Green! Green! What better color to associate with Al Gore’s efforts to save the world from itself - right?

Actually, Gore is engaged in the world’s most successful marketing scheme of all time. The investment money is pouring into bank accounts of corporations built around “Going Green” - and boy are they.

 These bio-fuel and green technology firms could be poised to take off, Gore told his audience.

“Here are just a few of the investments I personally think make sense,” he said during the March 1 presentation. “I have a stake in these so I’ll have a disclaimer there.” (See Video)

Gore’s admitted stake in those companies comes from his partnership in the venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). Gore joined the firm last November, forging a partnership between KPCB and the London-based Generation Investment Management, a firm Gore chairs, and which steers investments in green and “sustainable” companies.

This month, KPCB announced it has invested $500 million into start-up “green growth” companies, and another $700 million into more established greentech, information technology and life science ventures.

The seed money is intended to “grow” the companies so they can be publicly traded. Both funds are closed to further investment. Last week, Generation Investment Management reportedly closed a $683-million “Climate Solutions Fund” to further investment.

The firms, with similar goals, differ in that GIM focuses mostly on public equities, while KPCB focuses on startup or expanding companies that haven’t gone public yet.

Yep - the Sham Master Flash is right smack in the middle of all of this “publicly traded” and “going public”. The industry is about YOU paying more for everything in order to be earth conscious, while GORE flies around the world in private jets to tut his new product. Fear is the most complete marketing tool and Al Gore wields it well.

There is your inconvenient truth, you sheep.

Let’s keep this list handy, shall we?

“If there’s one thing we know about science, it changes, it evolves, it’s counterintuitive, and we learn things we didn’t expect before.” From Roger Pielke Jr, science policy specialist from the University of Colorado.

This “small” sampling is in no particular order……….

5/1/08….Next decade may see no warming due to changes in ocean currents. link

4/30/08….Warming to level off through 2014 mostly due to ENSO then surge thereafter. link Note: this is the same story as the one on the bottom.

4/28/08….We could reach the global warming tipping point within 2-3 decades. link

11/15/07…..Climate change accelerating, scientists warn. link.

01/03/08…..2008 will be one of the top ten warmest globally since 1850. link.

12/07/07……Rising CO2 will lead to wetter storms in the northern hemisphere. link.

12/21/07….More than 400 scientists cast doubt that man-made global warming threatens the planet. link.

01/23/08….Warming oceans reducing the # of landfalling U.S. Hurricanes. link.

03/04/08……..Famous hurricane forecaster predicts global cooling in 10 years. link.

04/23/08…….Prepare for an ice age. link.

02/12/08……Sea level rise could be twice as high as current projections. link.

08/31/07…….Global warming will bring violent storms and tornadoes. link.

03/27/08…….Expect more warming of extreme temperatures. link.

07/25/07….Huge sea level rises are coming unless we act now! link.

10/3/07…..Earth will only heat up 8/10 of a degree over the next 100 years and the sun is the
major driver of this increase. link.

08/10/07…….Global warming will speed up after 2009. link.

04/30/08……..Global warming will stop until at least 2015. link.

04/29/08…….PDO flip could mean cooler times for the West Coast. link.

05/19/03….New model predicts greater 21st century warming. link.

10/01/03….Solar contribution to global warming predicted to decrease. link.

09/16/06…..Scientists predict solar downturn, global cooling. link.

03/20/03….. Sun’s Output Increasing in Possible Trend Fueling Global Warming. link.

11/06/97……Brightening sun is warming earth. link.

04/14/08….Warming will mean fewer, but more powerful tropical cyclones. link.

08/26/06….Russian scientist predicts global cooling in coming decades then a warmer interval. link.

04/29/07…..Humans are to blame for global warming. Easrth will warm 3.2 to 7.1 F by 2100 with sea level increase of 7 to 23 inches, according to IPCC. link.

05/11/07…..Eastern U.S. will face severe heat by 2080. link.

01/31/07….Sydney, Australia will see a 9 degree celsius increase in temp. by 2070. link.

08/13/07…..Expect CONTINUED warming over the next 10 years. (UK Met office). link.

04/27/08….Ten-year forecasts produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre CAPTURE this LEVELLING of global temperatures in the middle of this decade. From the article “Is global warming all over?” link.

This story could alternatively be title ” Al Gore’s Screeching Halt”, except there are so many people who have not bothered to update their knowledge of the increasingly clear indications that “Global Warming” is a non-issue.

A new study, published in the Geophysical Research letters by scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Ohio State University shows that computer analyses of global climate have consistently overstated the warming in Antarctica, according to the ScienceDaily article.

The group found that observed Antarctica temperatures rose only by 0.4 F (0.2 C) over the past century, while the climate models simulated increases of 1.4 F (0.75 C). The computer models may have overestimated the amount of water vapor in the Antarctic atmosphere.

