James Hansen: Climate change akin to ’slavery’ and ‘Nazism’
November 30, 2009
Eric Berger
Houston Chronicles

James Hansen: Climate change akin to ’slavery’ and ‘Nazism’

Below is a snippet from the interview I conducted with prominent climate scientist James Hansen in advance of his visit to Houston next Monday.

I’ll have a comprehensive transcript of the 40-minute in the morning, complete with a dozen or so questions sent in by readers.

Q. I gather from what you were saying earlier about the bills in Congress, you feel the same about President Obama’s proposal for a 17 percent reduction in climate emissions by 2020.

A. Yeah. Obama is a very smart person and the hope was that he would try to understand this problem. But instead his approach seems to be, “Oh let the politicians, let the House and Senate come to some sort of compromise on this.” But this is not something you can compromise on.
Hansen

This is analogous to the situation Abraham Lincoln faced with slavery, or Winston Churchill with Nazism. You can’t compromise and say we’ll reduce the number of slaves by 50 percent or something.

Houston Chronicles-James Hansen: Climate change akin to ’slavery’ and ‘Nazism’

Trying to trivialize slavery and Holocaust. Last time I checked, Nazis were leftist, like those Green Freaks. I swear Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a religion to those people. They are really fanatical about it.

So you thought smoking cigarettes was bad for your health? Try living next to a coal-fired power plant.

That’s the diagnosis Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) relayed to the public in a comprehensive medical study released on November 18, called Coal’s Assault on Human Health. In it, the organization, comprised of physicians and public health experts, claims that coal pollutants damage every major organ in the human body and contributes to four of the top five leading causes of death in the United States.

Not since NASA’s James Hansen rang the global warming alarm about coal’s major contribution to climate change has there been a more dire call to shut down coal operations in the United States. It is not simply about cleaning up the coal process; it is about halting its production altogether in order to immediately save lives.

At every stage in its life cycle, coal can negatively impact human health, from mining operations, cleaning, transportation to burning and disposing of the combustion waste. PSR reports that many Americans are being affected daily by coal and the exposure is contributing to horrible health problems; heart attacks, lung cancer, strokes, asthma among others.

“The findings of this report are clear: while the U.S. relies heavily on coal for its energy needs, the consequences of that reliance for our health are grave,” said Dr. Alan H. Lockwood, a principal author of the report and a professor of neurology at the University at Buffalo.

Recently CoalSwarm*, an environmental group that monitors coal issues, released a list of 126 coal-fired power plants that are surrounded by 10,000 people or more living within a three-mile radius. Most of these hundreds of thousands of Americans are being exposed to deadly coal particulates without even knowing it.

The majority of the plants are not equipped with the most up to date sulfur dioxide (S02) reduction equipment, which contributes to lung and heart disease. However, instead of upgrading this technology on coal burners, which can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, a growing number of activists in the Climate Change movement are pushing for facilities to be closed instead, for the upgrades are essentially prolonging the life of plants that are still polluting in many other ways.

The Obama administration does not seem to be listening. Last June the Department of Energy poured $1 billion into relaunching FutureGen, a project that intends to show how a plant can capture carbon emissions.

“The FutureGen project holds great promise as a flagship facility to demonstrate carbon capture and storage at commercial scale,” U.S Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said at the time. “Developing this technology is critically important for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. and around the world.”

Chu espouses the notion that coal can be clean, but the FutureGen endeavor, like all other “clean coal” projects, is greenwashing at its dirtiest.

Whenever coal is burned it releases numerous toxins and these pollutants have to go somewhere. If not into the air they will be have to be captured and buried underground, most likely in communities that do not have the resources to fight the coal waste depositories.

Indeed, the coal industry is spending $35 million annually to promote their clean-coal technology, which at this point is nothing more than an advertising motto conjured up by highly paid PR firms.

However, the money coal companies are spending, not only on public relations but also on lobbying, seem to be paying off. The current climate legislation hurtling its way through Congress is laden with huge subsidies for the coal industry.

Last May, when the House of Representatives released a version of the climate bill it became clear in which direction the law was heading. In Section 114 of the draft, the coal lobby was able to shore up $11 billion over the next 10 years in a new carbon tax that coal companies would collect and then spend through a private corporation they operate and control. The money would finance, not renewable energy sources, but new coal-fired power plants.

While politicians and industry folks believe coal ought to be a part of our energy future, others admittedly disagree.

The PSR report is a ringing call that our current addiction to dirty coal is not only unsustainable and a major source of global warming pollution, it is also extremely deadly to human life. No matter how much money the coal industry throws at the issue, either in an attempt to mitigate coal’s contribution to health problems or to have us believe that coal can be “clean” — people are dying, approximately 24,000 every single year.

“These stark conclusions leave no room for doubt or delay,” says Kristen Welker-Hood, PSR’s director of environment and health programs. “The time has come for our nation to establish a health-driven energy policy that replaces our dependence on coal with clean, safe alternatives. Business as usual is extracting a deadly price on our health. Coal is no longer an option.”

*This author has contributed research to CoalSwarm.

Joshua Frank is the author of “Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush” (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of Red State Rebels: “Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland.”

Let’s reminisce about the previous Steve McIntyre triumph, when he force NASA’s eco-moonbat James Hansen to admit that there were errors in NASA’s data.

This Townhall.com article by Amanda Carpenter has an interview with McIntyre.

Here’s the story summary:

Despite the fact that NASA tried to block him from accessing U.S. temperature data, persistent efforts by a climate change blogger forced the government to amend U.S. temperature data.

Because of the blogger’s efforts, NASA now recognizes 1934 as the hottest year in U.S. history, not 1998.

[...]Now, the ten hottest years on record in the U.S., beginning with the hottest year, are: 1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938 and 1939. Before the revision, that list read: 1998, 1934, 2006, 1921, 1931, 1999, 1953, 2001, 1990 and 1938. The re-ranking completely knocked 2001 off the top 10 list.This U.S. temperature revision could cause problems for former Vice President Al Gore. Assisted by Hansen, Gore asserted in his global warming film “An Inconvenient Truth” that nine of the ten hottest years in U.S. history occurred since 1995.

[...]According to McIntyre, when he began downloading data from NASA’s website to compare the adjusted and the raw data from the polling stations, “this led to a bit of a fight with NASA in May. As I started downloading the data in sequence they cut off my access to the data.”

“They blocked my IP address,” McIntyre said.

[...]“After I was blocked and I explained myself they still didn’t want to let me have access to the data,” McIntyre lamented.

He continued: “They just said go look at the original data. And I said no, I want to see the data you used. I know what the original data looks like. I want to see the data that you used. But one of the nice things about having a blog that gets a million and half hits a month is that I then was able to publicize this block in real-time and they very quickly withdrew their position and allowed me to have access.”

When he got the data, McIntyre then compared the raw and adjusted data sets for all 1200 U.S. weather stations. “Probably 75 percent of the stations had jumps of at least a quarter degree in the year 2000,” he said.

One of the people who comments here occasionally e-mailed me this week to chastise me in response to the leaked CRU e-mails by saying that 9 of the 10 hottest years on record occurred recently. So the true believers are undaunted by the discovery that this whole mess is fraudulent – they just keep right on having blind faith in the teeth of scientific evidence. They hate science and want to remain in the Dark Ages. This commenter also believes in an eternal universe, an unobservable multiverse, etc.

