By Jim Hopkins

About a year ago, almost to the day, in this column, you may recall a bold prediction, fearlessly made. But lest you don’t, which is highly likely, since most of us wouldn’t remember a Higgs bison if we saw one in a game park, here it is again, much as it appeared 12 months ago:

If you’re worried about all the things you have to worry about, cheer up. Here’s one thing you won’t have to worry about any more. Global warming (remember, this was a prediction) will be the Great Disappearing Act of 2011. It will sink like a stone, exit stage left and generally melt away. Whoopee!

Inspired by the sneaky leaking of all those dodgy East Anglian emails – proof positive of scientific fraud, collusion and deceit – the prediction relied on one basic assumption.

Journalists never admit they’re wrong (see phone hacking). They just stop being wrong. When caught with their sceptical pants down and the spotty globes of their credulity exposed, they simply drop the story and move to something else.

Which is precisely what’s happened. Global warming has left the building.

Where once there were hundreds of horror stories, a daily dose of frightening features, a nightly stack of belching chimneys on the telly (mainly belching steam, in truth, but they still looked really scary) we’ve now got, well, (nervous cough, awkward shuffle) ummm, sweet Fanny Adams, to be frank. There has been a trickle of terror but, by and large, the whole calamitous narrative is a goneburger.

The end isn’t nigh (or nowhere near as nigh as it was). Doomsday’s stuck in the waiting room, reading an old copy of National Geographic and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are back in the barracks.

Read the rest at the New Zealand Herald.

By the P/O’d Patriot

I, like many of you, did a few cartwheels when I noticed the headline on Drudge that said:

“Congress Overturns Incandesenct Light Bulb Ban…”

The dreaded “green” light bulb ‘mandate’ that was created in 2007 was dead! I began to proclaim the good news from the highest mountains in the land of Facebook without even reading the article. 

Shame on me for doing so…

I shortly found an article in Forbes that popped my bubble. So did Congress reverse the light bulb ban?  No, No, not really…

Read the rest at Gateway Pundit.

By Tom Nelson

Email 856, Phil Jones: “FOI is causing us a lot of problems in CRU….It would be good if UEA went along with any other Universities who might be lobbying to remove academic research activities from FOI”

email 856:

“FOI is causing us a lot of problems in CRU and even more for Dave, as he has to respond to them all. It would be good if UEA went along with any other Universities who might be lobbying to remove academic research activities from FOI. FOI is having an impact on my research productivity. I also write references for people leaving CRU, students and others. If I have to write a poor one, I make sure I get the truth to the recipient in a phone call.”

Read the rest at Tom Nelson’s Blog.

Not going to melt any time soon, says boffin

By Lewis Page

New research has shown that the mighty ice sheet covering the Antarctic froze into being when the world had a much higher level of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere than it does today.

By analysing ancient algae found in deep-sea core samples, Professor Matthew Huber and his colleagues determined that the mile-thick ice which now covers the south polar continent formed around 34 million years ago. At that stage the atmosphere held much more CO2 than it does now, some 600 parts per million (ppm) as opposed to today’s level of 390 ppm.

Read the rest at The Register.

Global Warming (AGW) proponents finally admit defeat? They now say modern warming is just a fraction of past natural warming

From c3 Headlines

Read here. The publication New Scientist has been at the forefront of global warming and climate change hysteria. After years of promoting climate model quackery and publicizing the ludicrous scare predictions from models, the editors must have mainlined truth serum as they publish actual empirical evidence. Or, maybe they’re getting tired of pushing fabricated alarmist B.S., eh?

Read the rest at C3 Headlines.

By Madeline Morgenstern

A Canadian campaign to fight global warming is using perhaps the ultimate scare tactic to raise cash for the cause: Santa Claus and his reindeer are going to drown — unless you give money, and fast.

The “Where Will Santa Live” website depicts Kris Kringle and two of his trusty reindeer struggling in the rising waters of the North Pole. Santa’s sleigh is keeping afloat on pontoons, and Rudolph and his buddy each have a pair of water wings to keep them from going under.

“The North Pole, once a wintery wonderland, is no longer safe for Santa’s workshop,” the website states. “Climate change is melting the snow and ice, and the rising water is getting too close for comfort. Santa must relocate — fast — to make sure that all the nice boys and girls still have a Happy Holiday.”

So how to do your part to keep Santa from drowning? The site offers a whole host of supplies for sale to help –  things like a “Dri-Fit Santa Suit” ($49.99), a “Solar Shine Reindeer Beacon” ($29.99), and those “Magic Sleigh Pontoons.”

There’s a catch, though: You (or Santa) won’t actually receive any of the things you buy. They’re “symbolic gifts” that are simply a colorful way of donating to the David Suzuki Foundation, a Canadian environmental activism group. Instead, you’ll get an e-card with a description of your “gift” and “that warm, tingly feeling that comes with knowing you helped keep Canada cold.”

Read the rest at The Blaze.

Obama in 2008: “Under my plan… electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket.”

By Dennis Cauchon

Electric bills have skyrocketed in the last five years, a sharp reversal from a quarter-century when Americans enjoyed stable power bills even as they used more electricity.

Households paid a record $1,419 on average for electricity in 2010, the fifth consecutive yearly increase above the inflation rate, a USA TODAY analysis of government data found. The jump has added about $300 a year to what households pay for electricity. That’s the largest sustained increase since a run-up in electricity prices during the 1970s.

