Global Warming News - August 2009

Real News Stories To Share With Global-Warming Skeptics

United States
NOAA officially acknowledged that the month of July was unusually cool in the northeast, midwest and southeast, while warmer than normal in the west...


US temp anomalies (Click to enlarge)
In fact, NOAA also said that some states had their record coldest July ever...


State temp rankings - July (Click to enlarge)
On August 5th, the Yosemite Blog advised that the National Weather Service had issued a Severe Weather Alert for the central Sierra (including Yosemite). An unseasonable low pressure area was moving in over Central California, bringing with it some wild weather. Thunderstorms were expected at the lower elevations, but snow was expected at the higher elevations, down to about 8500 feet.

If you’re going to Tuolumne Meadows or Tioga Pass tomorrow take tire chains, warm clothes and a camera. I've never seen it snow in August in my lifetime.

On August 18th, the L.A. Times was reporting a record low temp for Lancaster. It was an "unusually cool summer... in Southern California." First came 40 straight days -- from late May to the end of June -- when downtown L.A. and LAX had below-average temperatures. Then July ended cooler than normal, despite a few scorchers. August is generally the hottest month of the year, but this August has been unusually mild. Weather experts said this summer has been cooler than average.

Near the end of August, temperatures started to fall in the northeast. There were frost warnings in New Hampshire as reported by Breitbart TV...


In Washington DC, some were suggesting that this year's cooler weather was responsible for a downturn in murders. Homicides there were down more than 25% from last year, after two years of increases. If the trend continues, the District will have the lowest homicide count since JFK took office. The dramatic downtown occurred as the city experienced an abnormally cool summer with average temperatures for May, June and July being a full three degrees below average for the past three decades. Some experts are wondering if the big chill is allowing cooler heads to prevail on city streets.

"The hard science is not conclusive," said George Washington University criminologist Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor. But "it's probably true that the cooler weather is responsible for the drop in violent crime. Any beat cop will tell you that a cooler summer means safer streets." Florida International University criminal justice professor Ellen G. Cohn said there was no direct link between weather and homicides, but cooler temperatures often correlate to fewer violent crimes -- and even less violent attitudes. When it's hot, "horn honking and property crimes are going up, with rape, riots, robberies and 911 calls in general."

In Indianapolis, August was ending on a cool note. The high temp for August 30th was only 71F. The record high for August 30th was in 1953 when temperatures soared to 97F. Last year, it was 88F. The normal temperature for this time of year is 82F.

On the same day, it was being reported that South Dakota was also experiencing cooler-than-normal temps. According to NorthWestern Energy, which provides electricity and natural gas to some 656,000 customers in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, the mild summer has kept residents from flipping on their air conditioners. Customers in the state used a total of 20,000 less megawatts of electricity in July 2009 compared to July 2008. The difference, from 148,000 megawatt hours last year to 128,000 this year, would be enough to power about 26,667 homes for a month.

Likewise, parts of northeastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin were under a late summer frost warning, and residents there were told that they should consider protecting their sensitive plants. The National Weather Service was warning that a cold ridge of high pressure would settle over the area, which would create the perfect conditions for a quick drop in the temperature into the mid-30s, and possibly below freezing in spots. The frost warning came during an unseasonable cold snap in the area. The weather service repored that the high temperature in the Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on August 29th was 62 degrees -- which set a new record for the lowest high temperature on that day for the town.

On August 31st, Dayton Ohio experienced its coolest August morning in 22 years. At 46F, the National Weather Service said it was approaching Dayton’s record low of 42 degrees set in 1915. Charlie Woodrum, meteorologist at the NWS Wilmington office, said the normal low for August 31st is 59 degrees. To put the brisk weather in perspective, temperatures didn’t drop as low as 46 degrees for the entire month of September last year, Woodrum said. The average temperature for August was 71.4 degrees, 1.0 degree below normal. July’s average temperature of 69.6 degrees was 4.7 degrees below normal. It was Dayton's second coolest July on record.