You can’t tell the players without a program:

Could this be what triggers the final unraveling of the global warming myth? Is this the beginning of the end for the environmentally hysterical? Since a decade of cooling temperatures hasn’t done the trick, and the fact that there isn’t a stitch of evidence proving that rising CO2 levels cause rising temperatures, could this possibly be what sends this fairy-tale trolly off the rails?

Theoretically, you’d think this is one story that just couldn’t be ignored by the mainstream media. Even the most hard-nosed skeptic would have to concede that this juicy little ditty is alphabet-channel newsworthy.

I must therefore tip my hat to the Washington Post who actually put on its journalism shoes yesterday.

They decided to report on the big computer security breach that resulted in over a thousand e-mails and some seventy-two documents being stolen (and made public) from the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climatic Research Centre in Britain on Thursday – one of the foremost climate research facilities in the world.

The hacking of a major institution’s computer system is always good for a mention or two on the evening news, but what makes this story so delicious is that it goes beyond the run-of-the-mill cyber-invasion. This is actually an attack on global warming itself – and for doomsday environmental zealots, that’s a shot at the jugular.

The stolen documents (specifically the e-mails) are proving to be rather embarrassing, and quite damning, to those who authored them. And it just so happens that the authors happen to be some of the leading proponents of man-made global warming in all the world.

We’re talking the global warming big boys: James Hansen, Phil Jones, Michael Mann and Keith Briffa (among others).

The words “manipulation” and “deception” come to mind.

From the Washington Post:

While few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world’s climate — nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded the evidence was unequivocal — public debate persists. And the newly disclosed private exchanges among climate scientists at Britain’s Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack, and eager to punish its enemies.

In one e-mail, the center’s director, Phil Jones, writes Pennsylvania State University’s Michael E. Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the prestigious IPCC report, which represents the global consensus view on climate science.

“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report,” Jones writes. “Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

Isn’t that delightful?

Thus, it makes perfect sense when the believers of a planet on the brink of doom due to man-made global warming look directly into the cameras, hold up the IPCC report, and say there is scientific consensus on the matter. How could there not be when they deliberately leave out the work of others who refute or question it? These are the same hysterical global-warming intellectuals who go out of their way to blackball or shun those with opposing points of view  – or at least those who think more debate is reasonably appropriate. As a result, those who dare to question man-made global warming are omitted from scientific journals and publications altogether.

In other words, if the trouble-making crowd can be pushed off into the scientific hinterlands, they can’t get in the way of forwarding the agenda.

In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. “Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal,” Mann writes.

“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor,” Jones replies.

Positively incredible.

These are supposed to be scientists, mind you – not a group of pre-teen girls deciding who will or won’t be part of their “club.”

But the Washington Post doesn’t go far enough.

For example, according to Tom Wigley (climate scientist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research), in an e-mail to Phil Jones, there is a problem with some of the temperature readings from the 1940s. There is a temperature “blip,” as he calls it, that apparently does not conform properly to the man-made global-warming theory. It is problematic enough that adjustments need to be made. The “blip” must be resized.

Although a tad technical in some spots, the gist of the e-mail is clearly understood:

Phil, Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know). So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip.

I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are 1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips — higher sensitivity plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from. Removing ENSO does not affect this.

It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”.

Silly me, I wasn’t aware that scientists could retroactively adjust data to meet the desired models.

John Hinderacker at the great Power Line blog comments:

This and many other emails convey the impression that these theorists are making the “science” up as they go along, with data being manipulated until it yields the results that have been predetermined by political conviction.

Touché.

And make no mistake about it … this is, indeed, a scandal. Whether or not the rest of the mainstream media decides it is worth their time is another story.

Still, there is a whole lot of information to tap into here: From e-mails suggesting that some data would be better off deleted than subjected to public scrutiny, to (as Rob at Say Anything writes) “attempts to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests aimed at getting some of this information disclosed so that it could be reviewed by objective experts,” this one seems to have legs … or so you’d think.

Of course, if the debate wasn’t already over, this could be real trouble.

-

A few days ago I mentioned the 350 Event happening in Singapore tomorrow. Well, since then it’s been through the government approval mechanism. I’ve got no idea why people accuse us of being a tight, screwed-down, soulless nation, really I don’t.

Anyway, here it is again with the edits:

It seems aerial photography is our new thing. We had Pink Dot a while ago, and now it’s time to let the top of your head shine to support climate change.

It happens on Saturday 24 October and it sounds like a fun is a day out.

Starting at 8am at the Padang Hong Lim Park, the organisers are hoping hundreds will gather to form the number ‘350′. That’s followed at 10am by a Wacky Walkathon from the Padang Hong Lim Park to SMU. Loosen up and channel your inner-clown. Face painting and costumes are encouraged, and weird walking styles are expected. I’ve done my fair share of schleps down Orchard Road, so I know strange walking behaviour shouldn’t be a stretch for a lot of people. No costumes, placards or unusual walking styles are allowed on the Walkathon.

Then there’s a bunch of activities food, prizes and information booths at SMU to enjoy.

Why ‘350′? A year ago James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climatologists, and his team at NASA produced a landmark series of studies. They showed that 350 parts CO2 per million in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity.

Right now we’re at 390! That’s nasty news and I think we all know we’re starting to see and feel the results of that around us.

But the good news is that we can pull it down if we try. The CO2 level is not permanent, it goes up with our actions and it can come down with our actions.

Surely you don’t have anything better to do on a Saturday morning than whoop it up in a wacky walk with hundreds of others. You won’t have that much fun reading the papers or starting your weekend chores.

More information here. here.

The notice I received said “Below is the program as well as guidelines for participation. Kindly reply to this email to acknowledge that you are aware of and agree to all the terms.“, so you may wish to sign it early to avoid delays on the day. Email here to agree to the following:

Guidelines

1. Please be punctual. The nearest MRT to Hong Lim Park is Clarke Quay station.
2. You may choose to participate in only the Aerial Photo and/ or the Walkathon.
3. A certificate of participation will be given out at Hong Lim Park.
4. Please dress comfortably and bring drinking water.
5. For the Walkathon segment, costumes and placards are strictly not allowed.
6. When walking from Hong Lim Park to SMU, please respect all traffic regulations and allow space for pedestrians who are not engaged in the Walk.
7. Marshals will be stationed at every traffic junction to ensure safety.

And remember kids, safe fun is good fun!

It seems aerial photography is our new thing. We had Pink Dot a while ago, and now it’s time to let the top of your head shine to support climate change.

It happens on Saturday 24 October and it sounds like a fun day out.

Starting at 8am at the Padang, the organisers are hoping hundreds will gather to form the number ‘350′. That’s followed at 10am by a Wacky Walk from the Padang to SMU. Loosen up and channel your inner-clown. Face painting and costumes are encouraged, and weird walking styles are expected. I’ve done my fair share of schleps down Orchard Road, so I know strange walking behaviour shouldn’t be a stretch for a lot of people.

Then there’s a bunch of activities at SMU to enjoy.

Why ‘350′? A year ago James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climatologists, and his team at NASA produced a landmark series of studies. They showed that 350 parts CO2 per million in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity.

