Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming The accelerating destruction of the rainforests that form a precious cooling band around the Earth's equator, is now being recognised as one of the main causes of climate change. Carbon emissions from deforestation far outstrip damage caused by planes and automobiles and factories. The rampant slashing and burning of tropical forests is second only to the energy sector as a source of greenhouses gases according to report published today by the Oxford-based Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of leading rainforest scientists. Figures from the GCP, summarising the latest findings from the United Nations, and building on estimates contained in the Stern Report, show deforestation accounts for up to 25 per cent of global emissions of heat-trapping gases, while transport and industry account for 14 per cent each; and aviation makes up only 3 per cent of the total. "Tropical forests are the elephant in the living room of climate change," said Andrew Mitchell, the head of the GCP. Scientists say one days' deforestation is equivalent to the carbon footprint of eight million people flying to New York. Reducing those catastrophic emissions can be achieved most quickly and most cheaply by halting the destruction in Brazil, Indonesia, the Congo and elsewhere....
Global Warming Goes Corporate Scapegoated, tired, and cornered by the global-warming witch-hunt, automakers this spring became the first U.S. industry to back a national cap-and-trade program for carbon — but, in doing so, opened a dangerous new chapter in environmental regulation that could have serious consequences to the nation’s economic health. An April 26 board meeting here of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM), the chief lobbying group for America’s nine major automakers, cemented the industry’s strategy as it enters a period of crucial hearings before Senate and House committees on climate change. In a bow to Al Gore — the Cotton Mather of the climate mob — Ford CEO Alan Mulally declared that the climate debate “has passed. I firmly believe we are at an inflection point in the world's history as it relates to climate change and energy security.” Mulally couched his stance as customer-driven, predicting that it is “going to be one of the most important considerations to the customers that buy our product.” But Ford’s own consumer marketing finds climate change well down buyers’ list of concerns. In fact, what is driving the industry’s embrace of climate change is a political consideration: the new Democratic Congress. With a zealous Democratic leadership hell-bent on fast-tracking climate legislation, auto companies have abandoned any hope of influencing the global-warming debate and are scrambling to get ahead of the regulatory parade. The auto industry has judged that we are in a new phase of the climate game: an internecine fight pitting industry against industry in an attempt to turn climate legislation to their advantage....
Is Global Warming a Sin? n a couple of hundred years historians will be comparing the frenzies over our supposed human contribution to global warming to the tumults at the latter end of the tenth century as the Christian millennium approached. Then as now, the doomsters identified human sinfulness as the propulsive factor in the planet’s rapid downward slide. Then as now, a buoyant market throve on fear. The Roman Catholic Church sold indulgences like checks. The sinners established a line of credit against bad behavior and could go on sinning. Today a world market in “carbon credits” is in formation. Those whose “carbon footprint” is small can sell their surplus carbon credits to others less virtuous than themselves. The modern trade is as fantastical as the medieval one. There is still zero empirical evidence that anthropogenic production of carbon dioxide is making any measurable contribution to the world’s present warming trend. The greenhouse fearmongers rely on unverified, crudely oversimplified models to finger mankind’s sinful contribution--and carbon trafficking, just like the old indulgences, is powered by guilt, credulity, cynicism and greed. Now imagine two lines on a piece of graph paper. The first rises to a crest, then slopes sharply down, levels off and rises slowly once more. The other has no undulations. It rises in a smooth, slow arc. The first, wavy line is the worldwide CO2 tonnage produced by humans burning coal, oil and natural gas. It starts in 1928, at 1.1 gigatons (i.e., 1.1 billion metric tons), and peaks in 1929 at 1.17 gigatons. The world, led by its mightiest power, plummets into the Great Depression and by 1932 human CO2 production has fallen to 0.88 gigatons a year, a 30 percent drop. Then, in 1933, the line climbs slowly again, up to 0.9 gigatons. And the other line, the one ascending so evenly? That’s the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, parts per million (ppm) by volume, moving in 1928 from just under 306, hitting 306 in 1929, 307 in 1932 and on up. Boom and bust, the line heads up steadily. These days it’s at 380. The two lines on that graph proclaim that a whopping 30 percent cut in man-made CO2 emissions didn’t even cause a 1 ppm drop in the atmosphere’s CO2. It is thus impossible to assert that the increase in atmospheric CO2 stems from people burning fossil fuels....
Bush Calls For Cuts In Vehicle Emissions With gasoline prices spiraling to record highs last week and a recent Supreme Court ruling requiring executive action to restrict global warming gases, President Bush yesterday ordered four federal agencies to draw up regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks by the end of his administration. But Democrats, environmentalists and some energy experts said the president was simply delaying measures that he has the power to impose now. During a brief event in the White House Rose Garden, Bush said he was asking for rules to "cut gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles." The regulations, he said, should be consistent with his previously announced plan to reduce projected gasoline consumption by 20 percent over the next decade. "We're taking action by taking the first steps toward rules that will make our economy stronger, our environment cleaner and our nation more secure," Bush said. Critics responded that the president's announcement fell short of what was needed at a time when gasoline prices are soaring, the U.S. automobile industry is in turmoil and Congress is trying to raise fuel efficiency standards for the first time in a generation....
