George Soros gave Ivanka's husband's business a $250 million credit line in 2015 per WSJ. Soros is also an investor in Jared's business.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Sino-Forest files bankruptcy

3/30/12, "Sino-Forest Files Bankruptcy, Sues Muddy Waters for $4B (Update 1)," The Street.com, Antoine Gara

--------------------------------

10/5/2010, "Carbon Conservation gets into bed with Asia Pulp and Paper, one of Indonesia’s biggest forest destroyers," redd-monitor.org, Chris Lang
  • comments
"Green Heart says:

The fact that the MoU was signed in Beijing reflects the dominance of China (or Chinese interests)over much of Indonesia’s palm oil and pulp sectors.

Sino-Forest, several of whose affiliates are registered in a British tax haven (the Virgin Islands), has for some time promoted its success in acquiring a logging business in Suriname, a country whose newly elected President is subject to an international arrest warrant for drug smuggling."

==================

"Jago Wadley says:

@Greenheart – Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global holds $23,827,324 of shares in Sino Forest Corp, so perhaps you should contact them to see how that fits with their ethical guidelines and Norway’s wider climate goals. Norway is also invested in a defacto way in this voluntary carbon offset market APP/Carbon Conservation REDD deal. How? Norway owns $17,831,263 of shares in Golden Agri Resources (GAR), which in turn controls Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) and Sinar Mas Forestry (and PT SMART, the massive oil palm arm of the group). Norway also holds $200,000 of shares in Indah Kiat Pulp and Paper – a subsidiary of APP that eats up lots of the natural forests controlled by Sinar Mas Forestry in Riau."

=====================

China Green Carbon Foundation

Among Vice Presidents of the Board of Directors

"Mr. Chen Deyuan: Chairman of Sino-Forest Corporation"


Carbon trading market sinking 'like Titanic,' 61% drop in past year due to slowdown in world industry

3/30/12, "Carbon ‘Like Titanic’ Sinking on EU Permit Glut," Bloomberg, bThe plunge in European Union carbon permits is putting prices on course for their longest-ever decline and shows no sign of ending as member states wrangle over curbing a glut in the market....

A surplus of permits and the inability of European nations to agree how to tackle the glut in the $120 billion market sent prices to an all-time low this year....

Permits have slid 61 percent in the past 12 months as industrial production slowed, reducing demand. Companies covered by the trading program discharged 1.93 billion tons of carbon in 2010, compared with their allocated 1.99 billion tons.

A potential set-aside of permits may offer only a temporary relief to the system, which needs a “deep overhaul” after expectations that a global climate deal will lead to a system of interlinked national markets failed to materialize, according to Jan Pravda, director of Prague-based Pravda Capital Trading....

The current price of greenhouse-gas pollution is less than a fourth of what policy makers expected it to be when the system was reviewed in 2008....

Poland also opposed the idea of a set-aside, which Environment Minister Marcin Korolec said would destroy the essential market features and undermine investor confidence in the stability of European legislation, according to a letter he sent to his counterparts."...




via Tom Nelson

'43 of Chicago's 45 hottest days happened before 1941, July 1936 had 8 days over 105F'

3/31/12, "Chicago’s 45 Hottest Days All Occurred With CO2 Below 350 ppm," Real Science, Steven Goddard

"Climate fraudsters have run amok about the nice weather in Chicago this month
, making false claims like “no place has ever had six days in a row of record heat

ScreenHunter 78 Mar. 31 01.06 Chicagos 45 Hottest Days All Occurred With CO2 Below 350 ppm

Chicago is not getting hotter.

All 45 of Chicago’s hottest days occurred below 350 ppm, and all but two of those occurred before 1941. July 20-25 1934 set a record high temperature on each day. July 1936 had eight days over 105F. It has been more than 80 years since Chicago hit 105F

July 1, 1934 – 106F
July 8, 1934 – 103F
July 9, 1934 – 105F
July 20, 1934 – 105F
July 21, 1934 – 106F
July 22, 1934 – 107F
July 23, 1934 – 107F
July 24, 1934 – 106F
July 25, 1934 – 105F
July 31, 1934 – 104F

July 7, 1936 – 107F
July 8, 1936 – 106F
July 10, 1936 – 107F
July 11, 1936 – 109F
July 12, 1936 – 108F
July 13, 1936 – 108F
July 14, 1936 – 111F
July 17, 1936 – 102F
July 22, 1936 – 102F
July 26, 1936 – 106F

July temperatures have been declining in Illinois, with 2009 being the coldest July on recordDuring last year’s hot July, the warmest temperature was 93F – compared to 111F in 1936.

ScreenHunter 79 Mar. 31 01.17 Chicagos 45 Hottest Days All Occurred With CO2 Below 350 ppm

Illinois, Temperature, July 1895-2011 [NOAA Satellite]

It is becoming clear that the US government can’t be trusted to tell the truth about anything, ever."




via Tom Nelson


Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Back to back La Ninas caused Australia's 2 yrs. of heavy rain and floods, current warm oceans, but models say ending soon

*3/28/12, "La Nina gone from Pacific, says weather bureau," news.com.au*
  • BOM says La Nina conditions no longer present in Pacific
  • Back-to-back La Ninas contributed to our wettest years
  • Warning we still need to be cautious, but no return expected

"The La Nina conditions that have contributed to flooding and heavy rainfall in Australia during the past two years have all but disappeared from the Pacific region, the Bureau of Meteorology says.

