aug 3, 2011
from Greenwire:
House Democrats Take Aim at GOP Environmental Voting Record
The Republican-led House has voted to "stop," "block" or "undermine" efforts to protect the environment 110 times since taking over the majority in January, two senior Democrats said last week. Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who sponsored a bill that passed the House in 2009 that would have established a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gas emissions, said the current House has done more to scuttle environmental protections than any in history. "The new Republican majority seems intent on restoring the robber-baron era where there were no controls on pollution from power plants, oil refineries and factories," said Waxman, who serves as top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee. Natural Resources ranking member Markey, meanwhile, said the Republican agenda was a rifle "pointed right at the heart of America's clean energy future." ...


Republicans are good people who just tend to prefer a crappy, deadly environment.

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Thu, Jul 28, 2011
from Conservation Magazine:
Cool White Dudes
"The more you think you know, the more you think you're right," goes an old saying. Now comes a study of sex, skin color and political ideology that suggests it pretty much sums up how some white male conservatives in the United States respond to climate change. "Even casual observers" of those who argue that climate change isn't a serious problem "likely notice an obvious pattern," Aaron M. McCright of Michigan State University in East Lansing and Riley E. Dunlap of Oklahoma State University in Stillwater write in Global Environmental Change: The most prominent denialists are conservative white males" -- from media pundit Rush Limbaugh to politicians like Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe. But the pair wondered: "Does a similar pattern exist in the American public?"... Overall, while 29.6 percent of conservative white males (CWMs) believed that the effects of global warming "will never happen," just 7.4 percent of all other adults shared that view. Similarly, 58.5 percent of CWMs -- but only 31.5 percent of all other adults -- denied that recent temperature increases are primarily caused by human activities. ...


And the crackers shall inherit (what's left of) the earth.

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Sat, Jul 16, 2011
from New York Times:
House Republicans Accuse EPA, Enviros of Collusion
Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) believes that U.S. EPA has worked out a nifty way to make an end run around both Congress and the federal regulatory process when it wants to implement a new rule that may be politically sensitive. All the agency has to do is get some green group to sue over some aspect of the desired rule, he said. Then EPA can roll over in the ensuing legal battle and head right to settlement proceedings, claiming it was "forced" by the court system and consent decrees to initiate the new rulemaking. It is a path devoid of both messy public comment periods and political accusations over whether EPA is moving unilaterally. And if that wasn't enough, the group that sues EPA can even get its legal expenses covered for its trouble, Whitfield said. ...


Those evildoers... Sounds like they're trying save the planet, dammit!

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Thu, Jul 14, 2011
from Huffington Post:
Global Warming: Nature Can't Save Us From Ourselves
The notion that nature itself will act as a check on the atmospheric excesses of humanity has long held a fair amount of appeal, not least because it draws on a nugget of high-school science that most people can quickly comprehend. Plants inhale carbon dioxide, after all -- they need it to grow. Add more CO2 to the air, as human civilization has been doing in copious amounts since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and the result will surely be thicker, more expansive biomass.... It's a conviction readily embraced by climate skeptics.... But scientists generally agree that the influence of increased biomass will be modest, essentially acting like a brake on a runaway freight train. It might be able to slow steadily rising temperatures, but it will hardly be enough to stop global warming in its tracks.... "To solve the carbon-climate problem, we need to transform our energy system into one that does not dump its waste into the sky," Caldeira said. "Land plants help. It looks like they won't help quite as much as we thought they would. Clearly, we can't expect nature to solve our problems for us." ...


Aren't we lucky that just around the corner, there's technology to save us from ourselves!

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Thu, Jul 14, 2011
from Los Angeles Times:
House GOP fails to repeal light bulb efficiency requirement
Opponents of the federal phaseout of old-style incandescent light bulbs failed in the House on Tuesday to repeal the requirement for more efficient lighting but are expected to try again soon. Republicans who have portrayed the new light bulb efficiency rules as a symbol of Washington regulatory overreach fell short of the two-thirds majority required for expedited action on the repeal measure, the Better Use of Our Light Bulbs, or BULB, Act. ...


Republicans are dim.

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Thu, Jul 7, 2011
from NOAA, via MotherJones:
Scary Maps of the New Climate Normal
NOAA just updated its Climate Normals for the United States. Per agreement of the World Meteorological Organization, "normals" are calculated per decade, rather than per year. NOAA's latest update is crunched from three-decades-worth of weather data between 1981 to 2010. The new annual normal temperatures for the US strongly reflect a warming world.... Parts of the Great Plains, the Mississippi Valley, and the Northeast experienced slightly cooler July maximums from 1981-2010 compared to 1971-2000 (top map). Far more striking are the January minimums (bottom map). Nighttime January temps were higher everywhere except the Southeast. Warmer nights were most pronounced in the northern plains and northern Rocky Mountains. In some places the new normal were several degrees warmer than the old normal. As you can see in the maps above, based on average year-round temperatures, every state experienced warmer temperatures in 1981-2010 compared to 1971-2000. ...


Yes, but what is the mean? or the mode? or the pangaiatic min-max hypotenuse that proves natural variation?

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Tue, Jun 28, 2011
from Reuters:
American climate skeptic Soon funded by oil, coal firms
Willie Soon, a U.S. climate change skeptic who has also discounted the health risks of mercury emissions from coal, has received more than $1 million in funding in recent years from large energy companies and an oil industry group, according to Greenpeace. Soon, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has also gotten funding from scientific sources including NASA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But starting early in the last decade, Soon began receiving more funding from the energy companies, Greenpeace reported. Last year, the foundation of Charles Koch, chairman and CEO of privately held Koch Industries, gave Soon $65,000 to study how variations in the Sun are related to climate change. Koch is co-owned by David Koch, founder of Americans for Prosperity, a group aligned with the Tea Party movement, which opposes new air pollution regulations.... Southern gave Soon $120,000 starting in 2008 to study the Sun's relation to climate change, according to the FOIA documents. Spokeswoman Stephanie Kirijan said Southern has spent about $500 million on environmental research and development and funding and did not fund Soon last year.... Soon also got $131,000 from oil major Exxon Mobil Corp in 2007 and 2008 received grants to study the Sun's role in climate change and global warming in the Arctic, Greenpeace said. ...


There's probably a joke about prostitutes and Koch, but it's eluding me....

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Tue, Jun 21, 2011
from NPR:
Climate Change: Public Skeptical, Scientists Sure
The American public is less likely to believe in global warming than it was just five years ago. Yet, paradoxically, scientists are more confident than ever that climate change is real and caused largely by human activities. Something a bit strange is happening with public opinion and climate change. Anthony Leiserowitz, who directs the Yale University Project on Climate Change Communication, delved into this in a recent poll. He not only asked citizens what they thought of climate change, he also asked them to estimate how climate scientists feel about global warming. "Only 13 percent of Americans got the correct answer, which is that in fact about 97 percent of American scientists say that climate change is happening, and about a third of Americans just simply say they don't know," he said. Most Americans are unaware that the National Academy of Sciences, known for its cautious and even-handed reviews of the state of science, is firmly on board with climate change. It has been for years.... "The consensus statement is that climate changes are being observed, are certainly real, they seem to be increasing, and that humans are mostly likely the cause of all or most of these changes," he said. ...


Those surveys can be explained by natural variation.

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Wed, Jun 15, 2011
from New York Times:
Former Rep. Inglis to Launch Conservative Coalition to Address Climate Change
A former Republican congressman who is an advocate for action to address climate change plans to launch a new conservative coalition this fall made up of Republicans who, like him, believe that human emissions are triggering global warming and that steps should be taken to stop it.... He said the view embraced by many Republicans that human emissions are not a major contributor to global warming is out of step with what it means to be a conservative, given that most scientists say the reverse is true. "Conservatives typically are people who try to be cognizant of risk and move to minimize risk. To be told of risk and to consciously decide to disregard it seems to be the opposite of conservative," Inglis said in a telephone interview. ...


In the sacred name of Dulcinea!

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Tue, Jun 14, 2011
from London Guardian:
Climate change should be excluded from curriculum, says adviser
Climate change should not be included in the national curriculum, the government adviser in charge of overhauling the school syllabus in England has said. Tim Oates, whose wide-ranging review of the curriculum for five- to 16-year-olds will be published later this year, said it should be up to schools to decide whether - and how - to teach climate change, and other topics about the effect scientific processes have on our lives.... ...


It seems the tea party has made its way to England.

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Thu, Jun 9, 2011
from Los Angeles Times:
Former Interior secretary calls out Obama on the environment
President Obama has failed to answer Republican attacks on environmental safeguards "forcefully and persuasively" and to articulate his own vision for conserving American wilderness and water, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt charged Tuesday. Babbitt, who served under President Clinton, said in an interview that he would lay out his concerns about the Republican environmental agenda and the Obama administration's response in a speech in Washington on Wednesday. ...


Babbitt, Run

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Wed, Jun 8, 2011
from London Guardian:
Australian climate scientists receive death threats
A number of Australia's leading climate scientists have been moved into safer accommodation after receiving death threats, in a further escalation of the country's increasingly febrile carbon price debate. The revelation of the death threats follows a week of bitter exchanges between the government and the opposition in the wake of a pro-carbon price TV advert featuring actor Cate Blanchett. The Australia National University (ANU) in Canberra said that it has moved a number of its climate scientists to a secure facility after they received a large number of threatening emails and phone calls. ...


The planet has been receiving death threats from us all for some time.

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Tue, Jun 7, 2011
from Sydney Australian:
Warming sceptic has frosty reception
PARLIAMENTARIANS from Julia Gillard down appear ready to give the cold shoulder to Czech President Vaclav Klaus, an outspoken climate change sceptic, when he visits Australia next month. Mr Klaus, a critic of the theory of human-caused global warming, will attend a series of seminars organised by the Institute of Public Affairs think tank. ...


They ought to thumb their noses at him, too!

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Wed, May 25, 2011
from Politico:
Cold shoulder for climate change
Climate scientists are in a tough spot. They have never been more certain about what they know. Powerful new satellites can hone in on mountainous regions to measure ice melt. Stronger computers model changes in disruptive weather patterns. Scientists are even more comfortable attributing climate change to visible effects around the globe, from retreating Himalayan glaciers to southwestern U.S. droughts and acidifying oceans. Yet scientists are still stuck in the mud trying to get that message out in Washington, where House Republicans made one of their first orders of business passing legislation to zero out research budgets for domestic and international climate efforts and unraveling a key EPA declaration that humans have played a critical role in changing the planet. ...


Oh you Republicans what a fantastical world you inhabit!

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Tue, May 17, 2011
from St. Petersburg Times:
Once a major issue in Florida, climate change concerns few in Tallahassee
...In low-lying Florida, where 95 percent of the population lives within 35 miles of its 1,200 miles of coastline, a swelling of the tides could cause serious problems. So what is Florida's Department of Environmental Protection doing about dealing with climate change? "DEP is not pursuing any programs or projects regarding climate change," an agency spokeswoman said in an e-mail to the St. Petersburg Times last week. "That's a crying shame," said former Gov. Charlie Crist...Crist's successor, Gov. Rick Scott, doesn't think climate change is real, even though it's accepted as fact by everyone from NASA to the Army to the Vatican. "I've not been convinced that there's any man-made climate change," Scott said last week. "Nothing's convinced me that there is." ...


Floriduh!

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Fri, May 13, 2011
from National Research Council, via New York Times:
Scientists' Report Stresses Urgency of Limiting Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The nation's scientific establishment issued a stark warning to the American public on Thursday: Not only is global warming real, but the effects are already becoming serious and the need has become "pressing" for a strong national policy to limit emissions of heat-trapping gases.... "The risks associated with doing business as usual are a much greater concern than the risks associated with engaging in ambitious but measured response efforts," the report concludes. "This is because many aspects of an 'overly ambitious' policy response could be reversed or otherwise addressed, if needed, through subsequent policy change, whereas adverse changes in the climate system are much more difficult (indeed, on the time scale of our lifetimes, may be impossible) to 'undo.'"... The report's authors -- an unusual combination of climate scientists, businessmen and politicians -- said they were very aware that the political mood on climate change had changed significantly from when the committee was formed in 2009.... But Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, who has been leading the charge against further regulating carbon emissions, swiftly dismissed the council's findings in an interview Thursday. "I see nothing substantive in this report that adds to the knowledge base necessary to make an informed decision about what steps -- if any -- should be taken to address climate change," Mr. Barton said. ...


Silly scientists. All we need to do is Cntrl-Alt-Delete and restart the ecosystem.

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Tue, May 10, 2011
from Cardiff Western Mail:
Hi-tech teen lifestyle fuels climate change
TODAY'S teenagers are consuming more energy than any previous generation - despite receiving unprecedented education on climate change and other green issues, an academic has warned. Mobile phones, gaming devices, televisions, computers and hair straighteners are just some of the gadgets commonly found in the bedrooms of modern teenagers. Professor Ian Williams, who has studied the Facebook generation's lifestyles and environmentalism, says a typical teenager may have amassed more electrical items than an entire household would have owned a generation earlier. ...


They were so, like, primitive back then.

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Tue, May 10, 2011
from Reno Gazette-Journal:
Fact checker: Don't see consensus on global warming? Look past Fox News
The claim: There is no scientific consensus that global temperatures are rising and humans are significantly to blame. The background: This week's claim started because of a study done by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes. The study's aim was to determine whether the Citizens United case before the Supreme Court, which allowed unlimited campaign contributions from corporations and unions, affected people's perception of the truthfulness of the information being fed in the midterm elections. The study wasn't intended to be concerned with where people got their information, just how accurate it seemed. But the researchers noticed a peculiar thing: Although some Americans were misinformed, they generally became more informed if they consumed more news -- with one major exception. The study found that the more people watched Fox News, the less informed they became. ...


Unfair and unbalanced.

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Fri, May 6, 2011
from The Telegraph:
All the pro-growth pro-fracking implicit denier arguments rolled into one
... As Dyson puts it in his foreword: Because of shale gas, the air in Beijing will be cleaned up as the air in London was cleaned up sixty years ago. Because of shale gas, clean air will no longer be a luxury that only rich countries can afford. Because of shale gas, wealth and health will be distributed more equitably over the face of our planet.... And hey presto, before the shale gas industry can properly take off the image has already been planted in a susceptible public's brain: shale gas is bad because it involves a process called "fracking", which sounds unnatural and frightening and a bit swear-wordy, and because it involves gas leaks into the water table and methane leaks into the atmosphere or something like that, and because all the "experts" say it ought to be investigated further (ie delayed indefinitely) on the "precautionary principle." We have been here before, haven't we?... [I write to] remind you of the horrendous socio-political crisis we in the free world are facing today: one in which economic progress and commonsense threaten to be undermined at every turn by an insidious, mendacious and terrifyingly powerful global green movement which has its tentacles in almost every pie from the Obama administration to David Cameron's Coalition to the EU to the UN to the MSM to the schools, universities and NGOs. The ideology of these Watermelons has virtually nothing to do with saving the environment (if it were, they'd be embracing shale gas wholesale) and almost everything to do with an instinctive loathing for economic growth combined with a bullying, puritanical urge to impose energy policy by diktat rather than by allowing the market to decide the most effective method. ...


