BBC report: Global warming happened 300 million years ago, lead to greater diversity, per journal Geology

11/30/10, "Rainforest collapse kickstarted reptile evolution," BBC, by Paul Rincon

"The fragmentation of tropical rainforests 300 million years ago helped pave the way for the rise of the dinosaurs, a new study suggests.

• In the Carboniferous period, North America and Europe lay at the equator and were covered by steamy rainforest.

Global warming is thought to have brought about the collapse of these tropical habitats,

• triggering an evolutionary burst among reptiles.

• The work, by a British team, is published in the journal Geology.

The forests that covered the ancient supercontinent of Euramerica are colloquially

• referred to as the Coal Forests.

They are so called because they accumulated a large amount of peat, which later

• turned into the coal that is mined today.

Towards the end of the Carboniferous, the Earth's climate is thought to have grown hotter and drier.

• "Climate change caused rainforests to fragment into small 'islands' of forest," said co-author Howard Falcon-Lang, from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Dr Falcon-Lang continued: "This isolated populations of reptiles, and each community evolved in separate directions,

• leading to an increase in diversity."

To reach their conclusions, the scientists studied the fossil record of reptiles before and after the collapse of the rainforests.

• They showed that reptiles became more diverse and even changed their diets as they struggled to adapt to a rapidly changing climate and environment.

Professor Mike Benton, from the University of Bristol, said:

• "This is a classic ecological response to habitat fragmentation.

"You see the same process happening today whenever a group of animals becomes isolated from its parent population.

• "It's been studied on traffic islands between major road systems or, as Charles Darwin famously observed in the Galapagos, on oceanic islands."

His Bristol colleague Sarda Sahney commented:

• "It is fascinating that even in the face of devastating ecosystem-collapse, animals may continue to diversify."

Amphibians appear to have been hardest hit by the collapse of the rainforests. The relative success of reptiles may have been due to physical adaptations in which they differed from amphibians.

• Firstly, the hard-shelled eggs of reptiles could be laid on dry land (most amphibians lay theirs in water). Secondly, reptiles possess protective scales that help them retain moisture (amphibian skin is very permeable to water).

"These key adaptations freed them from the aquatic habitats to which amphibians were tied and gave them ecologic advantage in the widespread drylands that developed," the researchers write in Geology."

.

Climate partiers gone wild in Cancun video, tell little people to ration like WW II, organized crime profiteers no doubt agree

While telling the little people to ration like World War II. Organized crime having made billions in the 'climate' industry already has to be laughing.

getty photo


via Instapundit
.

Mexican woman police chief murdered

Hermila Garcia murdered Chihuahua police chief, Notired Networks photo

12/1/10, "Unarmed female Mexican police chief gunned down on way to work in latest drug gang hit," Daily Mail UK

• 11/29/10, "First woman police chief of municipality of Chihuahua killed" Notired Networks

11/30/10, "Woman police chief murdered in Mexico," AAP, Herald Sun

.

Cancun Climate Caperists meet over taxpayer funded tequila sunrise, extend careers of climate convention hopping

• Calderon says he's thrilled to fight 'climate' (ie, he bravely stands ready to accept US billions to throw down the drain).
  

11/29/10, "The Cancun Climate Capers," American Thinker, by S. Fred Singer

"Today, Nov. 29, marks the beginning of the Cancun COP (Conference of the Parties [to the Kyoto Protocol]). This is the 16^th meeting of the nearly two hundred national delegations, which have been convening annually since the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997 at COP-3.

• This conference promises to be another two-week extravaganza for some 20,000 delegates and hangers-on, who will be enjoying the
• sand, surf, and tequila-sours -- mostly paid for by taxpayers from the U.S. and Western Europe.

For most delegates, this annual vacation has become a lifetime career: it pays for their mortgages and their children's education. I suppose a few of them actually believe that they are saving the earth -- even though the Kyoto Protocol (to limit emission of greenhouse [GH] gases, like CO₂, but never submitted for ratification to the U.S. Senate) will be defunct in 2012 and there is -- thankfully -- no sign of any successor treaty.

But never fear: the organizers may "pull a rabbit out of a hat" and spring a surprise on the world. They will likely announce that they have conquered the greenhouse gas hydrofluorocarbon (HFC). Now, HFCs are what replaced HCFCs, which in turn replaced CFCs, thanks to the Montreal Protocol of 1987. This succession of chemical refrigerants has reduced ozone-destroying potential;

• but unfortunately they are all GH gases. So now HFCs must be eradicated, because a single molecule of HFC produces many thousand times the greenhouse effect of a molecule of CO₂.

What they don't tell you, of course, is that the total forcing from the HFCs is less than one percent of that of CO₂, according to the IPCC (see page 141). So "slaying the dragon" amounts to slaying a mouse -- or something even smaller.

• But you can bet that it will be trumpeted as a tremendous achievement and will likely invigorate the search for other mice that can be slain.

Of course, industry has no objection to this maneuver of invoking the Montreal Protocol as a means of reducing the claimed GH-gas effects of global warming.

• It means more profits from patents, new manufacturing facilities, and sales -- and it will eliminate the bothersome competition from factories in India, China, and Brazil that are still manufacturing HCFCs, and in some cases even CFCs.

