Do you ever wonder how these woolly 'intellectuals' get there jobs? Or why the media runs to them for the conclusive opinion? Or why so many lost souls buy their books?

In any event, here's Gaia-ist beleiver James Lovelock's latest insightful comment on taken from here in The Guardian:

"Who knows? Everybody might be wrong," he says. "I may be wrong. Climate change may not happen as fast as we thought, and we may have 1,000 years to sort it out."

Brilliant. So now, probably no reason for alarm after all. You have to hand it to the intellectually-challenged prophets of climate doom. If gobledegook was an olymic sport, they'd all be contenders.

Of course Jimbo, in 1,000 years we could equally all have frozen to death. Who knows? Certainly not the Met. Office weatherologists. They can't tell what the climate will do next week.

The new Con-Lib Dim (sic) coalition has a real conundrum - not helped by virtue of giving the energy-climate brief to an anti-nuclear activist and Europhile (Chris Huhne).

Here's the conundrum in a nutshell: Britain has to replace its aging power stations - and fast. At the same time, the EU is insisting we close some early to cut CO2 emissions. If we do that, Britain is headed, in around four or five years (election time) for a period of major power blackouts across the country. There's a power gap in our energy plans that could easily see blackouts in the UK for the first time since 1973.

And just for good measure, did you know that four of the six power providers in the UK are keeping their prices artificially high while keeping them lower in the country from which they hail? In other words, Brits are subsidising European energy users.

For the full story and for Cameron's stark choice go to my article Britain's Power Conundrum published today at Energy Tribune.

Alan Caruba notes that, yet again, the mainstream media is in denial about the climate facts. As the Heartland Institute met last week and set forth a plethora of facts, reason and logic that showed the climate may well be in cooling mode again, the MSM did what it does best: missed the real story.

Ah, we will miss it when its gone (which won't be too long).

Here's an extract:

The Fourth International Conference on Climate Change concluded Tuesday in Chicago. Sponsored by The Heartland Institute, a non-profit, free market think tank, it brought together eminent (and legitimate!) scientists and other distinguished folk for panels and speeches addressing the arcane mysteries of climate.

Among the dignitaries addressing the thousand or more people who attended was former astronaut, Harrison Schmitt, PhD, a one-term Senator who discussed why the U.S. Constitution makes no provision whatever for the Department of Energy or the Environmental Protection Agency. For three days men who know their science in ways that would fill entire libraries held forth.

A Google search for any mainstream media coverage of the event turned up little evidence of it, nor is it likely that were I to list the names of the speakers, you would have ever heard of them. These foremost “deniers” have received short shrift in a media that has been determined to convince Americans that the Earth is burning up due to an infinitesimal amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

And here are some key recent facts Alan points out. Facts that don't interest the MSM

UK - Coldest winter in a lifetime - Freezing in May - 12 May 10
Record Cold in Paris - 11 May 10
Snow in "sunny" Spain - Coldest May since records began - 6 May 10
Snow In Southern France - 5 May 10
Again? Yet another Alberta snowstorm! - 5 May 10

The biggest news emerging from the conference is that, in addition to the fact that the Earth is ten years into another perfectly natural cooling cycle, it is also verging on another ice age.

For the complete article go here.

So here is a first look at the newly designed cover for our book Energy and Climate Wars: How naive politicians, green ideologues and media elites are undermining the truth about energy and climate (Continuum Books).

What think ye? Personally, I like it.

Should any of you, thrilled at the sight of such well-creafted artistry be so moved as to want to have (and lovingly hold) a book that spells out the facts - debunking the speculation - about the vital energy and climate basics, then here it is!

For the chapter headings, (glowing!) endorsements and to buy go here (UK) or here (US).

?

Oops. Now it seems that the main reason over one quarter of the Arctic ice has recovered from its recent recession of ice mass is because ... the Arctic looks to be getting colder, not warmer.

Surprising is it not, to find that more more ice is due to more cold. Still, the logic of that will still be lost on the warmists whose intellect and scientific underastanding is suffering from an even worse recession. 

Anyway, here's what our Russian friend says at the UPI news agencey:

An Arctic cold snap that began in 1998 could last for years, freezing the northern marine passage and making it impassable without icebreaking ships, said Oleg Pokrovsky of the Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory.

