Dr. David Evans in The Australian says there is no evidence that CO2 or other forms of increased atmospheric carbon cause whatever global warming (or recent global cooling) there might be:

I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol…since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming…

1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it…

2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None…

3. The satellites that measure the world’s temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980)…

4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.

None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would dispute their relevance…that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions…

If there really was any evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming, don’t you think we would have heard all about it ad nauseam by now? The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming.

Over the last century, CO2 has increased from 300 ppm to 380 ppm. That a minuscule increase of 80 parts per million (or a multiple of that) of a beneficial and common atmospheric gas could produce worldwide devastation is absurd on its face, though there are men in serious jobs who say so. (Question: if 80 ppm is such a big deal, why not look to substances with far greater concentrations in the atmosphere?) No doubt if the now-predicted Global Cooling takes place, carbon will be to blame for that too.

There is one indisputable fact in this global warming and cooling scam. There’s big money in it. Dr. Evans says $50 billion has already been spent. That’s a lot of funding for research papers, a lot of consulting fees and Hollywood movies, and, of course, a lot of parties that government bureaucrats can throw for themselves at the expense of the taxpayers worldwide.

Controversial climatologist James Hansen heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He said recently in testimony to Congress that oil and coal company executives should be tried for “high crimes against humanity and nature”:

Special interests have blocked transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming.

CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.

Conviction of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal CEOs will be no consolation, if we pass on a runaway climate to our children. Humanity would be impoverished by ravages of continually shifting shorelines and intensification of regional climate extremes. Loss of countless species would leave a more desolate planet.

If politicians remain at loggerheads, citizens must lead. We must demand a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. We must block fossil fuel interests who aim to squeeze every last drop of oil from public lands, off-shore, and wilderness areas. Those last drops are no solution. They yield continued exorbitant profits for a short-sighted self-serving industry…

Zealotry can be amusing, but more often it is disturbing and strange. Dr. Hansen appears to be an example of the latter. The science is hardly settled in the matter of global warming or cooling, and there are no “ravages of continually shifting shorelines.”

Wanting to put businessmen on trial for imaginary crimes is disquieting enough in itself. Creating the new category of “high crimes against humanity and nature” suggests a grandiosity unbecoming in a man of science. That he could let his rhetoric get so far ahead of the facts is itself ample reason for skepticism about Hansen’s dire pronouncements.

Bonus question: what does Hansen think about America exploiting its vast reserves of shale oil?

California now has a law “making it mandatory for cars to be labeled with global warming scores.” What a joke and waste of taxpayer money. The state government is also tackling the previously unknown but important problem of cement — it too causes global warming, you know. Sacramento Bee:

California’s historic attempt to put an entire state on a low-carbon diet as a way to stave off global warming is going to reach into every corner of the economy, changing the way we live, what we drive and many of the products we use…Californians will use more than 12 million metric tons of cement this year – nearly one-third of a ton for every man, woman and child in the state.

But there is a problem. The production of cement creates a lot of carbon dioxide, the gas scientists believe is causing the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere to rise. The 11 cement plants in California produce about the same amount of CO2 every year as 2 million passenger cars driven on the state’s roads…For every ton of lime produced for cement, nearly a ton of carbon dioxide is produced as a waste product…

The state could order the plants to use different fuels as a heat source, or to use more efficient equipment that creates less CO2 in that part of their process. But if those changes drive up the cost of making cement in California, cement from elsewhere – Nevada, Utah, even China – could become more competitive. And if imported cement replaces California cement, the result could be more greenhouse gases…

(Note that, as with oil, one proposed solution for the new “Can’t Do” America is to let some foreigner do the dirty work, and the prissy Americans with their exquisite consciences can just import the stuff.) Maybe California should get those fellows who were going to build the mud-hut village in Virginia and ask them for a solution to the awful problems that science and prosperity cause.

It’s hard to imagine that one of America’s great political parties is ready to nominate for President a candidate who apparently can spout nonsense such as this with a straight face:

We can’t afford more of the same timid politics when the future of our planet is at stake. We are already breaking records with the intensity of our storms, the number of forest fires, and the periods of drought. By 2050, famine could force more than 250 million from their homes. And if we do nothing, sea levels will rise high enough to swallow large portions of every coastal city and town.

Famine, drought, fires, and storms — all at once? A presidential candidate says this and is not laughed off the stage? We said the other day that America had apparently turned into a TV show. Maybe things are even worse than that. Maybe Americans have been dumbed down to the level of a disaster movie for 12 year olds.

Robert Samuelson describes the idiocy that is the cap and trade concept now being debated on Capitol Hill. Unfortunately this foolishness has the support of the GOP candidate as well as the Democrats:

The chief political virtue of cap-and-trade — a complex scheme to reduce greenhouse gases — is its complexity. This allows its environmental supporters to shape public perceptions in essentially deceptive ways. Cap-and-trade would act as a tax, but it’s not described as a tax. It would regulate economic activity, but it’s promoted as a “free market” mechanism. Finally, it would trigger a tidal wave of influence-peddling, as lobbyists scrambled to exploit the system for different industries and localities. This would undermine whatever the system’s abstract advantages.

The Senate is debating a cap-and-trade proposal, and although it’s unlikely to pass, it will return because all the major presidential candidates support the concept. Cap-and-trade extends the long government tradition of proclaiming lofty goals that are impossible to achieve. We’ve had “wars” against poverty, cancer and drugs; but poverty, cancer and drugs remain. President Bush called his landmark education law No Child Left Behind rather than the more plausible Few Children Left Behind.

Carbon-based fuels (oil, coal, natural gas) provide about 85 percent of U.S. energy needs and generate most greenhouse gases. So, the simplest way to stop these emissions is to outlaw them. Naturally, that’s what cap-and-trade does. Companies could emit greenhouse gases only if they had annual “allowances” –quotas — issued by the government. The allowances would gradually decline. That’s the “cap.” Companies (utilities, oil refineries) that needed extra allowances could buy them from companies willing to sell. That’s the “trade.”

In one bill, the 2030 cap on greenhouse gases would be 35 percent below the 2005 level and 44 percent below the level projected without any restrictions. By 2050, U.S. greenhouse gases would be rapidly vanishing. Even better, their disappearance would be allegedly painless. Reviewing five economic models, the Environmental Defense Fund asserts that the cuts can be achieved “without significant adverse consequences to the economy.” Fuel prices would rise, but because people would use less energy, the impact on household budgets would be modest.