Also on August 31st, Chicago ended the month with near-record low temps. The record low of 47 degrees was set in 1872. At O'Hare Airport and at Midway Airport, it was 49 degrees. In Waukegan Illinois, it was 48 degrees, and in Aurora it was a mere 41 degrees. Overall in Chicago, this August was hardly what one would call the dog days of summer. There was only one day (August 9th) where the temperatures reached the 90s. On average, temperatures in Chicago were 6.67 degrees below normal from August 20th through the end of the month. From August 27th through the end of the month, temperatures were an average of 10.6 degrees below normal. The coldest day was Sunday, August 30th, at 13 degrees below normal, followed by Thursday, August 27th, at 12 degrees below normal.

Northeast Kansas experienced what Matt Miller at the Lawrence Weather Watch described as "A very unusual summer"...

We've seen temperatures in the 70s more often than we've had highs in the 90s. In fact, only 23 days through all of June, July and August topped 90. What is more surprising is that 12 days in June topped 90, but only 11 in July and August combined. What has happened has been a long-lasting jet stream pattern that is favorable for heat in the South Central and Western United States, but much cooler-than-average temperatures across much of the Midwest and Northeast. It's not that it's unusual to have this pattern set up in the summer ... at some point. The amazing thing about the Pseudo-Summer of 2009 is that we've had this pattern for the better part of two months.

--Matt Miller, , 31 August 2009

NOAA's temperature data for August showed the central portion of the U.S. as below normal...


US temp anomalies - August (Click to enlarge)

US temps by division - August (Click to enlarge)

US temps State rankings - August (Click to enlarge)

Scientific Opinion

Answering 3 Simple Questions: On August 3rd, Willie Soon, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and David R. Legates, a Professor of Geography and the Delaware State Climatologist, asked why it seems so difficult to get straight answers from AGW alarmists to 3 simple questions. Australian Senator Steve Fielding recently posed three questions regarding climate change to Minister Penny Wong and her Department of Climate Change.

The questions were: 1) Has the world cooled since 1998, despite a five per cent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations? 2) Is the late 20th century warming unusual and, if not, then why is the current warming a problem? and, 3) Do all IPCC computer models project a "steady" increase in temperature for the period 1990 to 2008?

According to Soon and Legates, the "answers" Fielding received "often evaded the issues... and mostly discussed peripheral, if related, issues." Meanwhile, The Australian published an independent attempt to answer Senator Fielding’s questions by Professor Neville Nicholls. Again according to Soon and Legates, Professor Nicholls’ answers were "as misleading as the Department of Climate Change’s were beside the point."

In the opinion of Soon and Legates, the "straight" answers to Fielding's questions are: 1) Yes, temperatures did fall after 1998 while carbon dioxide rose; 2) Yes, late 20th century warming was indeed not unusual in either its rate of change or magnitude; and, 3) Yes, all IPCC models did project warming through a ten year period when instead cooling occurred.

Taken together, the correct answers to Senator Fielding’s questions indicate that the hypothesis of dangerous global warming caused by human carbon dioxide emissions is invalid. It follows that costly emissions trading legislation is at best pointless.

--Soon and Legates, Answering 3 Simple Questions, 3 August 2009

You can read the whole article HERE


Late Start For Tropical Storms: Also on August 3rd, Dr. Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D. asked why there seemed to be no media coverage of the fact that there had been no tropical storms yet...

As can be seen in the following graphic, as of this date in 2005 we already had 8 named storms in the Atlantic basin. And tomorrow, August 4, that number will increase to 9. In 2005 we were even told to expect more active hurricane seasons from now on because of global warming. Of course, even though it is interesting that the 2009 tropical season is off to such a slow start, it may well have no significance in terms of long-term trends. But the lack of news coverage on the subject does show the importance of unbiased reporting when it comes to global warming. Let me explain...

