Obama Quietly Handing Over Billions of Dollars to the UN in the Name of Global Warming

Transcript of Remarks 

 

While all of the attention today in Washington is on the looming fiscal cliff, President Obama’s administration is quietly handing over billions of dollars to the United Nations in the name of global warming.

 

Hello, I am Senator Jim Inhofe, Republican Senator from Oklahoma, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and chief critic of President Obama’s far left green agenda.

READ MORE, and WATCH VIDEO:  http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=704a64c3-c4b6-0747-65d9-b2d6e8ebe36f 

CIA Closes Climate Change Research Office

A division of the Central intelligence Agency formed to monitor global warming and the changes it means for national security has been disbanded.

The Center on Climate Change and national Security, which was created three years ago, was ciriticized by Republicans who charged it diverted the agency's attention from terrorism and other pressing matters, reports Business Insider.

"The CIA for several years has studied the national security implications of climate change," CIA spokesperson Todd Ebitz told Greenwire.com, which broke the story.

"This work is now performed by a dedicated team in an office that looks at a variety of economic and energy security issues affecting the United States." The Center was strongly supported by former CIA director, Leon Panetta, who is now Secretary of Defense.

READ MORE:  http://www.newsmax.com/US/cia-global-warming-agency/2012/11/21/id/465052

A A division of the Central Intelligence Agency formed to monitor global warming and the changes it means for national security has been disbanded.

The Center on Climate Change and National Security, which was created three years ago, was criticized by Republicans who charged it diverted the agency’s attention from terrorism and other pressing matters, reports Business Insider.

"The CIA for several years has studied the national security implications of climate change," CIA spokesman Todd Ebitz told Greenwire.com, which broke the story.

“This work is now performed by a dedicated team in an office that looks at a variety of economic and energy security issues affecting the United States."
The center was strongly supported by former CIA director Leon Panetta, who is now Secretary of Defense.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/US/cia-global-warming-agency/2012/11/21/id/465052#ixzz2DcYBcGrO

A division of the Central Intelligence Agency formed to monitor global warming and the changes it means for national security has been disbanded.

The Center on Climate Change and National Security, which was created three years ago, was criticized by Republicans who charged it diverted the agency’s attention from terrorism and other pressing matters, reports Business Insider.

"The CIA for several years has studied the national security implications of climate change," CIA spokesman Todd Ebitz told Greenwire.com, which broke the story.

“This work is now performed by a dedicated team in an office that looks at a variety of economic and energy security issues affecting the United States."
The center was strongly supported by former CIA director Leon Panetta, who is now Secretary of Defense.

The CIA did not conduct its own scientific studies on climate change, instead relying on other government agencies and academic researchers.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/US/cia-global-warming-agency/2012/11/21/id/465052#ixzz2DcY5yCH2

A division of the Central Intelligence Agency formed to monitor global warming and the changes it means for national security has been disbanded.

The Center on Climate Change and National Security, which was created three years ago, was criticized by Republicans who charged it diverted the agency’s attention from terrorism and other pressing matters, reports Business Insider.

"The CIA for several years has studied the national security implications of climate change," CIA spokesman Todd Ebitz told Greenwire.com, which broke the story.

“This work is now performed by a dedicated team in an office that looks at a variety of economic and energy security issues affecting the United States."
The center was strongly supported by former CIA director Leon Panetta, who is now Secretary of Defense.

The CIA did not conduct its own scientific studies on climate change, instead relying on other government agencies and academic researchers.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/US/cia-global-warming-agency/2012/11/21/id/465052#ixzz2DcY5yCH2

We need regulation, but not this much

According to conventional progressive wisdom, regulation is the means by which a compassionate government protects the weak and innocent from the strong and malevolent.

Try telling that to Brad Jones.

Jones is one of the owners of Buckingham Slate, a Virginia business a little over an hour's drive west of Richmond. The company is distinguished by the quality of the highly valued Arvonia slate it produces. And by the fact that its roots trace back almost to the Civil War. And by the fact that federal regulators smacked it with a $4,000 fine. 

Over a trash can.

The offending can — or "waste receptacle," in the words of the Mine Safety and Health Administration's official citation — was "not covered." What's more, "the receptacle was full." It "could be smelled." There were — brace yourself — "flies fl[y]ing in and around the receptacle." And to crown all, "management engaged in aggravated conduct constituting more than ordinary negligence" by allowing this "condition to exist." The horror.        

READ MORE:  http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/rtd-opinion/2012/nov/04/tdopin02-we-need-regulation-but-not-this-much-ar-2333362/

November surprise: EPA planning major post-election anti-coal regulation

President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has devoted an unprecedented number of bureaucrats to finalizing new anti-coal regulations that are set to be released at the end of November, according to a source inside the EPA.

More than 50 EPA staff are now crashing to finish greenhouse gas emission standards that would essentially ban all construction of new coal-fired power plants. Never before have so many EPA resources been devoted to a single regulation. The independent and non-partisan Manhattan Institute estimates that the EPA’s greenhouse gas coal regulation will cost the U.S. economy $700 billion.

The rush is a major sign of panic by environmentalists inside the Obama administration. If Obama wins, the EPA would have another four full years to implement their anti-fossil fuel agenda. But if Romney wins, regulators will have a very narrow window to enact a select few costly regulations that would then be very hard for a President Romney to undo.

READ MORE:  http://washingtonexaminer.com/november-surprise-epa-planning-major-post-election-anti-coal-regulation/article/2512538#.UJu9z2dfEvt

The last 'Frankenstorm': Video of the 1938 nor'easter that ravaged New England

Historic footage of a deadly storm offers clues about what to expect from Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy is making its presence known across the Eastern Seaboard, with powerful winds beginning to lash the coast and rain starting to pour down from North Carolina to New York. And as millions of Americans across the East Coast hunker down, some are turning to history as a guide. In 1938, for instance, a category 3 hurricane left 600 people dead in New England. During that ferocious hurricane, also known as the Yankee Clipper and the Long Island Express, the Empire State Building reportedly swayed with wind gusts, and 60 people in New York City alone were killed, says Oren Yaniv at the New York Daily News. Unlike Sandy, 1938's powerful storm came "without warning," says History.com, and "was born out a tropical cyclone that developed in the eastern Atlantic." The hurricane was expected to make landfall in Florida, but at the last minute it changed course, barreling north at more than 60 mph and gaining strength over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. It caught New England, and especially New York's Long Island, completely off guard, and amounted to "the most destructive storm to strike the region in the 20th century."

READ MORE:  http://theweek.com/article/index/235529/the-last-frankenstorm-video-of-the-1938nbspnoreasternbspthat-ravaged-new-england

 

NOAA, NASA: Antarctic ozone hole second smallest in 20 years

Warmer air temperatures high above the Antarctic led to the second smallest seasonal ozone hole in 20 years, according to NOAA and NASA satellite measurements. This year, the average size of the ozone hole was 6.9 million square miles (17.9 million square kilometers). The ozone layer helps shield life on Earth from potentially harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation that can cause skin cancer and damage plants.

