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Old January 16th, 2014 #401
Alex Linder
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number of sensible americans rises
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/numbe...ses-2D11943970
 
Old January 16th, 2014 #402
Hunter Morrow
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I had a chat with grandfather over the weather and it really did strike me how cyclical this all is. I love a good "Man, 80 years ago it was so goddamn cold..."
story. Anyhow, this 90 year old man with stunning recollection told me that the 1930s and 1970s were brutally, viciously cold.

Does this all go on the Maunder Cycle of solar activity, the Milankovitch Cycle of earth's distance and rotation and orbit around the sun and fairly predictable oceanic and lake activity that produces Monster winters every 40 years and a good Indian Summer every 30? It seems as if what man does does not really matter that much.
 
Old February 14th, 2014 #403
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http://news.yahoo.com/climate-change...180339949.html

Climate Change Disbelief Rises in America
By Stephanie Pappas, Senior Writer | LiveScience.com

The number of Americans who believe global warming isn't happening has risen to 23 percent, up 7 percentage points since April 2013.

The latest survey, taken in November 2013, finds that the majority of Americans — 63 percent — do believe in climate change , and 53 percent are "somewhat" or "very" worried about the consequences.

The proportion of people who do believe in climate change has been steady since April 2013, but the proportion of those who say they "don't know" whether climate change is happening dropped 6 percentage points between April and November 2013, suggesting that many "don't knows" moved into the "not happening" category.

"People who prior said don’t know are increasingly saying they don't believe it," said Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, which released the new results today (Jan. 16). [10 Climate Change Myths, Busted]

Climate opinion

Leiserowitz and his colleagues surveyed a nationally representative sample of 830 Americans in late November and into early December 2013. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The findings reveal that Americans' understanding of climate change is mixed.

For example, 42 percent of Americans correctly believe that most scientists agree that global warming is happening. Only 22 percent, however, know that more than 80 percent of climate scientists agree on that basic fact. The rest of the survey respondents perceive more disagreement than actually exists.

Forty-seven percent of Americans say that if global warming is happening, it is caused mostly by human activities. This is the belief backed up by the scientific evidence; in the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in September 2013, scientists agreed that it is "extremely likely" that human emissions of greenhouse gases are causing the planet to warm. Thirty-seven percent of Americans reject this consensus, saying that climate change is most likely caused by natural fluctuations.

Shifting views

Media coverage surrounding the release of the IPCC report in September may be the explanation for the shift of more previously uncertain people into disbelieving climate change, Leiserowitz told LiveScience. While the report made a strong case for human-caused climate change, most media coverage focused on the question of whether there has been a "pause" in global warming.

In fact, some research does show a slowdown in how fast temperatures are rising, if not a pause. Scientists theorize the slowdown could be the result of decades-long climate cycles playing out against a background of long-term warming. But a study published online in November 2013 in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society suggests that even that slowdown may be an illusion, caused by gaps in temperature data.

Nevertheless, the media framing of the story may have contributed to more doubt among those who were not firm in their convictions, Leiserowitz said.

"Media frames can be really important in shaping the way people interpret the news," he said.

Many of the other responses in the survey showed little movement from April to November 2013. The proportion of Americans worried about global warming did not shift significantly.

The findings divide Americans into six distinct subsets. Sixteen percent are "alarmed," sure global warming is happening and concerned about it. On the opposite end of the spectrum are the "dismissive," who comprise about 15 percent of the public and who almost all see global warming as a conspiracy theory or hoax. Changing either of these two groups' opinions about climate change is nearly impossible, Leiserowitz said.

The "doubtful," 12 percent of the public, are inclined to disbelieve climate change and may be difficult to convince, he said. Another 23 percent of the country is "cautious" — they believe climate change is happening, but are uncertain and tend to see the threat as distant.

The cautious are among the Americans most open to hearing the scientific evidence about climate change, Leiserowitz said. So are their neighbors, the disengaged, who make up about 5 percent of the public and who have given climate change little thought. These are the groups that tend to rely on their own personal experiences, such as their feelings about the weather, to make judgments about whether climate change is happening. Recent research suggests that people draw on current temperatures to make climate change judgments because that information is concrete and easily accessible.
 
Old February 14th, 2014 #404
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...es-plunge.html

Is a mini ice age on the way? Scientists warn the Sun has 'gone to sleep' and say it could cause temperatures to plunge
By Mark Prigg

PUBLISHED: 19:04 EST, 17 January 2014 | UPDATED: 19:55 EST, 18 January 2014

The Sun's activity is at its lowest for 100 years, scientists have warned.

They say the conditions are eerily similar to those before the Maunder Minimum, a time in 1645 when a mini ice age hit, Freezing London's River Thames.

Researcher believe the solar lull could cause major changes, and say there is a 20% chance it could lead to 'major changes' in temperatures.

Sunspot numbers are well below their values from 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent, as this image shows - despite Nasa forecasting major solar storms

Sunspot numbers are well below their values from 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent, as this image shows - despite Nasa forecasting major solar storms

'Whatever measure you use, solar peaks are coming down,' Richard Harrison of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire told the BBC.

'I've been a solar physicist for 30 years, and I've never seen anything like this.'

He says the phenomenon could lead to colder winters similar to those during the Maunder Minimum.

'There were cold winters, almost a mini ice age.

'You had a period when the River Thames froze.'

Lucie Green of UCL believes that things could be different this time due to human activity.

'We have 400 years of observations, and it is in a very similar to phase as it was in the runup to the Maunder Minimum.

'The world we live in today is very different, human activity may counteract this - it is difficult to say what the consequences are.'

Mike Lockwood University of Reading says that the lower temperatures could affect the global jetstream, causing weather systems to collapse.

'We estimate within 40 years there a 10-20% probability we will be back in Maunder Minimum territory,' he said.

Last year Nasa warned 'something unexpected' is happening on the Sun'

This year was supposed to be the year of 'solar maximum,' the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle.

But as this image reveals, solar activity is relatively low.

'Sunspot numbers are well below their values from 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent,' the space agency says.

It observed just a few small sunspots on an otherwise clean face, which is usually riddled with many spots during peak solar activity.

Experts have been baffled by the apparent lack of activity - with many wondering if NASA simply got it wrong.

However, Solar physicist Dean Pesnell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center believes he has a different explanation.

'This is solar maximum,' he says.

'But it looks different from what we expected because it is double-peaked.'

'The last two solar maxima, around 1989 and 2001, had not one but two peaks.'

Solar activity went up, dipped, then rose again, performing a mini-cycle that lasted about two years, he said.

Researchers have recently captured massive sunspots on the solar surface - and believed we should have seen more

Researchers have recently captured massive sunspots on the solar surface - and believed we should have seen more

The same thing could be happening now, as sunspot counts jumped in 2011 and dipped in 2012, he believes.

Pesnell expects them to rebound in 2013: 'I am comfortable in saying that another peak will happen in 2013 and possibly last into 2014.'
He spotted a similarity between Solar Cycle 24 and Solar Cycle 14, which had a double-peak during the first decade of the 20th century.

If the two cycles are twins, 'it would mean one peak in late 2013 and another in 2015'.
 
