Mike Meyers as Fat Bastard

The rising number of fat people was yesterday blamed for global warming. 

By Ben Jackson

Scientists warned that the increase in big-eaters means more food production – a major cause of CO2 gas emissions warming the planet.

Overweight people are also more likely to drive, adding to environmental damage.

Dr Phil Edwards, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “Moving about in a heavy body is like driving in a gas guzzler.”

Each fat person is said to be responsible for emitting a tonne more of climate-warming carbon dioxide per year than a thin one.

Read the Rest of this article at The Sun.

EPA

By John M. Broder 

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday formally declared carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases to be pollutants that threaten public health and welfare, setting in motion a process that for the first time in the United States will regulate the gases blamed for global warming.

The E.P.A. said the science supporting its so-called endangerment finding was “compelling and overwhelming.” The ruling triggers a 60-day comment period before any proposed regulations governing emissions of greenhouse gases are published.

Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said: “This finding confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations. Fortunately, it follows President Obama’s call for a low-carbon economy and strong leadership in Congress on clean energy and climate legislation.”

She said that combatting the emissions that create greenhouse gases would help create millions of new jobs and lessen the nation’s dependence on foreign oil by fostering a more fuel-efficient transportation industry.

As the E.P.A. begins the process of regulating these climate-altering substances under the Clean Air Act, Congress is engaged in writing wide-ranging energy and climate change legislation that could pre-empt any action taken by the agency. President Obama and Ms. Jackson have repeatedly said that they much prefer that Congress address global warming rather than have the E.P.A tackle it through administrative action.

The United States has come under fierce international criticism for trailing other industrialized nations in moving to regulate carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants. With this move, and the parallel action by Congress toward a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases, the American government can now point to concrete progress as nations begin to write a new international climate change treaty.

However, the E.P.A.’s announcement on Friday did not include any specific targets for reducing greenhouse gases or new requirements for energy efficiency in vehicles, power plants or industry. Those would emerge after a period of comment and rule-making or in any legislation approved by Congress.

Two years ago this month, the Supreme Court, in Massachusetts v. E.P.A., ordered the agency to determine whether greenhouse gases harm the environment and public health and, if not, to explain why. Agency scientists were virtually unanimous in determining that they do, but top officials of the George W. Bush administration suppressed the finding and took no action.

In his first days in office, Mr. Obama promised to review the case and act quickly if the finding were justified. Friday’s announcement is the fruit of that review. The E.P.A. action was approved after two weeks of scrutiny by the White House Office of Management and Budget’s regulatory affairs arm.

Read the rest of this story at New York Times

Unemployment Lines

By Josiah Ryan

Every “green job” created with government money in Spain over the last eight years came at the cost of 2.2 regular jobs, and only one in 10 of the newly created green jobs became a permanent job, says a new study released this month. The study draws parallels with the green jobs programs of the Obama administration.  
 
President Obama, in fact, has used Spain’s green initiative as a blueprint for how the United States should use federal funds to stimulate the economy. Obama’s economic stimulus package,which Congress passed in February, allocates billions of dollars to the green jobs industry.

But the author of the study, Dr. Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Juan Carlos University in Madrid, said the United States should expect results similar to those in Spain:

“Spain’s experience (cited by President Obama as a model) reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created,” wrote Calzada in his report: Study of the Effects on Employment of Public Aid to Renewable Energy Sources.

Read the rest of this story at CNS News.

 

Earth Heating Up

Validity of global warming questioned

By James H. Shott

Proponents of man-made global warming say that burning fossil fuels to produce electricity, power manufacturing processes and fuel motor vehicles is seriously harming the environment. However recent evidence shows that to be a flawed theory.

Data shows that the earth cooled last year rather than warmed, following a trend that began in 2000, and in light of this evidence much of the doomsday talk has quieted down. However, while activists still cling to their flawed theory, they have replaced the term “global warming” with “climate change,” using the same theory to now account for any change that occurs, warming or cooling.

Scientists do not speak with one voice on this issue. Ivar Giaever is a Nobel Laureate in physics, and is one of 650 dissenting scientists who argued against this theory at the United Nations global warming conference in Poland last December. “I am a skeptic,” he said. “Global warming has become a new religion.”

Other opponents have made similar comments, like former NASA official, atmospheric scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, who declared, “Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly … As a scientist I remain skeptical.”

Read the rest of this story at The Daily Telegraph.