I have cross-posted this blog entry at the Earth Forum.

Contrary to what most climate change naysayers claim, scientists are mostly a conservative lot. The peer review process can sometimes be brutal. It is often only after significant resistance and repeated attempts and additional substantiation that new research ideas and findings traverse the gauntlet of reviewers and are published in the top scientific journals.

(One of the most important papers in ecology on the trophic-dynamic concept by Raymond Lindeman was originally rejected for publication. Reviewers felt there were insufficient data to support the theoretical model and that theoretical essays were inappropriate for the most important journal in the field.)

Recently, at least three reports have been published that document that recent scientific projections of global warming have likely been conservative.
The reports indicate that climate change models, used by the world’s scientists to make the projections, likely are providing underestimates of both future warming and the global impacts of a warming earth.

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First, new analyses reported in the journal Science, indicate that climate projections published in 2001 by the IPCC were conservative compared to actual warmings observed. The 2001 projections were part of the IPCC Third Assessment Report and modeled changes in key global climate parameters since 1973, compared with a series of differing emissions scenarios. Although published in 2001, the model projections were essentially independent from the observed climate data since 1990.

• As be seen in the figures (right), measured carbon dioxide concentrations between the years 1990 and 2006 followed the model projections almost exactly.
• But measured global mean surface temperature increase (land and ocean combined) between 1990 and 2006 was in the upper range of the various IPCC scenarios.
• However, the actual observed rates of sea-level rise since 1990 were faster than the those projected by models.

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Second, a NASA report suggests that existing climate models may be significantly underestimating future warmings in eastern North America due to limitations in their ability to accurately project future precipitation regimes.To focus on more local scales, the NASA scientists scaled the simulations from a global climate model developed by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and coupled the simulations with those of a widely-used weather prediction model.

Coupling the weather prediction model with the global climate model allowed the scientists to assesses details about future climate at a finer geographic scale than global models alone. The coupling provided reliable simulations not only on the amounts of summer precipitation, but also on its frequency and timing. Accurately predicting the timing and frequency of precipitation events is important because daily temperatures are usually higher on rainless days and when precipitation falls less frequently than normal.

Once more accurate information on the timing and frequency of summer rainfall events were incorporated, the simulations projected much higher summer temperatures that had been projected with the global model alone.

The new projections indicate that eastern U.S. summer daily high temperatures that currently average in the low-to-mid-80s (degrees Fahrenheit) will most likely soar into the low-to-mid-90s during typical summers by the 2080s. In extreme seasons — when precipitation falls infrequently — July and August daily high temperatures could average between 100 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit in cities such as Chicago, Washington, and Atlanta.

Image: A computer model projection of average daily maximum temperatures over the eastern United States for July 2085 (left) and July 1993 (right). Areas in violet shading show temperatures of 26°C (79°F); green 30°C (86°F); yellow 34°C (93°F); red 38°C (100°F);dark purple 42°C (108°F). Credit: NASA/GISS

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Third, another new study released by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) found that arctic sea ice is melting at a significantly faster rate than projected by the most advanced computer models.Satellite and other observations showed the Arctic ice cover is retreating more rapidly than estimated by any of the eighteen computer models used by the IPCC in preparing its 2007 assessments.

Similar to the reports above, the authors of this study concluded that current model projections are providing conservative estimates of future global warming impacts such as the melting of the Arctic ice cap. The findings show that the shrinking of summertime ice is about thirty years ahead of the climate model projections.

The 2007 IPCC report projected that the Arctic would become seasonally ice free sometime between 2050 to well beyond 2100. The new results suggest the Arctic could become ice free in summers even earlier than the year 2050.

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Another argument made by the climate change naysayers against the facts of global warming is that the global climate models are not accurate. Computer simulation models are, by definition, designed as simplified representations of the complex systems they attempt to simulate.Earth processes are extremely complex. Simulation models are developed because an exact replication of all of the multitude of Earth processes is simply out of the scope of our human capacity today. So models are necessarily incorporate simplifications of both processes and scales of the real Earth and its climate and weather systems.

After 30-40 years of development, the global climate models are pretty good. They do a reasonable job of back-projecting known climate trends of the last 30-50 years against real world observed trends.