In its latest update on the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the bureau says La Nina conditions are no longer present

  • in either the Pacific Ocean or the atmosphere.

It said the 2011-2012 La Nina began last spring, and played a key role in prolonged wet conditions for eastern Australian throughout summer and into early autumn.

"South-east Australia recorded its wettest seven-day period in history, and the combined effect of two back-to-back La Nina events contributed to Australia's wettest two-year period on record," the bureau said.

The weather bureau's manager of climate prediction services, Dr Andrew Watkins, said that while this La Nina may be over, we still need to be cautious.

"The oceans around Australia remain warmer than normal, and the tropical wet season is expected to remain active until the end of April, bringing with it the

  • possibility of tropical cyclones and further heavy rain," Dr Watkins said.

He said the likelihood of a third successive La Nina remained low, with none of the models used by the bureau indicating a return."

File, news.com.au





via Lucianne

US taxpayer billions flow through USAID for projects in Vietnam and elsewhere

USAID has shown it's just another vehicle to dole out US taxpayer dollars to anyone and everyone, no questions asked.

3/26/12, "U.S. to Fund Vietnam 'Clean-Energy' Initiative," tradeaidmonitor.com

"The Government of Vietnam will receive U.S. assistance in carrying out clean energy development
in that nation, a measure that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) says will help the Obama Administration to execute its global "climate change" policies. 
 
The March 23 presolicitation notice (Solicitation #486-12-020), which U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor located via a routine search of the FedBizOpps database, says that the main goal of the Vietnam Clean Energy Program, or VCEP, is to:
support clean energy development through the increased use of renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency practices, and by providing support to the Government of Vietnam for the design of its Low Emission Development Strategy.
Three specific objectives of VCEP, according to the document, are to:
  • Enhance capacity to acquire, manage, analyze, and use energy sector data in decision making
  • Increase energy efficiency in high energy use sectors
  • Increase investment in and piloting of renewable energy technologies.
USAID will provide further details of the endeavor upon release of a formal solicitation at a later, unspecified date.

The agency did not reveal the project's estimated cost.

FOR ADDITIONAL REGIONAL COVERAGE, SEE THE MONITOR'S VIETNAM PAGE.

FOR FURTHER TOPICAL COVERAGE, SEE THE MONITOR'S ENVIRONMENTAL PAGE.

FOR ADDITIONAL REPORTING ON THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, SEE THE MONITOR'S USAID PAGE." via Free Republic

=====================

USAID facilitates funneling of US taxpayer dollars to UN cronies who spend it on whatever they want such as renovating their guest houses (article below). In the following article, USAID refused to reveal names of UN criminals:

"Federal prosecutors in New York City were forced to drop criminal and civil cases because the U.N. officials have immunity,"...

4/16/09, "
Report: U.N. spent U.S. funds on shoddy projects," USA Today, Ken Dilanian

"
Two United Nations agencies spent millions in U.S. money on substandard Afghanistan construction projects, including a central bank without electricity and a bridge at risk of "life threatening" collapse, according to an investigation by U.S. federal agents.
The U.N. ran a "quick impact" infrastructure program from 2003 to 2006 under a $25 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The U.N. delivered shoddy work, diverted money to other countries and then stonewalled U.S. efforts to figure out what happened,
  • according to a report by USAID's inspector general
obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act.

"Due to the refusal of the United Nations to cooperate with this investigation, questions remain unanswered," the report says. 

Federal prosecutors in New York City were forced to drop criminal and civil cases because the U.N. officials have immunity, according to the report. USAID has scaled back its dealings with the U.N. and hired a collection agency to seek $7.6 million back, Deputy Administrator James Bever said. The aid agency hasn't heeded its inspector general's request to sever all ties.
  • "There are certain cases where working with the U.N. is the only option available," Bever said in an e-mail....
One U.N. employee told investigators that "about $10 million of USAID grant money went to projects in other countries, to include Sudan, Haiti, Sri Lanka and Dubai." That witness said the Afghanistan country director for the U.N. Office for Project Services (UNOPS), which served as the contractor on the project for the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), spent about $200,000 in U.S. money
  • to renovate his guesthouse.


.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Trayvon Martin was on his third suspension from school at time of his death-Miami Herald

A taxpayer funded public school released information about Trayvon Martin's suspensions, information that belongs to citizens who fund the school. It is not "demonizing," nor does it prove he assaulted Zimmerman. It's information that belongs to the public who will also be paying for the investigations and legal proceedings.

3/26/12, "Multiple suspensions paint complicated portrait of Trayvon Martin," Miami Herald, F. Robles

"Miami Gardens teenager Trayvon Martin was suspended from school in October in an incident in which he was found in possession of women’s jewelry and a screwdriver that a schools security staffer described as a “burglary tool,” The Miami Herald has learned.

Trayvon, who claimed that an unnamed friend had given him the jewelry, was not disciplined because of the discovery, but was instead suspended for graffiti, according to a Miami-Dade Schools Police report obtained by The Miami Herald.

