Climate Change Reconsidered: NIPCC Press Conference

By The Heartland Institute

Climate Change Reconsidered, the 2009 report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), was released on Tuesday, June 2, at a press conference at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, DC, in conjunction with the Third International Conference on Climate Change. Heartland President Joseph Bast, editor of Climate Change Reconsidered, and authors Craig D. Idso Ph.D. and S. Fred Singer Ph.D. spoke at the press conference.

Read the groundbreaking NIPCC report by clicking on the image below.

Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)

Burger King Stores Promote "Global Warming Is Baloney" Message!

This is awesome! Even a big international corporation is now standing up against the global warming fraud and isn’t afraid to take a controversial public position. Leo Hickman from The Gaurdian Newspaper had the following to say:

A row between the fast food giant Burger King and one of its major franchise owners has erupted over roadside signs proclaiming “global warming is baloney”.

The franchisee, a Memphis-based company called the Mirabile Investment Corporation (MIC) that owns more than 40 Burger Kings across Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, has described Burger King as acting “kinda like cockroaches” over the controversy. MIC says it does not believe Burger King has the authority to make it take the signs down. The dispute began to sizzle last week, when a local newspaper reporter in Memphis, Tennessee, noticed the signs outside two restaurants in the city and contacted the corporation to establish if the message represented its official viewpoint. Burger King’s headquarters in Miami said it did not, adding that it had ordered MIC to take the signs down. But a few days later readers of the Memphis paper said they had seen about a dozen Burger King restaurants across the state displaying the signs and that some had yet to be taken down. Media attempts to contact MIC to establish why it was taking an apparently defiant stance were rebuffed, but the Guardian managed to grill MIC’s marketing president, John McNelis.

“I would think [Burger King] would run from any form of controversy kinda like cockroaches when the lights get turned on,” said Mr McNelis. “I’m not aware of any direction that they gave the franchisee and I don’t think they have the authority to do it.”

McNelis added: “The [restaurant] management team can put the message up there if they want to. It is private property and here in the US we do have some rights. Notwithstanding a franchise agreement, I could load a Brinks vehicle with [rights] I’ve got so many of them. By the time the Burger King lawyers work out how to make that stick we’d be in the year 2020.”

He continued: “Burger King can bluster all they want about what they can tell the franchisee to do, but we have free-speech rights in this country so I don’t think there’s any concerns.”

The Guardian sent a transcript of the interview to Susan Robison, Burger King’s vice-president of corporate communications.

She responded: “The statement that was posted on several restaurants’ reader boards in the Memphis area, and the view expressed by the franchisee on this issue does not reflect Burger King Corp’s opinion … BKC has guidelines for signage used by franchisees [which] were not followed. We have asked the franchisee to remove the signage and have been told that the franchisee will comply.”

At one point, a Burger King employee confirmed that the language on the sign was in fact the view represented by Burger King International.

We at ilovecarbondioxide.com fully support this grassroots campaign by these Burger King franchisees and highly encourage you to support the chain and its efforts in this matter.

Source

Inhofe: Senate Will Not Pass Cap-and-Trade (Video)

By Jeff Poor, Business & Media Institute

Not too long ago, global warming activism in the U.S. Capitol made some sort of carbon cap-and-trade legislation seem like a near certainty. But the tide may be turning.

According to Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the ranking Republican of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, a key committee needed for passage of a cap-and-trade bill, the trend indicates it can’t pass, at least in the U.S. Senate. He explained that the House, under the leadership of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, will pass anything, but it takes both houses of Congress for it to become law.

“I want to tell you what’s going to happen from this point forward in my opinion,” Inhofe said at the Heartland Institute’s Third International Conference on Climate Change in Washington, D.C. on June 2. “First of all, the House will pass anything. Nancy Pelosi has the votes to pass anything. Don’t be distressed when you see the House passes some kind of cap-and-trade bill. And you know it could be worse [than the proposed bill] and she could still pass it, so it’ll pass there.”

One possibility some have suggested is that the Environmental Protection Agency would impose cap-and-trade regulations under the Clean Air Act, a law that gives the EPA authority to regulate pollution in the name of protecting the nation’s air quality. That according to Inhofe can be stalled until President Barack Obama leaves office.

“The EPA has threatened to regulate this through the Clean Air Act,” Inhofe explained. “That isn’t going to work in my opinion because we can stall that until we get a new president – that shouldn’t be a problem.”