The naysayers are correct in asserting that the climate models are not 100% accurate. But the lesson of their argument is not what they think it to be. The contrarians argue that since climate models are not 100% accurate, they provide no support to the facts of global warming.

In fact as these reports show, in comparing model projections to real measured trends, the global climate models are doing a good job of projecting the directions of the trends, it is just that the current models have been underestimating the magnitudes and the rapidity in which the Earth is warming and in which the warming is impacting local and global Earth processes.

It is good to know that the United States is ahead of Turkey (the country) in public acceptance of evolution.

One really has to wonder just how far the American “news” media is willing to move away from the Principles of Journalism. In 1997, the Committee of Concerned Journalists of the Project for Excellence in Journalism outlined nine Principles of Journalism (below). Ten years after the formulation of these principles, it appears that every major American television news outlet, including CNN, has abandoned the nine core principles that are supposed to comprise the basis of objective journalism.

1. Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth
2. Its first loyalty is to citizens
3. Its essence is a discipline of verification
4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover
5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise
7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant
8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional
9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience

As I posted on this blog years ago, an October 2003 report by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the university of Maryland found that “a substantial portion of the (American) public had a number of misperceptions that were demonstrably false, or were at odds with the dominant view in the intelligence community.”

According to the PIPA study, which consumers of the mainstream “news” media who were polled showed the highest frequency of misperceptions regarding events related to the Iraq war? The chart shows that the inappropriately named “Fox News” clearly won the misperception contest. But you know until now, I had not paid that much attention how closely behind Fox all the other television news outlets and even the print media were in their race to promote misperceptions and to abandon the nine principles of journalism.

But now it seems that CNN has upped “the ante” in the race to be the most disingenuous television news outlet in America.

On May 2, 2007, CNN aired a disinformation program on global warming hosted by Glen Beck entitled Exposed: The Climate of Fear. Beck seems to be CNN’s answer to the ratings grabber and Ad hominen attack specialist Bill O’Reilly.

A new study from Indiana University found that Bill O’Reilly calls “a person or a group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly nine times every minute during the editorials that open his program each night.” The study shows that O’Reilly frequently employs multiple propagandist techniques that have been documented to have been in popular since after the end of World War I.

The May 2 CNN program brings back on to the stage a cadre of the well-known climate change deniers (many of whom are funded by Exxon Mobil and other industry powerhouses) as well as their tired arguments which have been thoroughly debated and debunked by scientists and the few remaining American news outlets that actually attempt to uphold the Principles of Journalism.

CNN promoted the program as being a vehicle to present the “other side of the climate debate that you don’t hear anywhere.” But in fact the program is rife with techniques that the climate deniers have been using ad naseum for decades including Ad hominen attacks on the deniers’ preferred high profile target, former Vice President Al Gore.

From Glen Beck, the man

• who claimed that the movie Happy Feet was a propaganda tool designed by a Hollywood director to indoctrinate children from being able to think for themselves about issues including global warming, and
• who uses the same name-calling techniques as does Bill O’Reilly,

one could not have expected anything more in this “television special” that purported to look “for answers and solutions about why Earth is warming and what man can do about it.”

But from CNN and Time Warner, outfits that claim to be “The Most Trusted Name in News” and offer “socially responsible programming” whose “actions must be guided by the highest standards of ethics”, one could and should expect a tremendous amount more.

It is time for American citizens to insist that CNN and many of the other once great and trusted American news media outlets change the direction of their race. To now move away from disingenuity and the promotion of misperception and distasteful discourse in the obvious quest for greater ratings. And to now move back to the objective Principles of Journalism.

If you have read my previous post: “It’s Official: U.S. Pollutes to HELP Millions of Poor,” you know that some global warming deniers (including some in the Bush Administration) are now making the ridiculous claim that efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions would keep “hundreds millions of people in poverty” in China and India.

Of course the exact opposite is true. Failure to act to reduce emissions and stabilize the Earth’s climate will have the greatest impact on poor people and the poor nations of the world. As described in the New York Times today, this is a major conclusion of the latest volume of the sixth assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to be released next Friday.