A lawyer for the dead teen’s family acknowledged Trayvon had been suspended for graffiti, but said the family knew nothing about the jewelry and the screwdriver, calling the information in the report an attempt to “demonize the youth.

According to the report, on Oct. 21 staffers monitoring a security camera at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School spotted Trayvon and two other students writing W.T.F.,” an acronym for “What the f---,” on a hallway locker, according to schools police. The security employee, who knew Trayvon, confronted the teen and looked through his bag for the graffiti marker.

Trayvon’s backpack contained 12 pieces of jewelry, in addition to a watch and a large flathead screwdriver, according to the report, which described the screwdriver as a burglary tool.

Trayvon was asked if the jewelry, which was mostly women’s rings and earrings, belonged to his family or a girlfriend.

“Martin replied it’s not mine. A friend gave it to me,” according to the report. Trayvon declined to name the friend.

School police impounded the jewelry and sent photos of the items to detectives at Miami-Dade police for further investigation.

Martin was suspended, warned and dismissed for the graffiti,” according to the report prepared by Miami-Dade Schools Police.

That suspension was followed four months later by another one, in February, in which Trayvon was caught with an empty plastic bag with traces of marijuana in it, the boy’s family’s attorney has confirmed. A schools police report obtained by The Miami Herald specifies two items: a bag with marijuana residue and a “marijuana pipe.”

The suspension was the third for the teen. On Monday, the family also acknowledged Trayvon had earlier been suspended for tardiness and truancy.

The reports of the suspensions surfaced as a more complicated portrait of Trayvon began to emerge Monday. Trayvon was shot to death in Sanford on Feb. 26 during a scuffle with neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. He was suspended from school at the time.

Reacting to the new schools police report, Ben Crump, an attorney for the parents, said they “never heard anything like this about a bag of jewelry….And anyway, it’s completely irrelevant to what happened Feb. 26. They never heard this, and don’t believe it’s true. If it were true, why wouldn’t they call the parents? Why wasn’t he arrested?”

“We think everybody is trying to demonize him.”

Trayvon, who was 17 when he died, had never been arrested, he said.

His mother, Sybrina Fulton, said her son never had any problems with gangs or the police. In fact, she said, when she transferred him out of Carol City High School to be closer to home, the school wanted him to stay at Carol City because they liked him and he was a good student, she said.

“They killed my son and now they are trying to kill his reputation,” she said.

Another lawyer for the family said she didn’t put much credence in the report about the jewelry and the screwdriver.

“This is someone in a school writing a report, rumor as far as I’m concerned,” said attorney Natalie Jackson.

At a press conference held Monday after a town forum in Eatonville, near Sanford, the parents, flanked by their attorneys along with the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, addressed the report about the empty marijuana baggie.

“If he and his friends were experimenting with marijuana, that is still completely irrelevant,” Crump said. “It is one of the things the family has said: ‘What does that have to do with him killing my son?’

Sharpton said he warned the family from the start that anything negative about Trayvon would be dragged out in an effort to make him out to be a “junkie and a thief.” He knew that would happen, he said, because it’s occurred in every similar case he has ever been involved in.

“The only thing that’s relevant is what Zimmerman knew,” Sharpton said. “Let’s not play this double standard of trying to damage who is dead and sanitize who is the cause of the death.”

The teen’s family and their supporters spoke after the Orlando Sentinel reported that Zimmerman told authorities that Trayvon beat Zimmerman’s head against the sidewalk.

Trayvon was killed while serving out the 10-day suspension for the marijuana baggie in Sanford, where his father’s girlfriend lives. Zimmerman, a community watch volunteer who thought Trayvon looked drugged and suspicious called police and later wound up in a fight with him. The two scuffled and Zimmerman shot Trayvon, killing him. He has not been charged.

Thousands of people were expected to converge on Sanford on Monday for an afternoon rally to protest the killing, which occurred one month ago Monday.

Along with the Jackson and Sharpton, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis and comedian Sinbad were expected to speak at a 5 p.m. special Sanford City Commission meeting.

Several busloads of protesters left Miami early Monday to participate.

The city closed off several city blocks to allow participants a pathway to walk from a local park to the city’s civic center.

The rally comes a day after an attorney in the case, Craig Sonner, took to the television networks to argue Zimmerman’s side of the story. Joe Oliver, a former CNN anchor and a friend of Zimmerman’s, appeared on television Sunday to give his friend’s side and speak of 911 tapes that captured parts of the incident.

That sounded like someone in dire need of help,” Oliver said. That sounded like George.

Family spokesman Ryan Julison said the family has always maintained that Trayvon’s suspension had nothing to do with anything violent....

On Sunday, Trayvon’s mother said she hoped the momentum in the case leads to changes in the law....

She is expected to appear Tuesday before House Democrats in Congress in a quest to have Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law examined. She also hopes to address certification for neighborhood watch volunteers, Crump said.

“I didn’t expect this,” said Trayvon’s father, Tracy Martin. “It’s a real good feeling to know that people still care. This movement and watching the people of this movement keeps me going.”" via Drudge

-------------------------

Business moguls pay off $87,000 judgement Al Sharpton owed for slandering a citizen. Sharpton falsely accused a man of raping a teen girl. The man he accused was white, the girl was black.

