Last Minute Deals To Move Climate Bill

msn.com:

WASHINGTON - Concessions to farmers and lawmakers from rural areas erased a major obstacle facing a massive climate bill before the House but divided environmentalists, some of whom now oppose the legislation.

Read the whole story: msn.com

Comments

[Elaine Jenkins]

The earth is warming, I am convinced of it. What I am not convinced about is the part that human beings are responsible for all of it. We are at the end of an ice age. There is science to demonstrate that. Polar bears evolved from black bears to the new conditions of the ice age--amazing, natural selection works! Consider the following statement:

"Imagine that over the course of a decade or two, the long, snowy winters of northern New England were replaced by the milder winters of a place like Washington, D.C. Or that a sharp decrease in rainfall turned the short-grass prairie of the western Great Plains into a desert landscape like you would see in Arizona. Changes of this sort would obviously have important impacts on humans, affecting the crops we grow, the availability of water, and our energy usage.

These scenarios are not science fiction. Paleoclimate records indicate that climate changes of this size and speed have occurred at many times in the past. Past human civilizations were sometimes successful in adapting to the climate changes and at other times they were not."

Is it believable? Is it real? Is it a hoax by those who discount climate change? The source of this quote is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/index.html

It is from their website on Paleoclimate change.

[mioffe]

Dear Elaine Jenkins:
"The earth is warming, I am convinced of it. What I am not convinced about is the part that human beings are responsible for all of it."

What are the differences if it sun activities, nature activities or human beings responsible for all of it?
QUESTION IS TO BE OR NOT TO BE AND IF TO BE HOW OURS LIVES COULD BE CHANGED?
OR WE MUST LIVE AS POOR NATIONS, OR WE COULD ENJOY ENCREASING PROSPERITY OF RICH NATIONS?


OUR GOVERNMENT BELIEVE JUNK SCIENCE SUPPORTED BY VERY POLITISIZED MOVEMENT THAT GHG RESPONSIBLE FOR GW.

THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS AND IS REASON WHY I WILL REPEAT AGAIN:
MR. PRESIDENT, PLEASE FIRE FROM GOVERNMENT ALL SUPPORTERS OF STUPID DIRECTIONS AS DEMOCRAT, AS REPUBLICAN.

[Exusian]

Elain, no, we are not at the end of an ice age. We've been in an interglacial period for over 10,000 years. In fact, the peak of the interglacial was 5,000 to 8,000 years ago. It's called the Holocene Climate Optimum (you can look it up), and it was at least as warm as it is today, probably a bit warmer. Earth's climate system has been cooling ever since then, with minor ups and downs... until recently. We are now at or very close to the same level of warming and on course to exceed it. You can look that up too.

The paleorecord does indeed show that Earth's climate can change dramatically over relatively short periods measured in decades or less **when the climate system is sufficiently perturbed**.

This is anything but a reason for complacency because we are in fact currently perturbing that system by pumping more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere than have been there for past 2-3 million years. We do so at our own risk, and at the risk of all other species on Earth, including those species that we depend on for our survival, such as wheat, rice, corn and marine life.

[mioffe]

Al Gore, 1992: "A few years ago, scientists from the Soviet Union and France... drilled in Antarctica two miles down through 160,000 year’s worth of ice. After learning to read the ice the way foresters read tree rings, they found a striking correlation between the ups and downs of CO2 and of temperature during all that time. As can been seen…CO 2 level fluctuated between 200 parts per million (ppm) during the last two ice ages and 300 (ppm) during the period of great warming between the two ice ages...
Surprisingly, however, the range of this natural illustration is quite small compared to the changes caused by humankind. We are driving CO2 from its warm level of 300 to over 600 ppm-with most of that change occurring since World War II. In fewer than fifty years, we have doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere when this century began. For not only are we putting huge amount of CO2 into the atmosphere, we are also interfering with the normal way CO2 is usually removed from the atmosphere­.”

If Al Gore will ask himself: “Why during 160,000 years change of carbon dioxide from 200 ppm to 300 ppm created changes in temperature almost 10º C? Why right now we change CO2 level from 285 ppm to 355 ppm during 50 years and have temperature changes only around 1º C?”
I hope he will be not so sure about role of carbon dioxide in nature.

[Exusian]

"Why right now we change CO2 level from 285 ppm to 355 ppm during 50 years and have temperature changes only around 1C?"

Mioffe, first, that should be 385+ ppm.