Henry I. Miller, a fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, is quoted in the Times as saying: “Like the sinking of the Titanic, catastrophes are not democratic. A much higher fraction of passengers from the cheaper decks were lost. We’ll see the same phenomenon with global warming.” Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations climate panel said: “The inequity of this whole situation is really enormous if you look at who’s responsible and who’s suffering as a result”.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to live in a western or developed country will have to face an interesting dilemma. It is our countries that have gained the most from extensive use of fossil fuels in the 150+ years since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Two-thirds of the atmospheric increase in the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide has come in nearly equal proportions from the United States and Western European countries. The carbon dioxide that our industrialized countries released during the past 150+ years will persist in the air for more than a century. So the documented increase in global temperatures today and that which will occur in the future are and will be primarily the result of activities that have and are taking place in the developed countries. Yet, for a number of geographic and demographic reasons, it will be the developing nations who will be least prepared to deal with the consequences of a warming Earth and, for a number of geographic and technological reasons, it will be the developed reason who are most prepared to adapt to changing ecological, agricultural, and economic environments. We in the developed countries will also be the most able to help others across the world dealing with the consequences of a changing Earth through economic and technological transfers and aid.

A major question to ponder will be how we in the United States and the Western European countries will respond to to the coming great moral challenges that will emerge as global warming exacerbates the disparities between the world’s rich and poor nations.

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The New York Times has a GRAPHIC showing Winners and Losers.

In response to my Letter to the Editor of the Nashua Telegraph, John Sununu writes his own letter to the newspaper and accuses me of fabrication.

My response is below.

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Sununu: Letter had erroneous information

The Nashua Telegraph: Published: Saturday, Mar. 24, 2007

I write to correct a series of false statements in a letter to the editor from Mr. Stephen Nodvin that appeared in The Telegraph on March 22 regarding climate change. As Congress examines this issue, your readers deserve the most accurate, objective information available.

The letter states, falsely, that prior to my election to the U.S. Senate, I headed an organization funded by Ex­xon Mobil, Chevron, Eli Lilly and Philip Morris, and that I ran a disinformation Web site regarding global warming funded by Exxon Mobil and Philip Morris. Both points are patently untrue.

Before being elected to the Senate in 2002, the residents of New Hampshire’s First Congressional District elected me to
three consecutive terms in the U. S. House of Representatives. Prior to 1996, I held the position of chief financial officer and director of operations for the Manchester, N.H.-based Teletrol Systems Inc., a manufacturer of information systems and networks.

The letter’s author and his colleagues did meet with my staff in Washington. However, at no time did they discuss global warming with my chief of staff, to whom Mr. Nodvin inaccurately attributes a quote in his letter.

Last year, I wrote legislation adding wilderness protection to 35,000 acres in the White Mountain National Forest. I have voted against the administration’s unfair new source pollution policy and supported tougher standards for mercury emissions from power plants. In 2005, I received recognition from Taxpayers for Common Sense, a bipartisan coalition, for my work on environmental issues.

I understand that no one will agree with my vote on every issue. But it is inexcusable for critics to resort to fabrication to score partisan, political points. The voters of New Hampshire deserve better.

U.S. Sen. John Sununu
R-New Hampshire

My response is below:

In a letter published in the Nashua Telegraph on March 24, 2007, Senator John Sununu accused me of "fabrication to score partisan, political points."  His statements were in response to my Letter to the Editor, published on March 22 in which I questioned the Senator’s motivation for being the first Republican Senator to call for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Every citizen has the right to question the motivations of her or his elected officials in Washington, whether they be congresspersons, senators, or the president.  That is one of the things that makes America such a great country.  However, I think it is another thing when a Senator accuses one of his constituents of purposely spreading partisan-based falsehoods.  I would like to take this opportunity to respond.

In his letter Mr. Sununu said that my "letter states, falsely, that prior to my election to the U.S. Senate, I headed an organization funded by Ex­xon Mobil, Chevron, Eli Lilly and Philip Morris, and that I ran a disinformation Web site regarding global warming funded by Exxon Mobil and Philip Morris. Both points are patently untrue."   

