Source:  Science Daily

A new study using satellite mapping technology reveals there are twice as many emperor penguins in Antarctica than previously thought. The results provide an important benchmark for monitoring the impact of environmental change on the population of this iconic bird, which breeds in remote areas that are very difficult to study because they often are inaccessible with temperatures as low as -58 degrees Fahrenheit.

Recently reporting in the journal PLoS ONE, an international team of scientists describe how they used Very High Resolution satellite images to estimate the number of penguins at each colony around the coastline of Antarctica. (more…)

Source:  Climate Change Reconsidered

Writing in the pages of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Feeley and Silman (2009) say that “ongoing development of the Amazon, including natural gas and oil production, large-scale cattle ranching, soy farming, extended networks of improved roads, and the various synergistic activities that invariably accompany increased access, is causing the rapid loss and degradation of natural habitat,” which, as we all know, can lead to the extinctions of species that live there.

So just how serious is the situation? (more…)

Source:  Climate Change Reconsidered

Authors Humlum et al. (2011) write that “analytic climate models have provided the means to predict potential impacts on future climate by anthropogenic changes in atmospheric composition.” However, they indicate that “future climate development will not only be influenced by anthropogenic changes, but also by natural variations.” And they say that knowledge of these variations is incomplete. (more…)

Source: Climate Change Reconsidered

Bali et al. (2011) introduce their review of what is known about Himalayan glaciers by noting that a “glacial inventory carried out by the Geological Survey of India reveals the existence of over 9,000 valley glaciers in India and at least about 2,000 glaciers in Nepal and Bhutan,” citing Raina (2006). And they say that “following the alarmist approach of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),” a number of subsequent reports related to the bleak future of Himalayan glaciers have been issued, mainly through the media. These reports, as they describe them, have suggested that “almost all Indian glaciers including the Gangotri glacier will vanish from the Earth in the next few decades.” More particularly, they say the reports suggest that “initially, there would be flooding followed by the drying of glacial fed rivers of the Indian subcontinent, desertification, rise of sea level, submergence of the coastal areas, spread of diseases, drop in the production of food grains, etc.,” all due, of course, to “anthropogenically induced global warming.”

So what’s the real story? (more…)

Source:  Climate Change Reconsidered

Authors McCabe and Wolock (2011) write that “effects of global warming on streamflow magnitude are of particular concern given that these effects directly alter water supplies.” In this regard, however, they say that “previous studies of trends and variability of streamflow in the United States primarily have focused on the latter half of the 20th century,” noting that these trends “may not be representative of longer time periods.” Thus, they decided to significantly increase the time domain of their new study of the subject to cover the period 1900-2008, stating that it would “be informative to evaluate temporal patterns in streamflow over the longest possible period,” which is critically important, in light of the fact that Earth’s recovery from the global chill of the Little Ice Age began well over a century ago. (more…)

Source:  UK Mail

Photos taken by a French satellite show glaciers in a mountain range west of the Himalayas have grown during the last decade.

The growing glaciers were found in the Karakoram range, which spans the borders between Pakistan, India and China and is home to the world’s second highest peak, K2.

The startling find has baffled scientists and comes at a time when glaciers in other parts of the region, and across the world, are shrinking.

French scientists from the National Centre for Scientific Research and the University of Grenoble, were forced to rely on satellite images, to study the region – because much of the Karakoram range is inaccessible. (more…)

Source:  Senator Inhofe

Link to Press Release

Washington, D.C. – Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, blasted President Obama’s executive order, “Supporting Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources,” released today that will coordinate the activities of thirteen or more different federal agencies on natural gas development.

“President Obama now believes that his administration’s efforts to regulate natural gas production have become so complicated and convoluted that he needs yet another government board to coordinate them,” Senator Inhofe said, “While he makes disingenuous claims about how this working group is to increase natural gas production, we all know that the more layers of government involved, the greater the likelihood that he can stall efforts towards development.  He already has ten federal agencies looking into hydraulic fracturing with the express purpose of trying to find something wrong with it – now President Obama wants to add yet another layer of bureaucracy.  And to make matters worse, this working group incorporates even more federal agencies in the mix, bringing the total to thirteen with the possibility of more.  So why, when states are already regulating the process safely, efficiently, and effectively is President Obama pushing for the involvement of more than thirteen different federal agencies?  The answer is simple: with an election on the horizon – and the American people are feeling the economic pain of his disastrous war on fossil fuels – he’s trying to pretend he supports natural gas production, while ensuring that the federal government does everything possible to impede hydraulic fracturing. (more…)

Source:  SHTF

While Americans focused their attention on the Colombian controversy involving U.S. Secret Service agents, prostitutes and excessive drinking, President Obama quietly signed his latest Presidential Executive Order.

The Supporting Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources Executive Order seeks to create what amounts to a Presidential super committee that will oversee the regulation and development of the ‘unconventional’ natural gas industry for the purpose of ensuring a long-term natural gas supply for the United States, as well as to do so in a safe and environmentally responsible manner.

