Politics: The Real Manmade Climate Crisis (Secretary Kerry, take note)

By -- March 4, 2013 11 Comments

“Our real manmade climate crisis takes four closely related forms…. Influence peddling…. Politicized science, markets, and ethics… Climate eco-imperialism that impoverishes and kills…. Ready-made excuses for incompetence.”

In his first address as Secretary of State, John Kerry said we must safeguard “the most sacred trust” we owe to our children and grandchildren: “an environment not ravaged by rising seas, deadly superstorms, devastating droughts, and the other hallmarks of a dramatically changing climate.”

But hyperbole is getting stale even for a politician. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and British Meteorological Office now recognize that average global temperatures haven’t budged in almost 17 years. Little evidence suggests that sea level rise, storms, droughts or other weather and climate events or trends display any statistically significant difference from what Earth and mankind have experienced over the last 100-plus years.…

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Climate Alarmism: Our Sanity and Wallets Need a Break

By -- September 15, 2012 16 Comments

“Is there any more single-minded, simple pleasure than viewing with alarm? At times it is even better than sex.”

—Kenneth Boulding (1970), p. 160. [1]

Pick up any 40-year-old science textbook – on chemistry, biology, geology, physics, astronomy or medicine – and you’ll find a slew of “facts” and theories that have been proven wrong or are no longer the “consensus” view. Climatology is no exception.

Yesterday’s  Cooling Scare

Back in the 1970s, many scientists warned of global cooling – and fretted that a new ice age brought on by fossil fuel use would cause glaciers to expand, wreaking havoc. They predicted every conceivable disaster, short of roving herds of wooly mammoths stampeding through ice-covered streets. (The possibility of cloning a well-preserved mammoth could buttress the next scary ice age scenario.)

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New Science Endangers EPA’s “Endangerment Finding"

By Chip Knappenberger -- July 12, 2012 8 Comments

“If the EPA were to have done that with the regulations being proposed here … it is quite likely that their original Endangerment Finding would have to be revised and potentially overturned.”

The public comment period for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed Standards of Performance for Greenhouse Gas Emissions for New Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units closed on June 25, 2012. A number of extensive comments were submitted arguing that the basis of the Endangerment Finding—that human greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations”—has become so outdated as to require a thorough re-assessment.

Strong cases were made that the EPA failed to completely consider new and influential scientific results which have a direct relevance to the impact that climate change as a result of human greenhouse gas emissions may have on the public health and welfare.…

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Ignored Science, Neglected Economics: D.C. Circuit Upholds EPA Greenhouse Gas Rules

By Chip Knappenberger -- June 28, 2012 7 Comments

“The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a decision affirming EPA’s first round of greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations in all respects.”

Last year, I outlined  the case being made against the EPA’s issuance of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions regulations. The case was being brought before the Washington D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by a group of petitioners which have become collectively known as the Coalition for Responsible Regulation, and made up of large number of businesses, business associations and several states. The petitioners argued on several different grounds that the EPA was wrong in the way that it determined that GHGs were an endangerment to the public health and welfare as well as in the manner in which it was going about issuing regulations.

Earlier this week, the Court handed down its decision—a unanimous finding in support of the EPA on virtually all counts.…

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Alarmism or Not? Joe Romm and the 'Crying Wolf' Dilemma

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 1, 2012 23 Comments Continue Reading

Strident Climate Alarmism: Zwick meets Gleick

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 26, 2012 9 Comments Continue Reading

Diminished Climate Alarmism: Lessons from L'Affair Heartland

By Robert Murphy -- March 23, 2012 35 Comments Continue Reading

The Collapsing Case for 'Green' Energy (Berkeley's Borenstein on an intellectual wrong turn )

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 22, 2012 6 Comments Continue Reading

Dear James Hansen: Climate Non-Alarmists Are Intellectually Grounded & Well Intentioned (Sir, are you suffering from a 'fatal conceit'?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 1, 2012 3 Comments Continue Reading

Global Lukewarming: A Great Intellectual Year in 2011

By Chip Knappenberger -- January 19, 2012 40 Comments Continue Reading