My training as a scientist compels me to not make any statements without having a basis either by direct observation or reference source. I my letter to the editor I sourced several published articles and the book Washington Babylon (page 13) which stated "John Sununu" headed Consumer Alert, the industry funded front group that had fought against improved automobile safety standards and had helped the establish and maintain the disinformation web-site: http://www.globalwarming.org .  I have now spoken with Ken Silverstein, one of the authors of the book Washington Babylon, who has informed me that the "John Sununu" referred to was actually the Senator’s father and former Chief of Staff in the first George Bush Whitehouse. 

I apologize to Senator Sununu for the incorrect attribution.  Both the father and the son go by the same first and last names and one of the sources that I used incorrectly attributed the association with Consumer Alert to the younger Sununu.

However, my observation that the Senator is a long-time climate change denier remains unchanged.  In a letter the senator sent to me on January 26, 2005, the Senator stated "scientists have been unable to agree that there is a direct increase between … temperature increase (during the second half of the 20^th century) and human activity."  This statement is, and was at the time, untrue or misleading at best.  While there are a handful of vociferous dissenters with scientific credentials, the overwhelming majority of scientists worldwide have reached the conclusion that human activity has been the primary cause of global warming during the past 40-50 years.  

In the Senator’s letter to the paper he states: "The letter’s author and his colleagues did meet with my staff in Washington. However, at no time did they discuss global warming with my chief of staff, to whom Mr. Nodvin inaccurately attributes a quote in his letter".  Mr. Sununu’s statement implies that we did not discuss global warming with his staff during our meeting.  The Senator’s statement is misleading because we did indeed discuss that issue. In my letter I did err in stating that I and two other scientists from New Hampshire met with Mr. Sununu’s "chief of staff."   I should have used the title "Legislative Assistant."

The staff person that we met with in the Senator’s office in Washington at 3:30 pm on September 20, 2005 to explicitly discuss global warming was Peter Phipps, the Senator’s Legislative Assistant for Environment, Energy, Elections, Telecom, and Agriculture.  It was Mr. Phipps who told the three New Hampshire scientists sitting in front of him that day that there was no scientific consensus on the cause of global warming.  It was astounding to us to hear such a statement from our Senator’s Legislative Assistant for Environment when we had explicitly traveled to Washington to inform our representatives that exactly the opposite was true.

The Senator’s implication that my questioning of his motives and actions were "partisan" and "political" follows a popular refrain among elected officials to cry "partisanship" when a citizen questions her or his representative’s actions.  My visit to the Hill on September 20, 2005 included meetings with staff members of all four of New Hampshire’s representatives in the House and the Senate.  It was only in Senator Sununu’s office that we scientists received a lecture on what scientists believe about global warming.  In fact, during our visit to Senator Gregg’s office, I was particularly impressed with the depth and awareness of Mr. Gregg’s Legislative Assistant for the Environment, with whom we spoke, about the problem of global warming. 

There were some unintentional errors in my letter to the Telegraph.  However, in his letter to the paper, Mr. Sununu never addressed the main issue of my concern which was why Mr. Sununu is now calling for the resignation of the Attorney General when he had formerly provided strong support for Gonzalez and his policies. 

The Senator’s current stance on the Attorney General contradicts the support Mr. Sununu provided to Mr. Gonzales in a letter the Senator sent to me on February 28, 2005.  In that letter, Senator Sununu not only supported Mr. Gonzales appointment to the post of Attorney General but, to my amazement, the Senator also defended Mr. Gonzalez’s and President Bush’s justifications of their circumvention of Geneva Convention protections.

Stephen C. Nodvin, Ph.D.

sununu

If you have not heard of Lyndon Larouche, you will soon.

Lyndon Larouche is:

• a convicted criminal who spent 6 years in prison for conspiracy and mail fraud
• a political extremist
• a conspiracy theorist
• a cult leader
• someone who has been accused to be an anti-Semite

Even the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation has said that Larouche “leads what may well be one of the strangest political groups in American history.”

But, above all, Larouche is an opportunist.

His tactics are well known:

1. Find high profile targets to attack
2. Develop a series of conspiracy theories that paint the targets as a cabal of Judas and the anti-Christ
3. Recruit young impressionable people to become “followers” of your “movement”

The most recent high profile targets that Larouche has chosen for his newest crusade are Al Gore and climate science.

