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Keystone XL Won’t Worsen Climate, State Dept. Study Finds

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Photo Credit: shannonpatrick17The proposed Keystone XL pipeline cleared a key hurdle today with a government study that found its impact on the climate would be minimal, which supporters said meets President Barack Obama’s test for allowing the project to be built.

In its final environmental review, the U.S. State Department found the Canada-U.S. oil pipeline would not greatly increase carbon emissions because the oil sands in Alberta will be developed anyway.

The study, while not the final word, is important because Obama has said he wouldn’t approve Keystone if it would exacerbate carbon pollution. Now the pipeline’s fate comes down to broader questions about whether the project is in the U.S. national interest, weighing matters such as energy needs and diplomatic relations.

“We are one step closer toward approval of the Keystone XL pipeline,” Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat and pipeline supporter, said in a statement. “Not only is it unacceptable, but it’s embarrassing that we cannot approve a pipeline application in the time it took us to fight World War II.”

TransCanada Corp. (TRP) applied more than five years ago for a permit to build the pipeline through the U.S. heartland, connecting the oil sands with refineries along the coast of Texas and Louisiana. It’s planned 830,000-barrel-a-day capacity would represent a fraction of U.S. oil imports, though the $5.4 billion project has spawned a multimillion-dollar lobbying fight and is forcing Obama to choose between angering an ally in Canada or his supporters in the environmental movement.

Read more from this story HERE.

Unconscionable: Billions Spent on Climate Change While Veterans’ Pay Gets Cut

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Photo by Gandydancer

Photo by Gandydancer

As Congress prepares to open session this year, Washington is abuzz about the Obama Administration’s intentions to finally take action on global warming, a.k.a. “climate change.”

Ironically, record snowfall is slamming the northeast, while the Midwest has passed into the deep-freeze with unprecedented temperatures as low as -40 degrees, and windchills registering in at -70.

In the mean time, China and Russia are petitioning the United States Coast Guard to assist with the rescue of two stranded ships off Antarctica that were trapped in the summer sea ice while ostensibly studying the effects of “climate change.”

Nevertheless, it was reported this past weekend that, between 2010-2012, the federal government had dished out more than $7.4 billion in foreign aid to mitigate the effects of “climate change.”

Why do I bring this up? Because it is indicative of the kind of big government nonsense that has preoccupied Washington for the last twenty years. And it is “Exhibit A” for why we are $17.4 trillion in debt, and counting . . .

Yet Barack Obama’s favorite Alaskan lapdog, Senator Mark Begich, had no problem voting for a Ryan-Murray budget that slashed military retirement pay for our veterans, and all for the purpose of reportedly saving $6 billion over the course of the next several years.

It’s time to tell Congress to get real! When Washington can blow more money on foreign aid on fairy-tale solutions to a questionable phenomenon, than to keep their commitments to our nation’s veterans, there’s something desperately wrong.

When I’m elected to the United States Senate, you won’t have to wonder whether I’m going to scam your money to fund this internationalist racket. I won’t. But you can be assured that I will fight every day to make sure our military veterans are taken care of, and you can take that to the bank.

In fact, if Congress doesn’t address this outrageous betrayal of our military before I’m sworn in as your next United States Senator, I’ll personally introduce legislation to strip so-called “climate change” funding from the foreign aid budget, and fund our military veterans with the savings.

Mark Begich and both of my GOP primary opponents are all subscribers to the international climate change racket. If that’s your thing, you’ll have lots of options in 2014. But if you want someone who will stand up to this massive federal intrusion, I ask for your support.

Thank you for your faith and friendship!

