Random Readings

First Item:

Not believing in the greenhouse effect, I mean global warming, I mean "climate change" is not a kook-fringe position. Even some of the authors of the UN's climate reports don't believe it.

See this story.

By the way, have you noticed how the problem has morphed over the years?

I remember reading all about "The Greenhouse Effect" in elementary school and junior high. A specific, verifiable problem with a specific, verifiable mechanism driving it, which turned out to specifically not be happening.

Next, we heard about global warming. A specific, verifiable problem with a vague mechanism driving it, that turns out to have happened for about 30 years, but now . . . not so much.

Enter "climate change." This may be a winner. This is the real "change we can believe in" Both the problem and the mechanism are vague enough that no one can disprove them. Earth gets warmer = climate change! Earth gets colder = climate change! Every honest person, when asked "is the climate changing?" must answer "yes." Then the yelling about the horrors of capitalism, the evils of SUVs and the poor polar bears starts, and no one listens to the rest of the answer (from the article):

what do I believe about climate change? Firstly climate change is real, and has occurred on Earth for at least 4 billion years as long as an atmosphere and oceans have existed. Climate change occurs in cycles at various time scales, with the shorter time scales known as weather (by convention the distinction is 35 years). Trying to stop or control climate change is akin to stopping ocean tides. Secondly, I believe human activities affect climate, otherwise why would I bother with a mortgage. The climate inside my house is different to the climate that would exist if my house were gone.

Second Item:

Maryland has done us a service by demonstrating the effects of a huge tax increase on "the wealthy." The Wall street Journal has the story here.

Basically they raised the tax rate on those making over $1 million dollars a year. Here's what happened:

The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would "grin and bear it." One year later, nobody's grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller's office concedes is a "substantial decline." On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year -- even at higher rates.

Huh, who'd have thought? As the article explains "this is one reason that depending on the rich to finance government is so ill-advised: Progressive tax rates create mountains of cash during good times that vanish during recessions."

Global Warming Alert! III

Don't you hate it when the world just refuses to cooperate with your political agenda?

NASA has been caught falsifying global temperature data again. Amazingly enough, this error also made it appear that global temperatures are rising. Huh, seems like all the errors are only in one direction. Weird.

On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So it's not like they're arguing over "warmest" vs. "3rd warmest." So, how did this happen?

The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

So, September was the warmest October ever, amazing! Most disturbingly:

last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

Strangely enough:

The figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

This type of statistical blindness is evidence of either malicious intent, or rank incompetence and lazy fact checking from seeing exactly what you expect to see, and not questioning it.

Here are links to the blogs of the two scientists who are policing Hansen's stats.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/

http://www.climateaudit.org/

Global Warming Alert!

Grab you shorts and shades, and lets head for the beach!

• Snow blankets London for global warming debate: "Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday - the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922."
  

But one event does not a climate make you say?

• Record snow storm triggers delays: "According to MeteoNews, the Swiss lowlands received the most snow for any October since records began in 1931. Zurich received 20cm, beating a record of 14cm set in 1939."

But that's Europe too, it's the same storm, it's not like it's Florida, right?

• Record cold swept over the [Ocala, FL] region Wednesday: It was a record for Oct. 29 and the second lowest temperature ever recorded in October since 1850.

Huh . . . well it's still all the polluters in the Northern Hemisphere who are pumping all that methane gas (a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) into the air.

• MIT Scientists baffled by data, contradicts global warming theory: Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas . . . it is now believed this may be part of a natural cycle in mother nature - and not the direct result of man's contributions.

Hey, if the Greens can blame individual hurricanes on global warming, I can have my fun too . . .

Al Gore, Friend of the Animals

Al Gore is out to save the environment again. From Mary Katharine Ham's Townhall.com blog:

After Live Earth produced the carbon emissions of a small country in order to discourage carbon emissions, Gore has moved onto eating endangered species to encourage their preservation, I guess. Don't ask questions. He's a visionary:

Gore and his guests at the weekend ceremony dined on Chilean sea bass - arguably one of the world's most threatened fish species.

Also known as Patagonian toothfish, the species is under pressure from illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities in the Southern Ocean, jeopardising the sustainability of remaining stocks.

The species is currently managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources, the body which introduced a catch and trade documentation scheme as an attempt to tackle illegal poaching of this species.

The story comes from the Humane Society.

Apparently, endangered fish taste better than abundant ones. I guess that makes sense, if no one liked them, no one would catch them . . . and they wouldn't be endangered, right?

Al Gore's Environment

Look at all the environmental waste in this guy's office. Why he's got 3 entire old-growth trees worth of paper on his desk. While those 3 Apple 30 inch monitors look great, just imagine the fossil fuels being burned to power those suckers. 150 watts each if you're wondering. That comes out to 7.5 sixty-watt incandescent light bulbs. (who knows how many compact fluorescents). He can't even spring for a TV card to use one of the monitors to watch. Instead, he needs a separate flat-panel TV. Also take note of the huge personal laser printer under the desk - more dead trees.

There are so many ways to make this office more environmentally friendly. Why, if Al Gore saw this he'd have . . . ummmm . . . wait a minute, that is Al Gore!

Never mind. It must be OK, Gore knows what he's talking about.

(I for one intend to follow this environmental example just as soon as I can get the money for three nice big monitors).