Right now we’re at 390! That’s nasty news and I think we all know we’re starting to see and feel the results of that around us.

But the good news is that we can pull it down if we try. The CO2 level is not permanent, it goes up with our actions and it can come down with our actions.

Surely you don’t have anything better to do on a Saturday morning than whoop it up in a wacky walk with hundreds of others. You won’t have that much fun reading the papers or starting your weekend chores.

More information here.

I originally wrote and published this piece in June of 2008 under the title “The Cat Is On The Roof – This Joke is at YOUR Expense…”

Today, on this very special Blog Action Day Creative Greenius, I take you back to June of 2008 and ask you: What the hell have YOU been doing for the past 15 months?  Worried about your finances and the crash of the economy?  That ain’t nothing compared to what’s on tap for you next.

You woke up to a house on fire, and you best stop thinking that smell is coffee.

In the 15 months that have passed since I wrote the following, ALL the climate change news has gone from bad, to worse, to much worse than that.  Things have gotten so seriously dire with the acceleration of climate change that I took a leave of absence from my professional career and have been working full time pro bono as a community organizer and climate change activist.

For the past three months I’ve been working night and day as the Chairman of the South Bay Los Angeles 350 Climate Action Group.  We’re staging the largest climate action in the history of Southern California right on the beach next to the pier in Manhattan Beach on October 24 – the International Day of Climate Action.

I’m acting because blogging on these issues, as I have done for over two years now, is just not enough anymore.  When you read this piece you’ll see I pulled no punches and told it the way it is a full 15 months ago.  This 350 stuff may be new to you, and every newspaper you’re reading and every TV news report you’ve seen, but not to me.   But being right doesn’t mean squat if nobody gets up off their ass to do something about it.

Today, we all need to be out on the front lines physically fighting for our own survival. More importantly we are obligated to help change the course of the certain hell and high water that is coming for anyone under 30 years old .   And if you think that’s an exaggeration, then I’m afraid you just don’t know what you’re talking about and that makes YOU not just a big part of the problem, that makes you dangerous to our future well being.  Ignorance is no longer a valid excuse in post-Bush America.

The truth is George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are nothing short of climate criminals who should be in prison right now.  We have the evidence today that they engaged in the single most traitorous act ever perpetrated against the United States of America. They deliberately suppressed and illegally covered up the EPA’s 2007 ENDANGERMENT FINDING that said the government should begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions because global warming posed serious risks to the country.

This is the biggest sellout of the population in the history of this country.

And a lot of us made a BFD out of it at the time, but not enough of you were listening.  Too many of you were counting your money and shopping for crap.  And the people you WERE listening too didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.  Like the mainstream media.

I’m not going to kid you, I DO know what I’m talking about, and I have for a while now.  It comes with the territory.

So come along and take a time travel trip with me in the Wayback machine to June 2008 and see what some of us were trying to tell you over a year ago.

Then take a look in the mirror and ask yourself – “What am I made of? How long can I ignore reality and let the whole house burn down all around me and my family before I turn the TV off and do the right thing?”

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

There’s an old joke that most of us baby boomers first heard when we were kids. Here’s the version I remember hearing in New Jersey:

A man goes on vacation and his brother agrees to housesit for him — feeding the cat, picking up the newspapers and mail, watering the plants, etc. After the first week goes by the vacationing brother phones to check in.

“I’m sorry bro,” his brother at the house tells him almost immediately, “but your cat died.”

“What!? What do you mean my cat died?! How could you tell me like this? What kind of insensitive creep are you!? You need to prepare someone for a shock like that!” exclaims the vacationing brother.

“How was I supposed to prepare you?” asks the man.

“Well,” says the brother, “first you should have told me, the cat is on the roof. Then you should have said, but don’t worry, we’re calling the fire department. Then the next time I called in to check you should have said, the fire department was doing everything it could and not to worry.

Then the next time I called you could tell me that the cat had fallen, but not to worry — the vet was doing everything she could to resuscitate him. Then, finally, after all that, you could have told me, my cat had died. That’s how you break news like that.”

“You’re right, bro, I’m sorry. I should have been more sensitive first,” said the housesitting brother, who really did feel bad about it at this point.

His vacationing brother on the phone was quickly forgiving, “That’s okay. I understand. So anyway, how’s everything else? How’s mom doing?”

“Mom?” says the man, “Mom is on the roof….”

Guess what? Right now, here in 2008 the cat is on the roof for global warming.

If that’s too Al a Gore-ical for you then understand this – we have already reached the emergency landing point of our flight. That tipping point you’ve been hearing about? It’s here.

“We’re toast if we don’t get on a very different path,”

James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press Monday.

“This is the last chance.”

Is that clear enough for you? Are you getting the sense of urgency? Still think you’ve got your priorities in order?

You’d think news like this would be big enough to dominate the cable news networks for at least a few days like say a kid who fell down a well. You’d be wrong. The death of Tim Russert is apparently a much bigger story than the death of the planet. Who knew?

“Elements of a ‘perfect storm,’ a global cataclysm, are assembled,”

said Dr. Hansen this same week testifying to Congress and that’s not all he said.

“…now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb.”

Dr. Hansen is giving us 12 months to get our act together:

“The next President and Congress must define a course next year in which the United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility for the present dangerous situation. Otherwise it will become impractical to constrain atmospheric carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas produced in burning fossil fuels, to a level that prevents the climate system from passing tipping points that lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity’s control.”

Dr. Hansen goes on to say:

“The disturbing conclusion, documented in a paper I have written with several of the world’s leading climate experts, is that the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is no more than 350 ppm (parts per million) and it may be less. Carbon dioxide amount is already 385 ppm and rising about 2 ppm per year.”

The world’s climatologists have already offered undisputed evidence of irreversible punishments to come, including huge risings of sea levels and massive changes in rainfall patterns, among them. If you’re feeling the impact of today’s $5 a gallon gas and rising food prices and worried about the dropping equity in your home then wait till you see what’s coming in your immediate future. You don’t need to be physic to know that these are slated to be the good old days that you will wistfully pine for just a few years from now.

Your Creative Greenius isn’t trying to scare you so much as I am trying to slap you hard across your face -a la Cher to Nicholas cage in Moonstuck – and help you to “Snap out of it!” You don’t have the time or luxury to wait for someone else to come to the rescue. You need to strap it on and report for duty. YOU are the one you’ve been waiting for. But you better not be too patient with yourself because we don’t have time for you to put on your makeup and get ready.

Let me help you with the perspective here… that terrorist threat from Al Queda and all the other terrorist groups in the world? It’s less than a pimple on a flea compared to the reality of the global warming risk we’re facing today. That killer earthquake California has coming that’s long over due? A short jog through the park compared to what our retirement years and the rest of century will be like. don’t be looking for FEMA to bail you out.

So what steps should you take right now? How can you possibly make any kind of difference? Just what the hell is the Creative Greenius trying to motivate you into doing?

TUNE IN – Get up to speed on what’s really going on and stop pretending it’s all going to be okay without you – it won’t. You’ve got to make the time and do your homework. This is a pass fail class and you won’t like the consequences of getting an F.

TURN ON – Turn your friends, your family, your co-workers, your neighbors, anyone that pays attention to you to what’s really going on and your concern about it.