Old February 14th, 2014 #405
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http://www.storyleak.com/mit-professor-climate-change/

MIT Professor Exposes Climate Change Hysteria
by Mikael Thalen
January 17th, 2014
Updated 01/17/2014 at 4:58 pm

A leading climate change figure has come out against the government’s continued and ridiculous climate change hysteria.

Speaking in regards to Massachusetts’ new $50 million climate change proposal, MIT Professor Richard Lindzen, a leading figure in the climate change movement, pointed out the absurdity of blaming every weather event on global warming and climate change.

“The changes that have occurred due to global warning are too small to account for,” Lindzen told WBZ-TV. “It has nothing to do with global warming, it has to do with where we live.”

Although supporting the theory of man-made global warming, Lindzen admitted that rhetoric from the political class and green movement has been nothing more than over-the-top “catastrophism.”

“Even many of the people who are supportive of sounding the global warning alarm, back off from catastrophism,” Lindzen said. “It’s the politicians and the green movement that like to portray catastrophe.”

Even more surprising, Lindzen goes on to point out the government’s obvious use of climate change alarmism to push greater state control, even warning over politicians’ use of “crony capitalism.”

“Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. The opportunities for taxation, for policies, for control, for crony capitalism are just immense, you can see their eyes bulge,” Lindzen said.

Lindzen has frequently been attacked by climate alarmists for refusing to give into political pressures regarding climate sThe growing number of failed predictions from the global warming crowd has only cooled the public’s belief in recent years.

From 2007 to 2009, Al Gore hysterically warned that the North Pole would be completely “ice-free” by 2013. Instead, 2013 experienced record breaking cold and major growth in Arctic ice.

Similarly, Gore made desperate warnings over the danger of increased hurricanes during the same time period. Soon after, climate scientists had trouble explaining the record low hurricanes that soon followed.

In his 1992 book “Earth in the Balance,” Gore went on to claim that global warming would soon wipe coastal areas of Florida off the map in as little as a few decades. Sea level statistics taken 18 years later revealed Gore’s predictions to be completely inaccurate.

White House Science Adviser John P. Holdren, who made failed predictions of global cooling in his 1977 book Ecoscience, attempted to blame the recent “polar vortex” on global warming. Researchers soon uncovered a 1974 Time Magazine article that blamed a cold polar vortex on global cooling instead.

Climate change alarmists have become so crazed in their beliefs that some have attempted to equate skepticism with racism, claiming any denial of global warming is a “sickness” in need of “treatment.”

Unsurprisingly, major environmental issues such as the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster seem to be completely ignored by Gore and company. Given the massive amount of money Al Gore has continued to make from generating climate fear, it seems unlikely that any real disaster unable to generate cash will receive proper attention.
 
Old February 14th, 2014 #406
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...next-week.html

Colder Weather Heads for U.S. as Ice Set to Coat Texas
By Brian K. Sullivan Jan 24, 2014 5:36 AM ET


The tugboat Commissioner breaks up ice in Burnham Harbor near the Loop on January 21


Parts of southern Texas may get a rare coating of ice as temperatures plunging across the U.S. portend an even sharper cold snap to come.

Temperatures across the eastern U.S. and parts of Ontario and Quebec will be at least 8 degrees below normal through Jan. 27, said Matt Rogers, president of the Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland. Next week will be colder, he said.

“The crazy thing is that the current cold snap this week looks to be a bit more modest in the face of next week’s outbreak,” Rogers said. “The cold coming for the end of January is sufficient to make this the coldest month of the century so far and the coldest the Lower 48 has felt in at least 20 years.”

Temperatures in Chicago fell lower than the South Pole this month as freezing weather boosted energy consumption, grounded thousands of flights across the U.S. and disrupted operations at refineries and natural gas production sites.

The natural gas-weight heating degree days value for January is expected to reach 1,062.9, higher than the five-year average of 949.5 and the coldest since 2001, Rogers said.

The value is determined by subtracting the daily average temperature from a base of 65 degrees Fahrenheit, the resulting number is a measure of how cold it is and how much energy is needed to keep homes and warm.

Cold Front

“A wave of low pressure along the cold front currently settling into the southern states is expected to spread a rare coating of ice across southeast Texas and southwestern Louisiana,” the National Weather Service said.

The service forecast snow, sleet, and rain over parts of Texas and the central Gulf Coast through tomorrow morning.

Natural gas futures headed for the biggest weekly gain since September 2012, rising as much as 3.9 percent to $4.913 per million British thermal units in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange today. They are up 13.6 percent this week.

Rogers said four of the 10 coldest days of the 21st century in the 48 contiguous U.S. states occurred this month, including the first and second.

Much of Texas is forecast to get eight to 10 hours of below-freezing temperatures through today, said Tom Kines, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania.

Wind chill warnings and advisories stretch from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast and a winter storm warning has been issued in Houston, according to the National Weather Service.

Snow Storm

Houston may get 0.25 inch of freezing rain and possibly some snow, according to the weather service.

“It takes very little of that stuff to cause major problems down there,” Kines said.

Temperatures in the U.S. Northeast will remain in the low teens to even single digits through this weekend, according to the weather service. Readings may reach seasonal levels by Jan. 25 before dropping back down again.

Kines said there is also a chance a storm may bring 4 inches of snow throughout the region at the start of next week, though details of where it will land are still to be determined.

The pattern for the month has been one of deep cold snaps followed by brief respites, Kines said. The Great Lakes has borne the brunt of the trend, with many days of frigid readings.

Chicago has had nine days, and in Milwaukee, where readings have fallen to zero or below, there have been eight so far this month, according to the weather service.
 
Old February 14th, 2014 #407
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...h-century.html

U.S braces itself for coldest month of the century with yet another Arctic blast as fears grow for Super Bowl Sunday
By Louise Boyle and Ashley Collman
PUBLISHED: 04:12 EST, 24 January 2014 | UPDATED: 10:16 EST, 26 January 2014

America is set for the coldest month of the century as weather forecasters predict yet another freezing blast of Arctic air - putting Super Bowl Sunday in jeopardy.

Teams have been warned to stay on high alert for changes to the scheduling of the first Super Bowl to be played in an open-air stadium.

Temperatures have already hit record lows, at times making parts of the U.S. colder than the North Pole, and are expected to plunge in the coming days.

The timing could not be worse for one of the biggest global sporting events, which will be exposed to the full force of the elements at the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on February 2.

Eric Grubman, NFL vice president of business operations, told the Denver Post: 'We are advising teams to prepare in case a contingency plan goes into effect.'

The game could be moved to the preceding Friday or Saturday or the following Monday if authorities decide the weather will constitute a danger to public health.

Broncos coach John Fox and Seattle coach Pete Carroll will be the first to know if the event is rescheduled.


Frozen over: Workers shovel out MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey where the Super Bowl will be held on February 2. Another winter storm is scheduled to hit just one or two days before the big game


Not normal: While most of the Midwest and East Coast has been dealing with colder-than-usual temperatures, most of the West has seen unusually mild temperatures


The weather has already caused widespread disruption across great swathes of the U.S. and is set to get worse.

