GreenWatch Newsletter 16 (February 23, 2009)

Featured Story:

Global Warming advocates have made a habit of arguing that Global Warming not only will lead to more natural disasters, but actually has already done so. Climate realists, including this newsletter at times, have just as frequently pointed out that there is no evidence to support this claim. Well it seems our side has a new ally: Al Gore.

That's right. The Goracle himself has removed a slide from his oft-rebutted PowerPoint presentation "An Inconvenient Truth" that contained a graph which purported to show an incredible spike in disasters in recent years. He culled the data from Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). Andrew C. Revkin of the New York Times explains:

"The graph, which was added to his talk last year, came just after a sequence of images of people from Iowa to South Australia struggling with drought, wildfire, flooding and other weather-related calamities. Mr. Gore described the pattern as a manifestation of human-driven climate change. "This is creating weather-related disasters that are completely unprecedented," he said. (The preceding link is to a video clip of that portion of the talk; go to 7th minute.)

"Now Mr. Gore is dropping the graph, his office said today. Here's why.

"Two days after the talk, Mr. Gore was sharply criticized for using the data to make a point about global warming by Roger A. Pielke, Jr., a political scientist focused on disaster trends and climate policy at the University of Colorado. Mr. Pielke noted that the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters stressed in reports that a host of factors unrelated to climate caused the enormous rise in reported disasters."

In fact, this isn't the only bogus claim of Gore's recently debunked. Al Gore and United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon published an Op-Ed in The Financial Times last month that claimed that there are significantly more jobs to be found in the wind-energy industry than in the coal industry. A related article claimed that there were 85,000 jobs in wind and just 81,000 in coal. But according to The Christian Science Monitor:

"...it's a bogus comparison. According to the wind energy report, those 85,000 jobs in wind power are as "varied as turbine component manufacturing, construction and installation of wind turbines, wind turbine operations and maintenance, legal and marketing services, and more." The 81,000 coal jobs counted by the Department of Energy are only miners. Their figure excludes those who haul the coal around the country, as well as those who work in coal power plants."

Using faulty statistics to support their position is not the behavior of a movement confident in their position. And how could they be confident, with global temperatures declining, arctic ice levels matching those from 30 years ago (more on that below) and the American public growing more and more resistant to their claims?

More Headlines:

Next Decade May See No Warming

Earth and Mars Both Have Global Warming (How did our CO2 get all the way out there?)

In Australia, Tensions Boil Over on Climate Change

Climate Fears Driving "Eco-Migration" Across Globe

Global Warming Increases Respiratory Disease

Global Cooling Increases Respiratory Disease

Most Egregious Claim of the Week:

Here's the claim: Arctic Sea Ice is at historically low levels. You've heard it repeated a thousand times.

This year, however the claim seemed to be bunk. Arctic ice was recovering dramatically, nearly matching levels from 30 years ago. Then suddenly, for no discernible reason, it dropped severely. Why?

"A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.

The error, due to a problem called "sensor drift," began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That's when "puzzled readers" alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site."

Here's a link to a map showing Arctic ice cover. On the left is January 1, 2009. On the right is January 1, 1979. Here's a comparison of 2009 and 1989. And here's 2009 and 1999.

Judge for yourself.

The Reader's Corner:

We're adding a new feature to the newsletter this week: The Reader's Corner. This is your opportunity to sound off on Global Warming, a story in the newsletter, or whatever springs to mind this week. Just email us at GreenWatchAmerica@gmail.com. Please include your name and where you're from.

Rennie from Missouri: "My opinion of global warming is another government control gimmick to impose restrictions on companies, so that they can control those companies by forcing them to comply and I also believe it is in a round-about way, government's way of controlling private lands."

Buck responds to the featured story from last week, about the government restricting the amount of lead in children's toys: "I have worked with Lead for most of my life and am now 70 years old and in good health. Lead can be harmful if you do not take care of yourself. It will take drinking it do any harm."

