China, India Scoff at Emissions Cuts

The G8 leaders made a bizarre promise to limit the global temperature increase to within two degrees by 2050. (Hey, I'm going to the beach Saturday, I'm hoping for sunny, 25C. Can you help me on that?) To do this, they plan drastic emissions cuts. Once again, though, they forgot to sign on major polluters China and India:

L’AQUILA, Italy — The world’s biggest developing nations, led by China and India, refused Wednesday to commit to specific goals for slashing heat-trapping gases by 2050, undercutting the drive to build a global consensus by the end of this year to reverse the threat of climate change.

As President Obama arrived for three days of talks with other leaders of the Group of 8 nations, negotiators for 17 leading polluters abandoned targets in a draft agreement for the meetings here. But negotiators embraced a goal of preventing temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and developing nations agreed to make “meaningful” if unspecified reductions in emissions.

For the good of the world they have to stop all these summits where statesmen grandstand and try to make historic deals.

The article explains why the developing countries are balking at the deal:

But the impasse over the 2050 targets demonstrated again the most vexing problem in reaching a consensus on climate change: the longstanding divisions between developed countries like the United States, Europe and Japan on one side, and developing nations like China, India, Brazil and Mexico on the other.

While the richest countries have produced the bulk of the pollution blamed for climate change, developing countries are producing increasing volumes of gases. But developing countries say their climb out of poverty should not be halted to fix damage done by industrial countries.

It's very simple. It costs too much money. They know it and we know it. Only over here they tell people that these cuts will actually make us wealthier and create endless green collar jobs.

When the money runs out in western countries, and China and India are the new superpowers we can point to folly like this as one of the causes.

Lame Duck British PM Lectures: Canada Ignores

Gordon Brown, who was never elected as Prime Minister of Britain and is so far down in the polls that he never will be, is lecturing the G8 countries on what needs to be done. He's not happy that Canada isn't going along with the plan:

And he hinted that international regulation of markets would be necessary, putting him at odds with countries like Canada and Germany, which would rather retain national regulators.

“I think that every country in the world is now having to look at its regulatory systems,” he said. “Let's be clear: If nothing changes as a result of the events in the financial crisis, then the world will be a more unstable place, and growth will be unsustainable. So things have got to change.”

The interview made it strikingly apparent how far out of step Mr. Harper's government has fallen from Western European and U.S. views, especially on climate change and international aid.

Mr. Brown outlined a “growth strategy for the world” consisting of African development funding, investments in climate-change reduction and reform of global institutions to create a worldwide regulatory framework.

While those ideas have won the broad support of the major European nations and of U.S. President Barack Obama, and are likely to set the agenda at the Italian summit today, they also differ sharply from the agenda of Mr. Harper's government, which has moved away from African aid, avoided a major role in carbon-emission reduction and shunned the notion of international regulatory bodies.

The tone of Doug Saunders' article in the Globe is that this is a bad thing. If Harper sticks to his guns and away from the peer pressure to conform, it'll be the first thing he's done this year that I would whole-heartedly approve of.

The western countries are starting to look like suckers. China sends aid to Africa but expects things in its interest, such as mineral rights, in return and doesn't lecture them on human rights. China also ignores climate change rules and grows at 9% every year. They must shake their heads at bankrupt western countries who call for more stimulus. (On loan from China itself.)

I like how Harper is taking a step back and being cautious about this madness.

The Glibness of Al Gore

Al Gore is testifying before Congress about a Global Warming Bill. Apparently, it's a good one, among other things:

Gore said the legislation would simultaneously solve the problems of the climate, economy and national security.

So that's it then Al? Is that all it can do?

Climate Change "Deniers" Seen as Enemies

The man-made climate change absolutists at the Guardian are ratcheting up their demonization of people who don't agree with them. Here they have a slideshow of "top deniers" faces on cards, like the US Army did for Saddam's henchmen during the Iraq War. If environmentalism is the new religion, then the Guardian is accusing these people of blasphemy. That's not science. I realize it's meant to be a joke, but it creeps me out. (See the whole show here.)

Fake Global Warming Story From the Independent

Breaking News: Ice shelves on the ocean break apart, float! (Hmm.. what caused the Titanic to sink in 1912?)

I found this "yellow journalism" article in the Independent humorous. They're trying to sound the alarm bells about Global Warming but the story comes apart as you go along. I have to do a mini-fisking here. Climate warning as Antarctic ice bridge shatters

An ice bridge which held a vast Antarctic ice shelf in place shattered at the weekend and could herald a wider collapse linked to global warming, a leading scientist has warned.

"It's amazing how the ice has ruptured. Two days ago it was intact," said David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey.

OK. This sounds serious. Obviously a sign of Global Warming. Surely this has never happened before?

Nine other shelves have receded or collapsed around the Antarctic Peninsula in the past 50 years, often abruptly like the Larsen A in 1995 or the Larsen B, further north, in 2002.

Oh, so it has happened before. For the last 50 years. What about 100 years ago? Well, no humans went ashore in Antarctica then and hence we have no historical data on ice shelves. Serious scientific studies of the Antarctic weren't established until the mid 1950's. Essentially, they are saying that as long as we've been studying this ice, it's been doing this.

But here is the clincher, and it makes me laugh:

The loss of ice shelves does not affect sea levels – floating ice contracts as it melts and so does not raise ocean levels. But their loss can allow glaciers on land to slide more rapidly towards the sea, adding water to the oceans.

So it doesn't makes seas levels rise! I thought that is what you're supposed to think, as part of the Global warming doomsday scenario. Thanks for adding that in.

Also, apparently, it'll make glaciers slide into the sea? Is that how it works? That's not science. That's some hack writer who put that in the final sentence. Glaciers "expand" into the sea, because ice expands when it gets cold.

People read this headline, and read the first sentence and it reafirms their climate catastrophe scenarios. I don't understand why these media agencies slant, and make things up about Global Warming. What's in it for them?