As for the answer, 1) thermal inertia and damping effect of the ocean, 2) thermal inertia and damping effect of the cryosphere, and 3) the slow rate of natural amplifying feedbacks.

In other words, we have not yet seen all of the warming that the increase from 285 to 385 ppmv will produce. Another 1C to 1.2C is expected. That's what is meant by the phrase "in the pipeline."

[mioffe]

Dear Exusian: George Philander's book, Our Affair With El Niño, chapter 7:
1. Earth with no atmosphere-, the average surface temperature of earth would be -18�C (0�F), far colder than the average temperature of our earth, which is 15�C (59�F). Worse, the surface would cool down to around -160�C (-250�F) soon after the sun set. 2. Earth with a static atmosphere and no ocean. If the earth had a static atmosphere with the same gases it has now, but with little water vapor and no ocean, the average surface temperature of earth would be 67�C (153�F).
3. Earth with an atmosphere and ocean Earth has an atmosphere and ocean, and the average surface temperature is a comfortable 15�C (59�F). Water evaporates from the ocean and land, cooling the surface. Winds carry the water vapor to other latitudes, and sometimes high up into the air, where heat is released when the vapor condenses to water. "
As you can see George Philander confirm that water vapor actually cool the air. In #2 the average surface temperature of earth would be 67�C (153�F). In #3 the average surface temperature is a comfortable 15�C (59�F). George Philander confirms: “Water evaporates from the ocean and land, cooling the surface. Winds carry the water vapor to other latitudes, and sometimes high up into the air, where heat is released when the vapor condenses to water. "

[mioffe]

Dear Exusian: I bring here your bottom answer to combine the same topic.
"In past we have not had a human race smart enough to understand reasons and prevent them."

Agreed. I also agree that water vapour transports heat up into the atmosphere, and that an increase in water vapour will mean an increase in heat transported up into the atmosphere­."
It is the best agreement between two of us.


"But currently it is the increase in CO2 that will drive the increase in water vapour."
Yes I agree with you.
As you can read in Tim Flannery book “The Weather Makers,” 2006:
1. “ Forests contain much more carbon than does grass, and they also absorb more sunlight (having different albedo) and produce more water vapor, which affects cloud formation”.
2. “Mature forests don’t take in much CO2 they are in balance, releasing CO2 as old vegetation rots, then absorbing it as new grows. For these reasons the world largest forests-the coniferous forests of Siberia and Canada, and the tropical rainforests are not good carbon sinks, but new vigorously forests are.”

IF OLD TREES WILL ANYWAY ROTS IT IS NOTHING WRONG TO CUT THEM AND PUT IN OVEN FOR ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION, SOLVE GHG FROM OVEN IN WATER TO WATERING THESE FORESTS. IT IS ZERO EMISSION SOLUTION TO BE ENERGY INDEPENDENT, BE 100% OF EMPLOYMENT (IT IS MEAN 100% OF INSURED) AND FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING.

[Exusian]

Moiffe, you quoted Philander:

"1. Earth with no atmosphere-, the average surface temperature of earth would be -18C (0F), far colder than the average temperature of our earth, which is 15C (59F)."

Correct, but you don't need "no atmsphere", you just need an atmosphere without greenhouse gases. In fact, you can even add the greenhouse gas water vapour to your hypothetical atmosphere and Earth's surface temperature would still be low enough for almost the entire surface to freeze over.

That's because water changes phase from solid to liquid to gas within Earth's normal ambient temperature range. A greenhouse gas that can do that can not drive temperature, it can only respond to it as an amplifying feedback. Only a greenhouse gas that does not change phase within Earth's normal ambient temperature range, such as CO2, can drive temperature. (However, it can also act as an amplifying feedback, depending on the circumstan­ces.)

In other words, CO2 makes it possible for there to be any appreciable amount of water vapour in the atmosphere in the first place. Remove all the CO2 and the amount of water vapour will follow.

I'll have to look into Philander's "static atmosphere" before I comment on it.

However, no where in your quote does Philander state or imply that water vapor cools the air.

[Guitanguran]

Quite literally the biggest attack on personal liberty since the New Deal and the Great Society, and we have 20 something commenters.

Everybody else is worried about a health care bill that's going nowhere anyway, Michael Jackson, and Farrah Fawcett, oh and Mr. "don't cry for me after I leave Argentina".

We're doomed unless these guys vote it down.