3/23/2001, "Rev. Al Is Grateful For Legal Bailout," NY Daily News, Emily Gest

"A subdued Rev. Al Sharpton told the Daily News yesterday he was honored that local African-American business moguls had stepped forward to help him pay the $87,000 judgment he owed in the Tawana Brawley slander case.

"I'm humbled and honored that people as prominent and influential as this would come in and show that my work has warranted their support," Sharpton said in a telephone interview.

The money is owed to former Dutchess County prosecutor Steven Pagones, who won a defamation suit against Sharpton and others in 1998. They had accused him of raping Brawley in 1987, when she was 15.

Sharpton said yesterday he was relieved to no longer be "harassed or distracted by the judgment" and stood by his beliefs about Pagones in the Brawley case.

To help the activist pay off the judgment, Percy Sutton, chairman emeritus of Harlem-based Inner City Technologies, solicited donations from his son, ICT Chairman Pierre Sutton; Black Enterprise magazine chairman Earl Graves; Essence Magazine publisher Ed Lewis,

  • and lawyer Johnnie Cochran....

Before the collection, Sharpton's wages had been garnisheed to satisfy about 10% of the judgment, according to Caryn Blaustein, one of Pagones' lawyers.

While Pagones welcomed the payment, he said he was upset that Sharpton "is having others take over the burden."

"I'm not going anywhere until Sharpton says Steve Pagones had nothing to do with what happened to Tawana Brawley," Pagones, now a private investigator, said when reached at his office in Dutchess County."


.

UK doubles down on its way to yet another 'climate conference,' introduces massive 'Centre for Carbon Measurement' 'as the carbon market takes off'

Hold the phone! BBC Climate "Stakeholder," "Richard (Black) will be at the Planet Under Pressure conference on Monday and Tuesday, and you can follow him on Twitter"

--------------------

A quiet life is what YOU should live while 'sustainable' profiteers travel the globe from one climate conference to the next on taxpayer money. When they get wherever they're going all they do is talk about how to spend more taxpayer money on problems that don't exist.

3/25/12, "UK carbon measuring centre 'to improve climate future'," BBC, Richard Black

"A new UK facility aimed at improving measurement of carbon [dioxide] emissions and boosting development of clean technology is due to open.

The Centre for Carbon Measurement will be based at the National Physical Laboratory in south-west London.

It will raise accuracy of climate data, support better emissions monitoring to ensure a fair carbon [dioxide] market, and verify claims made about low-carbon products.

It will be formally launched at the Planet Under Pressure event in London.

The four-day conference will see thousands of delegates discuss various aspects of social and environmental sustainability in the run-up to the Rio+20 summit in June.

"As the carbon market takes off and carbon becomes more expensive, we're going to want to measure things better.""

---------------------------

Ed. note, Goodbye, England.

=============

3/17/12, Black's Whitewash, a new blog about Richard Black and the BBC, via Bishop Hill via Tom Nelson

3/14/12, This post, "Richard Black And Stakeholder Forum," was horrifying.



.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

State owned BBC using taxpayer money to promote catastrophic man caused climate change, US tax dollars being used as well

The BBC is owned by the UK gov. which relies on cash from the 'climate' industry to function. In 2007 UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the carbon market was key "to the economic fortunes of the City of London." The financial survival of the UK Monarchy is also dependent on the success of global warming alarmism. Prince Charles is "patron" to big companies with urgent interest in EU carbon dioxide trading. The BBC is a needed PR vehicle.

I noticed this scary 'climate' article by BBC today:

1. Headline: 3/25/12, "Temperatures could rise by 3C by 2050, models suggest," BBC

2. First paragraph: "Global temperatures could rise by 1.4-3.0C (2.5-5.4F) above levels for late last century by 2050, a computer simulation has suggested."

The headline tried to be as scary as possible using the figure 3C. In the first paragraph we find out the real "suggested" number isn't 3C but ranges from 1.4-3C. They don't say any of this "will" happen, only that it "could" happen.

3. Picture and caption: "Climate temperature predictions can influence planning, such as for sea defences." The picture and caption are like a secondary headline. The BBC again goes for the scariest, "sea defences" conjuring up possible wars and deaths.

4. Who paid for the 'study?' (parag. 6):

"The study - run through
climateprediction.net with the BBC Climate Change Experiment - ran simulations using a complex atmosphere-ocean climate model."...

a. "Climateprediction.net" leads to the US taxpayer.

"Climateprediction.net is a distributed computing project to produce predictions of the Earth's climate up to 2100 and to test the accuracy of climate models....Climateprediction.net uses the same underlying software, BOINC, as many other distributed computing projects and, if you like, you can participate in more than one project at a time. Read more about BOINC."

What is BOINC? Answer: The chump US taxpayer.

BOINC is based at the University of California at Berkeley. From their website:

"BOINC is supported by the National Science Foundation through awards SCI-0221529, SCI-0438443, SCI-0506411, PHY/0555655, and OCI-0721124. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation."
NSF logo
Here is the NSF logo from BOINCs web page. The NSF is the porn-paralyzed outfit that hands over billions of US taxpayer dollars to every pretty girl on the corner.