Very likely, these nations will oppose the maneuver. But so should consumers. It will mean replacing refrigerants in refrigerators, air conditioners, and automobiles -- at huge cost and to little effect. We don't even know yet what chemical will replace HFC and how well it will work in existing equipment.

But nobody is supposed to notice this, it is hoped, amid the clamor for an international agreement, or any kind of agreement, really -- even if it means misusing the Montreal Protocol.

• Remember that HFCs have no effect on ozone and therefore are not covered by the 1987 Montreal Protocol.

At this point, it is worth remembering how little has been accomplished by the Montreal Protocol -- that "signal achievement" of the global environmental community. As U.S. negotiator Richard Benedick brags (in his book Ozone Diplomacy),

• the Montreal agreement was achieved by skillful diplomacy rather than by relying on science.

When the Montreal Protocol was negotiated and signed in 1987, there was no evidence whatsoever that CFCs were actually destroying stratospheric ozone. At that time, there were no published observations (by leading Belgian researcher Zander or by others) of any increase in stratospheric chlorine, thereby indicating that natural sources, like salt from ocean spray and volcanoes, were dominating over the human contribution of chlorine from CFCs. The scientific evidence changed only in 1988 (thanks to NASA scientist Rinsland), a year after the Montreal Protocol was signed.

Nevertheless, the hype of the Antarctic Ozone Hole (AOH), which was discovered, only by chance, in 1985, was driving global fears of a coming disaster. In the U.S., there was talk about an Arctic ozone hole opening up. There was even a scare about a "hole over Kennebunkport," President Bush's summer home. And of course, the EPA, as usual, was hyping the whole matter to the White House. No wonder that poor George Bush (the elder) agreed to phase out CFCs immediately.

And who still remembers all the lurid tales of blind sheep in Patagonia and of ecological disasters in the Southern Ocean -- all the result, supposedly, of the AOH.

• It turned out later that the unfortunate sheep had pink-eye.

The Montreal Protocol prohibition on manufacturing CFCs has indeed led to the reduction of the atmospheric content of these long-lived CFC molecules.

• But what about stratospheric ozone itself? There has been little effect on the AOH -- just annual fluctuations.

And according to the authoritative reports of the World Meteorological Organization, the depletion at mid-latitudes may have been only about 4% over a period ending in 1992.

• There seems to have been no further depletion since 1993, even while stratospheric chlorine levels were still rising. Something doesn't quite check out here.

Whatever the cause of the observed 4% ozone depletion may be, compare this piddling amount to the natural variability of total atmospheric ozone, as measured carefully by NOAA: on the order of 100% or more from day to day, seasonal change of 30% to 50%,

• and an eleven-year sunspot-correlated variation on the order of 3%.

And to top it off, there has been no documented increase at all in solar ultraviolet (UV-B), the radiation that produces sunburn and can lead to skin cancer. All of the monitoring so far has shown no rise over time --

• and therefore no biological effects due to ozone depletion.

And in any case, theory tells us -- and measurements agree -- that a 4% depletion amounts to an increase in solar UV equivalent to moving 50 miles to the south, at mid-latitudes. Measured UV-B values increase by 1,000% in going from the pole to equator, as the average solar zenith angle increases.

• So look for a "breakthrough" announcement from Cancun, as once again our intrepid negotiators will have "saved the climate" -- maybe. In addition to timing and cost issues, some countries will insist that HFCs have no impact on the ozone layer and thus should be handled under the United Nations climate change talks rather than the Montreal Treaty.

A State Department official dismissed that as a legalistic argument and said that the ozone treaty could and should be used to achieve broader environmental objectives. "What we've found is that the Montreal Protocol has been a very effective instrument for addressing global environmental problems," said Daniel A. Reifsnyder, the nation's chief Montreal Protocol negotiator, in an interview.

• "It was created to deal with the ozone layer, but it also has tremendous ability to solve the climate problem if people are willing to use it that way."

Mario Molina, the Mexican scientist who shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work in identifying the role of chlorofluorocarbons in depleting stratospheric ozone, said that extending the Montreal Protocol to include HFCs could reduce the threat of climate change by several times what the Kyoto Protocol proposes.

• (Evidently, he has not read the IPCC report in which he is listed as a lead author.)

"We understand it's a stretch to use an international agreement designed for another purpose," he said.

• "But dealing with these chemicals and using this treaty to protect the planet makes a lot of sense."

Maybe Dr. Molina should stick to chemistry."

"Atmospheric physicists S. Fred Singer is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service (now NESDIS-NOAA). His book Unstoppable Global Warming - Every 1500 Years (Rowan & Littlefield, 2007) presents the evidence for natural climate cycles of warming and cooling and became a NY Times best-seller. He is the organizer of NIPCC (Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change) and editor of its 2008 report "Nature - Not Human Activity - Rules the Climate," and coauthor of "Climate Change Reconsidered," published in 2009, with conclusions contrary to those of the IPCC's. He pioneered upper-atmosphere ozone measurements with rockets and later devised the satellite instrument used to monitor ozone."
.

.

Pakistan floods largely result of organized climate crime, paid off government officials

The deforestation racket, another example that Cancun climate jet setters are sales reps for organized crime, willingly or not. Organized crime involvement always carries the threat of harm or death to oneself and one's family. That's how it succeeds.