On the Web, an Advanced Carbon Calculator for Personal Use A new Internet tool to help individuals and communities curb their role in adding global-warming carbon emissions will be announced today at a conference in New York of mayors from around the world, said a person who built the Web technology. Many environmental groups offer simple carbon calculators on the Web, which allow people to figure the carbon dioxide production from daily routines like driving a car or lighting a house. “But this is serious software, serious quantitative methods and social networking technology brought to the green world,” said Ron Dembo, the chief executive of Zerofootprint, a nonprofit group that provides information and services to combat global warming. On the interactive climate site, people will be able to enter data, see the carbon effect and how their carbon footprint compares with averages in their city and in cities worldwide. They will also be able to do what-if simulations, to see how changes in their activities affect carbon emissions. The anonymous data will be collected for analysis by climate change scientists and others....
Congressmen: No leases for Roan Plateau Cut the money flowing to the Bureau of Land Management to lease the Roan Plateau for energy development, and buy more time for conservationists to save the plateau from bulldozers and drilling rigs. That’s what Reps. John Salazar and Mark Udall, D-Colo., on May 9, asked a congressional subcommittee to do as part of a 2008 Interior appropriations bill. The congressmen requested that the committee include in its bill a BLM funding limitation to preclude mineral leasing on the Roan Plateau. BLM spokesman David Boyd said it would cost the agency about $125,000 to lease the entire plateau. Leasing on the plateau may be imminent because of a plan that would open the area to oil and gas development. That plan could be approved at any time. If Udall and Salazar’s request is granted, it would cut off money to the BLM for leasing the Roan between October 2007 and October 2008, giving Congress and conservationists “a one-year breather” to try to find a way to protect the Roan Plateau, Salazar spokeswoman Tara Trujillo said....
U.S. drops oil development plan for remote Alaska The U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Monday dropped plans to allow development of remote federal land in northern Alaska because the oil and gas industry has little interest in exploring the highly inaccessible region. The 9.2-million acre (3.7 million hectare) area is far west of the much-debated Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The land the BLM has decided is too desolate to develop is part of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve but is not part of the ANWR. Development of ANWR has stalled in the U.S. Congress. "We did not have a lot of push from industry or anything like that," said Sharon Wilson, a BLM spokeswoman in Alaska. The area is distant from any roads, existing pipelines or oil fields. It is all inland, and while in northern Alaska, it is in the southern portion of the National Petroleum Reserve and does not touch the Arctic Ocean. Other portions of the National Petroleum Reserve -- which have about 23 million acres in all -- nearer to Arctic are more accessible and have been developed....
A Bad Day For HSUS's "Humane Wayne" We almost feel sorry for Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) president Wayne Pacelle. Yesterday's animal-welfare hearing in a U.S. House Agriculture subcommittee was anything but the love-fest he may have expected. First of all, we were there -- testifying on the same panel, telling members of Congress and the media about HSUS's hidden agenda. Then an immigrant foie gras farmer stole the show with his heart-rending account of being pushed around by animal-rights extremists. Finally, a Virginia Congressman declared in front of a packed hearing room that a key part of Pacelle's own testimony was flatly "false." Not a good day on the Hill for a man who says his group "has committed itself to political activity as never before." We made the most of our opportunity to address the nation's lawmakers, advising: "When the topic of discussion is how to make livestock farming better, the complaints of radical vegans should be seen for what they are: an attempt to dismantle animal agriculture, not improve it ... Encouraging the input of people who want to crush you is a strange way of seeking sensible reform." Our hats are off to Salvadoran duck farmer Guillermo Gonzales, who told Congress that animal activists "trespass, damage our property, steal our animals, and sometimes do much worse." HSUS and other groups, he said, are trying "to drive us off our land and out of business ... Acting in the name of 'animal welfare,' some seem to have forgotten the welfare of human farmers."....
It's All Trew: When the lights came on Once upon a time, there was a tremendous difference between living in the city and living in the country. Though most small towns and all cities had electric power by 1935, country people were still without electric power. Almost all new appliances were out of reach in the country. Rural women still used wash tubs, iron pots and rub-boards to wash clothes, while urban women were using washing machines and hot water heaters. In city kitchens, ovens heated with the flip of a switch, while wood-burning stoves still dominated farms. Town students finished homework under bright light, while country students held their lessons up close to kerosene lamps. Running water and flushing toilets were the norm in town, while country people still carried water and used outhouses. Without refrigeration, country people had to eat a chicken the same day it was butchered, while all types of food could be kept fresh in refrigerators in town. There was a big difference in food costs and preservation in the country or in town. While city folks progressed at a brisk pace, life for country people seemed to stand still....


Lots of thunder and lightning going on here, so I'm posting what I have so far.

Update - Shutting down because of weather