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Climate Change Tag

The UK Daily Mail just published startling evidence that the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to release a widely-cited paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the Paris Agreement on climate change.
A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.

Those of you concerned about Barack Obama's future once he leaves the White House in less than two weeks can now rest easy. Apparently, he has decided to start a second career as a climate scientist! The soon-to-be-former President of the United States had a policy paper that just published in Science (hat tip Willis Eschenbach posting in Watts Up With That).

Eric Holthaus is a meteorologist who writes at Slate.com. Rolling Stone calls him the "Rebel Nerd of Meteorology":
Last fall, meteorologist Eric Holthaus was waiting for a plane in San Francisco when he made a life-changing decision. He'd just finished pitching Silicon Valley on an app that would bring quality forecasts to underdeveloped countries suffering from climate change-related storms. Investors were less than enthused. "These are the people controlling the world's forward-thinking economy, and they don't get we have to take drastic action on climate change," he says. So Holthaus made a bold stance to forever reduce his own carbon emissions: The flight home to Wisconsin would be the last time he'd ever get on a plane.

While progressives decry fossil fuel use as the source of our climate change woes, Mother Nature may be presenting us a more serious, immediate and real threat. Most Americans are familiar with our supervolcano in Yellowstone. However, there is one in Italy that shows signs of potential activity.
A massive supervolcano under the city of Naples, Italy, is showing signs of life again, prompting concern among some scientists. The Campi Flegrei, Italian for "burning fields," that make up the vocano's crater, or caldera, have been full of boiling mud, steam, and even smaller volcanoes for centuries. The people of ancient Rome believed the area to be the home of the Roman god of fire and volcanoes, Vulcan. Today, the fields are a popular tourist destination. But the caldera has been showing signs of an explosive awakening since 2012, and a new study indicates that a destructive eruption of the volcano could be coming soon.

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama invoked a provision of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands act, a law from 1953, that allowed him to place "a permanent drilling ban on portions of the ocean floor from Virginia to Maine and along much of Alaska's coast." Overall, it adds up to almost 120 million acres! No other president has used this provision to protect such a large part of federal waters before and he promised not even President-elect Donald Trump could undo this declaration. But Alaska lawmakers Sen. Dan Sullivan, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and Rep. Dan Young said they want to find a way to draft legislation to overturn Obama's actions:
"The sweeping withdrawal disrespects the Alaskan people, is not based on sound science, and contradicts the administration's own conclusions about Arctic development," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young said late Tuesday. "It will have lasting consequences for Alaska's economy, state finances, and the security and competitiveness of the nation. In making the decision, President Obama yet again sided with extreme environmentalists, while betraying his utter lack of commitment to improving the lives of the people who actually live in the Arctic."

Trump's election has certainly heated the imaginations of climate change alarmists. The Washington Post published an editorial that now places the blame for global warming on the Electoral College, as the elections of George W. Bush and Donald Trump through our constitutional process has made anthropogenic climate change nearly impossible to stop. Todd Cort, the co-director of the Yale Center for Business and the Environment, takes us on a fascinating theoretical journey that clearly passes Reason and Sanity Junction:
...In 2000, George W. Bush was elected U.S. president despite losing the popular vote to Al Gore. In 2008, the Bush administration released a document on his legacy claiming sweeping protections for the environment while in office. Yet there was little progress on climate change because the administration resisted it. Under the Bush administration, the U.S. exited the Kyoto agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, declined to regulate carbon dioxide emissions for coal fired power plants under the U.S. Clean Air Act, and worked to limit the authority of regulatory agencies to prevent climate change impacts. In contrast, Al Gore went on to fame and a Nobel Peace Prize for his work to raise awareness of climate change.

The flood of Wikileaks emails that were released in late October featured several involving Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., who is on the faculty of the University of Colorado as a professor in the Environmental Studies Program. Pielke is no skeptic of man-made warming; however, he did challenge a cherished climate alarmist talking point that global warming was making extreme weather more severe. The Wikileaks emails made it clear that he was Climate Justice Enemy #1 and was being targeted by an organized campaign to smear his reputation and his ability to advocate for sound science-based policies by ClimateProgress (which is part of the Center for American Progress Action Fund created by John Podesta).