10/13/10, "Pakistani timber mafia and climate change caused much of summer's flooding," Treehugger, by Matthew McDermott

"Back when 20% of Pakistan was underwater, I wrote about the influence of deforestation on the flooding--deforestation caused in no small part by illegal logging at the hands of the so-called timber mafia, a group with direct ties to the Taliban. Now, the New York Times has some follow up on that issue which is really worth reading. It asserts that

• terrorism remains Pakistan's number one problem, but environmental degradation is a close second.

Check out this telling stat: When Pakistan gained its independence from Great Britain in 1947,

• 33% of the nation was covered in forest.
  

• Now that's just 4%.

Some of that is no doubt because lack of power infrastructure and poverty means that many people have no choice but to chop wood for heat and cooking fuel.

But most attribute deforestation to Pakistan's famous "timber mafia," a shadowy network of politically connected individuals and firms that chop down trees and will and cart them away under cover of darkness, with

bribes to local and national officials guaranteeing that forest managers look the other way.

As for the causes of this summer's flooding, water and environmental engineer Tariq Yousafzai says one third was probably caused by climate change, with the rest (66%) attributed to the intersection of

• deforestation, poor infrastructure development, and engineering problems."

As for how much it'll cost to just get the infrastructure into proper shape, we're talking about

• $200 million, to start.

Which is just the start of this complex story. Read more: New York Times: Climate Change, Deforestation and Corruption Combine to Drown A Region.

More on Pakistan Flooding:

• Illegal Logging by Pakistan's Timber Mafia Increased Flooding Devastation"...

Of Mexico President Calderon, (who oversees a massive organized crime operation and is always looking for even more money from bankrupt Americans via the UN) per the Washington Post, 11/29/10:

• ""He is obsessed by climate change,"...(If you want to rob money and pass much of it to organized crime in Mexico, why not? ed.)
  

• "The president is extremely engaged and very committed. He has instructed us to move, and move now, and not wait for anybody else"...

• "Mexico hopes to be first at the table to grab some of the $30 billion in "fast start" financing promised by Europe and the United States"...

• Saint Calderon is happy to get in on the "getting paid not to cut down trees" millions:

Not fighting organized crime, but "Mexico also is fighting to preserve its forests. It is working on partnerships with organizations such as the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International to protect trees and watersheds and to improve the lives of local residents, who are being steered away from slash-and-burn agriculture."...However, "Massive government reforestation campaigns, such as ProArbol, have mostly withered,

• derailed by corruption, incompetence and the planting of saplings that were not suited to the environment and
  

• quickly died."...

The UN will take its cut for their relatives and their home renovation projects. After that, cronies are paid off. Some people who win the lottery go bankrupt, because money doesn't cure a bad culture. ed.

Reference: "Mexico aims to be a leader in emissions reduction," Washington Post, 11/29/10, by William Booth

.

Joy for thugs in Cancun: GreenX approved for carbon trading in US in Jan. 2011. Another leech that produces absolutely nothing.

• For all your atmospheric 'hedging needs!'

GreenX, another group who produces absolutely nothing, trading an invisible commodity loved by organized crime. It's just a click on a computer. 'Migrations' "expected to occur between trade dates January 21 and January 24, 2011. "..."Green Exchange Designated contract Market, DCM"

"At present, all of the emissions and other futures and options contracts that are associated with GreenX are listed for trading and clearing by NYMEX, which currently has

• self-regulatory

• responsibilities for these contracts."

"Self-regulatory." What could go wrong?

9/30/10, NY/London: "Green Exchange LLC ("GreenX") today announced the date for the migration of the environmental suite of products currently listed and traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. ("NYMEX") Designated Contract Market (DCM) to the Green Exchange DCM. The European and US environmental futures and options contracts will be transferred from NYMEX to the Green Exchange DCM for trade date January 24, 2011 granting oversight of and responsibility for the migrated contracts to the new Exchange. NYMEX currently has over 32,000 contracts of open interest across a global customer base in the Green Exchange products, and the transfer of all client positions from NYMEX to Green Exchange is expected to

• occur between trade dates January 21 and January 24, 2011.

Tom Lewis, Chief Executive of Green Exchange, commented: "Concurrent with the existing futures and options contracts listed and traded on NYMEX, we have been working for over a year to lay the foundation to establish a stand-alone exchange. We recently announced our designation as a contract market by the US CFTC, admitted our first clearing member, and have seen a marked increase in our trading volumes. We will continue to work with

• the global carbon trading community

to understand their needs and will be making further announcements soon regarding other enhancements to our products and services."

In addition, Green Exchange has announced it intends to list a

• Daily European Union Allowance (EUA) Futures Contract

to begin trading on November 1, 2010. This physically deliverable futures contract will initially be listed on the NYMEX DCM, cleared by CME Clearing, and will be transferred to Green Exchange alongside the existing suite of environmental products. The Daily EUA Futures Contract will trade on CME Globex® and will be available for OTC clearing through CME ClearPort®. This will be the first daily expiration futures contract listed via CME Globex®, and as such represents new functionality within CME Globex®....

The Daily EUA Futures contract will concurrently list two consecutive delivery dates for trading: one for the current trading day and another for the next trading day, providing participants

• multiple short term trading opportunities.