Larouche’s cult-like minions have begun showing up at public forums on global warming and have been vacuuming e-mail addresses off the web to spam people with their new “expert” knowledge of all things science.

If you want to see some of the vitriol Larouche and his minions can spew, read Larouche’s attack on Gore called:

Blood and Gore.

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Below is an email that the Larouche people are using as a recruiting tool:

Greetings to contacts of the LaRouche Youth Movement in Boston!

Our organization is mobilized to destroy the reputation of mALthusian GORE, the buffoon most avidly promoting a neofeudal form of oligarchy and population reduction converging on genocide under the banner of ‘man-made Global Warming’. This, when the Democratic party must be MOVING in coordination with LaRouche to reorganize an utterly bankrupt world monetary-financial system and rebuild the physical economy. Al Gore’s popularity stunt is the latest plot by the Anglo-Dutch financial establishment to foster hysteria in the population and lure the global economy into a planet-wide Dark Age. We must ruin big, fat, loser Al Gore by exposing his vile past and blatant lies in order to establish Lyndon LaRouche’s undisputed leadership in the Democratic Party. Civilization is on the line…

Do Your Part!? Master this material and become a beacon of truth. Pass this e-mail on to your close contacts. This information is your survival kit for the present political period.

Recent Findings by 21st Century Science and Technology refute the scientific method of Al Gore’s IPCC.
http://www.larouchepac.com/pages/press_releases_files/2007/0223_inconvenient_gore.shtml
http://www.larouchepac.com/pages/press_releases_files/2007/0223_inconvenient_gore.shtml

The Great Global Warming Swindle: an excellent British documentary with leading scientists debunking the global warming fraud.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XttV2C6B8pU

LaRouche’s March 7 Webcast: “Implications of the Gore Hoax for International Policy”
http://www.larouchepac.com/pages/audio_video_files/2007/070307_webcast.shtml

An Article by an EIR Intelligence Team on Gore’s Connections to the British
http://www.larouchepac.com/pages/otherartic_files/2007/0312_blood_gore.shtml

A Thorough Annihilation of the Global Warming Fraud by a leading glaciologist
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/2007_10-19/2007-11/pdf/38_711_science.pdf

http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/2007_10-19/2007-11/pdf/38_711_science.pdf

The email talks about: “LaRouche’s undisputed leadership in the Democratic Party. Civilization is on the line…”

If that sounds just a bit egomaniacal to you, you are beginning to get the point of where these people are coming from.

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Here are some responses to these attacks:

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The “documentary”, “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, that the Larouche followers point to as “definitive proof” that global warming is not a problem.

This film is a fraud and a sham. It uses every trick in the book to deceive its viewers and it has been debunked:

• Desmoblog debunking the film
• A PowerPoint dissecting the falsehoods in the film
• A full page video version of the above PowerPoint Presentation
• Google video of the PowerPoint
• A dissection by Monbiot
• Another Monbiot analysis
• A Rebuttal (pdf) to the film put together by Colin Chase
• British Antarctic Survey response to the film
• An analysis of the errors in the film by The Independent

Most of the people who appear in the film are NOT respected climate scientists but long-time climate deniers: many of who have received significant funding from companies like ExxonMobil and Philip Morris. The arguments used are the same warmed-over arguments that have been thoroughly and carefully considered by the majority of climate scientists… and rejected.

According to George Monbiot, “this is not the first time that the director, Martin Durkin, produced a film full of fraud attempting to make the same points. In 1997, Durkin, produced very similar film series called “Against Nature”, which also maintained that global warming was a scam dreamt up by environmentalists. It was riddled with hilarious scientific howlers. More damagingly, the only way in which Durkin could sustain his thesis was to deceive the people he interviewed and to edit their answers to change their meaning. Following complaints by his interviewees, the Independent Television Commission found that “the views of the four complainants, as made clear to the interviewer, had been distorted by selective editing” and that they had been “misled as to the content and purpose of the programmes when they agreed to take part.” Channel 4 was obliged to broadcast one of the most humiliating primetime apologies it has ever made. Are institutional memories really so short?”