We can grow forever, shit in our sink, use up our savings, buy on credit, and consume everything we desire. Best of all, there are no consequences!

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Thu, May 5, 2011
from Greenwire:
'Anti-Environmental' House Freshman Leads Charge Against Obama's Clean Water Agenda
Just months into his first term, Rep. Bob Gibbs admits he has much to learn. But the Ohio Republican holds strong reservations about environmental regulation in general... Republicans across the United States capitalized in the last election on a similar business-now, environment-later message, stoking an anti-incumbent mood among voters still smarting from the recession with hopeful promises of business-friendly, job-creating policies. Few in the GOP capitalized as much as this 56-year-old political unknown from rural southeastern Ohio. This white-haired Midwestern farmer has since emerged as critic-in-chief of a top Obama administration priority: strengthening clean water protections. ...


Because who needs clean water when we can be making some dirty money?

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Sun, May 1, 2011
from Bloomberg:
Disaster Needed for U.S. to Act on Climate Change, Harvard's Stavins Says
The U.S. probably won't take significant steps to curb climate change until an environmental disaster sways public view and prompts political action, Robert Stavins of Harvard University said. "It's unlikely that the U.S. is going to take serious action on climate change until there are observable, dramatic events, almost catastrophic in nature, that drive public opinion and drive the political process in that direction," Stavins, director of Harvard's Environmental Economics Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said today in an interview in Bloomberg's Boston office.... Stavins, an economist, is a member of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said in 2007 that scientists are more than 90 percent certain that humans are causing global warming.... "There's a legit reason for the public to be skeptical about climate change because they don't see it," Stavins said. Grabbing the public's attention would require a dramatic development, such as a "well-observed melting of parts of polar ice caps that result in some amount of sea-level rise," Stavins said. ...


Yeah, whaddaya expect from the public, abstract thinking?

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Sat, Apr 30, 2011
from Mother Jones:
The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science
... an array of new discoveries in psychology and neuroscience has further demonstrated how our preexisting beliefs, far more than any new facts, can skew our thoughts and even color what we consider our most dispassionate and logical conclusions. This tendency toward so-called "motivated reasoning" helps explain why we find groups so polarized over matters where the evidence is so unequivocal: climate change, vaccines, "death panels," the birthplace and religion of the president (PDF), and much else. It would seem that expecting people to be convinced by the facts flies in the face of, you know, the facts...We're not driven only by emotions, of course -- we also reason, deliberate. But reasoning comes later, works slower -- and even then, it doesn't take place in an emotional vacuum. Rather, our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that's highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about. ...


I refuse to believe I'm in denial.

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Wed, Apr 27, 2011
from Alaska Dispatch:
Playing politics with climate change
What Americans believe about climate change depends almost entirely on their political affiliation and not their scientific understanding, according to a new national study that found the same dynamic in two regions of Southeast Alaska. Democrats who claim knowledge of the issue appear to be in firm agreement with the nation's leading scientific organizations -- that human activity and greenhouse gas emissions have become the main drivers behind an accelerating global climate shift. But Republicans don't buy it. While most do agree that the climate has begun to change, they mostly blame the phenomenon on natural forces that lie beyond human control. ...


Are you a Smartocrat or a Stupidlican?

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Sun, Apr 24, 2011
from Associated Press:
Costly gasoline clouds Obama re-election prospects
With gas prices climbing and little relief in sight, President Barack Obama is scrambling to get ahead of the latest potential obstacle to his re-election bid, even as Republicans are making plans to exploit the issue....As Obama well knows, Americans love their cars and remain heavily dependent on them, and they don't hesitate to punish politicians when the cost of filling their tanks goes through the roof. ...


This Easter, give your car a big bunny hug because it's the most important thing on the planet.

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Tue, Mar 29, 2011
from Associated Press:
S. Carolina lawmakers take dim view of new light bulbs
South Carolina lawmakers are taking a stand in favor of states' lights. With incandescent bulbs being phased out under federal law in favor of energy-efficient compact fluorescents, legislators want to exempt South Carolina from the measure, saying Washington has no business telling the state how to light its closets and countertops. The proposed state law, called the Incandescent Light Bulb Freedom Act, "allows South Carolina to say to the federal government we are going to exercise our rights," said Republican state Rep. Bill Sandifer, a co-sponsor. ...


The Freedom to Ruin the Earth Edict (FREE)

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Thu, Mar 24, 2011
from Edmonton Journal:
U.S. energy giant sets up shop in Alberta
An American energy conglomerate owned by two powerful billionaire brothers who help fund the Tea Party and climate-change denial movements in the U.S. has registered to lobby the Alberta government. Alberta's lobbyist registry shows that on March 15, Koch Industries signed up to lobby the province on energy and resource development policy issues, as well as taxation and economic development. The company is run by Charles and David Koch, two of the richest men in the world. Koch Industries spokeswoman Melissa Cohlmia did not respond to interview requests Wednesday, but released a one-sentence statement. "Koch companies want to add value by providing quality services and products our customers desire and value in a way that is compliant with all laws and regulations," she wrote. ...


If it was my province, I'd show these Kochs the door.

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Sat, Mar 19, 2011
from Nature:
'Wilful ignorance': Nature opinion
At a subcommittee hearing on 14 March, anger and distrust were directed at scientists and respected scientific societies. Misinformation was presented as fact, truth was twisted and nobody showed any inclination to listen to scientists, let alone learn from them. It has been an embarrassing display, not just for the Republican Party but also for Congress and the US citizens it represents.... [T]he legislation is fundamentally anti-science, just as the rhetoric that supports it is grounded in wilful ignorance. One lawmaker last week described scientists as "elitist" and "arrogant" creatures who hide behind "discredited" institutions.... [T]o deny that there is reason to be concerned, given the decades of work by countless scientists, is irresponsible. ...


Why should we listen to egghead smarty-pantses? What do they know?

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Thu, Mar 17, 2011
from Scientific American:
House Repubs Vote That Earth Is Not Warming
Congress has finally acted on global warming--by denying it exists. It's in the grand lawmaking tradition of the Indiana state legislature's 1897 attempt to redefine the value of pi. The Republican-led House of Representatives is currently working on the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, which would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide emissions to mitigate climate change. In the House Energy and Commerce Committee, California Democrat Henry Waxman had proposed an amendment calling on Congress to at least acknowledge that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal," just as abundant scientific evidence confirms. But on Tuesday, March 15, all the committee's Republicans voted down that amendment, as well as two others acknowledging the threat of climate change to public well-being. ...


Rep. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Heat.

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Tue, Mar 15, 2011
from AFP, via Yahoo News:
Fewer Americans worry about climate change: poll
The number of Americans who are worried about global warming has fallen to nearly the historic low reached in 1998, a poll released Monday showed. Just 51 percent of Americans -- or one percentage point more than in 1998 -- said they worry a great deal or fair amount about climate change, Gallup's annual environment poll says. In 2008, a year after former US vice president Al Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize, two-thirds of Americans were concerned about climate change. The rate of concern among Americans has fallen steadily since then to 60 percent in 2009 and 52 percent last year.... "The reasons for the decline in concern are not obvious, though the economic downturn could be a factor," Gallup analysts say, citing a poll from two years ago that shows that in the minds of Americans, economy takes precedence over environment.... Just over a quarter of Americans believe reports in the press about climate change are generally correct, while nearly three in 10 believe the US media understates the effects of global warming. ...


Looks like our messaging is working!

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Sun, Mar 13, 2011
from New York Times:
Spilled Milk Regulations a Myth, E.P.A. Says
To Representative Morgan Griffith, a freshman Republican from Virginia, nothing illustrates the Environmental Protection Agency's overreach more clearly than a new rule applying the same regulations that govern spilled oil to milk spilled on dairy farms. In the midst of a heated debate over the E.P.A.'s authority to regulate heat-trapping emissions like carbon dioxide, the charge makes for great political theater. But according to the agency, it is pure fiction.... Politifact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking organization run by The St. Petersburg Times, also examined the Republican claims on the spilled milk regulations and rated them false. ...


Why let facts get in the way when you're dedicated to ruining the habitat!

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Sat, Mar 12, 2011
from Greenwire:
Democrats Cry Foul Over GOP's Attempts to Tie Fuel Prices to EPA
House Republicans' move to join the two most politically volatile threads in the Washington, D.C., energy debate -- gas prices and U.S. EPA rules -- sparked Democratic charges of deception yesterday and silence so far from the Obama administration. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) amplified the GOP gambit as he laid out a new project, dubbed the American Energy Initiative, calling for more domestic fossil-fuel production, new nuclear power plants and an end to EPA's authority over greenhouse gases. While the Republican message had percolated all week, Boehner's decision to spotlight the anti-EPA bill now sailing through the House Energy and Commerce Committee gave the gas-price charge a far broader platform. The administration's offshore oil-production policies and regulation of greenhouse gases, Boehner said yesterday, represent a systematic hit to economic growth. "If the White House has its way -- and the EPA imposes a backdoor national energy tax -- gas prices will only go higher," the Ohioan told reporters. ...


I decree... that all politicians... abandon their limos and airplanes in lieu of riding bicycles.

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Wed, Mar 9, 2011
from Climatewire:
Snubbing Skeptics Threatens to Intensify Climate War, Study Says
Listening to climate change doubters, and not dismissing them, might avert a "logic schism" similar to the political stalemate on abortion, according to a new paper involving research on skeptics. The paper (pdf) portrays doubters as being at a disadvantage. The majority of climate research comes from the fields of physical science, engineering and economics -- largely depicting rational outcomes in a world dominated by the view that the Earth is warming, and that something needs to be done about it.... Hair-raising warnings about climate catastrophes tend not to resonate with the skeptical crowd, the research says. And expensive government solutions to it definitely do not. Another way of talking about the issue is needed, the paper says. ...


How about we talk about it backwards? .raen si dne ehT

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Mon, Mar 7, 2011
from Reuters:
Republicans launch bill to axe EPA carbon rules
Republicans in both chambers of Congress introduced bills on Thursday that would permanently stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating emissions blamed for warming the planet. President Barack Obama would veto a bill that blocks the agency from tackling climate change, administration officials have said. Obama has pledged to the world the United States will cut greenhouse gases to about 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.... "The EPA is pursuing a dramatic shift in our nation's energy and environmental policy that would send shock waves through our economy," said Ed Whitfield, the chair of the House Energy and Power Subcommittee, a co-sponsor of the measure. Senator James Inhofe, a climate skeptic who is writing a book on global warming called "The Hoax," introduced a version of the legislation in the upper chamber. The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA could regulate greenhouse gases under federal law. The EPA then declared the emissions endanger public health, which paved the way for its regulation of gases from smokestacks and vehicles, which began in January. ...


Self-regulation within the energy industry has been successful so far.

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Sat, Mar 5, 2011
from Associated Press:
NASA research satellite plunges into the sea
For the second time in two years, a rocket glitch sent a NASA global warming satellite to the bottom of the sea Friday, a $424 million debacle that couldn't have come at a worse time for the space agency and its efforts to understand climate change. Years of belt-tightening have left NASA's Earth-watching system in sorry shape, according to many scientists. And any money for new environmental satellites will have to survive budget-cutting, global warming politics and, now, doubts on Capitol Hill about the space agency's competence... Thirteen NASA Earth-observing satellites remain up there, and nearly all of them are in their sunset years. ...


I wonder why I'm getting the feeling that we're in for some bad luck...

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Thu, Mar 3, 2011
from Associated Press:
New report exonerates climate researchers
A Commerce Department investigation has found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of federal climate researchers whose e-mails were leaked in the debate over global climate change. The report Thursday from the department's inspector general is the latest to exonerate climate scientists whose communications with the Climate Research Unit at England's University of East Anglia were stolen and made public in 2009. The department reviewed all 1,073 leaked e-mails, but focused on 289 that involved National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists. ...


Can we please now let scientists proceed with the business of telling us how doomed we are.

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Wed, Mar 2, 2011
from BusinessGreen:
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp goes carbon neutral
A memo from chief executive Rupert Murdoch to employees outlined the financial benefits of the company's four-year initiative to reduce carbon emissions from its facilities and operations. He talked up News Corp's ongoing commitment to becoming more environmentally friendly, tying in the upside for shareholders. "The company's global data center consolidation strategy alone will save approximately $20m per year and reduce data centre emissions by almost 15 per cent when completed later in 2011," said Murdoch in a statement. The company also set out goals for 2015, which included reducing absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 15 per cent and investing in clean energy equal to 20 per cent of the firm's electricity usage. It is also reaching out to 100 of its largest suppliers to have them make a difference in their environmental impacts. ...


I'm sure it's true. After all, I heard it on FOX.

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Tue, Mar 1, 2011
from Center for Public Integrity:
Issa Oversight Committee Staffs Up with Industry Insiders
First as ranking minority member and now as chairman of one of the most powerful committees in Congress, San Diego Republican Darrell Issa has built a team that includes staff members with close connections to industries that could benefit from his investigations. Issa took control of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last month, and asked companies, nonprofits and industry associations for guidance on federal regulations. The committee, which includes 23 Republicans and 17 Democrats, has broad powers to investigate government and industry, and to issue subpoenas. Issa's staff already has released findings sympathetic to industries bent on softening or eliminating certain government regulations. ...


This is what happens when power shifts to the GOP: the environment goes to shit!

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Mon, Feb 28, 2011
from London Guardian:
Can a group of scientists in California end the war on climate change?
The Berkeley Earth project say they are about to reveal the definitive truth about global warming... The aim is so simple that the complexity and magnitude of the undertaking is easy to miss. Starting from scratch, with new computer tools and more data than has ever been used, they will arrive at an independent assessment of global warming. The team will also make every piece of data it uses -- 1.6bn data points -- freely available on a website. It will post its workings alongside, including full information on how more than 100 years of data from thousands of instruments around the world are stitched together to give a historic record of the planet's temperature. Muller is fed up with the politicised row that all too often engulfs climate science. By laying all its data and workings out in the open, where they can be checked and challenged by anyone, the Berkeley team hopes to achieve something remarkable: a broader consensus on global warming. ...


This hope pre-supposes climate skeptics are willing to change their minds.