[IHaveNotYetBegunToFight]

Only hope is the skyrocketing costs of energy will focus the attention of the voter on 2010 pro-energy candidates.

Unfortunately, the repubs haven't got enough sense to seize this issue as the way back into power.

They should be in full-throated opposition and positioning themselves to take advantage when energy costs skyrocket, and the economy goes into a death spiral.

Some of us are going to have to run ourselves to save the country, as we seem to have libs, dems, and dem-lites as our only political choices at present.

[IHaveNotYetBegunToFight]

The price of fuel (gas and diesel) was the needle that popped the financial defict bubble

It affects EVERYTHING we buy, because everything we buy has to be transported to market, or requires fuel to produce. The price of fuel has an immediate effect on our disposal income.

This is not rocket science.

When more money goes to fuel, you have less to spend on your mortgage. You have to buy fuel to get to work. If your house is appraising at less than your mortgage, you logically decide to default. POP goes the housing bubble. POP goes the finanacial bubble that levereaged these mortgages.

Guess what. Gas is going up again, in the midst of the recession. Why? Because, like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, as soon as the election was over, the dems re-instated the off-shore drilling bans, and now are about to pass Waxman Markey. Nothing has been done to turn American free enterprise loose to find, develop, and produce more energy supplies domestically.

Everything this administration and the dems are proposing in the way of energy will only increase the cost of energy.

BOHICA Americans.

[joebaggadonuts]

With our economy in shambles, we have already reduced GH emmissions over 3% this year. Great going George Bush! I never realized you were on the environmental bandwagon. Your secret meetings with Cheney and the oil company executives seem to be paying off.

[IHaveNotYetBegunToFight]

Lame.

I guess you are going to blame Bush for Waxman Markey also?

When energy prices skyrocket due to Waxman Markey, that bogeyman will not hunt any longer.

[mioffe]

I invite everybody for some exercise:

Molecular weight of H2O-18, N2-28, O2-32, CO2-44. As lighter gas molecules of water vapor is going up, and up, and up till clouds level (2-7miles) and up.
In atmosphere we always have not only water VAPOR(invisible gas), but also water DROPLET in form of fog, clouds, and particles which mostly responsible for visibilities.
If any GHG molecule will trap IR radiation and after some time will release it, which molecule will be on more higher level? With high percentage of probabilities we could say it will be molecule of H2O.
WHY IS THAT?-BECAUSE IT IS LIGHTER!

We need 339 kcal to evaporate one kg of water. It process cool the land. Water vapor will go up on cloud level, everybody could see them.
ENERGY OF CONDENSATION WILL BE RELEASED ON CLOUD LEVEL.
WHERE ENERGY WILL GO MORE EASELY TO SPACE-FROM GROUND LEVEL OR FROM CLOUD LEVEL?
If you understand this point, please stop talking that GHG are most important players in Nature.

PROPERTIES OF WATER ACTUALLY COOL THE ATMOSPHERE!

[Exusian]

Whoa, hold on mioffe. You might want to check some earth science texts or reliable on-line science references before you make such basic blunders in a post.

Here are a couple keywords to search on: relative humidity, absolute humidity, moist adiabatic lapse rate, latent heat of evaporation, convection; radiative transfer

First, the presence of water vapour in the atmosphere is dependent on temperature and pressure. As elevation increases, both fall. So does the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere, simply because as temperature falls H2O condenses into liquid droplets and eventually precipitates out of the atmosphere. The further up you go, the LESS water there is, not more. As a result, the percentage of water vapour in the atmosphere varies widley, not only vertically, but also horizontally at any give altitude, ranging from near 4% in humid rainforest to less than 1% above a dry desert to near zero at the tropopause, averaging around .4% for the entire troposphere.

continued.­..

[mioffe]

Dear Exusian:
Please believe me I am enough inform about your keywords and their meaning.

"First, the presence of water vapour in the atmosphere is dependent on temperature and pressure." It is true.

"The further up you go, the LESS water there is, not more." I think you mean less water vapor, not water. CONDENSATION OF WATER VAPOR, CREATE SMALL WATER DROPLETS IN CLOUDS, WHICH NOT SIMULTANEOUSLY BECAME DROPLET OF RAIN. iNSIDE CLOUDS HUMIDITY OF WATER VAPOR WILL BE ALMOST 100% and of course will depend frrom temperature and pressure.
Droplet of rain will be partially evaporated on it way to land.
More than 99% of water vapor will be in troposphere, the same as others gases.

