The Plain Truth

Oil Spill Panel: White House Blocked Federal Scientists From Releasing Worst-Case Scenario For Gulf Disaster

Dina Cappiello
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration blocked efforts by government scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could become and made other missteps that raised questions about its competence and candor during the crisis, according to a commission appointed by the president to investigate the disaster.

In documents released Wednesday, the national oil spill commission's staff describes "not an incidental public relations problem" by the White House in the wake of the April 20 accident.

Read more »

Back from the dead: One third of 'extinct' animals turn up again

Note from Bob Barney: Several Weeks ago, I had comments on my FaceBook page from a guy trying to tell me more species were going extinct today than ever!  Here is yet another fib buster story to the rock the libs....

Conservationists are overestimating the number of species that have been driven to extinction, scientists have said.

A study has found that a third of all mammal species declared extinct in the past few centuries have turned up alive and well.

Some of the more reclusive creatures managed to hide from sight for 80 years only to reappear within four years of being officially named extinct in the wild.

The shy okapi – which resembles a cross between a zebra and a giraffe – was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1901.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1315964/One-extinct-animals-turn-again.html#ixzz113vzuSe0

 

Inhofe Says EPA's New Boiler Rule Could Kill Nearly 800,000 Manufacturing Jobs

The top Republican on a Senate environmental panel released a scathing report Tuesday that he contends shows that the Environmental Protection Agency's new proposed rule on cleaning up boilers nationwide could devastate America's manufacturing base and imperil hundreds of thousands of jobs without providing any real public health or environmental benefits.

In June, the EPA issued a proposal that would force industrial, commercial and institutional boilers and heaters to use "maximum achievable control technology" to reduce harmful emissions that erode air quality and pose a public health risk.

LINK

Five myths about green energy

By Robert Bryce

Sunday, April 25, 2010  

Americans are being inundated with claims about renewable and alternative energy. Advocates for these technologies say that if we jettison fossil fuels, we'll breathe easier, stop global warming and revolutionize our economy. Yes, "green" energy has great emotional and political appeal. But before we wrap all our hopes -- and subsidies -- in it, let's take a hard look at some common misconceptions about what "green" means.

1. Solar and wind power are the greenest of them all.

No Science, Fake Science, and the Destruction of the Nation

By Alan Caruba

Any scientist who has not sold his soul to the environmental movement will tell you that the reason that greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), do not cause any warming is due to the fact that they have to conform to the laws of thermodynamics. The first law states that “energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only change form.”

Energy produced by coal, natural gas, oil, or nuclear is energy that has changed from one form of matter to another. The attack on these sources of energy is a direct attack on the economic success of America and it is one that is at a dangerous peak of activity generated by the Obama administration, primarily through the Environmental Protection Agency.

There is simply no such thing as “dirty energy.” The push for so-called clean or renewable energy is a fiction to advance the use of the two worst, most unpredictable and unreliable forms of energy, solar and wind. They exist solely because of government subsidies and mandates. They produce little over three percent of the energy used nationwide every day.  Read the rest.........

Filmmaker James Cameron Backs Out of Global Warming Debate HE Organized!

Multi-millionaire filmmaker James Cameron on Sunday backed out of a global warming debate that he asked for and organized.

For those that haven't been following the recent goings on concerning Nobel Laureate Al Gore's favorite money-making myth, an environmental summit was held this weekend in Aspen, Colorado, called AREDAY, which is short for American Renewable Energy Day.

Ahead of this conference, Cameron challenged three noted global warming skeptics to a public debate where he was going to personally "call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads."

One of the invited skeptics, Ann McElhinney of NotEvilJustWrong.com, wrote about Cameron's surprise cancellation Sunday:

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/08/23/filmmaker-james-cameron-backs-out-global-warming-debate-he-organized#ixzz0xXGcmqad

Hotter-burning sun warming the planet

The sun is burning hotter than usual, offering a possible explanation for global warming that needs to be weighed when proceeding with expensive efforts to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, Swiss and German scientists say.

"The sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures," said Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research.

"The sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently -- in the last 100 to 150 years," Mr. Solanski said.

Average global temperatures have increased by about 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 20 years and are widely believed to be responsible for new extremes in weather patterns.

Globally, 1997, 1998 and 2002 were the hottest years since worldwide weather records were first collated in 1860.