PLUG IN – make your next car a plug in electric car and plug it into the new solar panels you need to get. You’ll have free fuel for life for your new clean burning electric car, you’ll end your dependence on gasoline of any kind and you’ll stop pumping more C02 into the atmosphere. You’ll also be finished forever with things like oil changes, tune ups, new air filters and the other maintenance that isn’t necessary with electric cars. So far GM, Toyota, Nissan, VW, Mitsubishi, have all announced plug in vehicles they will have for sale in 2010. That’s 18 months away. So don’t buy another car until you can go electric.

POWER ON- Once you see how well today’s solar panels work at making electricity you’re going to want to make ALL your electricity that way – especially since your electric rates are going to start doubling soon and then keep going up from there. You’ll be especially happy you made that switch when the energy shortages to come cause rolling blackouts for those reliant on the power companies.

ACT ACCORDINGLY – Stop wasting so much time mindlessly watching television, playing video games and going to Las Vegas. Stop pretending and sticking your head in the sand – you’re only exposing a large target when you do that. Start devoting some of that time to working with other individuals and groups who are dedicated to cutting carbon to levels we can live with. And start speaking up and speaking out against patently stupid and dangerous ideas like drilling for more oil domestically or using our abundant coal resources. Those are the killer carbons that caused this mess which we need to stop using now. Walk the walk why don’t you?

ENJOY YOURSELF, IT’S LATER THAN YOU THINK! – Enjoy yourself while you’re still in the pink. The years go by as quickly as a wink Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think

Lets face it, no matter what happens you’ve got to live and love and laugh. With the odds stacked against us the way they are, it’s easy for you to conclude we’re already doomed and that the best response is to just party like it’s 1999 and use it before you lose it. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Just do it mindfully, fully aware, with your eyes open. Please have the courage and honesty to say you looked at the situation and decided to stick a fork in us because we’re already done. Feel free to explain that one to the kids too and let me know how that works out for you.

Tell them about this too:

Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year. The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.

And finally, just to masterfully connect all the dots for you in a way only the most conservative print publication can. In case you thought this was just the rant of a crazy environmentalist.

“Concluding that climate change will have wide-ranging impacts on U.S. security in the coming decades, a classified report complicates an already tangled debate by providing urgent new reasons to address the problem of global warming at a time when American voters are anxious about $4-a-gallon gas. Do something to lower gas prices, and you might exacerbate warming and, potentially, terrorism. Assist in the fight against global warming and risk economic hardship.

There’s a reason it takes a Creative Greenius like me to tackle this issue, but tackle it I am doing with renewed energy and a loud ticking clock reverberating in my brain when I‘m trying to think about the Lakers or organizing my digital photos.

Meanwhile I invite you one and all to get on board the Cluetrain with me and ride the rails to a much better way of life.

Your first stop is clicking on all the links I have throughout this declaration of independence and getting your ticket punched.

It’s a big week for climate change. Earth Science Week is focusing on “Understanding Climate“, climate change is the theme of this year’s [today's, in fact! And a merry one to you] Blog Action Day, a renewed bipartisan call to arms was issued in the US, and international negotiations stumble onward towards Copenhagen.

While the various governments of the world are doing their parts to promise as little as possible in terms of emissions cuts, making the goal of avoiding “dangerous” climate change seem as out of reach as ever, among the international climate activist community and some high profile voices in climate, an even more ambitious target is being demanded: 350 ppm (the parts per million of atmospheric CO2 claimed to represent a safe operating threshold of the planet). Supporters include author and environmentalist Bill McKibben, former US Vice President Gore, IPCC chair Rajenda Pachauri, and of course James Hansen, head of NASA GISS.

While I doubt even the most optimistic among the 350 campaign’s supporters believe that December’s talks in Copenhagen will result in a binding agreement with 350 ppm as its target, there is no denying the speed with which its supporters have managed to inject the number into climate discourse, despite the seeming dearth of supporting scientific publications. So this week of all weeks, and today of all days, it might be worth it to sit down and take a critical look at the 350 target, to see whether it enjoys as much scientific support as it does media buzz.

It would not be an understatement to say that without Jim Hansen, the 350 movement would not exist (or else not in its present form). Hansen’s role in the evolution of both our physical and political understanding of climate change over the past few decades has earned him monikers like “the Paul Revere” or “godfather” of global warming. In late 2007, after the IPCC had released a synthesis of its 4th Assessment Report and shared a Nobel with Gore, and most discussions of CO2 targets focused on a range between 450-550 ppm, Hansen gave a well-attended presentation the American Geophysical Union’s annual San Francisco Fall Meeting. In it, he made the case that we had already overshot the threshold for CO2 that would ensure a safe and stable climatic future; while CO2 levels were at 380+ ppm and climbing, paleoclimatic evidence spoke to the need to return to a level of around 350 parts per million. These conclusions would be published formally nearly a year later as “Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?“, but the reaction in the climate activist community was virtually instantaneous.

Less than two weeks after the AGU presentation, Bill McKibben had taken to the pages of the Washington Post in order to broadcast Hansen’s new target, calling it “the number that may define our future.”

From the warm Pliocene to the cold Pleistocene: A tale of two oceans

A safe operating space for humanity

Planetary boundaries: Tangible targets are critical

The coral reef crisis: The critical importance of <350 ppm CO₂

Coupling of CO2 and Ice Sheet Stability Over Major Climate Transitions of the Last 20 Million Years

Canadians are a compassionate people, concerned about the environment and the role their government plays on the international stage. And yet, there are few countries I can think of that have done more to undermine international efforts to fight climate change in recent years, than Canada … in Bonn, Germany, Canada recently refused to join the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) whose membership includes almost every developed nation, including the United States, and whose stated goal is: “… promoting the adoption of renewable energy worldwide.”

via TheStar.com | Opinion | No special treatment for tar sands.

For the last month or so Barack Obama’s health care reform plan, vague as it is, has been deemed socialist by his critics. The charges are nothing new, as Obama listened to them during his the general election portion of the presidential campaign. He patiently dismissed them in much the same way as he quashed an annoying fly earlier this summer. But now the socialist charges are tied, rightly or wrongly, to plans to reform health care. One thing that should be patently clear from anyone who looks closely at Obama’s record thus far is that he is most definitely not a Socialist. Neither his environmental policies, (just ask James Hansen), nor his Supreme Court selection (other candidates were far more liberal than Sonia Sotomayor-despite her finding in the New Haven firefighters case) nor his plans for Afghanistan (which are downright hawkish) can be considered liberal, let alone socialist. And let’s not forget his thoughts on gay marriage or torture extreme interrogation techniques or bailing out Wall Street. Barack Obama is not a socialist.

Yet the accusations persist. Obama is very much a pragmatist and politician. In my view, Obama has given the conservatives ample opportunity to coalesce behind a health care proposal. They have chosen to pick a fight with him. Which is fine. It’s not like liberals never picked a fight with Bush the Younger. The main Republican counter proposal to Obama’s health care package seems to be to do nothing and keep the status quo. Which, unless you’re among the affluent, is simply unacceptable. The Republicans know full well that if Obama is able to get reform through he will nearly impossible to beat in 2012 (given the paucity of Republican candidates this will be a tall order anyway). Obama is fully aware of this fact as well. Which is all the more reason to join Max Baucus and say that, “We tried to do it with the GOP, but we’re moving on without them.” And the message to conservative Democrats will be, “You WILL vote for this legislation and shall be thusly rewarded come re-election time.” Obama has to play politics with members of both parties.