"The addition of the Daily EUA Futures contract allows us to offer our customers a full range of risk management tools

• to hedge their carbon exposure.
  

Customers will be able to manage their short-term cash flow demands

• alongside their forward hedging needs

with the existing EUA futures contracts", said Henrik Hasselknippe, Green Exchange's Managing Director for Global Product Development."...

Commenter to video report about Europol assessment of organized crime in carbon trading:

• "Why am I not surprised?

I hate to be associated with a bunch of crazy right wingers, but you don't have to be paranoid to see that the

• climate business is rotten to the core,
  

from the publicly funded climate scientists to the publicly funded (by VAT fraud)

• climate mob."

Why wouldn't the US taxpayer supported congress have put a stop to our participation in this ages ago? There is only one possible answer. ed.

.

Pakistan floods not caused by global warming but by rapid transition of ENSO phase from El Nino to La Nina

Roger Pielke Sr. cites "an excellent article by Madhav L. Khandekar (a UN Climate Report reviewer) from the latest edition of the CMOS Bulletion (Oct. 2010), The article is titled

• 2010 Pakistan Floods: Climate Change Or Natural Variability?” "...

"“A rapid transition of the ENSO phase from El Niño to La Niña between spring and summer of 2010 appears to be the key element in triggering a vigorous monsoon of 2010 over the Indian subcontinent…….the 2010 Pakistan floods,

• although seemingly unprecedented, were well within

• natural variability of monsoonal climate over the Indian subcontinent.”"...

"Madhav Khandekar is a former research scientist from Environment Canada
and was an expert reviewer for the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2007 Climate Change Documents. Khandekar has been in weather and climate science for over 53 years and is presently studying monsoon inter-annual variability in the context of global warming and climate change issues."...

Mr. Pielke Sr. notes Mr. Khandekar is well aware that floods can cause tragic events:

• "The article starts with the text

“Among the extreme weather events of summer 2010, the extensive floods in Pakistan and their widespread impacts

• garnered maximum attention in the media as well as in the scientific community.

• Several climate scientists expressed concern about such weather extremes becoming more common with future climate change, while the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) issued a statement that
• The extensive weather related cataclysms of July and August ( 2010) fit patterns predicted by climate scientists.

Damage due to floods and plight of thousands of people marooned over waterlogged areas were graphically covered in heart-wrenching details by most newspapers and TV news stories."...

.

'Uncertain science,' Newsweek. Climate scientists can't explain why warming has stopped for a decade.

5/28/10, "The backlash against climate scientists," Newsweek by Stefan Theil

"One crucial point of contention is climate “sensitivity”—the mathematical formula that translates changes in CO2 production to changes in temperature. In addition,

• scientists are not sure how to explain a slowdown in the rise of global temperatures that began

• about a decade ago.

The backlash against climate science is also about the way in which leading scientists allied themselves with politicians and activists to promote their cause.

Some of the IPCC’s most-quoted data and recommendations were taken straight out of unchecked activist brochures, newspaper articles, and corporate reports—

• including claims of plummeting crop yields in Africa and
  
• the rising costs of warming-related natural disasters,
  
• both of which have been refuted by academic studies.

Just as damaging, many climate scientists have responded to critiques by questioning the integrity of their critics, rather than by supplying data and reasoned arguments. When other researchers aired doubt about the IPCC’s prediction that Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035, the IPCC’s powerful chief, Rajendra Pachauri,

• trashed their work as “voodoo science.”
  

Even today, after dozens of IPCC exaggerations have surfaced, leading climate officials like U.N. Environment Program chief Achim Steiner and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research head Joachim Schellnhuber

• continue to tar-brush critics as “anti-Enlightenment” and engaging in “witch hunts.”"...

11/19/09, "Climatologists baffled by global warming time-out," over 10 years, Der Spiegel, by G. Traufetter

• "Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years.
• 
  
• Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents."...

2/14/10, "ClimateGate U-Turn as scientist at centre of row admits: there has been no global warming since 1995," UK Daily Mail, J. Petre

• "He further admitted that in the last 15 years there had been no ‘statistically significant’ warming,

• although he argued this was a blip rather than the long-term trend."...

Stefan Theil is Newsweek's European Economics editor.

UN Climate Mob must love this guy-UK Labor's Ed Milliband says global warming must be 'core of everything we do'. In the UK, it already is.

Global warming 'policies' already infest government and commerce in the UK, rob the average citizen blind, and enrich the UN. It's hard to imagine such becoming bigger or that

• anyone in their right mind would even think such a thing.

11/27/10, "Ed Milliband's speech to Labour's NPF," in Gillingham

• "That’s why I said climate change must be at the core of everything we do.

Because I know that the way my kids will judge me is on this basis. Were you the last generation not to get it or the first generation to get it? That’s why at the heart of our economic review that Alan Johnson will be leading is the issue of sustainability. And we’ve got to take this seriously and it’s not just about, in case you wondered, going off to the North Pole with some huskies. It’s got to be about a serious engagement about

• how our policy agenda needs to change and how
  
• climate change needs to be at the core of it." ...(item appears toward end of page).
  

via Tom Nelson

Cream of climate 'science' in UK predicted end of snow in 2000, kids would grow up without snow, pests and plant diseases would increase, UN agreed

Where's "the science?" UK East Anglia (ClimateGate) and Hadley (part of the famed UK Met Office) global warming scientists in March 2000 said kids won't ever get to see snow in the UK again. Which is fine but this "science" was used to make US government policy and demand billions in 'reparations' from middle class taxpayers. If such 'science' hadn't been used to extract money, it might not be a crime. But that's not what happened. Photo above 11/26/10 BBC, snowing in UK, motorists in Wales.