Teresa writes in about the stimulus bill including money for an arctic ice breaking ship: "Now, why on God's green earth would they need an Ice Breaker if the ice is melting in the Arctic as 'they' claim?"

And Gene thinks we're not doing enough: "After reading your e-mail about "The New Book Banning" it is obvious your stand on 'Global Warming' is as timid as Congress's bull in the china shop approach is stupid greedy and totally uninformed!! The Congress is hot on global warming because it allows them to steal large sums of money from the American People in the form of 'Carbon taxes', supposedly to 'fight global warming' but really just a slush fund from which to steal money and hide it for themselves and their scummy 'friends'."

While we can't do anything about Congress, we'll certainly try to do better, Gene!

Have something to say? Want to tell Al Gore and Goracles how you feel? Email us at GreenWatchAmerica@gmail.com

GreenWatch Newsletter 15 (February 17, 2009)

Featured Story

Last August, Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, a seemingly sensible reaction to the scare over lead paint in toys from China. The bill included provisions that imposed strict limits on lead in products intended for children and applied those restrictions retroactively. In this quarter's City Journal, Walter Olson exposes the unintended effects of this law:

"...goods manufactured before the law passed cannot be sold on the used market (even in garage sales or on eBay) if they don't conform. The law has hit thrift stores particularly hard, since many children's products have long included lead-containing (if harmless) components: zippers, snaps, and clasps on garments and backpacks; skateboards, bicycles, and countless other products containing metal alloy; rhinestones and beads in decorations; and so forth. Combine this measure with a new ban (also retroactive) on playthings and child-care articles that contain plastic-softening chemicals known as phthalates, and suddenly tens of millions of commonly encountered children's items have become unlawful to resell, presumably destined for landfills when their owners discard them"

Thrift stores, who barely scrape by as it is, were presented with the option of having their products undergo tests they couldn't possibly afford. The results throughout the country have been disastrous. Just look at this incredible state by state rundown Olson compiled detailing the impacts of this misguided law.

Perhaps the most egregious result is the possible banning of children's books from thrift stores, used book stores and even public libraries, "which daily expose children under 12 to pre-1985 editions of Anne of Green Gables, Beatrix Potter, Baden-Powell's scouting guides, and other deadly hazards."

"Not until 1985 did it become unlawful to use lead pigments in the inks, dyes, and paints used in children's books. Before then--and perhaps particularly in the great age of children's-book illustration that lasted through the early twentieth century--the use of such pigments was not uncommon, and testing can still detect lead residues in books today. This doesn't mean that the books pose any hazard to children. While lead poisoning from other sources, such as paint in old houses, remains a serious public health problem in some communities, no one seems to have been able to produce a single instance in which an American child has been made ill by the lead in old book illustrations--not surprisingly, since unlike poorly maintained wall paint, book pigments do not tend to flake off in large lead-laden chips for toddlers to put into their mouths."

Now the beautifully crafted books that generation after generation of children grew up reading are being thrown in the trash, thanks to knee-jerk legislation forced through by a fearful Congress.

So how does this relate to Global Warming?

There are two main fronts to the global warming debate: Whether or not the science is true, and, if it is, how to deal with it. The Green Agenda, led by Al Gore, wants you to believe that the first of these points is not up for debate, despite mounting scientific evidence and sentiment to the contrary.

We object to Gore's proclamations of settled science because we believe such claims are A. inaccurate and B. against the very nature of science, which should encourage further study, not dismiss it. However, the possibility remains, however unlikely, that the basic theory of global warming is correct, and that the earth is accelerating through a period of unnatural warming caused at least in part by man. This leads to the second part of the debate: What can we do about it?

This is where things get scary. Our government (and all governments, for that matter) has a tendency of taking bold, drastic regulatory actions where smaller, more thought out steps would be prudent. When they need a scalpel, they reach for the battle axe. This is precisely what happened when it came to CPSIA. Congress overreacted to some shoddily made Chinese toys, hopped aboard their white horses, and swooped in to save the day. And now regular American business owners are paying the price.