In the Fight,

Joe Miller, Candidate
United States Senate

O’s Executive Order On Climate Change: ‘Excessively High Temperatures’ are ‘Already’ Harming Public Health

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Photo Credit: the bridge/flickr

Photo Credit: the bridge/flickr

In his executive order on climate change, Obama warned that too much rain – and not enough rain – also dictated that executive action against climate fluctuations:

“The impacts of climate change — including an increase in prolonged periods of excessively high temperatures, more heavy downpours, an increase in wildfires, more severe droughts, permafrost thawing, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise — are already affecting communities, natural resources, ecosystems, economies, and public health across the Nation. These impacts are often most significant for communities that already face economic or health-related challenges, and for species and habitats that are already facing other pressures.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Americans Spent $7.45B in 3 Years Helping Other Countries Deal with ‘Climate Change’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/POLFOTO, Claus Bjorn Larsen

Photo Credit: AP Photo/POLFOTO, Claus Bjorn Larsen

American taxpayers spent $7.45 billion to help developing countries cope with climate change in fiscal years 2010 through 2012, according to a federal government report submitted to the United Nations on a subject that Secretary of State John Kerry described as “a truly life-and-death challenge.”

That sum of $7.45 billion, which reached more than 120 countries through bilateral and multilateral channels, met President Obama’s “commitment to provide our fair share” of a collective pledge by developed nations to provide a total of nearly $30 billion in “fast start finance” (FSF), the report stated.

The pledge was made at a Dec. 2009 U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, and the FSF funding aims to support developing countries adapt to and cope with phenomena blamed on climate change, such as droughts and rising sea levels.

“International assistance for climate change continues to be a major priority for the United States,” the administration said in its “Climate Action Report,” submitted to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on Wednesday.

Read more from this story about what Americans spent on climate change HERE.

Obama Adds Climate Change Initiatives to List of Executive Branch Power Grabs

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Photo Credit: NOAAThrough the stroke of a pen, President Obama on Friday used his executive powers to elevate and take control of climate change policies in an attempt to streamline sustainability initiatives – and potentially skirt legislative oversight and push a federal agenda on states.

The executive order establishes a task force of state and local officials to advise the administration on how to respond to severe storms, wildfires, droughts and other potential impacts of climate change. The task force includes governors of seven states — all Democrats — and the Republican governor of Guam, a U.S. territory. Fourteen mayors and two other local leaders also will serve on the task force.

All but three of those appointed are Democrats. The task force will look at federal money spent on roads, bridges, flood control and other projects. It ultimately will recommend how structures can be made more resilient to the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and warming temperatures.

“We’re going to need to get prepared. And that’s why this plan will also protect critical sectors of our economy and prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change that we cannot avoid,” Obama said last June, when he first launched a Climate Action Plan.

“States and cities across the country are already taking it upon themselves to get ready… And we’ll partner with communities seeking help to prepare for droughts and floods, reduce the risk of wildfires, protect the dunes and wetlands that pull double duty as green space and as natural storm barriers.”

Read more from this story HERE.

The Climate-Change Circus

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picture - Earth - climate changeFor the first time, an assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be widely judged more for what it says about the IPCC than for what it says about the climate. Its 2007 predecessor bombed during the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference as a number of errors came to light. “The mistakes all appear to have gone in the direction of making it seem like climate change is more serious by overstating the impact,” Bob Watson, a former IPCC chairman, conceded. “That is worrying.”

The IPCC fifth assessment report is being published in the run-up to the Paris climate conference in 2015, when the governments of the world are meant to do what they signally failed to do at Copenhagen: agree. Advertised as summaries of scientific knowledge, IPCC reports — note that the “I” stands for “intergovernmental” — are subject to review by governments and by scientists, many of them employed by governments, making the reports politico-scientific documents.

Their function is to serve as canonical texts for global-warming orthodoxy, providing an updated climate-change catechism for its followers. Writing in the Times of London last week, the current chief scientific adviser to the British government and his three predecessors stated that the IPCC will present “even greater confidence” that the climate is warming as a result of human activities. Only, as the rest of the world knows, observed temperatures haven’t risen for at least a decade and a half.

Climate scientist Judith Curry of Georgia Tech has described the IPCC’s position as “incomprehensible.” The IPCC has increased its confidence in attributing the cause of global warming to greenhouse gases when there has been less warming and more greenhouse gases.

Read more from this story HERE.