[Exusian]

Mioffe , no, I mean water, both vapour and liquid, period.

Yes, clouds consist of droplets of liquid water (or ice crystals, depending on altitude) and within a cloud relative humidity can be saturated. But clouds exist at different altitudes and do blanket the entire surface to an even depth at any one time, while CO2 does.

I agree that 99% of all water in the atmosphere is in the troposphere, however, it is far from being evenly distributed in the troposphere as the amount decreases with elevation.

[Exusian]

...continu­ed

Second, the reason that water vapour rises has nothing at all to do with it's molecular weight. Air is turbulent enough that the molecular weight of a gas is almost always irrelevant. Only in very still air near the ground will a heavy gas like CO2 hug the ground when released. Water vapour rises because it evaporated water is WARM. It is convection at work, not gravity.

CO2, on the other hand, remains well mixed through the entire air column, right into the stratosphere, because it does NOT condense out at ambient Earth atmosphere temperatures and pressures. Of course, the absolute amount of CO2 falls with elevation, just as O2 and N2 do, but as H2O falls off with elevation plenty of CO2 remains to absorb infrared energy, even well above the cloud tops.

continued.­..

[mioffe]

"Second, the reason that water vapour rises has nothing at all to do with it's molecular weight."
It is absolutely untrue-humidity UP, pressure DOWN is a simple law of meteorology. Convection forces is part of humidity-hot humid air will move with bigger forces than only hot air at the same differencies of temperatures between regions, where these forces will apply.

"CO2, on the other hand, remains well mixed through the entire air column, right into the stratosphere, because it does NOT condense out at ambient Earth atmosphere temperatures and pressures.­" On level 350 ppm it is completely true and for water vapor.
Distances between molecules above cloud level so big, that condensation of water vapor there almost impossible. H2O+CO2=H2CO3 (molecular weight=62) is more likely process there. In this case gravity will bring this temporary molecule down to cloud level.

[Exusian]

A humid air mass rises because it is warmer than a dry air mass, and thus less dense, not because the molecular weight of the water in that air mass is lower than the O2, N2 and CO2 that is *also* present in that air mass.

"On level 350 ppm it is completely true and for water vapor."

What do you mean by "and for water vapor"?

No, the formation of droplets of pure carbonic acid is highly unlikely in the troposphere.

[Exusian]

...continu­ed 2

As for your last statement, H2O does NOT cool the atmosphere, it WARMS the atmosphere as it gives up the heat it absorbed when it evaporated, releasing that latent heat as sensible heat in the upper atmosphere as it condenses. It transports surface heat into the atmosphere.

The only, and I mean ONLY way the atmosphere cools is by radiating heat to space in the form of infrared light. Greenhouse gases delay that heat reaching space by absorbing and then emitting some of it, redirecting it back down toward the lower atmosphere (including clouds) and the surface where it can be absorbed again, and by converting some of it to kinetic energy through collision with other molecules, thus warming the atmosphere directly.

This is really, really basic stuff that is in no way controversial.

[IHaveNotYetBegunToFight]

The really really basic stuff is that:

(1) CO2 is NOT a pollutant, as it is necessary for all plant life. We breathe in Oxygen, and breathe out C02 while plants take in CO2 and release O2. Thank you dear Lord for a beautiful plan.

(2) AGW is a complete and utter hoax, as is becoming more apparent everyday. This is why Al Gore & friends refuse to debate the issue with any number of scientific experts that have challenged him to do so, and is the reason they want to declare the debate is over;

(3) Go outside on any sunny day, and look at that big yellow ball of gas approximately 93 million miles away from us, and you will have identified the major source of climate variability. You will not change that output by minor adjustments to the amount of carbon released by man on earth.

Wake up Americans.

Do a little research on your own, and reach your own conclusion. Do not fall for the AGW hoax.

Tell our representatives to drop Waxman Markey or any other cap and trade bills. Tell them to create real American jobs and actually stimulate the economy by freeing the domestic energy supply for discovery, development, and production.