Matt Rogers, president of Commodity Weather Group LLC, said: 'The crazy thing is that the current cold snap this week look to be a bit more modest in the face of next week's outbreak.

'The cold coming for the end of January is sufficient to make this the coldest month of the century so far and the coldest the Lower 48 has felt in the last 20 years.'

Snow from an unexpected storm earlier in the week won't have a chance to melt before the northeast is hit with yet another blast early next week.

The first 'Alberta Clipper' storm is expected to arrive on the East Coast Monday with snow in the central Appalachians and New England a day before.

The Weather Channel reported that wind chills were in the teens in the Midwest Thursday morning. In Minneapolis, schools were closed as the mercury plunged down to -18 and a wind chill of -38.

Some parts of the region and interior Northeast will see highs in the single digits, with a few enclaves in the upper Mississippi River Valley dipping into sub-zero temperatures.

Even Texas and Tennessee - states known for their usually mild climate – are feeling the bitter cold; Houston and San Antonio were expecting ice by tonight.

Residents of upstate New York, New York city, Philadelphia and New England will wake up Friday morning to bone-chilling temperatures, with lows in the single digits in some areas.

Following a temporary respite Saturday, a pair of surges of artic air will sweep down from Canada, bringing more flurries.

The storm will start off Saturday, taking a more southern route than Tuesday's storm.

It will hit the Ohio Valley Sunday night before making its way to the Mid-Atlantic region by Monday.

The storm will also affect the Midwest, causing possible dangerous driving conditions and flight delays in Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo, New York.

According to AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist John Gresiak,'The combination of rounds of dry, powdery snow, gusty winds and low temperatures can make for whiteouts and brief blizzard conditions.'

The storm will hit the Midwest early, coming in on Thursday before dropping snow on Friday.


New Yorkers make their way across a snow-covered Brooklyn Bridge Wednesday after the city was hit was almost a foot of snow from winter storm Janus


The Northeast was under attack from brutally cold weather yesterday as a winter storm swirled up the coast, creating blizzard conditions on Cape Cod, disrupting government work in Washington and leaving New York City under a foot of snow.

Winter storm Janus stretched from Kentucky to New England but hit hardest along the heavily populated Interstate 95 corridor between Philadelphia and Boston.

About 1,700 flights were canceled nationwide on Wednesday, according to according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.com.

Cape Cod was under a blizzard warning through Wednesday afternoon.

Boston and Philadelphia ordered schools closed on Wednesday, following the lead the day before of many districts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.

Schools also were closed on Wednesday in Rhode Island, Connecticut, upstate New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, northern Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Amtrak told passengers on its busiest line, the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston, to expect fewer trains. Lines serving Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Albany, New York, also were slowed.

The storm put a damper on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's inauguration, forcing the cancellation of a Tuesday evening gala on Ellis Island.

In Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick postponed his annual State of the State address, saying he was worried about guests trying to get to the statehouse.

In New York, Mayor de Blasio's administration has been accused of being slow to react to the snow, which hit a few hours earlier than expected Tuesday. Residents on the Upper East Side in Manhattan complained that their neighborhood was being deliberately ignored by snowploughs.

One of the large glass panels at the Apple Store in midtown Manhattan appeared to have shattered after it was knocked into by a snowblower, according to photographer Daniel Levshin.

The storm was a conventional one that developed off the coast and moved its way up the Eastern Seaboard, pulling in cold air from the Arctic.

Unlike the epic freeze of two weeks ago, it was not caused by a kink in the polar vortex, the winds that circulate around the North Pole.


Robert Burck, also known as the original 'Naked Cowboy', performs in a snow storm on the streets of Times Square, New York on Tuesday


The advancing cold will be severe enough to bring life-threatening conditions, hypothermia and the risk of frostbite to areas from the northern Plains to New England, reports Accuweather.

The penetrating cold has the potential to cause water main breaks as far south as the Ohio Valley and mid-Atlantic and to freeze pipes into parts of the South.

The storm was blamed for at least one death in Maryland, after a car fishtailed into the path of a tractor-trailer on a snow-covered road about 50 miles northwest of Baltimore and the car's driver was ejected.

Police said the storm might have claimed more lives: A preliminary investigation showed wet conditions played a role in a two-vehicle crash that killed two people in Prince George's County, Maryland, and a tractor-trailer that jackknifed on Interstate 81 in Frederick County, Virginia, ran off the highway and hit a tree, killing the driver.

A total of three waves of arctic air will blast across the Midwest and Northeast and into next week.

The next blast of arctic air will reach the Upper Midwest by Wednesday.

While temperatures will briefly rebound in between the reinforcing waves of cold air, the rebounds will be much less pronounced from the Midwest to New England and may be barely noticeable in the northern tier states.

Temperatures may stay below freezing in Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit and Cleveland through the end of the month, where highs most days will be in the teens.

In Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City and Indianapolis, temperatures may only surpass the freezing mark on one or two days through Jan. 31.

The persistent cold will cause a renewed buildup of ice on rivers in the Northern states.

Ice jams could again become a problem during the coming weeks.

At least two of the cold waves will reach into the South. In much of the South, temperatures will not be as low as that of the first week of January.

However, many areas over the interior will have multiple nights where the temperature spends multiple hours well below freezing.

Temperatures will dip to near freezing during a few nights along the upper Gulf Coast.
 
Old February 14th, 2014 #408
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http://www.accuweather.com/en/weathe...e-win/22527373

Polar Plunge to Continue Into Wednesday
By Kristina Pydynowski, Senior Meteorologist
January 29, 2014; 6:41 PM

A blast of frigid air will grip most of the eastern half of the United States into midweek.

The impending polar plunge will rival the frigid days from earlier this January for the coldest daytime highs and nighttime lows so far this winter in parts of the Midwest and interior Northeast.

The arctic air first plunged into the Upper Midwest, northern Plains and northern Rockies on Sunday and continued to press to the Gulf and Atlantic coasts on Tuesday.

The magnitude of this cold blast will be enough to produce a far-reaching threat of frostbite, hypothermia, frozen pipes and water main breaks.

Care should also be taken to ensure that livestock and other animals housed outdoors have adequate shelter.

Especially across the Midwest and Northeast, officials may decide to cancel or delay school due to the extreme cold. Some vehicles may struggle or fail to start.

While highs will be held to the 30s southward to the I-10 corridor, the Midwest and Northeast will experience the harshest conditions.



Temperatures plunged below zero Tuesday morning from central Montana to northern Maine, southward to eastern Colorado, areas along the Ohio River and into the mountains of Pennsylvania, western Maryland and West Virginia.

Across much of the Midwest and the interior Northeast, high temperatures were in the single digits and teens on Tuesday with some areas over the northern tier states remaining below zero.

Temperatures are forecast to rebound over portions of the northern Plains and the Midwest on Wednesday, but they will remain at frigid levels in much of the Northeast and the interior South.



Biting winds will usher in frigid air, creating dramatically lower AccuWeather.com RealFeel® temperatures.