The public expects – or used to expect – the media to report on all sides of important issues, so that we can be better informed on the state of the world... But reporting on heat-related events while ignoring cold temperature records or events that do not support the claims of global warming theorists, will lead to a bias in the way the public views climate change.

--Dr. Roy W. Spencer, STILL No Tropical Storms? Must Be Global Warming, 3 August 2009

No tropical storms (Click to enlarge)
Dr. Roy W. Spencer is a climatologist, author and former NASA scientist. You can read the whole article HERE.


Cyclone Energy Index Down: According to Ryan N. Maue, a researcher at Florida State University, the Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index continued to drop through the end of June after having reached a peak at the end of 2005. From the graph below, you can see that during the last half-century, only 1993 reached a higher peak of cyclone energy than 2005 (the year of Hurricane Katrina). Since then, cyclone energy has been plummeting, and is very close to its lowest level in 50 years.


Cyclone Energy Index (Click to enlarge)

Hurricane Forecast Reduced: Almost as if in response to Dr. Spencer's queries, on August 5th an article appeared discussing revised projections from hurricane experts at the Colorado State University. The number of projected hurricanes in the north Atlantic this season was reduced to four, two of them expected to be major hurricanes with winds above 178 kilometers (111 miles) per hour. The revised projection came following one of the calmest starts to the hurricane season in a decade.

"We continue to call for a below-average Atlantic basin tropical cyclone season in 2009. We also anticipate a below-average probability of United States and Caribbean major hurricane landfall," said Philip Klotzbach and William Gray of Colorado State University. They now project that there will be 10 named tropical storms this season, of which four will become hurricanes, and two of those major hurricanes. Their earlier forecast in June had predicted 11 tropical storms and five hurricanes. "The last time a storm didn't form until August 5 was back in 1992", Klotzbach said. He added, however, that "a quiet start of the season doesn't necessarily mean that the remainder of the season is going to be quiet."

On August 7th, NOAA also announced that it was predicting a quieter hurricane season. The new "likely" range according to NOAA -- calculated at a 70 percent chance -- is 7 to 11 named storms, with 3 to 6 becoming hurricanes. Of those, 1 to 2 are expected to turn into major storms with Category 3 winds of 111 miles per hour or higher.


German Scientists Dissent: Marc Morano at Climate Depot reported on August 4th, that over 60 German scientists signed a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel declaring their dissent against man-made global warming fears, declaring it a "pseudo religion", that CO2 increases have "had no measurable effect" on temperatures, and that the "UN IPCC has lost its scientific credibility". Morano updated the article on August 9th, saying that 64 more scientists endorsed the Open Letter to Merkel, bringing the number of German scientists who signed the letter to over 130.

You can read the whole article and the full text of the letter HERE.


Physicist Calls Alarmists Charlatans: On August 4th, physicist Gordon J. Fulks, Ph.D., wrote an opinion piece in the Oregonian, in which he refers to man-made global warming alarmists as "charlatans"...

Charlatans use every opportunity to promote climate hysteria, claiming that the global temperature is rising inexorably. Yet they overwhelmingly lack training in physics and meteorology. And the best satellite data show that the Earth as a whole has been gradually cooling for a decade. They love "green science" because it is wonderfully suited to selling expensive climate "solutions" to the scientifically challenged. Never mind that it is neither green nor science, just politics...

Real science is based on real evidence that can be independently verified, not on testimonials from those funded by politicians. Real evidence of climate change is easy to find. Real evidence that man caused it via greenhouse gases is completely missing.

--Gordon J. Fulks, Ph.D., Heat Wave, Yes, Warming, No, 4 August 2009

Gordon J. Fulks received a BS in Physics in 1967 and went on to get an MS and Ph.D. in Physics, all from the University of Chicago. He worked initially for the Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research at the Enrico Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago doing experimental research on the solar modulation of galactic cosmic rays. He also worked for a think-tank in Santa Barbara, California, primarily supporting the US Defense Nuclear Agency on nuclear weapon effects. You can read the rest of his bio (PDF) HERE. You can read his whole article in the Oregonian HERE.


