Follow the Climate Change money trail
By Loren on Mar 3, 2009 in Uncategorized
For many years it has been obvious that there is a concerted effort to make human induced climate change seem like a left wing whacko plot. One needs look no further than the demonization of former Vice President Al Gore for proof. In some circles the mere mention of his name is a laugh line. His climate group has illuminated the science of climate change and has been targeted for the effort. Yet the preponderance of scientists with Scripps Institution, NOAA, NASA, JPL, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University Corporation for Climate Research, Woods Hole Institution of Oceanography and dozens of other respected research groups generally believe the climate is being changed by human activity. The burning of fossil fuels is chief among those activities.
The money behind the alternative “science” is not easily discoverable but now the trail of dollars from industry and other vested interests being spent on lobbying is available and its here for you to see.
The Center for Public Integrity has farmed the records and compiled the data of the more than 2300 hundred paid lobbyists influencing the climate debate in Congress. There are four climate lobbyists to every member of Congress. 770 companies and interest groups are paying to direct the debate in their best interest. Who are the big spenders? In 2008 the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $62 million on its climate lobbying effort. Exxon-Mobil spent about $25 million, while the Solar Energy Industries Association spent just shy of $2 million, and just one of many coal groups spent around $10 million dollars.
Like I said, there are 770 registered lobbyists pushing climate policy. Some of the lobbyists are well known Democrats, and Republicans, some of the lobbyists are cities and transit boards who see a Federal payday when legislation is sorted out. After you visit the web site and look through the names, I believe you’ll find as I did that the really big bucks being spent are coming from groups hoping to delay this country’s effort to address a problem which is only going to get worse if we wait. Please take a look and share your thoughts. http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/climate_change/
Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.
Again, why are we trying to regulate CO2 as a pollutant?
Here are a few facts about the “pollutant” carbon dioxide–the only “pollutant,” to my knowledge, that is necessary to human, animal and plant life:
First, do you know that carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere is
Þ only slightly more than 1/3rd of 1/10th of 1 percent?
Þ just recovering from the lowest level in the history of the earth?
Þ the source of carbon for all life forms, on land or in the sea?
Þ only slightly above the suffocation level for green plants?
Þ a fraction of the level for which evolution designed plants?
Þ so low as to cause some people breathing problems?
Þ increased by 130 times and more when administered to sick patients?
Þ considered, thanks to Al Gore, a pollutant by the U.S. Supreme Court?
Over the last 350 million years CO2 has varied by 10 fold, approximately 250 ppm to 2,500 ppm with an average level of 1,500 ppm. This average level happens to be the optimum level for plants, it seems by evolutionary design, and is the reason that this level of CO2 is used in greenhouses Since plants and animals evolved together it’s likely that humans also evolved to function best at some higher level. However, at 380 ppm we are not far from the lower end of that 10 fold range.
Bernie Madoff perpetrated a fraud that reportedly cost investors $50 billion. But the damage done by that fraud was trivial compared to the anthropogenic global warming fraud that Al Gore, James Hansen and others have perpetrated.
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In response, on March 6, 2009, redwing said:
Stop repeating conservative rhetoric. I don’t care if global warming is human induced or not, the consequences of not addressing climate change could result in mass flooding and vast species loss. Why risk that? Do your homework and read some academic journals about the subject before you post these types of replies.
Rey | Mar 4, 2009
Human induced climate change is absolute rubbish and those who push it are all making loads of money out of it.(especially Al Gore)It is phony science!
With over 1,500 active volcanoes around the world,emitting all kinds of green house gasses human impact is minimal. Humans could not heat up the planet if they tried.
One would be hard pressed to convince anyone in the northern hemisphere of any global warming after this season’s frigid temperatures, especially in North America and Europe!
Any climate change is purely cyclical and has all happened before, over and over again.
Don’t be fooled by these climate change wackos who all have a private agenda.
Allan Brooker.
