Source:  http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/03/time-to-celebrate-coal-not-candles-viv-forbes/

Source:  CCNet:  The Climate Policy Network

 We used to regard natural gas as a transition fuel. We now understand that it is in fact a destination fuel. –British energy minister Charles Hendry, Standpoint Magazine, April 2012

 To the dismay of the Greens and their political, business and media allies, there are signs that Her Majesty’s Government is slowly turning back towards a new dash for gas, the UK has reserves for centuries to come, and exploiting them now would end the recession almost at a stroke. –Alan Jones, 3000 Quads, 29 March 2012

Let me conclude: Can the green lobby win the shale gas argument over environmental objections? I don’t think it can. Ten or 20 years ago it could have won when governments were willing to burn billions, but the economic climate has changed, we’re facing the biggest crisis in decades. No government in the world would give up this opportunity, not even the British government, which is very green indeed. I don’t think they have a leg to stand on when it comes to shale. People will realize that this energy is far less impacting on environments than most other forms of energy. Even wind farms are much more opposed than coal or nuclear power plants. Shale shouldn’t have any big problem and in all likelihood the government will grasp it with both hands. –Benny Peiser, Natural Gas Europe, 25 October 2011 (more…)

Source:  Climate policy network

CCNet –  29 March 2012
The Climate Policy Network

IPCC Confirms: We Do Not Know If The Climate Is Becoming More Extreme

The full IPCC Special Report on Extremes is out today, and I have just gone through the sections in Chapter 4 that deal with disasters and climate change. Kudos to the IPCC — they have gotten the issue just about right, where “right” means that the report accurately reflects the academic literature on this topic. Over time good science will win out over the rest — sometimes it just takes a little while. –Roger Pielke Jr, 28 March 2012

FAQ 3.1 Is the Climate Becoming More Extreme? [...]None of the above instruments has yet been developed sufficiently as to allow us to confidently answer the question posed here. Thus we are restricted to questions about whether specific extremes are becoming more or less common, and our confidence in the answers to such questions, including the direction and magnitude of changes in specific extremes, depends on the type of extreme, as well as on the region and season, linked with the level of understanding of the underlying processes and the reliability of their simulation in models.–IPCC Special Report on Extreme Events and Disasters

There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change… The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados… The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses.  –IPCC Special Report on Extremes, Chapter 4

Plans to force companies to declare the size of their greenhouse gas emissions have been put on hold and could even be abolished, the environment secretary will tell parliament this week, raising fresh questions over the government’s commitment to fighting climate change. –Kiran Stacey, Financial Times, 28 March 2012 (more…)

Source: Prov. Journal

NH House votes to repeal greenhouse gas law

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire’s House has voted for the second time in two years to end the state’s participation in a regional program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The House voted by voice vote Wednesday to end New Hampshire’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in 2015.

Gov. John Lynch vetoed a similar bill last year. The Senate’s vote to override the veto fell short and the bill died.

The regional program is a cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide.

Repeal supporters argue the program is a stealth tax on electric users. But opponents say New Hampshire consumers would lose the benefits of belonging to the program while New Hampshire’s rates would still reflect cap-and-trade costs included in rates in the regional power pool.

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Note:  A SPPI reader sent this:

According to RSS satellite data, “warm winter” 2012 was globally the coldest since 1993, and eighth coldest on record.

Fewer Americans today believe there is a scientific consensus than did so during the 2000s… after peaking in 2010, public skepticism about global warming softened slightly in 2011, and remains at lower level this year…Today’s level of belief that global warming is similar to what Gallup found in 1997 & from 2001-2005′ — 42% say media exaggerate the seriousness, a higher amount than it was for much of the past decade.

see full article here:

Gallup Poll: ‘In U.S., Global Warming Views Steady Despite Warm Winter; Just over half say effects of global warming are now evident, similar to 49% last year’

Opinion: UN-Backed Scientists Call For Mega-City Population Lockup

Jurriaan Maessen

In a recent statement put out by “Planet Under Pressure” several scientists call for denser cities in order to mitigate worldwide population growth. When in doubt that UN’s Agenda 21 is not the Mein Kampf of our day, one should consider yet another in-your-face confession from yet another certified biocratic control freak

According to an MSNBC article one of the scientists while speaking about human populations worldwide, stated:

“We certainly don’t want them strolling about the entire countryside. We want them to save land for nature by living closely [together].”

Insisting the world’s population be locked up within the confounds of mega-cities, the elite realizes that if the herd is to be properly controlled walls are needed- thick walls, and by constructing these walls, making the masses go this or that way will be made easier..