"I think the development of the shelf will face large problems," Pokrovsky said Thursday at a seminar on research in the Polar regions.

Scientists who believe the climate is warming may have been misled by data from U.S. meteorological stations located in urban areas, where dense microclimates creates higher temperatures, RIA Novosti quoted Pokrovsky as saying.

"Politicians who placed their bets on global warming may lose the pot," Pokrovsky said.

Some of you must have caught the 'beware of the British deniers' piece by UK The Independent journo Johann Hari. If you didn't in a piece published by The Nation (and given wider readership by Real Clear Politics) he took a desperate swing at the Brit journos and alleged key-thinkers setting the real science record straight after media idiots like him screwed it up.

When he sat down to write Climate Claptrap, Hari cannot have considered the irony of his position, given zero evidence for the need to sign up to the 'End is Nigh' climate alarmist club (as he has). And why am I reminded of The Guardian's ill-fated campaign to defeat George W. Bush by telling smalltown USA who to vote for in 2004? If there's one thing Americans don't need, its my fellow countrymen failing to address the actual issues instead telling them how to think.

The patronizing Hari believes American's need his help to spot claptrap when they see it, not by considering the issues (as we do) but by directing flak at those who disagree - especially those who are prepared to put their head above the parapet and put their disagreement in writing - with the current science 'consensus'.

For my rebuttal to the intellectually-challenged Hari, go here to Canada Free Press.

While everyone's wondering what exactly a man who ran a presidential campaign partly on an anti-oil ticket, my colleague Michael Economides and I have drilled down to the "nonsense on stilts" it makes of harmonizing the Prez's energy and climate goals.

For the whole article go to Energy Tribune here or to Canada Free Press here.

And here's a taster:

First: the energy facts. Currently, 85 percent of the US energy mix is provided by oil, gas and coal. By some amazing coincidence, the US is using around 100 Quads (quadrillion Btu) of energy, and so these numbers reflect both percent and actual energy use. If we take the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) figures of 0.5 percent increase per year and extrapolate total energy use to 2050, this would translate to about 125 quads. (Incidentally this is a surprisingly small figure considering the recent past, which was as high as 2 percent annual increase and China’s forecast of over 3.2 percent per year. Is the EIA trying to please the Obama White House?)

Second: the Obama administration has made several statements intending to slash CO2 emissions by 83 percent of the 2005 figures by 2050. This would mean that the current 85 quads that come from fossil fuels must be reduced to less than 14.5 quads, which would imply that, by 2050, the contribution from fossil fuels to the US energy mix should be reduced to about 11.5 percent (some even mentioned less than 10 percent) of the total energy consumption. But that in turn would mean that wind and solar, the darlings of this administration, would provide essentially all the rest – a patent impossibility.
 
More drilling for more oil just exacerbates Obama’s insoluble conundrum. 

Of course the reality is that the announcement is designed to hoodwink would-be opponents, and there are many, of carbon cap and trade or carbon tax. If the Administration was sincere about energy and energy “independence” it would immediately rescind the EPA’s finding of CO2 as a pollutant, which by coincidence (?) comes into force today, April 1, 2010. Further, it would actively encourage drilling rather than starting environmental “studies” that would drag on for years with excruciating permits, followed by certain environmentalist challenges that would just about take this offshore oil non-production to 2050.

The interesting thing is that almost every key energy assessment from knowledgeable energy insiders, including the DOE’s own EIA, suggest that by 2050, fossil fuels will still provide around 85 percent of the US energy mix, no matter what US political rhetoric may ascribe on alternative energy sources. 

The fact is the Obama Administration already has an impossible circle to square on its current energy pronouncements. Whatever political calculations may be in play, the President’s oil ‘card’ play may trump his carbon-reducing climate play – but it makes “nonsense on stilts” in harmonizing both.

A new study by Professors Michael and Christine Ehlig-Economides has cast major doubt on the viability of the underground storage of carbon dioxide - a prime goal for political greens of all shades who perceive underground CO2 storage as key to reducing alleged man-made emissions.