But, the key component of the legislative process under these circumstances would be the U.S. Senate. Inhofe pointed to a measure that would require any climate treaty to include developing nations to self-impose the carbon restrictions for the United States to also go along with it.

“While the House will pass the bill … in the Senate, they’re not going to be able to pass it,” Inhofe said. “You guys – it’s just not going to happen. Now we have a history of what’s happened in the Senate. We had the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Remember that’s where we passed by a 94-1, I think it was, saying we don’t want to ratify any treaty – the Senate doesn’t – that doesn’t include developing nations with developed nations. Well, that stuck with us.”

Inhofe explained that in 2003 and 2005, he was able to nearly single-handedly take down a bill sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph Liebermann, I-Conn., which would have set a cap-and-trade system in place.

“Yet, with very popular people, like McCain and Liebermann coming up in ’03 and then again in ’05 – the reason I’m going to tell you that they don’t have the votes, it’s not going to pass is that in ’05, that’s when I was on the floor for eight hours a day, five days, or about 10 hours a days, 50 hours – is that only two senators would come to the floor that would help me with this because I was taking on McCain and Liebermann on this silly issue.”

But, in 2008 with a similar bill sponsored by Sens. Liebermann and John Warner, R-Va., he had gained significant support compared to his 2003 and 2005 efforts, showing a trend that passage of this type of bill is becoming increasingly more difficult.

“And you fast forward to one year ago today, 2008 – Warner-Liebermann,” Inhofe said. “It didn’t take five days, it took two days – 23 senators came down to help me out on this issue, because I told [California Democratic Sen.] Barbara Boxer to you know, get over it, get a life. You lost, we won.”

The Oklahoma senator credited the Founding Fathers, noting that the senate rules put in place are a difficult obstacle for the global warming activists in the federal government to overcome.

“It will pass in the House, in the Senate it will not pass,” Inhofe continued. “And her latest vote and she won’t admit this, but it’s 34 votes and it takes 60 votes in the Senate. Maybe the people who wrote our constitution knew what they were talking about.”

Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, June 5th 2009

By The Daily Bayonet
Gangsters are muscling in on Big Al’s territory and skeptics might be executed. It’s just another week in the rough world of radical environmentalism, conveniently rounded up for your delectation and delight. Beverages are recommended but the Daily Bayonet assumes no liability for sticky keyboards. Part One: Al Gore & Friends The world sank to its knees and gave thanks this week as the great profiteer prophet posted on his sacred blog. Proclaiming the wisdom of what he likes to call the ‘Green Economy’, Al Gore shared this wisdom with the masses:

“Spending $100 billion within the domestic oil industry would create only about 542,000 jobs in the United States. A green infrastructure investment program would create nearly four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money on oil energy resources.”

Just one question, Al. How? You may recall that Gore balked under questioning from Congress about the money he stands to make if cap and bend over legislation passes, and now we see why he didn’t want to answer:

Hara, a 25-employee company that debuted in 2008, provides online software to help companies reduce their carbon footprint — a $2.5 billion market that will grow 10-fold if the proposed energy bill, which will require companies to get permits for emissions, becomes law

Perhaps Al’s green economy refers only to the green he’s pulling in from his ‘make carbon evil’ scam. Bada bing, hold the presses, Al might have some new entries to the carbon trading business soon, and dese guys is tough competition, if ya know what I mean. Should the mob get into the green agenda, the odd thing is that they will be some of the most honest people in the entire scheme; but they recognize a criminal shakedown when they see one. Maybe they’ll make Al an offer he can’t refuse.

are you talkin' to me?are you talkin’ to me?

Is Al bitter? He spent $300 million on promotion for his ‘climate crisis’ and got exactly nowhere with the American public. Is it a coincidence that he’s threatening the advertising industry? He says that Current TV is the future, and of course he owns Current, although last we heard, things weren’t so rosy over there. Canada’s perennial hippie, David Suzuki, says we need to take care of the oceans, or we might end up sleeping with the fishes.

my name is Lucamy name is Luca

My least favorite Royal, the man who divorced the model so he could marry his horse, calls for squirrel genocide. Don’t squirrels have rights too, Prince? Part Two: AGW Scaremongers It’s bad enough that Greens want to mess with taxes and the way ordinary people live, but some are pushing for drastic projects called geo-engineering. Fortunately, not even Obama’s scaremonger thinks it’s time for the crazies to take over yet. One example of geo-engineering is to put large mirrors in the sky. Is there no end to the narcissism of the greens? Grilling without guilt, can it be done? President of the Planet Obama showed the world how he really cares about the environment by taking the First Klingon to NYC to catch a show. I’m not certain, but I think it’s the first campaign promise he’s kept.