This is mostly make-believe. If we suppress emissions, we also suppress today’s energy sources, and because the economy needs energy, we suppress the economy. The models magically assume smooth transitions. If coal is reduced, then conservation or non-fossil-fuel sources will take its place. But in the real world, if coal-fired power plants are canceled (as many were last year), wind or nuclear won’t automatically substitute. If the supply of electricity doesn’t keep pace with demand, brownouts or blackouts will result. The models don’t predict real-world consequences…

As emission cuts deepened, the danger of disruptions would mount. Population increases alone raise energy demand. From 2006 to 2030, the U.S. population will grow by 22 percent (to 366 million) and the number of housing units by 25 percent (to 141 million), projects the Energy Information Administration. The idea that higher fuel prices will be offset mostly by lower consumption is, at best, optimistic. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a 15 percent cut of emissions would raise average household energy costs by almost $1,300. That’s how cap-and-trade would tax most Americans. As “allowances” became scarcer, their price would rise…

We thought it could never get this bad, politicians willing to hurt the economy, and thus the average citizen, to the tune of hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars to solve a problem that may well not even exist. We were wrong.

Prince Charles wants to stop “terrifying” climate changes that otherwise would cause “drought and starvation on a grand scale,” by doing something or other with Brazilian jungles. And it turns out that salvation for the world is amazingly cheap — only $30 billion a year, but it has to be done within a year and a half or all hell is going to break loose. Telegraph:

Prince Charles: Eighteen months to stop climate change disaster — The Prince of Wales has warned that the world faces a series of natural disasters within 18 months unless urgent action is taken to save the rainforests…

a £15 billion annual programme was required to halt deforestation or the world would have to live with the dire consequences. “We will end up seeing more drought and starvation on a grand scale. Weather patterns will become even more terrifying and there will be less and less rainfall,” he said. “We are asking for something pretty dreadful unless we really understand the issues now and [the] urgency of them.”…

He said that every year, 20 million hectares of forest – equivalent to the area of England, Wales and Scotland – were destroyed and called for a “gigantic partnership” of governments, businesses and consumers to slow it down. “What we have got to do is try to ensure that these forests are more valuable alive than dead. At the moment, there is more value in them being dead,” he said. He estimated that the cost would be about £15 billion a year…

“You learn as you go along. I am going to be 60 this year. I would be a blinding idiot if I had not learnt a bit by now.”

Truer words might never have been spoken.

It used to be that the rain in Spain stayed mainly in the plain. But that’s all different now thanks to America’s favorite wacky reverend. Gerard Van der Leun explains the enigmatic title above. Also, Michelle Malkin asks a variant of the question: what is the sound of one hand clapping? Ace has more.

For an academic deconstruction of the rantings of Jeremiah Wright, see this article by Heather MacDonald.

Here’s a scary environmental news story, via AFP, that says the human population decreased to 2,000 people 70,000 years ago due to “extremes of climate” (the AP has a less misleading and more interesting story on the same subject):

Human beings for 100,000 years lived in tiny, separate groups, facing harsh conditions that brought them to the brink of extinction, before they reunited and populated the world, genetic researchers have said. “Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction,” said paleontologist Meave Leakey, of Stony Brook University, New York. The genetic study examined for the first time the evolution of our species from its origins with “mitochondrial Eve,” a female hominid who lived some 200,000 years ago, to the point of near extinction 70,000 years ago, when the human population dwindled to as little as 2,000.

Here’s the entire article (pdf) and an abstract of the article that appeared in The American Journal of Human Genetics:

The Dawn of Human Matrilineal Diversity — The quest to explain demographic history during the early part of human evolution has been limited because of the scarce paleoanthropological record from the Middle Stone Age. To shed light on the structure of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) phylogeny at the dawn of Homo sapiens, we constructed a matrilineal tree composed of 624 complete mtDNA genomes from sub-Saharan Hg L lineages. We paid particular attention to the Khoi and San (Khoisan) people of South Africa because they are considered to be a unique relic of hunter-gatherer lifestyle and to carry paternal and maternal lineages belonging to the deepest clades known among modern humans. Both the tree phylogeny and coalescence calculations suggest that Khoisan matrilineal ancestry diverged from the rest of the human mtDNA pool 90,000-150,000 years before present (ybp) and that at least five additional, currently extant maternal lineages existed during this period in parallel. Furthermore, we estimate that a minimum of 40 other evolutionarily successful lineages flourished in sub-Saharan Africa during the period of modern human dispersal out of Africa approximately 60,000-70,000 ybp. Only much later, at the beginning of the Late Stone Age, about 40,000 ybp, did introgression of additional lineages occur into the Khoisan mtDNA pool. This process was further accelerated during the recent Bantu expansions. Our results suggest that the early settlement of humans in Africa was already matrilineally structured and involved small, separately evolving isolated populations.

The study itself says: “The quest to explain demographic history during the early part of human evolution has been limited because of the scarce paleoanthropological record from the Middle Stone Age.” That is of course true, and overly precise estimates of human population in ancient days would be suspect. But the study itself makes no such claims. The scholarly article never says that there were 2,000 humans 70,000 years ago. Moreover, variations of the word “environment” appear only twice, and there is no discussion whatsoever of “extremes of climate.”

Co-founder of Greenpeace Patrick Moore has a few things to say. WSJ:

Greenpeace has evolved into an organization of extremism and politically motivated agendas. Its antichlorination campaign failed, only to be followed by a campaign against polyvinyl chloride. Greenpeace now has a new target called phthalates (pronounced thal-ates). These are chemical compounds that make plastics flexible. They are found in everything from hospital equipment such as IV bags and tubes, to children’s toys and shower curtains. They are among the most practical chemical compounds in existence.

Phthalates are the new bogeyman. These chemicals make easy targets since they are hard to understand and difficult to pronounce. Commonly used phthalates, such as diisononyl phthalate (DINP), have been used in everyday products for decades with no evidence of human harm. DINP is the primary plasticizer used in toys. It has been tested by multiple government and independent evaluators, and found to be safe.

