Global Warming Weekly Round-Up, Jan. 19th 2012

The Donald doesn’t want to look at giant bird shredders, the big yellow ball in the sky might have something to do with the weather on Titan and another scientific fraud is uncorked.

Part One: Hippie of the Week

This week, we have return winner. Weepy Bill McKibben was originally selected for the honor for a piece he wrote for the LA Times, but any doubt of his worthiness was eradicated faster than protected raptors on a wind farm when the Obama administration caved to weepy Bill’s tears for Gaia and axed Keystone XL yesterday.

McKibben needed a win, badly. Only recently it was revealed his original reason for clambering onto the global warming bandwagon was based on a false premise. Even worse, the ‘science‘ behind his claim that 350ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere is a safe limit was debunked. By none other than Phil Jones, the front man of the Motley CRU:

…don’t perpetuate the myth that there is a safe level of emissions. This assumes we understand more than we do…

For ‘safe’ read the points about Greenland near the end. Maybe not in our generation or the next, but the current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere will eventually cause Greenland to melt. This would be dangerous, so the safe concept should be avoided.

Bill can bask in the glory of the Keystone win, and another Hippie of the Week award. Or at least he can bask before he goes into hiding. As the front man for killing Keystone, he’s probably none too popular with the suddenly very angry  unions that would have benefited from real jobs.

LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan said. “Once again the President has sided with environmentalists instead of blue collar construction workers – even though environmental concerns were more than adequately addressed. Blue collar construction workers across the U.S. will not forget this.”

When the purple people beaters come for the greens, it’ll be ugly and one-sided.

So, who’s bringing the popcorn?

Today’s Weepy Bill Google juice is brought to you by fellow anti-oil activist Daryl Hannah, who is probably unaware that pretty much everything she’s wearing and holding in the picture was made possible by oil. Oh, the ironing.

Part Two: Warmists

Close second for Hippie of the Week was NASA’s favorite global warming muppet James Hansen, who said the oceans would boil and someone would runaway with his greenhouse. Or something.

Salon is afraid the modern world’s thirst for oil will cause at least three conflicts. Can’t we all just chop birds and get along?

Not even science we want to believe can be trusted to be clean of corruption and data falsification:

An extensive misconduct investigation that took three years to complete and produced a 60,000-page report, concludes that a researcher who has come to prominence in recent years for his investigations into the beneficial properties of resveratrol, a compound found in red wine, “is guilty of 145 counts of fabrication and falsification of data”.

There goes my healthy lifestyle choice.

Australians were warned that drought was the new normal. It’s not. Good job they didn’t spend billions on a desalination plant for fear of empty reservoirs. Oh, wait.

Nothing says you’re serious about saving the planet like demanding couture designers make eco-frocks for award ceremonies:

Creating a single eco-friendly dress each for events throughout awards season, everyone from Chanel, Tom Ford and Yves Saint Laurent, to Paul Smith, Valentino and Alberta Ferretti will be taking part, ensuring [Livia, wife of Colin] Firth will be one to watch on red carpets all over the globe.

We’re saved!

As American parents have educated themselves about the global warming scam, they’ve become more demanding that their moppets not be brainwashed in the classroom. So the National Centre for Science Education is offering advice to teachers on how to tackle evil denier parents. The UK does not have this problem, they simply detonate kids who won’t fall into line.

Uh oh. The IPCC and others have been pondering the devastation a 2°C increase in temperatures may wreak. But what if it goes to 11? Hundred, that is.

The EPA makes it very difficult for farmers to use pesticides:

if a farm has any water on its property, it could be required to submit a “pesticide discharge management plan”. This fun package of regulatory overreach includes:
• a Pesticide Discharge Management Team;
• Problem Identification;
• Pest Management Options Evaluation;
• Response Procedures;
• Spill Response Procedures;
• Adverse Incident Procedures;
• and Documentation to Support Compliance with Other Federal Laws.

What could possibly go wrong?

Tom Nelson is working his way through all 5000+ Climategate 2.0 emails, and is finding some real gems:

Oh noes, British hedgehog hibernation is affected by global warming. Add it to The List.

The good thing about warmists is there’s one for every occasion. Global warming causes colder winters? Yep. Global warming causes milder winters? Yup. How cool (or warm!) is that?