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Sun, Feb 27, 2011
from Topeka Capital-Journal:
House seeks to choke EPA regs
Nearly every member of the Kansas House is convinced air-quality regulators at the federal Environmental Protection Agency are spewing toxic rules. Rep. Forrest Knox, R-Altoona, took the lead on pushing through a resolution declaring convergence of EPA carbon-limiting edicts, tied to anxiety about greenhouse gases and global warming, should be likened to a runaway railroad engine screaming down the tracks toward certain disaster... 116 members of the House voted for a resolution urging Congress to prohibit EPA by any means necessary -- such as stripping funding from the federal agency -- to block regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. ...


Kansans have a proud history of undermining their own existence.

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Thu, Feb 24, 2011
from PhysOrg:
US issues cheaper boiler rules
The US administration overhauled rules Wednesday to cut air pollution from industrial boilers and incinerators but at almost half the price of initial plans criticized by industrial groups. US Environmental Protection Agency Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy said the final regulations would provide benefits similar to the previous ones but at a reduced cost. "The Clean Air Act standards we are issuing today are based on the best available science and have benefited from significant public input," said McCarthy, who heads the EPA's air and radiation office.... The initially proposed standard would have cost 20 billion dollars and the loss of 300,000 jobs, according to an industry-financed study. The EPA put its estimate at $3.5 billion. In comparison, the EPA said the new version of the rule would cost $1.8 billion a year and create over 2,000 new jobs.... Aric Newhouse, senior vice president for policy and government relations at the National Association of Manufacturers, criticized what the called an example of the "EPA's aggressive, overreaching agenda." "This is a harsh, inflexible rule that will cost jobs, hurt global competitiveness and may discourage projects that could otherwise lead to environmental improvements," Newhouse added in a statement. ...


How dare you protect the environment with regulations!

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Tue, Feb 22, 2011
from Albany Times Union:
An assault on the environment
The new House Republican majority likes to say that the American people spoke last year. If the GOP's spending bill is any indication, it seems the American people are clamoring for more mercury in their fish, oil on their coasts and pollution in their drinking water. Those would be just some of the environmental highlights of a House spending bill to keep the government running through Sept. 30. Or perhaps anti-environmental highlights would be more apt. Anti-health, too. ...


It's simply ... anti-life.

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Sat, Feb 19, 2011
from Climatewire:
House Republicans Fire White House Climate Advisers as Frenzied Budget Debate Continues
House Republicans and 13 Democrats passed a measure last night eliminating the salaries of President Obama's international climate change envoy and other top officials, a defiant GOP challenge that will further complicate tough budget negotiations looming with Senate Democrats. The amendment to "sack the czars" ignited protests from Democrats who called it a political attack masquerading as a principled spending cut. It is among hundreds of amendments in the Republican budget package being assembled to fund the government for the next seven months while slashing $60 billion. One of amendment's top targets is U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern, Obama's chief treaty negotiator at the U.N. global warming talks. It also defunds Obama's climate adviser, a post formerly held by Carol Browner, and several other "czar" positions that Republicans decry as unaccountable to Congress. ...


If they sack the czars we can pretty much bag our chances of recovery.

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Tue, Feb 8, 2011
from New York Times:
Climate Scientist Sues Skeptic for Libel
A prominent Canadian climate scientist is suing a leading climate skeptic for libel, arguing that an article published online in January contained false and malicious claims. Andrew Weaver, a climate modeler at the University of Victoria, filed the suit against Tim Ball, a former professor of climatology at the University of Winnepeg and a vocal critic of the science linking man-made emissions to global warming, over an article published by the Canada Free Press, a conservative Web site. The article described Dr. Weaver, who served as a lead author of the 2007 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as lacking a basic understanding of climate science and incorrectly stated that he would not take part in the next I.P.C.C. panel because of concerns about its credibility. Dr. Weaver is already involved in the preparation of the next report from the panel and has never said that he was ending his involvement with it. Dr. Ball's article has been removed from the Canada Free Press site, which published a long retraction and apology to Dr. Weaver after being contacted by the scientist's attorney.... "I stand by the story," said Dr. Ball, who was prominently featured as a climate change expert in the 2007 film "The Great Global Warming Swindle." ...


He "stands by the story" even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Funny, that.

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Mon, Jan 31, 2011
from London Guardian:
Greenpeace protests at Koch brothers' rally
Prominent figures on both the right and left of the US political spectrum gathered in the luxury enclave of Rancho Mirage in the Californian desert today amid increasingly heated debate about the influence of the secrecy-loving billionaires Charles and David Koch on the political process. About 200 key figures in business, energy, the media and law were expected to assemble at a five-star hotel at the invitation of the Koch brothers for the latest of their twice-yearly discussion groups on how to forward their libertarian causes... As the attendees arrived in their private jets, they were greeted by an airship that circled over the hotel's golf courses and tennis courts bearing the logo: "Koch brothers dirty money." It was sent up by Greenpeace, the environmental campaign group, which has joined forces with several other left-leaning organisations to hold a counter-rally to the Koch meeting. ...


In an air battle, I fear the jets would win.

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Thu, Jan 27, 2011
from Associated Press:
Gingrich calls for replacing EPA
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Tuesday for the elimination of the Environmental Protection Agency, which he wants to replace with a new organization that would work more closely with businesses and be more aggressive in using science and technology... Gingrich, who has made several visits to Iowa recently, said the EPA was founded on sound ideas but has become a traditional Washington bureaucracy. Gingrich had previously mentioned his desire to change the EPA, but Tuesday's explanation was the first time he made a specific proposal for replacing the agency...Gingrich denied his proposal would result in environmental damage, saying he would replace the EPA with what he called the Environmental Solution Agency. ...


An agency formerly known as the Business Aggrandizement and Earth Ruination Agency.

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Thu, Jan 13, 2011
from Washington Examiner:
Ocean acidification: one less thing to worry about
According to a 2009 statement by Britain's Royal Society, co-signed by Dr. James Hansen, of NASA's Goddard Center, and Dr. Mark Spalding of The Nature Conservancy: "Temperature‐induced mass coral bleaching causing widespread mortality on the Great Barrier Reef and many other reefs of the world started when atmospheric CO2 exceeded 320ppm.... "At today's level of ~ 387ppm CO2, reefs are seriously declining and time‐lagged effects will result in their continued demise with parallel impacts on other marine and coastal ecosystems... Except that there's practically no evidence that the depth in which coral shells dissolve faster than they accumulate has gotten any shallower over the past 250 years, geoscientist David Middleton points out in "Chicken Little of the Sea Strikes Again". "There is solid evidence that elevated atmospheric CO2 levels have actually caused carbonate deposition to increase over the last 220 years," Middleton writes. In fact, CO2 may actually be good for coral reefs. "It appears that in addition to being plant food... CO2 is also reef food," he points out... Once again, we have an environmental catastrophe that is entirely supported by predictive computer models and totally unsupported by correlative and empirical scientific data," he concludes. "We can safely pitch ocean acidification into the dustbin of junk science." ...


Another eco-fad eradicated by one intrepid scientist's search for notoriety.

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Wed, Jan 12, 2011
from Christian Science Monitor:
South in icy grip, as latest winter storm defies warming predictions
...After many Southerners experienced the second unusually cold and snowy December in a row - including Atlanta's first white Christmas since 1882 - the warming trend predicted by long-range meteorologists at the National Weather Service has so far failed to appear. A regional high-pressure system over Greenland - the North Atlantic Oscillation, or "Greenland Block" - has thrown a wrench into traditional, and easier-to-predict, weather patterns. The unusual winter conditions, especially in the South and parts of the mid-Atlantic, have renewed debates about manmade global warming, with many scientists saying the cold weather is proof of climate change and skeptics saying such global-warming hype has left many unprepared for one of the coldest and snowiest decades in 40 years. ...


It's as if the weather has a mind of its own.

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Tue, Jan 11, 2011
from McClatchy Newspapers:
Why the CIA is spying on a changing climate
... As [CIA] intelligence officials assess key components of state stability, they are realizing that the norms they had been operating with -- such as predictable river flows and crop yields -- are shifting...Back in the 1990s, the CIA opened an environmental center, swapped satellite imagery with Russia and cleared U.S. scientists to access classified information. But when the Bush administration took power, the center was absorbed by another office and work related to the climate was broadly neglected. In 2007, a report by retired high-ranking military officers called attention to the national security implications of climate change, and the National Intelligence Council followed a year later with an assessment on the topic. But some Republicans attacked it as a diversion of resources. And when CIA Director Leon Panetta stood up the climate change center in 2009, conservative lawmakers attempted to block its funding. "The CIA's resources should be focused on monitoring terrorists in caves, not polar bears on icebergs," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said at the time. ...


Is "Barrasso" pronounced "bare-asshole"?

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Sat, Jan 8, 2011
from ScienceDaily:
What Carbon Cycle? College Students Lack Scientific Literacy, Study Finds
Most college students in the United States do not grasp the scientific basis of the carbon cycle -- an essential skill in understanding the causes and consequences of climate change, according to research published in the January issue of BioScience.... "Improving students' understanding of these biological principles could make them better prepared to deal with important environmental issues such as global climate change," said Charles "Andy" Anderson, MSU professor of teacher education and co-investigator on the project.... Students trying to explain weight loss, for example, could not trace matter once it leaves the body; instead they used informal reasoning based on their personal experiences (such as the fat "melted away" or was "burned off"). In reality, the atoms in fat molecules leave the body (mostly through breathing) and enter the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and water. Most students also incorrectly believe plants obtain their mass from the soil rather than primarily from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. "When you see a tree growing," Anderson said, "it's a lot easier to believe that tree is somehow coming out of the soil rather than the scientific reality that it's coming out of the air." ...


When you've learned your science from TV ads, you've really learned a lot!!

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Wed, Dec 29, 2010
from Postmedia News:
Canadians in denial about air pollution impact: Study
The average Canadian is in denial about the impact of air pollution on human health, assuming that it is either a long-term threat or a risk factor for vulnerable parts of the population, says a newly-released federal report. The study, conducted for Health Canada by Environics Research Group, found that most Canadians acknowledge some health risks associated with poor air quality, but are divided on whether an advisory warning is a serious threat to all unless they have personally suffered from an illness such as asthma. ...


Join the bone-headed club.

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Fri, Dec 17, 2010
from NPR:
Long Wait May Be Over For Science Guidelines
Long-awaited guidelines ordered by President Obama last year to prevent government research from being altered or suppressed for political purposes so the integrity of government scientists can be protected could be released as early as Friday. The guidelines are nearly 11/2 years overdue. During that time, the administration has drawn criticism for its own scientific missteps. ...


Let's hope the guidelines emerge without revision!

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Wed, Dec 15, 2010
from MediaMatters:
FOX boss ordered staff to cast doubt on climate science
In the midst of global climate change talks last December, a top Fox News official sent an email questioning the "veracity of climate change data" and ordering the network's journalists to "refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question." The directive, sent by Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon, was issued less than 15 minutes after Fox correspondent Wendell Goler accurately reported on-air that the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization announced that 2000-2009 was "on track to be the warmest [decade] on record."... A month after Sammon sent his memo, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies released data confirming that 2009 was the second warmest year on record and marked the end of the warmest decade on record. ...


FOX just wants us all to be happy. As patriotic Americans, we deserve it!

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Fri, Dec 10, 2010
from Houston Chronicle:
Study: Clouds' cooling role weakens in warmer world
Until now one of the biggest uncertainties in climate change is whether a warming world will change how clouds regulate temperature. Will they trap more heat, or will they offer a net cooling by reflecting more of the sun's heat? A Texas A&M University scientist, Andrew Dessler, has produced some of the first data to address this question, and his conclusion is that current climate models do a pretty good job of simulating the changing nature of clouds in a warmer world. The new study, published Thursday in the journal Science, also appears to strike at a central tenet of some climate skeptics who believe clouds will offset much of the projected warming in a world with elevated greenhouse gases. "Scientists are always thinking about where we could be wrong," Dessler said. "Clouds are one of the last places where scientists could really be wrong with respect to climate change. My work is really a first step toward removing this possibility. "The opportunities for legitimate skepticism are drying up." ...


Those climate skeptics just have their heads in the clouds.

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Tue, Dec 7, 2010
from ABC News:
GOP's Global Warming Skeptics to Take House Chairs on Energy, Science
All of the contenders in line to head the prestigious House committees responsible for setting America's energy and science policy are global warming skeptics, and that's causing scientists to worry that Republicans will use their new positions for political grandstanding at the expense of scientific advancement. The Republicans, who will take over leadership of the House in January, have not yet announced who will chair the Energy and Commerce Committee or the Science and Technology Committee, but the short lists for both committees consist solely of congressmen who question the veracity of climate change. ...


The Rapture can't come soon enough.

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Tue, Nov 23, 2010
from Climatewire:
Republicans Learn the Perils of Being Politically Incorrect on Climate Change
Defeat came for Republican Rep. Bob Inglis because he slid to "Satan's side." hat's how South Carolina voters perceive Inglis' newfound belief in climate change, says the outgoing lawmaker, who lost his primary bid in June to tea party candidate, and now representative-elect, Trey Gowdy. Inglis reflected on several blasphemies he committed in the eyes of voters in a departing interview last week, held in his congressional office. They ranged from opposing President George W. Bush's troop surge in Iraq to supporting his Troubled Asset Relief Program. But none of those, Inglis said, had as strong an impact as his assertions that atmospheric warming is a scientific certainty. ...


Dear God... could you please bestow some brains upon your followers?

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Mon, Nov 22, 2010
from USA Today:
Experts claim 2006 climate report plagiarized
An influential 2006 congressional report that raised questions about the validity of global warming research was partly based on material copied from textbooks, Wikipedia and the writings of one of the scientists criticized in the report, plagiarism experts say. Review of the 91-page report by three experts contacted by USA TODAY found repeated instances of passages lifted word for word and what appear to be thinly disguised paraphrases. The report was requested in 2005 by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, then the head of the House energy committee. Barton cited the report in an October letter to The Washington Post when he wrote that Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann's work was "rooted in fundamental errors of methodology that had been cemented in place as 'consensus' by a closed network of friends." ...


At least scientists are good for cherry-pickin' and plagiarizin.'

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Tue, Nov 16, 2010
from UC Berkeley News:
Dire messages about global warming can backfire, new study shows
Dire or emotionally charged warnings about the consequences of global warming can backfire if presented too negatively, making people less amenable to reducing their carbon footprint, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley. "Our study indicates that the potentially devastating consequences of global warming threaten people's fundamental tendency to see the world as safe, stable and fair. As a result, people may respond by discounting evidence for global warming," said Robb Willer, UC Berkeley social psychologist and coauthor of a study to be published in the January issue of the journal Psychological Science. "The scarier the message, the more people who are committed to viewing the world as fundamentally stable and fair are motivated to deny it," agreed Matthew Feinberg, a doctoral student in psychology and coauthor of the study. But if scientists and advocates can communicate their findings in less apocalyptic ways, and present solutions to global warming, Willer said, most people can get past their skepticism. ...