RealFeel® temperatures will be extremely dangerous across eastern North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. On Sunday night, RealFeel® temperatures dipped to 50 below zero in the town of Wadena, Minn.

Frostbite can develop in a matter of minutes on exposed skin during such intense cold.

Along the leading edge of the invading cold air, an Alberta Clipper spread a few inches of snow from parts of the southern Appalachians to northern New England on Monday.

The invading cold and a developing storm began spreading a swath of snow and ice across the I-10 and I-95 corridors in the South on Tuesday and will continue into Wednesday.

 
Old February 14th, 2014 #409
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http://www.nbcchicago.com/weather/st...241874431.html

Chicago Flirts With, Misses Low-Temp Record
Record low of -13 was set Jan. 28, 1977
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 | Updated 1:12 PM CST

Chicago's official air temperature on Tuesday, reported at O'Hare International Airport, came within just a couple of degrees of tying a record set 37 years ago.

The airport recorded a low temperature of -11 before rebounding a couple of degrees. The record low for Jan. 28 was -13 set in 1977.

As of 9:30 a.m., O'Hare reported -8 degrees. And we don't have to tell you: that's cold. Bitter cold. Dangerously cold.

Still, it's not as cold as the record-breaking -16 degrees we experienced just a couple of weeks ago.

The Arctic air arrived Monday morning, with forecast highs below zero degrees for both Monday and Tuesday. Nighttime lows could dip as far as -25 degrees in some areas, with wind chill values sinking to -45.

A Wind Chill Warning that had been in effect through Wednesday morning was canceled early, replaced by a Wind Chill Advisory.

Chicago's average temperature for the winter season so far sits at 20.3 degrees, making it the 13th coldest winter since 1872, according to the National Weather Service. But it could move up in the rankings after this week's cold spell.

The brutal temperatures prompted several schools to cancel classes Monday and Tuesday, including Chicago Public Schools. CPS classes would resume Wednesday, officials said.

Electricity grid operator PJM Interconnection urged people to conserve energy on Tuesday, especially from 6 to 10 a.m. and from 5 to 9 p.m. Homeowners should postpone using major electric appliances such as stoves, dishwashers and clothes dryers during that time.

Chicago has spent $16.5 million this season for snow removal efforts, city officials said Monday. $10.4 million of that total has been spent on salt alone, however a city spokesman said the budget will remain balanced.

The Peoples Gas Share the Warmth program that provides heating grants to limited and fixed-income households has already issued 10,000 more financial grants this year compared to last year at this time.

Metra engineering and maintenance staff worked 12 hour shifts on Monday, making sure critical switches are clear of snow and ice. Crews were also in over the weekend to keep the train cars powered up.

Amtrak announced a modified schedule for Monday in preparation for bitter temperatures, and Chicago's two main airports reported more than 515 flight cancellations Monday morning.

Illinois State Police issued a traffic alert Sunday afternoon due to hazardous road conditions in several counties.

Indiana drivers were being warned of hazardous conditions on the interstates in Northwest Indiana Saturday morning.

Road conditions, specifically for Interstate 80/94 and Interstate 65 throughout the Lowell State Police District, were "snow-packed, ice and blown over," officials said.

Indiana Department of Transportation crews were salting roads, but officials said the conditions have become "extremely challenging to keep up with."

Police were telling drivers to stay off the roads if possible, and to use caution, slow down and plan for travel delays.

The Illinois Department of Transportation issued a similar warning.
 
Old February 14th, 2014 #410
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http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/02/...wfall-records/

4406 U.S. record cold temperatures in January – 1073 Snowfall records
By: Marc Morano - Climate DepotFebruary 5, 2014 7:34 AM

Via: http://iceagenow.info/2014/02/4406-r...temps-january/

4406 Record Cold Temps

1259 Record Warm temps

1073 Snowfall records

Record cold-31Jan14



http://wx.hamweather.com/maps/climat...emp,snow,lowma x,highmin,

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Old February 14th, 2014 #411
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...udy-shows.html

Global-Warming Slowdown Due to Pacific Winds, Study Shows
By Alex Morales Feb 9, 2014 1:00 PM ET

Stronger Pacific Ocean winds may help explain the slowdown in the rate of global warming since the turn of the century, scientists said.

More powerful winds in the past 20 years may be forcing warmer seas deeper and bringing cooler water to the surface , 10 researchers from the U.S. and Australia said today in the journal Nature. That has cooled the average global temperature by as much as 0.2 degree Celsius (0.36 Fahrenheit) since 2001.

Scientists have been trying to find out why the rate of global warming has eased in the past 20 years while greenhouse-gas emissions have surged to a record. Today’s paper elaborates on a theory that deep seas are absorbing more warmth by explaining how that heat could be getting there.

“The net effect of these anomalous winds is a cooling in the 2012 global average surface air temperature of 0.1–0.2 degree Celsius, which can account for much of the hiatus in surface warming observed since 2001,” the researchers wrote. They’re led by Matthew England, a professor of oceanography at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in September that the average temperature since 1998 has increased at less than half the rate since 1951. The world has warmed by an average 0.05 degree per decade since 1998, compared with the 1951-2012 average of 0.12 degree a decade, the UNIPCC said.

Hiatus Persisting

“This hiatus could persist for much of the present decade if the tradewind trends continue; however rapid warming is expected to resume once the anomalous wind trends abate,” the authors of today’s study said. “Volcanoes and changes in solar radiation can also drive cooler decades against the backdrop of ongoing warming,” they said.

The scientists used computer models and weather data to determine the effect of the stronger winds on ocean circulation. Other institutions involved in the research include the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, the University of Hawaii, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organization.

A paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in May found that ocean waters below 700 meters (2,300 feet) have absorbed more heat since 1999. A separate study in Nature in August linked the hiatus to a cooling of surface waters in the eastern Pacific, and today’s research builds on that.
 
Old February 14th, 2014 #412
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http://news.yahoo.com/eleven-dead-ja...--finance.html

Eleven dead in Japan after worst snowfall in decades hits capital
Reuters

TOKYO (Reuters) - Eleven people died, more than a thousand were injured and tens of thousands lost power when the worst snowstorm in decades hit Tokyo and areas around the Japanese capital before heading north to blanket the tsunami-hit Pacific coast.

Flights were still backed up at Tokyo's Haneda international airport on Monday and the lobby was packed with anxious travelers, with some flights overbooked.

As much as 27 cm (10.6 inches) of snow fell on Tokyo by late Saturday, the most in 45 years, Japan's Meteorological Agency said. Back streets in outlying neighborhoods remained choked with snow and frozen slush on Monday morning, forcing commuters in heavy boots to pick their way carefully to work.

Financial markets opened normally on Monday despite the heavy snowfall.

Traffic accidents and falls claimed 11 lives across the nation, including one 78-year-old man in Ichikawa, just east of Tokyo. More than 1,000 were injured, among them a 69-year-old man in critical condition after slipping and striking his head at his front doorstep while shoveling snow.

Some 5,000 people were stuck at Narita international airport at the weekend when the snow cut transport links to downtown Tokyo.

More than 20,000 households were without electricity early on Sunday after the snow and high winds took down power lines.