The genius rocket scientists at NASA might not do any actual rocket stuff anymore, but that can’t stop them from studying global warming by recreating Venusian conditions right here on Gaia:

…the American space agency has built the 12-tonne “Extreme Environment Test Chamber” to simulate the burning temperatures and intense pressure experience on the planet’s surface. Scientists hope the new state-of-the-art chemical chamber, which includes two “Sapphire glass windows”, will recreate the toxic, probe-destroying atmosphere of Earth’s closest neighbouring planet. In turn, they hope it will lead to better understanding of climate change on Earth based on experiments of a planet baked of its water and suffocated by greenhouse gases and sulphuric clouds.

The fact Venus is 26 million miles closer to the fiery star at the center of the solar system than Earth has nothing to do with Venusian temperature, it’s a greenhouse gas wot dunnit.

Over 32,000 New Yorkers have spoken out on fracking. Three of them knew what they were talking about, the others all agree Mark Ruffalo is dreamy. The man who wants to lead Scotland to independence demands climate justice:

Speaking during his visit to the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, where he is a guest of renewable energy company Masdar, he said the world had a “once in a generation opportunity” to ensure the poorest nations did not suffer from the excesses of the industrialised world.

Salmond is a smart man. If he wins Scottish independence, he’ll be leading one of the world’s poorest nations. Now that’s forward planning.

Meet the lovely, gentle hippies of Deep Green Resistance. They’ll kick you in the plums for Gaia, if you’re lucky.

Forget a trace gas essential to life on Earth. It’s the Soot, stupid.

Part Three: Inconvenient Truths

Canada is in a fight for the right to sell its energy, and the Prime Minister is driving his green opponents nuts:

…let Harper make the sensible point we don’t need to take seriously every pearl of wisdom from these [Hollywood celebrity] hypocrites, and all the usual green suspects go crazy.

The same politicians and pundits who for decades have been demanding we reduce our dependence on the U.S. economy, now denounce Harper for agreeing, and trying to develop new markets for our oil in the growing economies of Asia.

Oh noes, not even global warming can save Canadians from winter.

A skeptic won £100 on a climate bet, though hell may freeeze over before he collects his winnings.

A skeptical academic speaks truth to power:

Unfortunately, a lot of politics has gotten involved with the sciences that relate to climate change, specifically because there are huge amounts of money involved, like hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars.  There’s a huge amount of power. Climate change is being used as a lever to try to push for a world government.  This is being done in international conferences sponsored by the United Nations that meet every year. The last one was just in Durban. So, unfortunately because of that, there is a lot of rhetoric and a lot of selective media coverage.

What warming there was last century had nothing to do with a trace gas, it really was the Sun, stupid.

Spanish birds and bats are being el shredded in muchos numbres.

Can gravity contribute to global warming? Maybe, maybe not. Discussions about gravity and global warming can cause embarrassing nerd fights to break out.

CBS figures the Obama administration has another 11 Solyndra-type green energy failures in the pipeline. Half a billion here, half a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.

Invasion of the rent seekers. The UK’s greenest government ever botched the announcement of solar panel subsidy cuts, and a green gold rush materialized.

Hmm. Faint sunlight can affect weather on Titan, one of Saturn’s many moons., but close proximity to Sol can’t vaporize a comet. Pesky complicated star.

Donald Trump, the reclusive, rarely seen American developer, may cancel plans for a Scottish resort if an ugly wind farm is given the go ahead.

Global warming saves swans. Wait, what?

Everyone is happy the US backed off the 100-watt incandescent light bulb ban.

Uh oh, don’t look now, but its going to get colder:

Two notable, er, notes from the GWPF. In the US, shale gas is making electricity cheaper, and in the UK, Chris Huhne is the only man left on the planet who thinks renewable energy can make energy cheaper. Until the subsidies run out, that is.

Part Four: Global Hottie

Scotland got a mention today, so we’ll head north of the other border for your global hottie. She’s Tiffany Mulheron, of Lesbian Vampire Killers fame, and certainly appears to have what it takes to warm a sassenach heart. I haven’t seen the film. Yet.

Thanks for reading.