Dialing Back the Alarm on Climate Change

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Photo Credit: Dadu Shin

Photo Credit: Dadu Shin

Later this month, a long-awaited event that last happened in 2007 will recur. Like a returning comet, it will be taken to portend ominous happenings. I refer to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) “fifth assessment report,” part of which will be published on Sept. 27.

There have already been leaks from this 31-page document, which summarizes 1,914 pages of scientific discussion, but thanks to a senior climate scientist, I have had a glimpse of the key prediction at the heart of the document. The big news is that, for the first time since these reports started coming out in 1990, the new one dials back the alarm. It states that the temperature rise we can expect as a result of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide is lower than the IPPC thought in 2007.

Admittedly, the change is small, and because of changing definitions, it is not easy to compare the two reports, but retreat it is. It is significant because it points to the very real possibility that, over the next several generations, the overall effect of climate change will be positive for humankind and the planet.

Specifically, the draft report says that “equilibrium climate sensitivity” (ECS)—eventual warming induced by a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which takes hundreds of years to occur—is “extremely likely” to be above 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), “likely” to be above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and “very likely” to be below 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 Fahrenheit). In 2007, the IPPC said it was “likely” to be above 2 degrees Celsius and “very likely” to be above 1.5 degrees, with no upper limit. Since “extremely” and “very” have specific and different statistical meanings here, comparison is difficult.

Still, the downward movement since 2007 is clear, especially at the bottom of the “likely” range. The most probable value (3 degrees Celsius last time) is for some reason not stated this time.

Read more from this story HERE.

Global Cooling at Full Tilt this Summer; Scientists Blame Volcano

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Photo Credit: Accuweather

Photo Credit: Accuweather

Throughout history, large volcanic eruptions have been known to influence climate.

This summer, the Midwest experienced a cold wave referred to as “Julytober” following the June eruption of Mount Sheveluch in Russia. Experts continue to compare this eruption to others from history and debate whether it could have induced the cooler Midwestern weather.

“Large Russian volcano eruptions tend to cool the Midwest,” Historical Climatologist Evelyn Browning-Garriss said.

When a volcano erupts, if it is large enough, it can send debris miles into the stratosphere. The stratosphere is the atmosphere above where weather takes place.

Debris sent into the stratosphere by an eruption can include volcanic ash, chemicals and gases, specifically sulfur. This debris can influence temperatures by aiding in a decreased amount of solar radiation.

“Sulfur dioxide combines with water in the atmosphere to provide sulfuric acid aerosol droplets that reflect incoming solar radiation,” PhD Research Geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Volcano Observatory David Schneider said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ground Swell: OFA Gets Zero Attendance for Climate Change Rally

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Photo Credit: APNot a single person showed up at the Georgetown waterfront Tuesday for a climate change agenda event put on by Organizing for Action, the shadowy nonprofit advocacy group born out of President Obama’s 2012 campaign, the NRCC wrote in its blog.

The event page for the “Climate Change Day of Action Rally” disappeared after rainy weather appeared to drive away whatever people planned to attend. The embarrassing showing follows the news that only one volunteer stayed for an OFA Obamacare event in Centreville, Va., last week to work the phones.

Read more from this story HERE.

Climate Change ‘Experts’: You Should be Dead by Now

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Photo Credit: MDGovpicsAny thinking person (that leaves out Al Gore) knows that science is never “settled.” Further, as Galileo taught us, there is no such thing as science by “consensus.” Famed physicist Richard Feynman said, “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” This is a great truism to keep in mind when encountering climate alarmists who promote themselves as “experts.”

According to a theory proposed by climate scientists known as the “hydrate hypothesis,” global warming will melt the permafrost in the polar regions, suddenly releasing massive amounts of methane hydrate into the atmosphere. Since methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, climate Armageddon will ensue.

An article compiled by John Stokes in the “socially progressive” newspaper and blog The Canadian, contends that the resulting climate devastation will kill an estimated 4.5 billion people in five years. The only problem with this prediction is that the article was written in 2007. What was our fate to be?…

Read more from this story HERE.