The Antarctic ozone hole forms in September and October, and this year, the hole reached its maximum size for the season on Sept. 22, stretching to 8.2 million square miles (21.2 million square kilometers), roughly the area of the United States, Canada and Mexico combined. In comparison, the largest ozone hole recorded to date was in 2000 at 11.5 million square miles (29.9 million square kilometers).

The Antarctic ozone hole began making a yearly appearance in the early 1980s, caused by chlorine released by manmade chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs. The chlorine can rapidly break apart ozone molecules in certain conditions, and the temperature of the lower stratosphere plays an important role.

“It happened to be a bit warmer this year high in the atmosphere above Antarctica, and that meant we didn’t see quite as much ozone depletion as we saw last year, when it was colder,” said Jim Butler with NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.

READ MORE:  http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2012/20121024_antarcticozonehole.html

Another DOE-Backed Solar Company Goes Bankrupt

A solar company that got a multi-million-dollar grant from the Department of Energy earlier this year announced Wednesday that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, making it the second taxpayer-backed green energy company to file for bankruptcy this week.

Satcon Technology Corp. announced the decision in a Wednesday news release. “This has been a difficult time for Satcon,” president and CEO Steve Rhoades said. “After careful consideration of available alternatives, the Company’s Board of Directors determined that the Chapter 11 filings were a necessary and prudent step, allowing the Company to continue to operate while giving us the opportunity to reorganize with a stronger balance sheet and capital structure.”

Satcon received a $3 million DOE grant in January to develop “a compact, lightweight power conversion device that is capable of taking utility-scale solar power and outputting it directly into the electric utility grid at distribution voltage levels—eliminating the need for large transformers.”

READ MORE:  http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/18/another-doe-backed-solar-company-goes-bankrupt/

President Obama’s Taxpayer-Backed Green Energy Failures

It is no secret that President Obama’s and green-energy supporters’ (from both parties) foray into venture capitalism has not gone well. But the extent of its failure has been largely ignored by the press. Sure, single instances garner attention as they happen, but they ignore past failures in order to make it seem like a rare case.

The truth is that the problem is widespread. The government’s picking winners and losers in the energy market has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and the rate of failure, cronyism, and corruption at the companies receiving the subsidies is substantial. The fact that some companies are not under financial duress does not make the policy a success. It simply means that our taxpayer dollars subsidized companies that would’ve found the financial support in the private market.

So far, 36 companies that were offered federal support from taxpayers are faltering — either having gone bankrupt or laying off workers or heading for bankruptcy. This list includes only those companies that received federal money from the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy and other agencies. The amount of money indicated does not reflect how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher.

READ MORE:  http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/18/president-obamas-taxpayer-backed-green-energy-failures/

Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released... and here is the chart to prove it

• The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures
• This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week. 

 The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html#ixzz29YvflXlq

Human Greenhouse Gas Emissions Traced to Roman Times

By burning wood, humans have been significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions as far back as the Roman Empire, researchers say.

The finding may lead scientists to rethink some aspects of climate change models, which assume humans weren't responsible for much greenhouse gas before the Industrial Revolution.
"It was believed that emissions started in 1850. We showed that humans already started to impact greenhouse effects much before," study co-author Célia Sapart of Utretcht University in the Netherlands said.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with 20 times the warming power of carbon dioxide, Sapart told LiveScience. Forest fires, wetlands and volcanic eruptions naturally release methane into the atmosphere. But human actions, such as raising cattle or burning fossil fuel, now account for more than half of the methane released.

READ MORE:   http://www.accuweather.com/en/home-garden-articles/earth-you/human-greenhouse-gas-emissions/86758http://www.accuweather.com/en/home-garden-articles/earth-you/human-greenhouse-gas-emissions/86758

New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

READ MORE:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/07/27/new-nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-in-global-warming-alarmism/

Don't Believe The Global Warmists, Major Hurricanes Are Less Frequent

When Hurricane Isaac made landfall in southern Louisiana last week, the storm provided a rare break in one of the longest periods of hurricane inactivity in U.S. history. Seeking to deflect attention away from this comforting trend, global warming alarmists attempted a high-profile head fake, making public statements that the decline in recent hurricane activity masked an increase in strong, damaging hurricanes.

“The hurricanes that really matter, that cause damage, are increasing,” John Abraham, a mechanical engineer on the staff of little-known University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, told Discovery News.

Normally, of course, the subjective global climate opinions of a mechanical engineer at an obscure Minnesota university wouldn’t be national news. However, global warming alarmists put Abraham forward as the point man for their self-proclaimed Climate Science Rapid Response Team. But hey, if Abraham is the best they can do, so be it.

 

READ MORE:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/09/05/dont-believe-the-global-warmists-major-hurricanes-are-less-frequent/ 

Antarctic Sea Ice Sets Another Record

Editors note:  An update from the author has been added to this article on September 20, 2012.
Antarctic sea ice set another record this past week, with the most amount of ice ever recorded on day 256 of the calendar year (September 12 of this leap year). Please, nobody tell the mainstream media or they might have to retract some stories and admit they are misrepresenting scientific data.

National Public Radio (NPR) published an article on its website last month claiming, “Ten years ago, a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island disintegrated and melted in the waters off Antarctica. Two other massive ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula had suffered similar fates a few years before. The events became poster children for the effects of global warming. … There’s no question that unusually warm air triggered the final demise of these huge chunks of ice.”

READ MORE:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/09/19/antarctic-sea-ice-sets-another-record/http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/09/19/antarctic-sea-ice-sets-another-record/

More Regional Cap & Trade on the Way?

If you don’t like regional carbon cap and trade schemes look out because there is another one on the way.  Ten northeastern coastal states created the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in 2007 to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 10% from electric generators.  Electric generators buy permits at auction and the cost is passed on in your electric bills.  So far, permits have added $28 million to Delaware electric bills and the bill could go as high as $100 million by 2018 when the program ends.  The same states, plus Pennsylvania, agreed in 2009 to develop a similar plan for liquid fuels including gasoline, diesel, and heating oil and one recent study estimates gasoline prices could double.

The sad thing about these programs is they don’t work to reduce greenhouse gases and the cost is just another tax with the revenue often wasted in poorly managed green energy programs.  Delaware has indeed reduced carbon dioxide emission from power plants by about 40% but it is all due to market forces such as plant closings and fuel switching for lower cost and has nothing to do with the cap and trade tax. 