Cosmic Rays Linked To Climate: According to an article at the Watts Up With That? blog, Henrik Svensmark has written a new paper which Anthony Watts describes as "a doozy". The Svensmark paper, entitled "Cosmic Ray Decreases Affect Atmospheric Aerosols And Clouds", can be found (PDF) HERE. Svensmark concludes that "a link between the sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds appears to exist on a global scale."

It should be noted that the IPCC has admitted clouds are the largest source of uncertainty in their global warming projections (IPCC, 2007). The formation of low clouds cools the climate system, but all (21) IPCC climate models decrease global average cloud cover in response to any global warming influence, such as that from man-made CO2 emissions, thus amplifying the warming effect of CO2. Because of the apparent relationship between higher surface temperatures and cloud formation, it has even been suggested by some that the presence of clouds produces warming, rather than warming producing the clouds through increased evaporation!

A link between cosmic rays and cloud formation has been suspected for a long time, and the affect of this phenomenon on climate change has been widely debated. Svensmark, of the Danish Space Research Institute in Copenhagen, originally proposed that cosmic rays -- high-energy particles that bombard Earth from space -- could be affecting the Earth's climate as far back as the 1990s. However, the IPCC felt that there were significant uncertainties in Svensmark’s theory, and they did not include cosmic rays as a possible cause of climate change in their assessment reports, including their latest report issued in 2007.

According to Anthony Watts...

This paper confirms 13 years of discoveries that suggest a key role for cosmic rays in climate change [emphasis added]. It links observable variations in the world’s cloudiness to laboratory experiments in Copenhagen showing how cosmic rays help generate atmospheric aerosols. This is important, because it confirms the existence of a sun-earth atmospheric modulation mechanism for clouds and aerosols. It is seen in an event called a 'Forbush Decrease'... A Forbush Decrease is a rapid decrease in the observed galactic cosmic ray [count, following a solar] coronal mass ejection (CME). It occurs due to the magnetic field of the plasma solar wind sweeping some of the galactic cosmic rays away from Earth.

--Anthony Watts, A Link Between The Sun, Cosmic Rays, Aerosols, And Liquid-Water Clouds..., 4 August 2009

In other words, as scientific research advances, the UN IPCC is left with supporting studies and data which grows ever more obsolete. It also means that their computer models become ever more irrelavent, as they are shown to not have accounted for important new variables. You can read the whole article HERE.


Debate Over About Ice Ages: According to another article at Watts Up With That?, the debate is now over about what caused the periodic ice ages to ocur on Earth over the past 2.5 million years and more specifically, how they ended. A team of researchers from Oregon State University and other institutions, have concluded that the ice ages were caused by changes in the shape of Earth's orbit, and by the changes in the angle of the Earth's axis relative to the sun...

“We can calculate changes in the Earth’s axis and rotation that go back 50 million years,” [Peter Clark, a professor of geosciences at OSU] said. “These are caused primarily by the gravitational influences of the larger planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn, which pull and tug on the Earth in slightly different ways over periods of thousands of years.”

That, in turn, can change the Earth’s axis – the way it tilts towards the sun – about two degrees over long periods of time, which changes the way sunlight strikes the planet. And those small shifts in solar radiation were all it took to cause multiple ice ages during about the past 2.5 million years on Earth, which reach their extremes every 100,000 years or so.

--Oregon State University, Media Release, 6 August 2009

Changes in Earth's orbit (not to scale)
It should also be pointed out, that the group studied the mechanism for the melting of the ice sheets at the end of these various ice ages...