Talk about your shovel ready jobs....
(3)

[mioffe]

Dear Exusian:
"As for your last statement, H2O does NOT cool the atmosphere, it WARMS the atmosphere as it gives up the heat it absorbed when it evaporated, releasing that latent heat as sensible heat in the upper atmosphere as it condenses. It transports surface heat into the atmosphere­."
It is your and many in the world scientists illusion.
HOW IT POSSIBLE THAT WE SEND HEAT AT CLOUD LEVEL AND THAT HEAT WILL NOT ESCAPE TO SPACE MORE EASELY THAN FROM OCEAN LEVEL.
YES IT WILL HEAT AIR ON THAT LEVEL, CREATE THUNDERSTORM AND EVERYTHING WHAT WE COULD IMAGINE BUT ANYWAY THIS HEAT WILL GO TO SPACE FASTER THAN THE SAME AMOUNT OF ENERGY FROM OCEAN LEVEL.

"The only, and I mean ONLY way the atmosphere cools is by radiating heat to space in the form of infrared light. Greenhouse gases delay that heat reaching space by absorbing and then emitting some of it"
IR RADIATIONS ARE TRAPPED BY MOLECULES AND RELEASED BY THEM THOUSANDS TIMES BEFORE ESCAPE TO SPACE. iF WATER VAPOR BRING HEAT TO CLOUD LEVEL IT MEAN ONLY THAT LESS COLLISION FOR IR RADIATION WILL BE, BEFORE IT ESCAPE TO SPACE.

PROPERTY OF WATER COOL THE EARTH ON OCEAN AND LAND LEVEL BY EVAPORATION.
DROPLETS OF WATER IN ATMOSPHERE COOL THE AIR BY EVAPORATION.
CONDENSATION OF WATER VAPOR ON CLOUD LEVEL HELP COOL THE AIR BY IR RADIATION, WHICH EASY GO TO SPACE ON HIGHER LEVEL.

[Exusian]

IHave writes a bunch of irrelevant nonsense to distract attention:

"CO2 is NOT a pollutant, as it is necessary for all plant life"

Totally Irrelevant to understanding CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

"AGW is a complete and utter hoax...."

A complete and utter delusion supported by not a shred of evidence.

"[the sun is] the major source of climate variability"

No, you have identified the source of virtually all of Earth's energy input, but not the major cause of climate variability because variations in the output of the sun are very small. The major cause would be Earth's orbital and axial variations. These are amplified by natural feedbacks, including changes in albedo and the increase and decrease of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

"You will not change that output by minor adjustments to the amount of carbon released by man on earth"

Which just demonstrates that IHave has no idea how the greenhouse effect works.
Of course it does not interfere with the suns output, it interferes with the amount of energy radiated by Earth's surface and atmosphere to space.

[Exusian]

Mioffe, you are quite correct that heat at the top of the cloud layer will be radiated to space more easily than from surface level, far more easily since the atmosphere itself is thinner, and thus despite CO2 still being present at roughly the same ppm concentration as at the surface, it and all other gases (the "million" in ppm) are spread out over a far larger volume.

However, by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere as a whole we are adding more to the region above the top of the cloud layer as well, thus intercepting just a bit more of the IR emitted by the cloud layer than was intercepted at a lower CO2 concentration, raising the level at which escape becomes more likely than absorption by just a bit more.

By adding more CO2 to the atmosphere we are also increasing atmospheric pressure just a bit, expanding the absorption lines that CO2 absorbs IR energy on, thus absorbing just a bit more IR energy. (Pressure broadening)

It's that "just bit more" that we're talking about. A bit more IR is absorbed, a bit more IR is emitted back downward, a bit more absorbed energy is converted to sensible heat in the atmosphere through collision.

continued.­..

[Exusian]

...continu­ed

Now, your focus on the atmospheric water cycle suggests that you are taken with Lindzen's "iris effect". A warmer atmosphere means more evaporation and more water vapour, with more greenhouse warming from that water vapour. It also means the transport of more heat higher up in the atmosphere where it can escape more easily, and more clouds to reflect more incoming sunlight back out.

Sounds nice, except that 1) atmospheric CO2 has been MUCH higher in Earth's past, and 2) temperatures on Earth have been MUCH higher in the past than they are today, 3) despite a lower solar constant in the past. In other words, the "iris effect" did not prevent much higher greenhouse driven temperatures in the past.

A correction to your last statement:

Droplets of water in the atmosphere cool the atmosphere when they evaporate into the atmosphere, but then the atmosphere warms when that water condenses again into droplets. It's a wash in terms of warming/cooling the atmosphere, with no net gain or loss.

