How Freezing Temperatures are Starting to Shatter Climate Change Theory

By Daily Mail Reporter

In the freezing foothills of Montana, a distinctly bitter blast of revolution hangs in the air.

And while the residents of the icy city of Missoula can stave off the -10C chill with thermals and fires, there may be no easy remedy for the wintry snap’s repercussions.

The temperature has shattered a 36-year record. Further into the heartlands of America, the city of Billings registered -12C on Sunday, breaking the 1959 barrier of -5C.

Closer to home, Austria is today seeing its earliest snowfall in history with 30 to 40 centimetres already predicted in the mountains.
Such dramatic falls in temperatures provide superficial evidence for those who doubt that the world is threatened by climate change.

But most pertinent of all, of course, are the growing volume of statistics.

According to the National Climatic Data Centre, Earth’s hottest recorded year was 1998.

If you put the same question to NASA, scientists will say it was 1934, followed by 1998. The next three runner-ups are 1921, 2006 and 1931.

Which all blows a rather large hole in the argument that the earth is hurtling towards an inescapable heat death prompted by man’s abuse of the environment. 

Indeed, some experts believe we should forget global warming and turn our attention to an entirely differently phenomenon – global cooling.

The evidence for both remains inconclusive, which is unlikely to help the legions of world leaders meeting in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a new climate change deal.

Read the rest of this story at Daily Mail.

GCS Editor’s Note: I met Lord Christopher Monckton yesterday, and he mentioned that he’d prodded BBC reporters about when they were going to report on new data that conlusively shows the Earth has been cooling.  At that point, the only UK reporting he was aware of was on the BBC website. It seems that word is starting to spread.

Minnesota Majority / GlobalClimateScam.com will be at the Climate Chains / Lord Monckton event at Bethel tonight. Hope to see you all there!

By Jack Duckworth

The Washington Times reports that three utilities and two manufactures, Nike Inc. and Apple Inc., resigned from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of the chamber’s fight against the proposed “cap-and-trade” legislation (“Backers of climate bill quit chamber,” Page 1, Tuesday).

I worked for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and its predecessor, the Federal Power Commission, for 32 years, and that experience taught me that no corporation or utility acts in the interest of the American environmental or social conscience. You can be assured that Nike, Apple and the three utilities want a cap-and-trade bill to pass the House and Senate because it will strengthen their position in the marketplace and increase their profits.

Nike has installed energy-monitoring devices in its manufacturing plants in China and Vietnam in an effort to cut energy consumption. That’s a noble effort, but even if Nike fails to cut its energy consumption, it will not be penalized by a U.S. cap-and-trade law because its energy consumption and its manufacturing take place outside U.S. borders.

Apple is in the same boat with its overseas production. It has undertaken a program to reduce the energy consumption of its finished products, but it will not suffer any impact to its profits due to passage of a cap-and-trade bill.

The three utilities that want to see a cap-and-trade bill passed are PG&E of California, Exelon Corp. of Chicago and PNM Resources Inc. of New Mexico. PG&E has been heavily invested in hydroelectric generation since it came into being and has significant nuclear power generating resources; both of these will be profit boons under a cap-and-trade bill. Eighty-three percent of Exelon’s electric generation resources are nuclear, which will make it a profit king under a cap-and-trade bill. PNM Resources is a 10-percent owner in the Palo Alto nuclear-generating station near Phoenix. All of these corporations have everything to gain and nothing to lose if the cap-and-trade bill becomes law.

Read the rest of this letter at the Washington Times.

By Paul Hudson

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

So what on Earth is going on?

Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man’s influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.

They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the evidence for this?

During the last few decades of the 20th Century, our planet did warm quickly.

 
Recent research has ruled out solar influences on temperature increases
Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth’s warmth comes from the Sun.

But research conducted two years ago, and published by the Royal Society, seemed to rule out solar influences.

The scientists’ main approach was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature.

And the results were clear. “Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity,” said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

But one solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting, disagrees.

He claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures.

He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month.

If proved correct, this could revolutionise the whole subject.

Read the rest of this article at BBC News.

The director of “Not Evil, Just Wrong,” a documentary challenging Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” dares to ask a question at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference. Apparently Mr. Gore only allows the ‘right kind’ of questions to be asked of him.