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Allan Brooker | Mar 4, 2009
http://cnsnews.com/public/cont.....rcID=44431
“…released on Jan. 28 by Kyle L. Swanson and Anastasios A. Tsonis, who are professors in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, found that the Earth has been cooling since 2001 and projected that due to “global variation” the climate would continue to cool for the next 20 to 30 years.”
Tsonis, the co-author of the study — which received national attention on Tuesday due to two large global warming rallies at the U.S. Capitol building — told CNSNews.com that his work indicated that temperatures had flattened and slightly decreased since 2001 and that, due to natural cycles, temperature would continue to decrease for several decades.
“The temperature has flattened and is actually going down,” Tsonis told CNSNews.com. “We are seeing a new shift towards cooler temperatures that will last for probably about three decades.”
But Tsonis also said that neither he nor Swanson think their study undermines arguments for global warming caused by human activity.
“We are not saying there is not warming due to human activity,” Tsonis told CNSNews.com. ‘We are saying that there are natural shifts on top of that. But, for now, it looks like it is going to cool.”
Tsonis said that currently the natural cycles, which occur in part because of the way oceans interact, are stronger than the influence human activity has on the environment. But when the earth begins to warm again in several decades, he said, the globe could be in trouble because natural warming and man-made warming will occur simultaneously.
“If we have a cooling period before us, let’s take some additional time to push ahead in studies and research,” said Lieberman. “Let’s use that time to find out what is really happening instead of rushing forward with policy decisions that could damage our economy more than they help our environment.”
One of the world’s leading experts on climate change, Dr. William Gray, emeritus professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, has lectured for several years that there has been some global warming over the last 100 years largely due to natural circulation changes in the oceans.
“But the world is not in a climate crisis as Vice President Gore would say,” Gray said a little over a year ago. “We have many other important problems in this world we have to work on. And this is a red herring item that we can’t do anything about anyways. If we vastly cut down on our fossil fuels it would be a drop in the bucket in terms of global temperature change. The Third World – India, China and so on – are going to keep burning these fossil fuels.”
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Rey | Mar 5, 2009
Here’s another.
http://hotair.com/archives/200.....l-warming/
Oh, you skeptics are going to rue the day you doubted global warming! Hot off of NASA’s website, we have undeniable proof of “large-scale global warming,” photographic evidence taken from space that shows the increased temperature generating new, violent storms. Deniers will have to eat some crow over this.
Of course, they’ll first have to talk about the right planet:
For about 300 years Jupiter’s banded atmosphere has shown a remarkable feature to telescopic viewers, a large swirling storm system known as The Great Red Spot. In 2006, another red storm system appeared, actually seen to form as smaller whitish oval-shaped storms merged and then developed the curious reddish hue. Now, Jupiter has a third red spot, again produced from a smaller whitish storm. All three are seen in this image made from data recorded on May 9 and 10 with the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The spots extend above the surrounding clouds and their red color may be due to deeper material dredged up by the storms and exposed to ultraviolet light, but the exact chemical process is still unknown. For scale, the Great Red Spot has almost twice the diameter of planet Earth, making both new spots less than one Earth-diameter across. The newest red spot is on the far left (west), along the same band of clouds as the Great Red Spot and is drifting toward it. If the motion continues, the new spot will encounter the much larger storm system in August. Jupiter’s recent outbreak of red spots is likely related to large scale climate change as the gas giant planet is getting warmer near the equator.
Well, gee …. what could be causing that global warming? Has Exxon-Mobil used its 8.3% profit margin to start refining oil on the solar system’s largest planet? Perhaps Jupiterians have bought too many SUVs over the last few years. Jupiter may also have an epidemic of bovine flatulence causing these storms.
Or, just maybe, the sun has affected Jupiter in a similar fashion as it has Mars and Pluto, and that the negligible warming Earth has experienced comes from the same source.