Electricty is consuming a greater share of Americans’ after-tax income than at any time since 1996 — about $1.50 of every $100 in income at a time when income growth has stagnated, a USA TODAY analysis of Bureau of Economic Analysis data found.

Read the rest at USA Today.

By Jo Nova

Good news. The talented strategists left the UNFCCC team before COP17 in Durban. The A-graders saw the trainwreck coming and moved on.

Everyone knows it’s a herculean task to get 190-odd countries to sign anything, and with a typical pragmatical approach the UN drafting team have gone for … not just a new “International Court” (crikey!) but rights for Mother Earth (can we be sued by a rock?), and oh boy, the holy grail, the whole kit and caboodle … we demand Peace On Earth, and a  Partridge in a Pear Tree, as Part 47a, and starting by morning tea tomorrow.

Monckton  reports that the funereal collapsing Durban talks still held the highest of ambitions. Godlike even. The real action behind the posters of parrots and pleas to save pygmy corals, or spotted limpets is the plea to make some unelected bureaucrats the totalitarian Kings of The World.

In part it’s chilling, a New International Court — which could presumably try you for crimes against coastlines, clouds, or (more likely) against endangered windfarms. Those with their hands on the legal wheel want the power to direct money (was that $1.6 Trillion?)  from the richest nations to their friends, patrons, or pet causes. If they became the anointed Kings, it would swiftly become a crime to speak doubts of climate models upon which billions of trades depends.  The darkest evil always comes cloaked with helpful intentions.

Fortunately, what’s left of the UN strategic team is even lower caliber than B-grade, beyond Z, somewhere into hexadecimal.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the grown-ups in the IPCC-support-team left the party sometime after Copenhagen, and the Z++ team are left to guard the bones. No one can take this wild ambit claim seriously.

Read the rest at JoNova.

By Paul Chesser

Last week Frito-Lay, the $12 billion snack foods division of PepsiCo, boasted it would add 10 all-electric delivery trucks in Orlando, Fla., as part of its plan to deploy 176 such vehicles in the U.S. and Canada by the end of year. 

As is custom with corporate announcements that proclaim their eco-accomplishments, so as to pacify persistent climate alarmists, Frito-Lay said the vehicles would emit “zero” pollutants from tailpipes and release 75 percent fewer greenhouse gases than diesel. The ETs (electric trucks) can allegedly run 100 miles on a single charge, and Frito-Lay says the groundbreaking new haulers provide “a long-term economically viable solution” – apparently to solve global warming.

Regular readers of NLPC should know the Chevy Volt sticker price, before the $7,500 tax credit, is $41,000, and for the Nissan Leaf it’s $35,200. So the cost for an electric delivery truck must be somewhat higher, right? And you’d think that Frito-Lay, and any other company that undertakes an electric truck program to meet its distribution needs, would go to great expense for a much heavier and larger electric transporter than the Volt and Leaf, correct? 

Not so fast, Sparky. 

While it is certainly true the electric trucks (ETs) are more expensive, that doesn’t mean Frito-Lay is footing the bill for them. Yes, astute NLPC reader, you’ve figured out who’s covering the bill: taxpayers.

Read the rest at National Legal and Policy Center.

From the Blaze

On Tuesday, a skydiving team from the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) parachuted down on Toti beach, near the city where the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is taking place.

The skydivers carried two signs, one reading “Climategate 2.0 Science Not Settled”, the other “No New Treaty CFACT”. According to a CFACT press release, the dramatic entrance into Durban, South Africa, was to bring attention again to the Climategate 2.0 emails, which were leaked last month.

“Media covering COP17 are kidding themselves if they think they can ignore and wish away Climategate 2.0,” said CFACT Executive Director Craig Rucker in the press release.  “Lord Monckton, the folks from Climate Depot and I will carry our message by parachute if that’s what it takes to wake up this conference and place the Climategate evidence of corrupted science where the world must see it.”

Read the rest at The Blaze.

Climate Depot’s Report from Durban, South Africa UN Global Warming Conference – UN Goes Full Climate Astrology

By Marc Morano

DURBAN, South Africa – The South African media and government leaders are borrowing a page from medieval witchcraft when it comes to the science of man-made global warming.

South African President Jacob Zuma literally believes that mankind has caused every storm and that regulatory actions of the UN can prevent bad weather.

“We have experienced unusual and severe flooding in coastal areas in recent times, impacting on people directly as they lose their homes, jobs and livelihoods. Given the urgency, states, parties should strive to find solutions here in Durban,” Zuma said according to an article in the South Africa’s Independent newspaper on December 4.

Make no mistake, President Zuma is claiming that the UN can somehow “find solutions” to flooding in South Africa. The belief that mankind can control the weather is not new. See: ‘Witches,Warlocks and Weather’: ‘In medieval times superstition blamed witches for weather disasters and crop failures…lower temps caused a statistical increase in witch trials’ — Medieval Pope’s version of today’s UN IPCC report: ‘Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that, just as easily as they (witches) raise hailstorms, so can they cause lightning and storms at sea; and so no doubt at all remains on these points’
The Aztecs in 1450, also thought they could end drought by appeasing angry Gods and slaughtering thousands of people. See: Have we advanced? ‘Aztec priests encouraged people to sacrifice blood to the gods’ to end severe drought in 1450 – ‘Sacrificed thousands of people in a few weeks’

Read the rest at Climate Depot.