[Ed. note: This post complements that of Ken Green earlier this week, Five Climate Questions for Richard Muller (Temperature findings begin, not end, the real debate)]

The recent announcement of the results of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) Project by project chairman Richard Muller has caused quite a stir. True believers in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) have greeted it as the final nail in the coffin of dissent. Why? Because it concludes—take a deep breath, now—that “Global warming is real.”

Jumping to Conclusions

At the Washington Post, for example, opinion writer Eugene Robinson states:

For the clueless or cynical diehards who deny global warming, it’s getting awfully cold out there.

The latest icy blast of reality comes from an eminent scientist whom the climate-change skeptics once lauded as one of their own.

The numbers are in for this year’s summer sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean. By most measures the ice loss in 2011 came in a close second to the current and still record holder, 2007.

But the failure to set a new record for the least amount of summer Arctic sea ice observed during the satellite era (which begins in 1979) has done little to alter the overall picture of what is going on there. Summer sea ice has been in decline in the Arctic Ocean since, conservatively, the mid-20th century, and it has been picking up steam. And sea ice declines in the Arctic are now pretty clearly discernible in the other seasons as well. (What has been going on around Antarctica is a different story).

But for those who lose sleep at night over the implications of the Arctic sea ice loss to both the local, regional, and global environments, there is a silver lining.…

Pierre Desrochers is a scholar’s scholar. His prolific research, writing, and teaching facilitate our own research and learning. His reference and use of some of our work is a vindication of sorts.

I recently encountered Professor Desrochers syllabus for Energy and Society, a course that he is currently teaching at the University of Toronto Mississauga.  Wow! Lucky are his students; this course is a model for its subject for North American and far beyond.

Desrochers sets out three main objectives for this course:

• To cover the basic physical, technical and economic issues related to energy use;
• To cover broadly the history of energy development and use;
• To introduce students to past debates and current controversies.

He describes the course as follows:

The development of new energy sources has had a major impact on the development of both human societies and the environment.

“The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”

– Henry Hazlitt, “The Lesson,” Economics in One Lesson. (1946, et seq.)

Solyndra’s impending liquidation, replete with 1,100 layoffs and U.S. taxpayer liabilities in excess of a half billion dollars, has put so-called green jobs initiative of the Obama Administration in negative light.

But make no mistake: recent loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy to new solar projects to beat a September 30th funding cutoff is business-as-usual as the foes of oil, gas, and coal desperately seek business traction for an uneconomic energy.

From Climate Alarmism to ‘Green’ Jobs

With unemployment on the rise and new jobs scarce, politicians are keen to create employment, at least the visible kind that they can sum up for the public.…