The same thing is likely to happen with a Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).  The federal government has already adopted a 54 mile per gallon fuel standard that will lower emissions.  Compressed natural gas can be used to replace gasoline right now at half the cost and with half the carbon footprint.  Fueling infrastructure is being built at a rapid pace to allow the use of natural gas by over-the-road truckers and passengers cars will probably follow.  This is why three states, New Jersey, Maine, and Pennsylvania, have already dropped out of the alliance and New Hampshire is considering legislation to drop out.  Governor Markell needs to remove Delaware from this expensive and useless program.

 

READ MORE:  http://www.caesarrodney.org/index.cfm?ref=30200&ref2=323

State urges feds to fix dunes at Prime Hook

Delaware authorities urged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to promptly fix breaches in the dunes that protect part of Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge from the Delaware Bay, saying the work should be carried out as part of the federal agency’s plan to restore a salt marsh and prevent frequent flooding by bay waters.

The state’s environmental, agriculture, and transportation departments responded to a plan issued by the FWS on how to manage the refuge in a way that restores its original mission of harboring migratory birds while also preventing the sea-water flooding that torments the coastal community of Prime Hook Beach and frequently inundates the only road linking it with the rest of the state.

High tides and nor’easters have for the last six years driven bay waters through the breaches and into homes and yards, causing thousands of dollars in damage and wiping out real estate values, residents say.

READ MORE:  http://www.wdde.org/30658-state-urges-feds-fix-prime-hook

How Your Tax Dollars Secretly Bailed Out a Private Agency

There was no debate on $11 million added to last year’s Bond Bill even though it was the second line item on the budget.  If it is for something as worthwhile as energy efficiency how could it be a bad thing?  In reality the money was used to cover up an embarrassing situation for the Markell Administration and a powerful state senator. 

By Executive Order in 2008, Governor Markell established a goal of reducing energy usage by state agencies by 30% by 2013.  Just the year before, legislation created a target of reducing statewide electric power demand by 15% by 2015 using efficiency programs to be run by the Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU).  The SEU was set up as a private non-profit with its $3.5 million a year operations budget funded by the state.  The SEU was also given the authority to issue tax free bonds to pay for energy efficiency projects so no general revenue tax money would be used.  The lead proponent, Joint Finance Committee Co-Chair Senator Harris McDowell, became the Co-Chair of the SEU Oversight Board.  A powerful bias to maximize energy efficiency gains, regardless of cost, was created.

READ MORE:  http://www.caesarrodney.org/index.cfm?ref=30200&ref2=321

In Pennsylvania, a shipyard is back to life due to U.S. energy development

Last fall, I wrote about how U.S. energy development is creating jobs in places you might not expect – such as in the Aker shipyard in Philadelphia.

In September, ExxonMobil affiliate SeaRiver Maritime signed an agreement with Aker to build two new Liberty Class tankers. Last week, the Philadelphia Inquirer looked into what this new business means for the shipyard, which was on the brink of closing just a year ago.

More than 800 workers – many previously laid off – are busy constructing the tankers, which will be used to transport crude oil from Alaska to customers on the U.S. West Coast. The newspaper notes that the $400 million project “set in motion the recalling of workers and the restarting of an apprenticeship program” that had been suspended in 2010 due to the economic downturn, which had caused more than 600 layoffs at Aker.

READ MORE:  http://www.exxonmobilperspectives.com/2012/06/18/in-pennsylvania-a-shipyard-is-back-to-life-due-to-u-s-energy-development/?utm_source=paid.outbrain.com&utm_medium=cpc

Insight: GM's Volt: The ugly math of low sales, high costs

(Reuters) - General Motors Co sold a record number of Chevrolet Volt sedans in August — but that probably isn't a good thing for the automaker's bottom line.

Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by industry analysts and manufacturing experts. GM on Monday issued a statement disputing the estimates.

Cheap Volt lease offers meant to drive more customers to Chevy showrooms this summer may have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce.

And while the loss per vehicle will shrink as more are built and sold, GM is still years away from making money on the Volt, which will soon face new competitors from Ford, Honda and others.

GM's basic problem is that "the Volt is over-engineered and over-priced," said Dennis Virag, president of the Michigan-based Automotive Consulting Group.

READ MORE:  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-generalmotors-autos-volt-idUSBRE88904J20120910

State officials: Close Prime Hook breaches

The comment period on the draft comprehensive conservation plan for Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge ended last week.

Now, the process of sifting through the comments begins, and it appears U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials will have plenty of reading material. Most of what they read from bay community residents will contain three words: Close the breaches.

A series of comments from state agencies filed just before the deadline from Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, Delaware Department of Transportation, Department of Agriculture and Delaware Mosquito Control Section officials calls for closing the breaches.

Among the state recommendations is the following: “To limit flooding of coastal communities and mitigate effects on adjacent agricultural land, the service should pursue prompt closing of the breaches in Unit II and preserve them as closed until a functioning, self-sustaining tidal marsh can be established in Unit II, and consider marsh restoration options for Unit III that will provide quality and diverse habitat.”

READ MORE:  http://capegazette.villagesoup.com/news/story/state-officials-close-prime-hook-breaches/893262

David Frum: A continental energy strategy? Bring it on

Speaking in New Mexico on Thursday, Mitt Romney announced an energy plan that promised energy independence — not for the United States only — but also for Canada and Mexico.

“I’m going to establish an energy partnership with Canada and Mexico,” he said. “We need to work together with these guys, work collaboratively. And we need a fast-track process to make sure that infrastructure projects are approved. And particularly, we’re going to get that Keystone Pipeline built as one of those first infrastructure projects that take advantage of their resources.”

In the past, American talk of “continental energy strategies” provoked furious reactions in Canada. The prospect of continental energy sharing was a major argument against the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement back in the 1980s. And now the issue is being raised again, and the reaction from Canada is … quiet.

I see two reasons for this change of view among Canadians.  

READ MORE:   http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/08/25/david-frum-a-continental-energy-strategy-bring-it-on/

Financial crisis: the printing press has reached its limits

Central bankers may have averted outright disaster, but they are powerless to do more

 

Few jamborees excite financial markets as much as the symposium of international central bankers which is held annually in late August at Jackson Hole in the Rockies.

Interest this year focuses around whether, with the American recovery again running out of steam, the US Federal Reserve is about to signal a further round of quantitative easing, marking the third such burst of money-printing in that country since the crisis began.

Yet it is also fair to say that the gathering no longer holds quite the same cachet it used to. Faith in central banks as guarantors of macro-economic stability has been shaken to breaking point by the events of recent years, a crisis which they utterly failed to see coming, still less were able to prevent.