• 3/20/2000, "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past," Independent UK, Charles Onians

"According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia

,within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event".

• "Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.

The effects of snow-free winter in Britain are already becoming apparent. This year, for the first time ever, Hamleys, Britain's biggest toyshop, had no sledges on display in its Regent Street store. "It was a bit of a first," a spokesperson said.

• Fen skating, once a popular sport on the fields of East Anglia, now takes place on indoor artificial rinks. Malcolm Robinson, of the Fenland Indoor Speed Skating Club in Peterborough, says they have not skated outside since 1997. "As a boy, I can remember being on ice most winters. Now it's few and far between," he said.

Michael Jeacock, a Cambridgeshire local historian, added that a generation was growing up "without experiencing one of the greatest joys and privileges of living in this part of the world - open-air skating".

Warmer winters have significant environmental and economic implications, and a wide range of research indicates that pests and plant diseases, usually killed back by sharp frosts, are likely to flourish. But very little research has been done on the cultural implications of climate change - into the possibility, for example, that

• our notion of Christmas might have to shift....

David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, says ultimately,

• British children could have only virtual experience of snow. Via the internet, they might wonder at polar scenes - or eventually "feel" virtual cold.

Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. "We're really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time," he said.

The chances are certainly now stacked against the sort of heavy snowfall in cities that inspired Impressionist painters, such as Sisley, and the 19th century poet laureate Robert Bridges, who wrote in "London Snow" of it, "stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying"."...

• 11/29/10, BBC report says a 1993 storm was early and widespread like this year's. The ClimateGate crew were rushing it to say only 7 years later that winter was done.
  

• Above, White Christmas in Scotland, 12/25/09, photo UK Telegraph, Cheskin

11/26/10, BBC weather forecaster looks out the window, says snow is falling: "BBC weather forecaster Simon King said snow was still falling on Friday afternoon in the north and east of the UK, with heavy snow

• in South Wales and Devon."...

• photo, 11/26/10, BBC, car overturned in snow storm being towed

.

Airport molestations will continue until morale improves--sucker punched into molestations at last minute with holiday plans they couldn't change

• Fascinating timing Obama had with his forced molestation of the middle class.

11/24/10, BBC: "Most Americans have a healthy scepticism towards centralised authority which

• one does not generally find in Europeans."...
  

"Amputees, cancer survivors and young children are also subject to "pat-downs""...
ap photo with BBC article, "Airport security and the American soul," (this puts it mildly), 11/24

• Hitting the moment many struggling, middle class Americans had saved for

for a long time (the wealthy can fly private planes), perhaps to see loved ones they hadn't seen in years, relatives who were dying and the like.

Timed such that many would not be able to receive refunds from airlines should they cancel.

• But don't insult someone by simply asking for ID.
  
• That would be criminal.
  
• Keep up the contempt, pal. ed.

.

Al Gore admits his pivotal 1994 vote for ethanol tax credits was about himself and not the environment

• The mix of feel-good environmentalism and politics is officially dead.

"Ethanol mandates did wonders for Gore's political life, bringing him everything from a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for environmentalism to big bucks to speak in places like Athens, Greece."...

• 11/22/10, "American gets Gored," IBD editorial

"Former Vice President Al Gore admitted Monday that his pivotal 1994 Senate vote for ethanol subsidies was bad policy but good politics.

• That says a lot about the reality of environmentalism in government.

As the ethanol tax credit comes up for renewal in Congress on Dec. 31, it's worth noting it only came about because the vice president

• cast the decisive 51st vote in favor of it in 1994.

At the time, he packaged it as a big move to preserve the environment in a market-friendly, sustainable manner, and

• for years defended his vote because it was supposedly good for us.

"The more we can make this home-grown fuel a successful, widely-used product, the better-off our farmers and our environment will be," he recounted in 1998.

Now the real story emerges. On Monday he matter-of-factly told a bankers group in Greece it was actually about helping himself.

• "One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa
  
• because I was about to run for president," the former vice president said.

One is tempted to praise a man who admits mistakes, but the magnitude of what Gore actually did through his cynically cast vote as an elected leader in a position of trust suggests sorry isn't enough.

Gore's vote drove food prices higher, trashed the environment, and drew American capital into inefficient energy sources over efficient ones. This should be an object lesson in the importance of not trusting politicians on the environment.

• Start with what it is — a tax credit for special interests that has cost U.S. taxpayers $16 billion. And costs are rising. The centrally planned ethanol mandate has risen from 7.5 billion gallons by 2012 to 35 billion by 2022. In the last year alone, it's cost $7 billion.

From the tax credit, refiners make a profit on blended ethanol even when it costs more than gasoline, an unfair price distortion.

• No wonder refiners told farmers they could buy all the corn they could grow — Uncle Sam was picking up the tab.
  

Today, 41% of all corn grown in America goes to ethanol — not to the dinner table.

