Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, May 12th 2011

Fear of global warming causes global warming, fishermen brave the high seas in search of the rare baggus plasticus catch and Mother Nature is a green-eyed marriage-wrecker.

Part One: Hippie of the Week

This week the coveted HOTW award goes to a man who definitely doesn’t want it. Which is too bad. New Gingrich has announced his intention to seek the GOP nomination to go head to head in the POTUS cage-match against incumbent featherweight President Obama.

But Newt has baggage, green baggage.

In 2008, the ex-Speaker famously cuddled up on a couch with Nancy Pelosi and warned America of the dangers of global warming. It was part of Al Gore’s famous ‘we’ campaign. Here’s the 30 seconds Newt wishes never happened:

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Sofagate isn’t enough on it’s own to wreck Newt’s aspirations, but combined with his co-authorship of ‘A Contract with the Earth‘ and his advocacy for ethanol subsidies, he’s too green to appeal to red states and not green enough for blue states. Morano’s Climate Depot has a list of Newt’s green gravitas. Which will likely make for a sad bear after the primaries.

Back in 2008, green was the new black and everyone wanted in on the greenwash hotness. But Newt, Pawlenty and Romney are finding that if you lay with hippies, you wake up with fleas.

Part Two: Warmists & Scaremongers

Animal activists are the furry version of global warming activists, they just prefer fauna more than flora. One such group wants us to use a whole new lexicon when it comes to describing our non-human sentient carbon-based life form companions:

Instead of “pet,” the Journal of Animal Ethics suggests “companion animal.” Rather than “wildlife,” they are to be called “free-living.” “Differentiated beings” or “non-human animals” is preferred to simply “animals.” Words such as “vermin,” “beasts” and “critters” are stricken completely, along with similes such as “sly as a fox,” “drunk as a skunk,” “eat like a pig,” “slippery as an eel,” “breeding like rabbits” and “stubborn as a mule.” “We will not be able to think clearly unless we discipline ourselves to use more impartial nouns and adjectives in our exploration of animals and our moral relations with them,” the editors write.

At the risk of upsetting the inanimate objects lobby, methinks the Journal of Animal Ethics is dumber than a bag of hammers.

Old religion, meet new religion. Papal people were moved to declare themselves concerned about glacial melt and presumably a rise in Holy See levels, or something. Pity the priesthood for using the Himalayas as an example, apparently the Vatican didn’t get the Himalayagate memo.

Al Gore celebrated the news that renewable energy costs will fall, according to the IPCC. Conveniently, the cost reductions are ‘sometime’ in the future, natch. For the inside scoop, Donna has everything you need.

Oh noes, global warming will kill wi-fi. Hipsters everywhere will be forced to drink coffee and (gasp) talk to each other in Starbucks. As if that’s not bad enough, computers are bad for the planet too. Hold on to your laptops and tablets, the iPuritans are coming.

The Sierra Club wants to go beyond coal, but first it must recover from a thorough fisking.

Roger Pielke takes on joltin’ Joe Romm and wins handily with both brevity and facts.

When Aussie governments activate climate super-genius and actress Cate Blanchett you know their agenda is in trouble. If that tactic doesn’t work, they’ll need to use the nuclear option - Hugh Jackman. Because that worked out great for Kevin Rudd.

A Grister declares the climate bill dead and Democrats useless:

“The climate bill is now dead in any case – probably even for a number of years. And even if Obama gets re-elected and the Democrats regain the majority in the House of Representatives, one has to ask whether that will be enough. We were at that point once already, and the climate bill failed spectacularly.”

Soylent Green picked up the moonbat comment of the week. It’s a doozy, too.

Jim ‘Def Trains‘ Hansen is backing lawfare against states, using children as sock-plaintiffs. If you’re interested in other ways to exploit your moppets for Gaia, Grist has some handy tips for the hippie parent.

Jolly Prince Chuckles, warns the world to eat sustainable fish. Who eats fish anyhow, did we run out of cows?

Sad news for celebrity watchers - Gaia the home-wrecker has struck again. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his long-term spouse Maria Shriver have separated. She couldn’t compete with Gaia’s luch mountains for the Governator’s attentions. Al Gore and Tipper hit splitsville last year, the first famous family to be wronged by the green-eyed monster that is our mother Earth. Unless there’s a Montecito bromance brewing , that is.

British TV presenter Ben Fogle went swimming and discovered the ocean was full of plastic. Hmm, how long did they have to look for that location?

Remember the Catlin Arctic Survey where sombre hippies freeze their soft parts off to prove how warm -40°C can be? It turns out that it began because it was a cheaper way to buy publicity than sponsoring a sports team:

…the smart decision to sponsor a high profile project has probably added more to Catlin’s brand than putting its name on a soccer stadium or putting its logo on the sides of a racing sailboat. The cost was modest—less than £3 million. The logic was good—an insurance company should be interested in a project that could help us all better predict climate change. And the opportunity to participate as a partner with multiple advocacy and activist groups (otherwise prickly and suspicious) should keep Catlin on the “good list” for a lot of people.

That’s some prime greenwash.

Part Three: Inconvenient Truths

In the US, Republicans are acting tough on energy and the Obama administration continues to do everything it can think of to raise the cost of power.

Fun with causation - global warming fear causes global warming. The US climate is basically unchanged even as effects elsewhere are seen as evidence of global warming:

In a summary of the work, Science notes that “there’s a startling exception to the data (i.e. of global warming): the United States isn’t getting hotter, nor are its crops decreasing. The rapid agricultural changes seen in the rest of the world have not been seen in the United States, an observation that hasn’t been noticed until now.”

America is often criticized for it’s low levels of belief in warming, but perhaps skepticism saves lives?

The Motley CRU’s scientific charades has damaged science for 30 years.

Oh noes, the oceans aren’t warming as predicted. But if they did, crabs would be happy.

Just when hippies thought they’d demonized carbon, clobbered coal, nuked nukes and ensured a powerless future, shale gas comes along and wrecks the party. It’s like Gaia doesn’t want to be saved.

Good advice about how to argue with hippies, warmists and other left-leaning folks:

I treat leftist nimrods the same way… I don’t argue for their benefit. I don’t care if they change their minds. I argue only to influence undecided people who have no firm opinions and to reinforce and boost the morale of people who already agree with me. Those are the two ways you contribute to the cause within the social media – influencing the undecided and supporting the committed.

The climate models that climate models use for climate models is biased toward warming. But only by about 67%. Wait, what?

South Carolina says the Feds will have to take their incandescent light bulbs from their cold, dead hands.

Afghan avians can breathe a little easier this week, and not just because Osama’s taken the dirt nap. The US Army discovered the huge bird shredder it intended to erect in the Afghan hills is too darned big for the roads to handle. I have no idea why a wind turbine seemed like a great plan in Afghanistan, unless it was part of a psy-ops plot.

IPCC peer-review isn’t the guarantee of research quality you think it is. Or it may be exactly as bad as you think, if you’re Minx the Merciless:

What’s bizarre is that an examination of the comments submitted by IPCC reviewers following both the first and second draft of Chapter 5 – and the responses to them – suggests that those involved appear to have taken part in a shared hallucination. A great deal of lip service was paid to peer-review, but in practice it was a next to meaningless concept.

Problems with green policies. Eurogovs encourage citizens to buy electric vehicles even as they replace coal plants with wind farms. More demand and less generation, what could possibly go wrong?

Australian greens have quietly given up their ambitious emission reduction targets. Claims of imminent planetary doom unless severe cuts were made are apparently overstated. Who knew?

I’ve had it with Big Oil. Nine out of ten skeptics are funded by Exxon-Mobil? What am I, chopped liver? The round-up doesn’t write itself, Exxon. Freeloaders.

For utility customers with a smart meter on their wall, it’s not there just for figuring your electricity bill:

California’s PG&E is currently in the process of installing “smart meters” that will collect detailed data of energy use —750 to 3000 data points per month per household—for every energy customer in the state. These meters are aimed at helping consumers monitor and control their energy usage, but the information that is collected can reveal much more about a household’s daily activities: when people wake up, when they come home, when they go on vacation, and maybe even when they take a hot bath.

These days, if you’re really interested in when people take a bath, go away or whatever, Twitter or MyFaceSpaceBook is an easier way to find out than hacking a smart meter.

Part Four: AGW in the News

Amazon’s founder has invested in a fusion generation project, which sounds promising. Imagine having affordable power just a One-Click Purchase away.

Canada should get out of Kyoto, fast:

Canada’s ratification of the protocol was one of the last acts of prime minister Jean Chrétien’s regime and taints the Liberal party to this day. Harper should feel absolutely no obligation to protect any part of that legacy. He knows that much of the science that props up the climate scare is unfounded and he has stated repeatedly that Canada has absolutely no chance of meeting our Kyoto commitments. For that reason alone, the new government should work toward making it politically feasible to withdraw from the agreement by the end of this year, rather than break what many around the world regard as international law.

News to make Prince Charles happier than a crab in tepid waters - the EU is paying fishermen to catch plastic.

Green treaties and sound-bites are fun, but when the bill comes due, western governments duck out.

Last week’s HOTW is back to his usual alarmist ways again, so all is right with the world:

This is a perilous moment, at which greens could easily find themselves outmanouvred by a ruthless government. Cameron is the embodiment of a ruling culture detached from the fears and fortunes of those it dominates, that preaches responsibility but practises as little as it can get away with, that will uproot any tree that shelters us from the corporate gale. The “greenest government ever” presents the greatest ever threat to our environment.

The UK may raise the speed limit to 80mph, because all the carbon reduction from huge bird shredder farms must be offset, or something.

Canada’s Belle Province has been taken over by bodysnatchers. They look like they did a week ago, but something is different. First they tossed the separatists under the bus, now they plan to get drilling, mining and logging like there’s no tomorrow. Who are these nouveau Quebecers? I like them already.

Global warming causes animals to shrink? The List, add to it.

Toronto wants to privatize garbage collection, but activists are against it, natch. They demand 20% of the costs be spent on ‘monitoring’, not actual garbage collection. In case you wondered, monitoring is them checking that you recycle and obey. Big Brother, much?

Hippies are losing the public, thanks to skeptical bloggers (you’re welcome) and, err, facts:

The so-called global warming crisis is falling apart at ever-increasing rates as skeptical bloggers chisel away at faults in the IPCC and whitewashes of ClimateGate, while digging up long-forgotten dire forecasts of weather driven by global cooling. It all must be working. Polls indicate downward trends in public concern over the issue…

Nukes blow away wind farms for costs and efficiency. All together now… mo’nukes, mo’ nukes, mo’ nukes.

The UN was humilated when pesky blogs noted that there were approximately 50 million missing climate refugees from the UN’s prediction. That’s all of them, if you’re counting. So they respond in the Guardian and casually announce that the ‘science has moved on’:

Presenting complex data is a challenge for any public or private institution – in respect of migration, rising populations, unsustainable use of resources, poverty and civil war all contribute to vulnerability in the face of natural and weather-related disasters. The science has moved on since 2005, as has the debate at about how best to classify people affected by natural hazards, either temporarily or permanently and within or across national borders.

Looked at today, the map over-simplifies the message, which is why we asked for it to be removed.

Question for the UN - if your 2005 science was 50 million people wrong, why should we trust your 2011 science? Awkward, no?

The Guardian ponders whether global warming may be a good thing. Wait, what?

Dellers is back and blogging about dog poo in yogurt, or something.

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Part Five: Global Hottie

A popular search that brings people to the round-up is ‘Sienna Miller’. I can’t name a movie that she’s been in without help from the Google0matic, but whatever. Give the people what they want, more Sienna.

Thanks for reading.