Global Warming

The left continues to try to renovate Van Jones' reputation. Jones, the former green jobs czar who disappeared from the White House in a late-night resignation after it was revealed he had signed a 9/11 Truther petition, is one of the headliners at the Hamptons Institute gathering of lefties this weekend.

Jones joins liberal financier George Soros and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark for "a weekend summer symposium gathering some of the greatest minds in the arts, the economy, and the media" this coming weekend. To prep for the event, Jones was interviewed by New Deal 2.0 and he responded predictably - touting massive government spending on eco-goodies and a higher cost for energy.

According to Jones, "Higher energy costs are unavoidable in all future scenarios." He tried to spin that cost as minor as long as America acts now, claiming it would be "the equivalent of a postage stamp a day for each American." It sounds a lot worse after you do the math and come up with $50 billion.

When news recently broke that the 78 year-old actor Larry Hagman had surfaced in California promoting solar energy as means of staving off the end of civilization, I must admit I was somewhat taken aback. Prior to this, the last time anyone had heard from Hagman was when he was part of a "who done it" spoof which TV viewers watched in an attempt to ascertain "Who Shot J.R.?"

Now he looks like just so many other Hollywood figures that miss the limelight and therefore come out and say something crazy in order to get a little attention: Either that or he actually believes the things he said in the interview for the Oregonian. (After reading the interview a couple of times, I personally hope he's just talking crazy to get attention because if he really believes the things he said, Hollywood has hit a new low.)

In the interview, Hagman takes Sarah Palin's famous "Drill, baby, Drill" and augments it to fit solar energy by changing it to "Shine, baby, Shine." He describes solar power as "an inexhaustible source of energy" which he uses to provide electricity for his home.

Some red hot chili peppers are on tour, and they're emitting a lot of greenhouse gases. But it's not the California rock band emitting carbon on a worldwide concert tour; it's seeds from chili peppers traveling to the "doomsday" vault in Norway.

A bipartisan congressional delegation visited the Svalbard Global Seed Vault July 11 as a side trip during the 19th Annual Session of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly. Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., among others, delivered New World chili pepper seeds to the vault, a "fail-safe back-up plan to protect the existing world food supplies from destruction in the event of a large-scale catastrophe."

"As we manage the impact of climate change and other natural and man-made disasters around the world, the seed vault in Svalbard will be the safety deposit box that ensures we can keep that food supply intact," Cardin said in a statement.

Cardin, a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is outspoken about environmental issues ranging from green jobs to clean energy. Despite Cardin's positions, his trip to Norway left a giant carbon footprint - bigger than the footprint left in an entire year by the average American.

After pushing manmade global warming for years, the folks at Newsweek appear to be cooling on the idea.

Prominently placed at the front page of the magazine's website Monday was a large, overhead picture of what appeared to be a golf fairway or park with the following headline in green:

A Green Retreat: Why the Environment is No Longer a Surefire Political Winner

Even more surprising was the contents (h/t Climate Depot):

The Washington Post put the bad news for liberals right at the top of Monday's front page, left side: "Climate debate unmoved by spill." Reporters David Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin lamented that "great change" is not following the "great tragedy" of the BP oil spill. We haven't had an "awakening" to our wasteful ways:  

Environmentalists say they're trying to turn public outrage over oil-smeared pelicans into action against more abstract things, such as oil dependence and climate change. But historians say they're facing a political moment deadened by a bad economy, suspicious politics and lingering doubts after a scandal over climate scientists' e-mails.

The difference between now and the awakenings that followed past disasters is as stark as "on versus off," said Anthony Leiserowitz, a researcher at Yale University who tracks public opinion on climate change.

Only liberals are "awake," while the public is "asleep." They wonder why newspaper readership is declining. Here's how the story started:

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change has instructed all 831 researchers contributing to the organization's next round of assessments to "keep a distance from the media."

Such was disseminated in a July 5 letter from IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri which has already garnered some criticism from folks on both sides of the anthropogenic global warming debate.

Even the New York Times' Andrew Revkin expressed disgust with this revelation Saturday:

Surprise - a British panel ruled that the scandal known as ClimateGate that supposedly revealed the manipulation of certain data strengthen the case of manmade global warming was much ado about nothing. But, The New York Times in a July 7 story called these findings of an inquiry led by Muir Russell, a retired British civil servant and educator, "a sweeping exoneration" of the ClimateGate scientists in question. 