Despite this, a political campaign that rejects science is pressuring companies and the public to reject the use of DINP. Retailers such as Wal-Mart and Toys “R” Us are switching to phthalate-free products to avoid public pressure. It may be tempting to take this path of least resistance, but at what cost? None of the potential replacement chemicals have been tested and found safe to the degree that DINP has.

Of course phthalates are much more commonly used than alar was, so they will not likely disappear. However, there would seem to be profit opportunities for the Greenpeace crowd in a scare of that magnitude.

It’s apparently news that the media have acknowledged that many in their ranks are in the tank for Barack Obama (discussions here, here, and here, for example). What a revelation! Who would have suspected that the media are biased? Well, perhaps it is news that the liberal media have now apparently discovered this about themselves, though it’s been hidden in plain sight for a long time now (eg, here and here).

In any event, we thought we’d discuss something you actually might not know already — why plants are green. Nancy Y. Kiang in Scientific American:

The energy spectrum of sunlight at Earth’s surface peaks in the blue-green, so scientists have long scratched their heads about why plants reflect green, thereby wasting what appears to be the best available light. The answer is that photosynthesis does not depend on the total amount of light energy but on the energy per photon and the number of photons that make up the light.

Whereas blue photons carry more energy than red ones, the sun emits more of the red kind. Plants use blue photons for their quality and red photons for their quantity. The green photons that lie in between have neither the energy nor the numbers, so plants have adapted to absorb fewer of them.

The basic photosynthetic process, which fixes one carbon atom (obtained from carbon dioxide, CO2) into a simple sugar molecule, requires a minimum of eight photons. It takes one photon to split an oxygen-hydrogen bond in water (H2O) and thereby to obtain an electron for biochemical reactions. A total of four such bonds must be broken to create an oxygen molecule (O2). Each of those photons is matched by at least one additional photon for a second type of reaction to form the sugar. Each photon must have a minimum amount of energy to drive the reactions.

The way plants harvest sunlight is a marvel of nature. Photosynthetic pigments such as chlorophyll are not isolated molecules. They operate in a network like an array of antennas, each tuned to pick out photons of particular wavelengths. Chlorophyll preferentially absorbs red and blue light, and carotenoid pigments (which produce the vibrant reds and yellows of fall foliage) pick up a slightly different shade of blue. All this energy gets funneled to a special chlorophyll molecule at a chemical reaction center, which splits water and releases oxygen.

The funneling process is the key to which colors the pigments select. The complex of molecules at the reaction center can perform chemical reactions only if it receives a red photon or the equivalent amount of energy in some other form. To take advantage of blue photons, the antenna pigments work in concert to convert the high energy (from blue photons) to a lower energy (redder), like a series of step-down transformers that reduces the 100,000 volts of electric power lines to the 120 or 240 volts of a wall outlet. The process begins when a blue photon hits a blue-absorbing pigment and energizes one of the electrons in the molecule. When that electron drops back down to its original state, it releases this energy—but because of energy losses to heat and vibrations, it releases less energy than it absorbed.

The pigment molecule releases its energy not in the form of another photon but in the form of an electrical interaction with another pigment molecule that is able to absorb energy at that lower level. This pigment, in turn, releases an even lower amount of energy, and so the process continues until the original blue photon energy has been downgraded to red. The array of pigments can also convert cyan, green or yellow to red. The reaction center, as the receiving end of the cascade, adapts to absorb the lowest-energy available photons. On our planet’s surface, red photons are both the most abundant and the lowest energy within the visible spectrum.

Bonus piece of information: the sky is actually violet, not blue, but we don’t see violet that well.

Japan’s economy has some problems. WSJ:

Japan’s inflation rate climbed at its fastest rate in a decade in February and the jobless rate worsened to 3.9% under data released Friday, raising concerns about the health of the world’s second-largest economy. The core consumer price index, which excludes volatile fresh food prices, rose 1.0% in February from a year ago — the fastest reading since March 1998, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.

For all the talk about China’s fabulous growth in GDP, we sometimes forget that Japan still possesses the number two economy in the world — $4.4 trillion — by the traditional measure of GDP (exchange rates, not PPP). Little Japan’s GDP is almost a third of that of the USA. Very impressive.

It is one measure of how good much of the world has it these days that 3.9% unemployment and inflation of 1% are numbers that “raise concern” about the health of an economy. How trivial are some of the problems of today compared with those of other times or those of the still beleaguered areas of the world.

Global warming was a Planetary Emergency. Will this current global cooling merit its own emergency declaration, or is it just a passing thing?

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on…

The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time…it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists…link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn’t itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

We’ve discussed this cooling and its potential causes previously. If it continues, it is only a matter of time until the global huckster community does a 180 and finds a way to blame this too on human activity, exploiting this new form of “climate change” as an excuse for more taxation and regulation.

An IBD editorial warns that some very unpleasant Global Cooling could be just around the corner:

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century. Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe…if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere…

R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology…says that “CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet’s climate on long, medium and even short time scales…I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of energy on this planet…Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth…Solar activity has overpowered any effect that CO2 has had before, and it most likely will again…If we were to have even a medium-sized solar minimum, we could be looking at a lot more bad effects than ‘global warming’ would have had.”

A Hoover Institution Study…says that “try as we might, we simply could not find any relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption and changes in global temperatures.” The study concludes that if you shut down all the world’s power plants and factories, “there would not be much effect on temperatures.”

(HT: Powerline) Question: could it be that Newsweek was actually right in 1975?

The WSJ reports on the weird doings under the sea, where four nearly simultaneous cable cuts caused massive disruption to internet communications:

four cable outages in the Middle East — two off the Mediterranean coast of Egypt and two in the Persian Gulf — recently disrupted Internet connections across the region and as far away as India. The cuts throttled Egypt’s connections outside the country by 70%, hampering international banks and curtailing trading on the country’s stock exchange. India, whose huge outsourcing industry depends on the Internet, lost half its capacity.

The kinks threw into stark relief the importance of these elaborate cable connections — and their vulnerability. The likely result: Even more fiber building, as increasingly Internet-dependent companies and nations in the region seek reliable connections.