Among the unintended consequences, farmland that had been efficiently planted with multiple crops ended up as monolithic cornfields, using 1,700 gallons of water to make a gallon of ethanol.

• Food prices surged as the government's ethanol monster got fed.

As corn exports fell, inflation soared abroad. In Mexico, riots broke out over rising tortilla prices. Inflation hurts the poor most.

• Then there was the product itself, ethanol, a fuel that's been around since the days of Henry Ford. It burns 30% less efficiently than other forms of energy, such as oil, clean coal, shale and natural gas. As IBD wrote earlier this month, ethanol "has never made much sense economically or environmentally." Gore confirms this.

Still, ethanol mandates did wonders for Gore's political life, bringing him everything from a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for environmentalism to big bucks to speak in places like Athens, Greece.

• By his own admission, Gore's mistake came at our expense and for that he deserves scorn.
  

More importantly, the feel-good era of environmentalism by government diktat must end.

Taxpayers shouldn't be sacrificed on the altar of environmentalism to satisfy one man's ambitions."

####

(I just read an article dated 11/23 at a well-known warmist site. Talk about ignoring "the science." He went on at length about how they were going to convert people who didn't "accept" their version of "the science." He quoted Al Gore as if he were still a guru-after Gore just admitted he lied for many years about "the science." The man should be in jail for the ethanol scandal at minimum. If you revere a guy who admits he did great harm to millions of people, knows it, and casually dismisses it as no big deal, you're as bad as he is. Very sick people, of course they get invited to parties with Soros and Leonardo. ed.)

via Tom Nelson

New federal agency devoted to collecting oil royalties and fines

• Office of Natural Resources Revenues with 600 employees will collect fines and royalties.
  

11/23/10, "Oil producers bullied," FrontPage.com, T. Trussell

"Department of Interior officials seem to take sadistic pleasure in badgering oil companies. The latest example involves

• a new agency created to levy untold millions of dollars in fines if companies don’t kowtow to the new bureaucracy. The agency’s head gave the tasteless warning: “If they cut corners they could end up paying enough to quickly take care of the federal deficit.”

The oil industry now pays $37 million a day in royalties. That’s over $13 billion a year for our near empty U.S. Treasury and other state and special accounts. The comment about collecting royalties enough to pay off the federal deficit might have been said in jest. But petroleum officials aren’t laughing....

The sadistic jokester at Interior is Gregory J. Gould, new director of the

• new Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR).
  

It is one of three agencies that will replace the Minerals Management Service (MMS), which was blamed for being too chummy with the energy industry in its royalty collection operation.

• The new ONRR will collect and disburse energy-produced revenue from federal and American Indian lands onshore and from the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf offshore.

In announcing the new agency, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called it “a major step in our overall reorganization.”

• Just to make sure there’s enough bureaucracy, three agencies will replace one.

The Office of Natural Resources Revenue opened its Denver office Oct. 1

where it will use new computer facilities to assure that government gets what it’s owed, Director Gould commented. Energy royalties are collected like income taxes. Companies self-report what they owe....

• But to be sure government gets every dime owed, Gould has hired 19 more auditors, bring the total to 164. Previously, only the big companies faced audits.
  

The total ONNR employees will number 600.

The disdain for oil companies, of course, comes from the top. Obama has made clear he can’t stand profit-making, especially by oil companies.

• It’s a case of trickle-down hate.
  

It dripped down to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar during the Gulf oil spill last spring. That’s when Salazar promised that

• the Administration would “keep its boot on the throat” of energy giant British Petroleum until the oil gusher stopped and the spill was cleaned up.

In the period during which Salazar had imposed a moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the Interior Secretary continued his brazen talk.

• “We will only lift the moratorium when I, as Secretary of Interior, am comfortable that we have significantly reduced those risks. So the moratorium dragged on–hurting jobs, drilling, and tourism."

At least 4 deepwater oil drilling rigs have moved from the American Gulf to Africa due to Obama's moratorium. A court has said the moratorium is illegal and ordered drilling to resume, but companies continue to act like it's Obama's decision. ed.

• 5/19/10, Three new agencies to replace MMS:
  

"The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement will be supervised by Wilma Lewis, the assistant secretary of land and minerals management. The two bureaus will be responsible for developing offshore oil, gas and renewable energy and enforcing safety and environmental rules.

Rhea Suh, assistant secretary of policy management and budget, will be in charge of the Office of Natural Resources Revenue and will oversee fee collections."...

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via Lucianne.com

Billionaires think Americans should starve their kids to pay for 'climate reparations' such as paying Nigeria (and middlemen) to not cut down trees

"UN board could reign in $2.7 billion carbon market," AP, by John Heilprin, 8/21/10
"Firms abusing Kyoto carbon trading scheme: watchdog," Reuters, 6/13/10
''Tainted' credits cut US carbon price", Bloomberg,Business Week, by Matthew Carr, 5/19/10
"Cleaning up or cashing in? CDM's in focus" Climate Change Corp.,by Oliver Balch, 2/8/07
"Bank Tax, CO2 auctions recommended by Soros panel to help climate efforts," Bloomberg News, 11/5/10

• 11/20/10, "Keying Nigeria into $170 billion global carbon market," Daily Independent, Nigeria, Michael Simire

"He adds that Nigeria will rake in “millions of dollars” from sold REDD credits when the market becomes fully
operational.

