The pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, freedom
and individual liberty
"There
is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it
steadily." --George
Washington
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Climate experts weigh lull in warming: Trend is tough to
explain as gas emissions rise by Karl Ritter
STOCKHOLM — Scientists working on a landmark U.N. report on climate change are struggling to explain why global warming appears to have slowed in the past 15 years even though greenhouse gas emissions keep rising. Leaked documents obtained by The Associated Press show there are deep concerns among governments over how to address the issue ahead of next week’s meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Climate skeptics have used the lull in surface warming since 1998 to cast doubt on the scientific consensus that humans are cooking the planet by burning fossil fuels and cutting down CO2-absorbing forests. The IPCC’s conclusions are important because they serve as the scientific underpinnings of U.N. negotiations to rein in emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. A global climate treaty is supposed to be adopted in 2015. The IPCC report is expected to affirm the human link with greater certainty than ever, but the panel is under pressure to also address the recent lower rate of warming, which scientists say is likely due to heat going deep into the ocean and natural climate fluctuations.
“I think to not address it would be a problem because then you basically have the denialists saying, ‘Look the IPCC is silent on this issue,’ ” said Alden Meyer, of the Washington based Union of Concerned Scientists. In a June draft of the report’s summary from policymakers, the IPCC said the rate of warming in 1998-2012 was about half the average rate since 1951. It cited natural variability in the climate system, as well as cooling effects from volcanic eruptions and a downward phase in solar activity. But several governments that reviewed the draft objected to how the issue was tackled, in comments to the IPCC obtained by the AP. Germany called for the reference to the slowdown to be deleted, saying a time span of 10-15 years was misleading in the context of climate change, which is measured over decades and centuries. The U.S. also urged the authors to include the “leading hypothesis” that the reduction in warming is linked to more heat being transferred to the deep ocean. First, the deny "long cycles" to explain warming, now they want to use "long cycles" to explain away their error in the whole Global Warming debacle!
Many skeptics claim that the rise in global average temperatures stopped in the late 1990s and their argument has gained momentum among some media and politicians, even though the scientific evidence of climate change is piling up: the previous decade was the warmest on record and, so far, this decade is even warmer.
STOCKHOLM — Scientists working on a landmark U.N. report on climate change are struggling to explain why global warming appears to have slowed in the past 15 years even though greenhouse gas emissions keep rising. Leaked documents obtained by The Associated Press show there are deep concerns among governments over how to address the issue ahead of next week’s meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Climate skeptics have used the lull in surface warming since 1998 to cast doubt on the scientific consensus that humans are cooking the planet by burning fossil fuels and cutting down CO2-absorbing forests. The IPCC’s conclusions are important because they serve as the scientific underpinnings of U.N. negotiations to rein in emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. A global climate treaty is supposed to be adopted in 2015. The IPCC report is expected to affirm the human link with greater certainty than ever, but the panel is under pressure to also address the recent lower rate of warming, which scientists say is likely due to heat going deep into the ocean and natural climate fluctuations.
“I think to not address it would be a problem because then you basically have the denialists saying, ‘Look the IPCC is silent on this issue,’ ” said Alden Meyer, of the Washington based Union of Concerned Scientists. In a June draft of the report’s summary from policymakers, the IPCC said the rate of warming in 1998-2012 was about half the average rate since 1951. It cited natural variability in the climate system, as well as cooling effects from volcanic eruptions and a downward phase in solar activity. But several governments that reviewed the draft objected to how the issue was tackled, in comments to the IPCC obtained by the AP. Germany called for the reference to the slowdown to be deleted, saying a time span of 10-15 years was misleading in the context of climate change, which is measured over decades and centuries. The U.S. also urged the authors to include the “leading hypothesis” that the reduction in warming is linked to more heat being transferred to the deep ocean. First, the deny "long cycles" to explain warming, now they want to use "long cycles" to explain away their error in the whole Global Warming debacle!
Many skeptics claim that the rise in global average temperatures stopped in the late 1990s and their argument has gained momentum among some media and politicians, even though the scientific evidence of climate change is piling up: the previous decade was the warmest on record and, so far, this decade is even warmer.
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Administration Presses Ahead With Limits on Emissions
From Power Plants By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
A year after
a plan by President Obama to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants
set off angry opposition, the administration will announce on Friday that it is
not backing down from a confrontation with the coal industry and will press
ahead with enacting the first federal carbon limits on the nation’s power
companies.
The proposed
regulations, to be announced at the National Press Club by Gina McCarthy, the
administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, are an aggressive move by
Mr. Obama to bypass Congress on climate change with executive actions he
promised in his inaugural address this year. The regulations are certain to be denounced by House Republicans and
the industry as part of what they call the president’s “war on coal.” In
her speech, Ms. McCarthy will unveil the agency’s proposal to limit new
gas-fired power plants to 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt
hour and new coal plants to 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide, according to
administration officials who were briefed on the agency’s plans. Industry officials say the average
advanced coal plant currently emits about 1,800 pounds of carbon dioxide per
hour. Get Ready for sky high electric
bills!!
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Voters Question Fed’s Independence
With
a change of leadership pending, voters remain skeptical of the Federal
Reserve’s independence and continue to think the nation’s central bank is
overly influenced by the president and big bankers. Forty-two percent (42%) of Likely U.S. Voters now have at least a
somewhat favorable opinion of the Federal Reserve, while 48% view it unfavorably, according to the latest Rasmussen
Reports national telephone survey. This includes 11% with a Very
Favorable opinion and 19% with a Very Unfavorable one.
