William Yeatman

In Kansas, the battle between the Governor and the Republican-controlled legislature over Sunflower Electric's bid to expand its Holcomb Generating Station is likely over, after the Kansas House narrowly sustained the third veto of a bill to allow the plants by Governor Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat. Leaders in the House have indicated that they do not intend to pursue another vote. It is the first denial of a coal power plant permit in the country based on climate change concerns. The Sierra Club hailed the vote, and Sebelius called on lawmakers to “work with me on a new comprehensive energy policy” to serve the entire State.

President George W. Bush spoke about what to do about rising gasoline prices at a press conference on Tuesday.  He said that the Congress was to blame for not passing legislation to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to exploration and production.  As he correctly said: “Members of Congress have been vocal about foreign governments increasing their oil production; yet Congress has been just as vocal in opposition to efforts to expand our production here at home.”

In reply to a question, the President said about increasing domestic energy production: “We can also send a clear signal that we understand supply and demand….”  Then he went on to defend the corn ethanol mandate on the grounds that it was only contributing 15 percent to the increase in food prices.  Apparently, the President could use a little remedial tutorial in supply and demand.  The prices of products like corn, wheat, and soybeans are set in a global market on the margin.  A small decrease in supply (such as diverting enough corn to feed 250 million people for a year to ethanol production, as happened last year) can have a dramatic effect on price.

Luckily, President Bush is a lagging indicator.  As news stories on the catastrophic consequences of the corn ethanol mandate threaten to become an avalanche, the Congress is full of talk about the need to do something.  Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Az.) has introduced the most sweeping bill, but there are many others being drafted.  Even Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the Majority Whip, said this week that they were going to have to look at the mandate.  Durbin represents Illinois, the nation’s number two corn-growing State.

Not only has the planet not warmed over the last decade, but new peer-reviewed research suggests that it might not warm over the coming decade. Reports the Daily Telegraph:

Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a “lull” for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The average temperature of the sea around Europe and North America is expected to cool slightly over the decade while the tropical Pacific remains unchanged.

This would mean that the 0.3°C global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature.

However, the effect of rising fossil fuel emissions will mean that warming will accelerate again after 2015 when natural trends in the oceans veer back towards warming, according to the computer model.

Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel, Germany, said: “The IPCC would predict a 0.3°C warming over the next decade. Our prediction is that there will be no warming until 2015 but it will pick up after that.”

This creates an exquisite philosophical dilemma: can the planet be warming if it isn’t warming? I’m sure the Goracle will be able to enlighten us.

Of course, the computer models tell us that warming will eventually restart. But didn’t those same models tells us that we would be warming now? Hmm …

The Florida Legislature passed an anti-energy bill this week calling for the creation of a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The vote was unanimous in the House, while only one lawmaker opposed the measure in the state Senate. Environmentalists were not satisfied, however, because legislators included a provision requiring their approval of any plan before implementation. The legislation was strongly supported by Republican Governor Charlie Crist, who has made climate change one of his primary issues in office. Ironically, while Governor Crist lobbied for the bill, he was also pushing a two-week moratorium on Florida’s gasoline tax, which would lower the price of gas, causing motorists to drive more and emit more greenhouse gases.

This week a federal judge in California ordered the Secretary of the Interior to decide by May 15th whether to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

This frenzied push to list the polar bear may be due to this graph. It appears that not only was this year’s Arctic ice maximum later than last year’s, but the ice extent has rebounded about 50% from last year towards the 1979-2000 average (but NSIDC won’t say that!) and appears to be increasing. It’s pretty hard to claim that the bears will die because of lack of ice if the ice extent is growing.

To cover their bases, an environmental pressure group, the Center for Biological Diversity, has also petitioned to list the ribbon seal as a threatened species because of global warming. But this sounds like cross-purposes, since polar bears eat seals….