READ MORE:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9509106/Financial-crisis-the-printing-press-has-reached-its-limits.html

 

Sea Level Rise and Climate Change, Another View

Globally, sea level has risen 13 feet in the last seven thousand years and local Delaware tide gauges suggest the sea level rose about a foot in the twentieth century.  Planning for sea level rise is a good idea.  There should have been a rapid response plan to fill the 50 foot breach at Fowler Beach when it first occurred.  Rapid response would have saved a valuable fresh water marsh and significant damage to surrounding farm land and roads.   Repair would have also limited the risk of further damage and even death in the Broadkill Beach, Prime Hook Beach, and Slaughter Beach communities.  Now the breach is 4000 feet wide and the repair will cost dramatically more.

Coming up with a long term plan to deal with sea level rise will require a political process of give and take and the creation of a consensus by various factions.  Unfortunately, the emphasis of the recent News Journal series and reports by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control un-necessarily linking the sea level rise problem to worst case climate change scenarios has made the problem solving process more difficult.  A lot of people, particularly down state where sea level problems are more acute, reject these worst case scenarios as un-proven.  There is a risk sea level rise planning will succumb to the climate change debate.

READ MORE:  http://www.caesarrodney.org/index.cfm?ref=30200&ref2=318

Delaware on the Dole

The University of Delaware, in conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Lab, is seeking a grant from a $180 million fund established by the U. S. Department of Energy for a wind turbine research project to be built off the coast of Delaware. The effort has the full support of Delaware’s congressional delegation, the Markell Administration, and the tacit agreement of Delmarva Power to buy the electrical power output from the project, albeit it must be “competitively” priced.

The purpose of the grant is to improve technology whereby wind turbines can produce electrical power capable of competing in the market place without government subsidies, thereby stimulating economic development and jobs in the United States. Chasing federal dollars, 40% of which are borrowed, to attempt to reinvent the wheel is audacious if not immoral. 

Wind turbines are very simple devices; consisting of a prefabricated tower, a three bladed propeller attached to a gear box driving an electric generator. The problem with the current generation of mega wind turbines is that this very simple system is subjected to very large forces of variable torque due to the heavy generator load and changes in wind speed and direction.

READ MORE:  http://www.caesarrodney.org/index.cfm?ref=30200&ref2=317

Food shortages could force world into vegetarianism, warn scientists

Water scarcity's effect on food production means radical steps will be needed to feed population expected to reach 9bn by 2050

 

Leading water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying that the world's population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortages.
Humans derive about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may need to drop to just 5% to feed the extra 2 billion people expected to be alive by 2050, according to research by some of the world's leading water scientists.
"There will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations," the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.
"There will be just enough water if the proportion of animal-based foods is limited to 5% of total calories and considerable regional water deficits can be met by a … reliable system of food trade."

READ MORE:  www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/aug/26/food-shortages-world-vegetarianism

 

DC Circuit Tosses Out EPA’s Pollution Rule

Amidst Obama’s inexorable war on American energy, consumers, jobs, and prosperity, his EPA is in the process of promulgating 4 new pollution rules that will bury the coal industry and “necessarily” raise the price of electricity on American households.  They are the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for Utilities (MACT), the Cooling Water Intake Structures regulation, and the Disposal of Coal Combustion residuals.  The former two have already been finalized while the latter two are close behind.  Today, the D.C. Circuit Court struck downthe EPA’s authority to implement the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.

In August 2011, Obama’s EPA imposed a cap and trade style program to expand existing limitations on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal-fired power plants in 28 “upwind” states.  They claimed that they had unlimited authority pursuant to the Clean Air Act to cap emissions that supposedly travel across state lines.  The EPA admitted that the rule would cost $2.7 billion from the private sector and force many cola-fired power plants to shut down.  Priorities USA might have even run an ad against Obama claiming that his superfluous regulations cause workers to lose their health insurance and die.

READ MORE:  http://www.redstate.com/dhorowitz3/2012/08/21/dc-circuit-tosses-out-epas-pollution-rule/

Govt Grabbing Water Again: Sues New Mexico for Water Rights

The U.S. Government is suing New Mexico for perceived damages in a groundwater case, and the prize is control of the state's water. In May 2011 we learned that the EPA was beginning to change the way America's waters are controlled, and that control was to be extended to your ponds and puddles. Happening now in New Mexico:


The lawyers told the committee [New Mexico Legislature Water and Natural Resources] the U.S. government is apparently trying to take over legal management of the state's water supply.

The federal government has asserted claims for damages to groundwater in a natural resource damage case in New Mexico involving Chevron/Molycorp. The claim seeks for those damages to be awarded in the form of future water rights management. Source: Las Cruces Sun


READ MORE:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2913312/posts

Recall Alert: Flushing System Causes Toilets To Explode

WASHINGTON, D.C. (CBS) - About 2.3 million Flushmate III Pressure-Assiste Flushing Systems, made by Flushmate in Hudson Michigan, have been recalled in the United States because of explosion risks.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada recalled the product because it was found that the Flushmate system can burst and release pressure that can lift the tank lid and shatter the toilet, which poses laceration risks for users.

The assistant flushing system, which was manufactured between October 1997 and February 2008, was sold at The Home Depot and Lowe’s stores.

READ MORE:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2012/08/21/flushing-system-causes-toilets-to-explode/

Sudden gasoline price spikes have experts scrambling for explanation

AAA calls it the steepest one-month climb in gas prices since they started keeping track in 2000.

The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded Friday was $3.67, up from last month's $3.38. Diesel's up almost as much.

For trucker Anthony Bagley, who was topping off his 200-gallon tank Friday at a truck stop in Millersville, Md., the price hike means lost income, lost profits and lost savings.

"Seventy-five gallons so far -- almost 300 bucks," he told Fox News. "Ridiculous. It's killing me. No money in it, it's not worth it."

Asked what the price hike would do to his business,  Bagley said, "Eventually it's going to fold."

Industry analysts say the sudden spike in fuel prices has one root cause.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/10/sudden-gasoline-price-spikes-have-experts-scrambling-for-explanation/#ixzz23TflCUqq

Livestock farmers still seeking pause in ethanol production

Livestock farmers and ranchers seeing their feed costs rise because of the worst drought in a quarter-century are demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency waive production requirements for corn-based ethanol.

The Obama administration sees no need for a waiver, siding with corn growers — many of them in presidential election battleground states Iowa and Ohio — who continue to support the mandate.

"If not now, when?" Randy Spronk, a Minnesota pork farmer, said of the EPA's authority to defer the ethanol production requirement when it threatens to severely harm the economy of a state or region. "Everyone should feel the pain of rationing."

READ MORE:  http://www.ibj.com/livestock-farmers-still-seeking-pause-in-ethanol-production/PARAMS/article/35989

Man Sentenced to 30 Days for Catching Rain Water on Own Property Enters Jail

CNSNews.com) – Gary Harrington, the Oregon man convicted of collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his rural property surrendered Wednesday morning to begin serving his 30-day, jail sentence in Medford, Ore.