Long-haul fiber is the conduit of globalization. Even in a “wireless” era, it is this physical labyrinth of cables that now carries the bulk of Internet, wireless and fixed-line traffic. Fiber has eclipsed satellite technology as the main means of long-distance communication — enabling interaction between the world’s businesses, governments and economies.

The recent cable outages “prove the point that we should provide even more diversity through additional cables so that the world economy can withstand major disasters like this,” says Amr Badawi, Egypt’s telecom regulator.

(1) Best acronyms so far: “the FLAG Europe-Asia cable, owned by FLAG, which stands for Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe, and another cable lying next to it, identified as SEA-ME-WE 4, or South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 cable, owned by a consortium of 16 international telecommunication companies.” (2) Best conspiracy rumor to date, via Wired: “Has anyone considered that it would make sense to cut the cables in two places and put a listening device in then let the carrier fix the other break.”

A fair number of people have been up in arms over this comment by President Clinton in a speech: “OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.” We’re bothered by an aspect of the comments, but not for that particular remark, which has been taken out of context. The entire context is interesting (via ABC):

“Everybody knows that global warming is real…but we cannot solve it alone….And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada — the rich counties — would say, ‘OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’ We could do that.

“But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world’s fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.

“And guess what? The only places in the world today in rich countries where you have rising wages and declining inequality are places that have generated more jobs than rich countries because they made a commitment we didn’t. They got serious about a clean, efficient, green, independent energy future… If you want that in America, if you want the millions of jobs that will come from it, if you would like to see a new energy trust fund to finance solar energy and wind energy and biomass and responsible bio-fuels and electric hybrid plug-in vehicles that will soon get 100 miles a gallon, if you want every facility in this country to be made maximally energy efficient that will create millions and millions and millions of jobs, vote for her. She’ll give it to you. She’s got the right energy plan.”

The discussion above contains some interesting thoughts, among them the assertion that by waging some sort of fight against global warming (whatever that might entail) we will “prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren.” We have come across no evidence to suggest that this is a sound economic premise that can be broadly applied.

But that’s not even our concern in quoting the former President. Our point is this: what is the significance of President Clinton’s constant musings? Are they meant to express the policy of the United States in a Hillary Clinton administration? What happens when the Clintons disagree? It is obvious that Bill Clinton can’t control his far ranging speculations. Is a daily diet of Bill Clinton’s musings on the horizon, followed by next-day assertions from the White House that those policy suggestions have now been declared “inoperative?”

There is a baby boomlet in the US, and the reasons, according to experts, whose salaries seem a waste of either the public or private budget, are “a decline in contraceptive use, a drop in access to abortion, poor education and poverty”. (We wonder what these geniuses say is the cause of the increase in population by 5 billion over the last century.) AP:

the total number of U.S. births was the highest since 1961, near the end of the baby boom. An examination of global data also shows that the United States has a higher fertility rate than every country in continental Europe…Experts believe there is a mix of reasons: a decline in contraceptive use, a drop in access to abortion, poor education and poverty…

In addition to “poor education and poverty,” the reasons for the baby boomlet apparently include “prosperity,” according to the experts in the article. So it’s either being rich or being poor. Aha. Maybe AP’s reporters and editors have something in common with the “experts” they quote.

WNBC reports the latest good news in commercial aviation:

Anti-missile systems will be put on several passenger planes flying in and out of John F. Kennedy Airport, U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials said Friday…Three of the anti-missile systems will be placed on American Airlines flights flying between JFK and airports in California, officials said. It is the first time passenger planes will be outfitted with the technology. Military jets have the equipment and there were recent tests on non-passenger cargo flights…

The program is a test to see if the anti-missile systems are effective in helping prevent a terrorist from using a shoulder-fired missile to shoot down a passenger jet. Shoulder fired missiles can be referred to as MANPADS, man portable air defense systems.

New cabin announcement: “In preparation for take off, please make sure that your seat is in its upright and locked position, your tray tables are stowed, and all electronic devices are in the off position, including iPods, cells phones and any devices that can remotely trigger MANPADS or other man portable air defense systems.” Feel better about flying now?

Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, Merited Scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, and staff researcher of the Oceanology Institute, has a few more words about CO2 and globaloney:

The temperature of the troposphere, the lowest and densest portion of the atmosphere, does not depend on the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions—a point proved theoretically and empirically. True, probes of Antarctic ice shield, taken with bore specimens in the vicinity of the Russian research station Vostok, show that there are close links between atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and temperature changes. Here, however, we cannot be quite sure which is the cause and which the effect.

Temperature fluctuations always run somewhat ahead of carbon dioxide concentration changes. This means that warming is primary. The ocean is the greatest carbon dioxide depository, with concentrations 60-90 times larger than in the atmosphere. When the ocean’s surface warms up, it produces the “champagne effect.” Compare a foamy spurt out of a warm bottle with wine pouring smoothly when served properly cold.

Likewise, warm ocean water exudes greater amounts of carbonic acid, which evaporates to add to industrial pollution—a factor we cannot deny. However, man-caused pollution is negligible here. If industrial pollution with carbon dioxide keeps at its present-day 5-7 billion metric tons a year, it will not change global temperatures up to the year 2100. The change will be too small for humans to feel even if the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions doubles.

Carbon dioxide cannot be bad for the climate. On the contrary, it is food for plants, and so is beneficial to life on Earth. Bearing out this point was the Green Revolution—the phenomenal global increase in farm yields in the mid-20th century. Numerous experiments also prove a direct proportion between harvest and carbon dioxide concentration in the air.

Carbon dioxide has quite a different pernicious influence—not on the climate but on synoptic activity. It absorbs infrared radiation. When tropospheric air is warm enough for complete absorption, radiation energy passes into gas fluctuations. Gas expands and dissolves to send warm air up to the stratosphere, where it clashes with cold currents coming down. With no noticeable temperature changes, synoptic activity skyrockets to whip up cyclones and anticyclones. Hence we get hurricanes, storms, tornados and other natural disasters, whose intensity largely depends on carbon dioxide concentration. In this sense, reducing its concentration in the air will have a positive effect.

Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change. Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind. Man’s influence on nature is a drop in the ocean.

As we have said, it defies common sense that going from a carbon dioxide concentration of 280 parts per million to 380 parts per million threatens catastrophe when such larger forces are at work. Of course greed is a large force in human life as well, for those who wish to exploit the superstitions and mental frailties of the average American ignoramus.

