IN TODAY’S AUDIO REPORT: “ClimateGate” climate scientist cleared of wrongdoing; Hope for Bluefin Tuna; Big Oil and Coal fight to keep subsidies; PLUS: Obama’s mixed signals on cap-and-trade legislation… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.
IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’: Pentagon says climate change a national security issue; Studies find faster tree growth as climate changes; Bangladesh risks becoming failed state; Hawaii may impose oil tax; Packaged salads may contain E. coli bacteria; Oil, trucking industries sue CA over fuel rule; Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-TX) gets $100K from gas well stake; Utah gov gets $10K from coal co. seeking permit … PLUS: A must-Listen NPR Report: Mining Giant Must Clean Up Mess….
Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today’s episode follow below…
- Climate Scientist Cleared in ‘ClimateGate’:
- Researcher on Climate Is Cleared in Inquiry (NY Times)
- Penn State investigates researcher over “Climate-gate” (Washington Post)
- Climate change researchers must be more open, says chief scientist (Guardian UK)
- Inquiry Report: Concerning the Allegations of Research Misconduct Against Dr. Michael E. Mann (Penn State University)
- Hope for Bluefin Tuna on the Brink of Extinction:
- France to support bluefin tuna trade ban (Reuters)
- Mixed signals on fate of Cap-N-Trade:
- Sen. Graham Slams Push for a ‘Half-Assed Energy Bill’ (Greenwire)
- Administration Presses On for a ‘Cap’ on Carbon Emissions (Greenwire):
According to Browner, the president simply was making an observation about the current Senate process, before saying “this is what I want to do.” In his speech, Obama later emphasized that there was going to be a price on pollution and referred to the acid rain program, which used a cap-and-trade system to successfully curb sulfur dioxide emissions in the 1990s.
- Obama, Graham Warn Dems Not to Settle For “Half-Assed” Climate Bill (Mother Jones)
- Graham Calls Energy-Only Idea “Half-Assed” (The New Republic)
- Obama Pushes Energy Plan That GOP May Support (NY Times)
- Negative Energy: A key bloc of Democrats has a climate Plan B: Ditch cap and trade for an energy bill filled with industry giveaways. (Mother Jones)
- Obama Acknowledges Senate Unlikely To Adopt Pollution Limits (Talking Points Memo)
- TRANSCRIPT: Sen. Lindsey Graham on the importance of passing climate legislation (Grist) [emphasis added]:
If the lesson from health care is let’s not do anything hard, then why don’t we all go home, which might be good for the country by the way. But if we go home, China won’t.
…
I’ve become convinced that carbon pollution is a bad thing, not a good thing, and it can be dealt with, and we can create jobs.This is the time, this is the Congress, and this is the moment. So if we retreat and try to just go to the energy-only approach””which will never yield the legislative results that I want on energy independence””then we just made the problem worse.
What Congress is going to come up here and do all these hard things? Who are these people in the future? Because we constantly count on them. I don’t know who they are. I’ve yet to find them.
So I guess it falls to me and you. So let’s do it.
- Meanwhile, China Pulls Ahead in Wind Energy:
- China doubles wind power in 1 year (Business Week)
- China’s Labor Edge Overpowers Obama’s ‘Green’ Jobs Initiatives (Bloomberg)
- Big Oil & Big Coal Fight to Keep Handouts:
- Oil Industry: We Like Our Handouts! (Mother Jones)
- Kentucky legislators criticize plan to cut coal subsidies (McClatchy DC)
- Obama Budget Erases Fossil Fuel Subsidies, Ramps Up Nuclear Spending; Clean Energy Comes Out a Winner (SolveClimate.org)
- Oil and gas interests set spending record in 2009 (Greenwire)
- Big Oil’s Big Year (Mother Jones)
- Who’s Afraid of a Clean-Energy Future? (Wall St. Journal)
- REPORT: Estimating U.S. Government Subsidies to Energy Sources: 2002-2008 (Environmental Law Institute)
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’: More green news not covered in today’s audio report…
- Pentagon: ‘Climate Change, Energy Security, And Economic Stability Are Inextricably Linked’ (Think Progress)
- Studies Find Faster Tree Growth as Climate Changes, Potential to Drive Further Warming (Solve Climate.org)
- Oil, Trucking Industries Sue Calif. Over Fuel Rule (NY Times)
- Bangladesh risks becoming failed state, retired general says (Reuters)
- Hawaii considers taxing oil to pay for renewables (Business Week)
- ICK!: Packaged Salad Can Contain High Levels of Bacteria (Civil Eats)
- U.S. Rep. Joe Barton’s gas well stake raises ethical questions (Dallas Morning News)
- Utah gov given $10,000 by coal co. seeking permit (Business Week)
- NPR: A Toxic Century — Mining Giant Must Clean Up Mess: In December, the Justice Department announced a settlement in one of the largest environmental bankruptcies in U.S. history. The American Smelting and Refining Company, known as Asarco, will pay a record $1.79 billion to settle claims for hazardous waste pollution at 80 sites in as many as 20 states. (NPR)
















