Global Warming

The Democratic Party has become an utter train wreck since Tuesday night. Now we have this from Diane Feinstein:

Feinstein said it is clear that attempts to pass sweeping legislation to address climate change by capping carbon emissions cannot pass this Congress.

So if Democrats are just going to cave in on any important legislation now, then why even vote for them anymore? No matter what happens they aren’t going to get a super majority again. You aren’t going to get states like Indiana, Arkansas or Nebraska to vote for some progressive candidate. So why even bother?

This again all boils down to message control and the fact that the inside the beltway crowd has no idea what real Americans are thinking. Do real Americans really know that the Republicans have been filibustering everything? No, because Harry Reid doesn’t make them filibuster. Instead he just caves.

So when the Democrats end up losing a tidal wave of seats this fall, and by all indicators that is exactly what will happen, then they will have no one to blame but themselves. It’s time to force out the old mindset of the Democratic Party and inject a new leadership that really knows how to lead. If the Democrats don’t do that then their new found majority is going to be very short lived.

Remember last month when that memo from FOX News got leaked that said they wouldn’t tolerate any more on air errors, and if they happen people could lose their jobs? Well let’s see if it works:

Last week, Fox and Friends showed a Rasmussen poll graphic revealing that a whopping 120 percent of the American public believes scientists may be falsifying research to support their own theories on global warming:

So Fox – who will be getting the ax for this? We’ll all be waiting your response.

Forget the emails that basically prove nothing, except to give the science and common sense deniers something to go crazy over. That wasn’t enough to give the current climate change controversy the famous “gate” suffix. But now we have something new happening; something that takes us back to the origins of the “gate” suffix:

Attempts have been made to break into the offices of one of Canada's leading climate scientists, it was revealed yesterday. The victim was Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria scientist and a key contributor to the work of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In one incident, an old computer was stolen and papers were disturbed.

In addition, individuals have attempted to impersonate technicians in a bid to access data from his office, said Weaver. The attempted breaches, on top of the hacking of files from British climate researcher Phil Jones, have heightened fears that climate-change deniers are mounting a campaign to discredit the work of leading meteorologists before the start of the Copenhagen climate summit tomorrow.

In the memory of Watergate we now can officially call this climategate. This whole thing started with someone breaking the law, so now more people have decided that being criminals is the way to go. Hopefully they all get caught and spend a little time in the climate of prison.

I just love this tweet:

We knew she was a fucking moron, but now she just proved it.

Look at this headline on Drudge right now:

From the article:

Houston this morning broke a record with the earliest snowfall ever recorded in the city's history.

Forecasters are still hedging their bets on the amount, but say the most likely scenario is 1 to 2 inches of widespread snowfall through the day. Some areas could get up to a half a foot.

This must prove the climate change doesn’t exist – right?

You know – perhaps those sneaky scientists are using high altitutde aircraft and sneaking snow from places like Mt. Everest and dropping it on Houston. I mean what a plan! They can say “see the snow disappearing here” while also going “look at the snow showing up hear”. Evil brilliance I tell ya!

Of course for anyone believing in the crap about global warming being a hoax, I’m sure they will buy this theory hook, line and sinker.

Image via Wikipedia

And she is right on calling for this:

Leaked e-mails allegedly undermining climate change science should be treated as a criminal matter, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Wednesday afternoon.

Boxer, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said that the recently released e-mails, showing scientists allegedly overstating the case for climate change, should be treated as a crime.

Emails were stolen, something that the wingnuts, who denounced such activites when it happened to Sarah Palin, now embrace. Those stolen emails have been used to accuse scientists of collusion and deception. It’s libel in the most simplest of terms.

Boxer then went on to state the obvious:

"You call it 'Climategate'; I call it 'E-mail-theft-gate,'" she said during a committee meeting. "Whatever it is, the main issue is, Are we facing global warming or are we not? I'm looking at these e-mails, that, even though they were stolen, are now out in the public."

Again Boxer is spot on. The climate change deniers are saying that this proves we are not going through global warming. Somehow they want us to believe that every university, climatologist and scientist in the world all got came together and decided to lie to the world. Leading conservative writers are echoing this belief, showing their need for extra large tinfoil hats.

We have too much solid evidence showing climate change is occuring to ignore it, or write it off as some conspiracy. What do people like Michelle Malkin think? Maybe they believe that scientists have climbed up to the top of Mt. Everest with very long extension cords and hairdryers and started melting the snow and ice?