While there are still some serious and legitimate concerns to be raised about what ClimateGate reveal despite the findings, Bill Nye, the so-called "Science Guy" is celebrating and at the same time dismissing skeptics of Russell's findings. He explained why he thought this was important on CNN's July 7 broadcast of "Campbell Brown."

"Well, it's important to people like me," Nye said. "It's important to all the scientists. I think people who don't believe in climate change, who deny climate change, I don't think it's going to affect them very much at all because they're already committed to their - to their beliefs and this will be just one more brick in the great ziggurat of conspiracy for those people."

The guys at the Glenn Beck radio show had some fun at Al and Tipper Gore's expense Thursday creating a mock interview where the host questioned the separated couple about the former Vice President's antics with a masseuse in a Portland hotel room back in 2006.

The role of the Global Warmingist in Chief was marvelously played by Pat Gray with Stu Burguiere doing an adequate Tipper.

The interview began with Beck asking the Nobel Laureate what happened in the hotel Lucia that fateful evening.

Al/Pat deliciously responded, "The global warming just became overwhelming as I was receiving massage" (video follows with more highlights and commentary):

On the June 24 "American Morning," CNN's Carol Costello trumpeted a "revitalized" environmental movement that is hoping the Gulf oil spill will "change the way we feel about oil" and is aggressively lobbying Congress to pass radical climate change legislation.

Previewing the "Gut Check" segment, Costello gleefully teased, "Coming up next, environmentalists are revitalized and it's over the Gulf oil spill. Could this disaster be what we need in this country to change the way we feel about oil?"

In lockstep with the Left's environmental agenda, the fill-in anchor pondered whether the Gulf oil spill would crystallize support for a climate bill or would "it be back to business as usual?" Costello articulated the same phrase environmental groups frequently employ to manufacture a false sense of urgency around their liberal initiatives.

Interviewing David Rauschkolb, founder of Hands Across the Sand, a liberal group opposed to offshore drilling, Costello praised the forerunner to Rauschkolb's new group – Earth Day – for "strengthening the Clean Air Act and helping President Nixon create the Environmental Protection Agency." Costello did not reach out to conservative critics who argue that draconian environmental regulations stymie economic growth and breed unemployment.

"Obama Chickens Out on Energy," a disgusted Ben Adler argued to Newsweek's The Gaggle blog readers this morning.

Adler's chief complaint with last night's Oval Office address: Obama didn't call for massive tax hikes to push Americans to make more politically correct spending choices.

The Newsweek writer -- formerly a self-styled "propagandist" for the liberal Center for American Progress -- avoided the T-word until his last paragraph, but he made abundantly clear that he felt that a) American stupidity and short-sightedness was threatening to literally drown Manhattan in rising sea levels and b) Obama was not doing enough to make government force people to make better choices with their own money (emphases mine):

The current President of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), Ed Chen – who instituted the silliness of having the organization buy carbon credits to offset the travel of this year’s dinner headliner, Jay Leno, as well as for the President’s motorcade (seriously) – is leaving Bloomberg News to lend his shallow liberal advocacy to the left-wing Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

This is the second spin for Chen through the revolving door. He was the long-time White House correspondent for the Los Angeles Times when he left the newspaper “to join the NRDC in 2006, but then jumped back into the world of journalism in 2007 with a job at Bloomberg,” Politico’s Patrick Gavin recalled in a Sunday post. (Screen shot is from an April 28, 2005 news conference with President Bush.)

In an e-mail to the Politico’s Mike Allen, Chen trumpeted that at the NRDC he will be able to perform “the Lord’s work” and that he wants to “help public officials find the wisdom and courage to do the right thing to combat climate change before it's too late.”

After wondering on Friday if President Obama should help push energy legislation through Congress, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell continued her cheerleading for a new energy agenda on Monday. On her afternoon show "Andrea Mitchell Reports," Mitchell downplayed the cost of last summer's Cap and Trade bill, and opined that solar energy should be a part of the American energy future.

"Ed Markey's bill–the Markey-Waxman bill–was a year ago, but it is a Cap and Trade bill, as you were pointing out," Mitchell said to guest Ron Brownstein of Atlantic Media. "It doesn't really require us to eat our spinach," she added.