The national media’s continued silence on ClimateGate and increasing revelations of outright fraud and wrongdoing at all levels of government, academia and the media itself, tells the truth of the tail. That truth is there’s a lot more to this ClimateGate story than what little is being reported. The small (2 to 3 dozen) international cabal of climate scientists could not have possibly gotten to this point without extraordinary funding, political support at virtually all levels of government, especially at the national level and unparalleled cooperation from the national and world media. This wide-spread networked support continues even as we the people puzzle over what this is all about. I ask you, “What are you seeing and hearing from our national media on the subject?” Anything? What are you seeing and hearing from all levels of our government, local and regional newspapers and media outlets? Anything of substance? At all of these levels the chatter has remained remarkably quite on the subject, wouldn’t you say? Why? What points and positions are you beginning to hear on the radio and see on the television? This cabal of scientists has an unprecedented level of support given the revelations contained in the emails, documented in the computer software code and elaborated in the associated programmer remarks (REM) within the code. And —- this has gone on for years, AND continues even in the presence of the most damning evidence one could imagine, or even hope for. Watergate pales in comparison, given the trillions of dollars in carbon offset taxes, cap & trade fees hanging in the balance and the unimaginable political control over people’s lives this all implies. The mainstream media’s conspiracy of silence proves the point. Their continued cover-up is as much a part of this crime as the actual scientific fraud. ABC, CBS and NBC are simply co-conspirators exercising their 5th Amendment rights.
I’ll give you a warning this time, John. Our rules are very few here at The BRAD BLOG, but knowingly spreading dis-information and mis-information is a ban-able offense here.
We’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you were somehow unaware of the volumes of weeks-long coverage in the broadcast, cable, print and online media of the hacked and stolen emails from climate scientists that the climate change denial industry dubbed “Climategate”.
CNN alone devoted an entire week of primetime programming on the Campbell Brown Show alone, investigating and examining the allegations. The broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) covered the story for a full week in their national newscasts. The print and online media published mountains of stories thoroughly examining and investigating the story.
The only part of the story the mainstream media has ignored has been the exoneration of the scientists showing they committed no scientific misconduct.
None of your allegations are true, period.
There is no ‘conspiracy of silence’ except for those people for whom no amount of corroborated evidence or fact will sway their deeply held “beliefs”.
There is nothing in those emails, the climate models, or ANY of the research from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (the research organization involved in the stolen emails) that overturns the basic physics of the interaction of C02 with sunlight, or the basic chemistry of CO2 interaction with seawater.
There is nothing in those emails that overturns the conclusions of NASA, the World Meteorological Organization or every major scientific organization around the world that the last decade was the hottest in the instrument record.
There is nothing in those emails or in the climate models or even the coding that overturns ANY of the field data gathered over the decades across all Earth systems disciplines of human-caused climate change, all of which was gathered independently of the few climate scientists involved in the hacked email controversy.
In short, the only “conspiracy” over the hacked and stolen emails is the continued push from the climate change denial industry to flog this dead and fully debunked horse. You’ve been had.
If you would like to return to the reality-based world, please go to SkepticalScience.com and get the facts.
Next time, before you post, first educate yourself on the facts and remember that we do will not tolerate knowingly spreading mis- or dis-information. You’ve been warned.
We won the election and now these sore losers will continue to spew your hate with lies. The way our courts work is that you get a competent lawyer, verifiable facts and present them to a judge, if the facts are real and not half baked lies, then, and only then, you proceed to trial. The Birthers seem to be having a problem with their so called facts that they present. Let’s face it no one will go along with you until you guys win a case, but until then, you will continue to appear dumb, crazy or racist, or maybe all three. Keep plucking that chicken.