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Larouche’s followers are waiving a supposed published “scientific paper” to support their claims:
http://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/2007_10-19/2007-11/pdf/38_711_science.pdf
The supposed “scientific paper” published in something called: “EIR Intelligence”This article is NOT a peer-reviewed scientific paper and the NEITHER is EIR a scientific journal.

• The article is NOT a peer-reviewed scientific article. It is mocked up pretty professionally to to look like one to get unsuspecting people to think it is one.
• If you look at the “article”, you will see n the bottom left hand corner the word “Science.” This is an obvious attempt to confuse the unsuspecting readier into thinking that this was printed in the journal Science
  which is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). I am a member of AAAS and I can assure you that the journal Science would never publish this.
  • Here is a link to the real journal Science:
    http://www.sciencemag.org/
  • And here is a link to a statement on climate change approved and
    released by the board of AAAS.
    
    http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/0218am_statement.shtml
• EIR (Executive Intelligence Review) is NOT a scientific journal but nothing more than a publication and press service produced by the Larouche organizaion.
• The article lists as its author Zbigniew Jaworowski: a known long-term climate-change denier. His arguments are not new, have been considered and dismissed by the scientific community.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Jaworowski
  
  http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Zbigniew_Jaworowski

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Larouche’s followers have used other “EIR” publications in their arguments (which have to be dismissed out of hand since they have no scientific credibility) and also unpublished manuscripts to support their claims:

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Chris Merchant of University of Edinburgh did an excellent job of the techniques that were used in the “Swindle” file to confuse and convince people of the anti-global warming ideology. The Larouche followers are using the same techniques. These techniques are very effective in persuading people who have a poor understanding of the process of critical thinking.The techniques are:

• Prepare slick-looking polemical presentations including films and documents that “appear” to have an air of credibility.
• Incorporate many half-truths - people who are “already in your court” are ready and willing to believe: just give them something that sounds that it could be truthful (Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness”)
• Provide false dichotomies: most people are easily fooled by the use of the false dichotomy
• Use selective or even distorted data
• Use Ad hominen attacks. Forget reality: attack the messenger. Attack those money-grubbing climate scientists and that liberal Al Gore. People will believe you more if you get them first angry at the other side. (If you are going use this technique, you might as well lie when smearing the messenger: people who buy this approach are already NOT thinking about the content of your arguments).
• Appeal to authority: Make sure to find at least a few people with advanced degrees to support your arguments. It won’t matter to the “true believers” in your audience or those easily persuaded that your “experts” represent only a tiny fraction of the population of scientist and experts who might be working in this field. Your audience won’t know that hundreds of peer-reviewed papers and thousands of other scientists disagree with “your experts.”
• Finally, quote out of context. Al Gore NEVER said that he “invented the Internet”. Doesn’t matter. That did not stop people from taking his words out of context and from endlessly repeating that and other misquotes to paint Gore in a bad light when he was running for President in 2000.

After years of inaction, the U.S. Congress has finally taken a step forward on the global warming issue: they formed a committee! Politicians love to form committees rather than take action. And to make sure this committee cannot take actions, it is explicitly forbidden in the legislation “to have have any legislative jurisdiction and nor any authority to take legislative action on any bill or resolution”. But, hey, at least the legislation does give the committee authority to “to investigate, study, make findings, and develop recommendations on policies, strategies, technologies and other innovations, intended to reduce the dependence of the United States on foreign sources of energy and achieve substantial and permanent reductions in emissions and other activities that contribute to climate change and global warming.”

The name of the committee being formed is the “Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.” The legislation allows that 6 of the 15 committeemembers “be appointed on the recommendation of the Minority Leader”. Not missing a beat, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) made sure to pack the Republican side with long-term climate-change deniers:

Congressman James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, Ranking Member
Congressman John Shadegg of Arizona
Congressman Greg Walden of Oregon
Congressman John Sullivan of Oklahoma
Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee
Congresswoman Candice Miller of Michigan

“Selecting a panel that is comprised almost exclusively of people that still question the basic science behind global warming is not a good indicator that this committee is going to be able to move forward,” said Ben Dunham, a staff attorney at U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

Hello?! Sensenbrenner made sure to highlight the potential lack of progress by attempting to redefine the committees role in an announcement on his website:

“Recent fluctuations in the Earth’s climates and temperatures have led to numerous sensational headlines describing an eminent doomsday scenario. It will be this panel’s responsibility to examine the big questions as to why, and to what extent are humans contributing to these periods of fluctuation, and how can we take steps to eliminate that impact”.