Mitchell introduced the segment by referencing the Oval Office address that President Obama will be delivering Tuesday. "How hard will [President Obama]  press BP, and just how far will he go in proposing new energy legislation?" Mitchell asked.

After introducing Brownstein to the segment, Mitchell pitched the question she had asked of New York Magazine columnist John Heilemann on Friday: is now the time for sweeping energy legislation?

On Thursday, Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) took to the floor of the Senate and claimed that carbon dioxide -- that naturally occurring gas integral to life on this planet! -- "will be over the next 20 years the leading cause of conflict, putting our troops in harm's way" (transcript and commentary follow):

We all know former Vice President Al Gore has a sycophantic media supporting him on his pet cause of global warming. But this might be a little over the top, or it could very well explain a lot.

In December 2007, when Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, The Washington Post's Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan argued the former vice president had won the Nobel Prize for "sexy." Well, apparently this is an inside-the-beltway notion that has existed for years.

On HBO's June 4 broadcast of "Real Time with Bill Maher," film producer, director, and screenwriter Judd Apatow harkened back to a 2000 cover of Rolling Stone magazine that revealed something about the former vice president during the Bush/Gore election cycle.

Parts of the U.S. establishment press have acknowledged "climate science" reality, six months late.

The fallout from ClimateGate (link is to the NewsBusters tag), the name eventually given to the scandal resulting from the unauthorized posting of over 1,000 emails and dozens of documents obtained from University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) in the UK, goes back a full six months to November of last year.

On November 20, Australia's Andrew Bolt crisply described the contents of the aforementioned items as providing substantial evidence of: "Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more."

Six long months later, as the American Thinker's Marc Sheppard observed, both the New York Times and Newsweek have recognized the fallout while still not conceding the argument. The Times does so in an article by Elisabeth Rosenthal about crumbling public support in Great Britain and elsewhere, while Newsweek's Stefan Thiel addresses "The backlash against climate science."

What a difference three years makes, says Sheppard:

CNN founder Ted Turner said Saturday that if we don't prepare for global warming, we'll be extinct.

In a multi-part interview with CNN Newsroom anchor Fredricka Whitfield, Turner spoke about his own devotion and dedication to environmental causes. 

"Have you altered all your life, all your living so you are what one would call energy responsible?" asked Whitfield. 

"What we really have is a choice whether we want to do the right things from an energy standpoint or the wrong thing," said Turner. 

"And if enough of us choose to do the wrong thing and we don't prepare for global warming and we don't make the changes that we know we should make, then we'll be extinct" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

We've all sort of known the media have been in the tank for the global warming alarmist movement. For evidence, look no further than a March 2008 segment that aired on ABC "World News" attacking leading climate skeptic, University of Virginia environmental scientist Professor Emeritus Fred Singer.

And the same culprit behind that 2008 segment, "World News" weekend anchor Dan Harris, was at it again with a piece that aired on May 23 attempting to link climate change skeptics to white supremacists.

But for balance, Harris included a few brief remarks, all of 10 seconds, from Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com, a news aggregator website Harris called "aggressive." But the actual interview Harris conducted with Morano was much more extensive and in depth. Throughout the interview, Harris asked Morano questions, but with premises that weren't necessarily true.

Entire Transcript Below Fold  

From the "Did I Say That Out Loud?" Department: "Crashing Vor" on the Daily Kos asserted on Tuesday morning that a good crisis should never go to waste. The Gulf oil spill must be exploited, and the greens must "use this moment, use the deaths of species and the suffering of people who depend on them, in the most cynical, calculated way, as bad as a Republican after 9/11, to make real, lasting change in how we address the costs of our way of life." That means a command-and-control "climate change" bill. Get it now, before stupid Americans lose interest: 

There is only one possible redemption in this horror, and even that is a slim chance.  If the enormity of what has happened in the Gulf can hold the country's atrophied attention long enough, and if we can mobilize fast enough, we might, just might, be able to bring about a positive change from this:

Real and comprehensive energy and climate legislation.

We must act now to force our legislators to write law with teeth and real effect, law that requires consumers pay the true price of the carbon they burn, law that requires business to pay the true price of the carbon they spew, law that includes the costs of things "no one could have anticipated" into the price of doing business.

At first, Michael Mann, a Penn State professor and a central figure in the Climategate scandal, but best known for his discredited "hockey stick graph" didn't like being mocked in a YouTube video. Now Mann is alleging he's a victim of hate groups. 