CLICK ON OVER TO THE DB TO READ THE REST AND CHECK OUT THIS WEEKS GLOBAL HOTTIE!

Legislator opposes emissions bill

By Terry Ganey, Columbia daily Tribune

CENTRALIA — Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer doubts that human activity is causing global warming and opposes a bill approved this month by the House Energy and Commerce Committee that would cut pollution by limiting heat-trapping emissions. Luetkemeyer, a Republican from St. Elizabeth, told two dozen Kiwanis Club members yesterday that a carbon tax that would be imposed as part of the bill would cost an average Missouri family about $4,000 a year. He based his calculation on the fact that coal-fired power plants produce about 85 percent of the energy consumed in Missouri, and he said utility executives had told him rates will increase by 50 percent to 150 percent per year.Republicans have been saying the bill will cost $3,928 per household, using numbers generated by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor John Reilly. The computation, which is in dispute, takes into account all factors in which energy costs would affect lifestyles and livelihoods. “It’s a huge, huge tax on everybody,” the Ninth District congressman said. “This tax affects everybody, especially the poor and people on fixed incomes.”Keven Kennedy, spokesman for Repower America-Alliance for Climate Protection, said Reilly disputes the way Republicans have used his figures and has written a letter to the House Republican leadership saying the figure was “totally mischaracterized.” Kennedy said Republicans were using fear tactics.“This package considered by Congress will have a direct effect on the creation of 43,000 new jobs in Missouri,” Kennedy said.The American Clean Energy and Security Act would establish a “cap-and-trade” emissions market, promote energy efficiency in homes and businesses and encourage energy independence. Luetkemeyer said there is no need for it.

That “human emissions of carbon are causing our climate to change has been proven very doubtful at the most by the sound science that’s being promoted at the present time,” Luetkemeyer said in an interview. “So therefore the whole basis of this cap-and-trade policy is based on bad science and incorrect assumptions. So as a result, I see that we are headed down a path that we don’t need to go down.”

Read the rest here.

Big Oil Fights Back! (Finally)

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY

Companies: After an all-out war on oil companies from the left in recent years, it bodes well for the future to see Big Oil now recognizing the attack it’s under and its duty to fight back. Witness Chevron and Exxon Mobil.
Shareholder meetings can be pro forma affairs, but not for major oil companies, which have become a lightning rod for the anti-corporate sentiment gaining traction in U.S. political life since around 2006. Wednesday, Chevron was descended upon by a zoo-full of San Francisco leftists pushing rain forest sentimentalism, Burma, and other pet causes dear to the no-soap crowd. They journeyed all the way to San Ramon, Calif. to shout “Shame on you!” and “No blood for oil” and worse yet to make demands on the company. Among them, a vociferous crew calling on Chevron to settle quickly with an Ecuadorean activist group with a guerrilla-like name: El Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia. El Frente has a $27 billion pollution lawsuit against Chevron. Its case is worthless. Chevron hasn’t operated in Ecuador since 1992 and got a clean bill of health from Ecuador in 1998. Any pollution now is a product of Ecuador’s mismanaged state oil company. But that hasn’t stopped the formidable publicity machine that’s roped in the gullible media covering this case. The new demand, echoed in the press, is for Chevron to “settle” with El Frente. Meanwhile, over at Exxon Mobil, the issue is why the company can’t go “green.” Another throng of activists tried to coax the company into scrapping its global leadership in oil production and instead to turn itself into genteel green farmers, tending corn and sugar and switchgrass in the name of biofuels. But in both cases, something happened this time at the corporate meetings: The companies sharply rebuked these nonbusiness interests. It was a dramatic shift from the polite courtesies and kowtowings they’ve extended to these radicals in the past. This time, they actually stood up for themselves and what they do. Chevron’s CEO bluntly told the radicals from “True Cost Of Chevron” that their waved-around propaganda “report” on the oil giant is so shoddy and false it actually “deserves the trash can.” Exxon Mobil’s Chairman and CEO informed other radicals that oil and gas will continue to be dominant fuels, meeting some two-thirds of global energy needs until at least 2030. As such, it makes no sense whatever for Exxon to go into some other industry. Better still, the shareholders of these companies smacked down every resolution designed to make the crazies feel good and the value of the companies go down. Maybe that’s because these moves look like shakedowns in search of a payday. Chevron’s being sued by a registered nongovernment organization (NGO) in Ecuador, so its financing is a black box. Its lawsuit is reportedly paid for by trial lawyers in Philadelphia, a group not exactly known for respecting shareholder value. But who knows? Exxon is beset by several groups that at least one shareholder thinks are tied to unions and activists: “Resolutions to do things like . . . pursue renewables are really just attempts by environmentalists and unions to gain control of the company to advance various public-policy goals,” Steven Milloy, managing partner at Action Fund Management, told Bloomberg News. “At the top of that list is climate change.” Milloy should know: He’s also publisher of the popular JunkScience.com Web site. The real aim of all these attacks is to end these companies’ world leadership in oil extraction. The green groups want to put an end to what the oil companies do best, from finding oil in the world’s most hostile climates like the Arctic Sea, to extracting oil from abandoned wells, to drilling oil 12 miles through salt walls under the sea. The ultimate goal is less oil to power American industry and to maintain the quality of private life. It looks like a new era is upon us. The push-back to defend our way of life has begun.
Source