--------------------------------

Also OXFORD University was part of it, from the BBC article: "Myles Allen of the School of Geography and Environment and Department of Physics, Oxford University, principal investigator of climateprediction.net"...

-------------------------------
Who else paid for the 'study'?

b. "The BBC Climate Change Experiment," meaning the UK taxpayer. A web page for this group said Oxford University led the study and the UK Met Office climate model was used.

Other links from the BBC Climate site:

"Watch films from 'Climate Chaos', Eight short climate change films. (For legal reasons this is only available in the UK)"
------------------------
"Climate Challenge game: Would the planet survive if you were in power? Innovate, trade and persuade other nations to help you save the environment."

--------------------------

They of course had a big picture of a polar bear:



-------------------------------

The NSF, National Science Foundation, in the US has problems:

The NSF is swamped with personnel using taxpayer money to travel and pursue intimate relationships with NSF subordinates, a decade long pattern of excessive porn watching on the job including live porn acts also paid by the US tax payer. NSF says it has so many internal problems it's not in a position to oversee science projects it funds:

9/29/2009, "Porn Surfing rampant at US science foundation," Washington Times, by Jim McElhatton

""To manage this dramatic increase without an increase in staff required us to significantly reduce our efforts to investigate grant fraud," the inspector general recently told Congress in a budget request.
  • "We anticipate a significant decline in investigative recoveries and prosecutions in coming years
  • as a direct result.""
--------------------------

4/7/09, "Senators fault science agency over lax handling of pornography case," NY Times, by Gardiner Harris

----------------------

10/24/10, "
UK Government U-Turns on Emissions Trading Scheme," theenergycollective.com

1. "All revenue raised from the emissions trading scheme (£1bn/year), which began earlier this year, will be used to support the public finances, instead of being recycled back to participants."

------------------------

12/15/11, "Firms say low carbon [dioxide] price threatens EU green targets," BBC

"The EU Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change (EUCLG) includes Royal Dutch Shell, Enel, Alstom and Acciona....The EUCLG's patron is Britain's Prince Charles. The group's letter called for permits to be withheld in Phase Three of the ETS, which begins in 2013."...




.

Canadian ski resort sets all time snowfall record and still 2 months left in 2012 season!

3/24/12, "Canadian Ski Resort Sets All-Time Snowfall Record," IceAgeNow.info

"More than 30 feet (909cm) of snow has fallen on Village Ski and Snowboard Resort in Banff National Park since opening day,
  • the most snow on record in Sunshine’s 84-year history.

This the best snow in Sunshine Village history, and we have two months left in the season,” said John Scurfield, Senior Vice President of Resort Operations, Sales and Marketing of Sunshine Village. “This is an all-time record snowfall, more than I’ve seen in my entire life and I began skiing at Sunshine in 1970.”

Sunshine, which received more than 7 feet of snow in the first half of March alone, is commemorating the record snowfall with free cake and balloons at Creekside restaurant.

To view the photo associated with this release, taken by Sean Hannah, please visit the following link: http://www.marketwire.com/library/20120322-322sunshine_800.jpg

photo credit above

See entire article:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sunshine-village-in-banff-sets-all-time-snowfall-record-2012-03-23



via Tom Nelson

'Silence and demonize' bullies and cowards like David Suzuki face humiliation, UN bigs admit 'climate' was just an excuse to get cash

The 'climate change' issue isn't about climate but a 'transfer of wealth' as stated by at least 3 UN officials.

3/22/12, "Peter Foster: Suzuki vs. the Senate — who’s silencing whom?," Financial Post, Peter Foster

"Silence and ­demonize’ could be the Suzuki foundation’s motto"

"Radical environmentalists tend not to be famous for their objectivity or sense of irony. Canada’s most famous eco-activist, David Suzuki, proved that this week by organizing a write-in campaign to protest a Senate inquiry into foreign institutional funding of Canadian political activism.

Independent researcher Vivian Krause unearthed more than $300-million of such eco-laundering, which has been used to campaign against B.C. fish farming and bring the Canadian forest industry to heel. Recently, both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver fingered oreign funding in clogging up the regulatory process for the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, the latest front in the green industry’s war against the oil sands.

The Suzuki-to-Senate form email ventriloquized that robo-senders were “disappointed by the recent attempts of some senators to silence and demonize those who don’t share their positions.” It suggested that the Conservative senators, led by Nicole Eaton, were trying to “stifle the voices of millions of Canadians.”

In fact,
Silence and demonize” could be the Suzuki foundation’s motto. On its website, right beside Tell the Senate to stop silencing environmental groups sits a piece by Mr. Suzuki with the headline Climate change denial isn’t about science, or even skepticism. The same article was recently published in The Huffington Post under the headline Deny Deniers their Right to Deny!

There is no more objectionable term for legitimate skepticism than “denial,” which equates honest questioning with barmy claims that the Holocaust never took place. The Puffington article is, however, fascinating because it implicitly acknowledges that the Kyoto policy juggernaut has come off the rails, so Mr. Suzuki changes tack. What if the science isn’t settled (ridiculous idea though that still is), asks Mr. Suzuki. How can we keep relying on “finite” fossil fuels and thus robbing the future? We need big plans!