Bill Burrows, a climatologist and a member of the Royal Meteorological Society, welcomed Mr. Solanki's research.

"It shows that there is enough happening on the solar front to merit further research. Perhaps we are devoting too many resources to correcting human effects on the climate without being sure that we are the major contributor," he said.

Mr. Solanki said that the brighter sun and higher levels of so-called "greenhouse gases" both contributed to the change in the Earth's temperature, but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.

Most scientists agree that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide from fossil fuels have contributed to the warming of the planet in the past few decades, but have questioned whether other factors beyond man's control are also to blame.

To determine the sun's role in global warming, Mr. Solanki's research team measured magnetic zones on the sun's surface known as sunspots, which are believed to intensify the sun's energy output.

Story Continues →

Guess who holds patent for carbon trading plan

Former Clinton and Obama budget adviser Franklin Raines owns a key carbon-emissions patent he developed as CEO of the government-sponsored mortgage giant Fannie Mae, positioning him and his partners to make millions of dollars if it is used in any carbon-capping scheme implemented by the Obama administration.

Raines and his associates led Fannie Mae and Congress to believe Fannie Mae owned the patent, despite public records to the contrary.

Raines and his partners carried out their plan by quietly filing for and receiving a second nearly identical carbon-emissions patent that superseded the first patent, according to government records. The second patent was never assigned to Fannie Mae or any other party.

As WND reported, an Enron-like accounting scandal enabled Raines to earn $90 million in his five years as Fannie Mae CEO, from 1999 to 2004. Read More>>>>>>>>

What’s wrong with the sun? - The real cause of Climate changes.....

Source: New Scientist

SUNSPOTS come and go, but recently they have mostly gone. For centuries, astronomers have recorded when these dark blemishes on the solar surface emerge, only for them to fade away again after a few days, weeks or months. Thanks to their efforts, we know that sunspot numbers ebb and flow in cycles lasting about 11 years.

But for the past two years, the sunspots have mostly been missing. Their absence, the most prolonged for nearly a hundred years, has taken even seasoned sun watchers by surprise. “This is solar behaviour we haven’t seen in living memory,” says David Hathaway, a physicist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama ... Read More in: New Scientist

UN says case for saving species 'more powerful than climate change'

The Brasilian Nut Tree "Castanheira" is protected in Brasil, but plenty had been logged. Photograph: Daniel Beltra/Greenpeace

The economic case for global action to stop the destruction of the natural world is even more powerful than the argument for tackling climate change, a major report for the United Nations will declare this summer.

The Stern report on climate change, which was prepared for the UK Treasury and published in 2007, famously claimed that the cost of limiting climate change would be around 1%-2% of annual global wealth, but the longer-term economic benefits would be 5-20 times that figure.

The UN's biodiversity report – dubbed the Stern for Nature – is expected to say that the value of saving "natural goods and services", such as pollination, medicines, fertile soils, clean air and water, will be even higher – between 10 and 100 times the cost of saving the habitats and species which provide them.

CLICK TO READ MORE---------->

Creationist chimes in on global warming

An astronomer and apologist explains why global warming is no cause for concern.

Dr. Jason Lisle, an astrophysicist with the Kentucky-based Answers in Genesis, believes environmentalists used the recent celebration of Earth Day as an opportunity to warn people about the dangers of alleged "man-made global warming."

He notes that the earth's climate has changed over the years -- but that, he says, is not a result of industry or the actions of humans.

"These have not...been caused by human industry because there wasn't human industry.  When we take a look back during the 1600s, for example, we find that Europe experienced what we call the 'little Ice Age.'" He points out that "there was a period of decreased temperatures at that time, and that was just natural; it came back up. There was a period during the year 1,000 A.D....when the earth experienced global warming and then it went away. I think what we're seeing today is part of a natural variation, perhaps a cycle," he concludes.

Lisle reports that despite the rumors of global warming, the earth's temperature has dropped slightly since the year 2002.

SOURCE

Leaked U.S. Document Calls For “Global Regime” To Tackle Climate Change

Says critics must be disarmed, all elements of Copenhagen Accord must be operationalised

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Monday, April 12th, 2010

A confidential U.S. government document obtained by the London Guardian highlights the ongoing agenda to create a structure of global governance in the name of combating climate change.

“Titled Strategic communications objectives and dated 11 March 2010, it outlines the key messages that the Obama administration wants to convey to its critics and to the world media in the run-up to the vital UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico in November.” The Guardian reports.