On ABC's May 23 "World News Sunday," a segment from anchor Dan Harris alleged that threatening e-mails Mann received were part of a "spike" in violence aimed at the global warming alarmist community.

"The ongoing oil spill crisis in the Gulf is keeping the debate over climate and energy very much in the headlines and that debate is becoming increasingly venomous with many prominent scientists now saying that they are being severely harassed," Harris said.

Curiously Harris makes no mention of the real violence in the form of eco-terrorism that has come from the environmental left or Greenpeace repeatedly targeting the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner, by stealing his garbage on a weekly basis, as his Web site points out. Instead, this "severe harassment" ABC warned about were e-mails from fringe Internet elements sent to Mann.

A far-left Democratic congressman is accusing conservative commentators of improperly -- perhaps illegally -- conspiring with advertisers to shill for their products under the guise of political opinion. The accusers, however, conveniently ignore liberal commentators that do virtually the same thing, only on a far larger scale.

Rep. Anthony Weiner released a report yesterday alleging that Goldline "has formed an unholy alliance with conservative pundits to drive a false narrative and play off public fears in order to sell its products," according to a release. Under "conservative pundits," read the Fox News Channel, and specifically Glenn Beck.

Weiner has this far neglected to criticize Fox's cable news competitor MSNBC and its parent network, which consistently shill for policies that would dramatically enrich their parent company, General Electric. GE's communications arm consistently further's Weiner's own political agenda, so a double standard seems to be afoot in his failure to call NBC out on its colossal conflict on interest.

It's a popular argument used by many in the global warming alarmist activist community - that there's a Christian basis for combating the threat of so-called anthropogenic global warming. In 2008, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean admitted as much - that his party use this issue in particular to win over the Christian community.

And it is one that has been echoed by the media as well. From The Washington Post to CNN, the press has propagated the belief that Holy Scripture teaches that man has a responsibility to combat global warming. But that's not the case, according to Dr. Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. Beisner, speaking at the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change on May 18 in Chicago, was asked if there was any Biblical basis that would lead evangelical Christians to assume they had a duty to join the anti-global warming bandwagon.

"I don't think they have any good Biblical basis at all," Beisner said. "What they do is they jump quickly from the Biblical teaching that we're supposed to be caring for the poor to ‘global warming is going to hurt the poor more than it hurts anybody else,' which by the way is true of every problem. You know, poverty makes you vulnerable, period. Wealth makes you less vulnerable, period. There's even a proverb in the book of Proverbs that says essentially that."

Four days after Senate Democrats introduced a new bill to limit carbon emissions, an international conference discussing the scientific holes in the theory of man-made global warming began in Chicago.

Despite the attendance of hundreds of scientists from across the globe, as well as polls finding Americans becoming less and less convinced that man has anything to do with the warming trend the planet has experienced since 1850, our nation's media couldn't care less.

The Fourth International Conference on Climate Change included such renowned scientists as MIT's Richard Lindzen, University of Virginia's S. Fred Singer, and former NASA astronaut and Senator Harrison Schmitt.

The event kicked off Sunday evening with a detailed discussion of the facts surrounding last year's ClimateGate scandal by Climate Audit's Stephen McIntyre (videos in three parts follow with commentary):

If you asked people what the two key events in the 20th century were, most would likely point to World Wars I and II because they transformed civilization. However, can something like the debate over climate change be as equally transformative? 

James Delingpole, author of "Welcome to Obamaland: I've Seen Your Future And It Doesn't Work," spoke at the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change on May 17, and insisted he wasn't being hyperbolic when he likened the climate change debate to the two world wars. Delingpole, who coined the term "ClimateGate," alleged the debate of the issue and the potential policies it may lead to would in fact shape the world as those two event had. [7:29]

"[I] think that evil people like me, people who are not afraid of taking the argument ad hominem occasionally and being a bit sort of naughty - I think we have a part to play in this war," Delingpole said. "And I use that word ‘war' quite deliberately because I think what we are fighting now is a war as important in its way as the wars of violence that our fathers and our grandfather fought in the first World War, the second World War, because ultimately what we're fighting for is exactly the same thing. What we are fighting for is liberty."

