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