I wonder what other models are wrong? Oh - and don’t learn about how NASA cooked their climate numbers, again.

I know President Bush has done some great things for America during his presidential tenure. I am certain history is going to be a lot nicer to him than the present is being. We have seen President Bush capitulate on a number of things important to republicans, even while acting courageously (in the political sense) on things like Judicial appointments, Bolton appointment, and the war on terror.

I never thought President Bush would capitulate to his 2000 election rival.

President Bush is poised to change course and announce as early as this week that he wants Congress to pass a bill to combat global warming, and will lay out principles for what that should include.

I understand the reasoning which dictates passage of some sort of Global Warming legislationto stave off more stringent legislation after the elections. Democrats are likely to strengthen their control in both houses this cycle and the resultant muddle on all of the controversial topics is going to be fierce.  However, I don’t believe the ploy will work. The fierce debate which is going to take place to define the contents of such legislation puts the White House in a bad situation. For the first time, President Bush is going to recognize the need for some sort of initiative and then have his staff and supporters in congress work to limit the scope and impact of the initiative. It is oxymoronic. You cannot play into the global warming game by sticking your toe into the water.

It is one thing to propose legislation to strengthen the clean air act or one of the myriad existing environmental initiaitives. But what the White House just did is lend credence to the wild global warming is doom hand-wringing party engaged in by the left.

President Bush seems to be working hard to enhance the potential of having a positive legacy. He is working hard to not be seen as a lame duck president. Usually, this means working hard for the policies of your own party - not pandering to the drivel of the leftist nutters.

I actually “LOLed” when I read this earlier today. The Department of Energy is testing the potential of blasting a special glass into space to curb the effects of global warming.

The particles, consisting of a very fine and special form of glass - “porous-walled glass microspheres” - would be able to absorb a certain amount of carbon dioxide, and would reflect sunlight away from the Earth.

I thought it was interesting to see people using flip phones, which look interestingly like Gene Roddenberry’s “Star Treck”. These days, we also have something we can “set to stun” and shoot at a bad guy to incapacitate him. But to spend millions of dollars trying to recreate weather conditions in 1980 Port Charles is a little much for me.

Laura attempted to find Scotty, who had run off to Mexico, in order so that she could get a divorce and marry Luke. However Luke remained hostile towards Laura, even as Laura made several maneuvers to remain in Luke’s life. Laura decided that she had to show Luke that she had matured and thus moved out of her parents’ home and into an apartment, which just happened to be conveniently located in the same building as Luke’s apartment. Since Luke lived on a floor above Laura, he was forced to walk past her apartment everyday. This ensured that the two kept bumping into each other.

Luke eventually went to work for Edward Quartermaine and his niece Alexandria Quartermaine, who were in search of the Ice Princess, the world’s largest uncut diamond that had been spray-painted black and mounted on a base to be displayed as a statue. Luke promised the Quartermaines that he would get the statue before their rivals, the Cassadines could.

Eventually, Luke and Laura reconciled and decided to get married. Around the same time, World Security Bureau (WSB) agent Robert Scorpio had arrived in town and warned Luke that the Ice Princess mystery was far more serious than previously thought. Hidden inside the base of the statue was a formula that could create a substance called carbonic snow. The Cassadines planned on using carbonic snow in their sinister plot to take over the entire world. It was revealed that Alexandria was in league with the Cassadines and after the Ice Princess had made its way into the hands of several Port Charles citizens, Alexandria and the Cassadine brothers (Victor and Tony) finally got their hands on it and prepared to take it to Mikkos Cassadine, the eldest Cassadine brother (portrayed by sci-fi actor John Colicos).

Alexandria, Victor and Tony invited several guests on an ocean cruise aboard the Titan (Later the Haunted Star). As the Titan left Port Charles, Luke and Robert sneaked on board and were surprised when they found that Laura had also stowed away. Eventually, they arrived at Mikkos’ island in the Atlantic. Luke and Laura found the island a rather passionate setting and made several attempts to make love, only to be interrupted by Robert. Laura soon fell sick with a fever, and when Robert attempted to make Luke leave her behind, he refused and let Robert know that Laura was more important to him than their mission. Eventually Laura recovered and the three set about finding a way to stop the Cassadines.

Meanwhile, Mikkos unleashed his ultimate plan: he planned to hold the world to ransom. If world leaders did not accept his demands for total world domination, he would use his carbonic snow in his weather machine in order to send the Earth into a new ice age. In order to show that he was capable of doing this, he selected Port Charles as a test subject and soon the city was plunged into a blizzard — even though it was still summer. As temperatures in Port Charles continued to plummet, Mikkos managed to capture Luke, Laura and Robert. When his brother Tony and Alexandria Quartermaine expressed doubts about the plan, Mikkos had them killed.