Global warming and Antarctic ice

By Thomas Fuller, SF Environmental Policy Examiner

The objects of fear keep changing for global warming. It seems like only yesterday that we were all so worried about the North Pole being ice free. Now that the ice is back to normal, those concerned with global warming want us to turn our attention to the South Pole, and their fears that Antarctica is warming. A recent study was conducted by lead scientist Eric Steig and others that seemed to show that Antarctica was warming. This is strange, because prior data said it was cooling, and in fact the cooling was said to be predicted by earlier climate models. There is a peninsula in the Antarctic that juts out towards South America. It runs into ocean and air currents that are warmer than the rest of the Antarctic environment. It causes ice to break off of shelves and float away, creating wonderful photo opportunities. But the rest (95%) of Antarctic sits there frozen. It’s actually accumulating ice, due to increased precipitation. It is reported that the 95% of Antarctica that is not part of the peninsula is actually gaining 10,000 tons of ice per year. So this study was controversial. The people who conducted the study and analysis were handicapped by the small number of temperature measurement stations in Antarctica. Most of those stations are on the peninsula. It is as if the scientists tried to calculate values for the whole continent by inferring what temperatures were in Kansas based on the changes in temperature in San Diego. Predictably, this caused climate skeptics to go through their data carefully. A description of what they have found is here and here. You will have to understand statistics pretty well to get through the critique. The essential point of the criticism is that the scientists spread the data too thinly across the continent to produce any confidence in their results, and chose the only interpretation (out of many that were available) that showed warming in the Antarctic overall. At the end of the day, it now appears that temperatures are increasing on the peninsula that sticks out into a warmer part of the ocean, while it seems to be either getting colder or staying the same in the rest of the Antarctic continent. I do not volunteer to go and check personally, so I imagine there is room for further discussion.Source

Ice caps and glaciers growing around the world, penguins looking for warmth!

30 years later, Arctic and Antarctic ice has actually increased, and is growing at fastest rate in recorded history.

Next time you see the news reports of “catastrophic” ice loss at the poles, try to remember you’re watching a ratings-oriented entertainment program driven by hysteria and propaganda. Ditto for the Greenpeace rallies chock full of ‘climate change’ propaganda to secure their funding. Ditto for Al Gore’s un-scientific Star Trek film, now proven to be bursting with junk science. Now, check the facts for yourself. Why do we continue to hear the scare stories about Antarctic ice vanishing when it is, in fact, breaking records for ice growth? Well, it’s simple. Your local media outlet always shows you seemingly amazing images of massive melting and chunks of ice breaking away — but always neglect to mention that it is normal, and happens every single year during the spring/summer melt. Oh, and it’s been happening since forever began, by the way.