• “In simple terms, it is payment for keeping your forest standing.”

"Global warming, an offshoot of the climate change phenomenon, is being gradually transformed from a threat of environmental doom to a promise of financial boom, thanks to the emerging universal trade in carbon credit,

• which analysts say is now worth a staggering $170 billion.

Observers are, however, worried that Nigeria is not doing enough towards positioning itself to adequately benefit from the largesse. Some believe that the nation has been schemed out of the lucrative business, which is meant to help promote reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission among the less-industrialised countries. The concept of carbon trading operates on the premise that developed countries with high GHG emission are desirable of paying for projects in developing countries with far lower gas emissions.

• Carbon emissions trading is one specifically for carbon dioxide (calculated in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent or tCO2e) and currently makes up the bulk of emissions trading. It is one of the ways countries can meet their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon emissions and thereby mitigate global warming.

The carbon emission trading has been steadily increasing in recent years. According to the World Bank’s Carbon Finance Unit, 374 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) were exchanged through projects in 2005, a 240 per cent increase relative to 2004 (110 mtCO2e) which was itself a 41 per cent increase relative to 2003 (78 mtCO2e).

The World Bank estimated that the size of the carbon market was $11 billion in 2005, $30 billion in 2006 and $64 billion in 2007.

• Emissions trading (or cap and trade) is a market-based approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants. A central authority (usually a governmental body) sets a limit (or cap) on the amount of a pollutant that can be emitted.

The cap is allocated or sold to firms in the form of emissions permits which represent the right to emit or discharge a specific volume of the specified pollutant. “It is very painful that Nigerians are not participating in this trade, considering that Nigeria contributes only 0.03 per cent to global carbon emission,” chairman, Nigeria Environmental Study/Action Team (NEST),” Professor David Okali, said.

• But some others differ, saying that the prospects are bright, and that the country has a lot to offer in this regard. Indeed, the government has stated its intention to participate in carbon trading, and several oil companies are attempting to receive emissions credits.

One of the aims of the Kyoto Protocol is to create economic incentives for compliance with the provisions of the protocol. Under the terms of the protocol, when the equivalent of one metric tonne of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases is prevented from entering the atmosphere during a production process, carbon credits in the form of certificates are issued. These acquired carbon credit certificates may thereafter be traded at t

• the global carbon market which is similar to the Stock Exchange.

To help signatory countries achieve emission reductions and gain carbon credits at lower costs, the protocol established three flexible market mechanisms namely: International Emissions Trading (IET), Joint Implementation (JI), and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The CDM allows countries to trade emissions credits between North and South to achieve overall reductions in GHG emissions as required by countries signatory to the Kyoto Protocol.

• The intent of the CDM is to provide finance for clean energy projects, such as solar, wind, energy efficiency and other clean renewable projects that would not otherwise obtain outside sources of finance. Nigeria, being a developing country and a signatory to the protocol, has a high potential for gaining carbon credits through the implementation of CDM projects, as the nation has a vast reserve of fossil fuel, oil and gas and solid minerals.
  
• In a recent World Bank study, over 750 CDM project opportunities were identified in Nigeria....

Some registered CDM activities in Nigeria include: the Kwale Recovery of Associated Gas Project, Ovade-Ogharefe Gas Capture and Processing Project, Save 80 Fuel Wood Stoves and Asuoku/Umutu Gas Recovery and Marketing Facility....

Indications are that Nigeria will, at the end of the day, be allocated some funds – $3 million to $4 million – to prepare a REDD Readiness Plan (RPP) within two years. National REDD+ Programme Coordinator, Salisu Dahiru, said: “The RPP shows the plan of action and how it will be implemented, cost and timelines as well as the role of agencies. It indicates the country’s readiness to participate in the REDD carbon market, which officially commences in 2013.”

• He adds that Nigeria will rake in “millions of dollars” from sold REDD credits when the market becomes fully operational. “In simple terms, it is payment for keeping your forest standing.”

Speaking a few weeks ago when the National Carbon Credit Train came to Lagos, Head of the Special Climate Change Unit (SCCU) in the Federal Ministry of Environment, Dr. Victor Fodeke, said some of the carbon credit units gained are in the oil and gas area, adding that the endeavour would rake in about 26 million euros for the country in the next 10 years. According to him, the main

• focus of the carbon credit train is to explain the concept of carbon credit in a non-technical manner and language that the ordinary man on the street can tap into the huge opportunities of this concept, which is targeted towards attracting investors for the projects in such a manner that will not contribute to the baseline GHGs and earn certified emission reduction units that can be traded for cash through the UNFCCC process and thereby enhance the benefit of the projects to the country therein. According to Fodeke,

the carbon credit train aims to effectively and widely disseminate information on carbon credit and climate change not only to vulnerable groups but also to local authorities, governments, business people, farmers, and other stakeholders who will inform the debate and response to Nigeria’s climate change challenge. Emission trading has, however, met with some challenges and criticisms, both locally and globally, for a variety of reasons....

• Bush made campaign promises in 2000 to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. However, in 2001, he pulled the U.S. out of the Kyoto accords as one of the first acts of his presidency. Bush dismissed Kyoto Protocol as too costly, describing it as “an unrealistic and ever-tightening straitjacket”. The Bush administration questioned the validity of the science behind global warming, as well as claims that millions of jobs will be lost if the U.S. joins in this world pact.

