NC Media Watch

When CARB gets control of Santa’s sleigh (updated 10-26-10)

Russ

When we let a bunch of unelected CARB despots reign over our lives, this could be the result:

H/T to Right on Daily

Update (10-26-10, 12:45):  Anthony Watts has some thoughts on this post at Watts Up With That.

Very Merry Christmas

Ancient ships hold key to future

Russ Steele

History aways has important lessons to teach for those willing to listen. Here is an opportunity to look in the past from the ships logs in the 1700 and 1800. 

A RESEARCH project lead by Sunderland University is looking to the past to help with the future. Details here.

Dr Dennis Wheeler from the university is leading the project, analysing historical logs recorded by explorers, whalers and merchants during epic expeditions around the Arctic between 1750 and 1850 in an effort to increase scientific understanding of climate change in the environmentally important region.

The logbooks include famous voyages such as Parry’s polar expedition in HMS Hecla and Franklin’s lost journey to navigate the Northwest Passage.

There are also whaling ships’ logs, including records from a fleet owned by the Newcastle-based Palmer family and Royal Navy logbooks and data from the Hudson Bay Company – one of the oldest commercial companies in the world.

Dr Wheeler was also recently involved in a project using historical naval logbooks to reconstruct past climate change.

The UK Colonial Registers and Royal Navy Logbooks (Corral) project has digitised nearly 300 ships’ logbooks from voyages such as Charles Darwin’s Beagle and Cook’s HMS Discovery dating back to the 1760s.

And he said this would help with the university’s latest project.
He said: “We are using the Corral data as a springboard to the Arctic project, looking at climate change in the region, especially the retreat and advance of ice between 1750 and 1850.
“Environmentally, the Arctic is a hugely important area, but we need to know how it’s behaved in the past in order that we can assess how it’s going to behave in the future – you can’t look forward without looking back.

“This is no longer just a scientific issue; climate change is of global political concern.

“The work we’ll be doing is incredibly important as governments will be given a report into our findings, creating an understanding of climate change, on which major decisions could be made.”

Dr Wheeler says that the 100-year period his team will research is important because it pre-dates the emergence of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere so the logs contain information about the Arctic under natural weather conditions.

He said: “This is also an interesting time as there were some massive volcanoes and the sun was behaving rather oddly.

“It was a time of low solar activity known as the Dalton Minimum. It’s all tied in with a very cold period for the world’s climate, but the picture is not wholly clear and we already have noticed some conflicting reports from the ships’ logs about ice advancing and retreating.

“We need to know what’s happening, because changes in the Arctic today are important as they feed back into the global climatic system and if the ice change isn’t responding to temperature then to what does it respond and what is the background to it?”

Ships’ logbooks are an invaluable source of information from the days before satellite weather surveying.

Officers kept careful records of the daily, and sometimes hourly, climate conditions, so modern researchers are able to find what the weather was like anywhere in the world on a particular day.

The three-year project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, is led by Dr Wheeler in collaboration with the Scott Polar Research Institute, The Met Office Hadley Research Centre and Hull University’s Maritime Studies Unit.

Over the Horizon - A Solar Cycle Update

Russ Steele

James Murusek has been following the progress at of the current solar cycle and it’s potential impact on our climate.  He has compiled a list of historical global weather events during periods of low sunspots. See link below in this post by James orginally posted at ICECAP. 

You might want to pay attention, as our current political leaders are all focused on global warming and are going to be sandbagged by the growing cold. Do not be trapped by this political myopathy, as history tells us more cold is right over the horizon.  Read James' lesson and learn from history and prepare for more cold weather, even a mini-iceage.

It is December 2010 and time once again to reassess the sun’s transition into Solar Cycle 24. What lies ahead just over the horizon? What are Solar Cycles?

The sun goes through a periodic change around every eleven years where the polarity of the sun’s magnetic field changes poles. Essentially the sun’s magnetic north pole becomes the south pole and vice versa. This is a normal process. As these poles realign and the magnetic field is the weakest, there is an absence of sunspots and this period is referred to as a solar minimum. A solar cycle or SC for short is measured from one solar minimum to the next.