Explanations about the utter farce that is the American health care system can be found in better places. It’s a challenge to find an unbiased view but here’s two: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care and here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande.

But, the fact is that any plan that includes the government would, especially given the conservative bloviators obsession with the term, be labeled “Socialist.” What’s remarkable is that this reductive terminology was soundly rejected by the electorate in the  fall. Now less than a year later, perhaps through Republican perseverance (or maybe just volume) it’s back.

Obama ought to address this once and for all. He ought to lecture people, like the former professor that he is, on what socialism really is. (Sidebar–How could anyone keep a straight face and compare Obama’s inexperience unfavorably to Sarah Palin’s? Imagine Palin teaching a law school class for a second. OK, stop. Yes, it’s comical–like the sub who covered your high school chem class, but back to the point).  In practice, there are no socialist countries. There are plenty of social democracies though, such as: Norway, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, Finland, Spain, Italy. All of these nations, by the way, routinely finish ahead of the US in quality of life ratings. Quality of life measures things like (lack of) crime, economic well-being, employment rate, national security, health, education, political stability. There’s a famous metric called the Popsicle Test. Which asks parents would they let their child(ren) walk, alone, however far they needed to go in order to buy a popsicle. And then walk back. Think of all the variables. We don’t do so well on that compared to the countries mentioned above. Maybe it’s because the total number of wars or armed conflicts the aforementioned countries have been involved in since World War II comes to zero. Nobody really wants to bomb Denmark. Now, that’s part of the price of living America. President Obama has made it abundantly clear that the US will continue its role as defender, promoter and champion of democracy. I would love nothing more than for Obama to stand in front of Congress and tell them we can’t get serious about paying for universal health care unless we cut the defense budget, which, depending on whom you listen to, makes up 50-67% of the budget. Imagine the howls of protest. So that won’t happen.

Health care reform is equal parts morality and finance. The thing about social democracies is that critics think they restrain growth. Things can’t bigger. And in America we love big. Big cars, big boobs, big guns, big houses, big boats. Big, big, big. And if things can’t get bigger then that limits the growth of banks, oil companies, security, companies, big box stores, utility companies, auto companies. They can’t get super-rich and if they can’t get super-rich that won’t let other people get rich through jobs and stock purchases. Because, of course, we know these super-rich companies will always, really, ALWAYS share their rewards with the common folk. Like maybe the execs will hire an extra housekeeper for the new house (number four) in Tahoe. Perhaps we haven’t learned our lessons yet from the failures of constant growth or paid enough of price? Look at your stock portfolio or the unemployment rate.

Obama should cite the even-keeled approach of some of those European countries. And reductively, the critics will tell Obama and his many supporters, to love or leave America, referring, again, to our exceptionalism. Let’s remember that the framers of the our 18th century constitution were heavily influenced by Western European thinkers. Jefferson, a name invoked only slightly less than Lincoln by Republicans, visited (heaven forbid!) France. So did Franklin. They liked what they saw. Now, it’s time to address 21st problems with 21st Century solutions. And it’s time to look to Europe again, and take steal some ideas from them and make them our own. Republicans will hate it, but too bad. You lost. We’ll combine our military prowess with healthcare for all. That would be exceptional.

Global warming expert James Hansen: newyorker.com

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Ogni estate che si rispetti ha sempre la sua litania recitata da media e commentatori del meteo sparsi un po in ogni dove sulle emittenti televisive. Più o meno recita così: sarà l’estate più calda di sempre. Ogni anno è sempre quello più caldo. Spesso fanno passare una stagione dalle temperature piuttosto elevate come un fatto eccezionale derivato dall’inquinamento del pianeta, dal buco nell’ozono, dall’effetto serra e via dicendo. In realtà però picchi minimi o massimi nelle temperature ci sono sempre stati, ciclicamente, anche prima dell’avvento dell’industria e dell’inquinamento di massa. E sono stati , in certi casi, anche più consistenti rispetto a quelli che abbiamo visto negli ultimi anni. Eppure queste variazioni vengono spesso urlate e fatte passare come fenomeni eccezionali, quando in realtà non lo sono. Ecco, questo io lo chiamo meteoterrorismo.

Si dovrebbe cominciare a spiegare ad esempio la differenza tra tempo (metereologico) e clima: quest’ultimo viene studiato ed analizzato nelle sue variazioni su parametri temporali molto più ampi, si parla in termini di decenni, secoli. E le variazioni per quanto possa sembrare paradossale sono minime. Ad esempio si può attraverso modelli matematici calcolare la tendenza d’aumento della temperatura media della terra (che se non erro è sui 15°)  nei prossimi 100 anni (è un esempio) tenendo conto dei valori dall’inquinamento (percentuali di polveri e sostanze immesse nell’atmosfera) all’aumento della anidride carbonica (aumento dovuto anche all’impatto ambientale dannoso dovuto all’attività umana) secondo  i trend attuali. Anche un paio di gradi porterebbero a dei mutamenti anche gravi. Ed è un discorso.

Quello meteorologico invece, che riguarda precipitazioni, temperature ecc viene analizzato su parametri temporali più brevi. Oggi non si può fare una previsione certa oltre i tre giorni. Già sulla settimana la certezza della previsione aumenta il suo valore di incertezza. Quando sento dire, come ogni anno, che questa sarà l’estate più calda mi chiedo sempre quanto di vero ci sia. Visto che poi andando a controllare ci si accorge che nel passato ci sono stati estati assai più calde.

Che ci sia una accelerazione nelle variazioni climatiche è un dato di fatto, basti pensare alla rapidità con cui si stanno sciogliendo i ghiacciai (velocità che ha preso di sopresa tutti), come lo è la possibilità che la velocità con cui riversiamo schifezze nell’aria e non solo porterà in tempi più brevi (che non vuole dire 5 o 10 anni) a situazioni permanenti in fatto di clima poco edificanti, sempre che non ci sia un inversione di tendenza. Che le temperature stagionali eccezionali, le grandinate o gli uragani siano l’annuncio del cataclisma imminente no. Magari la stagione successiva potrebbe rientrare nella norma e allora la gente penserebbe che è stata tutta una bufala non sapendo che appunto il problema semmai non è l’evento atmosferico fuori norma ma ad esempio la costante indifferenza verso azioni migliorative dal punto di vista ambientale, la quantità di polveri rilasciate quell’anno nell’ambiente e che anno dopo anno porterà a variazioni quelle si permamenti e potenzialmente drammatiche.

Allora forse sarebbe il caso di cominciare a spiegare cosa sono le une e le altre in maniera chiara e comprensibile a tutti. Sarebbe il caso di spiegare che ad esempio la tendenza ad immettere sostanze inquinanti nell’atmosfera non influirà forse in maniera tragica sulle nostre attuali esistenze nell’immediato, ma certo su quelle dei nostri nipoti e dei loro figli con magari mutazioni antropogeniche, fra 50-100 anni e che questo non può essere un alibi per scaricare il barile ai posteri, che oggi bisogna cominciare a ripensare tutto in chiave ecosostenibile pensando sopratutto al futuro che verrà agendo cominciando a lavorarci oggi nel presente, ma conoscendo situazioni e differenze. Ma per farlo bisogna capire di cosa stanno parlando. La preoccupazione è d’obbligo, l’allarmismo gettato sul bereve periodo no. Continuando di questo passo si crea solamente confusione nella gente. E la confusione non aiuta.