“I’m sacrificing my liberty so we can stand up as a country and stand for our liberty,” Harrington told a small crowd of people gathered outside of the Jackson County (Ore.) Jail.

Several people held signs that showed support for Harrington as he was taken inside the jail.
Harrington was found guilty two weeks ago of breaking a 1925 law for having, what state water managers called “three illegal reservoirs” on his property. He was convicted of nine misdemeanors, sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined over $1500 for collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his property.

READ MORE:  http://cnsnews.com/news/article/man-sentenced-30-days-catching-rain-water-own-property-enters-jail

‘A Big Cherry Picking Exercise’: Skeptics Weigh in on the Latest Global Warming Study

Over the weekend, TheBlaze reported NASA scientist James Hansen, a man who has been called the “godfather of global warming,” issuing a study that found temperature climb experienced over several decades was a solid result of climate change — nothing else. He was also advocating for government action to curb the effects of global warming.

Hansen and his study colleagues determined through statistical analysis of data — not climate modeling techniques — that the extreme temperatures experienced in recent years are so rare that the odds point favorably to it being a result of global warming, not natural trends.

This animation depicts Hansen’s review of surface temperature trends from 1955 through 1999:

READ MORE:  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/a-big-cherry-picking-exercise-skeptics-weigh-in-on-the-latest-global-warming-study/

Opposing view: Natural cycles trigger extremes in weather

The argument that global warming is causing more extreme weather is problematic because it presumes the globe is warming.

• OUR VIEW: Emissions juice the atmosphere

In fact, the global temperature trend line has been stable for more than a dozen years, while carbon dioxide has increased 7%. If CO2 was the driver, then why have global temperatures stopped increasing?

Keep in mind that CO2 represents 0.0395% of the Earth's atmosphere. Arguing that CO2 is driving the small temperature variations in our climate as opposed to the oceans, which cover 70% of the planet and have 1,000 times the heat capacity of air, or the output of our sun, is scientifically disturbing.

Weather is more publicized nowadays because of its impact on society and the constant push of the global warming agenda. Increases in population result in more people being in the path of Mother Nature's fury.

READ MORE:  http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/story/2012-07-31/Joe-Bastardi-WeatherBELL-Analytics/56623728/1

 

Why Fewer Americans Are Starting New Businesses

America may be going out of business when it comes to starting new businesses, according to a recent report.

The study—from the non-profit New America Foundation—argues the U.S. is seriously in danger of losing its entrepreneurial spirit because the number of small business created has been declining since the 1970s.

"Most numbers collected on entrepreneurship haven't reflected the increase in population," says Lina Khan, co-author of the report and a policy analyst for the New America Foundation.

 "We see entrepreneurship declining per person and what figures there are may have over-counted the number of small businesses," Khan says. 

READ MORE:  http://www.cnbc.com/id/48302681

Oregon Man Sentenced to 30 Days in Jail -- for Collecting Rainwater on His Property

(CNSNews.com) –

A rural Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail and over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to collect and use rainwater.

Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal his conviction in Jackson County (Ore.) Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called “three illegal reservoirs” on his property – and for filling the reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.

“The government is bullying,” Harrington told CNSNews.com in an interview Thursday.

“They’ve just gotten to be big bullies and if you just lay over and die and give up, that just makes them bigger bullies. So, we as Americans, we need to stand on our constitutional rights, on our rights as citizens and hang tough. This is a good country, we’ll prevail,” he said.

READ MORE: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/oregon-man-sentenced-30-days-jail-collecting-rainwater-his-property

The Bloom Prophecy

A visit to Siem Reap in 2000, the second largest city in Cambodia, found one poorly paved two lane roadway in the entire city but lots of cell phones.  The developing world skipped the expensive infrastructure cost to develop land line based phone service and went directly to less capital intense cell phone technology.  Developing countries may follow a similar path by deploying more distributed electric generation power to dramatically reduce investment in electric transmission infrastructure.  CRI expects this trend, in part, to cause Bloom Energy to abandon plans to build a fuel cell manufacturing plant in Newark, DE. 

          

India suffers from major electric reliability issues with frequent blackouts everywhere and with no electric access at all for 40% of the population.  This is a major barrier to economic growth as reported in the Indian journal Business Today article “Companies concerned as energy crisis threatens to hit growth”.  India may need a four-fold increase in electric generation capacity by 2025.  We expect expanded use of on-site generation to compensate for these reliability issues.  The most likely fuel is natural gas from new conventional fields being developed off the coast of India near Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and from land fill gas which is just starting to be utilized.  This may open the door for fuel cell generators using natural gas  (recently declared a renewable resource in Delaware for this application) as their feed stock.

READ MORE:  http://www.caesarrodney.org/index.cfm?ref=30200&ref2=312

Amonix closes North Las Vegas solar plant after 14 months, heavy federal subsidies

The Amonix solar manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, subsidized by more than $20 million in federal tax credits and grants, has closed its 214,000-square-foot facility about a year after it opened.

Officials at Amonix headquarters in Seal Beach, Calif., have not responded to repeated calls for comment this week, but the company began selling equipment, from automated tooling systems to robotic welding cells, in an online auction Wednesday.

A designer and manufacturer of concentrated photovoltaic solar power systems, Amonix received $6 million in federal tax credits for the North Las Vegas plant and a $15.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2007 for research and development.

READ MORE:  http://www.lvrj.com/business/amonix-closes-north-las-vegas-solar-plant-after-14-months-heavy-federal-subsidies-162901626.html

Why we should look to the Arctic

Editor's note: Bob Reiss, a former reporter at the Chicago Tribune, is the author of 18 books, including the just published, "The Eskimo and the Oil Man." He can be seen this week on CNN as part of the "Erin Burnett OutFront" series on the Arctic at 7 pm ET. 

(CNN) -- Most Americans think of the Arctic as an icy, distant place; beautiful, remote and teeming with wildlife, but unrelated to their daily lives. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This summer, big doings on America's northern doorstep will have enormous consequences to the economic, strategic and environmental future of the nation. Yet we are unprepared for the challenges and opportunities.

What happens in the Arctic as ice melts there could soon cheapen the cost of the gas you buy and products you purchase from Asia. It could help make the nation more energy independent. It could draw our leaders into a conflict over undersea territory. It is already challenging Washington to protect millions of square miles filled with some of the most magnificent wildlife on Earth, and native people whose culture and way of life is at risk as a squall line of development sweeps across the once inaccessible top of the planet.

READ MORE:  http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/16/opinion/reiss-arctic-drilling/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Alaska sues to block low-sulfur fuel requirement for ships

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The state of Alaska sued the Obama administration on Friday to block environmental regulations that would require ships sailing in southern Alaska waters to use low-sulfur fuel.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, challenges the new federal regulations, which require the use of low-sulfur fuel for large marine vessels such as cargo and cruise ships.

