US to legislate carbon cuts

13 May, 2010 by

Still desperately trying to wreck their economy for no environmental benefit, the Yanks are launching another cap-n-trade bill:

US senators on Wednesday unveiled a long-awaited plan on climate change, proposing to cut emissions 17 per cent by 2020 off 2005 levels through regulation of power, industry and transportation.

“We can finally tell the world that America is ready to take back our role as the world’s clean energy leader,” said Senator John Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts and close ally of President Barack Obama.

After months of fine-tuning, Kerry and independent Senator Joe Lieberman proposed a bill that would put the onus on heavy industry and power plants to cut carbon emissions, which scientists blame for global warming.

Read it here. And to understand just how pointless it all is:

The global temperature “savings” of the Kerry-Lieberman bill is astoundingly small—0.043°C (0.077°F) by 2050 and 0.111°C (0.200°F) by 2100. In other words, by century’s end, reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 83% will only result in global temperatures being one-fifth of one degree Fahrenheit less than they would otherwise be. That is a scientifically meaningless reduction. (source)

In other words, barely measurable with a thermometer.

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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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US companies abandon climate coalition

17 February, 2010 by

USCAP

They can see when the party’s over, clearly:

Three major US companies said Tuesday they were leaving a coalition pushing for action on climate change, dealing a potential fresh blow to landmark legislation to cut carbon emissions.

The companies — oil groups ConocoPhillips and BP America and equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. — said they backed efforts for a green economy but felt that proposed laws were unfair to them.

The firms said they would not renew membership in the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of business leaders whom President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party often cites to bulwark its case on climate change.

ConocoPhillips and BP America, a unit of British giant BP, said the bill under consideration did not attach enough importance to natural gas — which they promote as a way to curb carbon emissions blamed for global warming.

The bills “have disadvantaged the transportation sector and its consumers, left domestic refineries unfairly penalized versus international competition, and ignored the critical role that natural gas can play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Jim Mulva, ConocoPhilips chairman and CEO.

“We believe greater attention and resources need to be dedicated to reversing these missed opportunities, and our actions today are part of that effort,” he said in a statement.

Read it here.

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US: Michael Mann received $500k economic stimulus funds

21 January, 2010 by

Given up counting tree rings - now counting dollars instead

<sarc> Gee, giving money to a discredited climate alarmist. That’s really going to help the US economy. </sarc> But that’s what happened, and the mainstream media resolutely ignored it (except for the ever-reliable WSJ):

According to the conservative think tank the National Center for Public Policy Research, Mann received $541,184 in economic stimulus funds last June to conduct climate change research.

With this in mind, NCPPR issued a press release Thursday asking for these funds to be returned:

In the face of rising unemployment and record-breaking deficits, policy experts at the National Center for Public Policy Research are criticizing the Obama Administration for awarding a half million dollar grant from the economic stimulus package to Penn State Professor Michael Mann, a key figure in the Climategate controversy.

“It’s outrageous that economic stimulus money is being used to support research conducted by Michael Mann at the very time he’s under investigation by Penn State and is one of the key figures in the international Climategate scandal. Penn State should immediately return these funds to the U.S. Treasury,” said Tom Borelli, Ph.D., director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project.

Professor Mann is currently under investigation by Penn State University because of activities related to a closed circle of climate scientists who appear to have been engaged in agenda-driven science. Emails and documents mysteriously released from the previously-prestigious Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom revealed discussions of manipulation and destruction of research data, as well as efforts to interfere with the peer review process to stifle opposing views. The motivation underlying these efforts appears to be a coordinated strategy to support the belief that mankind’s activities are causing global warming. […]

The $541,184 grant is for three years and was initiated in June 2009.

And Mann’s university, Penn State was only last week granted a whopping $1.9 million in stimulus funds. As the NCPPR’s Deneen Borelli says:

It’s no wonder that Obama’s stimulus plan is failing to produce jobs. Taxpayer dollars aren’t being used in the ways most likely to spur job creation. The stimulus was not sold to the public as a way to reward a loyalist in the climate change debate. Nor was the stimulus sold as a way to promote the Obama Administration’s position on the global warming theory…As is often the case, political considerations corrupt the distribution of government funds.