[slowhand0728]

Even as Democrats have promised that this cap-and-trade legislation won't pinch wallets, behind the scenes they've acknowledged the energy price tsunami that is coming. During the brief few days in which the bill was debated in the House Energy Committee, Republicans offered three amendments: one to suspend the program if gas hit $5 a gallon; one to suspend the program if electricity prices rose 10% over 2009; and one to suspend the program if unemployment rates hit 15%. Democrats defeated all of them.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124588837560750781.html

[joebaggadonuts]

So? EVERYONE knows energy is going to be more expensive until we have the sustainable infrastructure in place and we allow for reverse metering from point sources of energy, that is, home producers getting paid for feeding the grid.

[IHaveNotYetBegunToFight]

So, what do you project to be the amount of excess energy available per house due to cogeneration?

Think it will be anywhere near enough in quantity to offset the cost of energy due to Waxman Markey? To provide the cheap energy required for a growing economy?

What are you smoking?

[CentralVA]

The National Journal is reporting that CORE (Congress on Racial Equality) opposes this legislation:

"The Congress of Racial Equality, a seven-decade-old civil rights and low-income advocacy group, sent letters to lawmakers Wednesday saying the bill is 'an immoral assault on poor Americans because it is designed to purposely raise the cost of energy in order to force the working poor to reduce their standard of living.'

Roy Innis, CORE's national chairman, said 'the underlying goal of this legislation is the morally repugnant concept that constricting sources of domestic energy and raising energy costs is a good thing because it will force conservation by consumers. That elitist view assumes that poor, working class families have the ability to bear that 'social cost.'

Read the whole thing:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdaily/print_friendly.php?ID=cda_20090625_6428

[BannedNBoston]

What we need is a "COAL TAX" collected by the states.

[ronnald]

all this green is china's red.

[quidam56]

Appalachia can't stand anymore of the prosperity and progress of mountaintop removal and the new and improved, clean, green, hybrid coal industry. www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=138

[econ1]

If China and India are not part of this, all this will accomplish is to enrich their economies at the expense of the US. No effect on global warming. Fewer jobs in the US. Higher costs for citizens. More money and hand out power for the government leaders.

What a waste.

A simple carbon tax would be simpler and less prone to corruption, but still without China and India it wouldn't work.

[CentralVA]

Good points, econ1. I hope that members of the House will refuse to vote for legislation that threatens to impose crushing costs on their constituents, while doing nothing to reduce the worlds' temperature.

[joebaggadonuts]

China at least is already spending on sustainable energy production infrastructure.

[IHaveNotYetBegunToFight]

Yes, and turning up a new coal fired generating plant monthly.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/world/asia/11coal.html

That's so they will be ready and able to increase manufacturing to replace the dead industries in the USA once Waxman Markey runs all the US manufacturing we have left into bankruptcy due to high energy costs.

[sc300nc]

Please refer to it as what it is, a climate tax.

[poomplet]

no..no...i­t's

"THE LARGEST TAX IN AMERICAN HISTORY"

Get your terminology straight!

[whocan]

1100 PAGES..It should be required that every legislator READ the damn thing before it turns into the fiasco Porkulus did

[Richard2]

This bill is getting weaker and weaker, and therefore will have no impact on the earth's climate. Therefore, why even bother passing an expensive, complicated, 1,200 page bill?

In other breaking news, the average Arctic temperature today is still below 0 degrees C. This is the latest date in the calendar year, over the last 50 years, that Arctic temperatures have remained below 0 degrees C.

A 50-year low temperature indicator in the Arctic is no evidence of Global Warming.

[JanBjernfalk]

I'm afraid you've got it all wrong.

When temperatures are up, you can refer to the thermometer.

When temps are down, you must refer to the computer models.

[ronnald]

your a 100 % right.

[IHaveNotYetBegunToFight]

Which is why the environmental extremists are attempting to change the name to "climate change".

The AGW dog isn't hunting so well these days.

[ConservativeHippie]

"The House bill, covering more than 1,100 pages, would require a 17 percent reduction of greenhouse gases — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels such as coal — by 2020 from 2005 levels and about an 80 percent reduction by mid-centur­y."

Why 1100 pages? Does it take that much space to write in corporate loopholes?

So we could stop using coal and start making electricity out of natural gas and achieve a larger than "17 percent reduction of greenhouse gases" immediately without the need for new taxes while we free up money for expanding renewables especially in those areas now depending on the jobs of coal mining but...

"While it would cap climate-changing pollution it also would allow polluters to buy and sell emission allowances within the economy as a way to ease the cost of compliance­."

Sounds like some more Wall St. shenanigans are just around the corner.