But even though the cycle repeats, the intensity of the solar cycle varies significantly. Scientists have been monitoring sunspots since the 1700’s. There observations have shown when the sun gets deafly quiet such as during the Maunder and Sprer Minimums; the world experiences great cold periods.

These periods were so cold they were referred to as the Little Ice Ages. What is different about Solar Cycle 24 and why is it relevant? Since the sun has finally entered solar cycle 24 (SC24) with the resurgence of sunspots, most people have turned away from tracking the strength of the rebound. Had they looked, they would have found that the surge into this next solar cycle so far has been rather weak.

Too funny not to share - Merry Christmas

Russ Steele

Anthony Watts at Watt’s Up With That blog is gong on a well deserved Christmas break from blogging. However, before departing he left us with a very funny Christmas post, involving a US Senator and Santa Clause.

First the good Senator from New Jersey (Click for a larger image):



Then Santa’s reply, but first please put down any liquids you may be drinking, as we do not need any keyboard accidents, plus Santa’s rely to the good Senator deserves your full attention (Cick for a larger image):


Once you stop laughing, please visit Watt’s Up With That and wish Anthony and his family a Very Merry Christmas.

Will Blue California be challenged by more pro-business Red states?

Russ Steele

Several questions came to mind as I was reading this article in The Union, New GOP wave to enact pro-business agenda in some states, :

Having won big in the fall elections, Republicans preparing to take over statehouses around the country are proposing to cut corporate taxes, weaken union clout and rewrite laws on discrimination, whistle-blowers and injured workers to the benefit of employers.

In short, they intend to push through a business lobbyist's wish list. In some cases, these priorities may even take preference over their short-term costs to state governments, many of which will start the year billions of dollars short.

"It's going to be a good year for businesses," said Missouri Sen. Brad Lager, the commerce committee chairman in a state where Republicans won historic legislative majorities.

When a new wave of politicians takes office in January, Republicans will hold a majority of governorships and their greatest number of state legislative seats since 1928 — giving them the muscle to enact the pro-business agenda they promised to voters concerned about high unemployment and an economy that has yet to make its big rebound following the Great Recession.

As California continuing to pile on more and more anti-business regulations under AB32, one has to wonder if more business friendly states will become more attractive to California businesses.  Attractive enought that those businesses live the state? We discovered during the Census, that low tax states were growing at the expence of the high tax states, such California. Having a very business friendly environment would make them even greater attractors.  Just wondering!

Fox Business Interview Congressman Tom McClintock

Russ Steele

Our local lefties do not watch Fox News, there is too much truth for their liking. They prefer the smoothly twisted stuff produced by the lames stream media. For those readers that do not have cable or satellite access this holiday season, here is a Fox Business News interview with our 4th District Congressman Tom McClintock on the earmarks, budget and role of the Tea Party.

Obama's EPA wants to play hardball with Congress on climate change

Russ Steele

Consider this from Hot Air:

After initially appearing to retreat in the face of the midterm onslaught, Barack Obama and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson have decided to pursue an end-run strategy to impose regulation on energy producers regarding greenhouse-gas emissions.  The move sets up a confrontation between the White House and Congress, which has already signaled a willingness to play hardball with Obama on regulatory innovation.

ooo

The incoming Congress has many tools to block or slow the regulatory growth, one of which Harry Reid handed to Republicans this week.  The GOP will have the ability to shape funding for the EPA for the final six months of this fiscal year.  Congress can either mandate that no funds be spent from EPA’s budget for the purpose of creating or enforcing greenhouse-gas emissions, or they can defund the agency entirely after March 4th.  The latter will almost certainly set up a government-shutdown confrontation, but the former probably wouldn’t, especially since a few red-state Senators would likely join the Republicans in reining in Jackson.  Jay Rockefeller already proposed a two-year moratorium on EPA regulatory expansion to prevent just this scenario.

I do not think this action is going to work out well for the EPA.  Money is the mothers milk of politics, the EPA is about to get their funding cut!  Rep. Darrell Issa, the Ranking Member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, released a report Wednesaday entitled:  “A Constitutional Obligation:  Congressional Oversight of the Executive Branch detailing how “the vast expansion of the power and reach of the Executive Branch of government under both Republican and Democratic administrations has only increased the need for vigorous, unflinching Congressional oversight.”

