March 2010

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a state legislator go toe-to-toe on the climate change issue with an alarmist, but the Fox News affiliate in Salt Lake City caught that very thing on camera this week. On Wednesday after a student-led global warming rally at the legislature, State Rep. Mike Noel, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, found himself in the same room with former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. Here’s the full discussion, in which the skeptic Noel is surrounded by environoiacs, including one who kept trying to butt in.

You might recall last month the Utah legislature passed a few measures in opposition to placing limits on greenhouse gas emissions, including a recommendation to Gov. Gary Herbert that the state withdraw from the Western Climate Initiative.

My colleague Julie Walsh flags a funny statement by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), quoted earlier this week (Mar. 9) in Greenwire (subscription required). Although Lieberman, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) want to include cap-and-trade in their draft climate and energy legislation, they are reluctant to use the term.

Greenwire reports:

Lieberman also downplayed the use of the term “cap and trade” when it comes to limiting emissions, even though that is generally the plan with their bill. “We don’t use that term anymore,” he said. “We’ll have pollution reduction targets. Remember the Artist Previously Known as Prince?”

According to earlier reports, Graham et al. may propose to combine an electric utility sector cap-and-trade program with carbon taxes on transportation fuels. If so, then Kyotoism is truly dead. Electric utilities are gung-ho for cap-and-trade only if it’s economy-wide, so they can sell the free emission permits they would get under a bill like Waxman-Markey to other sectors receiving fewer or zero freebies.

Also, Waxman-Markey is a non-starter in the Senate because millions of Americans now understand that cap-and-trade is a stealth tax on energy. Combining carbon taxes with cap-and-trade is hardly the bold alternative and fresh start Graham, Kerry, and Lieberman are promising. Indeed, if this is what’s on offer, it’s even more obviously a tax, and should be even easier to shoot down!

The Artist Formerly Known As Prince was still Prince even before he changed his name back to Prince! And an energy tax by any other name is just as foul.

Did Karl Lagerfeld jump the shark with his fall-winter 2010-11 ready-to-wear collection for Chanel?  The collection – by one of the most famous and historic design houses in the world – was described by the AP as global warming in theme, and subsequently scorned on Newsbusters.  The show featured icebergs reportedly flown in from Sweden (whoa! with the carbon footprint!) and some extreme costume elements – like an antler-and-ear headdress – that would only appeal as street-wear to a Lady Gaga or Bjork.  Ridiculous and unwearable?  Certainly.  Likely to be available for purchase in Saks Fifth Avenue?  Fear not.

The interesting aspect of Mr. Lagerfeld’s theatrical show is that the mastermind himself seems to show little concern, much less panic, over the purported danger of global warming.  Reuters reported Lagerfeld’s comments:

“‘Have you felt any warming this winter?” Lagerfeld, with trademark black sunglasses and white ponytail, told reporters after showing his autumn collection, referring to freezing cold weather outside. “Maybe that’s all nonsense, who knows.”

The online magazine Zimbio questions whether the Chanel show had anything to do with global warming in the first place.  The Cut reports that Lagerfeld was “inspired by the Ice Hotel in Sweden” – not politics or global warming, noting  that last season, he “put his Chanel models in a barn, with hay and everything, possibly even burrs.”

Personally, my great fear arising from the Chanel collection is that the furry mukluks will make it off the runway and into the real world.  Which might make me wish for  real-world global warming.

mukluks

(A bunch more photos from the Chanel show here.)

That’s the topic of this week’s National Journal energy blog. In my contribution, I argue that EPA has been playing a mischievous game that endangers democracy, and that Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s legislation to veto the agency’s endangerment finding would remove this threat. 

In a Feb. 22 letter to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson warns that enactment of the Murkowski legislation would scuttle the joint EPA/National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) greenhouse gas/fuel economy rulemaking, which in turn would compel the struggling auto industry to operate under a “patchwork quilt” of state-level fuel-economy regulations.

Ms. Jackson neglects to mention that the patchwork threat exists only because she, reversing Bush EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson’s decision, granted California a waiverto implement its own GHG/fuel economy program. Had Jackson reaffirmed Johnson’s denial, there would be no danger of a patchwork, hence no ostensible need for the joint EPA/NHTSA rulemaking to avert it.