Dog-gone it! The world needs a humor site for global warming!

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Tue, Nov 16, 2010
from Climatewire:
Can Social Scientists Help Ease the Nation's Rift Over Climate Change?
Stop being so skeptical of climate skeptics, says one researcher who believes there's been a failure to understand the mounting cultural doubt around atmospheric warming. The national discussion on climate change is brimming with economic models, scientific findings and wonky plans to fix it. But something is missing: academic explanations of why people flout reams of scientific conclusions, bristle at the notion of cutting carbon and regard climate change as a sneaky liberal plot.... She came away with themes that will sketch an outline of the skeptical movement for future research: Adherents tend to be middle-aged, white males who resent government, are suspicious of scientists and their peer-reviewed protocols, and believe global warming is made up to hit them in the wallet. ...


They'll eventually die off... won't they?

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Mon, Nov 15, 2010
from Reuters:
Climate science "under-reported" at 2009 U.N. summit
Less than 10 percent of the articles written about last year's Copenhagen climate summit dealt primarily with the science of climate change, a study showed on Monday. Based on analysis of 400 articles written about the December 2009 summit, the authors of the report for Oxford University's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) called for a re-think of reporting on future such conferences. Author James Painter concluded that "science was under-reported" as the essential backdrop to the drama when about 120 world leaders met in Copenhagen but failed to agree a binding treaty to slow climate change. Much coverage from Copenhagen instead focused on hacked e-mails from a British university that some skeptics took as evidence of efforts by scientists to ignore dissenting views. The scientists involved have since been cleared of wrongdoing. ...


If it ain't sexy or dramatic, it ain't worth reading!

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Thu, Nov 11, 2010
from London Daily Mail:
'The planet won't be destroyed by global warming because God promised Noah,' says politician bidding to chair U.S. energy committee
A Republican congressman hoping to chair the powerful House Energy Committee refers to the Bible and God on the issue of global warming. Representative John Shimkus insists we shouldn't concerned about the planet being destroyed because God promised Noah it wouldn't happen again after the great flood. Speaking before a House Energy Subcommittee on Energy and Environment hearing in March, 2009, Shimkus quoted Chapter 8, Verse 22 of the Book of Genesis. He said: 'As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.' The Illinois Republican continued: 'I believe that is the infallible word of God, and that's the way it is going to be for his creation. 'The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood. ...


Dear God: Could you please make sure this guy is in charge of nothing?

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Tue, Nov 9, 2010
from Mother Jones:
The GOP's Coming Climate Witch Hunt
Last Tuesday, as Americans across the country headed to the polls, a group of climate scientists gathered in Denver to discuss strategies for fighting back against right-wing attacks on global warming science. Their timing couldn't have been better. With the ascent of the Republicans, climate science -- and scientists -- will be a major target for the new House majority... Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the incoming head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has pledged to hold hearings on the "Politicization of Science," which will consist of a rehashing of the so-called ClimateGate "scandal." He's also called for greater oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency's coming regulations of greenhouse gases. With Issa in charge, the oversight committee will devote a good deal of time to hauling government and university climate scientists before Congress. ...


Issa is going to pissa me off!

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Thu, Nov 4, 2010
from NUVO Newsweekly:
A ringside seat at the end of the world: The Titanic deck chairs are burning
Let's mix up some metaphors to try and fathom what happened during the elections. At the very moment that we should be peeling back the onion of denial on climate change, and moving WITHOUT PAUSE to an energy efficient economy -- and human behavioral change toward conservation -- we just fell further down the rabbit hole. Republicans, by and large a motley group of climate change deniers, have now taken over the House of Representatives. The Democrats still have a majority in the Senate, but they are by and large a motley group of climate change cowards, as many of them must bend over for coal and oil industry interests.... And so with this election we are fiddling around with the chairs on the Titanic as Rome is burning. ...


Not to mention being up a creek, paddlessly!

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Tue, Nov 2, 2010
from Guardian:
Is climate science disinformation a crime against humanity?
Although there is an important role for scepticism in science, for almost 30 years some corporations have supported a disinformation campaign about climate change science. While it may be reasonable to be somewhat sceptical about climate change models, these untruths are not based upon reasonable scepticism but outright falsification and distortions of climate change science.... According the New York Times article, the fossil fuel industry has "created and lavishly financed institutes to produce anti-global warming studies, paid for rallies and websites to question the science, and generated scores of economic analyses that purport to show that policies to reduce emissions of climate-altering gases will have a devastating effect on jobs and the overall economy." Disinformation about the state of climate change science is extraordinarily - if not criminally - irresponsible, because the consensus scientific view is based upon strong evidence that climate change: * Is already being experienced by tens of thousands in the world; * Will be experienced in the future by millions of people from greenhouse gas emissions that have already been emitted but not yet felt due to lags in the climate system; and, * Will increase dramatically in the future unless greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically reduced from existing global emissions levels.... We may not have a word for this type of crime yet, but the international community should find a way of classifying extraordinarily irresponsible scientific claims that could lead to mass suffering as some type of crime against humanity. ...


The tobacco executives all retired rich.

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Mon, Nov 1, 2010
from The Vancouver Tyee:
US Tea Party's Deep Ties to Oil Sands Giant
The Tea Party movement, poised to help shift the U.S. legislature to the right and stymie President Obama's green agenda, has financial and organizational ties to Koch Industries, one of America's biggest processors of Alberta oil sands crude. Congressional midterm elections on Tuesday could create a U.S. government less amenable to climate change action, partly a result of Tea Party influence. That would likely bode well for Alberta's carbon-intensive oil sands industry, which has long worried that national greenhouse gas standards south of the border will reduce profits and restrict future growth.... Koch Industries provides critical support for the Tea Party movement through Americans for Prosperity (AFP), an advocacy group it established in 2003 and now helps fund. AFP sponsored and helped organize nearly 1,000 Tea Party rallies in April. ...


Sounds like a bunch of dicks to me.

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Mon, Nov 1, 2010
from London Guardian:
Obama environment agenda under threat from incoming Republicans
Republican leaders have begun gathering evidence for sweeping investigations of Barack Obama's environmental agenda, from climate science to the BP oil spill, if as expected, they take control of the House of Representatives in the 2 November mid-term elections, the Guardian has learned. The new Congress will not be installed until next January, but Democrats and environmental organisations say they are braced for multiple, aggressive investigations from the incoming Republican majority. Republican leaders have also raised the possibility of disbanding the global warming committee in Congress, established by the Democratic speaker, Nancy Pelosi. ...


It would be soooo cool if, upon investigation, it turned out global warming isn't real.

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Fri, Oct 29, 2010
from Pew Research Center:
Wide Partisan Divide Over Global Warming
...Views about climate change continue to be sharply divided along party lines. A substantial majority of Democrats (79 percent) say there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been increasing over the past few decades, and 53 percent think the earth is warming mostly because of human activity. Among Republicans, only 38 percent agree the earth is warming and just 16 percent say warming is caused by humans. Roughly half of Republicans (53 percent) say there is no solid evidence of warming. These patterns are little changed from a year ago. More than half of independents (56 percent) say there is solid evidence of warming, but just 32 percent think it can mostly be attributed to human actions. Opinions among independents who lean toward the Republican Party or Democratic Party are similar to those of partisans. ...


Whew! I thought global warming was real but it's actually ideological!

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Tue, Oct 26, 2010
from Politico:
Climate skeptics wanted for GOP primary
It's going to be hard winning the Republican presidential nomination if you're not a climate skeptic. Recent comments from top White House and congressional contenders suggest an awkward mix of outright hostility or, at best, ambivalence toward the widespread scientific consensus that humans are responsible for the warming planet. Fueled by tea party rage, anti-government sentiment and hostility to anything attached to President Barack Obama, the 2012 GOP primary field is expected to run to the right... A New York Times/CBS News poll this month found that 53 percent of tea party supporters think global warming will not have serious impacts at any time in the future, while just 22 percent of the rest of the public felt the same way. ...


What do you suppose those people put in their tea?

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Mon, Oct 25, 2010
from London Guardian:
Tea Party climate change deniers funded by BP and other major polluters
BP and several other big European companies are funding the midterm election campaigns of Tea Party favourites who deny the existence of global warming or oppose Barack Obama's energy agenda, the Guardian has learned. An analysis of campaign finance by Climate Action Network Europe (Cane) found nearly 80 percent of campaign donations from a number of major European firms were directed towards senators who blocked action on climate change. These included incumbents who have been embraced by the Tea Party such as Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, and the notorious climate change denier James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma. ...


The toxins from this BP company will never cease...

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Sun, Oct 24, 2010
from NUVO Newsweekly:
A ringside seat at the end of the world: Republicans are smarter than scientists!
As we approach the mid-term election, we are learning that, by and large, Republicans running for office this year are highly intelligent people. They are so intelligent they are even smarter than scientists! That's right. Despite scientific proof that carbon emissions cause higher temperatures and that human beings are creating that very rise in carbon emissions, Republicans instead believe that our rocketing global temperatures are the result of natural geologic cycles or liberal propaganda. ...


Let's form a third party called the Dumbocrats!

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Sun, Oct 24, 2010
from NPR:
GOP Victory May Be Defeat For Climate Change Policy
The more carbon that gets released into the atmosphere, the higher the average temperature rises. That's a scientific fact. Human activities, such as driving, flying, building and even turning on the lights, are the biggest contributor to the release of carbon. That too, is a fact. And yet the majority of Republicans running for House and Senate seats this year disagree. Ken Buck, the GOP senate candidate in Colorado admits he's a climate change denier. Ron Johnson, who leads in the polls of Wisconsin's senatorial race, has said that "it is far more likely that [climate change] is just sunspot activity or something just in the geologic eons of time where we have changes in the climate." And when Christine O'Donnell, the Republican candidate for Senate in Delaware, was asked whether human activity contributes to global warming, she said, "I don't have an opinion on that." Conservatives in Congress are turning against the science behind climate change. That means if Republicans take control this November, there's little hope for climate change policy. ...


I have an opinion, Ms. O'Donnell, that you and your GOP cohorts are not fit for duty.

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Fri, Oct 15, 2010
from Jerry Mander, in the Guardian:
Climate change v capitalism: the feast is almost over
So, while Obama talked climate change in Copenhagen, he pushed for accelerated growth and consumption, emphasising such climate-deadly industries as private automobile production, new road construction, nuclear power generation, and continued coal extraction (including horrendous "mountain top removal") while extolling an entirely theoretical "clean coal".... Whether it's the political left or right, Obama, or Cameron, or Sarkozy, or Putin, or Wen, or Harper or Miliband or Gingrich or Palin, or any political candidate for any office, they're all talking about the necessity to stimulate growth. The media does, too, whether it's the Guardian or the Murdoch press, the Financial Times or the New York Times. They all agree on the one thing: growth, growth, growth. That's the lifeblood of the system. Everyone is hunting the magic elixir to revive rapid growth. How to build and sell more cars? How to increase industrial production, from computers to heavy equipment to industrial agriculture? How to increase exports? But there's a missing link in the discussion, ignored by nearly everyone in the mainstream debate: nature. They speak about our economy as if it were a separate entity, its own ever-expanding universe, unconnected to any realities outside itself, not embodied within a larger system from which, actually, it emerged and can't escape. Nature cannot be left out of the discussion. It may be the most important detail of the entire conversation. Leaving it out of consideration is, well, suicidal. Here's the point: never-ending growth on a small planet with finite resources is a profound impossibility. It's an absurdity. A fantasy. It's time to wake up. ...


Just so's you know, that fantasy has been makin' me rich.

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Wed, Oct 13, 2010
from London Daily Telegraph:
BBC told to ensure balance on climate change
Climate change sceptics are likely to be given greater prominence in BBC documentaries and news bulletins following new editorial guidelines that call for impartiality in the corporation's science coverage. The BBC has been repeatedly accused of bias in its reporting of climate change issues. Last year one of its reporters, Paul Hudson, was criticised for not reporting on some of the highly controversial "Climategate" leaked emails from the University of East Anglia, even though he had been in possession of them for some time. Climate change sceptics have also accused the BBC of not properly reporting "Glaciergate", when a study from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) saying that glaciers would melt by 2035 was discredited. ...


My production company "Flat Earth Films" soooooo rejoices over this news.

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Tue, Oct 12, 2010
from Reuters:
SCENARIOS-Republican election impact on climate control
Republicans are poised to make big gains in the Nov. 2 congressional elections, putting them in position to reverse Democrats' drive for comprehensive climate control legislation. President Barack Obama's Democrats currently hold majorities in both chambers of the U.S. Congress. A Republican takeover of either chamber, or even large gains by Republicans, will make it harder, or impossible, for Obama to win legislation imposing mandatory reductions of greenhouse gas emissions from smokestacks and tailpipes. ...


Mommy, why do Repubwicans hate pwanet earth?

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Mon, Oct 11, 2010
from London Independent:
Green fatigue hits campaign to reduce carbon footprint
Britons are less environmentally conscious than they were five years ago, with twice as many people now "bored" by talk of climate change as in 2005. Four in 10 take no action at all to reduce their household carbon dioxide emissions. Experts warn that green fatigue is a major reason why there are more cars on the roads, more planes in the sky and no reduction in the mountain of packaging waste. As a new energy report reveals that too few people are making an effort to reduce their household CO2 emissions, environmentalists believe the recession is further undermining public commitment. ...


For those "bored" ones, things are about to get really exciting.

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Fri, Oct 8, 2010
from Der Spiegel:
The Traveling Salesmen of Climate Skepticism
A handful of US scientists have made names for themselves by casting doubt on global warming research. In the past, the same people have also downplayed the dangers of passive smoking, acid rain and the ozone hole. In all cases, the tactics are the same: Spread doubt and claim it's too soon to take action. With his sonorous voice, Fred Singer, 86, sounded like a grandfather explaining the obvious to a dim-witted child. "Nature, not human activity, rules the climate," the American physicist told a discussion attended by members of the German parliament for the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP) three weeks ago.... Singer is one of the most influential deniers of climate change worldwide. In his world, respected climatologists are vilified as liars, people who are masquerading as environmentalists while, in reality, having only one goal in mind: to introduce socialism. ...


At 86, Singer still has time to see the truth.

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Tue, Oct 5, 2010
from Mongabay:
Obama science advisor wields evidence to undercut climate change deniers
US President Barack Obama's science advisor, John Holdren, took on climate change deniers in a comprehensive, data-heavy speech last month at the Kavli Science Forum in Oslo, Norway. Proclaiming that "the earth is getting hotter", Holden went on to enumerate on the causes of climate change (human impacts) and its overall effect (not good), discussing at length the science that underpins the theory of climate change.... Much of Holdren's speech addressed what he called the "five myths" of climate change, including that argument that warming is natural, that climate change impacts are far on the horizon, and that climate change won't be bad for society. Systematically taking on each of these 'myths', often touted by climate change deniers, Holdren argued that for most of the world unmitigated climate change would mean massive disruptions to society and exponential increases in human suffering. ...


Unfortunately, wielding evidence with deniers is like bringing boxing gloves to a knife fight.

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Tue, Sep 21, 2010
from Climatewire:
Climate Change Skeptics Sweeping GOP Senate Primaries
Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe stood on the Senate floor last year to declare 2009 "the year of the skeptic." Turns out he jumped the gun. This year, a host of Republican Senate hopefuls are trumpeting their rejection of climate science on the campaign trail. Christine O'Donnell became the latest to enter the spotlight last week when she rode tea party support to knock off Rep. Mike Castle -- one of eight House Republicans who voted for cap-and-trade climate legislation last summer -- in Delaware's open-seat GOP Senate primary. She joins Nevada's Sharron Angle -- who has dismissed man-made global warming as a "mantra of the left" -- Wisconsin's Ron Johnson -- who blames warming on "sun spots" -- Florida's Marco Rubio, Alaska's Joe Miller and Colorado's Ken Buck as tea party-backed Republican Senate candidates who reject the science connecting human greenhouse gas emissions to climate change. ...


The Age of the Nimrod has truly begun!

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Sat, Sep 11, 2010
from Guardian:
RyanAir CEO: Global warming is 'horseshit.'
"I believe it's all a load of bullshit. But it's amazing the way the whole fucking eco-warriors and the media have changed. It used to be global warming, but now, when global temperatures haven't risen in the past 12 years, they say 'climate change'. Well, hang on, we've had an ice age. We've also had a couple of very hot spells during the Middle Ages, so nobody can deny climate change. But there's absolutely no link between man-made carbon, which contributes less than 2 percent of total carbon emissions [and climate change].... The scientific community has nearly always been wrong in history anyway. In the Middle Ages, they were going to excommunicate Galileo because the entire scientific community said the Earth was flat... I mean, it is absolutely bizarre that the people who can't tell us what the fucking weather is next Tuesday can predict with absolute precision what the fucking global temperatures will be in 100 years' time. It's horseshit." ...


I trust this man's insight, because he is very rich.

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Sun, Sep 5, 2010
from Postmedia News:
U.S. study says people are hesitant to believe good news from scientists
A newly released American study suggests the public often rejects the opinions of scientific experts. The public tends not to trust scientists, says research from California - but there's a twist. People are mainly reluctant to believe good news, it turns out - such as the message that a flu vaccine is safe. But the public is more likely to trust the researchers who frighten with bad news. Overall, the study, published in a research journal called Public Understanding of Science, concludes that "scientists' efforts to influence public opinion have a limited effect." ...


Thank goodness politicians listen to scientists!

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Thu, Sep 2, 2010
from Scientific American:
Eternal Fascinations with the End: Why We're Suckers for Apocalyptic Endings
You might think that the enterprise of science, with its method and its facts, would inoculate us against the most extravagant doomsday obsessions. But it doesn't. If anything, it just gives us more to worry about. Some of the most fervent and convincing doomsayers, after all, are scientists. Bill Joy, co-founder and former chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, has warned that of out-of-control nanobots could consume everything on earth. Astronomer Royal Martin Rees has publicly offered a bet that a biological catastrophe--accidental or intentional--will kill at least one million people by 2020 (so far, no takers). Numerous climatologists sound the alarm about the possibility of runaway global warming. They all stand on the shoulders of giants: British economist Thomas Malthus predicted in the 19th century that the rise in population would lead to widespread famine and catastrophe. It never happened, but that didn't stop Stanford biologist Paul R. Ehrlich from renewing the warning in his 1968 book The Population Bomb when he predicted that global famine was less than two decades away. Catastrophe didn't arrive then, either, but does that mean it never will? Not necessarily. Still, people often worry disproportionately about disasters that are unlikely to occur.... Some researchers think that apocalyptic dread feeds off our collective anxiety about events that lie outside our individual control.... The desire to treat terrible events as the harbinger of the end of civilization itself also has roots in another human trait: vanity.... Our fears of the apocalypse may in the end mirror the most fundamental fear of all: fear of our own mortality. ...


Does it matter if we hope we're wrong?

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Wed, Sep 1, 2010
from Upshot:
Noted anti-global-warming scientist reverses course
With scientific data piling up showing that the world has reached its hottest-ever point in recorded history, global-warming skeptics are facing a high-profile defection from their ranks. Bjorn Lomborg, author of the influential tract "The Skeptical Environmentalist," has reversed course on the urgency of global warming, and is now calling for action on "a challenge humanity must confront." Lomborg, a Danish academic, had previously downplayed the risk of acute climate change. A former member of Greenpeace, he was a vocal critic of the Kyoto Protocol -- a global U.N. treaty to cut carbon emissions that the United States refused to ratify -- as well as numerous other environmental causes. ...


He's a bjorn-again believer!

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Wed, Sep 1, 2010
from American Institute for Biological Sciences, via EurekAlert:
Researchers analyze 'the environmentalist's paradox'
Global degradation of ecosystems is widely believed to threaten human welfare, yet accepted measures of well-being show that it is on average improving globally, both in poor countries and rich ones. A team of authors writing in the September issue of BioScience dissects explanations for this "environmentalist's paradox."... Three likely reasons they identify--past increases in food production, technological innovations that decouple people from ecosystems, and time lags before well-being is affected--provide few grounds for complacency, however.... The researchers resolve the paradox partly by pointing to evidence that food production (which has increased globally over past decades) is more important for human well-being than are other ecosystem services. They also establish support for two other explanations: that technology and innovation have decoupled human well-being from ecosystem degradation, and that there is a time lag after ecosystem service degradation before human well-being will be affected. ...


None are so paradoxed as those who will not see.

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Tue, Aug 31, 2010
from Washington Post:
Judge rejects Ken Cuccinelli's probe of U-Va. global warming records
A Virginia judge on Monday dismissed a civil subpoena issued by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II to the University of Virginia that had sought documents related to the work of a global warming scientist and former university professor.... Cuccinelli, a vocal global warming skeptic who has contended that climate scientists have colluded to skew data, said he thinks that the documents are key to deciding whether to launch a fraud investigation into Mann's work. He said he plans to reissue the demand, crafting it with the judge's ruling in mind. He indicated that he might appeal portions of the ruling. ...


I don't think global warming skeptics should be in positions of decision-making power.

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Fri, Aug 6, 2010
from Fast Company:
Desertification of Nebraska Not Enough to Convince Climate Change Deniers, Says Poll
The tipping point that turns skeptics into believers seems nearly impossible to reach when it comes to climate change. That isn't changing anytime soon, according to the Shelton Group's new Green Living Pulse study. The poll surveyed 1,098 consumers who buy green products on occasion, and asked climate change skeptics what it would take for them to believe that climate change is real and caused by humans. Answer: even an ice-free North Pole or a dustbowl on the Great Plains barely move the needle. The study says that 15 percent of skeptical respondents would be convinced by a melted polar ice cap, 15 percent would respond if kids should no longer go outside to play in the summer because of dangerous pollution levels, 3 percent would be swayed if changing weather patterns turned Nebraska into a desert, 2 percent would warm to the idea if there were only 20 polar bears left in the wild, and just 0.6 percent would be convinced if residents of America Samoa had to relocate because of rising tides. ...


This ship is unsinkable!

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Thu, Jul 29, 2010
from Christopher Booker, in the Telegraph:
Desperate days for the warmists
Ever more risibly desperate become the efforts of the believers in global warming to hold the line for their religion, after the battering it was given last winter by all those scandals surrounding the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. One familiar technique they use is to attribute to global warming almost any unusual weather event anywhere in the world. Last week, for instance, it was reported that Russia has recently been experiencing its hottest temperatures and longest drought for 130 years. The head of the Russian branch of WWF, the environmental pressure group, was inevitably quick to cite this as evidence of climate change, claiming that in future "such climate abnormalities will only become more frequent". He didn't explain what might have caused the similar hot weather 130 years ago. Meanwhile, notably little attention has been paid to the disastrous chill which has been sweeping South America thanks to an inrush of air from the Antarctic, killing hundreds in the continent's coldest winter for years. ...


Warmist? I'm a Chaosist!

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Thu, Jul 22, 2010
from BBC:
Climate unit's funding suspended by US DOE
Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have had funding of $200,000 suspended by the US government in a row over e-mails. The US Department of Energy (DoE) said it had not decided whether to reinstate the long-standing funding after the so-called ClimateGate affair. Climate sceptics alleged leaked e-mails undermined the integrity of UEA's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The UEA confirmed the DoE has held off funding despite the unit being cleared.... The US DoE has been funding the climate science unit in Norwich since 1990. ...


More proof! Everything they've ever done is utterly discredited!

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Sat, Jul 17, 2010
from Greenwire:
Sen. Inhofe Jabs EPA's Region 6 Office Over Texas Fight, Oil and Gas Regs
Unhappy with U.S. EPA's Dallas-based Region 6 office and concerned about a potential crackdown on air pollution from shale gas drilling, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson for answers. Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma sent a letter (pdf) to Jackson yesterday seeking documents related to EPA's ongoing dispute with Texas regulators over air quality permitting. Though he stopped short of criticizing Region 6 chief Al Armendariz, Inhofe said the office has "alarmed state and local officials and regulated entities" with its willingness to subjugate state authority and impose heavy costs on businesses. ...


Call me crazy, but I don't think climate change deniers should have decision-making powers.

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Sun, Jul 11, 2010
from Los Angeles Times:
Scientists expected Obama administration to be friendlier
When he ran for president, Barack Obama attacked the George W. Bush administration for putting political concerns ahead of science on such issues as climate change and public health. And during his first weeks in the White House, President Obama ordered his advisors to develop rules to "guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch." Many government scientists hailed the president's pronouncement. But a year and a half later, no such rules have been issued. Now scientists charge that the Obama administration is not doing enough to reverse a culture that they contend allowed officials to interfere with their work and limit their ability to speak out. ...


Perhaps it's the Office of the Presidency that is the problem.

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Sat, Jul 10, 2010
from Associated Press:
New Palin biography aimed at 9- to 12-year-olds
You might call it Sarah Palin's introduction to the cubs. A biography of the former Alaska governor and self-described "mama grizzly" is set for release in September by Christian book publisher Zondervan. "Speaking Up: The Sarah Palin Story," is one in a series of biographies aimed at 9- to 12-year-old readers. Others feature 2007 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and U2 frontman Bono. Kathleen Kerr, an acquisitions editor for Zondervan's Zonderkidz division, said the subjects are prominent figures who children hear about in the news and role models for tweens who are "working for the betterment of the world in which we live and who are motivated primarily by their Christian faith." ...


Occasionally I struggle with my decision to love everyone.

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Tue, Jul 6, 2010
from New Scientist:
IPCC report is 'reliable but flawed': Netherlands
A tendency to highlight worst-case scenarios undermined parts of the last assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, according to a new study by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). The inquiry was ordered by embarrassed Dutch ministers after it emerged that a mistake in the 2007 IPCC report originated with its own scientists. The report stated that 55 per cent of the Netherlands is below sea level, when in fact the true figure is half that. Overall, the Dutch investigators said, the IPCC report's conclusions were "well-founded". But it found several judgements that were "misleading" and appeared to have no firm research basis. For instance, the IPCC concluded that by 2050, "freshwater availability in central, south, east and south-east Asia, particularly in large river basins, is projected to decrease". This matters because some 3 billion people live in this part of the world and most rely on river flows to irrigate their crops. However, the Dutch investigators found confusion over data. Some studies cited measured absolute river flows, while others assessed per-capita flows. This made it "hard to establish the line of reasoning" and meant the conclusion could not be relied on, they said. In another case, the IPCC stated that "on balance health risks are very likely to increase" as a result of climate change. The PBL researchers said the report lacked a "quantitative underpinning for the statement". ...


Imagine! Scientists can be imperfect in predicting world-scale complexity!

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Tue, Jun 29, 2010
from Prison Planet:
Rationing us to Death: The Real Green Agenda!
How quickly 'climategate' and all the other exposed lies and fraud of the 'climate change' lobby are forgotten. How quickly they try to sweep the coldest winter in 50 years under the climate change carpet. Instead they keep up the mantra that we must get used to warmer drier summers. Well, bring it on is all I can say! History shows that warmer weather leads to a world of abundance of food which could, in the right hands, help the poorest in society, particularly those in the Third World to develop their countries to Western Standards. Isn't that what we should all hope and wish for so that our fellow human beings can simply survive instead of dying of starvation when even today it's unnecessary and only brought about by corruption and despotism funded by the West, including us folks? ... It has nothing whatsoever to do with CO2 and I openly challenge anyone to show me the evidence to the contrary, including Gormley and Sweeny who continually show their utter ignorance of scientific facts and continue to promote their own fantasy fiction of manmade global warming to the gullible and quite frankly, brainwashed masses.... Are the general public, so dumbed down by the fluoride in the water that has been proven to lower IQ's in children and cause bone cancer amongst other fatal conditions that they can't see through this blatant propaganda?... We are HUMAN BEINGS being treated like DUMB ANIMALS. ...


Ain't nobody going to tell me what I can't do. And besides, I have factoids and assertion on my side.

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Mon, May 10, 2010
from ScienceDaily:
Rare 114-Year Record, Kept by Generations, Logs Changing Climate
Every day since Jan. 1, 1896, an observer has hiked to a spot at The Mohonk Preserve, a resort and nature area some 90 miles north of New York City, to record daily temperature and other conditions there. It is the rarest of the rare: a weather station that has never missed a day of temperature recording; never been moved; never seen its surroundings change; and never been tended by anyone but a short, continuous line of family and friends, using the same methods, for 114 years.... Prior to 1980, it was rare for the thermometer to surpass about 89 degrees more than 10 days a year; since then, such events have come to Mohonk on at least 10 days a year -- and often, on more than 20 days. At the same time, the number of freezing days has been decreasing--about a day less every five years over the long term, but since the 1970s, at the accelerated rate of a day every two years. This also matches wide-scale observations in North America and elsewhere.... "The advantage to Mohonk is that we can revisit the record in detail, with minimal corrections. This helps confirm the large-scale trends, and it helps us identify stations with errors that need to be corrected." ...