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Rey | Mar 5, 2009
Loron,
The reason the lobbyists are spending money is because they must…to keep from being taxed to death over the shakey science…disproven by true scientists. You might want to actually read facts. The Artic has recovered from the cyclic melt of 2007…now two years of constant ice gains. The Antarctic is at an all time high in ice extent, especially last year and this year. The polar bears, except in areas of human encrouchment like Alaska, has a larger than ever world population. You might want to at least visit and read world renowned scientists like Anthony Watts http://www.wattsupwiththat.com, or Steve McIntire at http://www.climateaudit.com or thers at http://www.icecap.org. CO2 is .000384 parts of the atmosphere. Loron…go look at the NASA plots of polare ice at http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/daily.html
How long until you stop being biased? You need to look at what the skeptics have shown systematically and with facts about Urban heat islands, bad measurements and falsely presented data by the IPCC and James Hansen. Please…READ! Open your eyes. CO2 is a gas we exhale that makes plants grow. It is NOT poison. Vistit the websites I listed…you owe it to your audience to understand BOTH sides of the debate.
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Jarad Holmes | Mar 5, 2009
Please check out Michael Reilly’s Discovery article, “Global Warming: On Hold?” for a more balanced view on this topic.
Reilly notes that global temperatures have flatlined since 2001. One expert, a Dr. Swanson, states that a cooling trend could continue for up to 30 years. A 30 year cooling would upset former Vice President Gore’s prediction that North Pole will be free of ice within 5 years. It also would upset Dr. Hansen’s view that governments must act in the next 6 years, or the earth is irreversibly ruined by man.
Al Gore gets the Nobel peace prize, but then so did Arafat after becoming the 3rd richest man in the world raping the Palestinian people of all the money that was donated to help them.
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John gaffaney | Mar 5, 2009
Loron, You are obviously supporting the shakey “science” of global warming. YOu need to explore more facts.
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Jarad Holmes | Mar 5, 2009
Sure, CO2 fluctuates throughout are planet’s history–but Look at the methane and nitrous oxide levels that have been increasing at extraordinary rapid rates.
• Global atmospheric methane gas increased 142.2% from 1750 to 1990 (from about
715 parts per billion of the atmosphere [= ppb] to 1732 ppb), then by 2.4%, to 1774
ppb, in 2005.
• Nitrous oxide concentrations increased 18% from 1750 to 2005 (from about 270 ppb
to 319 ppb).
• All three increases far exceed the natural range of the last 650,000 years, as shown in
ice cores and other geological data. -(International Panel on Climate Change)
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Ben | Mar 5, 2009
You sneer at the money spent to refute the wacky claims of the Goracle, yet fail utterly to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on so-called research, to support the hysterical religious dogma of global warming.
· Yes, the climate is getting warmer, and it has been, for several hundred years, since the end of the “Little Ice Age” in about 1800.
· Carbon dioxide levels are increasing, probably due at least in part to human activity – but probably also due to factors unrelated to human presence.
· Humans evolved in carbon dioxide levels much higher than those today.
· High carbon dioxide levels increase crop yields and enhance food production.
· There is no actual scientific evidence that alteration of human activities will have any effect on future earth climate. These dire predictions are nothing but speculations based upon mathematical models of climate effects, none of which have been shown even to be able to predict what is happening today, let alone 100 years from now.
If you can predict with such certainty what is going to happen to the climate in 100 years, how come you can’t even tell us whether it will rain later this week?!
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Topnife | Mar 5, 2009
This US Climate Map October 2007-November 2008 showed that temperatures were well below normal throughout the US in 2008.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/c.....ank_pg.gif
Redwing, no conservative rhetoric here. Just, you know, actual science that has not been co-opted by grant money and the promise of polical power. Where do you think I’m finding this information? Loren has challened us to find the data and it’s out there if you’re not closed minded. Don’t just swallow The Goracle’s scam without question. Heck, not even Al Gore will accept a challenge to discuss or debate the junk science his whole program is based on.
http://www.knx1070.com/A-Heate.....cs/3973906
Former Vice President Al Gore repeated his message that climate change is a planetary emergency at the WSJ’s Eco:nomics conference in California. The Nobel-prize winner declined to take any questions from reporters, but he did receive a couple of challenges from attendees, including Bjorn Lomborg. But don’t expect Mr. Gore to debate the merits of how best to tackle climate change anytime soon.