The newspaper says that the document (full text below) was “accidentally left on a European hotel computer” before it was passed to their editors.  more>>>>>>>>>

Is 'Green Goon Squad' at your front door?

© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Just when you thought the government couldn't get any more invasive than the 2010 Census and requirements under "Obamacare" that your medical records be posted on the Internet, a coming book called "Climategate" by veteran meteorologist Brian Sussman warns that soon there could be a "green goon squad" visiting at your door.

Sussman's book, the newest title by WND books and scheduled for release April 22 "Earth Day," has been charting for several weeks already among Amazon's top 10 preordered titles. It arrives just as people who thought the campaign over global warming was being dropped over revelations of apparent manipulation by researchers in the field are becoming concerned that Washington still has it on the fast-track.

Sussman writes in "Climategate" that not only are promoters of the belief that starting a car in Texas or heating a home in North Dakota contributes to a cataclysmic environmental

warping are continuing their campaign, Washington already has parts of it in writing.

Read the rest of the story>>>>>>

Cows absolved of causing global warming with nitrous oxide

In the past environmentalists, from Lord Stern to Sir Paul McCartney, have urged people to stop eating meat because the methane produced by cattle causes global warming.

However a new study found that cattle grazed on the grasslands of China actually reduce another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide.

Authors of the paper, published in Nature, say the research does not mean that producing livestock to eat is good for the environment in all countries. However in certain circumstances, it can be better for global warming to let animals graze on grassland.

The research will reignite the argument over whether to eat red meat after other studies suggested that grass fed cattle in the UK and US can also be good for the environment as long as the animals are free range.

Americans' Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop

PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup's annual update on Americans' attitudes toward the environment shows a public that over the last two years has become less worried about the threat of global warming, less convinced that its effects are already happening, and more likely to believe that scientists themselves are uncertain about its occurrence. In response to one key question, 48% of Americans now believe that the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated, up from 41% in 2009 and 31% in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question.

These results are based on the annual Gallup Social Series Environment poll, conducted March 4-7 of this year. The survey results show that the reversal in Americans' concerns about global warming that began last year has continued in 2010 -- in some cases reverting to the levels recorded when Gallup began tracking global warming measures more than a decade ago.

For example, the percentage of Americans who now say reports of global warming are generally exaggerated is by a significant margin the highest such reading in the 13-year history of asking the question. In 1997, 31% said global warming's effects had been exaggerated; last year, 41% said the same, and this year the number is 48%.   more>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Head of 'Climategate' research unit admits he hid data - because it was 'standard practice'

The scientist at the heart of the 'Climategate' row over global warming hid data 'because it was standard practice', it emerged today.Professor Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia's prestigious climatic research unit, today admitted to MPs that the centre withheld raw station data about global temperatures from around the world.The world-renowned research unit has been under fire since private emails, which sceptics claimed showed evidence of scientists manipulating climate data, were hacked from the university's server and posted online.  more>>>>>>>>>>

AL GORE FOUND! WHAT'S A FEW MISTAKES?

By AL GORE

Published: February 27, 2010

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE--------->

U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer to step down in July

LONDON (Reuters) - The U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer has resigned to join a consultancy group as an adviser, the U.N. climate secretariat said on Thursday, two months after a disappointing Copenhagen summit.

De Boer will step down on July 1 to join KPMG, the U.N. framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) said in a statement. He has led the agency since 2006.

"It was a difficult decision to make, but I believe the time is ripe for me to take on a new challenge, working on climate and sustainability with the private sector and academia," de Boer said in the statement.

"Copenhagen did not provide us with a clear agreement in legal terms, but the political commitment and sense of direction toward a low-emissions world are overwhelming. This calls for new partnerships with the business sector and I now have the chance to help make this happen," he added.

(Reporting by Michael Szabo and Gerard Wynn, Editing by Alison Williams)

Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995

• Data for vital 'hockey stick graph' has gone missing
• There has been no global warming since 1995
• Warming periods have happened before - but NOT due to man-made changes

Data: Professor Phil Jones admitted his record keeping is 'not as good as it should be'

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers. Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organizational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory. Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html#ixzz0feHYzdJ2

The woman who was passed over by the Noble committee for Al Gore!