The Minnesota Free Market Institute will be premiering the new documentary film, “Climate Chains” at an event featuring keynote speaker, Lord Christopher Monckton on Wednesday, October 14th. Monckton was an advisor to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, serves as the chief policy adviser to the Institute of Science and Public Policy and is known as the man congressional Democrats were afraid would humiliate Al Gore if he’d been allowed to testify alongside him in a congressional hearing back in April. Naturally, that couldn’t be allowed. Career climate alarmists fear Lord Monckton.

Climate Chains was produced by the Cascade Policy Institute and it addresses the perils of cap and trade legislation while examining free market solutions to actual environmental concerns.

This FREE event promises to be entertaining and informative.

Wednesday, October 14th
7:00pm
Free Admission

Benson Great Hall
Bethel University
3900 Bethel Drive
St. Paul, Minnesota 55112

From World Climate Report

Where are the headlines? Where are the press releases? Where is all the attention?

The ice melt across during the Antarctic summer (October-January) of 2008-2009 was the lowest ever recorded in the satellite history.

Such was the finding reported last week by Marco Tedesco and Andrew Monaghan in the journal Geophysical Research Letters:

A 30-year minimum Antarctic snowmelt record occurred during austral summer 2008–2009 according to spaceborne microwave observations for 1980–2009. Strong positive phases of both the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode (SAM) were recorded during the months leading up to and including the 2008–2009 melt season.
The silence surrounding this publication was deafening.
 
It would seem that with oft-stoked fears of a disastrous sea level rise coming this century any news that perhaps some signs may not be pointing to its imminent arrival would be greeted by a huge sigh of relief from all inhabitants of earth (not only the low-lying ones, but also the high-living ones, respectively under threat from rising seas or rising energy costs).

But not a peep.

But such is not always the case—or rather, such is not ever the case when ice melt is pushing the other end of the record scale.

Read the rest of the column

Posted from The American Spectator

By Paul Chesser – A few weeks back (and in subsequent op-eds) I introduced the latest student indoctrination effort to fight global warming, via the Alliance for Climate Education, which seeks invitations from high schools to deliver assembly presentations during class time. The group, which has started out targeting six regions of the country (the San Francisco Bay area, Southern California, Houston, Chicago, New England, and Washington, D.C.), presents climate misinformation and lies (To students: “You’ve lived through the ten hottest years ever recorded in history”) so as to recruit teens for the cause of further spreading alarmism.

Last week a report in the student newspaper for the private Loomis Chaffee School, near Hartford, Conn., illustrated that the presentations ACE educators deliver are heavily scripted. For confirmation, you might watch the group’s promotional video trailer, note the script highlights delivered by San Francisco rapper Ambessa Contave, and then catch the reported remarks from ACE’s New England educator Rouwenna Lamm:

• “We all need to lower our emissions and raise our voices.”
• “In 2009, we’ve inherited a world that’s all about living large.”
• “Did you know that the average American teenager uses 20 football fields just to live?”
• “You can’t see that, but what it means is ‘living large’ cranks up the world’s thermostat way too hot.”
• “Climate change is real, it is dangerous and it was be stopped. You didn’t start it, you don’t want it, but you have to fix it.”
• “Don’t discount the power you have as individuals and collectively.”

Most of the bulleted remarks copycat Contave’s recorded points. The outcome at Loomis? After giving classroom lectures on the science of climate change (certainly excluding the lack of upward change during the last decade), and at the end of Lamm’s evening presentation, many students immediately signed online ACE’s “Declaration of Independence from Fossil Fuels.”

Next up: Grade school global warming warning songs to the tune of “We Are the World.”

UPDATE 4:39 p.m.: Rouwenna also delivered at Lawrence Academy in Groton, Mass., with the following mathematical logic: “The answer is by having each of the 22 million students nationwide install three energy-efficient light bulbs. Sixty-six million light bulbs equals 500,000 cars—it’s that kind of math that helps any audience see the light in a world otherwise discouraged by images of a crumbling Polar ice cap and of bears stranded on ice floes.”