Scientists reviewing the logbooks of polar explorers such as Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton show there has been no significant melting of the continent's ice sheets.
Experts were concerned that ice at the South Pole had declined significantly since the 1950s, which they feared was driven by man-made climate change. But new analysis suggests that conditions are now virtually identical to when the Terra Nova and Endurance sailed to the continent in the early 1900s, indicating that declines are part of a natural cycle and not the result of global warming.

It has been fascinating to watch the the elite media and Washington insiders reactions to the speed and efficiency of Trump's transition team organization and appointee selection. With so much happening so quickly, I wanted to keep an eye on one of the most troubling agencies under the Obama Administration: The Environmental Protection Agency. The response of the big government bureaucrats in the EPA is likely to offer a clue about how they are going to behave in other federal organizations. Legal Insurrection readers may recall that 27% of federal employees claimed they would quit their jobs if Donald Trump was elected. However, instead of quitting, it's more likely they'll exit a little less gracefully.

Once upon a time, soccer and piano lessons were the preferred extra-curricular options for teens. Now social justice warfare may be the thrilling, new, after-school activity. A group of American kids are suing the federal government demanding "climate action."
“We are standing here to fight and protect everything that we love—from our land to our waters to the mountains to the rivers and forests,” Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, a 16-year-old plaintiff in the case told supporters after a hearing in Eugene, Ore. this fall. “This is the moment where we decide what kind of legacy we are going to leave behind for future generations.”

President-Elect Donald Trump is probably experiencing the shortest honeymoon in American political history. He is the target of massive protests and the focus of riotous mobs, before he even takes the oath of office let alone signs his first law or executive order. Furthermore, he is taking no time off when it comes to preparing his team to undo the Obama Administration's economy-crushing policies. Case-in-point: Trump is looking for ways to extract the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement.
A source on Trump’s transition team told Reuters that the team was looking for ways to bypass the procedure to leave the Paris accord, which was agreed upon last December. Trump has previously stated his disbelief in global warming. Other global governments, including China, have expressed their reaffirming support for the deal. "It was reckless for the Paris agreement to enter into force before the election,” the source told Reuters on Tuesday.

A few weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency rolled out a brand new "Climate Justice" program.
This initiative would be incomplete, however, if it did not target those most disproportionately impacted by climate change. It has been well documented that the impacts of a warming and increasingly unstable climate are already weighing more heavily on underserved, low-income, minority, and tribal communities.
As with Obamacare, Americans who believe that this new program is actually going to improve their lives will be...deeply disappointed.

It appears as if the elite media is actually participating in conservation efforts...by recycling old stories of humanity's impending doom. About one year ago, news outlets were reporting that the Earth has entered a sixth mass extinction phase, with animals now dying out at 100 times the normal rate. In my detailed analysis of the other 5 extinction level events, I noted than mankind played absolutely no role. In fact, the Permian extinction wiped out 95% of all lifeforms. Unless therapsids were driving S.U.V.'s or had air conditioning, it is difficult to condemn fossil fuels as the cause of such a massive loss of species. Obviously, we have not been sufficiently scared. So, now a new new report has been released asserting that over 60 percent of species will be gone in four short years.

The recent batch of Wikileaks email featuring the wit and wisdom of John Podesta may not be as dramatic or entertaining as those featuring pleas to sober Hillary Clinton up after an afternoon drinking session. However, they do reveal what life will be like for climate science skeptics under her regime administration. Take the case of Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., who is on the faculty of the University of Colorado as a professor in the Environmental Studies Program. He used to write often about global warming issues. While Pielke is no skeptic of man-made warming, he did challenge a cherished climate alarmist talking point that global warming was making extreme weather more severe.

Now that the Paris Climate accords targeting carbon dioxide are being implemented, with regulatory restrictions and wealth redistribution systems being firmly established, climate alarmists need a new target. It appears they have quickly found one: Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).
Nearly 200 nations have reached a deal to limit the use of greenhouse gases far more powerful than carbon dioxide in a major effort to fight climate change. The talks on hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, have been called the first test of global will since the historic Paris Agreement to cut carbon emissions was reached last year. HFCs are described as the world's fastest-growing climate pollutant and are used in air conditioners and refrigerators.