NC Media Watch

Charcoal briquettes have more value than a ton of carbon on CCX exchange

Russ Steele

Watts Up With That has the details in: Chicago Climate Exchange devalues 50%, new record low.  The only lower price than today’s closing price on Carbon is ZERO.

In California under AB32,  CARB hopes carbon trading will produce revenue for the state. One has to ask, were is the money going to come from when businesses can buy carbon for less than 5 cents per ton.  In fact, California companies can buy a ton of carbon at ZERO cost. How can CARB make money when carbon is FREE?  There must be something that we do not understand.

AB32’s Cap and Trade is a scam. It is scam that California citizens can avoid by voting YES on PROP 23.

Meteorologist Joseph D'Aleo - We are headed for a Dalton Minimum

 Russ Steele
 
Who is Joe D'Aleo?  He was the first Director of Meteorology at cable TV's Weather Channel, and Chief Meteorologist at the Weather Service's International Corporation. He has over 30 years experience as a meteorologist.
 

Kim Greenhouse recently interviewed Joseph D'Aleo and he was asked about global cooling:  Listen to the interview here.

"I believe we're headed into at least a Dalton minimum kind of cooling which could be a degree or two Celsius below globally for over the next couple of decades," says D'Aleo.

"Three degrees Fahrenheit globally. You'll still get your heat waves. Winters will be colder and longer, more extreme. There will be plenty of snow, and snow in places where you usually don't see it.

"The point is that cold is much more dangerous than warmth. This could create crop failures and famines and plagues.

"We believe strongly that cooling is coming.

"We're preparing for something that is not coming."

H/T to  Iceagenow.com

More cool weather on the way

Russ Steele

We have had cool summer and the strengthening La Niña will being more cool weather in California. Watts Up With That has put up a dedicated page for tracking the ENSO/Sea Level/Sea Surface Temperature information.

Here is the latest information on the expanding La Niña.(Click for a larger image)

Here is a profile of the major differences between an El Niño and La Niña weather patterns. (Click for a larger image)

  Northern California is on the cusp of cold and wet. These zones are not static, they expand and contract. Stay Tuned!

“My way or the highway,” approach to Prop 23, really?

Russ Steele

I am sorry Mister Middle of the Road, but this is an up or down vote. Yes or No!  There are no nice liberal nuances in this proposition, you are either for protecting existing jobs in California, or you are for the promise of green job (oops now clean tech) and billions of dollars of fees that will be collected from business under AB32 according to the LAO.

Where will those fees go, they will go to rent seeking NGOs promising to to reduce CO2,  and for the pet projects of legislators who supported AB32. That support was not free, it came with a commitment to support their pet projects once CARB starts collecting fees. If we had a state budget, you would find a line item for $86 million in fees to be collected under AB32 next year. Who do you think are going to pay those fees?  Right, the citizens of this state!

Now where is the nuance in Prop 23?  Your are either for more fees, or you are against more fees.  Which is it? Yes or No on Prop 23?  My way or the highway!

You bet your bippy - Prop 23 is making Wasington nervous!

Russ Steele

The whole nation is watching California and how the citizens of this state vote on Prop 23,  an issue which is vital to the future of California’s economy. if California votes YES on PROP 23 it will be a shock wave that will ripple across the country. The left and the EPA are getting nervous. 

Here is an example of their concerns on KQED Climate Watch:

The ranks of officials publicly opposing Proposition 23 seem to be growing.  Earlier this month we reported that Energy Secretary Steven Chu said passing the measure would be a "terrible setback" for California's clean energy leadership and that the state's Air Resources Board Chairman Mary Nichols called Prop 23 a "very serious threat" to the core programs of AB 32 and related regulatory programs.

Today, at a meeting of the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association in San Francisco, federal EPA Administrator Jared Blumenfeld urged attendees to vote against the measure.

Doing so, he said, "is certainly what you should do."

Blumenfeld said that the passage of Prop. 23 would send a "terrible and false" message to to the rest of the country by linking climate change mitigation legislation with a poor economy.

