Canada has warned the US government that a narrow interpretation of new energy legislation would prohibit its neighbour buying fuel from Alberta’s vast oil sands, with “unintended consequences for both countries”.
In a letter to Robert Gates, US defence secretary, Canada said that it “would not want to see an expansive interpretation” of the Energy Independence and Security Act 2007.
Finally some science applied to the scientific consensus on global warming, and guess what, it does not exist! Consensus studies are not uncommon in the world of economics, and the people that claim constituency in the discourse over climate policy ranges from every academic discipline in Hayek's grand tradition of being an expert in all areas once you established your "expertdom" in one.
However, the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta, did canvas their members with a consensus survey and here is some highlight from the results. 99 percent thinks the climite is changing, 45 percent blame both human and natural causes, and 68 percent disagree with the statement "the debate on the scientific causes of recent climate change is settled." 26 per cent attributing global warming to human activity like burning fossil fuels and 27 per cent blaming other causes such as volcanoes, sunspots, earth crust movements and natural evolution of the planet.
For those of us that talk to scientists that have gag-orders, that fear retribution from colleagues that thinks skepticism jeopardize department funding, and that feel mistreated and ridiculed by the media; this does not come as a surprise. These results was not a surprise to APEGGA executive director Neil Windsor, but then again, the man is a scientist, not a media spin doctor with political credentials.
Last week, virtually unreported in Britain, the extraordinary winter weather of 2008 elsewhere in the world continued. In the USA, there were blizzards as far south as Texas and Arkansas, while in northern states and Canada what they are calling "the winter from hell" has continued to break records going back in some cases to 1873. Meanwhile in Asia more details emerged of the catastrophe caused by the northern hemisphere's greatest snow cover since 1966.
A Victoria environmental activist was quoted in the Times Colonist in January as saying he is trying to prevent "the demise of the planet." No less a figure than UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said, at the Bali environmental summit in December: "One path leads to a comprehensive climate change agreement, the other to oblivion. The choice is clear."
Is it? Are we heading for the "demise" of the planet, to "oblivion," if carbon dioxide levels go up much beyond their current level of 380 parts per million, or if the global temperature goes up three or four or five or, for that matter, 10 degrees from its current average of 12 degrees Celsius?
Only about one in three Alberta earth scientists and engineers believe the culprit behind climate change has been identified, a new poll reported today.
The expert jury is divided, with 26 per cent attributing global warming to human activity like burning fossil fuels and 27 per cent blaming other causes such as volcanoes, sunspots, earth crust movements and natural evolution of the planet.
In the recent flurry of moves to ban plastic bags a frequently cited statistic is that more than 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die each year from entanglement in, or ingestion of, plastic bags.
The original scientific study upon which this estimate relied actually attributed these deaths to fishing tackle in the oceans, not plastic bags. Yet the terms “100,000 marine deaths” and “plastic bags” now circulate happily through our public discourse, solidified as established fact.
The first time Li Gengxuan saw the dump trucks from the nearby factory pull into his village, he couldn't believe what happened. Stopping between the cornfields and the primary school playground, the workers dumped buckets of bubbling white liquid onto the ground. Then they turned around and drove right back through the gates of their compound without a word.
This ritual has been going on almost every day for nine months, Li and other villagers said.
In China, a country buckling with the breakneck pace of its industrial growth, such stories of environmental pollution are not uncommon.
House Democrats introduced legislation Thursday to overturn a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to block California from setting its own emissions standards for automobiles.
Last spring, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could set their own regulations on the emission of carbon dioxide. The California emissions standards were scheduled to take effect in model year 2009 and provide a 30 percent fleet-wide reduction in emissions by 2016 – vehicles sold in California would have to meet those standards.
He has a mighty big carbon footprint.
Al Gore's opulent lifestyle and his virtuous plea to save the planet from global warming don't mesh, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which announced plans yesterday for a new national advertising campaign to showcase the contrast before the American public.
Who says that the issue of global warming is a matter of science, not faith? Just last week, Mayor Gavin Newsom proved belief trumps data. The Chronicle reported that a San Francisco Public Utilities Commission study found that the giant turbines he wanted to put underwater below the Golden Gate Bridge would cost way too much money to install and maintain. They would generate power at a cost of 80 cents to $1.40 per kilowatt hour — as opposed to Pacific Gas and Electric's 12 cents per hour commercial rate. It seems the turbines would produce only one or two megawatts of power — not the 38 megawatts Newsom envisioned.
RSS Updates 
RSS E-Mail Updates 
CEI.org