Dennis Kucinich was once at the home of Shirley McLaine, and the things he saw! WSJ:

Ms. MacLaine — well-known for her fascination with things mystical and extraterrestrial — was in Canada that weekend in 1982, performing her one-woman show. But Mr. Costanzo’s girlfriend at the time, a model and actress who is now 50 years old, was visiting when the UFO incident took place…

Here’s what happened, according to separate interviews with Mr. Costanzo and his former girlfriend: The day was strange from the start. For hours, Mr. Kucinich, Mr. Costanzo and his companion noticed a high-pitched sound. “There was a sense that something extraordinary was happening all day,” says the girlfriend. She and Mr. Costanzo say that none of the three consumed alcohol or took drugs.

As they sat down to a dinner, Mr. Kucinich spotted a light in the distance, to the left of Mount Rainier. Mr. Costanzo thought it was a helicopter. But Mr. Kucinich walked outside to the deck to look through the telescope that he had bought Ms. MacLaine as a house gift. After a few minutes, Mr. Kucinich summoned the other two: “Guys, come on out here and look at this.” Mr. Costanzo and his girlfriend joined Mr. Kucinich, where they took turns peering through the telescope. What they saw in the far distance, according to both witnesses, was a hovering light, which soon divided into two, and then three.

After a few minutes, the lights moved closer and it became apparent that they were actually three charcoal-gray, triangular craft, flying in a tight wedge. The girlfriend remembers each triangle having red and green lights running down the edges, with a laser-like red light at the tail. Mr. Costanzo recalls white lights, but no tail. Mr. Costanzo says each triangle was roughly the size of a large van, while his former girlfriend compares it to a “larger Cessna, smaller than a jet certainly.” Neither recalls seeing any markings, landing gear, engines, windows or cockpits.

The craft approached to within 200 yards, suspended over the field just beyond the swimming pool. Both witnesses say it emitted a quiet, throbbing sound — nothing like an airplane engine. “There was a feeling of wanting to communicate something, but I didn’t know what,” says Mr. Costanzo.

The craft held steady in midair, for perhaps a minute, then sped away, Mr. Costanzo says. “Nothing had landed,” he says. “No strange beings had disembarked. No obvious messages were beamed down. When they were completely out of sight, we all looked at each other disbelieving what we had seen.”

At Mr. Kucinich’s suggestion, they jotted down their impressions and drew pictures to memorialize the event. Mr. Kucinich kept the notes, according to Ms. MacLaine…It was proof to me that we’re obviously not alone,” says the girlfriend.

“At Mr. Kucinich’s suggestion, they jotted down their impressions and drew pictures to memorialize the event.” We’d really like to see those pictures!

The Economist takes the long view of man’s downfall, in the manner of Jared Diamond:

About 12,000 years ago people embarked on an experiment called agriculture and some say that they, and their planet, have never recovered. Farming brought a population explosion, protein and vitamin deficiency, new diseases and deforestation. Human height actually shrank by nearly six inches after the first adoption of crops…

Take a snapshot of the old world 15,000 years ago. Except for bits of Siberia, it was full of a new and clever kind of people who had originated in Africa and had colonised first their own continent, then Asia, Australia and Europe, and were on the brink of populating the Americas. They had spear throwers, boats, needles, adzes, nets. They painted pictures, decorated their bodies and believed in spirits. They traded foods, shells, raw materials and ideas. They sang songs, told stories and prepared herbal medicines.

They were “hunter-gatherers”. On the whole the men hunted and the women gathered: a sexual division of labour is still universal among non-farming people and was probably not shared by their Homo erectus predecessors. This enabled them to eat both meat and veg, a clever trick because it combines quality with reliability.

Why change? In the late 1970s Mark Cohen, an archaeologist, first suggested that agriculture was born of desperation, rather than inspiration. Evidence from the Fertile Crescent seems to support him. Rising human population density, combined perhaps with a cooling, drying climate, left the Natufian hunter-gatherers of the region short of acorns, gazelles and wild grass seeds…

Willingly or not, humanity had embarked 50,000 years ago on the road called “progress” with constant change in habits driven by invention mothered by necessity. Even 40,000 years ago, technology and lifestyle were in a state of continuous change, especially in western Eurasia. By 34,000 years ago people were making bone points for spears, and by 26,000 years ago they were making needles. Harpoons and other fishing tackle appear at 18,000 years ago, as do bone spear throwers, or atlatls. String was almost certainly in use then—how do you catch rabbits except in nets and snares…

The idea that agriculture was a step back for humanity is ridiculous. However, such a dim opinion of farm country might dovetail rather nicely with Christopher Hitchens’ view of the Iowa caucuses.

Some things change, some don’t. Carbon dioxide emissions haven’t changed much in the last quarter century in the US, while they have quadrupled or quintupled in China, which is now the largest emitter of CO2. But you wouldn’t know that from the media’s handling of the party that just concluded in Bali, the results of which have been widely misreported.

One thing that never changes is the self-importance of bureaucrats and politicians, and their desire to arrogate power to themselves. The Sydney Morning Herald sympathetically describes the self indulgent, appalling scene in Bali as the deadline approached for the vacation of the 15,000 to end, and the scores of private jets to leave:

Deadlines came and went. Things were so bad on Saturday that at one point the UN’s chief negotiator, Yvo de Boer, fled the podium. He was holding back tears. That afternoon, well into extra time, the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, made an unscheduled return, walking in alongside Indonesia’s Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. It was too late for cajoling; time instead for rebuking and pleading. Ki-moon spoke of disappointment, and urged compromise on “everybody”. The host president said: “The world is watching anxiously and I beg you not to let them down.”

Their words “electrified the room”, de Boer said. The European Union — having earlier bowed to American pressure to tone down wording on emissions targets — swiftly kicked over another roadblock, acceding to demands from developing countries for promises on technology sharing.

Still the Americans held out. No, Dobriansky said once more, to more boos and jeers. The deadlock remained, but with a difference: no nation, not Australia, nor Japan, nor Canada, backed them.

Going down to the wire, Bali rules applied, and those rules meant niceties could be stomped on. The most powerful man in the room could be mugged in broad daylight by one of the weakest. Kevin Conrad, the delegate from Papua New Guinea, did not waste time taking the Americans down a dark alley. He wanted billions of witnesses.