Excerpts (Read the complete E.O.):

While natural gas production is carried out by private firms, and States are the primary regulators of onshore oil and gas activities, the Federal Government has an important role to play by regulating oil and gas activities on public and Indian trust lands, encouraging greater use of natural gas in transportation, supporting research and development aimed at improving the safety of natural gas development and transportation activities, and setting sensible, cost-effective public health and environmental standards to implement Federal law and augment State safeguards.

Because efforts to promote safe, responsible, and efficient development of unconventional domestic natural gas resources are underway at a number of executive departments and agencies (agencies), close interagency coordination is important for effective implementation of these programs and activities.  To formalize and promote ongoing interagency coordination, this order establishes a high-level, interagency working group that will facilitate coordinated Administration policy efforts to support safe and responsible unconventional domestic natural gas development. (more…)

Source:  No Frakking Concensus

The World Wildlife Fund’s first corporate sponsor was Shell oil – which continued to fund it for the next four decades.

Remember the headline in The Independent that pointed an accusing finger: Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers (backup link)? And the Center for Media and Democracy’s claim that Oil Money Funds Climate Deniers and Attacks on Climate Scientists (backup). And CleanTechnica’s automatic assumption that any politician who accept donations from oil companies is therefore a “shill for oil & gas interests” (backup).

In the simple-minded, comic book world in which many environmentalists live there’s only one acceptable view about climate change – the one they themselves hold. Intelligent people couldn’t possibly have compelling reasons to see the world differently. There must be some (condescending and dehumanizing) explanation – one that allows skeptics to be peremptorily dismissed, to be banished to that category of social rejects who need not be taken seriously.

We must be stupid. Or mentally ill. Or brainwashed by FoxNews. Most offensively of all it’s said that we’re being paid by big, bad oil companies to express particular views.

Well if oil money is corrupt and evil – and if green activists really believe that those who take it are nefarious and untrustworthy – why are there no websites analogous to Greenpeace’s ExxonSecrets about the very long, very close relationship that the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has enjoyed with Shell (aka Royal Dutch Shell)? (more…)

Source:  The Climate Policy Network

Astronauts Condemn Nasa’s Global Warming Advocacy

In an unprecedented slap at NASA’s endorsement of global warming science, nearly 50 former astronauts and scientists–including the ex-boss of the Johnson Space Center–claim the agency is on the wrong side of science and must change course or ruin the reputation of the world’s top space agency.

Challenging statements from NASA that man is causing climate change, the former NASA executives demanded in a letter to Administrator Charles Bolden that he and the agency “refrain from including unproven remarks” supporting global warming in the media. The letter was signed by seven Apollo astronauts, a deputy associate administrator, several scientists, and even the deputy director of the space shuttle program. –The Washington Examiner, 10 April 2012

In their letter, the group said that thousands of years of data challenge modern-day claims that man-made carbon dioxide is causing climate change. “With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from (NASA’s) Goddard Institute for Space Studies leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled,” they wrote. –The Washington Examiner, 10 April 2012 (more…)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Blanquita Cullum

703-307-9510

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Joint letter to NASA Administrator blasts agency’s policy of ignoring empirical evidence

HOUSTON, TX – April 10, 2012. 49 former NASA scientists and astronauts sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week admonishing the agency for it’s role in advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question.

The group, which includes seven Apollo astronauts and two former directors of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, are dismayed over the failure of NASA, and specifically the Goddard Institute For Space Studies (GISS), to make an objective assessment of all available scientific data on climate change. They charge that NASA is relying too heavily on complex climate models that have proven scientifically inadequate in predicting climate only one or two decades in advance. (more…)

Source:  AP

Gov. Rick Scott has signed a bill repealing a cap and trade law designed to control power plant emissions in Florida.

Scott signed the bill (HB 4001) on Friday.

The law was never implemented since the Legislature passed it in 2008 at the urging of then-Gov. Charlie Crist.

It was intended as a market-based approach to controlling greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to global warming.

The concept, though, has fallen out of favor among Republicans who control the Florida Legislature. They contend it would kill jobs and have questioned scientific evidence linking such emissions to climate change.

Source:  MasterResource

by Chip Knappenberger

And President Obama’s “all-inclusive” energy policy is anything but!

Mary Kay Barton

President Obama’s mantra du jour for his 2012 campaign speeches is “all-inclusive” energy.  Any business touting this version of “all-inclusive” would be prosecuted for false advertising.

When the President says “all-inclusive,” he means politically correct (PC) “green” energy (wind, solar and bio-fuels), and nothing that actually provides reliable, affordable power – especially not hydrocarbons. Another PC buzzword – “sustainable” – is right out of the United Nation’s Agenda 21 Protocol and the President’s goal of “fundamentally transforming” America.”

Increasing pain at the pump and plug underscore the reality that Mr. Obama’s energy policies are anything but all-inclusive, and his PC power is anything but sustainable – though they certainly are transforming our country. In fact, if the Keystone XL pipeline’s oil were used to generate electricity, it would provide more energy than all existing US wind and solar installations combined.

Be they massive or small-scale, actual or theoretical and decades away – wind, solar, corn ethanol, switch-grass and algae projects are being paid for with countless billions of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars. The arrangements are sweet for promoters and “investors” on the receiving end, and for politicians looking for crony capitalist campaign contributions from these recipients.

But they’re neither nice nor “sustainable” for those of us paying the tab. (more…)