The melting was first caused by more solar radiation, not changes in carbon dioxide levels or ocean temperatures, as some scientists have suggested in recent years. “Solar radiation was the trigger that started the ice melting, that’s now pretty certain,” said Peter Clark, a professor of geosciences at OSU. “There were also changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and ocean circulation, but those happened later and amplified a process that had already begun.” [emphasis added]

--Oregon State University, Media Release, 6 August 2009

You can read the whole article HERE.

32 Spotless Days: According to a chart at Solaemon's Spotless Days Page, the sun was completely spotless from July 31st through August 31st (a period of 32 days). This ranks it as the sixteenth longest spotless period since 1849. The chart was last updated on September 1st, so this spotless period may be even longer.


Spotless Sun - August 28th

Ice Sheets Not Collapsing: In the August 2009 issue of the AIG News -- Australian Institute of Geoscientists -- Cliff Ollier and Colin Pain have written a paper explaining why the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are not "collapsing" as some alarmists have suggested. Here is an excerpt...

Global warming alarmists have suggested that the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica may collapse, causing disastrous sea level rise. This idea is based on the concept of an ice sheet sliding down an inclined plane on a base lubricated by meltwater, which is itself increasing because of global warming.

In reality the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets occupy deep basins, and cannot slide down a plane. Furthermore glacial flow depends on stress (including the important yield stress) as well as temperature, and much of the ice sheets are well below melting point.

The accumulation of kilometres of undisturbed ice in cores in Greenland and Antarctica (the same ones that are sometimes used to fuel ideas of global warming) show hundreds of thousands of years of accumulation with no melting or flow. Except around the edges, ice sheets flow at the base, and depend on geothermal heat, not the climate at the surface. It is impossible for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to ‘collapse’.

--Ollier and Pain, Why the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets Are Not Collapsing (PDF), August 2009

You can read the whole paper (PDF) HERE.

Vostok Record Suggests No AGW: On August 24th, Anthony Watts posted some research done by R. Taylor who reviewed data from the Vostok Record which suggests that man-made CO2 is not having an effect on the climate, hence no AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming). The Vostok Record, is a series of ice core drillings made at the Vostok Station in Antarctica. It has provided us with proxy data on the climate going back 420,000 years.

In the following graph, you can see the correlation between temperature and CO2 levels. Temperature varies within a range of about 13 degrees C. CO2 varies within a range of about 120 ppm. And changes in temperature precede corresponding changes in CO2...


Vostok Record (Click to enlarge)
In other words, CO2 changes appear to lag temperature changes. As temperature increases, CO2 levels will start to increase as well, but years later. Conversely, as temperatures decrease, CO2 levels also start to decrease, but years later. To prove this, Taylor developed a relatively simple model that would mathematically predict CO2 levels at any point in time based on a time lag where temperature drives CO2. Compare the results of his model in the following graph to the graph above...


Model Predicting CO2 (Click to enlarge)
It is by no accident that Taylor only used data prior to the year "0". Taylor purposely ignored data from the last 2000 years in order to minimize any effects caused by man-made CO2. Taylor then asks us to focus our attention on the last 11,000 years, during which time humans have affected the equilibrium between temeperature ("T") and CO2...


Man-made CO2 & temperature (Click to enlarge)

The most recent CO2 determination from the ice-core has a date of about 340 BCE. We can add an early-industrial-era value of 290 ppm at 1800 CE and a value of 365 ppm at 2000 CE to provide figure 4. The scaling in the figure is consistent with the equilibrium model that fits the overall Vostok record, where a change of 1 °C in T causes a change of 10 ppm in CO2.

T and CO2 appear to have been in equilibrium until about 3000 BCE. Over the 5,000 years since then, CO2 has risen increasingly above its natural equilibrium. By 1800 CE, CO2 had risen to a level comparable to the highest in the Vostok record. During this time, T declined at a rate of 0.1 °C per thousand years, indicating again that CO2 has no apparent effect on T. The trends of this 5,000-year interval of excess CO2 are consistent with the equilibrium model, in which T is independent of CO2.