“We seek your leadership,” he said. “But if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please, get out of the way.” The room was silent as he said it, and drowned in explosive applause as he returned the shiv to its sheath. Dobriansky surrendered. A deal could be done, propelling the world forward to negotiating a new accord by 2009.

There was rejoicing. “A historic breakthrough,” said Gordon Brown in London. “A pivotal first step,” said Ban Ki-moon. “An incredible drama” that ended in a “brilliant strategy to unite the world”, said the Union of Concerned Scientists. America had been “humbled”, said Bill Hare of Greenpeace.

There is little in the world more revolting than the spectacle of such men congratulating themselves, except perhaps the fawning media coverage bestowed upon them. Moreover, the media appear to have misstated the essence of the story, centering it on America, as in the example above. Though developing nations like China and India were brought on board in a weak agreement, the media have in general acted as if they know nothing of what has actually transpired in the years since Kyoto, and that the story was about American intransigence. The American Thinker provides some background about the fact that the US is no longer the real story when it comes to global environmental regulation:

If we look at that data and compare 2004 (latest year for which data is available) to 1997 (last year before the Kyoto treaty was signed), we find the following:

* Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
* Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%.
* Emissions from non-signers increased 10.0%.
* Emissions from the U.S. increased 6.6%.

The data have additional interesting aspects. For example, if you look at the spreadsheet by country from 1980 until 2004, you will see that the rate of increase in carbon dioxide emissions (not that we care all that much about carbon dioxide concentrations) has been less than 1% per year in the United States. China, on the other hand, had an increase from 397 metric tons to 1284 during the same period, and even surpassed the US in total CO2 emissions earlier this year.

The media have misreported the Bali story. They have reported it as though the US was hobbled and humbled. But the reality is that the developing nations like China and India were brought on board in a final, tepid agreement, and that this made it possible for the US to participate as well. The watered-down nature of the agreement left a number of developed countries dissatisfied.

In a way you have to give the Bali revelers their due. By watering down a final agreement sufficiently to get the countries with the largest CO2 increases on board, they assured themselves that there would be plenty of such pleasant retreats in the future, as they work out further silly “frameworks” of this and that. (China will likely never agree to anything that cuts its growth rate to a level that would increase unemployment.) Moreover, by bringing the likes of India and China into the fold, they have increased the number of wealthy pockets they can pick, as they continue to revel in the usufructs of their power and to strut about like peacocks on island resorts.

Finally, as bad as the politicians and bureaucrats are, we can only expect the mainstream media to be even worse.

It’s oblivion again, say partiers at a tropical resort. AP reports that the UN wants nations to ban greenhouse gas emissions to the tune of “between 25 percent and 40 percent by 2020″:

The human race faces oblivion if it fails to confront global warming…U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived on the resort island of Bali to preside over the final days of the two-week conference. “The situation is so desperately serious that any delay could push us past the tipping point, beyond which the ecological, financial and human costs would increase dramatically,” Ban said in a speech to delegates. “We are at a crossroad,” he added. “One path leads to a comprehensive climate change agreement, the other to oblivion. The choice is clear.”

“Oblivion.” Got to avoid oblivion of course. What to ban next? Maybe caffeine? Or maybe go all the way and attempt to ban new humans. Medical Journal of Australia:

Professor Barry Walters said every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child’s lifetime. Professor Walters, clinical associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia and the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, called for condoms and “greenhouse-friendly” services such as sterilisation procedures to earn carbon credits.

There would appear to be more than a little Margaret Sanger in all this:

“the unbalance between the birth rate of the ‘unfit’ and the ‘fit,’ admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation….On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.”

Of course the West appears to have gone well beyond that point in our time.

China played the West for suckers at the Boondoggle in Bali. The WSJ explains:

BALI, Indonesia — China said Friday it will not consider mandatory cuts on greenhouse gases, saying the U.S. and other industrialized countries should take the lead in fighting climate change by embracing a less-extravagant lifestyle.

China, which some believed has surpassed the U.S. as the world’s top emitter of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, also questioned the fairness of binding cuts when its per capita emissions are about one-sixth of those by the U.S.

It also noted that it’s only been pumping pollutants into the atmosphere for the last few decades, whereas the West has done so for much longer.

“China is in the process of industrialization and there is a need for economic growth to meet the basic needs of the people and fight against poverty,” said Su Wei, a member of the country’s delegation at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bali.

“I just wonder whether it’s fair to ask developing countries like China to take on binding targets or mandatory targets,” Mr. Su said. “I think there is much room for the United States to think whether it’s possible to change [its] lifestyle and consumption patterns in order to contribute to the protection of the global climate.”

China didn’t hit a false note. They have to “fight poverty”, while the West, particularly the US, should “change lifestyle.” Perfectly pitched for the suckers who swallow this tripe. Well done.

A nation of ignoramuses who do not know how to read, apply logic, or do simple math, has no future. We don’t need jihad to undo the Enlightenment. We can do it all by ourselves. Consider the academic program that has a 20% market share in the nation’s grammar schools. NY Sun:

The state of Texas has dropped a math curriculum that is mandated for use in New York City schools, saying it was leaving public school graduates unprepared for college. The curriculum, called Everyday Mathematics, became the standard for elementary students in New York City when Mayor Bloomberg took control of the public schools in 2003.

About three million students across the country now use the program, including students in 28 Texas school districts, and industry estimates show it holds the greatest market share of any lower-grade math textbook, nearly 20%.

Some questions for 5th graders:

A. If math were a color, it would be –, because –.
B. If it were a food, it would be –, because –.
C. If it were weather, it would be –, because –.

The situation with 4th graders:

“The curriculum’s failure was undeniable: Not one of my students knew his or her times tables, and few had mastered even the most basic operations; knowledge of multiplication and division was abysmal…what would you do, if you discovered that none of your fourth-graders could correctly tell you the answer to four times eight?”