SEGNALO sull’argomento questo articolo: Non ha mai fatto tanto caldo come quest’anno

e il sito del National Center for Atmospheric Research

e sempre in fatto di clima segnalo sull’ultimo numero uscito di Internazionale un articolo molto interessante su James Hansen, capo del Goddard Institute for Space Studies della NASA. Articolo che, se volete, trovate riportato anche qui, sul blog del Circolo Pasolini di Pavia.

e per ultimi: United Nations Environment Programme – climate change e road to copenhagen (sul vertice che si terrà a dicembre 2009)

How do you like the government agency that makes official climate predictions, and pushes industry and local government to act on “climate change” to be headed up by a green alarmist and activist? It’s well known that in the USA the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies is headed up by the climate alarmist and activist James Hansen, who encourages criminal misdemeanours in USA and criminal damage in UK. But what of the UK? The situation is even worse. The UK Meteorological Office, whose Hadley Centre runs the IPCC scientific assessment (“Working Group 1”), is now a department of the UK Ministry of Defence. And its Chairman is none other than Robert Napier, a green activist and alarmist with tentacles into some of the world’s most powerful drivers of climate alarmism and social control.

Not only is he the chairman of the Met office, but Napier is Chairman of the Green Fiscal Commission, seeking to impose massive green taxation; he is Director of the Carbon Disclosure Project, which has built the largest database on corporate ‘carbon footprints’ as a basis for discrimination against those who don’t go along with the eco agenda; he is Chairman of the trustees of the World Centre of Monitoring of Conservation, which is bankrolled by the UN Environment Programme to push and ensure compliance with the Green agenda; and he is Chairman of the Homes and Communities Agency, which is seeking to grab land for ecotowns and determining compliance of housing to stringent Green standards. Other recent positions he has held include Chief Executive of WWF-UK, a vast malthusian political pressure group seeking to grab land and stop development around the world; a Director of The Climate Group, a huge international pressure group for the climate change agenda; and a Director of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, a secular body seeking to infuse ‘Green’ values into all the major religions, and to designate land as ‘sacred’ to prohibit development, and galvanize religions as a powerful advocacy group for the eco agenda.

This web of organizations over which Napier exercises influence means that Napier is responsible for the generation of climate alarmism, input into the IPCC reports, powerful secular and religious eco advocacy, directing of investments exceeding $55 trillion towards the Green agenda, monitoring of eco compliance, manipulating government fiscal policy towards green taxes, and control of the built environment towards the green agenda. Napier is an eco-imperialist, and for him and his cronies it’s all about total social control for the green agenda – controlling all bases: investment, building, land, religion, government, taxes, propaganda, advocacy, monitoring, climate science and data.

In this post we will flesh out the activities of some of these organizations, but is it not clear that there are some unseemly conflicts of interest here? How can someone with so many vested interests to manipulate society be appointed to head up the Met office, which is supposed to be doing objective scientific work? Why hasn’t the media kicked up a stink about this? Is it any wonder that the Met Office is now at the forefront of climate change propaganda in the UK, especially with their report claiming to be able to predict climate within a 25km grid out to the end of the century – with the barely disguised threat that if local governments and industry don’t march to their tune then there could be serious legal remedies down the line? Is it any wonder that Julia Slingo, the Met Office’s Chief Scientist, has been nobbled into supporting this eco nonsense?

Let us look at some of these organizations.

The Climate Group is a very powerful – perhaps the most powerful – lobby group for the Green agenda. As they say,

we’ve created a coalition of governments and the world’s most influential businesses…Through this coalition, we’re helping to set the targets, create the policies, build the confidence, and generate the political willpower needed to make the changes the world requires…

But it also extends down to the humble consumer:

Together is The Climate Group’s consumer engagement campaign. First launched in the UK in April 2007, the campaign is the country’s leading climate change campaign.

The Climate Group has the following principles:

We believe…climate change is an urgent problem that requires an internationally coordinated, collaborative response directed at substantially reducing global GHG emissions…We will therefore strive…To achieve significant reductions in GHG emissions…exploring mechanisms such as emissions trading, policies and laws to facilitate this.

The WWF is one of the most strident of malthusian organizations, which, under the guise of conservation, has stolen vast areas of the globe from native inhabitants, and has policies of depopulation. Some have claimed its policies amount to genocide. Its public image about saving animals, right down to its panda logo, is a front and a decoy. Its first president, a former Nazi Stormtrooper and member of the SS, loved to go big game hunting in Africa. WWF transferred huge sums of money to bankroll a private army of mercenaries, who trained UNITA and Renamo guerillas in their nature reserves, carried out assassinations, and infiltrated and became deeply involved in the illegal ivory trade.

Dr Arne Schiotz, a WWF director, has stated

…we have reached the end of the era of projects whose environmental consequences we do not know…do we have space on Earth for villages, for so many villages? Or the huge population of Mexico?..We and the International Planned Parenthood Federation do the same thing…a supranational intervention into the policies of nation-states.

A former WWF-UK chairman Sir Peter Scott added

All development aid should be made dependent on the existence of strong family planning programs in the countries concerned.

We must make aid conditional on population policy.

The WWF claims that the earth is well past the point of being able to sustain the current human population, and that the IPCC reports on climate change are too tame. You can see an alarmist presentation by Robert Napier himself here

In this presentation Napier states that “Climate change (‘chaos’) is today’s greatest global threat –worse than terrorism”. He trots out the usual propaganda: “Sea levels are rising – island communities are preparing for evacuation; Warming seas are bleaching and killing coral reefs; Violent weather and flood damage increased 400% over the past 10 years etc”. We’ve heard it all before, and it’s all lies.

No sooner had the alarmist IPCC Fourth Assessment report come out in 2007 but the WWF went into warp factor overdrive that it was already out of date and that the earth was at the point of no return:

Since the publication of this key report, scientific research on climate change and its impacts has continued and new studies are revealing that global warming is accelerating, at times far beyond forecasts outlined in earlier studies included the Fourth Assessment Report. New numerical modelling studies also provide more detailed indications of the impacts to come if warming continues. Indeed important aspects of climate change seem to have been underestimated and the impacts are being felt sooner. For example, early signs of change suggest that the less than 1°C of global warming that the world has experienced to date may have already triggered the first tipping point of the Earth’s climate system – the disappearance of summer Arctic sea ice. This process could open the gates to rapid and abrupt climate change, rather than the gradual changes that have been forecast so far. The implication of this recent evidence is that our mitigation and adaptation responses to climate change need to be even more rapid and ambitious.

Readers of this blog will know that such claims are not only outright falsehoods, but exceptionally irresponsible.

The focus of the Green Fiscal Commission is, in its own words, the “greening of the UK tax system”.

…it will involve a substantial tax shift, such that, for example, 20 per cent of tax revenues come from green taxes by 2020.