As my blog post explains, EPA should not have approved the waiver in the first place. The California GHG/fuel economy program violates the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which prohibits states from adopting laws or regulations “related to” fuel economy. Worse, the waiver creates a reverse right of preemption whereby states may nullify federal law within their borders — an affront to the Supremacy Clause. 

Specifically, the waiver would allow California, and other states opting into the California program, to nullify within their boundaries the reformed national fuel economy program that Congress enacted in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA). That leads straight to a patchwork of state-by-state compliance regimes inimical to a healthy auto industry.

The game EPA is playing is a classic case of bureaucratic self-dealing.

First, EPA endangers the U.S. auto industry by authorizing states to flout federal law and the Constitution. Then, EPA proposes to avert disaster via a rulemaking that just happens to put EPA in the driver’s seat in regulating fuel economy – a power Congress never delegated to EPA when it enacted and amended the Clean Air Act.

Nor is that all. The joint GHG/fuel economy regulation will compel EPA to regulate CO2 from stationary sources – another power Congress never delegated to EPA. By expanding its control over the transport sector, EPA will then have to expand its control over manufacturing, power generation, and much of the commercial and residential sectors, too, because all emit CO2.

In addition, the motor vehicle GHG rule sets the stage for EPA to “tailor,” that is amend, the Clean Air Act so that the agency can delay imposing pre-construction and operating permit requirements on small business, which would surely ignite a political backlash.

So thanks to the endangerment finding, EPA not only gets to play in NHTSA’s fuel-economy sandbox, and extend its tentacles throughout the economy, it also gets to play lawmaker, violating the separation of powers.

In light of all the new powers EPA now expects to wield, it is hardly surprising that EPA never made the strong case against Clean Air Act regulation of CO2 in Massachusetts v. EPA. Here’s what EPA should have argued:

  • EPA cannot regulate GHG emissions from new motor vehicles under Sec. 202 of the Clean Air Act without regulating CO2 under the Act as a whole. 
  • Aplying the Act as a whole to CO2 leads ineluctably to “absurd results” that contravene congressional intent.
  • Therefore, Congress could not have intended for EPA to regulate GHG emissions under Sec. 202.

Did EPA throw the fight in the 11th round? I dunno, but losing the Massachusetts case was surely sweet victory to those in the agency who long to regulate America into a ”clean energy future.” The Massachusetts decision laid the groundwork for EPA to deal itself into a position to bypass the people’s elected representatives, impose its will on the auto industry, and, in time, dictate national climate and energy policy.

What happens if Congress enacts Sen. Murkowski’s resolution, nixes the endangerment finding, and mothballs the GHG/fuel economy rule? The authority to make law and national policy returns to where the framers of the Constitution intended — the people’s elected representatives.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nll-tVIlKj0 285 234]

[This is a slightly-edited version of a blog first posted on Fox News Forum.]

The New York Times published a doozy of a front-page story by John M. Broder on Wednesday on the Climate-gate scientific fraud scandal. Those who have been lambasting our national “paper of record” for months for largely ignoring the scandal, while every London paper has run multiple big stories full of juicy new revelations, can now relax. The wise and good Grey Lady has finally taken notice.

Well, not exactly. Broder’s story, headlined “Scientists Take Steps to Defend Climate Work,” is all about how the climate science establishment have realized that they “have to fight back” against critics who have used the Climategate revelations to call into question the scientific case for global warming alarmism. Those whose only source of news for the past three months has been the Times will have a hard time figuring out exactly what they have to fight back against.
Broder’s analysis follows the party line that has been worked out among the leading alarmist climate scientists since the scandal broke on November 19, 2009. And Broder makes no effort to conceal where his sympathies lie. He writes: “But serious damage has already been done,” and then discusses polling data that shows increasing public disbelief in the global warming crisis. From my perspective, that’s serious good that has been done, not damage, but then I’m not an unbiased, fair-minded Times reporter.