The song School Days dates from 1907. Who would have thought that, a century later, “readin’ and writin’ and ‘rithmetic,” not to mention the hickory stick, would have vanished from broad reaches of the American scene? HT: MM

UPDATE

A fellow who was taught Everyday Mathematics illustrates its worth, via AP:

Police say a man tried to open an account with a $1 million bill, which does not exist. The teller refused and called police while the man started to curse at bank workers, said Aiken County Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Michael Frank. Alexander D. Smith, 31, of Augusta, Ga., was charged with disorderly conduct and two counts of forgery, Frank said. The second forgery charge came after investigators learned Smith bought several cartons of cigarettes from a nearby grocery store with a stolen check, Frank said.

What a country.

A carbon footprint gets ever so much smaller if it is made in the sands of an island paradise such as Bali. The UK Times has a report on a meeting so critical that it demands 15,000 politicians and hangers-on.:

the latest United Nations climate change conference on the paradise island of Bali has itself become a major contributor to global warming. Calculations suggest flying the 15,000 politicians, civil servants, green campaigners and television crews into Indonesia will generate the equivalent of 100,000 tonnes of extra CO2. That is similar to the entire annual emissions of the African state of Chad…

The meeting, which runs from December 3-14, aims to create the framework for a successor to the Kyoto treaty on reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, which expires in 2012. However, climate change’s growing political importance has led to a surge in interest in the conference, which is being held in the luxury holiday resort of Nusa Dua on Bali’s palm-fringed southern coast.

Attendees are expected to include celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, the actor, as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California, and Al Gore, the former US vice-president.

It is amazing that anyone takes these self-aggrandizing nitwits seriously.

It turns out that we’re killing the universe — just by our existence. When we merely look at the 14 billion year old universe, we shorten its life, according to a new theory. Telegraph:

the theory suggests that we change things simply by looking at them and theorists have puzzled over the implications for years. They often illustrate their concerns about what the theory means with mind-boggling experiments, notably Schrodinger’s cat in which, thanks to a fancy experimental set up, the moggy is both alive and dead until someone decides to look, when it either carries on living, or dies. That is, by one interpretation (by another, the universe splits into two, one with a live cat and one with a dead one.)

New Scientist reports a worrying new variant as the cosmologists claim that astronomers may have accidentally nudged the universe closer to its death by observing dark energy, a mysterious anti gravity force which is thought to be speeding up the expansion of the cosmos.

The damaging allegations are made by Profs Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and James Dent of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, who suggest that by making this observation in 1998 we may have caused the cosmos to revert to an earlier state when it was more likely to end. “Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life-expectancy of the universe,” Prof Krauss tells New Scientist.

Someone should have told Toni Vernelli. Perhaps she would have reconsidered her decision. And by the way, what if some space aliens discovered dark matter billions of years ago? Should we be looking for a letter to the editor of New Scientist from some fellows on Rigel VII demanding a correction?

Daily Mail:

Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy. But the very thought makes her shudder with horror. Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.

Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible “mistake” of pregnancy should never happen again, that she begged the doctor who performed the abortion to sterilise her at the same time. He refused, but Toni - who works for an environmental charity - “relentlessly hunted down a doctor who would perform the irreversible surgery. Finally, eight years ago, Toni got her way. At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to “protect the planet”….

As Toni awaited the surgery which would destroy her fertility, she met her future husband, Ed…”A week before my sterilisation, I went to an animal rights demonstration and met Ed….”Every year, we also take a nice holiday - we’ve just come back from South Africa. We feel we can have one long-haul flight a year, as we are vegan and childless, thereby greatly reducing our carbon footprint and combating over-population.”

Think of the win-win if she had been previously destined to mother a future suicide-bomber.

There is a lot of bad news predicted to happen or to be evident by 2020, as we previously discussed below. Here’s a handy checklist, via the Independent:

Arctic
Greenland ice sheet will virtually completely disappear, raising sea levels by over 30 feet, submerging coastal cities, entire island nations and vast areas of low-lying countries like Bangladesh

Latin America
The Amazon rainforest will become dry savannah as rising temperatures and falling water levels kill the trees, stoke forest fires and kill off wildlife

North America
California and the grain-producing Midwest will dry out as snows in the Rockies decrease, depriving these areas of summer water

Australia
The Great Barrier Reef will die. Species loss will occur by 2020 as corals fail to adapt to warmer waters. On land, drought will reduce harvests

Europe
Winter sports suffer as less snow falls in the Alps and other mountains; up to three-fifths of wildlife dies out. Drought in Mediterranean area hits tourism

Africa
Harvests could be cut by up to half in some countries by 2020, greatly increasing the threat of famine. Between 75 million and 250 million people are expected to be short of water within the next 30 years

Remember to keep your checklist in a dry, elevated area, so it will still be usable after the sea level has risen by the predicted 30 feet.

We keep getting reruns of movies we saw thirty years ago. We can’t stay awake anymore. NYT:

“Today the world’s scientists have spoken, clearly and in one voice,” Mr. Ban said as he released the final report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “In Bali I expect the world’s policymakers to do the same. “The breakthrough needed in Bali is for a comprehensive climate change deal that all nations can embrace.”

Far more powerfully then ever before, members of the United Nations panel said today that their review of the data had led them to conclude that reductions in greenhouse gases had to start immediately to avert a global climate disaster that could leave island states submerged and abandoned, decrease African crop yields by 50 percent and lower global economic output by 5 percent or more.

The panel, co-winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, said the world would have to reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 to avert major problems. “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late, there is not time,” said Rajendra Pachauri, a scientist and economist who heads the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “What we do in the next two, three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”…

one chart predicts that at 2 degrees of global temperature rise, up to 30 percent of species would be at risk of extinction and people would face a higher risk of death from heat waves, floods and droughts. If 3 degrees of warming were reached, the report says, millions more people would experience flooding each year, about 30 percent of wetlands would be lost, global health services would be burdened, and there would be massive deaths…

Didn’t Irwin Allen already make this flick a long time ago? Wake us when it’s over.

John Coleman is a meteorologist of some renown and commercial accomplishment. You have probably already read what he has said:

It is the greatest scam in history….It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an illusion of rapid global warming….

Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you “believe in.” It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won’t believe a me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it.

I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.

In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped.

It is possible of course that in time “everyone will come to realize we have been duped.” But there is also a significant probability that this will not happen. The grifters of political and economic power who champion global warmism for their benefit will no doubt claim that warming has been transmuted into cooling. And of course drastic measures are still needed — of any sort that fill their coffers and gild their thrones.