Um.... Uh... Yeah, but they weren't scientists!

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Fri, May 7, 2010
from TIME Magazine:
Still Under Attack, Climate Scientists Fight Back
...Thanks in part to the events of Climategate last November -- when someone hacked into and released thousands of e-mails and documents from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at Britain's East Anglia University -- climate scientists now find themselves under fire... In the face of that dwindling in public confidence -- and a renewed surge in attacks from global-warming skeptics -- climate scientists are finally fighting back. In the May 7 edition of Science, 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel laureates, signed a letter decrying what they call the "political assaults on scientists and climate scientists in particular." ...


That'll fix 'em because we know climate deniers always read 'Science.'

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Sat, May 1, 2010
from London Daily Telegraph:
Gulf oil slick is a disaster for world climate deal
Could the greatest casualty of the giant oil slick surging through the Gulf of Mexico turn out to be not Louisiana's magnificent wildlife, or the biggest US fishery outside Alaska, but the last remaining chance of an international agreement to combat climate change? It seems counter-intuitive. Surely an economic and ecological disaster, caused by exploiting the fossil fuels that emit all that carbon dioxide, should make the world keener to tackle global warming by moving to cleaner sources of energy? But that would be in a rational universe - one where agreement did not depend on two increasingly dysfunctional institutions: the UN climate treaty negotiations and the US Congress. In the real world, there is no possibility of a new treaty unless Congress first passes legislation to reduce emissions from the United States. And, until the oil started gushing from the well beneath BP's Deepwater Horizon rig, the best chance of getting this through was for Capitol Hill, and the whole of the United States, to stop worrying about slicks and learn to love offshore oil drilling. ...


Don't you want to just take the US, spank 'em, and send 'em to bed without their energy.

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Tue, Apr 27, 2010
from NPR:
How Cap And Trade Was 'Trashed'
It's not clear whether climate-change legislation has any chance in the Senate this year. What is clear is that even if the chamber does manage to pass a bill, it will be much less ambitious than the version approved by the House last year. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spent months negotiating with Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) over what was expected to be the Senate's blueprint for action on the issue. Over the weekend, Graham pulled out of the effort, canceling the bill's introduction, which had been set for Monday... Graham has been castigated in his home state for working with Democrats on the issue and had not been able to win over any GOP co-sponsors. Climate change has become an increasingly partisan issue. ...


The planet is not partisan, though the poor will suffer far more than the rich.

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Mon, Apr 26, 2010
from Reuters:
Climate debate gets ugly as world moves to curb CO2
Climate scientists, used to dealing with sceptics, are under siege like never before, targeted by hate emails brimming with abuse and accusations of fabricating global warming data. Some emails contain thinly veiled death threats. Across the Internet, climate blogs are no less venomous, underscoring the surge in abuse over the past six months triggered by purported evidence that global warming is either a hoax or the threat from a warmer world is grossly overstated. A major source of the anger is from companies with a vested interest in fighting green legislation that might curtail their activities or make their operations more costly. ...


Livelihoods ... over lives.

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Sat, Apr 24, 2010
from Los Angeles Times:
Global warming ballot initiative: Teamsters and cities weigh in
The California Teamsters, one of the state's most powerful unions, Friday joined opponents of a proposed ballot initiative to delay enforcement of the Global Warming Solutions Act. The Teamsters, representing more than 250,000 union members in California, is the first major union to officially oppose the measure, which is backed by a group of oil companies, Republican legislators and conservative activists. The group is gathering signatures to place the initiative on the November ballot. "We must reject efforts to move backwards on protection of the environment," said Randy Cammack, co-chair of the Teamster's Public Affairs Council, which voted against the ballot measure. "Our members are citizens and neighbors as well as workers. We breathe the same air, drink the same water, and live on the same planet with every other human being. ...


And as we know, there is no "I" in team!

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Fri, Apr 23, 2010
from London Guardian:
Climate scientist sues newspaper for 'poisoning' global warming debate
One of the world's leading climate scientists has launched a libel lawsuit against a Canadian newspaper for publishing articles that he says "poison" the debate on global warming. In a case with potentially huge consequences for online publishers, lawyers acting for Andrew Weaver, a climate modeller at the University of Victoria, Canada, have demanded the National Post removes the articles not only from its own websites, but also from the numerous blogs and sites where they were reposted. Weaver says the articles, published at the height of several recent controversies over the reliability of climate science in recent months, contain "grossly irresponsible falsehoods". He said he filed the suit after the newspaper refused to retract the articles. Weaver said: "If I sit back and do nothing to clear my name, these libels will stay on the internet forever. They'll poison the factual record, misleading people who are looking for reliable scientific information about global warming." ...


Give it a try, Andrew, but even burning on earth won't change these skeptics' minds.

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Tue, Apr 20, 2010
from Los Angeles Times:
Foes of California's global warming law pour money into a campaign to delay it
Oil companies and conservative activists poured nearly $1 million last week into their campaign to place an initiative on the November ballot that would delay enforcement of California's global warming law. The effort, which also sought to enlist "tea party" activists, came as organizers failed to meet their original goal of gathering the 433,000 necessary signatures by Friday. But with the infusion of $930,000 to pay signature gatherers, bringing the total to $1.9 million, "We will all do what it takes to win," said Assemblyman Dan Logue (R-Marysville), an initiative backer. "This will be an epic battle like no other between environmental extremism and job growth." ...


This makes me feel all logey.

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Thu, Apr 15, 2010
from London Independent:
Climate row: backing for scientists
A distinguished panel of independent scientists has given a resounding vote of confidence in the credibility and integrity of the key studies into climate change that have emerged over the past 20 years from the embattled Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. The panel, chaired by Lord Oxburgh, a geologist and former rector of Imperial College London, was asked to review the scientific papers and methodology of the CRU following the theft of university emails, the leaking of which suggested a possible conspiracy to subvert data in order to support the case for man-made climate change. Lord Oxburgh's investigation found no evidence to suggest that the CRU scientists had acted improperly or dishonestly. It found the unit's overall conclusions were sound but it criticised the CRU for not using the best statistical tools to analyse the data -- although this misjudgement did not alter the overall results and conclusions. ...


Whew! Now can get get back to the business of watching our habitat collapse?

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Sun, Apr 11, 2010
from Lancaster Intelligencer Journal/New Era:
Climate warming leaves 'em cold
Harrisburg weatherman Rob Dixon is cool toward dire global warming scenarios. He simply doesn't believe people have the ability to predict what's going to happen to the climate years in the future. After all, reasons the ABC-TV 27 veteran, it's hard enough to nail the five-day. Many of his peers in the area side with him. They don't deny that the planet is running a fever. "There's tons of anecdotal evidence," such as retreating glaciers in Montana and dwindling sea ice, Millersville University meteorologist Eric Horst said. He and other weathermen think humans play at least a minor role. ...


Doppler dopes.

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Wed, Apr 7, 2010
from Greenpeace:
Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine
Billionaire oilman David Koch likes to joke that Koch Industries is "the biggest company you've never heard of." But the nearly $50 million that David Koch and his brother Charles have quietly funneled to climate-denial front groups that are working to delay policies and regulations aimed at stopping global warming is no joking matter. Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch have a vested interest in delaying climate action: they've made billions from their ownership and control of Koch Industries, an oil corporation that is the second largest privately-held company in America (which also happens to have an especially poor environmental record). It's time more people were aware of Charles and David Koch and just what they're up to. Greenpeace has released the report "Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine" to expose the connections between these climate denial front groups and the secretive billionaires who are funding their efforts. The Koch brothers, their family members, and their employees direct a web of financing that supports conservative special interest groups and think-tanks, with a strong focus on fighting environmental regulation, opposing clean energy legislation, and easing limits on industrial pollution. ...


This is what plutocracy looks like.

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Sun, Apr 4, 2010
from PhysOrg.com:
'Evil twin' threatens world oceans, scientists warn
"Ocean conditions are already more extreme than those experienced by marine organisms and ecosystems for millions of years," the researchers say in the latest issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution (TREE). "This emphasises the urgent need to adopt policies that drastically reduce CO2 emissions." Ocean acidification, which the researchers call the 'evil twin of global warming', is caused when the CO2 emitted by human activity, mainly burning fossil fuels, dissolves into the oceans. It is happening independently of, but in combination with, global warming.... "Evidence gathered by scientists around the world over the last few years suggests that ocean acidification could represent an equal - or perhaps even greater threat - to the biology of our planet than global warming." ...


That's a greater theoretical threat, right?

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Wed, Mar 31, 2010
from Washington Post:
UK 'Climategate' inquiry largely clears scientists
The first of several British investigations into the e-mails leaked from one of the world's leading climate research centers has largely vindicated the scientists involved. The House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee said Wednesday that they'd seen no evidence to support charges that the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit or its director, Phil Jones, had tampered with data or perverted the peer review process to exaggerate the threat of global warming - two of the most serious criticisms levied against the climatologist and his colleagues. In their report, the committee said that, as far as it was able to ascertain, "the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact," adding that nothing in the more than 1,000 stolen e-mails, or the controversy kicked up by their publication, challenged scientific consensus that "global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity." ...


Something tells me deniers will still go on denyin'...

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Tue, Mar 30, 2010
from New York times:
Among Weathercasters, Doubt on Warming
Climatologists, who study weather patterns over time, almost universally endorse the view that the earth is warming and that humans have contributed to climate change. There is less of a consensus among meteorologists, who predict short-term weather patterns.... "There is a great deal of consternation among a lot of us over the readjustment of data that is going on and some of the portrayals that we are seeing," Mr. Bastardi said in a video segment posted recently on AccuWeather's Web site. Such skepticism appears to be widespread among TV forecasters, about half of whom have a degree in meteorology. A study released on Monday by researchers at George Mason University and the University of Texas at Austin found that only about half of the 571 television weathercasters surveyed believed that global warming was occurring and fewer than a third believed that climate change was "caused mostly by human activities."... The split between climate scientists and meteorologists is gaining attention in political and academic circles because polls show that public skepticism about global warming is increasing, and weather forecasters -- especially those on television -- dominate communications channels to the public. ...


It's simple. I just believe whoever's better-looking!

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Thu, Mar 25, 2010
from Times Online:
Public scepticism prompts Science Museum to rename climate exhibition
The Science Museum is revising the contents of its new climate science gallery to reflect the wave of scepticism that has engulfed the issue in recent months. The decision by the 100-year-old London museum reveals how deeply scientific institutions have been shaken by the public's reaction to revelations of malpractice by climate scientists. The museum is abandoning its previous practice of trying to persuade visitors of the dangers of global warming. It is instead adopting a neutral position, acknowledging that there are legitimate doubts about the impact of man-made emissions on the climate. Even the title of the 4 million gallery has been changed to reflect the museum's more circumspect approach. The museum had intended to call it the Climate Change Gallery, but has decided to change this to Climate Science Gallery to avoid being accused of presuming that emissions would change the temperature. ...


How about we change your name to "The Belief Museum"? The Cro-magnon yee-hawing atop Brontosaurus will be a big draw.

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Sun, Mar 21, 2010
from The Daily Climate:
Global cooling is bunk, draft NASA study finds
Global warming has neither stopped nor slowed in the past decade, according to a draft analysis of temperature data by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The analysis, led by senior scientist Jim Hansen, attempts to debunk popular belief that the planet is cooling. It finds that global temperatures over the past decade have "continued to rise rapidly," despite large year-to-year fluctuations associated with the tropical El Nino-La Nina cycles. The analysis also predicts, assuming current El Nino conditions hold, that 2010 will go down in history as the hottest year on record despite an unusually snowy winter in the Northern Hemisphere. ...


What a relief! -- oh wait

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Wed, Mar 17, 2010
from USA Today:
Poll: Worries about environment hit low
Americans' worries about environmental issues have hit a 20-year low, largely because of economic concerns, according to a Gallup Poll released Tuesday. Fewer adults worry "a great deal" about each of eight issues surveyed, including global warming, than a year ago, according to the poll of 1,014 Americans taken March 4-7. Their concerns about six of the issues hit record lows. At the same time, in findings Gallup will release later this week, a record number -- 53 percent -- say economic growth takes precedence, even if it hurts the environment, says Frank Newport, Gallup's editor in chief. ...


Do Americans hate the environment or just love money?

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Mon, Mar 15, 2010
from CanWest News Service:
Climate-change scientists feel 'muzzled' by Ottawa: Documents
A dramatic reduction in Canadian media coverage of climate change science issues is the result of the Harper government introducing new rules in 2007 to control interviews by Environment Canada scientists with journalists, says a newly released federal document. "Scientists have noticed a major reduction in the number of requests, particularly from high profile media, who often have same-day deadlines," said the Environment Canada document. Media coverage of climate change science, our most high-profile issue, has been reduced by over 80 per cent."..the policy also required them to get approval from supervisors of written responses to the questions submitted by journalists before any interview, said the document, obtained in an investigation into the government's views and policies on global-warming science... ...


Climate scientists "muzzled"? Well, they ARE the Dogs of Hell!

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Tue, Mar 9, 2010
from Christian Science Monitor:
Global warming doubts could hamper climate legislation
A recent poll suggests that high-profile controversies regarding climate science are weakening public confidence in the validity of global warming, And that could endanger congressional efforts to pass climate legislation. In 2008, 71 percent of respondents said they thought global warming was happening, while 10 percent thought it wasn't. This year, only 57 percent thought global warming was a reality, and the number of doubters increased to 20 percent, according to a poll conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change and the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "We've seen some pretty significant changes over the past year," says Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change. "We found a very significant drop in the percentage of Americans who think global warming is happening, and a significant drop in those who think humans are responsible. Generally speaking, we've seen a drop in public concern about the issue." ...


United Skeptics of America!

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Mon, Mar 8, 2010
from Indiana University, via New Scientist:
High-carbon ice age mystery solved
How come a big ice age happened when carbon dioxide levels were high? It's a question climate sceptics often ask. But sometimes the right answer is the simplest: it turns out CO2 levels were not that high after all. The Ordovician ice age happened 444 million years ago, and records have suggested that CO2 levels were relatively high then. But when Seth Young of Indiana University in Bloomington did a detailed analysis of carbon-13 levels in rocks formed at the time, the picture that emerged was very different. Young found CO2 concentrations were in fact relatively low when the ice age began. Lee Kump of Pennsylvania State University in University Park says earlier studies missed the dip because they calculated levels at 10-million-year intervals and the ice age lasted only half a million years. ...


All this so-called "science" -- I'd rather just stay entrenched in my beliefs!