The objective of the Green Fiscal Commission (GFC) is to prepare the ground for a significant programme of green fiscal reform in the UK…The GFC will achieve this through…research on the options for environmental tax reform in the UK and assessment of the social, environmental and economic implications of these proposals…Use of media and other communication activities to raise awareness and understanding of the options for environmental tax reform and stimulate public and political debate on them.

In its report of June 2009, Public Opinion on a Green Tax Shift, it showed how public opinion could be manipulated to accept Green taxes and totalitarianism by playing up climate change issues

In this regard, it should be stressed that people accepted the principle of a green tax shift. There was a view that if there is a need for radical action to address climate change then strong leadership will be required to implement it.
….people were concerned that many of the interventions were…impacting on personal freedoms…A focus on incentives…as well as penalties, will be needed if public acceptability of green taxes is to increase.

In the paper Greening the Treasury Paul Boateng, MP, who became Chief Secretary to the Treasury, explains how he was influenced by Napier to adopt and push Green fiscal policies. He wrote:

I met recently with representatives of WWF and I was struck by the contribution of its Chief Executive, Robert Napier, to Green Alliance’s open letter to the Prime Minister. He said ‘joined up policy-making is every environmentalist’s dream’…control over tax and spending gives us a powerful tool for joining up policies…we can ensure that all government spending supports the principle of green government.

The Carbon Disclosure Project holds the world’s largest database of corporate climate change information. This information is used financially to skew the market towards those who adopt the Green agenda, both in terms of investments and trade. Governments and companies are induced to work only with companies with sufficiently Green credentials. The CDP represents 475 institutional investors, with a combined $55 trillion under management.

The CDP initiative…provides investors with a unique analysis of how the world’s largest companies are responding to the challenge of climate change.

Its first Public Procurement report released today reveals the power of the public sector to use procurement to transform the UK to a low carbon economy. Central and local government has collaborated through CDP to encourage its suppliers to measure, manage and report their greenhouse gas emissions, climate change related risks and opportunities and information on associated management strategy.
CDP claims this provides a clear message to suppliers to the UK public sector that action on climate change has become a necessary part of business. The public sector has considerable purchasing power. In the UK, public procurement amounts to £150 billion per annum with about £60 billion spent on goods and services by central government and the wider public sector spending a further £90 billion. In the EU as a whole, the public budget amounts to about 16% of total GDP.

Napier endorsed the book Buying for the Future by Kevin Lyons, supported by WWF, which taught how to enforce the Green agenda through the supply chain.

Napier contributed the foreword to the book Capital Market Campaigning in which he wrote

Since I became Chief Executive of WWF-UK in 1999, I have been a strong advocate of capital market campaigning. My personal involvement in the Carbon Disclosure Project enabled me to see at first hand its considerable success in harnessing the influence of investors and increasing the disclosure of climate change emissions by listed companies…But do NGO’s have a legitimate role to play in the capital market? Of course they do…WWF will continue to intervene in the capital market…

Napier spoke at the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change in 2003 (“Profiting from a low carbon economy”) and the official report states:

Robert Napier, Chief Executive Officer, WWF-UK, also drove home the point that investors must ask companies how they are responding to the risks of climate change.

The World Centre of Monitoring of Conservation is bankrolled by the UN Environment Programme, which led to the setting up of the IPCC. It is afforded diplomatic privileges and immunities from the UK government. UNEP are starting to sound very Orwellian, warning of legal action against institutional investors and asset managers if they do not direct all their funds into supporting the eco agenda.

Here are the chilling threats:

§ Investment consultants and asset managers have a duty to proactively raise ESG [environmental, social and governance] issues within their advice and services to institutional investors—and that an investment option that takes into account ESG issues should be the default position. Global capital market policymakers should also make this duty clear.

§ ESG issues must be embedded in the legal contracts between institutional investors and their asset managers to hold asset managers to account, and that ESG issues should be included in the periodic reporting by asset managers. Equally, the performance of asset managers should be assessed on a longer-term basis and linked to long-term incentives.

§ Institutional investors will increasingly come to understand the financial materiality of ESG issues and the systemic risk it poses, and the profound long-term costs of unsustainable development and its consequent impacts on the long-term value of their investment portfolios.

Of course, you must access the Carbon Disclosure Project to find out where the money should be directed. If not, you’ll get sued: Here are the details straight from UNEP:

UNEP-Supported Report Says Ignoring Environmental, Social and Governance Issues May Open Door to Court Cases

The case, outlined in a new report with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), underlines how the world’s largest institutional investors-such as pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, mutual funds and foundations-have a central role in assisting the transition to a low carbon and resource efficient Green Economy. Indeed, the report says that professional investment advisors and service providers—such as investment consultants and asset managers—to institutional investors may have a far greater legal obligation to incorporate ESG issues into their investment services or face “a very real risk that they will be sued for negligence” if they do not.

The Alliance of Religions and Conservation is mainly bankrolled by WWF, the World Bank and MOA International, and aims to push the major world religions into designating vast tracts of land as ‘sacred’ so that no development can take place on them, make its properties useful for the advancement of the Green agenda, as well as directing the investments of the religions (who hold substantial assets) into the eco direction. It aims to infuse ‘Green’ values into religion, to galvanize vast numbers into supporting the Green agenda, and is working with the UN to push ecotheology. In its own words,

ARC is a secular body that helps the major religions of the world to develop their own environmental programmes…We help the religions link with key environmental organisations – creating powerful alliances…

A brochure can be found here

In the 2006/7 Annual Report of the Met Office, printed on June 13, 2008, Napier declared

During the last year I have been impressed, but not surprised, by our accurate forecasts…for the…season ahead.

Considering the lamentable performance of the Met office at being able to make seasonal forecasts, this comment, if nothing else, betrays just how benighted people end up when they make it their business to peddle lies for profit.

Sly hard sells Louie.

WOW!

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann

LEGISLATORS FOR SALE by Keith Olbermann – VIDEO:

http://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/08/04

Thank you, Mr. Olbermann.

Thank you, CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/

CommonDreams.org is a national nonprofit, progressive, nonpartisan citizens’ organization founded in 1997 by political activists Craig Brown and his late wife, Lina Newhouser.  They are a powerful online voice for change in America.  With millions of monthly readers, they have become one of the top progressive websites.  Check it out.  Here’s a sample of their fare.

