Real Climate Science

Temperatures in much the Arctic are running 10-15C below normal, due to all that trapped heat in the pipeline.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/fnl/sfctmpmer_01a.fnl.anim.html

Prime Minister Stephen Harper deserves praise and criticism for his handling of the issue of climate change since winning power in 2006.

Ironically, the praise he deserves is for refusing to take a so-called “leadership” role on global warming, for which he is constantly attacked by the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens.

The criticism he deserves is for not doing something that would make them even angrier.

That is, denouncing — as prime minister — the Kyoto accord and everything it has spawned as terrible public policy, which is unfairly punitive to a big, cold, northern, oil-exporting, sparsely populated country like Canada.

Let’s start by giving Harper credit where it’s due, since he’s the only political leader who makes any sense on this issue.

To understand why, think of the economic chaos we’d be in today had Harper caved in to Liberal demands in 2006 that he implement the Kyoto deal they signed in 1998, ratified in 2002, and then ignored until they lost power.

This meant Harper inherited a fiasco in which we were 30% over our Kyoto emission target when he took office.

It also meant he had just two years to start lowering Canada’s carbon dioxide emissions to an average of 6% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.

Many people wrongly interpret this as meaning Harper had until 2012 to lower emissions to the prescribed Kyoto level, but that’s not what the deal signed by Jean Chretien — who must have been inhaling greenhouse gas at the time — said.

Requiring Canada to lower emissions to an average of 6% below 1990 levels annually between 2008 and 2012, meant that for every year that target wasn’t achieved starting in 2008, even larger emission cuts would have been necessary in subsequent years to make up the difference by 2012.

Complying with this, which the Liberals committed us to but never implemented, would have meant a ruinous, government-imposed economic slowdown on the country, starting in 2006, which, combined with the 2008 global recession, would have devastated our economy.

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2011/04/12/17969336.html

http://www.torontosun.com/news/world/2009/12/18/12207176.html

Before hurrying back to Washington to beat a looming snowstorm, Obama tried to put the best face on the underachieving results of the UN’s 193-nation global warming talks.

http://www.nydailynews.com/

“In supporting documents, the authors admit that the data used was of very low quality. This study is really an exercise in selective data and manipulated methodologies used to reach conclusions that deliberately contradict mainstream science,” Jones said.

Howarth, however, defended his work as meeting strict academic and scientific standards. “It’s being published in a highly respected journal and has been rigorously peer-reviewed,” a report from Reuters quoted Howarth as saying. “This is not advocacy. This is science.”

http://www.ibtimes.com/

Today’s generation of college students must serve as the superheroes in the fight against global warming, much like the characters of “Avatar” and “The Lord of the Rings,” according to Eban Goodstein, director of the Bard Center for Environmental Policy. Goodstein’s lecture — which addressed the economic and political components of environmental policy — encouraged students to attempt to combat Arctic melting and rising temperatures in Filene Auditorium on Tuesday.

“I’ve been watching Hollywood movies since I was a kid, and there’s a message embedded in these things,” Goodstein said. “They’re about people who take on the job of saving the world in the face of massive environmental challenge, and that’s you. That’s your life.”

http://thedartmouth.com/2011/04/13/news/arctic

Avatar – aka the Pocahontas/ Fern Gulley ripoff.

Oxford admissions should be based on the number of free school meals you have received.

Mr Clegg said the Prime Minister was “absolutely right” to make his point, and then broadened the attack.

“Here’s a fact: last year, only 40 – four zero — children who had been on free school meals — in other words from the more disadvantaged families in this country — got into either Oxford or Cambridge, and that was a lower number than the year before,” he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Five blue shirts around Giggs, and no one within twenty feet of Park. Chelsea has the discipline of a team of five year olds bunching up around the ball.

Has anyone besides Drogba scored for Chelsea during the last month? Why did he spend the first half on the bench?  Bring back Ray – and send Ancelloti packing.

Junk science taken to new heights by the frozen campers. The ocean has a pH of 8. Soft drinks have a pH of 3, one hundred thousand times more acidic than seawater. In industry, this would be called fraud.

http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/2011/04/12/ocean-acidification/

No one knows what the compelling evidence is, but whatever it is – it must be very compelling. The climate never used to change.

Congress turns a blind eye to climate science
By Andrew Freedman

Last week was a bewildering one for those who recognize the abundance of compelling scientific evidence showing that the climate is changing mainly due to human activities and that these changes pose risks to human health and welfare. While the news cycle was dominated by the down-to-the-wire budget negotiations in Washington, ongoing unrest in the Middle East, the nuclear crisis in Japan, a major congressional debate on climate change regulations took place in the House (and Senate) that vividly demonstrated how far off the rails we’ve gone in public discourse of climate science and policy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/