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Democrats no Longer Following Obama's
Agenda A Commentary By Michael Barone
Presidents
tend to set the agenda for their parties. Most of the party's members of
Congress tend to go along. This has been increasingly the case as
Americans over the last two decades have got out of the habit of splitting
their tickets and have voted, in proportions not seen since the 1940s, entirely
for candidates of one party or the other. When Barack Obama first took the
oath of office in January 2009, his fellow Democrats, with their large
majorities in Congress, hurried to pass his key legislation. The
$787 billion stimulus package was passed in February. In June, the House of
Representatives passed cap-and-trade legislation intended to reduce carbon
emissions. Obamacare took longer and was nearly derailed when
Republican Scott Brown won the special Senate election in Massachusetts in
January 2010. But in March, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Obama rallied the House of
Representatives to pass it anyway. Democrats didn't need and didn't do much to seek Republican support.
Three Republican senators voted for the stimulus. Eight House Republicans voted
for cap-and-trade. Not a single
Republican voted for Obamacare.
The large
majority of Democrats voted for all three. Some paid a political price when Democrats lost 63 House seats in November
2010. But even after that, almost all Democrats continued to support
Obama's positions on major issues. Democratic voters went
along, too. The 2012 exit poll shows that 92 percent of Democrats voted for
Obama. Now, suddenly, we
are seeing some signs of Democratic discontent. The revelations of National
Security Agency surveillance disturbed many Democratic voters and a
not-inconsiderable number of Democratic senators and
congressmen. This was not the change they were
seeking.
In
the past two weeks, congressional Democrats have done more than express dismay.
They have stymied two presidential initiatives on important public policies. After Obama called for a congressional authorization
of the use of military force in Syria, Democrats did not line up in large
numbers in support. The whip counts of various news organizations and blogs
showed some Democrats opposed and many Senate Democrats and most House
Democrats as uncommitted. The White House might have lined up enough
to pass a resolution in the Senate. But with most House Republicans opposed,
that seemed impossible in the lower chamber. Obama's policy
turnaround might have made this academic. Perhaps the unwillingness of Democrats to accept this agenda item may
have undermined the credibility of any presidential threat to use force in
Syria or elsewhere.
Congressional
Democrats also prevented Obama from nominating the person he evidently wanted
for one of the most important jobs a president can fill, chairman of the
Federal Reserve.
In a
television interview in June, Obama signaled that current chairman Ben Bernanke
would retire -- or at least not be re-nominated. When attacks
were launched on his former economic counselor and Clinton administration
treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers, Obama
responded with angry defenses. His body language suggested Summers was
his choice. Summers might have been confirmable in July. But there
was a crescendo of opposition in left-wing blogs. Many on the feminist left
endorsed Janet Yellen, currently Fed vice chairman and like Summers, an
economist of genuine intellectual heft.
Last week,
four of the 14 Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee came out against
Summers. That meant that confirmation would require the other 10 Democrats and
at least a few of the 10 Republicans.
You don't
have to be an economist of genuine intellectual heft to read those numbers. On
Sunday, Summers withdrew -- or was persuaded to withdraw -- from
consideration. One reason
for Democrats' discontent with Obama is that he doesn't schmooze with
them. As Tip O'Neill used to say, people like to be asked. Obama doesn't like to ask. Much
more important, many Democrats have
principled reasons for opposing Obama on NSA, Syria and Summers. Critics
of George W. Bush's war on terror have reason to oppose Obama on NSA and Syria.
Economist populists have reason to block a Fed chairman with recent Wall Street
ties who is associated with moderate Clinton policies. The danger for Obama is that he may lose his
party base, as Bush did after Katrina and the Supreme Court nomination of
Harriet Miers. In which case, his job approval could plummet below the current
44 percent, as Bush's did. A president with low approval
still has executive powers. But he no longer sets the agenda for his
party.
~~~~~~
Americans Fault Mental Health System
More Than Guns for Mass Shootings By Susan
Jones
Americans
place more blame on the mental health system than on easy access to guns for
mass shootings in the United States.
A new Gallup
Poll -- conducted Sept. 17-18 (those were the two days after the Washington
Navy Yard shooting), found that compared with two years ago, fewer Americans
(40 percent) put a "great deal" of the blame on guns while almost
half blamed the mental health system. Almost
half of Americans -- 48 percent -- blame the mental health system "a great
deal" for mass shootings in the United States, and that percentage was
unchanged from January 2011.
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Obama: ‘Raising the Debt Ceiling…Does Not Increase Our
Debt,’ Though It Has ‘Over 100 Times’
The
debt limit is like an empty bucket to Washington needing to be filled! Obama is trying to argue semantics. It’s still more money spent no matter
how he tries to spin it. In a speech at the Business Roundtable headquarters in
Washington, D.C., Obama dismissed concerns about raising the debt ceiling by
noting that it’d been done so many times in the past: “Now, this debt ceiling — I just want to remind people in case you
haven’t been keeping up — raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a
hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote
profligacy. All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you’ve already
racked up, Congress. It’s a basic function of making sure that the full faith
and credit of the United States is preserved.” Obama went on to suggest
that “the average person” mistakenly
thinks that raising the debt ceiling means the U.S. is racking up more debt:
“It’s always a tough vote because the average person thinks raising the debt
ceiling must mean that we’re running up our debt, so people don’t like to vote
on it, and, typically, there’s some gamesmanship in terms of making the
President’s party shoulder the burden of raising the — taking the vote.”
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It is very imprudent to deprive America of any of her
privileges. If her commerce and friendship are of any importance to you, they
are to be had on no other terms than leaving her in the full enjoyment of her
rights." –Benjamin
Franklin, Political Observations
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