Read it here. (h/t Tom S)

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US: Shock Democrat loss in Massachusetts

20 January, 2010 by

Ex-Worst President

The party’s over for Obama. And how. Maybe it’s something to do with all spin and no substance (a bit like Kevin Rudd really), and promising to pay billions of US taxpayers money to third world countries to advance the cause of global socialism, er, “tackle climate change”:

At 9.20pm today, in Massachusetts, or 1.20pm on the Australian east coast, the era of Obamamania abruptly ended. The euphoria surrounding the elevation of Barack Obama to the American presidency was brought to a crashing end.

It didn’t even last a year.

Tomorrow is the first anniversary of Obama’s inauguration as President of the United States.

On the eve of that anniversary, the people of Massachusetts, the bluest of blue Democratic states, delivered a thunderous rejection of the Democratic Party and, by implication, the President.

In a special election to fill the seat vacated by the late Senator Ted Kennedy, the people of Massachusetts did something they had not done for more than 40 years: they elected a Republican to represent them in the Senate.

This was unimaginable one year ago, as Washington was gripped by euphoria over the charismatic Obama.

Shockingly, today’s election wasn’t even close.

With 2 million votes counted, a previously obscure Republican state Senator, Scott Brown, 50, defeated the Massachusetts Attorney-General, Martha Coakley, 56.

The margin was 52 per cent to 47 per cent, a resounding turnaround, given Massachusetts’ voting record.

The result is a political earthquake.

It sure is. And as I read on one of the blogs, Jimmy Carter is now celebrating that he is no longer the “worst ever US president in history.”

Read it here.

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Climategate in the US

17 January, 2010 by

More on the fudging of data at NOAA and NASA by James Delingpole in the UK Telegraph:

For those who haven’t seen it, here’s a link to US weatherman John Coleman’s magisterial demolition of the Great AGW Scam. I particularly recommend part 4 because that’s the one with all the meat. It shows how temperature readings have been manipulated at the two key climate data centres in the United States – the NASA Goddard Science and Space Institute at Columbia University in New York and the NOAA National Climate Data Center in Ashville, North Carolina. (Hat tip: Platosays)

Here is the video of Part 4 that James refers to:

[hana-flv-player video=”http://stream.tribeca.vidavee.com:80/vidad/tribeca.vidavee.com/bim/kusi/A129EA4D049A41CC260C3AAC814349E7.mp4&#8243;
width=”400″
height=”330″
description=”John Coleman – Part 4″
player=”4″
autoload=”false” autoplay=”false”
loop=”false” autorewind=”true”
/]

And he continues:

This is a scandal to rank with Climategate.

What it shows is that, just like in Britain at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) temperature data records have been grotesquely distorted by activist scientists in order to exaggerate the appearance of late 20th century global warming. They achieved this – with an insouciant disregard for scientific integrity which quite beggars belief – through the simple expedient of ignoring most of those weather station sited in higher, colder places and using mainly ones in warmer spots. Then, they averaged out the temperature readings given by the warmer stations to give a global average. Et voila: exactly the scary “climate change” they needed to persuade bodies like the IPCC that AGW was a clear and present danger requiring urgent pan-governmental action.

The man who spotted all this is a computer programmer called EM Smith – aka the Chiefio. You can read the full report at his excellent blog. In the 70s, the Chiefio discovered, GISS and NOAA took their temperature data from 6,000 weather stations around the world. By 1990, though, this figure had mysteriously dropped to 1500. Even more mysteriously this 75 per cent reduction in the number of stations used had a clear bias against those at higher latitudes and elevations.

Read it here.

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US: Democrats' threat to cap and trade bill

29 December, 2009 by

On the way out?

Democrats in the US are “lining up” to argue against Obama’s Cap ‘n’ Trade bill in the wake of the non-existent outcome at Copenhagen. If the US bill is sunk, or watered down significantly, the whole face of global climate action will change radically.

Less than ten days after claiming a breakthrough on climate change in Copenhagen President Obama is facing a mutiny from senior Democrats who are imploring him to postpone or even abandon his cap-and-trade Bill.

Democratic Senators, fearful of a drubbing in the mid-term elections next year, are lining up to argue for alternatives to the scheme that is the centrepiece of the carbon reduction proposals that Mr Obama hopes to sign into law. With the Congressional battles over Mr Obama’s healthcare reforms fresh in their memory senior Democrats are asking the Administration to postpone the next big climate change push until at least 2011.