The rule is scheduled to be enforced starting on August 1 by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard for ships operating within 200 miles of the shores of southeastern and south-central Alaska, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit faults the EPA, the Department of Homeland Security and others for using a marine treaty amendment as the basis for the new federal regulations without waiting for ratification of that amendment by the U.S. Senate.

READ MORE:    http://news.yahoo.com/alaska-sues-block-low-sulfur-fuel-requirement-ships-025940611.html

Fairfax County Sues EPA to Challenge Stormwater Rule

 Fairfax County and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) challenging new federal rules related to stormwater runoff in Fairfax County.

The suit was filed today in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division. It challenges the EPA’s recently established rule governing Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) limits for Accotink Creek. The county believes the proposed TMDL limits on stormwater flow provide no reasonable assurance that targets can be attained or that they will correct the underlying problem. Left unchallenged, EPA’s new stormwater rule will require Fairfax County to sharply and substantially reduce all stormwater runoff across the Accotink Creek watershed.  

“Fairfax County has demonstrated a strong and unwavering commitment to water quality and environmental stewardship during the last six decades,” says Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova. “We are absolutely committed to maintaining and improving, water quality in Fairfax County and the Chesapeake Bay.  However, we believe that regulations, whether federally or state imposed, must effectively address the targeted problem and be fiscally sound and realistic.”

READ MORE:  http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/news/2012/updates/fairfax-sues-epa-to-challenge-stormwater-rule.htm 

Tree-rings prove climate was WARMER in Roman and Medieval times than it is now - and world has been cooling for 2,000 years

• Study of semi-fossilised trees gives accurate climate reading back to 138BC
• World was warmer in Roman and Medieval times than it is now

How did the Romans grow grapes in northern England? Perhaps because it was warmer than we thought. 


A study suggests the Britain of 2,000 years ago experienced a lengthy period of hotter summers than today.

German researchers used data from tree rings – a key indicator of past climate – to claim the world has been on a ‘long-term cooling trend’ for two millennia until the global warming of the twentieth century. 


This cooling was punctuated by a couple of warm spells.

These are the Medieval Warm Period, which is well known, but also a period during the toga-wearing Roman times when temperatures were apparently 1 deg C warmer than now.

They say the very warm period during the years 21 to 50AD has been underestimated by climate scientists.

READ MORE:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2171973/Tree-ring-study-proves-climate-WARMER-Roman-Medieval-times-modern-industrial-age.html

Family slugged with 'carbon tax fee' for funeral

A Melbourne family who claim they were slugged an extra $55 "carbon tax charge" when burying a relative were told "even the dead don't escape the carbon tax".

Erica Maliki and her family were burying her father-in-law at Springvale Cemetery when she was told the price per burial plot had increased because of the carbon tax.

Her father-in-law died on June 30, the day before the carbon tax was introduced, and was buried early last week.

"I thought to myself, 'What carbon could possibly be used by putting a man in a grave?'" Ms Maliki said.

READ MORE:  http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8496121

State to streamline agency regulations

Delaware state agencies are preparing to exhaustively review regulations on their books, with town hall-type meetings scheduled to begin downstate in early August.

Gov. Jack Markell, with bipartisan support, ordered the three-month agency reviews last month, signing an executive order that targets regulations approved at least three years ago and calls for burdensome rules to be revised or removed. The regulatory reform effort comes in response to a steady drumbeat from business owners in Delaware and nationwide claiming regulations are an impediment to job growth.


Markell’s order applies to all state agencies that fall under the executive branch, including cabinet departments that oversee tax, environmental and public health regulations.

READ MORE:  http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20120706/NEWS02/307060051/State-streamline-agency-regulations?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|s&nclick_check=1

'Britain's Atlantis' found at bottom of North sea - a huge undersea world swallowed by the sea in 6500BC

• Divers have found traces of ancient land swallowed by waves 8500 years ago
• Doggerland once stretched from Scotland to Denmark
• Rivers seen underwater by seismic scans
• Britain was not an island - and area under North Sea was roamed by mammoths and other giant animals
• Described as the 'real heartland' of Europe
• Had population of tens of thousands - but devastated by sea level rises

'Britain's Atlantis' - a hidden underwater world swallowed by the North Sea - has been discovered by divers working with science teams from the University of St Andrews

Doggerland, a huge area of dry land that stretched from Scotland to Denmark was slowly submerged by water between 18,000 BC and 5,500 BC.

Divers from oil companies have found remains of a 'drowned world' with a population of tens of thousands - which might once have been the 'real heartland' of Europe.

A team of climatologists, archaeologists and geophysicists has now mapped the area using new data from oil companies - and revealed the full extent of a 'lost land' once roamed by mammoths.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2167731/Britains-Atlantis-North-sea--huge-undersea-kingdom-swamped-tsunami-5-500-years-ago.html

Lights go dim on another energy project

A geothermal energy company with a $98.5 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration for an alternative energy project in Nevada — which received hearty endorsements from Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — faces financial problems, and the company’s auditors have questioned whether it can stay in business.

Much like Solyndra LLC, a California solar-panel manufacturer with a $535 million federal loan guarantee that went bankrupt, Nevada Geothermal Power (NGP) has incurred $98 million in net losses over the past several years, has substantial debts and does not generate enough cash from its current operations after debt-service costs, an internal audit said.

“The company’s ability to continue as a going concern is dependent on its available cash and its ability to continue to raise funds to support corporate operations and the development of other properties,” NGP auditors said in a financial statement for the period ending March 31.

READ MORE:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/4/lights-go-dim-on-another-energy-project/

Volt sales far under expectations

GM's Volt sales rise in June

 Washington —General Motors Co. said it sold 1,760 plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt vehicles in June, double what it sold in June 2011.

In the first half of 2012, GM sold 8,817 Volts, more than triple the 2,745 it sold in the same period last year. It already has topped Volt sales for all of 2011, which were about 7,600.

Volt sales have been boosted by California granting solo drivers of the extended-range electric vehicle access to carpool lanes. GM spokesman Jim Cain said 1 in 5 Volts are sold in the Golden State.
GM had 5,300 Volts in stock at the end of June, an 82-day-supply. About 12 percent of Volts this year have been sold to commercial and government fleets.

June sales were up over the 1,680 Volts sold in May.

READ MORE:  http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120703/AUTO0103/207030380/1361/GM%27s-Volt-sales-rise-in-June

 

The Watermelon Summit

An environmentalist is a totalitarian socialist whose real objective is to revive socialism and economic central planning under the subterfuge of "saving the planet" from capitalism. He is "green" on the outside, but red on the inside, and is hence appropriately labeled a "watermelon."