--R.Taylor, Atmospheric Temperature and Carbon Dioxide: Feedback or Equilibrium?, 24 August 2009

Political Opinion

Nobel Halo Fades For IPCC: On August 3rd, the New York Times ran a story by Andrew Revkin, which the Times itself described as discussing the "challenges facing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change"...

The work of the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore. After two decades of delivering climate reports to the world without fanfare, it suddenly had a wide following. But as the panel gears up for its next climate review, many specialists in climate science and policy, both inside and out of the network, are warning that it could quickly lose relevance unless it adjusts its methods and focus...

Environmentalists assert that the reports by the panel are watered down... Some experts fret that the organization, charged with assessing fast-evolving science, has failed to keep pace with an explosion of climate research. At the same time, scientists who question the likelihood of a calamitous disruption of the Earth’s climate accuse the panel of cherry-picking studies and playing down levels of uncertainty about the severity of global warming. "It just feels like the IPCC has gone from being a broker of science to a gatekeeper," said John R. Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and a former panel author.

--Andrew Revkin, Nobel Halo Fades Fast for Climate Change Panel, 3 August 2009

According to the article, Dr. Neville Nicholls, a lead writer on several parts of the last IPCC report, submitted a chart at a meeting in Budapest last year showing that 4,500 climate studies were published in 2007, triple the total a decade earlier. The sheer volume of new information coming out "presents a daunting challenge", said Dr. Nicholls, a climate scientist at Monash University in Victoria, Australia.

Daunting indeed. The IPCC will have to work overtime to try and keep up with all the new scientific information that is coming out, much of it which questions the assumptions and conclusions of the IPCC.

You can read the whole article HERE.


APA Buys Into Climate Change Fears: On August 5th, a task force of American Psychological Association (APA) concluded that psychological barriers keep most Americans from acting to fight climate change. Quoting interesting statistics, the task force said most Americans (75-80% in a Pew Research Center poll) said climate change is an "important" issue, but still ranked it last in a list of 20 "compelling issues" such as the economy or terrorism.

The not-so-obvious conclusion which the APA draws from these statistics is that things like "uncertainty, mistrust and denial" are the root cause of this apparent discrepancy. In other words, the APA assumes that if 75-80% of Americans think an issue such as "climate change" is "important", yet are unwilling to act upon it immediately, then those Americans must be "in denial" that climate change will affect them, or "mistrustful" of climate change proponents, or "uncertain" about climate change as an obvious reality.

I find it completely implausible, that a group which claims to understand the human psyche, cannot fathom the relative distinction between these two different positions held by the American public. Simply put, many Americans may indeed consider climate change to be an "important" issue. Assuming that a substantial majority of Americans are not scientists, and therefore cannot determine for themselves whether climate change is in fact real or not, they are most likely to depend on the mass media for the basis of their opinions. The liberal mainstream media routinely states that climate change is an important issue. Therefore, the majority of Americans agree with the media that it is an important issue.

Yet, when asked to rank climate change against 19 other "compelling issues" of our day, it should come as no surprise that climate change comes in dead last. The polls suggest that the issue of "Jobs" is the #1 concern of Americans, followed closely by "The Economy", and "Deficit-Spending". With an official unemployment rate at 9.7% and the "real" unemployment rate between 16% and 17%, are we to be surprised that climate change is not at the top of people's list of concerns? It seems hard to believe that the American Psychological Association cannot understand something as basic as that.

Therefore, I can only surmise that the APA members on this task force have bought into climate change alarmism "hook-line-and-sinker". Why would they be so concerned that "people don't feel a sense of urgency" about climate change, "despite warnings from scientists that humans need to make changes now"? We can only conclude that these psychologists have been so "brainwashed" by the alarmists, that they must assume anyone who is not an active climate change advocate must be mentally deficient or hampered.