President Barack Obama was elected under widespread belief that shortly after arriving in office he would take swift and decisive action to join the world in reducing GHG emissions and therefore help battle global climate change. Backed by majorities in both houses of Congress, Obama was widely expected to quickly pass a Kyoto-style domestic cap-and-trade programme for GHGs, positioning America to take the moral high ground in Copenhagen, thus luring (or compelling) China and India to accept emissions targets....

• “The Obama administration’s proposals could undermine a new global treaty and weaken the world’s ability to stave off the worst effects of climate change,” an analyst said. Many people feel that the combination of the U.S. not signing the Kyoto Protocol (ensuring it will run out in 2012) and the U.S. attempt to change almost the entire architecture of the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen means the end of the Kyoto Protocol as we know it and perhaps a new global climate treaty.

“If Kyoto is scrapped, it could take several years to negotiate a replacement framework, a delay that could strike a terminal blow at efforts to prevent dangerous climate change. In Europe, we want to build on Kyoto, but the U.S. proposal would in effect kill it off. If we have to start from scratch, then it all takes time. It could be 2015 or 2016 before something is in place, who knows,” the source said."
..

• (There is a fortune at stake in the global warming racket. It has been my experience that Google would prefer the truth not get out on this topic, even on a small blog such as this. I have no other explanation for the fact that parts of this post were just erased, requiring me to re-do the entire post. Parts may again disappear as has happened to similar posts of mine in the past.) ed.

via Tom Nelson
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Freshman Republican women on Capitol steps

At top is latest official newcomer, Renee Ellmers of North Carolina.
Photo via Gateway Pundit, 11/19.

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American taxpayer money to flow to lobbyists through Murkowski-Stevens-Young deals: Van Ness Feldman, Blue Water Strategies, Birch & Horton

11/17, "Now K Street has its own senator, Lisa Murkowski," Washington Examnier, Carney

"The "Alaska Mafia," as it's known on Capitol Hill, K Street, and in the 49th state, is
a network of former aides to Murkowksi, her father, Frank, the late Sen. Ted Stevens, and Rep. Don Young -- all Republicans.

The aides now populate K Street firms like

• Van Ness Feldman,
• Blue Water Strategies, and
• Birch & Horton,
  

winning earmarks and special favors for their clients -- Alaska towns and privileged Alaska Native Corporations.

• Lobbyist Jack Ferguson, a former aide to Young and Stevens, is regarded as a don of the Alaska Mafia and a maestro at winning earmarks.

This is the underappreciated part of earmarks and part of why they are so corrupting:

• Earmarks don't just transfer wealth from taxpayers in the lower 48 to people of Kenai, Alaska.

Along the way, they enrich revolving-door lobbyists
who recycle the money back to Murkowksi and Young. And earmarks aren't the only favors passed around the Alaska Mafia.

• When K Street firm Brown & Rudnick announced Wednesday it had hired Murkowski's former

chief of staff and Stevens alumnus George Lowe,
the firm touted that its new lobbyist had, as a staffer,

• "helped pass legislation regarding financial incentives ... for an Alaska gas line project."

Most lucrative for the Murkowksi-Stevens-Young crowd, though, are the

• Alaska Native Corporations.

The for-profit businesses are exempt from most competition rules for government contracts, and so they make billions of dollars off of the taxpayers.

• But the ANCs, which qualify for special minority-business favors, often function as front companies,

• passing the actual work to well-established contractors who couldn't have received as favorable terms from Uncle Sam.

The ANCs are technically owned by Alaska Natives, but the Natives get a tiny fraction of the companies' revenues -- $615 per Native annually, according to the office of Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

• Most of the spoils go to the Alaska Mafiosi who run the companies or lobby for them.When you realize how dependent on federal favors these Alaska-connected corporations, local politicians, and lobbyists are,

it's clear why they went to the mat to save Murkowski after she lost the primary in August -- especially because Miller is a limited-government conservative. If Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision allowing corporate spending on politics, affected the outcome of one race this year, it was Murkowski's.

• Eight ANCs poured $50,000 to $140,000 directly from their corporate treasuries into a"Super PAC" called "Alaskans Standing Together,"

which spent $920,000 attacking Miller and boosting Murkowski.

Because the Natives are the shareholders of the ANCs, this amounted to corporate bosses

• (the highest paid of whom are non-Native)

using Natives' money to elect the woman who would then perpetuate the favor factory for these corporations and their lobbyists.

• The media loves political independents and deifies "centrists." But often, centrists of both parties are simply those who lack principal and instead set their political compass according to what is politically expedient or what helps their friends.

Expect Murkowski, as she bucks the GOP over the next six years, to get plenty of adulation. And expect her friends to get plenty of your money."


via Hot Air

P.S. Dear Reader, I am aware that Google is randomly erasing large portions of my posts. One can only assume they do not like the topics about which I post. Sometimes I don't find out what they've done until days or weeks after I've posted something. Often (daily) posts are corrupted as I try to post them, at which point I have to do them over. I'm looking for a new blog host, as this has been going on for many months now.

• Fascinating times in which we live. Susan.

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