Several universities delayed the start of their entrance exams. The snowy streets also may have discouraged voters from going to the polls on Sunday to choose a new Tokyo governor, with turnout rates hovering around 46 percent, the third lowest in history.

Powering north, the storm dumped 35 cm of snow on the city of Sendai, parts of which were devastated by the March 2011 tsunami. It was the heaviest snowfall recorded there in 78 years.
 
Old February 14th, 2014 #413
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http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-...esilience-fund

February 14, 2014, 06:39 am
Obama pitches $1B climate change 'resilience fund'
By Laura Barron-Lopez

President Obama will pitch a new $1 billion climate change resilience fund during a visit Friday to California.

The fund, which would need to be approved by Congress, is intended to help communities dealing with negative weather that's the result of climate change.

Obama is touting the fund during a trip to California, which has been devastated by a drought that is threatening the Central Valley's agriculture production and has led Gov. Jerry Brown (D) to call on Californians to conserve water.

During a call with reporters on Thursday evening, the assistant to the president on science and technology, John Holdren, said, without any doubt, the severe drought plaguing California and a number of other states across the country is tied to climate change.

"Weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change," Holdren said.

The administration's fund would invest in research to gather data on the impacts of climate change, help communities prepare for them and support innovative technologies and infrastructure to ready the country "in the face of a changing climate."

"Recent events have reinforced our knowledge that our communities and economy remain vulnerable to extreme weather and natural hazards," the administration said in a statement on Thursday.

Obama will propose the fund Friday after visiting with farmers in Fresno, Calif.

The new fund — separate from Obama's climate agenda announced in June — will be detailed in the president's 2015 budget, set for release next month.

While Obama has said he will use his executive authority to push his climate agenda and other policies during what he dubbed his "year of action," the president would need approval from Congress for the fund.

When asked if talk of climate change tied to extreme weather events, like California's drought, by Obama would become more frequent, Holdren said it already has been a recurring talking point for the president.

Holdren added: "You can expect the president will talk about the connection between increasing frequency in the intensity of drought and climate change on Friday" and in the future.
 
Old February 14th, 2014 #414
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http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journal...Global-Warming

CBS Blames Global Warming for Bad Winter
by Warner Todd Huston 13 Feb 2014 3090

During the February 13 broadcast of CBS This Morning, host Charlie Rose and his guest turned to the topic of this year's harsh winter, calling the extreme cold an example of global warming.

Guest Michio Kaku, a physics professor from New York City College--not a climatologist, but a physicist--claimed that the "wacky weather" could get "even wackier" and its all because of global warming. "What we're seeing is that the jet stream and the polar vortex are becoming unstable. Instability of historic proportions. We think it's because of the gradual heating up of the North Pole. The North Pole is melting," professor Kaku said.

"That excess heat generated by all this warm water is destabilizing this gigantic bucket of cold air... So that's the irony, that heating could cause gigantic storms of historic proportions," the prof explained.

This was all because of global warming, Rose insisted.

Kaku went on to say that the weather "instabilities" we are seeing are because of the "erratic nature of the jet stream" and the "polar vortex."

Kaku also said that it is too late to change any of this:

Quote:
Well, the bad news is that the north polar region continues to rise in temperature, it seems to be irreversible at a certain point, so we may have to get used to a new normal. That is, a north polar region that is melting, causing more instability in this bucket, causing more things to spill out, which means more extremes. Some winters could be very mild, other winters could be horrendous.
According to The Weather Channel, the Polar Vortex is not the sort of weather system that directly affects the surface. In fact, the polar vortex is an upper atmosphere system, not one that impacts directly on the surface of the earth.

Further, the idea that the polar vortex has become "unstable" is not necessarily true.The Weather Channel notes that the upper atmosphere system sometimes shifts, helping to sweep weather systems in the lower atmosphere to drift far afield from more common patterns.

CBS Host Norah O'Donnell also took the occasion of the discussion to claim that 2014 will be the hottest summer ever.
 
Old March 1st, 2014 #415
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Post Co-founder of Greenpeace denounces man made global warming hoax

Co-founder of Greenpeace denounces man made global warming hoax


topconservativenews.com

Patrick Moore is a world famous environmentalist and co-founder of Greenpeace.

World famous environmentalist Patrick Moore slammed the man made global warming hoax before the US Senate.

From UK Telegraph…

Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore has angered environmentalist groups after saying climate change is “not caused by humans” and there is “no scientific proof” to back global warming alarmism.

The Canadian ecologist told US lawmakers there is “little correlation” to support a “direct causal relationship” between CO2 emissions and rising global temperatures.

“There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years,” he told a US Senate Committee “If there were such a proof, it would be written down for all to see. No actual proof, as it is understood in science, exists.”

He also criticised the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for claiming “it is extremely likely” that human activity is the “dominant cause” for global warning, noting that “extremely likely” is not a scientific term.



read full article at source: http://topconservativenews.com/2014/...-warming-hoax/
 
Old March 20th, 2014 #416
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Lawrence Torcello: Rochester Institute of Technology’s Stalinist Professor
Thomas DiLorenzo

A philosophy professor at Rochester Institute of Technology thinks that anyone who is skeptical about the environmentalist agenda of adopting world socialism and central planning under the guise of “saving the planet” from “climate change” (a.k.a. changing weather conditions) are “malignant individuals” who should be imprisoned. This plan — to use environmentalism as an excuse to revive socialism — was adopted by the worldwide socialist movement immediately upon the worldwide collapse of socialism in the late 1980s/early 1990s. It was clearly explained by the socialist economist Robert Heilbroner in a 1990 New Yorker magazine article entitled “After Communism.”

Having spent the past 34 years in academe, one thing I have learned is that, in general, philosophy professors tend to be by far the zaniest left-wing, communistic dingbats. At my university, for example, they routinely assign The Communist Manifesto to their students, who tell me that it is treated as an ideal roadmap for the future and not just a historical document that “justified” the impoverishment, degradation, and mass murder of hundreds of millions during the twentieth century. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a society like that,” is how one of my students explained to me what his philosophy professor said about the Manifesto. In fact, almost none of my students have ever heard of the fact that a single individual was murdered by any communist government. Don’t look for the president of Rochester Institute of Technology to treat this totalitarian-minded idiot like the president of Loyola University New Orleans treated Walter Block and criticize and denounce him in the school newspaper. He is much more likely to all-of-a-sudden become a staunch defender of free speech and academic freedom since this lunacy comes from a left-wing fanatic.

The historically cold winter in places like Rochester, New York apparently has the common sense/honest science deniers (a.k.a. climate-change alarmists) in a state of sheer panic.
 
Old March 20th, 2014 #417
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Global Warming: Not a Crisis

“Many liberals … seem constitutionally incapable of giving fair consideration to, or in some cases even acknowledging, expert evidence and arguments (even if in the minority) that question whether we are really in the midst of a man-made global climate crisis.”

David H. Freedman
Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing us – And How to Know When Not to Trust Them
Little, Brown and Co., 2010, p. 78.