A California middle school and state university both apparently find extreme environmentalist indoctrination to be worthy of expending taxpayer dollars. Jehue Middle School and California State University at San Bernardio were both involved in the making and promotion of a video called "Environmental Police Agency" which features middle schoolers going around tackling and arresting "non-environmentalists" for crimes like having a refrigerator, leaving computer screens on, and throwing away a soda can. At the end they caution that drastic times call for drastic measures so we should institute this kind of green police state to save the world.

Read this post at the Eyeblast Blog in order to get all of the information on the video.

It seems radical environmentalists aren't satisfied with their current level of alarmist rhetoric so they're kicking it up a notch. Now they are launching a new campaign against something they call "ecocide":

Make sure you check out this post on the Eyeblast blog for all the details on this new "ecocide" campaign.

After making a fool out of himself going up against George Will on last Sunday's "This Week," Bill Maher dug an even deeper hole five days later trying to strike back at the well-known columnist with a peculiar blend of falsehoods and Bill Clinton.

As NewsBusters previously reported, Maher was humiliated on national television last week when he errantly claimed Brazil was "off oil" only to be corrected by ABC's token conservative.

On Friday's "Real Time," the HBO host countered first by citing an ad that former President Bill Clinton did back in 2006 in favor of a California ballot initiative that would have implemented a tax on that state's oil producers.

Next, Maher absurdly claimed that "part of the reason" America isn't off oil yet is "because of global warming deniers like George Will" (video follows with transcript and oodles of commentary):

Nobel Laureate Al Gore purchased a $9 million mansion in the luxurious hills of Montecito, California, recently, and with the exception of the Los Angeles Times and Fox News, America's media couldn't care less.

You think it might be because the Gore-loving press wouldn't want people to consider the possibility that all of his global warming hysteria was really about lining his wallet and not saving the planet?

Formulate a response to that question as you look at what all that money the former Vice President is making off of spreading this myth can buy (h/t Doug Ross):

"You Can With Beakman & Jax," a science comic for children that appears in 300 newspapers across the country, once again propagandized to young readers on Sunday. The May 2 edition featured a question from an E-mailer on who "writes myths." Artist Jox Church editorialized, "There are modern myths, too. Lots have to do with politics, like the kooky myth that global warming isn't real."

Church, who also created the TV show Beakman's World, has repeatedly used his comic to lecture children about climate change.

In an Otober 5, 2008 strip, he responded to a question about how erasers work. Church digressed, "Back in the 18th century, [Joseph] Priestley was a reverend searching for proof in the natural world as a way of proving his religion. That meant he already knew what he wanted to prove and gathered evidence to support that belief. This is also how some folks now fight against ideas such as global warming."

If you try to sweep your problems under the rug, they'll go away, right? Michael Mann, a Penn State professor and a central figure in the Climategate scandal and best known for his "hockey stick graph" hopes so.

On Fox News Channel's April 28 broadcast of "Your World with Neil Cavuto," Elmer Beauregard of Minnesotans for Global Warming appeared to explain the reasoning behind a video that drew the ire Mann. The video mocked the Penn State professor's alleged attempt to cover up data from tree rings that would indicate there was no global warming.

"Well, I don't know if you remember, but last fall, Obama was pushing the no cap-and-trade to go through the Senate because he wanted to have something to bring to Copenhagen," Beauregard said. "And just then Climategate broke and the mainstream press really wasn't covering it, so the coalition got together and we tried to think of a way to kind of bring this into the forefront of the American public. And I said I could make a funny YouTube video. And so, I did it to the tune of ‘Draggin' the Line' by Tommy James and The Shondells and put it up on YouTube and it went viral. And then Rush [Limbaugh] played it on his show and it went supernova."

Original "Hide the Decline" Video Below Fold

Young adults of a certain age will remember the 1992 environmental agitprop movie "FernGully," in which inhabitants of the last rainforest fight to save their environment. Well, bad ideas die hard. "Furry Vengeance," a new live-action children's movie starring Brendan Fraser and Brooke Shields, picks up where "FernGully" left off, thinly veiling its tree-hugging agenda with cheap laughs and cute, furry animals.

The story revolves around a real estate developer (Brendan Fraser) who is hired to slash down a forest in Oregon and convert it into a shopping mall (enter FernGully-like bulldozers). This, of course, upsets the local woodland critters, who, as the movie's Web site says, seek revenge by turning a "peaceful cul-de-sac under construction into a battefield of epic proportions." The movie's catch phrase reads, "He came. He saw. They conquered."