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Sat, Mar 6, 2010
from Living on Earth:
Climate Confusion
For climate scientists, now is the winter of their discontent. Their major work, the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, which won the Nobel Peace Prize, is now under attack. A sloppy paragraph wrongly projected how soon Himalayan glaciers might melt. Another section overestimated flood-prone areas in the Netherlands. Scientists say the mistakes are minor. But the errors came to light just as the heat was building around another matter: embarrassing revelations in thousands of emails by climate scientists that were hacked...[Penn State Professor Richard Alley]: ...what's come out doesn't shake the fundamentals of the science as we know it. One of the key things about science about the IPCC and all of us in general -- a big result which is put forward to the public can never be broken by one mistake, and so my suspicion is that we just have not done enough of a job of communicating this. ...


Scientists: get your geek on!

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Fri, Mar 5, 2010
from NUVO Newsweekly:
Atmospheric scientist speaks at Butler
On Thursday night, March 4, atmospheric scientist Katharine Heyhoe spoke to more than a hundred students, faculty and community members on the campus of Butler University... After her excellent presentation, the first question asked from the audience was about climategate. Heyhoe handled the questioner deftly, referring him to investigating the hacked emails himself, along with looking at the actual science of global warming, yet the man nattered on, until, having stolen too much speakspace, was asked to stop. He quickly left the room. Unfortunately, so did a number of students...a survey by the Yale Project on Climate Change and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change concluded that younger people, 18-34, are relatively "apathetic about the threat" of climate change. In fact, the survey found, nearly two thirds of younger Americans are "unsure whether global warming is real." ...


Maybe the young people, like, mean it's soooooooo UNreal it doesn't seem real.

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Thu, Mar 4, 2010
from Yale 360:
Younger Americans Disengaged On Global Warming, Survey Finds
Although they have grown up during an era when global warming has emerged as a major issue, Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 are relatively apathetic about the threat, according to a new survey. And even when they do think about it, young Americans are just as divided as older Americans about whether global warming is real, according to results of the survey conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. Adults under 35 are significantly less likely than older Americans to say they have thought about global warming, with 22 percent saying they have never thought about the issue. Only 38 percent of younger Americans say they had previously thought about global warming either "a lot" or "some," compared to 51 percent of those aged 35 to 59. And 54 percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 said they were not at all worried or not very worried about global warming. Sixty-one percent of younger Americans said that most of their friends were generally not taking actions to reduce global warming. And nearly two-thirds of younger Americans are unsure whether global warming is real, with 20 percent saying they didn't know enough to make a judgment and 40 percent saying that there is a lot of disagreement among scientists on the issue. ...


Ah youth. Wasted on the stupid.

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Thu, Mar 4, 2010
from New York Times:
Darwin Foes Add Warming to Targets
Critics of the teaching of evolution in the nation's classrooms are gaining ground in some states by linking the issue to global warming, arguing that dissenting views on both scientific subjects should be taught in public schools.... In Kentucky, a bill recently introduced in the Legislature would encourage teachers to discuss "the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories," including "evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning."... The linkage of evolution and global warming is partly a legal strategy: courts have found that singling out evolution for criticism in public schools is a violation of the separation of church and state. By insisting that global warming also be debated, deniers of evolution can argue that they are simply championing academic freedom in general. ...


Their evolving legal strategy is generating a lot of hot air.

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Thu, Mar 4, 2010
from Mother Jones:
The Chamber of Commerce vs. Climate Science
William Kovacs, the US Chamber of Commerce's vice president of environment, technology and regulatory affairs, last year famously called for a "Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century" on climate change. Kovacs was referencing the lightning-rod 1925 court case that made it illegal to teach anything other than divine creation in Tennessee public schools -- and he wanted a similar public hearing in which climate science would be put on the stand. The remark drew plenty of bad press, and Kovacs soon recanted his "inappropriate" analogy. But it looks like the chamber is angling for that monkey trial after all, by way of a lawsuit it's filed against the Environmental Protection Agency that could be the first wave of a big-business assault on greenhouse gas regulations. ...


We need a US Chamber of Climate.

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Tue, Mar 2, 2010
from Environmental Research Web:
Media play hockey with climate change
Climate scientists around the world have been struggling to understand the public backlash against anthropogenic global warming over the last 12 months or so. In several panels at the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting, leading scientists struggled with how best to respond to a rising tide of climate-change scepticism. "There is a good deal of difference between scepticism derived from evidence, which many of us are familiar with, and scepticism derived from ideology," said Boykoff. "It raises questions about who has authority. Who has expertise? Who has the authority to speak for the climate?" ... Freudenburg also said that there is strong pressure to publish results that surprise readers, both in the academic literature and the popular press. This inevitably leads to papers that lean towards hyperbole and ultimately cause laypeople to doubt the entire field, rather than individual papers. ...


Is there much evidence of hyperbole?

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Sun, Feb 28, 2010
from The Economist:
The bleakest outlook in the world: the future of the Arctic
The Arctic is changing faster and more dramatically than any other environment on the planet. The ice that defines it is melting with alarming speed, taking with it life that can survive nowhere else. Oil, gas, shipping and fishing interests have been heading into the newly open water, with diplomats, lawyers, and now authors, in their wake.... Mr Anderson looks in on the extraordinary, tiny world of the tributary system within the Arctic ice, formed by trickles of briny water which gets squeezed as it freezes. But from the bear above to the microscopic wonders within, all are doomed once the summer ice goes, which is expected to happen at some point between 2013 and 2050. ...


The Arctic will only melt if we accept the theory of the greenhouse effect. Clap with me three times, and then we can fly.

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Sun, Feb 28, 2010
from Associated Press:
Warming Panel, Under Attack, Seeks Outside Review
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it's seeking some kind of independent review because of recent criticism about its four 2007 reports. Critics have found a few unsettling errors, including projections of retreats in Himalayan glaciers, in the thousands of pages of the reports. Scientists say the problems are minor and have nothing to do with the major conclusions about man-made global warming and how it will harm people and ecosystems...But one of the troubles is that the IPCC is written by most of the world's top experts in climate science. And the experts who don't write it, often review it, so it's hard to find someone both independent and knowledgeable. ...


Then let's get skeptics and deniers to review it!

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Sun, Feb 14, 2010
from Kansas City Star:
Many meteorologists break with science of global warming
We now take you live to a storm within the ranks of America's weathercasters. It is a quiet controversy about global warming. At least one local broadcaster had been hoping to keep it quiet. But after considerable persuasion last week, the Fox affiliate WDAF reluctantly allowed its chief meteorologist, Mike Thompson, to explain in an e-mail to The Kansas City Star why he breaks from the scholarly worldview of the causes of climate change. "It has become completely political -- it's not about science at all," he wrote in an e-mail. "If science were the objective, then we would be seeing an entirely different debate. But there are agendas at play, and it has undermined the credibility of climate science."... It is important to know that meteorologists are not climatologists. ...


I'd venture that instead of reading the science, he's been reading stories on the controversy about the science.

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Sun, Feb 7, 2010
from London Independent:
Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers
An orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment experts claimed last night. The attack against scientists supportive of the idea of man-made climate change has grown in ferocity since the leak of thousands of documents on the subject from the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit last December. Free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US and the International Policy Network in the UK have received grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the multinational energy company ExxonMobil. Both organisations have funded international seminars pulling together climate change deniers from across the globe. ...


It requires a lot to money to lie this big.

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Sat, Feb 6, 2010
from BBC:
Climate scepticism 'on the rise', BBC poll shows
The Populus poll of 1,001 adults found 25 percent did not think global warming was happening, a rise of 8 percent since a similar poll was conducted in November. The percentage of respondents who said climate change was a reality had fallen from 83 percent in November to 75 percent this month. And only 26 percent of those asked believed climate change was happening and "now established as largely man-made". ...


My problems always go away when I ignore them.

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Sun, Dec 20, 2009
from New Scientist:
Sceptical climate researcher won't divulge key program
A physicist whose work is often highlighted by climate-change sceptics is refusing to provide the software he used to other climate researchers attempting to replicate his results. Nicola Scafetta, a physicist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has published a series of papers over the past few years that suggest the sun played a much bigger role in warming over the 20th century than is generally accepted. In particular, one 2006 paper he co-authored concluded that: "The sun might have contributed approximately 50 per cent of the observed global warming since 1900" (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2006GL027142). This paper has been widely cited by those seeking to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on the cause of climate change, including US senator James Inhofe. Scafetta has also contributed to a book that claimed that "carbon dioxide probably is not the driving factor behind climate change". ...


Maybe the software is a just a little soft in the head.

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Wed, Dec 9, 2009
from London Daily Telegraph:
Copenhagen climate summit: global warming 'caused by sun's radiation'
As the world gathered in the Danish capital for the UN Climate Change Conference, more than 50 scientists, businessmen and lobby groups met to discuss the arguments against man made global warming. Although the meeting was considerably smaller than the official gathering of 15,000 people meeting down the road, the organisers claimed it could change the course of negotiations.... The meeting was organised by Danish group Climate Sense and the lobby group Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). ...


AKA DenialFest 2009

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Thu, Dec 3, 2009
from Climate Wire:
Rising Partisanship Sharply Erodes U.S. Public's Belief in Global Warming
On the eve of major international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, belief in global warming in the United States has slipped to the lowest point in 12 years of measuring, according to a poll from New York-based Harris Interactive Inc. As U.S. negotiators fly to the Danish capital to forge a political agreement based on President Obama's proposal to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by about 17 percent, most of the American public doesn't know what the talks are about, according to the Harris survey. Just 51 percent of adults questioned said they believed carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would cause the Earth's average temperature to increase. Two years ago, fully 71 percent of respondents linked greenhouse gases directly to global warming. ...


Imagination has always been an essential aspect of being an American.

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Sun, Nov 29, 2009
from London Observer:
Climate change denier Nick Griffin to represent EU at Copenhagen
Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National party, is to represent the European parliament at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, which opens next week. Last night politicians and scientists reacted furiously to news that the far-right politician and climate change denier should be attending the summit on behalf of the EU....n a speech in the parliament last week, Griffin denounced those who warn of the consequences of climate change as "cranks". He said they had reached "an Orwellian consensus" that was "based not on scientific agreement, but on bullying, censorship and fraudulent statistics". "The anti-western intellectual cranks of the left suffered a collective breakdown when communism collapsed. Climate change is their new theology�" ...


And you, Nick Griffin, in that new theology, are the devil.

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Wed, Nov 25, 2009
from ABC News:
POLL: Fewer Republicans and Conservatives Believe Global Warming Is Happening
The number of Americans who believe global warming is occurring has declined to its lowest since 1997, though at 72 percent, it's still a broad majority. The drop has steepened in the last year-and-a-half -- almost exclusively among conservatives and Republicans... Belief that Earth is warming peaked at 85 percent in 2006, then flattened before turning back. Even with the decline, Americans who think global warming probably is occurring outnumber those who think not by nearly 3-1, 72 percent to 26 percent. ...


Having opinions about global warming is a luxury we can no longer afford.

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Mon, Nov 9, 2009
from George Monbiot:
Death Denial
There is no point in denying it: we're losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere which cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.... A survey last month by the Pew Research Centre suggests that the proportion of Americans who believe there's solid evidence that the world has been warming over the past few decades has fallen from 71 percent to 57 percent in just 18 months.... On Amazon.co.uk, books championing climate change denial are currently ranked at 1,2,4,5,7 and 8 in the global warming category(5). Never mind that they've been torn to shreds by scientists and reviewers, they are beating the scientific books by miles. What is going on? ...


Could it be that denial is an evolutionary survival instinct?

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Thu, Oct 22, 2009
from Associated Press:
Poll: Americans' belief in global warming cools
The number of Americans who believe there is solid evidence that the Earth is warming because of pollution is at its lowest point in three years, according to a survey released Thursday. The poll of 1,500 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that only 57 percent believe there is strong scientific evidence that the Earth has gotten warmer over the past few decades, and as a result, people are viewing the problem as less serious. That's down from 77 percent in 2006. The steepest drop occurred during the last year, as Congress and the Obama administration have taken steps to control heat-trapping emissions for the first time. The drop also was seen during a time of mounting scientific evidence of climate change -- from melting ice caps to the world's oceans hitting the highest monthly recorded temperatures this summer. ...


Pewwwwww!

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Tue, Oct 6, 2009
from Telegraph.co.uk:
Most people in denial over climate change, according to psychologists
He compared the situation to the psychology of the British and German populations before the Second World War and said the only way to make people change their behaviour is to "ramp up the fear factor." Prof Hamilton applied traditional psychological reactions to the threat of future risk. In a paper presented to an Oxford University conference this week, he said people react in three different ways to a frightening situation: denial, apathy or action. In the case of climate change, he said a minority of people in Britain are in complete denial and refuse to believe man-made greenhouse gases are causing the temperatures to rise. He said a smaller minority are taking action by lobbying Government and adapting their lifestyles through driving less, not eating meat and generally living a low carbon lifestyle. ...


I don't see any denial going on. About what?

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Mon, Sep 14, 2009
from :
From the ApocaDesk
As a film, The Age of Stupid is a strange brew, a combination science fiction drama and present-day documentary. The premise of the narrative makes it work: An archivist in the year 2050 sits atop the now permanently melted Arctic in a structure that houses all the great art and books and media of the history of humanity. The Archivist, played by Pete Postlethwaite (In the Name of the Father, The Usual Suspects), muses aloud about the imminent destruction of the habitat, as he sifts through the footage of the past, trying to figure out the answer to an essential question.
Why didn't we try and save ourselves?
The story is a pastiche of snippets of CNN and Fox broadcasters and other media moments, but six main narratives are threaded together, tied more or less loosely by the idea of oil. These are real people, and they represent a broad cross-section of age and geographical location, from the New Orleans-based Alvin Duvernay to 8 year old Jamila, an Iraqi refugee living, homeless, in Jordan.
A third main thread of the story -- in addition to the archivist and the real humans -- are numerous animated pieces that info-graphically and entertainingly tell the story of how mass consumerism and obsession with oil combined to lead to the ruination of the planet.
Three-fold, these elements of The Age of Stupid hold together, anchored by the sweet sad face of The Archivist.
Director Franny Armstrong tackled one facet of consumerism in McLibel and now she's grappling with a larger -- well, the largest == canvas. It was four years in the making, and funded by a "crowd" - i.e. numerous smaller investors, and her film is an entertaining and harrowing look at now through eyes of later.
According to the filmmakers, the documentary started off as a Soderbergh Traffic-style narrative, weaving the six real folks into one complex story called Crude. Knowing that may help you view the film; for me, giant issues of habitat collapse are missing from The Age of Stupid -- most notably the erosive effects of corporate farming, and the potential for potential pandemic plague to be cooked up its cauldrons. Then there's over-population, only slightly brushed against in the film. But understanding that Armstrong and company were hoping to stay on message with oil helps focus an otherwise potentially overwhelming subject.
So as a film, The Age of Stupid works, and as a piece of persuasion... well, you had me at stupid. The title is fun to say, and can morph into any number of entertaining phrases: "Have you seen 'Stupid' yet?" "I thought 'Stupid' was brilliant." "Hey, I'll join the 'Stupid' team!"
The Age of Stupid is going its own way in hopes of building a team of Stupids to help. On Monday, Sept. 21 at 7:30 (Eastern time), a New York-based live presentation of the film will feature the movie, followed by a panel discussion between the filmmakers, scientists and environmental leaders, with Radiohead's Thom Yorke wrapping up the event with an acoustic performance of the film's title track. This gathering will be as green as green can be, from a carbon emission standpoint, and will tape-delay broadcast to more than 30 countries. Hey, we're all in this together, or, rather, all going down together if we don't take the film's message to heart.
Ultimately, to rate this film, to recommend it, to criticize is absurd. On the brink of the December climate gathering in Copenhagen, on the precipice of disaster, shall we quibble about the entertainment value of a piece of culture like The Age of Stupid? The real question is: Does it contribute to the necessary awakening of humanity?
Our stupid answer is: It sure does, stupid.
For a complete list of screens -- there are more than 440 theaters involved -- go to www.FathomEvents.com. And please, carpool, bicycle or use public transportation. Because driving yourself, alone, to the theater would just be ... well, you know. For more info, go to www.ageofstupid.net. ...