Written by Joseph Bast and James M. Taylor

The burning of fossil fuels to generate energy produces carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas which, everything else being equal, could lead to some warming of the global climate. Most scientists believe the Earth experienced a small rise in temperatures during the second half of the twentieth century, but they are unsure how large a role human activities may have played.

The important questions from a public policy perspective are: How much of the warming is natural? How sure are we that it will continue? Would continued warming be beneficial or harmful?

The answers, in brief, are: Probably two-thirds of the warming in the 1990s was due to natural causes; the warming trend already has stopped and forecasts of future warming are unreliable; and the benefits of a moderate warming are likely to outweigh the costs.

Global warming, in other words, is not a crisis.

Why Does Heartland Address Global Warming?

The Heartland Institute has been studying global warming since 1994, when it produced Eco-Sanity: A Common-Sense Guide to Environmentalism (Madison Books). Heartland is a national nonprofit research and education organization that focuses on economics, not science. So why have we become, in the words of the science journal Nature, “a major force among climate sceptics”? (Tollefson, 2011)

We were made curious by the fact that every single environmental group in the U.S. says global warming is “real” and a “crisis,” even though there was in 1994, and still is today, considerable debate going on in the scientific community. Many of the world’s most distinguished scientists believe climate processes are too poorly understood to support calls for immediate action or predictions of catastrophic global warming (Solomon, 2008).

The reason for the consensus among environmentalists is simple: If AGW is true, then stopping or preventing it requires higher taxes, more income redistribution, more wilderness preservation, more regulations on corporations, “smart growth,” subsidies for renewable energy, and on and on. In other words, many of the policies already on the liberal political agenda. Liberals have no reason to “look under the hood” of the global warming scare, to see what the real science says. They believe in global warming because they feel it justifies their ideological convictions (Hulme, 2009).

Independents, conservatives, and libertarians – about 80 percent of the general population, according to surveys, but less than 20 percent of journalists and academics – don’t want to go down the road to higher taxes and more regulations unless it is necessary. They open the hood of the global warming scare and look at the real science. They study the issue and come to understand it. Based on that understanding – not ideological conviction or belief – 60 percent of them conclude global warming is not a crisis. (Rasmussen 2012)

The Heartland Institute “looked under the hood” and concluded concern over the possibility of catastrophic global warming was being manufactured to advance a political agenda. We then took upon ourselves the task of publicizing the scientific uncertainty behind the global warming scare and documenting the high costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions – economic costs as well as the loss of freedom.

And now you know why an economic think tank is so prominent in a scientific debate. We do not do this to raise money from oil companies or others with a stake in the issue – oil companies never contributed more than 5 percent of our annual budgets, and they give a trivial amount today. We challenge claims that climate change is a crisis because our pursuit of the truth led us to this position.

Isn’t There a Consensus?

Science doesn’t advance by “consensus.” A single scientist or study can disprove a theory that is embraced by the vast majority of scientists. The search for a consensus is actually part of what philosophers call “post-normal science,” which isn’t really science at all. Still, many people ask: What do scientists believe?

Most surveys cited by those who claim there is a consensus ask questions that are too vague to settle the matter. It is important to distinguish between the statement that global warming is a crisis and the similar-sounding but very different statements that the climate is changing and that there is a human impact on climate. Climate is always changing, and every scientist knows this. Our emissions and alterations of the landscape are surely having impacts on climate, though they are often local or regional (like heat islands) and small relative to natural variation.

It is easy to find evidence that scientists disagree about climate change. Climate Change Reconsidered cites thousands of articles appearing in peer-reviewed journals that challenge the basic underlying assumptions of AGW (Idso and Singer, 2009). More than 30,000 scientists have signed a petition saying there is no threat that man-made global warming will pose a threat to humanity or nature (Petition Project).

Alarmists often cite an essay by Naomi Oreskes claiming to show that virtually all articles about global warming in peer-reviewed journals support the so-called consensus. But a no-less-rigorous study by Benny Peiser that attempted to replicate her results searched the abstracts of 1,117 scientific journal articles on “global climate change” and found only 13 (1 percent) explicitly endorse the “consensus view” while 34 reject or cast doubt on the view that human activity has been the main driver of warming over the past 50 years. A more recent search by Klaus-Martin Schulte of 928 scientific papers published from 2004 to February 2007 found fewer than half explicitly or implicitly endorse the so-called consensus and only 7 percent do so explicitly (Schulte, 2008).

A survey that is frequently cited as showing consensus actually proves just the opposite. German scientists Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch have surveyed climate scientists three times, in 1996, 2003, and 2007 (Bray and von Storch, 2010). Their latest survey found most of these scientists say they believe global warming is man-made and is a serious problem, but most of these same scientists do not believe climate science is sufficiently advanced to predict future climate conditions. For two-thirds of the science questions asked, scientific opinion is deeply divided, and in half of those cases, most scientists disagree with positions that are at the foundation of the alarmist case (Bast, 2011).

On August 2, 2011, von Storch posted the following comment on a blog: “From our own observations of discussions among climate scientists we also find hardly consensus [sic] on many other issues, ranging from changing hurricane statistics to the speed of melting Greenland and Antarctica, spreading of diseases and causing mass migration and wars” (von Storch, 2011).

These are not minor issues. Extreme weather events, melting ice, and the spread of disease are all major talking points for Al Gore and other alarmists in the climate debate. If there is no consensus on these matters, then “skeptics” are right to ask why we should believe global warming is a crisis.

Cognitive Dissonance?

How can scientists say they believe global warming is a problem, but at the same time not believe there is sufficient scientific evidence to predict future climate conditions? Either this is hollow careerism and ought to be subject to public criticism, or it is cognitive dissonance – holding two contradictory ideas in your mind at the same time. If the latter, it is probably caused by the complexity of the issue (we must trust the judgment of scientists working in other fields to form opinions on subjects we are not ourselves expert about) and its close association with social and economic agendas (we want to believe something is true even if our own research suggests it is not).

This is not an unreasonable claim or an attack on the integrity of working scientists. It is a standard theme in many books on the history of science, dating back at least as far as Charles Mackay’s 1841 classic, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, and as recently as Mike Hulme’s 2009 tome, Why We Disagree About Climate Change. Hulme, not incidentally, is no skeptic: He contributes to the alarmist IPCC reports and works at the University of East Anglia (home of the Climategate scandal). Even he admits that his position is based on belief rather than scientific understanding and is inseparable from his partisan political beliefs.

Bray and von Storch, in an essay in 1999 reporting on the results of their first survey, remarked on how a willingness to make predictions and recommendations about public policy that aren’t supported by actual science is a sign of “post-normal science,” or the willingness to rely on “consensus” rather than actual scientific knowledge when the risks are perceived as being great (Bray and von Storch, 1999). Scientists who express beliefs about global warming that they can’t support with real science are sharing opinions shaped by ideology and trust. Their beliefs should be given no more weight than the beliefs of nonscientists.

Natural or Man-Made?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an agency of the United Nations, claims the warming that has occurred since the mid-twentieth century “is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations” (IPCC, 2007). Many climate scientists disagree with the IPCC on this key issue. As Idso and Singer wrote in 2009,

The IPCC does not apply generally accepted methodologies to determine what fraction of current warming is natural, or how much is caused by the rise in greenhouse gases (GHG). A comparison of “fingerprints” from best available observations with the results of state-of-the-art GHG models leads to the conclusion that the (human-caused) GHG contribution is minor. This fingerprint evidence, though available, was ignored by the IPCC.