But that’s not the scary part. The business and political worlds have always been full of con men and their lackeys. That’s nothing new. The scary aspect of this to us is the media. We are producing generations of younger Americans who know little about life and yet feel perfectly justified in lecturing us about every aspect of it. They often come from great universities where they learn the current fashions in the liberal arts from professors who have never lived outside that sandbox. They then get jobs whose essence is to be observers of what other people do. (The Hollywood types have a quicker path to a similar end: from becoming high school dropouts to pretending to be other people.)

If there is a better recipe for creating witless grandees, we haven’t seen it. From the TV news to the fourth grade classroom, we’ve seen the power they wield and the intellectual carnage they create. Despite the advent of the New Media, we have not seen a noticeable drop in the power of those who shout fashionable, totalitarian nonsense into a large megaphone.

What goes on in the elementary schools of Marin County is scary:

Lu Sutton joined the program last month, bringing to eight the number of Marin schools that have introduced the program that began earlier this year at Bacich Elementary and Kent Middle schools in Kentfield. The program is being financed by a $200,000 donation from the Earth Day Every Day Fund of the Marin Community Foundation. Three nonprofits, the Marin Conservation Corps, Strategic Energy Innovations and Cool the Earth are implementing the program and hope to introduce it to 25 Marin schools by the end of the year…

Principal Candee Adams played “Mother Earth,” fifth-grade teacher Sue Spry played “The Sun” and Debbie Dees was “Mother Nature.” Fourth-grade teacher Cathy Stanek played “Polar Bear.” The title of the skit was “Save Some for Me.” “Too much carbon makes me feel like I’m wearing a blanket,” Adams said as Robles’ character swirled around the stage. “I’m Queen Carbon, not a role model,” Robles said in her introduction. “Do you want to save the Earth? It’s up to you to choose. “Yes, I’m Queen Carbon, and I’ve got the Carbon Dioxide Blues.”…

On Friday, Rancho students will be given bilingual “Cancel-a-Car” coupon books filled with ways they can fight global warming. Once the coupons are returned to school, teachers will track what conservation efforts are made and the date. Teachers will help monitor the progress. As the carbon reduction increases, images of cars will be crossed out on a giant poster kept at school.

This indoctrination is creepy and witless. Worse than that, cloaking bad thinking and limitations on freedom in enviro-hooey appears to be very effective.

Your government spends its four day workweek on things like this:

Select Committee to Examine Link Between Changing Climate, Frequency and Intensity of Wildfires…

Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who will chair the committee
Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.)
Jay Inslee (D-Wash.)
John B. Larson (D-Conn.)
Hilda L. Solis (D-Calif.)
Stephanie Herseth (D-S.D.)
Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.)
John Hall (D-N.Y.)
Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.)
F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), the ranking minority member
John Shadegg (R-Ariz.)
Greg Walden (R-Ore.)
John Sullivan (R-Okla.)
Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)
Candice S. Miller (R-Mich.)…

“A spark neglected makes a mighty fire.”
–Robert Herrick

Following the devastating fires in Southern California, the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will hold a hearing examining the scientific link between a changing climate and the frequency and intensity of wildfires.

Witnesses will discuss the present effects of climate change on wildfires and contributing factors such as increased drought, changes in snowmelt patterns, changes in precipitation, and higher temperatures. In addition, mitigation and adaptation strategies will be discussed.

The frequency and intensity of wildfires have increased in recent decades throughout the Western United States…Mounting scientific evidence indicates that the growth in wildfires is linked to global warming and that this trend is likely to intensify in the coming decades.

More geniuses at work. A pathetic use of resources better spent on the practical and time-tested solutions such as clearing brush, staging controlled burns, felling trees for firebreaks, etc. — and they have a pretentious website to boot. The only redeeming element in all this is the (unintentionally?) humorous misuse of the Robert Herrick quote from the 1640’s. Herrick may have thought of sparks and fire, but most of his carpe diem poems are devoted to sparks of quite a different nature.

The IHT reports that the UN is apparently now, at long last, going to shut up about global doom and gloom, since it has just produced a “final” report:

UN issues ‘final wake-up call’ on population and environment

Climate change, the rate of extinction of species and the challenge of feeding a growing population are among the threats putting humanity at risk, the UN Environment Program said in its fourth Global Environmental Outlook since 1997.

“The human population is now so large that the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available at current consumption patterns,” Achim Steiner, the executive director of the program, said in a telephone interview. Efficient use of resources and reducing waste now are “among the greatest challenges at the beginning of 21st century,” he said…

Over the past two decades the world population has increased by almost 34 percent to 6.7 billion from 5 billion; similarly, the financial wealth of the planet has soared by about a third. But the land available to each person on earth had shrunk by 2005 to 2.02 hectares, or 5 acres, from 7.91 hectares in 1900 and was projected to drop to 1.63 hectares for each person by 2050, the report said…

The program described its report, which is prepared by 388 experts and scientists, as the broadest and deepest of those that the UN issues on the environment and called it “the final wake-up call to the international community.”

Three points: (a) didn’t we read something similar to this UN report a long time ago? (b) what gives with the use of land per capita as a critical measure as opposed to, for example, weath — are we all meant to be farmers? (c) what will the windy bureaucrats call the next report, since this one was supposed to be “final”?

The philosopher and eminent meteorologist Harry Reid shows himself to be a man completely in tune with the seriousness and probing depth of intellect that characterize the times in which we live:

“One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming”

The biggest fire in America was in 1910, and California routinely has had fires that have devoured millions of acres — many without the arson that played a major role in these latest blazes. Even environmental extremists don’t blame global warming for particular fires. Little wonder then that the geniuses in Congress are as popular as they are.

Daniel Botkin is professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He says that he is “a scientist who believes in the scientific method and in what facts tell us.” WSJ:

Some colleagues who share some of my doubts argue that the only way to get our society to change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe, and that therefore it is all right and even necessary for scientists to exaggerate. They tell me that my belief in open and honest assessment is naïve. “Wolves deceive their prey, don’t they?” one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change.

The climate modelers who developed the computer programs that are being used to forecast climate change used to readily admit that the models were crude and not very realistic, but were the best that could be done with available computers and programming methods. They said our options were to either believe those crude models or believe the opinions of experienced, data-focused scientists. Having done a great deal of computer modeling