It's the collapse of the habitat, stupid!

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Sun, Jul 26, 2009
from Macedonian International News Agency:
India not buying Global Warming story
India rejected key scientific findings on global warming, while the European Union called for more action by developing states on greenhouse gas emissions. Jairam Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, accused the developed world of needlessly raising alarm over melting Himalayan glaciers. He dismissed scientists' predictions that Himalayan glaciers might disappear within 40 years as a result of global warming. "We have to get out of the preconceived notion, which is based on western media, and invest our scientific research and other capacities to study Himalayan atmosphere," he said. "Science has its limitation. You cannot substitute the knowledge that has been gained by the people living in cold deserts through everyday experience." ...


When did Inhofe get over to India? And how did he get to be environmental minister?

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Thu, Jul 16, 2009
from The Hudson Star-Observer:
Meteorologist says man not cause of climate issue
Dave Dahl, chief meteorologist at KSTP in the Twin Cities, told Hudson Rotarians that man is not the culprit when it comes to global warming, or climate change, issues. Dahl spoke to the Hudson Thursday Noon Rotary Club on July 9 and said what was called "global warming" is now tabbed "climate change" -- because temperatures on the planet have decreased in the past couple years.... He said that the heating of the earth -- which is mostly a good thing -- is caused primarily by water vapor -- about 98 percent. He said carbon and other elements account for about 2 percent of the mix. Of that 2 percent, human involvement represents only about 2 percent of that (.0004 percent). ...


Weather anchors like this are weighing us down!

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Mon, Jul 13, 2009
from New York Times:
Boiling the Frog
Is America on its way to becoming a boiled frog?... the consensus of the climate experts is utterly terrifying. At this point, the central forecast of leading climate models -- not the worst-case scenario but the most likely outcome -- is utter catastrophe, a rise in temperatures that will totally disrupt life as we know it, if we continue along our present path. How to head off that catastrophe should be the dominant policy issue of our time. But it isn't, because climate change is a creeping threat rather than an attention-grabbing crisis... Unfortunately, if we wait to act until the climate crisis is that obvious, catastrophe will already have become inevitable. ...


No matter what metaphor -- frogs, canaries, whatever -- we are pretty much dead meat.

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Sat, Jul 11, 2009
from New York Times:
Survey Shows Gap Between Scientists and the Public
When it comes to climate change, the teaching of evolution and the state of the nation's research enterprise, there is a large gap between what scientists think and the views of ordinary Americans, a new survey has found... while almost all of the scientists surveyed accept that human beings evolved by natural processes and that human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, is causing global warming, general public is far less sure. Almost a third of ordinary Americans say human beings have existed in their current form since the beginning of time, a view held by only 2 percent of the scientists. Only about half of the public agrees that people are behind climate change, and 11 percent does not believe there is any warming at all. ...


This is evadense our public edjucation system are flawed.

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Tue, Jun 9, 2009
from Sydney Morning Herald:
Fielding slammed over solar flare theory
Scientists have slammed Family First's Steve Fielding after he returned from the US suggesting solar flares rather than human activity are responsible for climate change. Senator Fielding said he wanted to debate the cause of global warming with government scientists before he votes on Labor's climate change legislation. He recently returned from a trip to the United States where he met climate change sceptics who blame global warming on solar flares, not human activity or carbon emissions. It is a theory he believes has some credibility. ...


The Solar Flare Society: a branch of the Flat Earth Society.

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Sat, May 30, 2009
from Associated Press:
GOP belittles Democrats' climate change proposal
...Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, in the GOP's weekly radio and Internet address, said the House's climate bill was "a classic example of unwise government." The address culminated a week of coordinated Republican attacks on the Democratic proposal, which would require the first nationwide reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for global warming... The proposal to cap greenhouse emissions "will cost us dearly in jobs and income and it stands no chance of achieving its objective of a cooler earth" because other nations such as China and India will not have to follow, Daniels said. "The cost for all American taxpayers will be certain, huge, and immediate. Any benefits are extremely uncertain, minuscule, and decades distant," he contended. ...


Then by all means let's just destroy the habitat, together, ASAP!

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Sat, Mar 14, 2009
from London Guardian:
Postlethwaite lambasts climate deniers on eve of green film premiere
Actor Pete Postlethwaite yesterday denounced climate change deniers as a "negative force" with their "heads in the sand". Ahead of Sunday's premiere of The Age of Stupid, an environmental doomsday docudrama, he compared those who do not accept that human-induced global warming is occurring with Holocaust deniers, and said the evidence for global change is now beyond doubt... In the film, the Oscar-nominated actor stars as a future survivor of the 21st century's climate apocalypse, who looks back on the present through documentary footage and asks why humanity failed to save itself while it could. ...


Hey. Remember, this guy worked for Keyser Soze.

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Mon, Mar 9, 2009
from New York Times:
Skeptics Dispute Climate Worries and Each Other
More than 600 self-professed climate skeptics are meeting in a Times Square hotel this week to challenge what has become a broad scientific and political consensus: that without big changes in energy choices, humans will dangerously heat up the planet.... Organizers say the discussions, which began Sunday, are intended to counter the Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers, who have vowed to tackle global warming with legislation requiring cuts in the greenhouse gases that scientists have linked to rising temperatures. But two years after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded with near certainty that most of the recent warming was a result of human influences, global warming�s skeptics are showing signs of internal rifts and weakening support. ...


This conference is brought to you by those fine folks at The Flat Earth Society.

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Thu, Feb 26, 2009
from New York Times:
In Climate Debate, Exaggeration Is a Pitfall
Social scientists who study the interface of climate science and public policy say that campaigners and officials who seek to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases face an uphill battle in changing people's minds about the issue. Even with the success of "An Inconvenient Truth," the Oscar-winning 2006 documentary featuring Mr. Gore, and widely publicized images of melting Arctic ice, surveys show that most Americans are either confused about climate change, mildly concerned about it or completely disengaged from the issue. A variety of surveys show that roughly 20 percent of Americans are in Mr. Gore's camp and another 20 percent in Mr. Will's, rejecting the idea that humans could dangerously alter global climate. That division is unlikely to change any time soon, said David Ropeik, a consultant on risk communication who teaches at Harvard University. ...


We'd say that hyperbole was polarizing, if there were any poles left.

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Fri, Jan 23, 2009
from New York Times (US):
Environmental Issues Slide in Poll of Public's Concerns
A new poll suggests that Americans, preoccupied with the economy, are less worried about rising global temperatures than they were a year ago but remain concerned with solving the nation's energy problems.... In the poll, released Thursday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, global warming came in last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. Only 30 percent of the voters deemed global warming to be "a top priority," compared with 35 percent in 2008. "Protecting the environment," which had surged in the rankings from 2006 to 2008, dropped even more precipitously in the poll: only 41 percent of voters called it a top priority, compared with 56 percent last year. ...


Clearly, we are not getting the message across.

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Tue, Nov 25, 2008
from Canwest News:
WARMING TO GLOBAL WARMING
...a group of global-warming experts, made up mainly of university economists and anthropologists, is pushing the notion that global warming might not be an unmitigated disaster, especially for certain northerly regions, such as Canada, Russia and Scandinavia. Leading the charge is Robert Mendelsohn, an economics professor at Yale University, who says the benefits of global warming for Canada - from a longer growing season to the opening up of shipping through the Northwest Passage - will outweigh the negative effects. "You're lucky because you're a northern-latitude country, Mendelsohn says. "If you add it all up, it's a good thing for Canada." ...


It would appear this economics prof can't do the true math that everything is connected.

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Sun, Nov 23, 2008
from Williamson Daily News:
Coal CEO calls environmentalists crazy
Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, the fourth largest coal company in the country, blasted politics and the press, comparing Charleston Gazette Editor James. A. Haught to Osama Bin Laden Thursday evening when he addressed the Tug Valley Mining Institute in Williamson.... "They can say what they want about climate change," he said. "But the only thing melting in this country that matters is our financial system and our economy."... Many people would give support to groups who work to disprove global warming if it was not so politically incorrect, Blankenship said. ...


Maybe he should try hitting up the Flat Earth Society for some funds to disprove global warming.

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Wed, Oct 1, 2008
from Agence France-Presse:
Palin: Cause of global warming 'doesn't matter'
WASHINGTON: Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said on Tuesday that global warming is "real," but stressed that it "kind of doesn't matter" whether or not humans are to blame for climate change. ...


We kind of think she's sort of unqualified to run for any kind of office.

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Sat, Aug 30, 2008
from McClatchy Newspapers:
Palin questioned whether global warming is melting Arctic ice
"Sen. John McCain's choice of a running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, favors drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, questioned the science behind predictions of sea ice loss linked to global warming and opposed a state initiative that would have banned metal mines from discharging pollution into salmon streams." ...


Wow. Sounds like she's a Dick Cheney Mini-Me!

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Sat, Aug 30, 2008
from The Olympian (WA):
Alaska seeks to show polar bears aren't threatened
Alaska's state legislature is looking to hire a few good polar bear scientists. The conclusions have already been agreed upon -- researchers just have to fill in the science part.... A $2 million program funded with little debate by the legislature last month calls for using state money to fund an "academic based" conference that highlights contrarian scientific research on global warming. Legislators hope to undermine the public perception of a widespread consensus among polar bear researchers that warming global temperatures and melting Arctic ice threaten the polar bears' survival. ...


Finding evidence to fit a preordained conclusion. Now where have I heard that before?

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Sat, Aug 9, 2008
from The Australian:
Key degrees of difference
"Has global warming stopped? The question alone is enough to provoke scorn from the mainstream scientific community and from the Government, which says the earth has never been hotter. But tell that to a new army of sceptics who have mushroomed on internet blog sites and elsewhere in recent months to challenge some of the most basic assumptions and claims of climate change science." ...


What do these skeptics want? That we remain in a state of limbaugh -- I mean limbo?

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Mon, Jun 2, 2008
from Religious Intelligence Ltd:
Climate change question not proven, says bishop
The Anglican Bishop of Chester has described the question of how much carbon dioxide contributes to global warming as "in some respects still open".... "[T]he phenomena under investigation are so large: the whole of the earth's surface, the whole of the earth's atmosphere, and the sun itself. That makes precision difficult to achieve. The history of science is littered with scientific consensuses that have come to be overturned one way or another. The fact that there has been a degree -- somewhat less than one degree -- of global warming over the past century does seem to be fairly clearly established. Its correlation with CO2 emissions is less so in my view, although there may be --- and we should probably say, 'probably is' -- a link. But it is still, I think, in the realms of probability." ...


This bishop has been rooked, and is now a pawn. Good knight.

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Thu, May 29, 2008
from Associated Press:
White House issues climate report 4 years late
"Under a court order and four years late, the White House Thursday produced what it called a science-based "one-stop shop" of specific threats to the United States from man-made global warming... White House associate science director Sharon Hays, in a teleconference with reporters, declined to characterize the findings as bad, but said it is an issue the administration takes seriously." ...


That's why it's four years late; the White House wanted to get the report just right.

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Mon, May 5, 2008
from National Post via CanWest News:
Canadian schools sent brochures from climate change skeptics
"An American think tank [the Chicago-based Heartland Institute] has sent out more than 11,000 brochures and DVDs to Canadian schools urging them to teach their students that scientists are exaggerating how human activity is the driving force behind global warming." ...


Could the nearly $800,000 in funding from Exxon-Mobil since 1998 have anything to do with the Heartland Institute's perspective?

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Wed, Mar 19, 2008
from Montgomery Advertiser:
Climatologist says global warming not alarming, carbon fuels not to blame
"The Earth is getting warmer, but Alabama's state climatologist says carbon fuels aren't to blame. John Christy, who heads the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama- Huntsville, told a group of civic and business leaders Tuesday that the Earth's warming is well within historical ranges. He spoke at the Energy and Environment Lecture sponsored by Auburn Montgomery and Alabama Power Co. Carbon dioxide levels have increased 38 percent in the last 100 years, Christy said, leading to an increase in the average surface temperature of about 1.26 degrees. Even if carbon dioxide doubled, temperatures would increase only about 3.6 degrees, according to Christy." ...


So, a lecture by Dr. Christy, sponsored by the Alabama Power Co....What did you think the guy was going to say?

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Mon, Jan 28, 2008
from The Independent:
Big business says addressing climate change rates very low on the agenda
"Global warming ranks far down the concerns of the world's biggest companies, despite world leaders' hopes that they will pioneer solutions to the impending climate crisis, a startling survey will reveal this week. Nearly nine in 10 of them do not rate it as a priority, says the study, which canvassed more than 500 big businesses in Britain, the US, Germany, Japan, India and China. Nearly twice as many see climate change as imposing costs on their business as those who believe it presents an opportunity to make money. And the report's publishers believe that big business will concentrate even less on climate change as the world economy deteriorates. The survey demolishes George Bush's insistence that global warming is best addressed through voluntary measures undertaken by business ..." ...


So if world leaders can't do it, and big business isn't interested, then we figure it's up to us little people to take care of the planet. Of course, we might have to move the world leaders and big business out of the way...

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