Obama's climate plans in tatters

21 February, 2010 by

All going wrong

You wait ages for an Obama story, then two come along at once. The UK Telegraph reports on Obama’s woes in pursuing his deep green agenda. Not only is the cap-n-trade bill going nowhere, but the EPA’s endangerment finding (that labels the essential, harmless trace gas CO2 a “pollutant”) is being challenged in the courts:

President Barack Obama’s climate change policy is in crisis amid a barrage of US lawsuits challenging goverment directives and the defection of major corporate backers for his ambitious green programmes.

The legal challenges and splits in the US climate consensus follow revelations of major flaws in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which declared that global warming was no longer scientifically contestable.

Critics of America’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are now mounting a series of legal challenges to its so-called “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health.

That ruling, based in part on the IPCC’s work, gave the agency sweeping powers to force business to curb emissions under the Clean Air Act. An initial showdown is expected over rules on vehicle emissions.

Oil-rich Texas, the Lone Star home state of Mr Obama’s predecessor George W Bush, is mounting one of the most prominent challenges to the EPA, claiming new regulations will impose a crippling financial toll on agriculture and energy producers.

“With billions of dollars at stake, EPA outsourced the scientific basis for its greenhouse gas regulation to a scandal-plagued international organization that cannot be considered objective or trustworthy,” said Greg Abbott, Texas’s attorney general.

“Prominent climate scientists associated with the IPCC were engaged in an ongoing, orchestrated effort to violate freedom of information laws, exclude scientific research, and manipulate temperature data.

“In light of the parade of controversies and improper conduct that has been uncovered, we know that the IPCC cannot be relied upon for objective, unbiased science – so EPA should not rely upon it to reach a decision that will hurt small businesses, farmers, ranchers, and the larger Texas economy.”

Makes Penny Wong’s claim that there is a global trend towards greater climate action even more ludicrous.

Read it here.

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Idiotic Comment of the Day: Barack Obama

20 February, 2010 by

Clueless

Just like Rudd and Wong, Obama is utterly clueless on climate:

US President Barack Obama has rebuked climate change sceptics who argue that piles of snow dumped on the United States during a frigid winter cast doubt on global warming science.

‘We just got five feet (1.5 metres) of snow in Washington,’ said Obama, when asked about alternative energy projects during a town hall meeting in Nevada.

‘Opponents of climate change, they say — ‘see look at that, there is all this snow on the ground — this doesn’t mean anything’.’

‘I want to just be clear that the science of climate change doesn’t mean every place is getting warmer — it means the planet as a whole is getting warmer.’

Obama cited the lack of snow in Vancouver during the current winter Olympics and unusual snowstorms in places like Dallas in the southern United States as examples of violent weather patterns brought on by climate change.

By the garbled language of those quotes, he didn’t have his teleprompter to rely on.

Read it here.

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Wong: fully duped

20 February, 2010 by

The Wong-bot gets the Jo Nova treatment

Reaction to Penny Wong’s recent speech (see here) has been astonishing:

Jo Nova brilliantly takes it apart piece by piece (and gives us a great graphic – see right):

Get ready for the startling Proof by Motherhood Statements & WhiteWash. I’m loosely Paraphrasing Penny, taking the liberty of including the fuller more accurate message (that I’m sure she would want to share)… [then adding a few thoughts].

A strong global agreement is apparently “manifestly in Australia’s own national interest” (and worth paying billions upon billions for). Why?

Roger Pielke Jr gives her the full treatment:

The bottom line is that there is no scientific evidence linking rising global temperatures to the increasing catastrophe losses around the world. Ironically enough, the scientific evidence includes the paper cited by Wong to suggest the opposite.

Climategate.com is also less than complimentary:

Our Australian skeptic friend, Val Majkus, has sent me a link to a speech made yesterday by Australian nutjob, Penny Wong, who is the Aussie Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water.

Wong somehow kept a straight face when she told the crowd: “Climate change [is] happening more quickly than we previously thought.”

Another great performance from Penny Wrong.

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More flannel from Flannery

20 February, 2010 by

Flannelly

The reason the “sceptics are winning” is because the scientists are not explaining climate science to the public well enough. Of course, that’s it – makes sense. Nothing to do with the scandal ridden and corrupt IPCC, or the fact that the world continues to ignore the dire predictions of the climate models, of course.

Environmentalist Tim Flannery has blamed scientists for a rise in climate scepticism, saying they had not clearly explained the science to a ”confused Australian public”.

Professor Flannery, a long-time climate campaigner [so no bias there, clearly – Ed], told The Age that scientists needed to get back into the community and explain the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

He said a lack of simple communication to the public about the science of climate change meant sceptics had been able to fill the void with misinformation.

Professor Flannery also supported comments by Climate Change Minister Penny Wong that there was a concerted world effort by sceptics to stop action on global warming.

”We’ve got a big problem with the gap between scientific information and a very confused public here in Australia,” Professor Flannery said.

”The only way to solve that is to listen to the Australian people’s questions and talk to them about it, and they [the scientists] have been rather poor at doing that.”

Unfortunately for you, the public are hell of a lot smarter than you give them credit for, Tim, and they can see straight through your flannel.

Read it here.