Broder further opines on his own behalf: “The battle is asymmetric, in the sense that scientists feel compelled to support their findings with careful observation and replicable analysis, while their critics are free to make sweeping statements condemning their work as fraudulent.” That, of course, is not reporting, but agreeing with one of the alarmists’ talking points.

And it is untrue. Anyone who has ever seen some of the leading scientific proponents of alarmism in action knows that they are not about “careful observation and replicable analysis.” In fact, the major revelation of Climate-gate has been that top climate scientists refused to share their data and methodologies because they were concealing intentional data manipulation as well as incompetence. Which is exactly what their critics have maintained for years.

But blatant bias in news stories from the New York Times is not news. What makes Broder’s story unintentionally compelling is the cast of characters that he quotes to represent the calm, objective voice of establishment science.

First up is Dr. Ralph Cicerone, President of the National Academies of Science (NAS). That is an august position, and the principal reason Cicerone occupies it is because he is a wily political operator. As President of the NAS, he has worked overtime to enforce the alarmist “consensus”.
When Professor Michael E. Mann’s hockey stick graph came under suspicion, Cicerone craftily convened a National Research Council (or NRC—a government-funded scientific consulting company closely affiliated with the NAS) panel to investigate and appointed Professor Gerald R. North of Texas A. and M. University as chairman. The deceptively affable North has proven to be a reliable water carrier for whoever is in authority.

Cicerone did not share with the panel the probing questions that had been sent to him by then-Chairman of the House Science Committee and then the House’s leading green Republican, Sherwood Boehlert. Instead, Cicerone provided his own loaded questions.

When the panel’s report was nonetheless quite critical of the hockey stick research, Cicerone arranged a press release and conference that put a deceptive spin on the panel’s conclusions. Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media reported what they were told at the press conference.

Cicerone is now using the NRC to rush out a report to minimize Climate-gate and defend the alarmist establishment. A group of NAS members led by Stanford Professor Stephen H. Schneider, who has long been the alarmist scientists’ chief political organizer and strategist, asked Cicerone for the study. It is clear that it is intended to be a whitewash.

Broder’s story also quotes Dr. John P. Holdren, now the White House science adviser and a long-time collaborator with Stanford Professor Paul R. Ehrlich of Population Bomb fame. Holdren has made a career of bending science to support left-wing politics and has an unblemished forty-year record of wild doomsday predictions that have all proven wrong.

After a quick quote from Dr. Rajendra K Pachauri, the Chairman of the U. N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who is a railway engineer by profession, Broder concludes by consulting Dr. Gavin A. Schmidt, a climate modeler at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City:

“Climate scientists are paid to do climate science,” said Gavin A. Schmidt…. “Their job is not persuading the public.”

If only that were so, even in the case of Dr. Schmidt. True, his salary is paid by American taxpayers, but it is almost certainly the case that over the past few years he has been spending a good part of his time during office hours and using government equipment to produce political propaganda for RealClimate.org, a web site run by Schmidt and Michael E. Mann. RealClimate.org has received help from Fenton Communications, the key P.R. firm for the Soros-funded left.
Thus Broder portrays Schmidt as just a scientist trying to be left alone to do his job, but in fact Schmidt is primarily a modestly-skilled political operative working to promote global warming alarmism. Here is Broder quoting Schmidt again:

“What is new is this paranoia combined with a spell of cold weather in the U. S. and the ‘climategate’ release. It’s a perfect storm that has allowed the nutters to control the agenda.”

“Nutters” is English (and Schmidt is English) slang equivalent to “nut” in the sense of crazy person. Well, Schmidt should know—his boss is the director of GISS, Dr. James E. Hansen. Hansen is widely considered to be the leading scientific promoter of global warming alarmism and as such is a highly political animal. He is also increasingly kooky and extreme.

Hansen claimed a few years ago that the Bush Administration was censoring him. It turned out he had given over 1,300 interviews during the Bush years! Hansen predicted over twenty years ago that much of Manhattan would be under water by now as the result of sea level rise caused by global warming.

Last year, Hansen, a federal employee, was arrested for protesting at a coal mine in West Virginia. He has endorsed industrial sabotage as justified by the climate crisis we are facing and said that oil company executives should be put on trial for “high crimes against humanity and nature.”