Of course it is not the panel’s responsibility to examine these questions as described in the legislation nor are these questions an ongoing matter of debate in the scientific community.

Recently, what appears to be a corporate-funded, industry front group, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, has severely criticized Al Gore for his energy use. The “Report” from the group appears to have been well timed to have been released just after the film “An Inconvenient Truth” won two Oscars at this year’s Academy Awards.

It is easy to criticize. Certainly Al Gore is the biggest target both for people who don’t like him to begin with (remember the state of Tennessee voted against its own native son in the 2000 presidential elections) and for the naysayers and cynics determined to not take any action to stabilize the climate.

This is not to condone or condemn. Certainly it would be ideal if Mr. Gore’s houses, operations, and activities were “off the grid” and fossil fuels played no role in his activities. (Solar panels are now being installed at Gore’s home).
But let’s put things in perspective. In 2005, Americans used almost 100 Quadrillion British Thermal Units of energy.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0105.html

Here is a diagram of the historical energy use in the United States:

Energy Consumption by Source, 1635-2000 (Quadrillion Btu)

Note that most renewables (solar, wind, etc.) are such a small part of total consumption, they don’t even make it onto the chart!

The magnitude of fossil fuel energy use today is so huge that it is entirely possible for any one individual, company, or organization to become carbon neutral through offsets. One can think of this as paying a premium for one’s energy use to ensure that all of the energy one uses is replaced in the system by renewable sources of energy.

Some ski resorts in the northeast are becoming “carbon neutral” by ensuring that every bit of energy that they use to make artificial snow is “generated” by windmills. Do these ski resorts have windmills on-site? NO! But they pay a premium to ensure that every bit of energy that they consume locally is replaced on the national grid by energy generated by windmills thousands of miles away from their locations.
Here is an article:
http://www.boston.com/business/gl…..to_the_trail_of_environmentalism/
And her is a diagram showing how this works:
http://www.boston.com/business/gl…../articles/2007/01/26/making_snow/

The article in the Tennessean:
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pb…..le?AID=/20070227/NEWS01/702270382
did describe Al’s offsets briefly “$432 a month Gore paid extra for solar or other renewable energy sources”. It also stated : “The home’s average monthly electric bill last year was just under $1,200″ and “In addition to the electric bill, the natural gas bill for Gore’s home and guesthouse ran $1,080 per month last year.”. Using those numbers that is about $2280 per month in energy bills.

If, as the article says, Mr. Gore is paying $432 a month for energy offsets, that is equivalent to an 19% “carbon tax” that Al and Tipper are paying to be “carbon neutral.”

Should Mr. Gore’s energy tax be larger than 19%. Perhaps. But remember this number does not take into account other direct monetary contributions made by Mr. Gore towards energy offsets and conservation (including sales from his books and the film) nor does it take into account the offsets and new energy efficiencies now being put into place by individuals, corporations, and governments who have be inspired to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Of course the report by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research criticizing Mr. Gore never mentions the offsets.
http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=367

So just who is the “Tennessee Center for Policy Research” and this new Gore critic Drew Johnson, president of this center?

From its tax filings, it is pretty hard to figure out just what this center is about:
http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org/9…..amp;yr=200512&rt=990&t9=A

Apparently it is a relatively new group with its first 990 filling being for 2005. The form shows and annual funding of about $100K. But it is pretty weird in that no officers are listed. No employees are listed since the total paid in wages is $48K and the form only requires that employees earning more than $50K be identified (a coincidence?).