Eventually Luke, Laura, Robert and B-movie actress Tiffany Hill managed to defeat Mikkos, and Luke was able to figure out the password in order to turn off Mikkos’ machine. In the course of the struggle, Mikkos was killed. Luke, Laura and Robert were thus hailed as heroes by the citizens of Port Charles.

Someone should tell the DOE that carbonic snow is the answer.

What proponents of a lot of these green energy initiatives don’t often get is that mother nature is not a constant. Everything is cyclical - everything.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to some large customers, the grid agency said on Wednesday.

You have to have a “toolbox” approach to life. Trying to build a house with just a hammer is short-sighted. Wind turbines fail, the conditions which make the successful are not constant, and the enviromental cost of wind turbines is far from ideal.

It is nice to know you can create energy that is renewable, but to put people in a position where a lack of wind means they get no service is dumb, dumb, dumb.

Another thing I find appalling is that in many places you used to be able to enjoy vistas of enormous natural beaty, now what you see is this. I think I’ll take a .5 degree Celsius temperature change over ruining the landscape of every windy place on earth.

It always amazes me just a tiny bit how liberals will take something completely obtuse and turn it into “another ramification of global warming”. This time it is Jo Tuckman for the Guardian. She’s been cited by Michael Moore as a source for the “Bush stole the election” meme and now her latest global warming rubbish is being pontificated upon by every leftist website in the world as a fact.

The headline is wonderfully dramatic: Global warming brings busy year for UN disaster teams

Here is the direct quote that created the headline - you’ll love it.

Of the 14 global missions, 70% were in response to hurricanes and floods, the OCHA statement said, calling this “possibly a glimpse of the shape of things to come given the reality of climate change.”

Jo Tuckman was able to translate this single vague “maybe” into a direct correlation between global warming (not climate change) and tropical storms. The interesting thing is that global warming has largely been dismissed as a cause of tropical storms and has even been theorized to decrease the strength of tropical storms and hurricanes. Especially since the IPCC and WMO published a study refuting the correlation between global warming and tropical storms in 2006.

Consensus statements by the workshop participants

1. Though there is evidence both for and against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record to date, no firm conclusion can be made on this point.

2. No individual tropical cyclone can be directly attributed to climate change.

3. The recent increase in societal impact from tropical cyclones has been largely caused by rising concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal regions.

4. Tropical cyclone wind-speed monitoring has changed dramatically over the last few decades leading to difficulties in determining accurate trends.

5. There is an observed multi-decadal variability of tropical cyclones in some regions whose causes, whether natural, anthropogenic or a combination, are currently being debated. This variability makes detecting any long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity difficult.

6. It is likely that some increase in tropical cyclone peak wind-speed and rainfall will occur if the climate continues to warm. Model studies and theory project a 3-5% increase in wind-speed per degree Celsius increase of tropical sea surface temperatures.

7. There is an inconsistency between the small changes in wind-speed projected by theory and modeling versus large changes reported by some observational studies.

8. Although recent climate model simulations project a decrease or no change in global tropical cyclone numbers in a warmer climate there is low confidence in this projection. In addition, it is unknown how tropical cyclone tracks or areas of impact will change in the future.

9. Large regional variations exist in methods used to monitor tropical cyclones. Also, most regions have no measurements by instrumented aircraft. These significant limitations will continue to make detection of trends difficult.

10. If the projected rise in sea level due to global warming occurs, then the vulnerability to tropical cyclone storm surge flooding would increase.

Although the debate continues today about everything from the cause of climate change to the actual impact of climate change, there is nothing - nothing - which concludes that global warming is in any way related to the strength or frequency of tropical storms - even in 2006. The opposite seems to be true.

Scientific experts, however, agree that global warming is not a factor in the current spate of hurricanes.  Nor is the trend likely to get worse.  Scientists from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, told the Post (Sept. 3), It’s a fact that nobody so far has been able to show from the observed storms a tendency to have more intense storms.  Kerry Emmanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told UPI on September 20 after another hurricane had hit, The intensity of current hurricanes such as Ivan cannot be attributed to global warming.
One widely reported study (by Knutson and Kuleya, published in the Journal of Climate) did suggest that, A greenhouse gas ­induced warming may lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms.  However, the study appears flawed in that, to begin with, it estimated growth in greenhouse gas concentrations at 1 percent per year, rather than the currently occurring 0.4 percent per year, which results in much higher concentrations by mid-century, which is when the risk of destructive storms is supposed to increase.

More recent study seems to indicate that global warming may actually decrease the strength of Atlantic hurricanes.

The big buzzwords being bandied about with regards to climate change is Scientific Consensus. I understand what this mean, although I don’t think a lot of the global warming alarmists do.