So Schmidt has it right: the nutters are in control–of the global warming alarmist agenda. But don’t hold your breath waiting for the New York Times to publish that story.

(Myron Ebell is director of Freedom Action. Freedom Action is a Web-based grassroots activist group dedicated to putting freedom on the offensive. Mr. Ebell may be contacted at mebell@freedomaction.org.)

According to recently disclosed e-mails from a National Academies of Science listserv, prominent climate scientists affiliated with the U.S. National Academies of Science have been planning a public campaign to paper over the damaged reputation of global warming alarmism.  Their scheme would involve officials at the National Academies and other professional associations producing studies to endorse the researchers’ pre-existing assumptions and create confusion about the revelations of the rapidly expanding “Climategate” scandal.

The e-mails were first reported in a front-page story by Stephen Dinan in the Washington Times today. The Competitive Enterprise Institute has independently obtained copies of the e-mails.  A list of excerpts, with descriptive headlines written by me, can be found below.  The entire file of e-mails has been posted as a PDF and can be read here.

In my view, the response of these alarmist scientists to the Climategate scientific fraud scandal has little to do with their responsibilities as scientists and everything to do with saving their political position.  The e-mails reveal a group of scientists plotting a political strategy to minimize the effects of Climategate in the public debate on global warming.

Selected Excerpts.

Note that the descriptive headlines in italics are by me. The statements in quotation marks are excerpts from the e-mails.

Can we get corporate funding for some splashy ads in the NY Times?
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 26: “I will accept corporate sponsorship at a 5 to 1 ratio….”

But our ads will be untainted by corporate influence.
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “Over the past 24 h I have been amazed and encouraged at the support my proposal has received from Section 63 and beyond. We have had about 15 pledges for $1000!  I want to build on that good will and make sure that the facts about the climate system are presented to a very large section of the public—unfiltered by the coal, oil and gas industries….”

What is it about the New York Times?  Aren’t Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman enough?
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “Op eds in the NY Times and other national newspapers would also be great.”

Scientists should be effecting social and political change.
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 26:  “I want the NAS to be a transformational agent in America.”

Snow in Washington is anecdotal, but no snow in Vancouver is proof.
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “…the coal, oil and gas industries (who, ironically, are running commercials on NBC for the winter Olympics, while the weather is so warm that snow has to be imported to some of the events.)”
Robert Paine, Feb. 27: “The beltway’s foolishness about climate change seems especially ironic given the snowless plight of the Vancouver Olympics.”
David Schindler, Feb. 27: “I’d add that Edmonton is near snowless….”

This is a political fight, and we’ve got to get dirty.
Paul R. Ehrlich, Feb. 27: “Most of our colleagues don’t seem to grasp that we’re not in a gentlepersons’ debate, we’re in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules.”

Top scientists adore Al Gore.
David Schindler, Feb. 27: “I recall an event at the Smithsonian a couple of eons ago that I thought did a great job, & got lots of media coverage. AL Gore spoke….”
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “Al Gore has a very well written article in the NY Times.”

Forget the science, we want energy rationing!
William Jury, Feb. 27: “I am seeing formerly committed public sector leaders backing off from positions aimed at reducing our fossil fuel dependence.”

They’ll forget Climategate if an authoritative institution repeats the same old line.
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “An NRC report would be useful.”
Steve Carpenter, Feb. 27: “We need a report with the authority of the NAS that summarizes the status and trends of the planet, and the logical consequences of plausible responses.”
David Tilman: Feb. 27: “It would seem wise to have the panel [writing the report] not include IPCC members.”
Stephen H. Schneider, Mar. 1: “National Academies need to be part of this….”
Stephen H. Schneider, Mar 1: “It is imperative that leading scientific societies coordinate a major press event….”

The last academic defense: It’s McCarthyism!
Stephen H. Schneider, Mar. 1: “…Senator Inhofe, in a very good impression of the infamous Joe McCarthy, has now named 17 leading scientists involved with the IPCC as potential climate ‘criminals’.  ….  I am hopeful that all the forces working for honest debate and quality assessments will decry this McCarthyite regression, and by name point out what this Senator is doing by a continuing smear campaign.  ….  Will the media have the fortitude to take this on–I’m betting a resounding ‘yes!'” [Note that Schneider has already sent this e-mail to the media asking for their help.]