Such Malthusian hooey confirms that Mr. Suzuki is blind to history and utterly clueless about how markets work. Just look at the actual results of the government-mandated global green shift: collapsing wind and solar industries, threats of trade war over the EU’s plan to force emissions trading on foreign airlines; President Obama backpedalling furiously over Keystone XL in the face of soaring gasoline prices.

Meanwhile here’s Mr. Suzuki’s idea of a scientific argument: his piece links to a news story about a study that suggests that denial is a function of being a conservative white male (I suggest Mr. Suzuki try that theory on fearless blogger, and fierce critic of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Donna Laframboise). Meanwhile, if you want to understand climate issues, according to Mr. Suzuki, don’t even think of visiting the websites of dissenters such as Anthony Watts (creator of wattsupwiththat.com. Well worth a visit). Mr. Watts, after all, is a mere “weathermen.” (Mr. Watts reminds us in response that Mr. Suzuki is, or was, a fruit fly ­geneticist).

Mr. Suzuki suggests that instead you should get the straight goods from the likes of his close associate James Hoggan, a big-time corporate consultant who runs the skeptic-smearing website Desmogblog, or from Naomi Oreskes, a “historian of climate science” whose debunked studies were prominently quoted by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. Ms. Oreskes wants to ban the phrase “climate debate.” She is a leading proponent of linking skeptics to the tobacco industry. Some science.

Mr. Suzuki also links to a piece by economist William Nordhaus. Insofar as Prof. Nordhaus addresses errors in interpretation of his own work, one can hardly disagree with him. However, he also utterly misrepresents the position of skeptics, suggesting, among other canards, that they “deny” the small temperature increases of the past 100 years. He thus confirms the impression that conventional warmists refuse even to hear what skeptics are skeptical about, which is catastrophic, projected, man-made global warming. This theoretical projection is based on the considerable amplification of the impact of CO2 by positive feedbacks, which are computer model assumptions, not facts or truths.

Mr. Suzuki goes on to claim a “stepping up” of denialism, but his two examples are in fact of skeptics coming under manufactured attack. He smears Tom Harris, who was recently assaulted for a climate course he taught at Carleton University. Don’t bother to look at the science, suggests Mr. Suzuki (the course was in fact designed by eminent earth scientist Tim Patterson), just accept that Mr. Harris is a denier and a shill, and associated (without pay) with the U.S.-based Heartland Institute.

When it comes to Heartland, Mr. Suzuki cites something called “denialgate,” but fails to register that the only real scandal revolves around how a fellow eco-activist, Peter Gleick, obtained documents from Heartland under false pretenses then leaked them, plus a flagrant forgery, to the media. It is Heartland’s desire to teach some objective climate science in schools that has led to paroxysms of rage from other radical organizations such as Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project.

The Senate’s inquiry into foreign activist funding and charitable tax deduction is valid, but perhaps more intriguing is domestic support for Mr. Suzuki. The David Suzuki Foundation certainly receives major donations from the California-based Moore, Hewlett and Packard foundations, whose funding is highlighted by Vivian Krause, but Mr. Suzuki is also heftily supported by Canadian Establishmentarians such as the Bronfman family, Power Corp., Jim Pattison, and Gerry Schwartz.

Do these leaders and scions of capitalism grasp that they are supporting an anti-development fanatic who believes that anybody who doesn’t think like him on climate science is evil, mentally defective or a corporate shill? Do they agree with his 2008 suggestion that apostate politicians should be put in jail? Do they go along with his admiration for totalitarian Cuba’s “sustainability?” Do they support child-scaring propaganda such as his recent Christmas campaign based on “saving” Santa’s North Pole workshop? Do they fail to register that he demonizes “corporate profits and interests?”

The Suzuki foundation’s robo-email concludes that “A democracy functions best when all points of view are considered rationally and carefully.” To be fair, Mr. Suzuki only wants to put those words in the mouths of others. He could never possibly say them himself. His pants would catch on fire." via Instapundit




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Saturday, March 24, 2012

More new science contradicts Mann & IPCC trillion dollar hockey stick theory, peer reviewed study in journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters

"The medieval warm period and little ice age were both felt right down to Antarctica."...Entire trillion dollar CO2 industry again proven fraudulent.

3/23/12, "Medieval warming WAS global – new science contradicts IPCC," UK Register, Lewis Page

"More peer-reviewed science contradicting the warming-alarmist "scientific consensus"
was announced yesterday, as a new study shows that the well-documented warm period which took place in medieval times was not limited to Europe, or the northern hemisphere:
  • it reached all the way to Antarctica.

The research involved the development of a new means of assessing past temperatures, to add to existing methods such as tree ring analysis and ice cores. In this study, scientists analysed samples of a crystal called ikaite, which forms in cold waters.

“Ikaite is an icy version of limestone,” explains earth-sciences prof Zunli Lu. “The crystals are only stable under cold conditions and actually melt at room temperature.”

Down in the Antarctic peninsula that isn't a problem, and Lu and his colleagues were able to take samples which had been present for hundreds of years and date their formation. The structure of Ikaite, it turns out, varies measurably depending on the temperature when it forms,

  • allowing boffins to construct an accurate past temperature record.