Senators from Louisiana, Indiana, Nebraska and North Dakota, some with powerful energy companies among their constituents, are falling out of love with the idea of a large-scale cap-and-trade scheme — which seeks to allocate tradeable permits to major polluters — in favour of less ambitious proposals that put jobs and the economy first.

Each of their Senate votes is vital for any climate change Bill to have a chance of being passed, and a firm American commitment to cap and trade is essential for similar carbon reduction mechanisms to be effective on a global scale.

Interesting times.

Read it here.

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Copenhagen: Obama threatens China with "eco-spying"

19 December, 2009 by

Whatever next!

Ouch:

The final accord is widely seen to have acquiesced to Chinese demands by agreeing that emissions can be measured domestically, as long as the results are reported to the rest of the world.

However, speaking later, Mr Obama gave a veiled warning that satellite technology could be used for what is likely to be termed “eco-spying” to ensure countries honoured their commitments.

“We can actually monitor what takes place through satellite imagery and so forth, so I think we are going to have a pretty good idea of what people are doing,” he said. He added that the deal could be successful if “there is a sense of moral obligation and information sharing so that people can see who’s serious and who’s not”.

Can’t imagine the Chinese will be too happy about that, BHO…

Read it here.

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US offers $100 bn bribe to developing countries

18 December, 2009 by

In a desperate last minute bit to salve something from the wreckage of COP 15, Hillary Clinton has sinalled that the US will back a climate change fund to transfer $100 bn to developing countries, provided that nations like China permit independent verification of emissions:

Ms. Clinton, in essence, offered a bribe. The United States would support (though only partly pay for) a $100-billion (U.S.) fund to fight climate change in the developing world if developing countries – she singled out China – were to allow the independent verification of their emissions.

Vice-foreign minister He Yafei said China is ready for “dialogue and co-operation that is not intrusive, that would not infringe on China’s sovereignty,” The Associated Press reported. And the White House said Mr. Obama will hold talks Friday with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

Funding for the developing world was one of the key issues still dividing climate-change negotiators and environment ministers Thursday night, only hours before the heads of state and government of 119 countries were due to sign a sweeping emissions agreement to limit the planet’s average temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees. A leaked United Nations document suggested that dangerously higher temperatures were likely, based on the reductions pledged so far.

A range of other issues remained unresolved. They included precise emissions-reduction pledges by 2020; the launch of a three-year, $30-billion (U.S.) Fast Start fund that would precede the larger fund; and whether the Kyoto Protocol, the existing, and only, legally binding international climate treaty, would disappear in a cloud of carbon dioxide, be extended beyond its 2012 expiry date or be replaced by an agreement that covers all countries, not just the industrialized world.

Read it here.

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Copenhagen: US gets tough on China

10 December, 2009 by

Stern by name, stern by nature

Stern by name, stern by nature

For all the sweet talking that has been going on over the past few months, when it comes to tough negotiations, the gloves are off, as Politiken.dk reports:

America’s Chief Negotiator Todd Stern says China must act, and rejects demands for more funding.

He may have just arrived and hardly had time to have a bath, but America’s chief negotiator at the COP15 talks has turned on a shower of rebuttal on China’s calls for the United States to do more.

“The United States accepts its historical role in greenhouse gas emissions, but it is wrong to talk about fault and debt. We want the strongest possible agreement in Copenhagen, but it cannot be a free round for China and the big developing countries,” Stern says.

Stern was reacting to statements by China’s Development Minister Xie Zenhua earlier today when he tentatively suggested that China would be prepared to consider a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 2050, but only if the United States puts much more on the table than it has already done.

“I really hope that President Obama delivers when he comes to Copenhagen,” the Chinese minister said.

…

“Emissions are emissions. It’s pure mathematics. Anyone can see that we cannot achieve an adequate result if China is not part of it,” Stern says, going on to reject demands from China and other developing nations for more funds than the USD 10 billion the United Nations says is necessary in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

…

“And here, one cannot imagine that China is at the head of the queue to receive public dollars from the United States. There are many other countries with much greater needs,” Stern says.

Read it here.

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