Mr. Gore stuck to his prepared script about the urgency of taking action to curb global greenhouse-gas emissions, down to well-worn phrases he trots out at conferences across the country: America is at “a political tipping point” on climate change, and even if Washington has failed to address the energy challenge in the last 35 years, “political will is a renewable resource.”
But he was challenged by Mr. Lomborg, the Danish skeptical environmentalist who thinks the world would be better off spending more money on health and education issues than curbing carbon emissions.
“I don’t mean to corner you, or maybe I do mean to corner you, but would you be willing to have a debate with me on that point?” asked the polo-shirt wearing Dane.
“I want to be polite to you,” Mr. Gore responded. But, no. “The scientific community has gone through this chapter and verse. We have long since passed the time when we should pretend this is a ‘on the one hand, on the other hand’ issue,” he said. “It’s not a matter of theory or conjecture, for goodness sake,” he added.
As an example, he pointed to a new addition to the budget for the island nation of the Maldives: “Funds to buy a new nation.”
What’s he afraid of…being proven to be a fraud?
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Rey | Mar 6, 2009
Credible scientists convince me it is human-induced. However, the bottom line: Whether it is human-induced or not, humans are the only ones who can reduce pollutants that go into our atmposphere. Regardless of which side you are on, who could disagree that aggressively reducing pollution/emissions is a good thing?
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Bill | Mar 6, 2009
More evidence;
http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2.....html?email
The deep cold that gripped eastern Canada this winter has turned three of the Great Lakes into sheets of ice and is threatening the shipping industry with a late startup date.
Lakes Superior, Huron and Erie have all frozen over for the first time in years, says the Canadian Ice Service of Environment Canada.
The freezing of the Great Lakes happens about once a decade. The last time was in 1994, according to Ice Service records, and it was 1982 before that.
Lake Erie, the shallowest of the lakes, often freezes from shore to shore. But Superior and Huron are both among the world’s five largest lakes, and don’t freeze over often because their enormous volumes of water rarely get cold enough.
Lake Ontario is relatively deep so it rarely freezes over. It is mostly open water today.
Lake Michigan, the only one of the five Great Lakes entirely in the United States, has ice covering one-third of its surface.
But, despite the myriad of evidence against the global warming hoax, the media and politicians continue to cling to their junk science.
Business and Media Institute reported:
http://www.businessandmedia.or.....30950.aspx
Temperatures have plummeted to record or near-record lows in 32 states this winter. On March 2, a global warming protest in Washington, D.C. was buried by nearly a foot of snow. And a new study warns that the Earth could be in for a 30-year cooling trend. Reality is not cooperating with the network news’ global warming theme, yet reporters are unwilling to even discuss the possibility that the Earth is cooling.
Global warming alarmists repeatedly link weather phenomena like tornadoes, hurricanes, ice melt, droughts and wildfires with global warming and the media embrace the stories. Yet, when cities or regions are buried in snow like the city of Chenzhou, China was in February 2008 there wasn’t a word about climate change in the cooling direction.
“It is being called China’s Hurricane Katrina,” NBC anchor Brian Williams said on Feb. 4, 2008. “… the month of blizzards that have brought it [China] to a virtual standstill. Millions have been stranded. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless.” Williams didn’t chalk up the devastation to global cooling, of course. That doesn’t fit the media’s warming narrative.
James Hansen, a leading global warming alarmist, promoted a “civil disobedience” protest at a Washington, D.C. coal power plant March 2. The protestors claim that coal – and its carbon emissions are a cause of global warming. Hansen and his friends were greeted with 8 inches of snow, “strong” winds and below freezing temperatures.
I could keep this up! Like on the “X-Files”, the truth is out there.
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Rey | Mar 6, 2009
Well finally…the main media has recognized the scam. With Lake Superior freezing over for the second time in 10 years (usually it is once every twenty years)…the Boston Globe is now starting to reveal what thousands of sceintists have been shushed about: Global warming is a sham/scam that makes Al Gore rich and lends grant money to fear mongers. Ask Loron about his credentials as a meteorologist if he continues to present his opinion about global warming…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/200.....#more-6072
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Jarad Holmes | Mar 8, 2009
Laure, I use to like you, but this is beginning to make me a bit testy! Do we have to fee guilty about everything? I say let those who are of a mind, let them use the Sears catalog as in the old days, and those of us with tender tushes have soft tp. Free market so to speak!