A proper temperature record for Antarctica is particularly interesting, as it illuminates one of the main debates in global-warming/climate-change: namely, were the so-called Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age merely regional, or were they global events? The medieval warmup experienced by northern Europeans from say 900AD to 1250AD seems to have been at least as hot as anything seen in the industrial era. If it was worldwide in extent that would strongly suggest that global warming may just be something that happens from time to time, not something caused by miniscule concentrations of CO2 (the atmosphere is 0.04 per cent CO2 right now;

  • this figure might climb to 0.07 per cent in the medium term).

The oft-mentioned "scientific consensus", based in large part on the work of famous climate-alarmist scientists Michael Mann and Phil Jones and reflected in the statements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says that isn't true. The IPCC consensus is that the medieval warming – and the "Little Ice Age" which followed it – only happened in Europe and maybe some other northern areas. They were local events only, and globally the world was cooler than it is now. The temperature increase seen in the latter half of the 20th century is a new thing caused by humanity's carbon emissions.

Lu and his colleagues' new work, however, indicates that in fact the medieval warm period and little ice age were both felt right down to Antarctica.

“We showed that the Northern European climate events influenced climate conditions in Antarctica,” says the prof, who was at Oxford when most of the work was done but now has a position at Syracuse uni in the States. He and his colleagues write:

This ikaite record qualitatively supports that both the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age extended to the Antarctic Peninsula.

In other words, global warming has already occurred in historical, pre-industrial times, and then gone away again. Lu et al's work is published in the peer-reviewed journal

image from NJ Watchdog





via Climate Depot

Fed. Judge gives Clean Water Act second bath in a week, EPA not the dictatorial tool Obama planned on

3/23/12, "Judge slams EPA for axing coal permit," Politico Pro, E. Martinson

"A federal judge slammed an Obama administration gambit to revoke mountaintop mining permits Friday, saying the EPA invented authority where there was none.

EPA resorts to magical thinking to justify nullifying permits issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Arch Coal Inc.’s Mingo Logan mine in West Virginia, wrote U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C.

Berman Jackson said the EPA’s effort to revoke permits already issued by the Army Corps lacked the backing of any statutory provision or regulation. “It posits a scenario involving the automatic self-destruction of a written permit issued by an entirely separate federal agency after years of study and consideration,” the opinion says.

“Poof! Not only is this nonrevocation revocation logistically complicated,” the ruling said, but it also robs industry of the only way they can possibly measure compliance with the Clean Water Act — a permit.

EPA ignored the effect that granting itself the right to revoke Army Corps permits could cause uncertainty and financial harm to industries dependent on capital credit for projects involving waterways.

“EPA brushed these objections away by characterizing them as hyperbole,” the judge wrote. “Even if the gloomy prophesies are somewhat overstated,” the concerns are real, she said.

Berman called the EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Water Act — which she separately lambasts for being poorly written — “illogical and impractical.”

Arch Coal spokeswoman Kim Link said the company is happy with the ruling. “We’re pleased the district court has ruled in our favor — confirming that our Spruce No. 1 permit remains valid,” Link said.

Environmental groups were dismayed with the ruling.

“We are deeply disappointed and concerned about the effect of today’s court ruling because mountaintop removal mining has already caused widespread and extreme destruction to the mountains, waters, and communities of Appalachia,” said a coalition of environmental groups in a statement Friday. “The Spruce No. 1 Mine permit, in particular, was one of the largest mountaintop removal permits ever proposed in Appalachia, and it is located in an area of West Virginia that has already been devastated by several large mountaintop removal mines.”

“We urge the EPA to appeal today’s ruling and continue to exercise its full authority under the Clean Water Act to protect waterways and communities,” the environmentalists said.

EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment."

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3/21/12, "U.S. top court backs landowners, limits power of EPA," Reuters, James Vicini

"The justices unanimously rejected the government's position that individuals or companies must first fail to comply with an EPA order and face potentially costly enforcement action before a court can review the case.

The opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia was a victory for an Idaho couple who challenged a 2007 EPA order that required them to restore a wetland they had filled with dirt and rock as they began to build a new vacation home near Priest Lake. They were also told to stop construction on the home.

The couple, Chantell and Michael Sackett, denied their property had ever contained a wetland and complained they were being forced to comply with an order without a court hearing....

He (Scalia) said the Clean Water Act was not "uniquely designed to enable the strong-arming of regulated parties into 'voluntary compliance' without the opportunity for judicial review.""



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Species extinctions in Australia not caused by climate change, 'debate over, like it or not,' Science Mag., BBC

"These changes to the landscape took place after the animal extinctions, indicating that they were the result of the extinction and not its cause"...

3/24/12, "'Humans killed off Australia's giant beasts'," BBC

"Scientists have linked a dramatic decrease in spores found in herbivore dung to the arrival of humans in Australia 41,000 years ago.

Humans hunted Australia's giant vertebrates to extinction about 40,000 years ago, the latest research published in Science has concluded.

The cause of the widespread extinction has provoked much debate, with climate change being one theory.

However, scientists studied dung samples from 130,000 and 41,000 years ago, when humans arrived, and concluded hunting and fire were the cause.

The extinction in turn caused major ecological changes to the landscape.

The scientists looked at pollen and charcoal from Lynch's Crater, a sediment-filled volcanic crater in Queensland that was surrounded by tropical rainforest until European settlement.