To read all the e-mails that CEI has obtained, go to the PDF posted here.

In the News

The New York Times Strikes Back
Myron Ebell, Fox Forum, 5 March 2010

Bullies Waxman & Markey Promote “Endangerment” of Economy, Democracy
Marlo Lewis, BigGovernment.com, 5 March 2010

Carbon Caps through the Backdoor
Kimberley Strassel, Wall Street Journal, 5 March 2010

Joe Romm, Where Art Thou?
Michael Lynch, MasterResource.org, 5 March 2010

Green Jobs Fantasy
Iain Murray, National Review Online, 4 March 2010

Democratic Senators Move To Stop Wind Subsidies in Stimulus
Dan Eggen, Washington Post, 4 March 2010

“Anti-Lobbyist” Obama Administration Recruits “Green” Lobbyists To Sell Subsidies
Chris Horner, Pajamas Media, 3 March 2010

The Mainstream Media’s New Favorite Republican
Myron Ebell, Pajamas Media, 3 March 2010

Gore Still Hot on His Doomsday Rhetoric
Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, 3 March 2010

Media Fails Public on Climate Coverage
Walter Russell Mead, American Interest, 3 March 2010

Global Warming Winners
Washington Times editorial, 3 March 2010

Bring Back the Robber Barons
Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal, 3 March 2010

Al Gore Returns!
Myron Ebell, Fox Forum, 2 March 2010

Climategate: This Time It’s NASA
Iain Murray & Roger Abbott, Spectator, 2 March 2010

Virginia AG Cuccinelli Takes on EPA
William Yeatman, Free Lance-Star, 2 March 2010

Gore’s Latest Global Warming Whopper
Alan Reynolds, New York Post, 2 March 2010

Climate Errors More than Incidental
Christopher Booker, Telegraph, 28 February 2010

News You Can Use

Harvard Study: Obama’s Climate Plan = $7 Gas

According to a report from Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, gas prices would have to increase to $7 a gallon to meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Big Oil Helps Write Kerry-Graham-Lieberman Bill

The efforts of Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) to produce a “bi-partisan, compromise” energy-rationing bill received a questionable boost this week when it was reported that three big oil companies are working with the Senators on a “carbon fee” for transportation fuels.  “Carbon fee” is a euphemism for gas tax.  The three companies are Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips, and BP America.  The tax would somehow be rebated to consumers.

Also this week, Harvard University released a study that concludes that reaching President Barack Obama’s target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will require gas prices as high as seven dollars a gallon.

Rockefeller Tries to Undermine Murkowski’s Endangerment Resolution

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has been maneuvering to find a way to delay EPA regulation of greenhouse gases using the Clean Air Act and thereby forestall Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) attempt to block EPA permanently.  Murkowski’s resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act would prohibit EPA from making its finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare.

First, Rockefeller and seven other coal-state Democrats sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson expressing their concerns about the harmful economic effects of moving too quickly to regulate emissions and asked her eight questions about EPA’s plans.  At a Senate hearing this week, Jackson gave some ground.  More about that in the item below.

This week Rockefeller introduced a bill to delay implementation of EPA’s regulations for two years.

A companion bill was introduced in the House by Representatives Nick Jo Rahall (D-WV), Alan Mollahan (D-WV), and Rick Boucher (D-Va.).

Co-sponsoring this bill could give some Democrats enough cover that they could now vote against Murkowski’s resolution.  My guess up until two weeks ago was that Murkowski’s resolution would pass the Senate with more than 51 votes.  After Rockefeller’s maneuver, I think it no longer has the votes to pass.  But a lot of things can happen before the Senate votes on Murkowski, so this is far from over.

In the House, Rep. Ike Skelton’s (D-Mo.) resolution of disapproval, H.J. Res. 76, now has 24 co-sponsors. Another resolution of disapproval was introduced by Re. Joe Barton (R-Tex.). H.J. Res 77 has 95 co-sponsors.