From the EPA:

Contact Information: Cathy Milbourn 202-564-7849 202-564-4355 milbourn.cathy@epa.gov

LOS ANGELES– U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced today in a keynote address at the California Governor’s Global Climate Summit that the Agency has taken a significant step to address greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act. The Administrator announced a proposal requiring large industrial facilities that emit at least 25,000 tons of GHGs a year to obtain construction and operating permits covering these emissions. These permits must demonstrate the use of best available control technologies and energy efficiency measures to minimize GHG emissions when facilities are constructed or significantly modified.

The full text of the Administrators remarks is available at www.epa.gov.

“By using the power and authority of the Clean Air Act, we can begin reducing emissions from the nation’s largest greenhouse gas emitting facilities without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the vast majority of our economy,” said EPA Administrator Jackson. “This is a common sense rule that is carefully tailored to apply to only the largest sources — those from sectors responsible for nearly 70 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions sources. This rule allows us to do what the Clean Air Act does best – reduce emissions for better health, drive technology innovation for a better economy, and protect the environment for a better future – all without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the better part of our economy.”

These large facilities would include power plants, refineries, and factories. Small businesses such
as farms and restaurants, and many other types of small facilities, would not be included in these requirements.

If the proposed fuel-economy rule to regulate GHGs from cars and trucks is finalized and takes effect in the spring of 2010, Clean Air Act permits would automatically be required for stationary sources emitting GHGs. This proposed rule focuses these permitting programs on the largest facilities, responsible for nearly 70 percent of U.S. stationary source greenhouse gas emissions.

With the proposed emissions thresholds, EPA estimates that 400 new sources and modifications to existing sources would be subject to review each year for GHG emissions. In total, approximately 14,000 large sources would need to obtain operating permits that include GHG emissions. Most of these sources are already subject to clean air permitting requirements because they emit other pollutants.

The proposed tailoring rule addresses a group of six greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).

In addition, EPA is requesting public comment on its previous interpretation of when certain pollutants, including CO2 and other GHGs, would be covered under the permitting provisions of the Clean Air Act. A different interpretation could mean that large facilities would need to obtain permits prior to the finalization of a rule regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

EPA will accept comment on these proposals for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

The proposed rules and more information: http://www.epa.gov/nsr/actions.html

By H. Sterling Burnett

Many people are concerned that an increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — due primarily to such human activities as burning fossil fuels for energy — is causing the Earth to warm, with potentially harmful results. In response, many developed countries agreed to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, committing them to limit and eventually reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The United States chose not to participate, in part because the agreement exempts such developing countries as China and India, although they have the world’s fastest-growing economies and emissions.

However, the Obama administration supports a cap-and-trade system similar to the one implemented by the Kyoto agreement. The U.S. Senate will debate a cap-and-trade proposal in fall 2009 under the American Clean Energy and Security Act. The initial version of the bill would have auctioned all of the emissions allowances, but business lobbies and special interests influenced Congress to give away 85 percent of them.

Climate researcher Chip Knappenberger estimates the bill would only reduce global temperatures by about one-tenth of a degree by 2050. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates it would reduce U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.2 percent over the period from 2012 to 2030 — but other organizations estimate the cost to be much higher:

• Cap-and-trade would cost an average of $314 billion a year in lost GDP, according to Heritage Foundation estimates, or $9.4 trillion over the period from 2012 to 2035.
• It could cost taxpayers up to $200 billion year, or $1,761 per family annually, according to a U.S. Treasury Department report.
• It would increase the cost of residential electricity 31 percent to 50 percent by 2030, says the American Council for Capital Formation and the National Association of Manufacturers.
• Job losses would total 2.5 million by 2030, estimates the National Black Chamber of Commerce.

In contrast to the economic costs of limits on greenhouse gas emissions there are responses to climate change that would have substantial economic benefits.

Climate change is mainly projected to add to existing problems, rather than create new ones. Focused adaptation addresses these problems — including malaria, hunger and coastal flooding — directly now, rather than indirectly in the future via emissions reductions. For example, according to the World Health Organization, malaria’s current yearly death toll of one million could be halved with annual expenditures of $1.5 billion or less (in 2003 dollars). By contrast, limiting emissions to 1990 levels, as called for under the Kyoto Protocol, would reduce the total number of people at risk from malaria in 2085 by 0.2 percent, while costing about $165 billion in 2010 alone.

Read the rest of this report from the National Center for Policy Analysis.