The IPCC continues to undervalue the overwhelming evidence that, on decadal and century-long time scales, the Sun and associated atmospheric cloud effects are responsible for much of past climate change. It is therefore highly likely that the Sun is also a major cause of twentieth-century warming, with anthropogenic GHG making only a minor contribution. In addition, the IPCC ignores, or addresses imperfectly, other science issues that call for discussion and explanation (Idso and Singer, 2009).

Scientists who study the issue say it is impossible to tell if the recent small warming trend is natural, a continuation of the planet’s recovery from the more recent “Little Ice Age,” or unnatural, the result of human greenhouse gas emissions. Thousands of peer-reviewed articles point to natural sources of climate variability that could explain some or even all of the warming in the second half of the twentieth century (Idso and Singer, 2009). S. Fred Singer and Dennis Avery documented natural climate cycles of approximately 1,500 years going back hundreds of thousands of years (Singer and Avery, second edition 2008).

It is clear from climate records that the Earth was warmer than it is now in recorded human history, before man-made greenhouse gas emissions could have been the cause. We know enough about how the Earth’s climate works to know that biological and physical processes remove CO2 from the atmosphere at a faster rate when concentration levels are higher and release more heat into space when temperatures rise. These feedback factors and radiative forcings are poorly modeled or missing from the computer models that alarmists use to make their forecasts.

The arguments are complex, but the debate over natural versus man-made climate change is unquestionably still ongoing. The more we learn, the less likely it becomes that human greenhouse gas emissions can explain more than a small amount of the climate change we witness.

How Much Warming?

NASA satellite data recorded since 1979 allow us to check the accuracy of claims that the past three decades have been warming at an alarming rate. The data show a warming rate of 0.123 degrees C per decade. This is considerably less than what land-based temperature stations report during the same time period, and which are relied on by the IPCC (Christy, 2009). If the Earth’s temperature continues to rise at the rate of the past three decades, the planet would see only 1.23 degrees C warming over the course of an entire century.

Most climate scientists, even “skeptics,” acknowledge that rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere would, all other things held constant, cause some small amount of warming. Alarmists claim that small amount will trigger increases in the amount of moisture in the atmosphere, which in turn will cause further warming. But other scientists have found no evidence of rising levels of moisture in those areas of the atmosphere where the models claim it should be found. Without this “amplification,” there is no global warming crisis (Singer, 2011).

While the global climate warmed slightly during the 1980s and 1990s, it has not warmed at all since 2000, and there is some evidence that a cooling trend has begun (Taylor, 2007). This contradicts the predictions of the IPCC and poses a challenge to the theory that CO2 concentrations play a major role in global temperature trends. It confirms the views of many less-politicized climate scientists who acknowledge that the global climate is always warming or cooling (Michaels, 2005; Christy, 2006).

The scientific community’s lack of certainty about future climate trends is rooted in the shortcomings of computer models. These models are the centerpiece of the IPCC’‘s reports, yet it is widely recognized that they fail to account for changes in precipitation, water vapor, and clouds that are likely to occur in a warmer world. It is a case of “garbage in, garbage out.”

If we cannot predict how much warming will occur, how can we claim that continued human emissions of greenhouse gases is harmful?

Global Warming Benefits as Well as Harms

Alarmists claim global warming will cause massive flooding, more violent weather, famines, and other catastrophic consequences. If these claims are true, then we should have seen evidence of this trend during the twentieth century. Idso and Singer (2009) provide extensive evidence that no such trends have been observed. Even von Storch (2011) admits there is no consensus on these matters.

The preponderance of scientific data suggest sea levels are unlikely to rise by more than several inches, weather may actually become more mild, and since most warming occurs at night and during the winter season, it has little adverse effect (and some positive effect) on plants and wildlife. Hurricanes are likely to diminish, not increase, in frequency or severity (Spencer, 2008; Singer and Avery, 2008).

Higher levels of CO2 have a well-documented fertilizing effect on plants and make them more drought-resistant. Warmer temperatures are also likely to be accompanied by higher soil moisture levels and more frequent rain, leading to a “greening of the Earth” that is dramatically different from the “parched Earth” scenario featured in many biased and agenda-driven documentary films (Idso, 1995).

The current best estimate is that, if left unaddressed, by 2060 global warming is likely to have a small (0.2 percent of GDP) positive effect on the U.S. economy and a small (1 to 2 percent of GDP) negative effect on the global economy (Mendelsohn and Neumann, 1999). These estimates are very small and speculative.

Reducing Emissions is Expensive

While the likelihood that global warming would be a crisis was never large and is getting even smaller as new research is reported, we know the cost of reducing man-made greenhouse gas emissions would be high.

An analysis of a carbon “cap-and-trade” proposal considered by the U.S. Senate in 2008 – the Lieberman-Warner Act – found it would destroy between 1.2 and 1.8 million jobs in 2020 and between 3 and 4 million jobs in 2030; impose a financial cost on U.S. households of $739 to $2,927 per year by 2020, rising to $4,022 to $6,752 by 2030; and would increase the price of gasoline between 60 percent and 144 percent by 2030 and the price of electricity by 77 percent to 129 percent (National Association of Manufacturers/ACCF, 2008).

States that try to reduce emissions on their own are likely to incur costs 10 times greater than a national program because businesses and residents would find it easier to move to nearby states with lower energy costs or less-burdensome regulations and because states would have to rely on more costly command-and control regulatory approaches (Bast, Taylor, and Lehr, 2003).

The record of existing emissions trading programs gives little basis for supposing a massively bigger regime would work. The sulfur dioxide trading program, often pointed to as a model, succeeded only because railroad deregulation made low-cost, low-sulfur coal available from the Powder River Basin (Johnston, 1998).

European emissions trading programs have been characterized by low trading volumes, high price volatility, and mostly paper transactions that do not result in actual reductions in emissions. Most European countries are far behind schedule in meeting their emission reduction goals under the Kyoto Protocol.

Recommended Policies

So what should be done about global warming? Actually, a lot is being done: The federal government of the U.S. is spending billions of dollars every year on research. State and federal governments are massively subsidizing ethanol producers and wind and solar power generators in the name of “reducing carbon emissions.” Billions of dollars more are being spent by businesses and consumers complying with regulations that are said to be justified by concern over global warming.

In light of the compelling scientific evidence that global warming is not a crisis, policymakers should consider reducing current spending on climate change and repealing regulations and mandates that were previously justified by fear of global warming. More specifically, they should consider the following policies:

Oppose higher energy taxes or carbon “”cap-and-trade”“ programs.
Repeal renewable energy mandates that require utilities and their customers to buy high-priced electricity from solar and wind companies.
Support research independent from government research programs that are biased toward alarmism.
Remove barriers to energy conservation embedded in state and local laws and regulations, such as restrictive building codes and zoning ordinances.
Support research and, if appropriate, capital investments in adapting to climate change rather than trying to prevent it.
Pursue win-win strategies that produce enough benefits to pay their way apart from their possible effect on climate
Oppose planned increases in Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards that would reduce car and truck emissions by small amounts while dramatically increasing prices and reducing consumer choices and safety.
Sources:

Bast, Joseph, 2010. “Analysis: New International Survey of Climate Scientists,” The Heartland Institute, September 25, heartland.org/policy-documents/analysis-new-international-survey-climate-scientists.