My piece on the new report has been published today here over at Canada Free Press. However, here is a taster:

Michael Economides, co-author of the report, states, “For many of us who realize only too plainly the very real dangers and difficulties associated with sequestration, over-inflated claims for CCS have become the last refuge of the energy scoundrel”. Economides adds, “For them we can literally bury the problem and, for some of my colleagues we can even do some good via CO2-enhanced oil recovery. It is our view that neither will ever happen.”

If the governments investing in unproven CCS technology were looking for a new insignia of ‘blessing’ that reflected their faith in the CCS process, the study authors might be inclined to suggest St Jude – the patron saint of lost causes.  After the fiasco in Copenhagen, the war on carbon increasingly resembles one. 

“Sequestering carbon dioxide in a closed underground volume”, is authored by professors Christine Ehlig-Economides, Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A& M University, and Michael J. Economides, Department of Chemical Engineering at Houston University.  The full report can be downloaded here.

Take your pick for metaphors. Either the Global Warming Hoax Wall is crumbling - or climate change alarmism is suffering the death of a thousand cuts. Either expression is apt for the imploding of the UN IPCCs alarmist pseudo-science.

Climategate has been followed by Glaciergate (the Himalayas apparently are not now melting) and Amazongate (neither are the rainforests disappearing leading to growing hurricane activity).

Here for those interested in truth rather than propaganda are links to the litany of recent exposures that have warmed all who are still currently suffering freezing temperatures in the northern hemisphere:

IPCC based claims on student dissertation and magazine article

IPCC shamed by bogus rainsfrest article

Stern report was changed after publication

Stern report 'misused' climate study  and, particularly illuminating...

Philip Stott: Global Warming - the collapse of a Grand Narrative

Two things I want to highlight here, however. First, (and something we have covered extensively in our upcoming book - see previous blogs) the consistent theme of dishonesty and a lack of scientific and personal integrity that runs through the entire IPPC alarmist community. Second, how the mainstream media journos are currently begin to slither out from under their various rocks to attack the badly wounded IPCC 'beast' intent on claiming cudos for the final 'kill'. But let us not forget it was the MSM who MADE global warming alarmism what it is by taking the IPCC side, refusing to report non-alarmism science and data and by ad hominen attacks on those of us who had the temerity to stick with real science and actual data - i.e. science fact not science speculation.

Back in 2000 Michael Crichton rightly predicted the decline and extinction of the mass media. There is much hand-wringing in media circles now about 'paid content online' etc to save their necks. I say, let them swing. Hell, we should be queuing to tie the knots. They say the first casualty of war is Truth. It was certainly true of the media's war on those they dubbed climate 'deniers'. The MSM may have given up dealing in it, but Truth does have a nasty habit of winning out, ultimately. 

MSM. R.I.P. (Rest in Perdition)

The credibility of the UN IPCC and its distinctly dodgy brand of 'science' may finally be in shreds. As Andrew Neill states, the dam began to break in November when the Climategate email scandal showed the world what a bunck of mafia-like losers the leading scientific proponents of climate alarmism were.

Next up came 'Glaciergate' with the IPCC forced to admit it made claims about the Himalayas melting by 2035 central to its 2007 report. Not only did the report suggest a great deal of water would flow (floods et al) but it also enabled millions in research grants to flow too. Not to mention the Nobel Peace Prize that the IPCC won with the 2007 report.

Finally, news of yet another IPCC blunder this week: Amazongate. The 2007 report apparently used the work of a researcher to claim the rain forests would be in severe peril leading to extreme weather and hurricance activity. Now the researcher who did not actually finish his research until a year after the report was published has publicly claimed his work was misused by the IPCC.

What is clear is the IPCC is increasingly beleagured, the demand for chairman Pachauri's head is increasing and even the mealy-mouthed journo rats who for years disparaged the work of people like me in refuting alarmist propaganda are beginning to scuttle from under their rocks and, belatedly, join the anti-IPCC throng - after years of cheerleading for the climate alarmist cause. Something we should not forget.

It really is beginning to look as if the jig may finally be up for the IPCC - but what of the damage they and the MSM have caused by damaging real science and leaving the public with a whole bunch of scientific myths (such as polar bears becoming extinct) to hang on to. That's going to take much longer to overcome.