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UN alarmist-in-chief Yvo De Boer resigns

19 February, 2010 by

"I'm not depressed, I'm just dreaming about my KPMG pay cheques"

I guess he wants to secure his future by going off to make gazillions of dollars from KPMG out of the carbon market fiasco that he himself helped create. As Biased-BBC puts it, snouts in the trough:

The UN’s top climate change official, Yvo de Boer, has resigned in the latest blow to the debate over global warming.

As Secretary General of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Mr de Boer was in charge of negotiating a new international deal to stop global temperature rise. [As simple as that. The UN speaks, the planet obeys – Ed]

However after four years in the post he has decided to step down to go and work for global accounting firm KPMG.

The former Dutch civil servant insisted he had been planning to stand down for some time but already there are questions over the nature of his departure and his possible replacement. [Andrew Bolt? – Ed]

Many blamed Mr de Boer for the failure of the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen that ended in a weak accord.

His departure will also be a blow to the UN at a time when the science behind climate change is increasingly under fire after a series of scandals.

Read it here.

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Vote on "greatest moral challenge of our time" delayed

19 February, 2010 by

"For my next trick, the backflip."

Because now there’s something more important – pushing through a vote on health reform that will give Krudd a double-dissolution trigger that’s not climate change. And he’ll pull it, I think, because his ratings are plummeting and if he leaves it until later in the year, he will be a dead duck. But there’s a risk with that – the people aren’t stupid, they’ll see he’s trying to sneak in under the wire, and hopefully they’ll give him the bloody nose at the polls that he so richly deserves. Could Rudd & Co be the worst government since…? When?

THE Rudd government will delay pushing ahead with its emissions trading scheme, prompting an accusation by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott that it is planning one of the “all-time great political backflips”.

In a surprise move, the long-expected reintroduction of the emissions trading legislation to Parliament next week has now been stalled. Instead, the government is shifting its priorities to force a vote on its proposed changes to the private health insurance means test, potentially creating a trigger for a double-dissolution election, as health looks set to be a key battleground in this year’s election.

It means it is almost certain that the next vote on the controversial emissions trading scheme will be pushed back until at least next month.

Mr Abbott yesterday seized on the release of a draft parliamentary order of business that did not list the emissions trading scheme, saying Prime Minister Kevin Rudd seemed to be “running away from his own legislation”.

“Let’s face it, this was just a few months ago not just an important political issue, it was the greatest moral issue of our time,” he said.

Read it here.

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Daily Bayonet GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

19 February, 2010 by

Skewering the clueless

As always, a great read!

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Penny Wong: defender of Copenhagen, climate science and the IPCC

18 February, 2010 by

Time for ALT-CTRL-DELETE

Penny who? Sorry, it’s been so long since we heard anything from the Wong-bot, that I’d forgotten about her, which was actually quite nice. But now she’s back, the latest version of Windows 7 installed, spouting the same old fearmongering tactics and tired old clichés in a last, desperate effort to get the ETS passed (stifles yawn):

CLIMATE change threatens to reshape the face of Bondi Beach, Bells Beach and the Sunshine Coast unless “large and expensive nourishment programs” are implemented, Penny Wong warned today.

Shortly before the government’s ETS bills are to be considered by the upper house, Ms Wong mounted a vigorous defence of the Copenhagen Summit, the science behind climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [now THAT I would love to have heard – Ed] and suggested the future of some of the nation’s most popular beaches was under threat.

The Climate Change Minister also said the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was the most effective way to take meaningful action, dismissing the Opposition leader’s rival plan.

In the address to the National Coastal Climate Change Forum in Adelaide this morning, Ms Wong said it was “possible that with climate change, and without large and expensive nourishment programs Bondi Beach, Sunshine Coast and Bells Beach may no longer be the beaches we know today.”

Zzzz… Oh, sorry – nodded off there. No one’s listening any more Penny. Save your batteries, spin down the hard drive, throttle back the CPU, clear the cache, and shut down – for good this time.

Read it here.

UPDATE: The whole speech is here in all its robotic tedium, and as predicted recycles all the alarmist BS that we’ve heard before, including the old canard of comparing climate realists with those who question the link between smoking and cancer, which personally I find deeply offensive.

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Only junk science needs an iPhone app to counter sceptics

18 February, 2010 by

The desperate measures some people will go to in order to keep that alarmism flowing:

We need an iPhone app to answer the sceptics...

As I’m sure you’re all dying to download it, you can find it here.

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Someone please explain: why does Peter Garrett still have a job…?

18 February, 2010 by

Zero integrity

… when four are dead as a result of his bungled home insulation scheme? I am posting about this because it is basically a climate issue – encouraging householders to install insulation in order to reduce electricity and heating/cooling, and therefore reduce energy consumption and ultimately CO2 emissions.

I guess the answer is this – the Left don’t have the common decency to admit to their own failings and take the honourable course, resignation. Can you even begin to imagine the uproar in the media if this had been a minister in a Coalition government? The ABC and the left-wing press would have been a field day (although they probably wouldn’t have had the chance, since a Coalition minister would have the good sense and decency to fall on his own sword).

The only thing that matters to Rudd, Garrett and their cronies is staying in power at all costs.

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