How much clearer can we get, according to the Legislative Analyst Office this is all about the negative economy impact from the collection of billions of fees from businesses. 

Thus, the suspension of AB 32 could preclude the collection by the state of potentially billions of dollars in new allowance-related payments from businesses.

Who do you think is going to pay those “billions of dollars in new allowance-related payments from business”?  Right, they will be passed down to California consumers.  Are you ready to pay those fees?

Do you think that piling on more draconian regulations will have a positive impact our our economy?  These regulations are already having an impact,  as as business are leaving California seeking more  lower cost power sources, but even more importantly more reliable power. 

It is clear the EPA and the Washington Elite are getting nervous that California is going to reject AB32, but voting for Proposition 23. This will eliminate the opportunity for CARB to collect billions of fees from California business and in reality from the citizen of this state.

                                     VOTE YES on PROP 23. VOTE YES to SAVE California JOBS

In science the debate is never over - especially UN science

Russ Steele

Regardless of the pronouncements by Al Gore and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that Global Warming Science is know and their is not need for debate, it appears there is a lot of global warming science left to debate.  The IPCC is getting ready to produce their next assessment and the independent review panel has some advice for the IPCC.

According to a story in the UK Telegraph: IPCC told to stop lobbying and restrict role to explaining climate science

An independent investigation into the UN’s climate change body has warned it to stop lobbying and to restrict its role to explaining the science behind any changes in global temperature.

Senior officials at the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have also been ordered to disclose their outside financial interests to avert any allegations that they may have profited from policies to tackle global warming.

New controls should also be introduced to ensure that the scientific claims made in influential international reports are robust in future.

The Wall Street Journal has a similar story: Climate-Change Group Needs Management Reform

A group investigating the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report Monday saying the IPCC needs to make several changes to reduce errors and the chance of bias in its reports, including fundamentally reforming its management structure.

The investigation by the InterAcademy Council, a consortium of national academies of science, said the IPCC has been "successful overall" but called for the widely watched organization to enforce its existing procedures more, and to ensure that "genuine controversies" about climate science are reflected in the IPCC reports.

The IPCC also should establish an executive committee that includes people outside the climate-science community, and it should limit the term of its chairman to one term, the report said. The current limit of two six-year terms for the chairman "is too long," the press release about the report said.

The reforms would aid in seeing that "due consideration was given to properly documented alternative views," according to a news release about the report issued Monday morning.

AB32 and Prop23 discussion on KVMR

Russ Steele

 

A local political pundit, recently noted that "Nevada County is ground zero for Prop 23 support." That support and counter views have been discussed at length on this blog. Now KVMR is planning a discussion program on the AB32/Prop 23 issues.  The details are at Rebane’s Ruminations:

This coming Wednesday from 6:20 to 7:00 pm KVMR-FM 89.5 will hold a moderated discussion of AB32, the attempt to suspend the remainder of the law through the passage of Proposition 23, and the relevance of the whole effort to us in Nevada County.  AB32 is also known as California’s ‘Global Warming Solutions Act’, ‘cap and trade’ law, ‘greenhouse gases act’, … .  This live program will be moderated by KVMR’s News Director Paul Emery.  The discussants will be Steven Frisch, President of the Sierra Business Council, and yours truly.

ooo

KVMR welcomes pre-emailed questions from those planning to listen.  Paul asks that you kindly email them to [email protected] .  It would probably help the folks at the station if you use some pithy title like ‘AB32/P23 fracas’.

I am looking forward to hearing your questions on the air.

Weekend project: Jobs First - Yes on 23

Russ Steele

 
I have found a good use for those old political signs that get abandoned on the road after an election. The Nevada County Contractors Association has a large format color printer and they took my jpeg of the Yes on 23 logo and expanded the photo to 18  X 18 inches and printed a paper copy. I used spray on rubber glue to attach the paper to an old political sign that has been banging around my garage for years. I trimmed the edges from 18 x 24 to 18 x 18  and planted the sign on my driveway.  Now our neighbors and their visitors know how we feel about Prop 23.

Exit Question: Where is your sign?

