Duthie On...

A powerful indictment of CO2 restrictions as a means to combat "climate change": It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena...

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Guess I won't be shopping at Whole Foods anytime soon: Whole Foods Market won't offer plastic shopping bags at their stores after Earth Day this year. It is a savvy move for the upscale natural foods retailer, who estimates that by the end of the year the policy will have averted use of 100 million new plastic grocery bags at their 270 stores. It won't save the company any money-since the paper and multi-use bags that will replace plastic bags at their stores cost more to manufacture, stock and handle...

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Who would have predicted this : Compact fluorescent light bulbs, long touted by environmentalists as a more efficient and longer-lasting alternative to the incandescent bulbs that have lighted homes for more than a century, are running into resistance from waste industry officials and some environmental scientists, who warn that the bulbs’ poisonous innards pose a bigger threat to health and the environment than previously thought. Oh yeah, that's right... I did , almost a year ago: So it seems to...

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Oops : Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years , with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota , Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia , Iran, Greece , South Africa, Greenland...

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Clearly, wishful thinking does not cause hurricanes : Unless a dramatic and perhaps historical flurry of activity occurs in the next 9 weeks, 2007 will rank as a historically inactive TC year for the Northern Hemisphere as a whole. During the past 30 years, only 1977, 1981, and 1983 have had less activity to date (January-TODAY, Accumulated Cyclone Energy). However, the year is not over... Click through charts and more. Once again, those who predicted a worse than usual hurricane season were wrong...

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Apparently Freeman Dyson (yes, that Freeman Dyson ) doesn't buy into the hype on global warming: My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do....

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James Hansen, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has been a major critic of the Bush administration's response to global warming. Hansen has repeatedly claimed that he's being silenced for his outspoken views on the subject. Given that he's not an official spokesman for the government on climate change, it's not surprising that his public assertions that climate change is man-made and heading towards a point of no return would be viewed by the administration as unacceptable freelancing...

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OK, so perhaps I'm not as funny as the Dell Dude (assuming he was ever funny), but this one strikes me as an idea that only he could love. I was browsing around Dell's website today, checking out the cost of some new desktop hardware, just for curiosity, more than anything else, when I came upon what I can only describe as the enviro-nut section of the build process. In the services section of the website (see the image below), you now have the ability to have Dell (for a fee, of course) plant a...

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OK, so when you've failed to convince Rolling Stone that a favorite liberal solution is a good thing, you've got a real problem (WARNING: article contains some strong language): The great danger of confronting peak oil and global warming isn't that we will sit on our collective asses and do nothing while civilization collapses, but that we will plunge after "solutions" that will make our problems even worse. Like believing we can replace gasoline with ethanol, the much-hyped biofuel that we make...

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So much great snark in just two sentences: Originally, National Review Online thought that I might want to attend the North American concert and report directly, but I’m trying to keep my carbon footprint to a minimum. Besides, the irony of traveling to New Jersey to support an environmental cause is a tad dispiriting. Read the whole thing . Mark Hemingway on Live Earth on National Review Online...

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This , sent by a friend, is just a hoot: Officials at Live Earth Johannesburg have blamed the effects of climate change for poor audience attendance at Saturday's (07Jul07) South African event. Organiser John Langford believes extremely cold weather in the region - it snowed last week (ends06Jul07) for the first time in a quarter of a century - kept people away from the concert, which starred Joss Stone , UB40, Angelique Kidjo and Baaba Maal. Speaking before the event, Langford said, "We're expecting...

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Gore goes on a tear in the usual vein at the DC Live Earth show: "Some who don't understand what is now at stake tried to stop this event on the Mall," the former Democratic presidential candidate said in a thinly veiled hit on members of President George W. Bush's Republican party. "But here we are," he said as an image of a bright Earth shined behind him. "And it wasn't the cavalry who came to our rescue, it was the American Indian ." Um...no, it wasn't. It was a bunch of libs at one of the Smithsonian...

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You gotta figure Al's not thrilled with this , three days before the Live Earth carbon orgy: LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The 24-year-old son of former Vice President Al Gore was arrested for drug possession on Wednesday after he was stopped for speeding in his hybrid Toyota Prius, a sheriff's official said. Al Gore III -- whose father is a leading advocate of policies to fight global warming -- was driving his environmentally friendly car at about 100 miles per hour on a freeway south of Los Angeles...

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James M. Taylor : In his new book, The Assault on Reason, Al Gore pleads, "We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth." Gore repeatedly asks that science and reason displace cynical political posturing as the central focus of public discourse. If Gore really means what he writes, he has an opportunity to make a difference...

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Read that last line twice...and the next time someone tells you how ethanol is necessary to combat global warming and save the world's poor from its ill effects, ask them what they're planning to do about the poor who rely on corn as a food staple, who can no longer afford it. MORE ON WHY ETHANOL FUEL is probably a bad idea: Congress evidently believes that American energy independence depends, in part, on turning massive quantities of food into fuel. The energy bill being debated in the Senate would...

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Really good question : Forecasts for a busy hurricane season in 2006 were all dead wrong. This year, forecasters predicted a really busy year again. But with just two storms to date, and neither one a hurricane, you might wonder where all the action is. Although the article goes on to suggest that it's too early to tell how busy this hurricane season will be, it's still an important reminder that prediction ain't all it's cracked up to be. And it should remind us that if some of the best forecasters...

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It's the simple ideas that no one cares about...at least no one who's more interested in pontificating about how we need to sacrifice our lifestyles to "save the planet": SAVING THE PLANET -- or at least some energy -- with white roofs. It's worth a try! Megan McArdle has thoughts, and so does Mark Kleiman, who says that the idea is too simple and obvious to interest the political/policy community. "Just as a child is unlikely to be impressed with a highly efficient engine, because it fails to make...

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Instapundit asks an important question: WILL ETHANOL LEAD TO FOOD SHORTAGES? Ethanol is a renewable, homegrown fuel that can help lower U.S. dependence on foreign oil. But as more and more ethanol is made from corn, less and less corn is available for food production, and that’s causing some unforeseen problems. Corn is a mainstay of American agriculture— it’s an important ingredient in cereals and baked goods, and corn syrup is used to make processed foods like candy, chips and soft drinks. But...

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A "reality check" from Popular Mechanics: How much mercury do power plants emit to light a CFL? About 50 percent of the electricity produced in the U.S. is generated by coal-fired power plants. When coal burns to produce electricity, mercury naturally contained in the coal releases into the air. In 2006, coal-fired power plants produced 1,971 billion kilowatt hours (kwh) of electricity, emitting 50.7 million tons of mercury into the air—the equivalent amount of mercury contained in more than 9 billion...

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Think environmentalists care about the world's poor? Think again: H/T: Planet Gore...

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"But", one of Brumshagen's carpenter colleagues said of the model Ark, "I am not so sure that it will float." So ends this ridiculous Reuters story about a group of environmental activists who are apparently rebuilding Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat. The activists (the news story doesn't mention whether they're actually believers in the Bible, or whether they're simply exploiting the story for their own ends) are attempting to highlight the purported danger of rising seas from global climate change by...

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This time, from corn-based ethanol.

via Instapundit

Rich Karlgaard, in Forbes.com, discusses one of the most egregious cases of unintended (but utterly predictable) consequences in the brief history of the environmental movement, that of the banning of DDT in the wake of the release of Silent Spring, the book that is credited with starting the whole movement. It's author, Rachel Carson, has the status of a saint on the left, is lionized in the media, and even has schools named for her, such as this middle school in Herndon, VA (ironically, the location...

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Laurie David and Sheryl Crow demonstrate that they've got it in spades . Just imagine the temerity of Karl Rove in responding to someone deliberately attempting to pick a fight by, well, fighting. And what a shock for him to declare that he doesn't work for a couple of lefty celebrities. According to The Daily Gut , David claimed that she's "never had anyone be so rude." Are you kidding me, lady? You take advantage of the White House Correspondent's Dinner to lecture someone you don't know about...

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In an earlier post , I pointed to an article on American Thinker about the problems with compact fluorescent bulbs, and also proposed a spoof of the "got milk" ad campaign to highlight the issue of mercury in CFLs. Now, American Thinker has been kind enough to pick up the graphic and put it on their homepage. My thanks to AT for their interest....

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American Thinker has the story . Perhaps we should start an ad campaign...Got Mercury? Feel free to pass the above image along, if you're so inclined. UPDATE: I wanted to add a link to the Wikipedia article on CFLs , which confirms the 5mg figure cited in the graphic I created, and which is referred to in the article I link to. Note that the Wikipedia article also claims that the overall output of mercury from a CFL should be less, given the theoretical reduction in emissions from coal-fired power...

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...and other tactics to discredit those who don't toe the catastrophic global warming line: PowerLine blog has a great example of the full range . It says something about the poverty of argumentation on the side of the supporters of catastrophic global warming theory that they, and the media, must distort the views of those who oppose their doom-mongering. And worse, these tactics make it harder to have a reasonable debate on reasonable steps we could be taking today, at significantly less cost than...

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So as I write this, it's snowing outside my window in Northern Virginia. I eagerly await the latest convoluted explanation from Al Gore & Co. on how this is actually caused by anthropogenic global warming.

I mean, after all, if Manhattan can flood and then freeze solid in a matter of hours (The Day After Tomorrow, quite possibly one of the dumbest movies ever made), what's a little snow in April?

So says Michael Crichton in an interview with Scott Burgess . Crichton has a remarkable facility for breaking things down to their essence, and this interview is no exception. I doubt he's the first to say it, but the notion merits repeating, often and loudly...science is not, nor should it be, a matter of consensus. We don't vote on science, we form hypotheses, and test them to weigh their merits. The global warming bullies don't want anyone to upset their apple cart, so they attempt to browbeat...

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As Amy Ridenour (via Iain Murray of NRO's Planet Gore blog) points out , you call it a "free concert." Think about this a minute...according to Gore, et. al., Global Warming is the most critical issue to our collective survival. But it would appear that there's not a lot of demand for political rallies on the issue. So let's get a bunch of lefty musicians and celebs together, and draw people that way. Then we can claim that the thousands who attend these concerts are showing their concern about GW...

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H/T Planet Gore

That's the question Bill Hobbs looks into, and makes a pretty good case that it may be an "inconvenient truth" behind Gore's activism.

H/T Planet Gore

...not As I Do. Another fine example is Al Gore, who according to this post on the Planet Gore blog (referring to an item from the Tennesee Center for Policy Research), uses more than 20 times the national average in electricity. One assumes that at least some of that is not from renewable sources. Ah, but according to Greenhouse Gasbag Al, the rest of us plebes must conserve, conserve, conserve if we are to avoid the dire calamities of global warming. Thanks for the warning, Al. And for doing your...

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Climate scientist Roy W. Spencer discusses in the NY Post the uncertainties involved in our current understanding of climate, and the relative "sharpness" of climate models as predictors of future global warming. A worthwhile read.

H/T - Planet Gore blog