LOCALIZED MAYHEM:

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by The Nation

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder by Jeremy Scahill.  A former Blackwater employee and an ex-Marine who worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia.  “The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company.  the former employee also alleges that Prince ‘views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destructionof Iraqi life.’”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-9

THE GREEN GREEN HILLS ARE BLACK:

Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by Canada.com

Carbon Credits: ‘Cure Worse Than the Disease’ by Kevin Dougherty.  Quebec – Carbon credits – to package and trade offsets to greenhouse gas emissions – won’t work, says McGill University economist Christopher Green, “rejecting the argument of Premier Jean Charest who wants the Montreal Exchange to be the carbon market for all of Canada.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/03-6

Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by Inter Press Service

The Biggest Shift from North to South: ‘Time to De-Grow’ – Q&A: Claudia Ciobanu interviews economist Serge Latouche.  BUCHAREST –  He calls for “abandoning the objective of growth for growth’s sake, an insane objective, with disastrous consequences for the environment.”  The need for a de-growth society stems from the certainty that the earth’s resources and natural cycles cannot sustain the economic growth that is the essence of capitalism and modernity.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/03-2

Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Will a Warmer World Make Us Sicker? by Roberta Kwok.  Scientists are piecing together how climate impacts disease, strange patterns are emerging: mosquito outbreaks can follow drought, shorter migrations can make butterflies sick, and more birds (not fewer) can ward off West Nile virus.  From Conservation magazine, part of the Guardian Environment Network.  In the late 1990s, a set of alarming maps created a stir in the scientific community. “Based on predictions by a team of Dutch and Australian researchers and initially published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, the maps charted how global warming could increase the risk of malaria in seemingly unlikely locales: northern countries such as Poland, the Netherlands, and Russia.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/03-3

Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by The Independent/UK

Warning: Oil Supplies Are Running Out Fast by Steve Connor.  Catastrophic shortfalls threaten economic recovery, says world’s top energy economist.  “The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/03

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by The Globe and Mail (Canada)

Modified Corn Seeds Sow Doubts by Martin Mittelstaedt.  Next spring, farmers in Canada will be able to sow one of the most complicated genetically engineered plants ever designed, a futuristic type of corn containing eight foreign genes.  “But a controversy has arisen over the new seeds, which were approved for use last month by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency: Health Canada hasn’t assessed their safety.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-5

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Crackdown Against ‘Environmental Criminals’ Follows Greenpeace Report by Damian Carrington and Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro.  Shoe Brands Get Tough on Leather Suppliers to Save Amazon Rainforest.  Some of the world’s top footwear brands, including Clarks, Adidas, Nike and Timberland, have demanded an immediate moratorium on destruction of the Amazon rainforest from their leather suppliers in Brazil.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-1

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Obama’s Green Credentials Tested by Battle Against Mountaintop Mining by Suzanne Goldenberg.  James Hansen and Darryl Hannah among those opposing open-cast coal extraction that destroys mountains and forests.  “Like other opponents of mountaintop removal, [they] had been counting on Obama, with his election promises of a clean energy economy, to shift the power balance away from coal. But those hopes evaporated in May when the EPA signed 42 permits for mountaintop removal while turning down only six — a higher ratio even than during the latter part of the George Bush presidency. Some 170 more permits are pending, according to the Sierra Club.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-2

Photos: Tesla Roadster Sport: If you want an electric sports car and the Tesla Roadster isn’t fast or expensive enough for you, here’s what an extra $20,000 can get you. — Jalopnik

Palin on Obama Energy Plan: Soon-to-be-ex governor of Alaska Sarah Palin says in an op-ed today that “President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan..would inflict permanent damage.” — Washington Post via WSJ’s Environmental Capital

Divvying Up CO₂ Reductions: A group of climate and energy scholars at Princeton say a post-2012 climate framework must acknowledge that the world’s population includes about 1 billion high emitters, and not all of them live in developed nations. — NYT’s Green Inc.

Diesels, Hybrids = Savings: “Even as automakers develop cars that run on something beyond gasoline, the argument continues over whether hybrids and alt-fuel vehicles save you money in the long run. A new study says they do – with a diesel leading the way.” — Wired’s Autopia

Enemy of My Enemy: “A curious thing happened at Tuesday’s morning meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee when the panel’s infamous climate-change skeptic, James Inhofe (R-Okla.), cited NASA climatologist Jim Hansen in his screed against the House climate bill.” — Grist

Et si le réchauffement climatique n’était pas la catastrophe annoncée par la majorité de la communauté scientifique et pouvait même avoir un effet bénéfique sur la croissance des plantes ? C’est du moins ce qu’avance Freeman Dyson, physicien anglais naturalisé américain. Du haut de ses 85 ans, c’est l’un des scientifiques les plus respecté, qui a derrière lui des travaux ayant bouleversé le monde de la physique et une belle oeuvre de vulgarisateur. Il occupe depuis plus de cinquante ans un poste au très renommé Institute for Advanced Study, à Princeton. Le New York Times lui a consacré un magnifique article que Courrier International a eu la bonne idée de traduire (partiellement) pour les lecteurs francophones.

Puisque je vous ai donné les liens, inutile de m’étendre sur sa vie et son œuvre. C’est plutôt l’hérétique de l’écologie, nouvelle religion du 21e siècle (et probablement de ceux à venir) qui m’intéresse.

Rompre la glace

« J’ai le sentiment que, lorsqu’un consensus tend à se former comme la glace au-dessus de l’eau, Dyson fera tout son possible pour y faire un trou », dit le lauréat du prix Nobel Steven Weinberg, par ailleurs grand admirateur de son ainé*. Et c’est un peu à cette tâche que s’attèle Freeman Dyson, convaincu que nous manquons de données sur la question et qui qualifie Al Gore et James Hansen de « piètres scientifiques » qui jouent la carte de l’alarmisme.

Le vieux physicien n’y va pas de mains morte avec ces derniers, leurs reprochant notamment leurs simulations par ordinateurs, utilisées dans le film Une vérité qui dérange, qui ne prennent pas en compte toutes les données et qui établissent ce qui ne sont que des hypothèses comme des faits avérés. Ils jouent alors les prophètes, promettant « fonte des calottes glaciaires, montée du niveau des océans et apparition de tempêtes et de divers fléaux qui dévasteront notre planète. » « Les gens qui étudient le réchauffement climatique en utilisant des modèles de simulation ont toujours tendance à surestimer la fiabilité de leur outil », affirme Freeman Dyson.

Dioxyde de carbone

« Tout au long de l’évolution, la vie a évolué sur une Terre en général nettement plus chaude et plus riche en dioxyde de carbone qu’aujourd’hui », soutient-il. Ainsi le réchauffement climatique est localisé et ne concerne pas la planète entière, ce qui fait une différence selon lui. L’accroissement du taux de carbone ne pourrait être qu’un épisode « inoffensif » sur une planète dans une phase « relativement fraîche. » D’autant plus que le dioxyde de carbone favorise l’accroissement des plantes, ce qui ne peut qu’être un bienfait. Enfin, il envisage même la possibilité d’un arbre génétiquement modifié « mangeur de carbone. »

Le réchauffement climatique est donc un problème qu’il faut relativiser aux yeux du scientifique, surtout que d’autres problèmes comme la guerre, les famines et le chômage sont plus pressants. Il récuse aussi l’idée que l’homme devrait toujours s’excuser de sa condition, car il est normal qu’il modifie son environnement pour y survivre, puisqu’il fait aussi parti de la nature.

Dyson admet pourtant qu’il pourrait avoir totalement tort. « Il n’est pas exclu que Hansen ait raison. S’il disait vraiment n’importe quoi, il ne serait pas là où il est aujourd’hui. Mais Hansen a fait d’une question scientifique une véritable idéologie. […] Je pense que j’ai une vision plus large du problème. Je pense que ma carrière ne dépend pas de cette question, alors que la sienne, oui. Je ne prétends pas être un expert du climat. Je pense que c’est davantage une question de bon sens que d’expertise. »

Comme conclut judicieusement Courrier International, le débat reste ouvert.

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Un article passionnant, un débat qui l’est tout autant. Et puis franchement, j’adore juste sa tête !

* Toutes les citations viennent de l’article de Courrier International