Image via Wikipedia

It’s been over a week now since some hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit surfaced showing that researches sexed up some data; something the right is calling “climategate” and proof that global warming is a hoax. Since then the right has complained nonstop about the lack of media coverage on this non-story.

Let me take a moment and remind everyone of an actual event of lying. This act didn’t involve some scientists locked up in an office somewhere, just trying to make their data show a stronger case for what it already proved. This is a case with much more dire consequences.

George Bush engaged in the biggest act of lying to the world in history. He and his administration mislead the entire planet into believing that Saddam Hussein had the weapons to destroy the planet, as well as some how being involved in the 9/11 attacks. One of the basis of their lies was even a forged document that George Bush used in his State of the Union Address, saying that Saddam was trying to get yellow cake uranium from Niger.

Let’s take a moment and compare these two stories. What would the real cost of some scientists misleading the public on climate change be? A planet with a much healthier environment and one able to sustain life much longer. That is nothing compared to the act of lying countess nations into war, something that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars on top of making the world a much more dangerous place by emboldening terrorists.

Like I said last week, these hacked emails prove nothing. The whole notion of Global Warming wasn’t started in the late 90s; the research actually dates back to the 60s. Are we supposed to subscribe to the belief that countless scientists around the world have forged their data since these emails? We get new numbers almost daily showing the acceleration of global warming, and if over 90% of the world scientists are involved then that is the biggest case of collusion in world history. Yet we have never had any data proving that George Bush did not lie this nation into war, and the right never wants to discuss that very costly and deadly lie.

If the right wants a national discussion on “climategate”, then we also get to bring up Iraq. We have far more evidence that George Bush lied this country into war than proof that the global science community has lied about global warming. And like I said, even if all the scientists did come together to lie to the world, the cost of Bush’s lies way out shadow the costs of “climategate”.

In case you have missed it there is a sudden shortage on aluminum foil. It has been bought up by wingnuts in order to prepare their latest hats.

I am talking about the case of a British university’s server being hacked and approximately 160mb of data and email being leaked. The server that was hacked was of prominent climate change researchers:

The computer files were apparently accessed earlier this week from servers at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, a world-renowned centre focused on the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change.

Climate change sceptics who have studied the emails allege they provide "smoking gun" evidence that some of the climatologists colluded in manipulating data to support the widely held view that climate change is real, and is being largely caused by the actions of mankind.

This has got the wingnuts fired up and pulling out zingers like this:

— “If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW,” says the Telegraph’s James Delingpole.

– Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey claims the emails discuss “repetitive, false data of higher temperatures.”

– The National Review’s Chris Horner salivates, “The blue-dress moment may have arrived.”

– “The crimes revealed in the e-mails promise to be the global warming scandal of the century,” blares Michelle Malkin.

– The Australia Herald-Sun’s Andrew Bolt claims the emails are “proof of a conspiracy which is one of the largest, most extraordinary and most disgraceful in moderrn [sic] science.”

I’m not going to take the time to debunk this conspiracy craze by the right; Nate Silver has already done an excellent job at that, concluding:

But let's be clear: Jones is talking to his colleagues about making a prettier picture out of his data, and not about manipulating the data itself. Again, I'm not trying to excuse what he did -- we make a lot of charts here and 538 and make every effort to ensure that they fairly and accurately reflect the underlying data (in addition to being aesthetically appealing.) I wish everybody would abide by that standard.

Still: I don't know how you get from some scientist having sexed up a graph in East Anglia ten years ago to The Final Nail In The Coffin of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Anyone who comes to that connection has more screws loose than the Space Shuttle Challenger. And yet that's literally what some of these bloggers are saying!

Instead I want to focus on the source of this latest conspiracy craze – the hacked emails.

It was just a little over a year ago that everyone was focusing on some other emails obtained through hacking. Those emails happened to reside in Sarah Palin’s email account. Did the wingnuts jump onto the information they provided as evidence against Palin? Absolutely not. Instead they wrote them off as being nothing because they were obtained through the illegal means of hacking. Let’s look at how some of these wingnuts described that incident:

The law will catch up to the hackers, but what about the lowlifes who are now gleefully splashing the alleged contents of Palin’s private e-mail account all over the Internet? – Michelle Malkin

The group taking responsibility certainly has a history of partisan attacks, as Caleb Howe notes in his post.  He has a picture and a video that he took of their protest at the Republican convention, although Howe also wonders exactly why they were there – Ed Morrissey

Funny how back in September 2008 hacking was a horrible thing to these wingnuts, but today it is nothing but awesomeness.

