September 2009 Archives

By Louis Charbonneau, Reuters

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Czech President Vaclav Klaus sharply criticized a U.N. meeting on climate change on Tuesday at which U.S. President Barack Obama was among the top speakers, describing it as propagandistic and undignified.

"It was sad and it was frustrating," said Klaus, one of the world's most vocal skeptics on the topic of global warming.

"It's a propagandistic exercise where 13-year-old girls from some far-away country perform a pre-rehearsed poem," he said. "It's simply not dignified."

Al Gore Lied.com

I've unearthed from the YouTube dustbin what I believe to be some significant video of man-made global warming alarmist extraordinaire Stephen Schneider's  appearance on a May 1978 episode of the old television series, In Search Of....  For this episode, the show was In Search Of...The Coming Ice Age.

By captainfish, snappedshot.com

You know, when the hype started growing about compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL), people were all excited about the reduction in the production of carbon dioxide produced from the decreased energy needs. But, there are a few things that they refused to tell you.

It's like someone telling you that putting a snake in your home will do wonders by keeping the rodents away. It will save you hundreds of dollars by not having to purchase rat traps or using nasty poisons around your home. What they don't tell you is that you are buying and placing a dangerous and deadly snake in your home.

Tim Pugmire, Minnesota Public Radio

St. Paul, Minn. -- Nearly all of the Republicans running for governor next year say they don't believe in human-caused climate change.

In fact, eight of the nine declared GOP candidates say they view global warming science as an unproven theory that should no longer drive state policy. Environmental activists say the prevailing GOP view not only runs counter to the beliefs of most scientists, but also to Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

The global warning debate has not yet eclipsed the economy or health care as a campaign issue, but the topic has been coming up at Republican gatherings.

By Jason Schoonover, Albert Lea Tribune

Dry, cool summer leaves local crops behind schedule, despite early start

Most area farmers have been crossing their fingers through the cool temperatures of summer, and now they're hoping cooler temperatures can hold off until next month.

"It was like there was no summer at all at times. Every farmer you talked to back then was very concerned that the crop wouldn't mature before freeze. We've still got a couple weeks to go here," said Hollandale farmer Bob Muilenburg.

Kurt Nimmo, Prison Planet.com

The Gray Lady of Operation Mockingbird, the New York Times, reports today that "thousands" of patriots protested against Obamacare, cap and trade, the bankster bailout, and unchecked federal government power in the District of Criminals yesterday.

"The demonstrators numbered well into the tens of thousands, though the police declined to estimate the size of the crowd," the newspaper reports, attempting to downplay the historical significance of the protest.

The New York Times says the police declined to estimate the crowd -- or rather the corporate media declined to report it -- because the number was around two million, the largest protest in the capitol's history.

The protest out-numbered Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. That march was estimated at around 200,000 people.

Fred Pearce, Geneva

Forecasts of climate changeare about to go seriously out of kilter. One of the world's top climate modellers said Thursday we could be about to enter one or even two
decades during which temperatures cool.

"People will say this is global warming disappearing," he told more than 1500 of the world's top climate scientists gathering in Geneva at the UN's World Climate Conference.

"I am not one of the sceptics," insisted Mojib Latif
of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University,
Germany. "However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves or
other people will do it."

Few
climate scientists go as far as Latif, an author for the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But more and more agree that
the short-term prognosis for climate change is much less certain than once thought.

For those of you who missed the Minnesota Free Market Institute Symposium on Climate Change on August 19, it was a huge success. It was well attended and some of the biggest names on the skeptical side of the issue were there, including the keynote speaker Dr. Fred Singer (pictured above with the M4GW chicken). Many of the sessions are now available online on their website. They will be posting more in the next few weeks as they become available.

YahooNews - Reuters

The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods.

That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells.

Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tons annually in several years unless major new production sources are developed. One promising U.S. source is a rare earths mine slated to reopen in California by 2012.

Natural News
Energy efficiency for the First World comes at a high cost for factory workers in China, with high rates of mercury poisoning being reported among employees in the plants that make compact fluorescent light bulbs.

In an effort to reign in global warming caused by excessive greenhouse gas emissions, the European Union has passed a law mandating the phasing out of incandescent light bulbs in favor of the more energy-efficient compact fluorescents by 2012. This has contributed to a huge surge in demand for the bulbs, and a corresponding upswing in manufacturing.

Unfortunately, fluorescent bulbs require mercury to start the chemical reaction that produces the light. This mercury can pose a significant health hazard; the British government advises that if a compact fluorescent bulb breaks, the room should be evacuated for 15 minutes until the mercury vapors can disperse.