Be aware when they show the “before” and “after” pictures on your 6 o’clock news. The “before” pictures are always from the winter season and the “after” are summer images. So, to properly educate you, take a look at actual images of ice concentrations from the same time of year in comparison, spread out over three decades. Not only is the interior growing but so is the sea ice. Sea ice levels are higher now than when satellite records began.

Antarctic Ice Extent and Concentration for October 1979 and October 2008


From the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado

Note that the ice extent for October 1979 (when satellite measurements began) is 18 million sq km, for October 2008 the ice extent was 18.1 million sq km. Ice concentration shows even greater increases, from 13.6 million sq km, to 13.9 million.

Not a huge increase but certainly notable since everyone in the controlled media has been screaming about Antarctic ice melt off, obviously that is not happening. Interior ice is increasing at an even greater rate. According to NOAA GISS data winter temperatures in the antarctic has actually fallen by 1°F since 1957, with the coldest year being 2004. All the while global CO2 levels have gone up and the main stream media has been reporting near catastrophic warming conditions, all while global temperatures have been falling for a long time now. The MSM and certain segments of the scientific* community truly must have no shame. (JC’s note: *Scientific, meaning the IPCC & Al Gore – of which very few are real scientists, compared to the over 31,000 real scientists who have signed a petition clearly stating that man-made climate change is totally non-existant, the globe is not warming unnaturally, and creating more CO2 emissions would be very positive for the environment, not negative!)

”While the penguins would normally turn back when they hit the warmer Benguela waters, the current has been “exceptionally cold” this year” – The Washington Post

The Antarctic penguins must not be enjoying all of this cold and ice too much as hundreds, perhaps thousands, are migrating to the warm beaches of Brazil. More than they’ve ever seen. Hey, wouldn’t you migrate to Brazil if you lived in Antarctica and it started getting even colder than normal?!?

HERE’S SOME MORE REALLY FUN STUFF YOU PROBABLY WON’T SEE ON THE NEWS!

In the mid 1960s, ITT built a power transmission line in Antarctica. The transmission towers stood 115 feet tall. As you can see in this photo, all but the top 30 feet of the towers are now buried in ice.

Worldwide glaciers growing….but heaven forbid the media will inform you of this fact.

An Associated Press article written by Samantha Young admits that all seven glaciers on California’s Mount Shasta are growing. The article then goes on to rhapsodize about “global warming”. The seven tongues of ice creeping down Mount Shasta’s flanks “are the only known glaciers
in the continental U.S. that are growing,” the article says.

How convenient. Let’s ignore Crater Glacier on Mount
St. Helens, which is not only growing, but is now larger
than it was prior to the 1980 eruption that entirely
obliterated it. How convenient. Let’s ignore the fact that the Nisqually
Glacier on Mount Rainier is growing. Let’s ignore the
most continuously monitored glacier in the northern
hemisphere. How convenient. Let’s ignore the fact that the glaciers
are growing on Washington’s Mount Shuksan.

How convenient. Let’s limit our discussion to the
continental U.S. That way we can ignore the glaciers
in Alaska that are advancing a third of a mile per year!

Oh, the article does throw a bone to Alaska. “Glaciologists say most glaciers in Alaska and
Canada are retreating, too,” the article says, “but there are too many to study them all.”

How convenient. Let’s make sure to study only the ones that are retreating. And forget to mention that it’s normal for them to retreat, while others grow. Musta learned that trick from Al Gore himself.

“Although Mount Shasta’s glaciers are growing, researchers say the 4.7 billion cubic feet of
ice on its flanks could be gone by 2100,” the article continues.

Let me see if I understand this. The glaciers on Mount
Shasta are growing (one has doubled in size) … but they’re
going to be gone by 2100?

“Climate change is causing roughly 90 percent of the world’s mountain glaciers to shrink,”
the article continues.

How convenient. Let’s restrict our conversation to
mountain glaciers. Let’s ignore the East Antarctic Ice
Sheet, which covers almost five million square miles, and
is growing. Growing! The East Antarctic Ice Sheet is
almost 100 times bigger than all of the rest of the world’s
glaciers put together, which means that 90 percent of the world’s glaciers are growing.

IceAgeNow

Please let your local news sources and Greenpeace activists know that you don’t appreciate the kind of disinformation they keep shoving down our throats. Eh? Not everyone has the time to go out and research the actual facts for themselves!

This concludes my weekly LOL in Al Gore’s face.