If Congress is allowed to react the same way to Global Warming, the results will be the same on a much larger scale.

Economic disaster.

Other Headlines:

2008 coolest year on record since 2000, just 0.69 degrees warmer than the average from 1850-1924

Newest Deniers: George Will and Former Moon Walker and Senator Harrison Schmitt

Science Settled? Rate of Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheet Melting "Unknown"

Great Profile of John Coleman, Weather Channel Founder and Global Warming Denier

Most Egregious Claim of the Week:

Alright, now they've got my attention.

GreenWatch Newsletter 14 (February 12, 2009)

Featured Story:

A bushfire raged through Australia earlier this week, devastating towns north of Melbourne. The latest report puts the death toll at 181, and it's expected to rise. While the fires are suspected to have been set on purpose (All fires that cannot be tracked to a lightning strike are assumed to have been deliberately started), members of the Green Agenda practically leaped over one another to offer their take on the cause of the tragedy.

"The bushfires are the worst natural disaster in Australia in 110 years. The previous worst bushfire was the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 which killed 75 people.

"The blazes have increased pressure on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to take firm action on climate change as scientists blamed global warming for the conditions that fueled the disaster."

There's a word for this kind of brazen exploitation of the loss of life: "Shameless."

In America, we're familiar with scientists and politicians exploiting national tragedies to promote their own agendas. The same phenomenon occurred in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Scientists, the media, and even a certain politician railed on about how the deadly storm was caused by global warming. It practically became accepted knowledge that Hurricane Katrina was an storm of unprecedented power and the cause of that power was global warming. In reality, the deadly hurricane struck land as only a class 3 hurricane, the horrific death toll was caused not solely by the storm, but by poor maintenance of the levees that should have protected New Orleans from the storm surge and by inadequate preparation and response by the local, state, and federal governments. Not to mention the fact that scientists actually have no idea what effect global warming has on hurricanes, since at different times they have "linked" global warming to more hurricanes, fewer hurricanes, weaker hurricanes, and none of the above.

But the Green Agenda in Australia is perhaps even more shameless. Why? Because the extent of the damage may be directly linked to a policy they worked to enact; a policy that may have cost dozens of Australians their homes, and a few their lives.

Angry residents last night accused local authorities of contributing to the bushfire toll by failing to let residents chop down trees and clear up bushland that posed a fire risk.

During question time at a packed community meeting in Arthurs Creek on Melbourne's northern fringe, Warwick Spooner -- whose mother Marilyn and brother Damien perished along with their home in the Strathewen blaze -- criticised the Nillumbik council for the limitations it placed on residents wanting the council's help or permission to clean up around their properties in preparation for the bushfire season. "We've lost two people in my family because you d*ckheads won't cut trees down," he said.

One family, however, refused to follow the draconian zoning regulations that prioritize the rights of trees over the safety of people (as the Green Agenda always seems to do). In 2002, Lian Sheahan and his family ignored the rules and bulldozed 250 trees surrounding their house. For this, they were called law breakers, forced to appear before a magistrate and fined $50,000. His family was "emotionally and financially drained."

Then the fires struck. The result? In his own words:

"We are the only house standing in a two-kilometer area."

I guess sometimes "criminals" do prosper.

This Week's Headlines:

Obama Nominee for Chief Science Advisor to the President Believes 1 billion will die from global warming by 2020

New York Times Headline, May 15, 1932

A New Denier Emerges (And Pays the Price)

CO2 Emissions Hit New High

Most Egregious Claim of the Week:

Already a Nobel Prize Laureate and an Emmy and Oscar winner, Al Gore added another trophy to his ever increasing collection: The Grammy for best spoken word album for An Inconvenient Truth. That means the voters decided that of all the "spoken word albums" released this year, the absolute pinnacle was the audio book of the book of the film of the PowerPoint presentation that has long since been scientifically discredited on virtually every criteria.

Sounds pretty egregious to me.