Bob Barney-We are re-running this story because you must WAKE UP! This woman was passed over by the Noble Peace Committee in favor of AL GORE, the crook that is trying to rob your hard earned dollars in a global warming tax scheme hoax! Now Donald Trump has asked the Committee to remove his prize! We say, give it to the rightful person--Irena Sendler! 

The Holocaust - the systematic annihilation of six million Jews - is a history of enduring horror and sorrow. The charred skeletons, the diabolic experiments, the death camps, the mass graves, the smoke from the chimneys ... In 1933 nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed by the Nazis. 1.5 million children were murdered. This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of handicapped children.

Yet there were acts of courage and human decency during the Holocaust - stories to bear witness to goodness, love and compassion. This is the story of an incredible woman and her amazing gift to mankind. Irena Sendler. An unfamiliar name to most people, but this remarkable woman defied the Nazis and saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto. As a health worker, she sneaked the children out between 1942 and 1943 to safe hiding places and found non-Jewish families to adopt them. For many years Irena Sendler - white-haired, gentle and courageous - was living a modest existence in her Warsaw apartment. This unsung heroine passed away on Monday May 12th, 2008. Her achievement went largely unnoticed for many years. Then the story was uncovered by four young students at Uniontown High School, in Kansas, who were the winners of the 2000 Kansas state National History Day competition by writing a play Life in a Jar about the heroic actions of Irena Sendler. The girls - Elizabeth Cambers, Megan Stewart, Sabrina Coons and Janice Underwood - have since gained international recognition, along with their teacher, Norman Conard.

How being vegetarian does more harm to the environment than eating meat

It is a claim that could put a dent in the green credentials of vegetarians: Meat-free diets can be bad for the planet.

Environmental activists and vegetarians have long taken pleasure in telling those who enjoy a steak that livestock farming is a major source of harmful greenhouse gases.

RFK, Jr. 15 months ago: Global warming means no snow or cold in DC

By: David Freddoso
Online Opinion Editor
12/21/09 1:51 PM EST

Mary Mitchell cross country skis in a deserted downtown in front of the U.S. Capitol December 19, 2009 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who flies around on private planes so as to tell larger numbers of people how they must live their lives in order to save the planet, wrote a column last year on the lack of winter weather in Washington, D.C.

In Virginia, the weather also has changed dramatically. Recently arrived residents in the northern suburbs, accustomed to today's anemic winters, might find it astonishing to learn that there were once ski runs on Ballantrae Hill in McLean, with a rope tow and local ski club. Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don't own a sled. But neighbors came to our home at Hickory Hill nearly every winter weekend to ride saucers and Flexible Flyers.

In those days, I recall my uncle, President Kennedy, standing erect as he rode a toboggan in his top coat, never faltering until he slid into the boxwood at the bottom of the hill. Once, my father, Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, brought a delegation of visiting Eskimos home from the Justice Department for lunch at our house. They spent the afternoon building a great igloo in the deep snow in our backyard. My brothers and sisters played in the structure for several weeks before it began to melt. On weekend afternoons, we commonly joined hundreds of Georgetown residents for ice skating on Washington's C&O Canal, which these days rarely freezes enough to safely skate.

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil and its carbon cronies continue to pour money into think tanks whose purpose is to deceive the American public into believing that global warming is a fantasy. 

Having shoveled my walk five times in the midst of this past weekend's extreme cold and blizzard, I think perhaps RFK, Jr. should leave weather analysis to the meteorologists instead of trying to attribute every global phenomenon to anthropogenic climate change.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/RFK-79834057.html#ixzz0erouxP8G

India forms new climate change body-REJECTS the UN!

The move is a significant snub to both the IPCC and Dr Pachauri as he battles to defend his reputation following the revelation that his most recent climate change report included false claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Scientists believe it could take more than 300 years for the glaciers to disappear.

The body and its chairman have faced growing criticism ever since as questions have been raised on the credibility of their work and the rigour with which climate change claims are assessed.

Global cooling may set in for 20-30 years!

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.

Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in
summer by 2013.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1242011/DAVID-ROSE-The-mini-ice-age-starts-here.html#ixzz0cGN6TjTn

Too cold in Peru? Blame global warming.

This article in The Guardian serves as just one more piece of proof that proponents of Anthropogenic Global Warming will take any weather phenomenon whatsoever and explain it in terms of Global Warming -- including the cold. Mountain dwellers in Peru are now endangered by ever-colder temperatures, and "climate change" is blamed: