There’s bad news for British bird-life, a bullfrog apocalypse is coming and a pesky trace gas doesn’t do what it’s supposed to.
All this global warming disaster and the hottie tripped over a sofa. It’s been that kind of week.
Part One: Hippie of the Week
The winner this week is possibly one of the most unpopular people south of the equator, and for good reason. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has passed into law the very carbon tax she promised would never happen under her government.
Ms Gillard had staked her political future on the tax, which imposes a levy of $AUS23 (£14) a tonne on emissions by the country’s 500 worst polluters.
The move is deeply unpopular with the majority of the Aussie populace, but Julia doesn’t care about that, or them. Her deal with the Greens keeps her in power, for now at least, and that is the only thing that Julia Gillard really cares about. Regular readers or those that have not lived under a rock for the past 18 months will know that prior to Australia’s last election, Gillard promised no carbon tax. No, really:
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What changed her mind was her need to form a coalition government with the greens if she was to grab power. So she broke her promise to the voters and paid the Greens their Danegeld. But not to worry, it’s not like being the only major developed economy with a carbon tax carbon tax will wreck the nation’s economy or anything. Oh, wait.
A chemical giant has already shelved a billion dollar project because of the carbon tax. In fact, the only people happy about the carbon tax are the Greens and the investment banks. And Julia Gillard, because she’s still Prime Minister.
Congratulations to Gillard, and commiserations to Australia, especially Simon.
Part Two: Warmists
It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything of everyone’s favorite royal warmist, Jolly Prince Chuckles. The Clown Prince of Wales is on tour in Tanzania and was bestowed with another title, “Oloishiru Ingishi”, literal translation: ‘the one who makes cows cry’. But Charles gets top billing in the warmist section for this:
Charles then caused great mirth - rather unintentionally - among the assembled press pack when, in a speech to thank the Maasai for their hospitality, he told the gathered tribesman to have a look at his website for information about the environment.
Joltin’ Joe Romm loves NBC because they said all the right things about global warming and fossil fuels.
The IPCC is reeling over Minx the Merciless’ exposé and provided a moment of unintentional hilarity when an IPCC insider thought he’d found a gotcha moment, only to have it rebound as another example of their internal sloppiness. Minx 2 - IPCC 0. You can catch a TV interview between Donna and Andrew Bolt here.
The Royal Society is still helping to frighten moppets in the classroom.
Al Gore, the man who believes every weather event proves global warming is man-made, once more sees a disaster and touts it as evidence. Even Nature has had enough of Al at this point.
Oh noes, global warming causes bullfrog invasions. Add it to The List.
Weepy Bill McKibben persuaded thousands of hippies to carry a replica pipeline around the White House in his attempt to prevent the Keystone XL pipeline. Would it be too cruel to point out their giant plastic pipeline was made from materials derived from fossil fuels?
EPA head honcho Lisa Jackson called FOIA requests for Michael ‘Stick’ Mann’s emails ‘criminal’. Meanwhile, another FOIA request the Obama administration was fighting was finally complied with, and revealed that James ‘Death Trains’ Hansen was paid to appear as a witness against the Canadian oil sands. That’s not criminal, but failing to declare the income is.
An IPCC lead author lies about what the IPCC predicted. He forgot the Internet never forgets.
You know what global warming will cause? Faster fish, that’s what.
Last week, OWS was supported by hippie icon Joan Baez. This week, Crosby and Nash showed up. Don’t know where Stills was, but he may not know either.
Chris Huhne, the UK Secretary of Energy and Climate Change says his wind turbines are going to stay:
The announcement by Cuadrilla Resources that there could be 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in the shale under Lancashire could, if the volumes are proven and the reserves recovered, change Britain’s energy market. But a golden age of cheap energy looks increasingly unlikely – and wind turbines are certainly here to stay. , no matter how much shale gas is in the ground
Why does Huhne hate birds so?