Chief scientist Michail Fragkias involved with “Planet under Pressure” told MSNBC that “the answer (to population growth) is denser cities.” (more…)

Source:  SFTF plan

gas panic in UK

What was a fairly minor fuel shortage sparked when gas tanker drivers in the UK threatened to go on strike has developed into what UK officials are now calling all out chaos, as drivers across the country scramble to fill their tanks amid uncertainty about when transportation services will be up and running at full capacity again.

In what may be a glimpse into the future of other industrialized Western nations that are experiencing rising gas prices and labor problems, residents of the UK were queued in hours-long lines reminiscent of the 1970?s oil crisis in the United States. The lines of drivers waiting to get their daily allotment  of gas are so long that they have led police to shut down gas stations in an effort to ease traffic and avoid delays.

For their part, government officials have asked drivers to remain calm, but may have inadvertently worsened the situation when Energy Secretary Ed Davey suggested that drivers concerned with running out of gas should be “topping up when their tanks go below, say, half-full… they should actually go the full hog and fill up when they can.” (more…)

Source:  Wealth Wire

OPINION

The U.S. dollar has probably been the closest thing to a true global currency that the world has ever seen. For decades, the use of the U.S. dollar has been absolutely dominant in international trade. This has had tremendous benefits for the U.S. financial system and for U.S. consumers, and it has given the U.S. government tremendous power and influence around the globe.

Today, more than 60 percent of all foreign currency reserves in the world are in U.S. dollars. But there are big changes on the horizon…

The mainstream media in the United States has been strangely silent about this, but some of the biggest economies on earth have been making agreements with each other to move away from using the U.S. dollar in international trade. There are also some oil producing nations which have begun selling oil in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, which is a major threat to the petrodollar system which has been in place for nearly four decades. And big international institutions such as the UN and the IMF have even been issuing official reports about the need to move away form the U.S. dollar and toward a new global reserve currency. So the reign of the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency is definitely being threatened, and the coming shift in international trade is going to have massive implications for the U.S. economy. (more…)

Source: Alan Caruba

By Alan Caruba

The Environmental Protection Agency is using its power to advance the objective of the environmental movement to deny Americans access to the energy that sustains the nation’s economy and is using the greatest hoax ever perpetrated, global warming—now called “climate change”—to achieve that goal.

“This standard isn’t the once-and-for-all solution to our environmental challenge,” said Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator, “but it is an important commonsense step toward tackling the ongoing and very real threat of climate change and protecting the future for generations to come. It will enhance the lives of our children and our children’s children.”

This is a boldfaced lie. Its newest rule is based on the debasement of science that is characterized and embodied in the global warming hoax. It will deprive America of the energy it requires to function.

Since the 1980s the Greens have been telling everyone that carbon dioxide was causing global warming—now called climate change—and warning that CO2 emissions were going to kill everyone in the world if they weren’t dramatically reduced. The ball was put in motion with the United Nations 1997 Kyoto Protocols when many nations agreed to this absurd idea and carried forward by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ever since.

The Environmental Protection Agency was created to clean the nation’s air and water where it was deemed that a hazard existed. Like most noble ideas and most Congressional mandates, the initial language was vague enough to be interpreted to mean anything those in charge wanted it to mean. Add in the global warming hoax and you have the means to destroy the nation. (more…)

Source:  Wash Post

RULE ‘effectively bans’ coal FACILITIES Emissions proposal doesn’t cover existing sites

Source:  ASU

Enough lies to drive one crazy

story and commentary in red

Some 32 social scientists and researchers from around the world, including Kenneth W. Abbott, a professor of international relations in ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and a Senior Sustainability Scholar in the Global Institute of Sustainability a Senior, are calling for fundamental reforms of global environmental governance to avoid dangerous changes in the Earth system.

Some 32 social scientists and researchers from around the world, including a senior sustainability scholar at Arizona State University, have concluded that fundamental reforms of global environmental governance are needed to avoid dangerous changes in the Earth system. The scientists argued in the March 16 edition of the journal Science that the time is now for a “constitutional moment” in world politics. Comment: there is always a sense of urgency, as they have to get these things in place before humanity wakes up to their scheme. (more…)

Source: SPPI

Exporting gasoline and diesel fuel creates jobs and prosperity

Paul Driessen

When President Obama took office, regular gasoline cost $1.85 a gallon. Now it’s hit $4.00 per gallon in many cities, and some analysts predict it could reach $5.00 or more this summer. Filling your tank could soon slam you for $75-$90.

Winter was warm. Our economy remains weak. People are driving less, in cars that get better mileage, even with mandatory 10% low-mileage ethanol. Gasoline is plentiful.

Misinformed politicians and pundits say prices should be falling. Our pain at the pump is due to greedy speculators, they claim, and greedier oil companies that are exporting oil and refined products.

Their explanation is superficially plausible – but wrong. (more…)