In every article I write about this, I feel the need to explain - so bear with me.

• According to the science available to us today, there is irrefutable evidence the earth has been warming over the past few decades.
• We have assumed carbon dioxide is the most important contributor to global warming.

The first statement is based upon the results of Science. There have been highly accurate measurements of temperature change since 1978 and quite accurate research of the natural record going back a very long time. The earth warms and cools in a somewhat cyclical manner.

The second statement is based upon Scientific Consensus, but only a bastardized form if that. Scientific Consensus is a judgment or opinion, which is based significantly on peer review of other people’s research. Scientific Consensus is supposed to be open for criticism, but it is not now - nor has it been historically. Scientific Consensus is supposed to be perishable, changing over time as new science emerges on a specific topic, but that is not happening in the global warming debate either.

Our ability to understand global warming and whether we should worry should be based upon the results of science. The scientific community should be encouraging researchers to try to prove them wrong. That is the strength of science.

The truth is, proponents of anthropogenic global warming don’t want to hear anything contrary to their long-adopted consensus. It is more important to be important and right, than it is to allow your consensus to be proven incorrect, or even just potentially flawed.

It is interesting to note that the IPCC hailed 900-odd reports which came to exactly the same conclusion - that global warming is human caused. Yet, this same body reportedly ignored another 1100 studies which refuted one or more of the measures, models, or methods used by the IPCC. It is also interesting that many of the IPCC’s own reviewers have been ignored in their criticism of the IPCC information. Additionally, it is interesting how many scientists who are not skeptics at all are ignored when their research contradicts the scientific consensus.

Before I let you go, think about a few other instances in history, where the scientific consensus was different than the research posed by a minority of scientists.

Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions discussed this problem in detail. Several examples of this are present in the relatively recent history of science. For example:

• the theory of continental drift proposed by Alfred Wegener and supported by Alexander Du Toit and Arthur Holmes but soundly rejected by most geologists until indisputable evidence and an acceptable mechanism was presented after 50 years of rejection.
• the theory of symbiogenesis presented by Lynn Margulis and initially rejected by biologists but now generally accepted.
• the theory of punctuated equilibria proposed by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge which is still debated but becoming more accepted in evolutionary theory.
• the theory of prions -proteinaceous infectious particles causing transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diseases- proposed by Stanley B. Prusiner and at first rejected because pathogenicity was believed to depend on nucleic acids now widely accepted due to accumulating evidence.
• the theory of Helicobacter pylori as the cause of stomach ulcers. This theory was first postulated in 1982 by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren however it was widely rejected by the medical community believing that no bacterium could survive for long in the acidic environment of the stomach. Marshall demonstrated his findings by drinking a brew of the bacteria and consequently developing ulcers. In 2005, Warren and Marshall were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work on H. pylori

There are also examples of new ideas that were shown to be wrong. Two of the classics are N rays and polywater. Although some believers still exist, cold fusion is generally considered to belong to this class. [Source]

So, my point here is we should be frantically accepting all criticism in an effort to disprove it, rather than rejecting all criticism in an effort to ignore it. Why? In order to ensure survival from these predicted cataclysmic results of global warming, we are talking about impacting the entire global society as we know it - unless it is just our survival we care about. Before we attempt to lead the world in an effort so drastic and so forceful, we are obliged to find the truth. Consensus is not truth.

I will update this post more tomorrow, after I have had time to read the report. But briefly, there are a great number of skeptics in the scientific community - some current or former members of the IPCC - who say the science does not support claims by UN IPCC and Al Gore that global warming is human-caused.

Check out the related articles here for some background on some of the skeptics.

More later.

Hat Tip: Jon Justice

Ernest Calderon, the Vice President of the Arizona Board of Regents stated yesterday, “What universities need to do is undertake their primary mission of fully educating our students so that they realize that they have challenges ahead.” All well and good, right?

No.

What Ernest Calderon means is Arizona grads don’t know enough about Global Warming, the tenets of Islam, and DNA. Further, Calderon is suggesting a mandatory class for all Freshmen on these topics. Mandatory classes on a religion because it is growing rapidly? Yeah, no agenda here, right?

How about this? Why don’t we teach incoming Freshmen about the current global cooling trend, The Ten Commandments, and DNA by Intelligent Design and the perils of cloning? No? I didn’t think so.

If you want people to learn these things, make them electives, and let the chips fall where they may. Otherwise, allow the students to leave political agendas at the door of the classroom and mandate that teachers do the same.

What Calderon is talking about is not rounding out a young person’s education, but indoctrinating young people to their political agenda. There is nothing lacking in a graduate who has managed to remain sane and still thinking after four years in the leftist pressure cooker our campuses have become.