Back to the subject of the day – the climate change emails. Do all these wingnuts really believe that 90% of the world’s scientists got together and decided to mislead the entire globe? Perhaps they think that the disappearing ice on the polar ice caps is just some big Hollywood effect? Really – these people are insane. They act like global warming is some big marketing scheme, when in fact denying it is. That’s the reason that companies like Exxon pay big money to the other 10% of “scientists” to actually fake data and rewrite actual scientific reports to try and show that global warming doesn’t exist.

Like I said, aluminum foil is now about as precious as gold since the wingnuts are buying it up.

So here we are one week from the kick off of summer – Memorial Day weekend! We are also a week past the traditional “end of frost” – Mother’s Day.

These past two weekends mark the highlight of the suburbia outdoor art festival. It’s a time when people flock to their local garden centers like over anxious teens trying to get their Miley Cyrus tickets. You wade through oceans of people to carefully chose your ultimate outdoor palette and begin transforming your yard into something you hope can make the cover of Homes and Gardens.

But wait.

The Republicans and their little followers just can’t seem to comprehend that “Global Warming” actually means climate change:

Al Gore is scheduled before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday morning to once again testify on the 'urgent need' to combat global warming.
But Mother Nature seems ready to freeze the proceedings.

A 'Winter Storm Watch' has been posted for the nation's capitol and there is a potential for significant snow... sleet... or ice accumulations.

"I can't imagine the Democrats would want to showcase Mr. Gore and his new findings on global warming as a winter storm rages outside," a Republican lawmaker emailed the DRUDGE REPORT. "And if the ice really piles up, it will not be safe to travel."

A spokesman for Sen. John Kerry, who chairs the committee, was not immediately available to comment on contingency plans.

Global warming advocates have suggested this year's wild winter spells are proof of climate change.

Ecuador could get a foot of snow and the right would sit there and say “see the climate is fine – no global warming”. True these are the same people that thing the TV series 24 is a documentary.

This is a huge victory for the environment:

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) will become the next chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee after House Democrats voted to replace current Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.).

Waxman won 137-122 in the secret ballot vote.

The dramatic intra-party showdown for the coveted position signals a leftward turn for the Democratic agenda. The outcome was a blow to the seniority system and a victory, at least in perception, for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Dingell is very close to the auto industry, meaning he is very far from the environment move. He is considered a foe of global warming. Now he is out and we have someone heading the very important committee, when it comes to global warming, that is an advocate for higher fuel standards and lower emissions. Change is a brewing.

Today Barack Obama sent out a video address for Global Climate Summit, which begins today in Los Angeles. This is such a welcomed move and it is so nice to see a President engaging the people of this country so much more than we have ever seen.

More at change.gov

This is a stunning fact Salon has posted:

[...]The League of Conservation Voters analyzed transcripts of TV interviews and debates with the Democratic and Republican candidates. The interviews were conducted by CNN's Wolf Blitzer, ABC's George Stephanopoulos, MSNBC's Tim Russert, Fox News' Chris Wallace and CBS's Bob Schieffer. As of Jan. 25, these five prime-time journalists had conducted 171 interviews with the candidates. Of the 2,975 questions they asked them, only six mentioned the words "climate change" or "global warming." To put that in perspective: three questions mentioned UFOs.

So out of 2,975 questions global warming only gets 6? UFO's almost matched that with 3! This is a crime in itself. Americans are worried about the environment and want to hear solutions, but the media is more worried trying to get that 15 second clip that might spark controversy.

But there global warming is a liberal myth

The level of the Mediterranean Sea is rising rapidly and could increase by up to half a metre in the next 50 years, scientists in Spain have warned

With all the warning signs we keep hearing about why isn't global warming discussed more in the campaigns and debates? This should be one of the leading issues.

Mor e trouble for our planet:

limate change has caused the greatest thaw of Greenland's ice in half a century, perhaps heralding a wider meltdown that would quicken a rise in world sea levels, scientists said on Tuesday.

"We attribute significantly increased Greenland summer warmth and ice melt since 1990 to global warming," a group of researchers wrote in the Journal of Climate, adding to recent evidence of faster Antarctic and Arctic thaws.

Of course the deniers will spin this because of the 50 year mark. They look for any loop hole, without thought of consequence for their ill thinking.