Well, we can find more information on the “Center’s” web page:
http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=89

“Prior to founding TCPR, he served as a policy analyst at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation where he authored “The Return of Fuzzy Math and Risky Schemes: How Presidential Hopefuls Would Deepen Deficits,” a major influence for the increased focus on government spending in the 2004 presidential election.In 2002, while at the American Enterprise Institute, Johnson’s research on the link between increased campaign finance regulation and rates of incumbent reelection served as the empirical backbone in the Supreme Court Case “McConnell v. FEC.” As a research analyst for the Modern Red Schoolhouse Institute in Nashville, he examined state educational standards, education reform and pedagogical use of technology.
A former Institute for Humane Studies Koch Fellow, Johnson recently completed his third term on the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth. He also sits on the Board of Directors of the Marketplace.MD Foundation. A native of Johnson City, Tennessee, Johnson holds a bachelors degree from Belmont University and a Master of Public Policy degree from Pepperdine University.”

Anybody see any red flags?

* The “National Taxpayers Union” has received funding from Philip Morris and the Tobacco Institute:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index……tional_Taxpayers_Union_Foundation
* The American Enterprise Institute is a know highly conservative think tank, receives funding from extreme conservative foundations such as the Scaife Foundations, and has received significant funding from Philip Morris and ExxonMobil.
AEI has on its staff conservative luminaries including Robert H. Bork, Lynne Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and Richard Perle.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index……tle=American_Enterprise_Institute
* The Institute for Humane Studies: “acts as a libertarian talent scout, identifying, developing, and supporting the brightest young libertarians it can find who are intent on a leveraged scholarly, or intellectual, career path… The Institute receives funding from a number of large libertarian and right-wing foundations, including the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Koch Family Foundations, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and the Carthage Foundation.”
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index……itle=Institute_for_Humane_Studies
* The Koch Family Foundation “consist of the David H. Koch Foundation, the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, and the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation… Funding for the foundations comes from the conglomerate Koch Industries, the ‘nation’s largest privately held energy company, with annual revenues of more than $25 billion. … Koch Industries is now the second largest family-owned business in the U.S., with annual sales of over $20 billion.’
‘The company is owned by two of the richest men in America,’ David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch (described as ‘reclusive billionaires’), who have a combined personal fortune estimated at more than $3 billion and who have emerged as major Republican contributors in recent years. … Both David and Charles Koch are ranked among the 50 richest people in the country by ‘Forbes’.
The foundations are financed via the oil and gas fortunes of Fred G. Koch, a founding member of the John Birch Society. David is a libertarian who ‘provides a significant amount of funding for the Cato Institute’s $4 million annual budget.’”
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_Family_Foundations

So we don’t know who exactly is funding the “Tennessee Center for Policy Research” or its President Drew Johnson. But Johnson sure does have significant ties to conservative groups and energy corporations. Is Johnson’s “Center” just another industry funded front-group?

All I can say is:
Let him who is without sin cast the first stone

After years of first denying global warming was occurring, then admitting it was occurring but that it was “natural” (and that humans could not have anything possibly to do with warming on a global scale, now one of the lead deniers, Patrick Michaels (ExxonMobil funded), now says that scientists of course knew that green house gases would eventually result in a warming Earth but that we just better “Live with it” because there is nothing humans can do about it!

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Climate deniers through the years…(scroll down to see the history)  

Jeff Foster has written to me about a new project his company, Symmetric Technologies, has started.The project is a social change/environmental awareness project:

OneBillionBulbs.com.

The group’s goal is to get large numbers of people to try a few compact fluorescent (CFL) light bulbs by highlighting the cost savings, energy savings and reduced greenhouse gas emissions that these small changes can bring about.

They are trying to make the process fun by showing a big color-coded map and allowing people to join various affinity groups. It’s our hope that this will show how people making small changes together can make a significant difference.

It is a great idea to switch to Compact Florescent Lamps. The bulbs fit in the standard sockets as those of incandescent lights but use significantly less energy.

Another emerging technology for the replacement of energy inefficient incandescent lamps are bulbs that utilize Light Emitting Diodes (some are calling these LEDisons since they replace the original Edison incandescent bulbs). This emerging technology is called Solid State Lighting (SSL).

Lighting technologies are improving but higer efficiency CFL and LED bulbs are available now.  When you switch over, be sure to register at OneBillionBulbs.com.