EPA Tailoring Rule Will Be Relaxed Further

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told a Senate hearing this week that EPA would move more slowly to regulate stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions than originally planned.  Under the proposed “tailoring” rule, sources that emit more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year would be regulated first.  Under the revised plan, sources under 75,000 tons won’t be regulated for at least the first two years.  The schedule to start regulating smaller emitters will also be extended for several years.

The Clean Air Act requires that entities emitting more than 250 tons of a listed criteria pollutant must be regulated.  EPA’s plan to start regulating much larger sources first would seem to have no basis in the law.  It remains to be seen whether it will be challenged in court.

Climategate Extra

Climategate Reloaded

Prominent climate scientists affiliated with the U.S. National Academies of Science have been planning a public campaign to paper over the damaged reputation of global warming alarmism, according to recently disclosed e-mail messages.  Their scheme would involve officials at the National Academies and other professional associations producing studies to endorse the researchers’ pre-existing assumptions and create confusion about the revelations of the rapidly expanding “Climategate” scandal.

The e-mails were first reported in a front-page story by Stephen Dinan in the Washington Times today. The Competitive Enterprise Institute has independently obtained copies of the e-mails and has posted them at GlobalWarming.org.

To learn more, and to see the emails, click here.

Climategate Goes to Parliament

Phil Jones, the scientist at the center of the Climategate scandal, testified before the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons on allegations that he concealed scientific evidence. Jones, who was described by one British columnist as having been “terror stricken” before Parliament, admitted that he sent some “awful emails.” The Institute of Physics, a scientific body composed of more than 30,000 physicists in the U. K., submitted written testimony stating that Jones’s emails contain “prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law.”

Across the States

Wyoming Legislature Passes Wind Tax

The Wyoming House and Senate have passed the nation’s first tax on wind energy and sent the bill to Governor Dave Freudenthal.  The Democratic Governor proposed the new tax to the Republican-dominated legislature last month and so is almost certain to sign the bill into law. Amusingly, Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, complained about the proposed tax on the grounds that it would discourage wind power production:  “It is very disturbing to hear that one of the great States for resources wants to tax the industry and discourage the development of jobs in their State.”  She did not mention that Wyoming already taxes oil, natural gas, and coal production, which is why it doesn’t levy a personal income tax.  Nor did she mention that wind power receives huge subsidies from federal taxpayers. It will be interesting to watch how quickly other States follow Wyoming’s example.

Around the World

It Could Happen Here

The European Union already operates a cap-and-trade scheme and a renewable energy mandate, both of which are designed to raise the price of energy, but apparently EU officials don’t believe that energy is expensive enough. According to the Telegraph, Algirdas Semeta, the new European commissioner for taxation, is planning a “minimum rate of tax on carbon” across the whole EU as a “priority.”

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary check out the Coalition’s website, www.globalwarming.org.

Some global warming skeptics have been using the remarkably cold winter and record snowfalls to attack the idea of global warming. Believers are crying foul. “You’re confusing weather with climate!” they insist.

And they’re right. But they invented the game a long time ago and have been deftly playing it ever since.

Among the complainers is Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, “The Earth is really, really big,” he condescendingly but correctly observes in a nationally syndicated column. “It’s so big that it can be cold here and warm elsewhere – and this is the key concept – at the same time. Even if it were unusually cold throughout the continental U.S., that still represents less than 2% of the Earth’s surface.”

He makes other points, too, but what he somehow misses is that the warmists never hesitate to use any unusual phenomena to assert their case. “Any?” you ask with incredulity. “Any!” I respond with assurance. Check out the list at this Web site. One glance blows you away. It includes everything from “acne” to “yellow fever,” with “short-nosed dogs endangered” in between.

Moreover, time and again the warmists have use terribly cold weather and blizzards to say “global warming is at it again!” and that includes a Bill McKibben column that appeared in the Washington Post just five days before Robinson’s column!

Read about it in my new Forbes Online piece, “Weather Hype, Climate Trype.”

I know newspaper Web polls are not scientific, but wow.