If I remember correctly, your first question for the listeners was :Why does everyone hae the environmentalists?” Now I know!
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In response, on March 12, 2009, redwing said:
Pamela, Lauren is presenting the notion that you can have your cake and eat it too. There are “environmentally friendly” brands of toilet paper that cater to the “tender tushes” but are also environmentally sound. You cannot deny that the rapid rate of deforestation and desertification is good? These mindless forms of mining the environment need to stop. We are not using our ingenuity to utilize the “green” technology that we currently have. I think you should do a little bit more research about the subject before you make the wild claim that “everyone hates the environmentalists”.
Pamela Bailey | Mar 11, 2009
In yet another show of environmental hypocrisy:
Do as I say, not as I do? Seems like former Vice-President Al Gore may be embracing that motto as evidenced Saturday night with the environmentalist’s failure to turn off the lights of his Nashville home for “Earth Hour.”
Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research —the same organization that also found Gore’s home consumes 20 times more electricity than the average household — told Yeas & Nays that Gore’s Belle Meade-section mansion did not go dark during the global campaign’s designated hour between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Johnson did admit that although it wasn’t as bright as can be, Gore did have on “a dozen or so” floodlights on his trees, a light shining on his address number, and a noticeable “bluish glow” from his powered-on televisions and computers coming from inside his house.
“It was very noticeable compared to the fact that even the streetlights on his street were off for the hour,” Johnson said. He also added how ironic it was that Nashville was one of the “official” U.S. cities of “Earth Day.”
I wonder whether the other Earth Hour celebrants are now cringing in fear that Mother Gaia did not get fully appeased by their sacrifice this weekend. The cult of nature worship lost one of its chief priests! Quick, find an SUV for a burnt offering!
It doesn’t appear that Gore even attempted to cut back. Why does Gore need floodlights for his trees? I mean, for any day, let alone during Earth Hour? A man who makes sure his trees get enough light should hardly scold people on energy usage for such frivolities as heat and food refrigeration. Maybe Gore will buy enough carbon credits to offset the tree lights and the TV. Of course, since he owns the trading firm, he’s paying it to himself.
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In response, on March 31, 2009, redwing said:
Rey, you conveniently failed to mention that Gore doesn’t contribute to any city power grid. All of his energy is created on his ranch…Any electricity he wastes was electricity that he created through photovoltaics.
In response, on April 1, 2009, Rey said:
I thought the point of the event was to show support for energy-saving efforts, and thus “save the planet” efforts, by not using power for that hour?
If that WAS the point, then Mr. Gore missed it. Are you excusing his hypocrisy?
As to those photo-voltaic cells, those work very well…in sunlight. The floodlights, montors and and screens obsereved are notorious power hogs. I doubt he has a battery capacity enough to power them all night long, hence, the need to have power from the grid, but I could be wrong about battery/inverter capacity.
Funny… Al Gore’s mansion uses many times more energy than even George Bush’s Crawford, TX ranch. Bush’s former house had true geothermal power, solar, etc… and used less than the average american’s use of ‘on the grid’ electric, gas, etc.
I bet you NEVER read that in the media!!!
Al’s uses 10-20 % more.
Go figure.
In response, on April 1, 2009, Rey said:
Before I forget, because I know you are curious about the Bush house comment, just do a Google, or other, search for “George W Bush - Crawford House”. The best description comes up in the snopes link. Even Loren would be proud. The level at which the house is in-tune with the enviornment is amazing.
Rey | Mar 30, 2009
Do the research. We are now in a period of global cooling, and have been for several years. How are we going to justify taxing carbon dioxide to regulate global warming? I have faith in the AGW agenda, the ends justify the means.
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Juan | Apr 28, 2009