A conservationist, by contrast, is someone who is actually interested in solving environmental and ecological problems and protecting wildlife and its habitat. He does not propose having government force a separation of man and nature by nationalizing land and other resources, confiscating private property, prohibiting the raising of certain types of animals, regulating human food intake, etc. He is not a socialist ideologue who is hell-bent on destroying capitalism. He does not publicly wish that a "new virus" will come along and kill millions, as the founder of Earth First once did. More often than not, he seeks ways to use the institutions of capitalism to solve environmental problems. There is even a new name for such a person: enviropreneur. Or he may call himself a "free-market environmentalist" who understands how property rights, common law, and markets can solve many environmental problems, as indeed they have.

 
READ MORE:  http://mises.org/daily/6089/The-Watermelon-Summit

884 May Be Bloom Energy's Fatal Number

A federal lawsuit has just been filed in Delaware regarding fuel cell maker Bloom Energy, alleging that the company benefited from cronyism and special treatment by the state government. In fact, an analysis of Bloom Energy's own past admissions reveals that "cronyism" may be the least of the company's problems: the "green" energy its generators produce may, in fact, be less efficient, more expensive, and dirtier than that produced by conventional alternatives.

Who is Bloom Energy?  It is a private company, funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, a leading venture capital firm.  Kleiner Perkins has Al Gore on its team, and has Colin Powell as a strategic advisor and independent board member.  Kleiner Perkins sets the pace for what happens on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley. (Editors' note: Bloom Energy failed to return request for comment.)

Bloom Energy provides "green" energy generators that use solid oxide fuel cells. The fuel cell technology used by Bloom Energy has been around for more than fifty years. However, Bloom Energy claims it has improved on its performance, through proprietary breakthroughs in materials science.

Apparently not.

READ MORE:  http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/06/21/884-May-Be-Bloom-Energys-Fatal-Number-Fuel-Cell-Efficiency-Federal-State-Tax-Credits

Markell, PSC sued over Bloom Energy deal

Resident, competitor say state aid for Bloom is discriminatory

A Middletown resident and a Connecticut fuel cell manufacturer have filed suit against Gov. Jack Markell and the Public Service Commission, seeking to invalidate the law passed last year that enables a Bloom Energy factory and electrical projects in Delaware.

John Nichols and FuelCell Energy Inc., of Danbury, Conn., filed suit in U.S. District Court in Delaware on Wednesday, also seeking to invalidate a surcharge for Delmarva Power ratepayers that will subsidize two energy-generating clusters operated by a Bloom subsidiary.


Last year, lawmakers changed state code to allow Delmarva Power to count purchases from Bloom Energy’s solid-oxide fuel cell servers toward its state renewable energy purchase requirements.

After receiving PSC approval, Delmarva agreed to pay for Bloom to put 30 megawatts of its electricity onto the regional grid from two electrical projects in New Castle County.

READ MORE:  http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20120622/BUSINESS06/306220016/Markell-PSC-sued-over-Bloom-Energy-deal?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|p&nclick_check=1

N.C. Senate approves sea level calculation bill

RALEIGH, N.C.

The North Carolina Senate has approved a bill that ignores scientists' warnings of rising sea levels.
Senators approved the bill on a 34-to-11 vote Tuesday. The measure received little fanfare and no senators spoke in opposition to the measure.

The bill now goes back to the House for a vote.

HB 819 says that only the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission can calculate how fast the sea is rising for state governmental purposes and those calculations must be based on historic trends, which are much lower than the science panel's projections.

A state-appointed science panel warned sea levels could rise by more than three feet by 2100 and threaten more than 2,000 square miles of coastal land.

READ MORE:  http://hamptonroads.com/2012/06/nc-senate-approves-sea-level-calculation-bill

How sea level rules would hinder N.C.’s coast

The recent committee approval of House Bill 819 in the state Senate was, as expected, widely criticized by sea level rise “believers.” Members of NC 20, who are labeled “deniers,” are routinely accused of not understanding science and for requesting legislative intervention based purely on economics. Let’s take a look at those accusations.

First, note that fears of global warming and accelerated sea level rise are reminiscent of previous climate change concerns, only in reverse. Newsweek magazine, in the April 28, 1975, edition, in an article entitled “The Cooling World,” warned of “drastic decline in food production” and opined that “resulting famines would be catastrophic” due to global cooling. Foremost among the scientists predicting this doomsday scenario were those from NOAA, the very agency now part of the current doomsday scenario of global warming, massive ice melt and a “hockey stick” sea level rise. If the climate change community was totally wrong 37 years ago, shouldn’t we be a little bit leery of their prediction today of a massive sea level rise 88 years hence?

Second, despite warnings of an accelerating sea level rise, Dr. Robert Dean, professor emeritus at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and his co-author, Dr. James Houston, director emeritus of the Engineer Research and Development Center, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, concluded in a recent paper (which Dean summarized in a recent presentation to NC 20): “The results of all of our analyses are consistent – there is no indication of an overall world-wide sea level acceleration in the 20th Century data. Rather, it appears that a weak deceleration was present.”

READ MORE:  http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/06/20/2147302/how-sea-level-rules-would-hinder.html

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/06/20/2147302/how-sea-level-rules-would-hinder.html#storylink=cpy

EPA blasted for requiring oil refiners to add type of fuel that's merely hypothetical

Federal regulations can be maddening, but none more so than a current one that demands oil refiners use millions of gallons of a substance, cellulosic ethanol, that does not exist.

"As ludicrous as that sounds, it's fact," says Charles Drevna, who represents refiners. "If it weren't so frustrating and infuriating, it would be comical."

And Tom Pyle of the Institute of Energy Research says, "the cellulosic biofuel program is the embodiment of government gone wild."

Refiners are at their wit's end because the government set out requirements to blend cellulosic ethanol back in 2005, assuming that someone would make it. Seven years later, no one has.

"None, not one drop of cellulosic ethanol has been produced commercially. It's a phantom fuel," says Pyle. "It doesn't exist in the market place."

Read more:  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/21/regulation-requires-oil-refiners-use-millions-gallons-fuel-that-is-nonexistent/

Natural Gas a Raging Bull in Its Battle With Coal

For U.S. power plant operators, the economics of natural gas may have already dethroned coal as the nation's key source of electrical power.

Source: AEP AEP’s Philip Sporn coal-fired power plant in West Virginia. It was partially retired in 2011 and is slated to be entirely mothballed by 2016.

"Natural gas is, and is likely to remain, the low-cost option for new generation capacity," says Mark Fulton, managing director of Deutsche Bank's DB Climate Change Advisors.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration, EIA, estimates that nearly 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are recoverable in shale formations, like the Marcellus one that spans New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, significantly boosting national gas reserves to what some estimate is a 100-plus-year supply.