They found Sporormiella spores, which grow in herbivore dung, virtually disappeared around 41,000 years ago, a time when no known climate transformation was taking place.

At the same time, the incidence of fire increased, as shown by a steep rise in charcoal fragments.

It appears that humans, who arrived in Australia around this time, hunted the megafauna to extinction, the scientists said.

The megafauna included three-metre tall giant kangaroos and marsupial lions, as well as giant birds and reptiles.

Susan Rule of the Australian National University in Canberra and her colleagues concluded that vegetation also changed with the arrival of humans.

Mixed rainforest was replaced by leathery-leaved, scrubby vegetation called sclerophyll.

But these changes to the landscape took place after the animal extinctions, indicating that they were the result of the extinction and not its cause, they said.

Human-lit fire - deliberately targeted and more frequent than lightning - had a devastating effect of plants that had previously been protected.

"Any climate change at those times was modest and highly unlikely to affect the outcome," author Matt McGlone wrote in Science.

Lead research author Chris Johnson, from the School of Zoology at the University of Tasmania, said the research raised further questions about the ecological impact of the extinction.

Big animals have big impacts on plants. It follows that removing big animals should produce significant changes in vegetation."

The removal of large herbivores altered the structure and composition of vegetation, making it more dense and uniform, he said.

"Getting a better understanding of how environments across Australia changed as a result of megafaunal extinction is a big and interesting challenge, and will help us to understand the dynamics of contemporary Australian ecosystems."

'Utter havoc'

Dr John Alroy, from the Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science at Macquarie University, New South Wales, said the debate about whether humans contributed to widespread extinction

  • should "be over now".

"But it has dragged on for nearly a half-century now because the idea that stone age hunters could cause such utter havoc across three entire continents over very short time spans strikes many people as incredible.

"Like it or not, though, it's the truth, and it's time for us to all confront it."

However, Gavin Prideaux, a lecturer in vertebrate palaeontology in the School of Biological Sciences at Flinders University, South Australia, said further research was necessary.

He said the latest study "supports a mounting number of studies that have argued that climate change was not primarily responsible for the Late Pleistocene extinctions in other parts of the continent.

"To test the inferences from this paper we might look at similar lake records from other regions of Australia and seek fossil deposits in the northeast that preserve bones of the giant animals themselves."

-------------------

Human role in big kangaroo demise 22 JUNE 2009, SCI/TECH

Climate 'key to beasts' demise' 31 MAY 2005, SCI/TECH


Friday, March 23, 2012

Obama feels failing 'green' companies supported by US tax dollars should be shielded from public scrutiny, redacts FOIA dox

Obama administration redacted some company names in an FOIA response.

3/23/12, "Some Clean-Energy Loans Raise Flags," Wall St. Journal, Ryan Tracy

"The Department of Energy has placed nearly one-third of its clean-energy loan portfolio on an internal "watch list" for possible violations of terms or other concerns, according to a copy of the list obtained by The Wall Street Journal, highlighting how such concerns have spread beyond the now-bankrupt Solyndra LLC.

The redacted copy, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Journal, showed that as of Feb. 29 there were 10 projects on the watch list out of 32 loans and loan guarantees made to electric-vehicle and renewable-energy companies.

The department declined to name the companies ..". (subscription)

----------------------

Commenter to above on Junk Science:

"Why should this list be redacted? So much for transparency in the use of public funds."




via Tom Nelson

Obama supports Tunisia Muslim Brotherhood, locals shocked, these are the people they wanted to get rid of, also say Obama supports Wahhabists in Saudi

"The dour men and women of Ennahda, Tunisia's version of the Muslim Brotherhood."...Tunisians say, "we made the revolution and they got the power."

3/21/12, "No to America and No to Radical Islam," World Affairs, Michael Totten

"Radical Islamists are making inroads in the Arab world's most advanced, liberal, and tolerant country. And the secularists think the United States is helping them do it....

People here think the United States is cooperating with Ennahda,” said local journalist Ashraf Ayadi, referring to the Islamists who won 42 percent of the vote in the election last October. Even though a majority of Tunisians voted against them, they still got more votes than any of the other various parties, so they got to choose the prime minister.

People here are against the United States helping Ennahda,” Ayadi continued. “All Americans who come here are against the Islamists, but the American government is supporting them. I wish we had a good, modern, respectful Islamic party. I'm a Muslim and I'm proud of it, but I'm not proud of this party.”

The Americans are with the Islamists. They support Ennahda in Tunisia and the Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia.

I've heard this complaint from every single secular person I've interviewed in this country without exception, from academics and democratic activists to journalists and teachers. They seem to be unanimously shocked and dismayed and appalled. The subject comes up again and again in conversation even when I ask about other things. It's impossible to spend any time here whatsoever without hearing about it.

These people are not part of a marginal fringe movement like their Egyptian counterparts. Politically secular Tunisians make up half the country or more. And they're depressed about what is happening now. Rami Sghayier, a young activist who does volunteer work with Amnesty International, seems to speak for most when he says, We made the revolution and they got the power.”

They, of course, are the dour men and women of Ennahda, Tunisia's version of the Muslim Brotherhood."...via Instapundit



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