Bast, Joseph, and James Taylor, and Jay Lehr, 2003. “State Greenhouse Gas Programs: An Economic and Scientific Analysis,” Heartland Policy Study No. 101, The Heartland Institute, February.

Bray, Dennis, and von Storch, Hans, 2010. “A Survey of the Perspectives of Climate Scientists Concerning Climate Science and Climate Change, GKSS Report 2010/9.”

Bray, Dennis and von Storch, Hans, 1999. “Climate Science: An Empirical Example of Postnormal Science,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 80, No. 3, March.

Christy, John R., 2006. “Questions surrounding the ‘hockey stick’ temperature studies: implications for climate change assessments.” Testimony, House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, July 27.

Christy, John R., 2009. Written testimony to House Ways and Means Committee, February 25.

Hulme, Mike, 2010. Why We Disagree About Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.

Idso, Craig and S. Fred Singer, 2009. Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. The Heartland Institute.

Idso, Sherwood B., 1995. CO2 and the Biosphere: The Incredible Legacy of the Industrial Revolution. Department of Soil, Water and Climate, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN.

IPCC, 2007. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press.

Johnston, Jim, 1998. “Emission trading for global warming,” Regulation, Vol. 21 No. 4.

Mendelsohn, Robert and James E. Neumann, 1999. Eds., The Impact of Climate Change on the United states Economy, Cambridge University Press.

Michaels, Patrick, 2005. Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming. Rowman & Littlefield.

National Association of Manufacturers/ACCF, 2008. “Study of the Economic Impact from the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.”

Petition Project, Web site, www.petitionproject.org.

Schulte, Klaus-Martin, 2008. “Scientific Consensus on Global Warming?” Environment & Energy, Vol. 19, #2.

Singer, S. Fred, 2011. “Lack of Consistency Between Modeled and Observed Temperature Trends,” Energy & Environment, Vol. 22, No. 4.

Singer, S. Fred and Dennis T. Avery, 2008. Unstoppable Global Warming ... Every 1,500 Years. Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, second rev. edition.

Solomon, Lawrence, 2008. The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud* *And those who are too fearful to do so. Richard Vigilante Books.

Spencer, Roy W., 2008. Climate Confusion. Encounter Books.

Taylor, James, 2007. “Little Ice Age May Return Soon, Russian Scientists Say,” Environment & Climate News, February.

Tollefson, Jeff, 2011. “The Sceptic Meets His Match,” Nature, Vol. 475, July 28, pp. 440-445.

von Storch, Hans, 2011. “RE: ‘The Sceptic Meets His match,’” blog, August 2, 2011, http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.com/201...iece.html#more.

Links to Other Organizations

Alternate Solutions Institute
American Council on Science and Health
American Enterprise Institute
American Land Rights Association
Asociacion de Consumidores Libres
Association for Liberal Thinking
Business & Media Institute
Carbon Sense Coalition
Cathay Institute for Public Affairs
Cato Institute
Center for Science and Public Policy
Center for the Dissemination of Economic Knowledge (CEDICE)
Centro de Innovación y Desarrollo Humano
Centro de Investigaciones de Instituciones y Mercados de Argentina (CIIMA-ESEADE)
Citizens Alliance for Responsible Energy
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Congress of Racial Equality
Discovery Institute
Doctors for Disaster Preparedness
Dr. Tim Ball: A Different Perspective
European Center for Economic Growth
Free Market Foundation
Fundacion Atlas 1853
Hayek Institute
Global Warming Policy Foundation
The Heartland Institute
The Heritage Foundation
Institute for Energy Research
Institute of Public Affairs
Institut für Unternehmerische Freiheit
Instituto de Libre Empresa
Instituto Liberdade
International Climate Science Coalition
Istituto Bruno Leoni
JunkScience.com
Liberty Institute
Lion Rock Institute
George C. Marshall Institute
National Center for Policy Analysis
National Center for Public Policy Research
New Zealand Business Roundtable
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy
Property and Environment Research Center (PERC)
Science and Environmental Policy Project
Science and Public Policy Institute
Sovereignty International

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Old March 20th, 2014 #418
Alex Linder
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AFTER COMMUNISM
BY ROBERT HEILBRONER
SEPTEMBER 10, 1990

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/199...ARDS_000357236
 
Old March 20th, 2014 #419
Alex Linder
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Professor Calls For Climate Change ‘Deniers’ To Be Imprisoned

Wants to criminalize questioning of the science on global warming

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
March 17, 2014

A professor with Rochester Institute of Technology has called for the incarceration of any American who actively disagrees that climate change is solely caused by human activity.

Lawrence Torcello, a philosophy professor with a Ph.D. from the University at Buffalo, published the comments as part of an essay submitted to the academic website The Conversation.

Torcello argues that malignant individuals, who he does not identify, are collectively organising a “campaign funding misinformation” about climate change. Torcello goes on to suggest that such activity “ought to be considered criminally negligent.”

Adding that “science misinformation” surrounding climate change should be considered a crime, Torcello asks readers to “Consider cases in which science communication is intentionally undermined for political and financial gain.”

He then goes on to cite a case in Italy where six scientists were jailed for failing to “clearly communicate risks to the public” about living in an earthquake zone.

“Imagine if in L’Aquila, scientists themselves had made every effort to communicate the risks of living in an earthquake zone,” Torcello states, asking the reader to consider the consequences if malevolent “financiers” of a “denialist campaign” “funded an organised campaign to discredit the consensus findings of seismology, and for that reason no preparations were made.”

“I submit that this is just what is happening with the current, well documented funding of global warming denialism,” Torcello asserts.

“Climate denial remains a serious deterrent against meaningful political action in the very countries most responsible for the crisis.” the professor adds.

Torcello also addresses the fact that his demands clearly run in opposition to protected free speech under the First Amendment, and as part of other nations’ laws, calling for legal systems to be “updated” by governments.

“We must make the critical distinction between the protected voicing of one’s unpopular beliefs, and the funding of a strategically organised campaign to undermine the public’s ability to develop and voice informed opinions,” he writes.

According to a Gallup poll conducted earlier this month, two thirds of Americans do not believe that the colder temperatures the country has been experiencing is related to human-caused climate change or global warming, (see video above) instead believing that normal seasonal variations are at play.

The “scientific consensus” on the matter says that human activity is a factor in temperature changes, thus under Torcello’s “updated” law, two thirds of Americans would be at risk of being deemed as criminals for expressing these beliefs.

http://www.infowars.com/college-prof...be-imprisoned/
 
Old March 25th, 2014 #420
Alex Linder
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global warming hoax, global warming scam, hoax of the 21st century

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