READ MORE:    http://www.cnbc.com/id/47279731

$9 Billion in ‘Stimulus’ for Solar, Wind Projects Made 910 Final Jobs -- $9.8 Million Per Job

(CNSNews.com) –

The Obama administration distributed $9 billion in economic “stimulus” funds to solar and wind projects in 2009-11 that created, as the end result, 910 “direct” jobs -- annual operation and maintenance positions -- meaning that it cost about $9.8 million to establish each of those long-term jobs.

At the same time, those green energy projects also created, in the end, about 4,600 “indirect” jobs – positions indirectly supported by the annual operation and maintenance jobs -- which means they cost about $1.9 million each ($9 billion divided by 4,600).

Combined (910 + 4,600 = 5,510), the direct and indirect jobs cost, on average, about $1.63 million each to produce.

READ MORE:  http://cnsnews.com/news/article/9-billion-stimulus-solar-wind-projects-made-910-final-jobs-98-million-job

Global warming: second thoughts of an environmentalist

Fritz Vahrenholt, one of Germany's earliest green energy investors, is not convinced that humanity is causing catastrophic global warming. 

 

Scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are quite certain: by using fossil fuels man is currently destroying the climate and our future. We have one last chance, we are told: quickly renounce modern industrial society – painfully but for a good cause.

For many years, I was an active supporter of the IPCC and its CO2 theory. Recent experience with the UN's climate panel, however, forced me to reassess my position. In February 2010, I was invited as a reviewer for the IPCC report on renewable energy. I realised that the drafting of the report was done in anything but a scientific manner. The report was littered with errors and a member of Greenpeace edited the final version. These developments shocked me. I thought, if such things can happen in this report, then they might happen in other IPCC reports too.

Good practice requires double-checking the facts. After all, geoscientists have checked the pre-industrial climate, over the past 10,000 years: this isolates natural climate drivers. According to the IPCC, natural factors hardly play any role in today's climate so we would expect a rather flat and boring climate history.

READ MORE:   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9338939/Global-warming-second-thoughts-of-an-environmentalist.html

Women march in Rio to protest 'green economy'

Thousands of women representing social and farm movements marched in central Rio Monday to rail against the "green economy" advocated by the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development.

Behind a large banner from the international peasant movement Via Campesina proclaiming "the peoples are against the mercantilization of nature", they marched several miles to the Flamengo park, the venue for the "People's Summit" organized by civil society groups on the sidelines of the Rio+20 event.
Several hundred men closed off the march to show their solidarity.

Perched atop a truck fitted with loudspeakers, a female activist howled: "This is a march of urban and rural women against this Rio+20 charade."

"No to green capitalism! Yes to an economy based on solidarity, yes to people's sovereignty," she added.

READ MORE:  http://ca.news.yahoo.com/women-march-rio-protest-green-economy-174353168.html

Carbon Corruption

The U.N. is funneling millions of dollars worth of tradable carbon credits to corrupt nations worldwide, including Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Uzbekistan in an attempt to encourage clean energy projects in the developing world.

The U.N. Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is defined in Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol. Western European countries fund energy projects in the developing world in order to obtain Certified Emission Reduction credits (CERs), tradable credits that enable Europeans to count foreign emission reductions towards their own domestic emission reduction targets.

READ MORE:   http://freebeacon.com/carbon-corruption/

Sunday Reflection: The truth about Germany and the 'clean energy economy'

President Obama recently came under fire for referring to "Polish death camps" in a prepared speech, reflecting a certain lack of awareness of matters European. This episode reminded us of something else, of greater concern to U.S. voters: Obama's speechwriters appear to also be unaware that the German media is available online. In English.


It is hard to explain otherwise how they continue sending Mr. Obama out to cite Germany's energy sector as a model for driving America's economic recovery.

Look back to when the candidate and then the new President Obama gave eight speeches touting Spain as the model for his "clean energy economy." As Spanish experts quickly pointed out, Spain's clean energy reality was in fact a disaster, even if this detail was ultimately lost amid a flood of news about the country's broader economic collapse.

This proved terribly embarrassing, and President Obama stopped giving that speech. He did not, however, stop pushing those policies that he claimed were an imitation of Spain's. Apparently assuming yet again that no one would look more closely, Obama now points to Germany as his success story.

READ MORE:   http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2012/06/sunday-reflection-truth-about-germany-and-clean-energy-economy/686896

EPA power grab to regulate ditches, gullies on private property

---

By: Audrey Hudson

Lawmakers are working to block an unprecedented power grab by the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Water Act (CWA) and control land alongside ditches, gullies and other ephemeral spots by claiming the sources are part of navigable waterways.

These temporary water sources are often created by rain or snowmelt, and would make it harder for private property owners to build in their own backyards, grow crops, raise livestock and conduct other activities on their own land, lawmakers say.

“Never in the history of the CWA has federal regulation defined ditches and other upland features as ‘waters of the United States,’” said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the ranking committee member, and Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio), chairman of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.

READ MORE:   http://www.humanevents.com/2012/06/11/epa-power-grab-to-regulate-ditches-gullies-on-private-property/

What's Holding Antarctic Sea Ice Back From Melting?

Global temperatures are increasing. Sea levels are rising. Ice sheets in many areas of the world are retreating. Yet there’s something peculiar going on in the oceans around Antarctica: even as global air and ocean temperatures march upward, the extent of the sea ice around the southern continent isn’t decreasing. In fact, it's increasing.

Sea ice at the other end of the world has been making headlines in recent years for retreating at a breakneck pace. Satellite measurements show that, on average, Arctic sea ice has decreased by four percent per decade since the late 1970s, explained Claire Parkinson, a cryospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who has been tracking the movements of the ice for 30 years. Antarctic sea ice, in contrast, has expanded northward by about 1 percent — the equivalent to 100,000 square kilometers (38,610 square miles) — per decade.

Why is there such a drastic difference in the behavior of the two poles? Scientists from Goddard and the University of Washington, Seattle, recently described three theories — ozone depletion, changing ocean dynamics, and the flooding of sea ice — for what's happening in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica.

READ MORE:  http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/antarctic_melting.html

Boffins: Arctic cooled to pre-industrial levels from 1950-1990

Late 20th century saw polar chill as CO₂ rose

New research by German and Russian scientists indicates that summer temperatures in the Arctic actually fell for much of the later 20th century, plunging to the levels seen at the beginning of the industrial revolution.

The new results are said by their authors to indicate that solar activity exerted a powerful influence over Arctic climate until the 1990s, an assertion which will cause some irritation among academics who contend that atmospheric carbon is the main factor in climate change.

The latest analysis was done using the rings of Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris) from the Khibiny Mountains on the Kola Peninsula, situated between the Arctic Circle and the port of Murmansk. The tree rings were probed by specialist ring boffins at Institut für Botanik at the Universität Hohenheim in Stuttgart, cooperating with colleagues in Russia and at the Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung (UFZ).

READ MORE:  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/02/arctic_treering_cooling_research/