We woke up and found Obama in our shower?

Russ Steele

At our house one to the joys of life is hot shower. Both Ellen and I enjoy our showers.  We are currently planning a master bath upgrade, removing the bathtub and upgrading the shower to one of those multi-headed shower we see installed on the DIY Channel.

Now I find Obama and his Department of Energy in our shower.  Here is the story in the American Thinker.

...Unless, that is, your personal little extravagance happens to be a soothing shower at the end of the day -- using a showerhead that consumes more than 2.5 gallons of water per minute. Then the modern American nanny state steps in and declares, "You're wasting water, you sinner! Cease and desist!"

In 1992, the Department of Energy managed to promulgate a regulation requiring that showerheads use no more than 2.5 gallons per minute as an effort to save...water. This is a substance that's in such short supply that 75% of the planet is covered with it.

ooo

For eighteen years, this regulation was interpreted one way -- the limitation was per nozzle, so people desiring a more vigorous shower could simply install a couple more showerheads, or a multi-nozzle shower system. A specialty arose in the marketplace: the creative design of elegant and invigorating shower systems.

These systems are for the rich who want to be self-indulgent, for the business traveler or vacationer seeking a more exhilarating shower at his hotel, sure, but they're also for the working man who comes home caked in factory grime; for the plumber, carpenter, or electrician who spent his day between hot walls or floors of buildings under construction; for the roofer or window installer whose day was spent on scaffolding, sweating under the hot sun.

ooo

In May 2010, the Department of Energy clarified their interpretation of the rule: it's 2.5 gallons, period. Not per nozzle, but per entire system. And they made it as clear as they could in the language of lawyers: by suing manufacturers who had dared defy the powers that be by obeying the interpretation that had held sway for eighteen years, instead of anticipating the interpretation that the Obama administration would suddenly decide upon.

In a heartbeat, every manufacturer, distributor, seller, and installer of high-flow showerheads across the country had to stop and check their product lines, shutting down assembly lines in factories, taking products off the shelves, putting a hold on construction and remodeling projects while plans were studied, while alternatives were sought, while substitutions were evaluated and selected.

As outrageous as this may be, at least it can serve for us as a microcosm of the dangers of the nanny state and of the utterly counterproductive nature of the Obama administration's idea of its role in the economy.

Read the rest of the story here.  Now were are going to deign and build own shower system, since we will be unable to buy a fancy multi-headed shower from the plumbing supply store.

Exit Question:  Can our economy ever recover under Obama's Nanny Government? 

Liberal/Progressives cannot have it both ways

Russ Steele

In all the battles over anthropogenic global warming the liberal demanded that all global warming studies be peer reviewed, especially is they ran counter to their AGW arguments. But, now that they are fighting Proposition 23 they keep coming up with self serving studies to damage the reputation of Prop 23 supporters, or to support their claims that green jobs will save the California economy.

Here is an example from the Ella Baker Center, which is just another self serving non-peer reviewed study to damage the oil companies reputation.  If the study had been peer reviewed do you think this inflammatory statement would have survived about the release of hydrogen sulfide (sewer gas) at an oil refinery.

“The incident led to the release into the air of extremely deadly hydrogen sulfide gas, which was used to inflict mass casualties in World War I.”

What?  Hydrogen sulfide was used by the British as a chemical agent during World War I twice. It was not considered to be an ideal war gas, but, while other gases were in short supply, it was only used on two occasions in 1916. “  It did not produce “mass casualties” it was a huge failure and was abandoned. 

The Next Ten “Many Shades of Green” is often cited to demonstrate the how California will be benefit from a green economy.  it  is not a peer reviewed research paper.  It makes a lots of assertions using glorious graphics, but they are not backed up by sources, methodology, or references. The “Many Shades of Green” is a  marketing piece, not a study that should be relied upon for serious policy deliberations according to expert reviewers. 

Exit Question: If the liberal/progressives insist on peer reviewed global warming studies, how is it that they get a pass spewing out non-peer reviewed studies refuting the value of Proposition 23?  They cannot have it both ways!