The UK’s Met Office is notorious for predicting the weather badly. It seems they are also unable to predict their own infrastructure needs and are demanding a new supercomputer:
Senior metereologists told the committee last month that a shortage of computing power was limiting the improvements the Met Office can make to the accuracy of its weather forecasts. The head of the Royal Meteorological Society said more supercomputers were needed to carry out complex calculations and the potential economic benefits of more accurate forecasts were “enormous” in terms of improved contingency planning for emergencies.
In case you forgot, the Met was given a shiny new £33 million supercomputer just two years ago.
Warmist and Hippie of the Week winner Chris Mooney has a new book out that explains skeptics are genetically inferior, which is why they don’t believe in global warming. He nearly won HOTW again for this, but was edged out by Gillard. Better luck next time, Chris.
Good news, ‘scientists’ are to look for climate change in Antarctica:
What if climate change in Antarctica was happening in a place nobody could see? NASA Scientists believe it is, and today they outlined their plan to prove it.
Note to NASA, if climate change isn’t happening in Antarctica, that would be news, not the other way around.
Part Three: Inconvenient Truths
It’s a good job hippies are wrong about global warming and we don’t need to be saved from slightly milder weather caused by a harmless trace gas essential to life on Earth, because they’ve done a lousy job persuading the world to emit less CO2:
The new numbers show the extent to which international climate policy has failed. At the first “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the concentration of the greenhouse gas CO2 was at 360 parts per million (ppm). In the 20 years since, it has risen to 390 ppm — and there is no end in sight to the upward trend.
That’s not the only problem hippies have with the news of rapidly rising CO2 levels. We’ve been told over and over that CO2 drives global warming. So what happens when you have runaway increases in CO2 emissions but temperature stays flat? That’ll leave a mark in your theory.
Also, 90% of global warming is from natural causes. If Gaia herself is on an Amy Winehouse style bender, should we worry?
Michael Mann is fighting FOIA requests for his emails, and is being cheered on by the warmist crowd. But in another professional field, it was exactly that sort of hiding data that made massive scientific fraud possible. Say it ain’t so, Mike, and release the emails.
Pesky Roman SUV’s and air-conditioneriums caused a 50-year long mega-drought in the 12th century.
Biofuels are not green:
A new study on greenhouse gas emissions from oil palm plantations has calculated a more than 50% increase in levels of CO2 emissions than previously thought – and warned that the demand for ‘green’ biofuels could be costing the earth.
Thanks, Al Gore, for saving biofuel subsidies and wrecking the planet.
The Ecologist ponders the question of whether science and politics can be kept separate. The article features James Hansen of NASA, which isn’t a good sign:
One trite warmist response to skepticism goes, “What if it’s a big hoax & we create better world for nothing?” But there’s such a thing as opportunity cost:
…undue focus on mitigation of a hypothetical human-caused dangerous warming that has yet even to be measured comes at the expense of the urgent needs of the world’s most vulnerable peoples. For example, ClimateWorks Foundation — an American climate activist group that has donated millions to Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection — received over $500 million from charitable foundations when they launched in 2008. This was twice as much as foundations contributed to the World Health Organization, and over seven times as much as they donated to UNICEF in that year.
Fracking in the UK isn’t a Sex Pistols reunion, but something that might make a lot of landed gentry lots of money.
HOTW Julia Gillard may be pleased with her new carbon tax, but the G20 isn’t about to follow her lead into economic and political oblivion, and the UK is backing away from the green agenda faster than a dingo on the scent of a bay-bee.
Russia and Germany opened a huge natural gas pipeline, and weepy Bill was nowhere to be seen.
China understands the carbon-credit trading game, and is threatening to release a vast amount of a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere if the EU stops payments for HFC-23.
Newt Gingrich admitted that appearing on a couch with Nancy Pelosi and talking about the problem of global warming was ‘dumb’. Better late than never.
The Keystone XL protest took place outside the White House, but the big guy wasn’t home to witness it. Next time, they should occupy the 1st tee.
Part Four: Global Hottie
This week sees the return of an always popular hottie, Mrs. Brad Pitt. Angelina Jolie may be left of crazy, but she looks good and I’m shallow. It’s a win-win.
Thanks for reading.