Renewable Energy Sources Will Strain Grid: According to an article at Bloomberg News, President Barack Obama’s push for wind and solar energy carries a hidden cost: overburdening the nation’s electrical grid and increasing the threat of blackouts.

The funding Obama devoted to get high-voltage lines ready for handling the additional load of alternative supplies is less than 5 percent of the $130 billion that power users, producers and the U.S. Energy Department say is needed. Without more investment, cities can’t tap much of the renewable energy from remote areas, said Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He serves as the administration’s top official on grid issues and recognizes the dilemma it faces. "As we add more and more wind power, the grid will get more stressed, and there's going to be a point where the grid can't handle any more," Wellinghoff said at an energy conference in Chicago. "The first thing we need is to build out transmission."

--Christopher Martin and Mario Parker, Wind Promises Blackouts as Obama Strains Grid With Renewables, 7 August 2009

You can read the whole article HERE.


Political Climate For Energy Policies Cools: Jennifer Robison at the Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote an article about the recent polls showing that Americans are more interested in jobs and the economy than climate change or energy policy...

Recent surveys show Americans cooling to global warming, and they're even less keen on environmental policies they believe might raise power bills or imperil jobs. Those sentiments could mean a tougher road ahead for elected officials looking to fund investments in renewable power or install a carbon cap-and-trade system.

"Right now, Americans are more concerned about the economy than the environment," said Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll. "The politician who says, 'I'm going to cripple jobs and shut down factories' would be in trouble in this economy."

Here's what Gallup found: The number of Americans who say the media have exaggerated global warming jumped to a record 41 percent in 2009, up from 35 percent a year ago. The most marked increase came among political independents, whose ranks of doubters swelled from 33 percent to 44 percent. Republican doubters grew from 59 percent to 66 percent, while Democratic skeptics stayed at around 20 percent.

--Jennifer Robison, Political Climate For Energy Policies Cools, 9 August 2009

Other polls and studies are reviewed in the article, most of which seem to agree with the Gallup findings. However, Daniel Weiss, a senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, says those findings are wrong. "I don't accept their premise. I think the Gallup Poll is mistaken," said Weiss, who pointed to a Pew Environmental Group poll that found 77 percent of voters want lawmakers to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and 55 percent said efforts to curb global warming will create jobs. [Editor's Note: The poll was actually conducted by the Mellman Group, a Democratic firm, and released by the Pew Environmental Group. See HERE.]

Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think-tank, said "I think there's a huge amount of skepticism among the public. They've heard all these claims, and now they've been informed that there isn't any recent warming," Ebell said. "The public, without having a lot of information about it, is pretty astute. I think the alarmists are having a hard time making the case for global warming simply because reality is against them and the public has figured it out."

You can read the whole article HERE.


Greenpeace Leader Admits Scare Tactics: According to a post by John Hinderaker at the Power Line Blog, retiring head of Greenpeace, Gerd Leipold, admitted in a BBC interview that his organization's claim that the Arctic ice sheet will melt by 2030 is probably untrue. "I don't think it will be melting by 2030," said Leipold. Nevertheless, he justified the group's actions as "wise, and rational, and reasonable" by saying that "we, as a pressure group, have to emotionalize issues". In other words, they have to lie. Judge for yourself...



U.S. Chamber Seeks AGW Trial: According to an August 25th article in the L.A. Times, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a rare public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change...

Chamber officials say it would be "the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century" -- complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect.

"It would be evolution versus creationism," said William Kovacs, the chamber's senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs. "It would be the science of climate change on trial."

The goal of the chamber, which represents 3 million large and small businesses, is to fend off potential emissions regulations by undercutting the scientific consensus over climate change. If the EPA denies the request, as expected, the chamber plans to take the fight to federal court.

--Jim Tankersley, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Seeks Trial On Global Warming, 25 August 2009

You can read the whole article HERE.