One of the issues in the report was the Politicization of Science. The Republican Minority had requested that the Democratic Majority Chairman launch a full Committee investigation into the "Climategate" emails and EPA’s lack of transparency and alleged misconduct, but the Minority did not received a response from the Majority.

Based on his report, we can expect the new Majority Chariman Issa will be looking into “Climategate,” and the large volume of email messages and documents from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia that raised some serious questions about the research that leading to the findings released by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).   These IPCC reports were used by the EPA to determination that carbon dioxide (CO2) endangers human health and welfare, and the EPA may have inappropriately limited staff contributions, suppressed dissent, and may have punished those who challenged the Obama Administration’s environmental agenda.  This is going to be an interesting two years, stay tuned.

Over the e-mail transom: Tea Party Patriot Comments at CARB Cap and Trade Meeting

By Ed Duffek, PhD, Physical Chemistry
Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

After a 40-yr career in technology in the Bay Area, I retired and now live in a small town in Placer County. We chose this location for its country-like atmosphere and its simplicity of life.

I attended a CARB presentation in September where, to my dismay, we were told that we are living in a “Pollution Hot Spot” which is “the worst in the United States.” These were the words used by a member of this agency, who seemed intent on dropping a guilt trip on the audience. I could detect the same shock from others in the audience.

I am very concerned that the gross, costly errors made by CARB in the past will be repeated today. We remember the contamination of our groundwater by the use of the unneeded MTBE, as well as the fraudulent PM 2.5 Report which resulted in millions of dollars in fines upon truckers and other users of diesel fuel. From all accounts, these fines were not returned after the mistake by CARB was exposed. The truckers have spoken today with passion, but have been virtually ignored so far.

A small group of like-minded experts and scientists, also members of the NorCal Tea Party Patriots, have formed a committee to expose the contradictions and untruths in the media and in “official” statements.
We call ourselves the Truth in Science Committee and are now studying the myths contained in AB32.

As California residents since 1957, we have seen our lifestyle and the enjoyment of living in the West almost disappear. The over-taxation and the oppressive regulations brought upon our communities by this State government and its Agencies are too much to bear. The number of businesses, industries and ordinary folks leaving California on a daily basis reinforce my arguments. The new word is “leakage.”

Please consider the decisions you make today very carefully. 

Thank you for this opportunity to express my views.

Prop 23 Update: Sac Bee Flip Flops on AB 32

Russ Steele

Katy Grimes writing at the California Watchdog has another view on the Sac Bee's Flip Flop on AB 32. It is hard to negociate reality, it appears the Sac Bee is going to be one of the industries regulated by CARB under AB32 and they finally realized it was going to impact their bottom line.   

With all of this information available in the news for the past two years during the campaigns, one would assume that the editorial board at the Bee had thought once or twice about how tough and unrealistic the new greenhouse gas emission standards would be.

You see, the Sacramento Bee is not just putting out a newspaper, they print it.

Ask any commercial printer just how difficult it is to meet the local and statewide air quality laws. Commercial printers have been dealing with air quality offsets for years, as well as heavy-handed air quality inspections, fees, and nasty, expensive penalties. And just as CARB is now talking about offering emission offsets and credits, the largest corporations have always bought up the air quality offsets, and then sold the overs to smaller companies. If the goal was really clean air, offsets would never be on the table.

The Bee has to have already been faced with strict air quality regulations because of the volatile organic compounds emitted during the printing process. VOCs are the primary pollutants emitted by commercial printing plants during the printing processes, including the developers and photographic processing solutions (if still used), inks, cleaning solutions, and ovens used in the actual printing process, as well as glues and adhesives used in the bindery and finishing process.

The black and white newspaper printing does not involve heat set inks, (VOCs are created using the heat set process of some inks), but all other printing does, including inserts, and multi-color printing.

It could get much more expensive for the Bee if cap-and-trade is implemented in California.

ooo

The Bee is running a business as well, and as with all other commercial printers, has been hammered under California’s existing global warming laws, regulations and punitive policies. During the election, the personal ideology of the editorial board got in the way of reason and logic, and running a business.

[Emphasis added]